Free Republic

The O’Keefe Media Group on Tuesday released undercover video of a Finance Development Officer for Los Angeles Housing Department admitting to witnessing multiple instances of fraud. Donald Byers told the undercover OMG journalist that $10 to $20 million are going into people’s pockets and that homeless developers are embezzling money. Byers also said that the superiors look the other way to help corrupt Democrat Mayor Karen Bass maintain “re-election funds.” Per the O’Keefe Media Group: Donald Byers, a Finance Development Officer from the Los Angeles housing programs, admits on hidden camera that millions of taxpayer money disappear inside the city’s...

The vile street takeovers afflicting Los Angeles are getting more and more violent, police say, and they expect things will only get worse heading into the summer. Los Angeles cops swarmed more than 90 street takeovers already far in 2026, making at least 79 arrests, impounding 114 race cars, grabbing four stolen vehicles and seizing four firearms. At least five people were shot at LA county street takeovers this past weekend alone. Cops say the illegal gatherings are getting more and more bloody — and with warmer weather coming, things will only get worse. “There’s robberies, rapes, shootings, murders, stabbings,”...

WINTERS – Gavin Newsom was asked to comment about Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction being overturned on Thursday, and the California governor didn't mince words. "Harvey Weinstein is a stone-cold predator. He's a rapist, twice convicted. Not once, twice," Newsom said on Thursday. New York's highest court overturned the disgraced Hollywood producer's rape conviction on Thursday and ordered a new trial. The New York Court of Appeals said the judge in the Weinstein case made several improper rulings, preventing the now 72-year-old from getting a fair trial. Jennifer Siebel, Newsom's wife, testified in a different trial in Los Angeles in...

Once considered one of the most powerful and unimpeachable producers in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein learned he will now spend almost two more decades in prison, after the sentencing Thursday in a Los Angeles courtroom on rape and sexual assault charges. Weinstein is already serving time for convictions in New York. ... A Los Angeles judge on Thursday sentenced Harvey Weinstein to 16 years in prison after a jury convicted him of the 2013 rape and sexual assault of an Italian actor and model. The sentence comes on top of the more than 20 years the 70-year-old Weinstein has left to...

A court livestream captured the moment when convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein learned that he will be extradited from a New York prison to Los Angeles to stand another trial on multiple sexual assault charges. The 69-year-old disgraced film mogul buried his head into his hands soon after an Erie County judge made the ruling Tuesday, as seen on a court livestream. Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year sentence at the upstate New York Wende Correctional Facility on convictions of third-degree rape and first-degree criminal sexual act.

Meet Cali’s First Lady of optics and fairy tales, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Jennifer Siebel Newsom ran down her sister with a golf cart and told San Quentin convicts that their crimes were “probably accidents too.” This displays Democrats’ toxic empathy for criminals, but there’s more about Gavin Newsom’s wife people should know. Born in 1974, the Stanford grad (Latin American Studies plus an MBA) moved to Hollywood, where she gained roles in television shows such as “Strong Medicine,” a creation of Whoopi Goldberg. In 2008 the Barbie-style blond married Gavin Newsom, who boasts ties to the Brown, Pelosi and Getty...

The post-transphobia commonwealthWhat is the difference between an audacious and a mediocre dead-horse take? Frankly, I don’t know anymore. Some people may read what I have to say as the musings of a neoliberal bubble-inhabiting princess, and others may see them as a call from the Kremlin to stir workers of the world and unite against the master. Whatever you make of my positionality, I have an observation to share with my UC Berkeley compatriots in the Red Army: We may be deluding ourselves into thinking our particular tract of society is an egalitarian wet dream. Oftentimes, when I talk...

A Palo Alto father who has filed multiple lawsuits against major university systems over his son's college rejections says artificial intelligence has become the key to pursuing the cases after no law firm agreed to represent them. The legal fight stems from a 2023 ABC7 News story about Stanley Zhong, then an 18-year-old Gunn High School student with a 4.4 GPA and a near-perfect 1590 SAT score who was rejected by 16 out of the 18 colleges he applied to. Despite the rejections, he was later hired as a software engineer at Google. Two and a half years later, his...

Europe bets on California’s Gavin Newsom as a strategic counterweight to the Trump agenda. Donald Trump’s opposition to climate policy and mass immigration is putting massive pressure on Europe. There, preparations are underway to support California governor Gavin Newsom. He is expected, as the 48th president, to prevent a continuation of Trump’s policies. America remains a country of high social mobility and upward opportunity -- something we no longer see on today’s European continent. It may sound kitschy to many Europeans, yet America's vibrant economic centers, high geographic mobility, and the flexibility of its people still create the conditions for...

The diverse and expansive Persian/Iranian restaurant scene in Los Angeles comes as a direct result of political strife that emerged in Iran in the 1970s, fueled by American intervention that has come roaring back in recent weeks with a new regional war. In the decades since the Iranian Revolution, the Persian community has developed strong ties to Southern California areas like Glendale and Westwood... Iranian food spans centuries, even longer, with historic ties to the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Silk Road routes. The result, says Farinaz Pirshirazi, is a distinct cuisine that goes beyond the popular kebabs that tend to dominate...

On a warm Sunday afternoon in February, the Huntington Library was packed with Lunar New Year festivities and early spring fever. A dozen giddy preteens gathered at the entrance, eager to walk on the pristinely landscaped San Marino grounds. Sporting brown berets and screen-printed vests with colorful hand-sewn badges, they followed chaperones inside as guests waiting in line recognized them. "Oh, my God," one fangirl said as another clapped. "It’s the Radical Monarchs!" Remaining calm and composed amid the applause, the tightknit group of girls strutted straight past bright red-clothed calligraphy tables and tea ceremonies to the MaryLou and George...

MAZE@mazemoore·21hThis scandal should be revisited and investigated further. Be sure to watch both videos in this thread.Gavin Newsom's wife has made a few documentaries. They shouldn't be called documentaries because they are just trashy movies bashing men and bashing America.Here's where it gets interesting.In 2023 the watchdog group Open The Books discovered that some of her documentaries were being streamed in the California public schools and that the Newsom's made millions by charging the schools to play them.In other words, the Newsoms made the schools force the kids to watch these disgusting movies created by Newsom's wife, and they...

Gavin Newsom’s transport secretary has admitted criticism of California’s high-speed rail is justified — as estimates of the project show it will be a struggle to be completed. Officials now say it will cost an eye-watering $126 billion to finish the line from Los Angeles to San Francisco — which is more money than Amtrak has ever received from the federal government since it was established in 1971, a damning 60 Minutes report revealed. That’s and a huge uptick when compared to the $33 billion voters were told the rail would cost when it was announced way back in 2008....

California will spend up to $19 million in taxpayer funds on a public relations campaign, with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration awarding the contract to Edelman through the state’s Office of Business and Economic Development.The campaign will run from April 6 through the end of the year. It will promote California’s economy and tourism while countering what Newsom’s administration describes as “negative narratives” circulating online and in partisan media. The contract follows a request for proposals issued last month seeking a campaign to improve the state’s national image, including outreach tied to business development, tourism, workforce messaging, and potential investors. The...

A Democratic activist says she is working with multiple women preparing to come forward with sexual harassment allegations against California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell. Cheyenne Hunt — a lawyer, one-time congressional candidate and executive director of Gen-Z for Change — revealed that she has been working with an unspecified number of women set to accuse Swalwell in multiple X posts early Monday morning. Swalwell is currently a leading candidate in the crowded race to succeed Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom. “I got involved because the first victim who approached me is a close friend, but when I saw that there...

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom is a filmmaker whose documentaries have been seen by millions —but that didn’t happen purely because of talent. Siebel Newsom leaned on her powerful hubby and his education board to push preachy flicks about “toxic masculinity” into classrooms, casting her husband as an enlightened Democratic savior —all while raking in up to $300,000 annually through her nonprofit, The Representation Project, and for-profit outfit Girls Club Entertainment. “I turned the lens on boys and men and looked at the boy crisis in America and how we were failing our boys and men with this...

Rep. Eric Swalwell, a top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and candidate for California governor, relentlessly pressed to release all the Jeffrey Epstein files — even if innocent people were implicated — going so far as to suggest withholding funding to the Justice Department. “If the president is not implicated, then why not release everything?” Swalwell asked FBI Director Kash Patel in a tense exchange at a congressional hearing late last year that typified his pressure campaign. But Swalwell’s tone on unlimited transparency shifted markedly last week when he learned the Trump White House might release a long-secret trove...

The niece and grandniece of slain Iranian mastermind Gen. Qasem Soleimani were arrested by US officials, the State Department announced Saturday. Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter, who live a lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles, were nabbed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday as the US pushes to revoke green cards for foreign nationals with ties to Iran while locked in a war with the regime.

Mark Twain is rightly considered one of America's best and most beloved writers. His first commercial success was a short story about the California Gold Rush titled The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Published in 1865, it highlighted people's extraordinary gullibility when a tale is told well enough, and the storyteller can charm his listeners into believing anything. That's a description of the current governor of California and possible next Democratic Party presidential candidate. California Gov. Gavin Newsom was a natural when he ran for governor in 2018. It was like he walked off a movie set and into...

Albertsons is closing additional stores and cutting jobs nationwide as it works to stabilize operations following the collapse of its $24.6 billion merger with Kroger, intensifying pressure on the grocery chain.The Boise, Idaho-based company — which operates banners including Safeway, Vons and Pavilions — has announced a new round of closures in recent weeks as it pivots to cost-cutting and operational changes.