Free Republic

Delusional Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sought US political clout far beyond the dreams of any British royal since King George III, The Post has learned, with the Duchess of Sussex angling to take over the Senate seat held by Kamala Harris ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Weeks before Democrat Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump, a source says, Markle requested a sitdown with California Gov. Gavin Newsom because she “wanted to be considered to be appointed” to the seat held by Harris, which she vacated just before becoming vice president on Jan. 20, 2021. The source added...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio outperforms Vice President JD Vance in three hypothetical 2028 presidential match-ups against some of the top-polling Democrats, according to a survey released Thursday. Pitted against former Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rubio tops both by the same 48%-43%, the Emerson College National Poll showed. Meanwhile, Vance bests the “Squad” congresswoman 46%-44% but comes up short against the failed 2024 Democratic presidential nominee by 4 percentage points.

Gov. Gavin Newsom refused to take a position on a raging debate over standardized testing in University of California admissions — dismissing as “anecdotes” the alarming reports from college professors about students who can’t do basic math. The governor was asked at a Wednesday press conference in Hayward about an open letter from more than 1,200 UC professors, including Nobel prize winners and leading scientists, who warned of a “severe” crisis of incoming freshman who are unable to even do fractions, forcing educators to dumb down Calculus and other advanced courses. “Show me the data,” Newsom said. “I have feelings...

Golden State motorists and business owners are fuming over fresh regulations set to spike the price of new car tires — saying the new rules will further squeeze drivers already battling sky-high costs. On Monday, the California Energy Commission unanimously green lit the new rules to phase out the sale of replacement tires that don’t meet the state’s energy-efficiency standards. The change could potentially wipe out 70% of the tires currently available to California drivers, opponents say — and inflate the cost of an average set by hundreds of dollars. “I already can’t afford to buy a new set of...

California’s bullet train could have a new end point: Brokeville, USA. The state’s beleaguered high-speed rail line is once again careening toward a financial cliff, as a new report — delivered last month to Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators — says the project could run out of cash by the end of next year. The Office of the Inspector General warned that the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s funds could dry up as soon as December 2027 unless it secures financing — and the authority would need to borrow as much as $9.5 billion over five years just to keep construction...

Gavin Newsom’s official calendars show the lefty governor listing zero government business on a staggering 18 taxpayer-funded workdays in the first four months of the year, The California Post has learned. The uber-secretive Newsom — who only finally released his calendars after a monthslong delay that required legal intervention by The Post’s lawyers — marked the 18 non-holiday weekdays as “no official business,” or about one in every four days. The governor’s calendar also includes 53 murky entries only described as “work time,” blocking off the large chunks to tinker on unknown tasks. On Feb. 6, for example, Newsom’s sole...

Los Angeles has any number of problems: crime, homelessness, and productive people are leaving due to the idiot policies of the city and the state of California. Now, we can again add that ancient curse of big cities: Disease. The other thing Los Angeles shares with so many other large cities throughout human history is rats. Rats have accompanied humans almost everywhere, and they bring disease with them. That, too, is happening right now in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles County (L.A.), rats abound. You may see only an occasional rat dart across an alley or root through a restaurant...

Investigators have extensive wiretap evidence and may soon charge several individuals in a sprawling corruption probe involving Gavin Newsom and his wife Jennifer Newsom. It was reported earlier this month that the FBI used a Democrat insider as an informant to infiltrate Governor Gavin Newsom’s inner circle before the corruption probe expanded into the governor and his wife Jennifer Newsom. Recall that Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, was indicted on federal wire fraud charges last year. Last month, Newsom fumed as he announced the corruption probe had expanded, and he and his wife are now under investigation. Newsom...

The Skid Row Care Campus—funded by local, state, and federal dollars—handed us drug paraphernalia. As governor of California, Gavin Newsom has repeatedly supported “harm reduction” policies, which enable drug use in the name of making it “safer.” He created the state’s Harm Reduction Initiative, which funded “syringe services programs” for “people who inject and smoke fentanyl and/or methamphetamines.” His Department of Public Health has endorsed distributing syringes, glass pipes, and “[c]ontainers for mixing injectable drugs” to drug users. Newsom argued earlier this year that harm-reduction tactics “increase the like­li­hood of people enter­ing sub­stance use treat­ment.” But do California’s harm-reduction programs...

Gov. Gavin Newsom's former lover is pulling back the curtain on their affair ... revealing the lengths she went to get him alone -- and the advice Kamala Harris gave her when the scandal exploded. Ruby Rippey writes in a new Vanity Fair essay that professional boundaries with Newsom began crumbling while she worked as his secretary during his time as San Francisco mayor. Rippey says she would scan Newsom's calendar for openings, show up wherever he was expected to be and make sure he spotted her before slipping away. She says her phone would soon light up with a...

Florida Pizza Kitchen. It doesn’t have quite the ring to it that California Pizza Kitchen does. But had the iconic chain been dreamed up in the 2020s rather than the 1980s, it would have been FPK rather than CPK, not because the California Pizza Kitchen’s co-founders moved to Florida, though one did a couple of years ago, but due to the Golden State’s corrosive business policies. Not that long ago, California was “the greatest place to do business,” Rick Rosenfield, the CPK co-founder who fled to the Sunshine State, told Fox News Digital. “If it were me today, I would...

Nearly 150,000 California voters had their mail-in ballots rejected for the state’s June primary, a spike from recent elections even as the state attempts to make voting easier with the goal of boosting participation and counting every ballot. California has become notorious for its ponderously slow vote counts that can drag on for weeks and sometimes longer, largely the result of multiple changes over the years that were intended to increase turnout but have done little to achieve that. Among the changes: Every voter receives a mail-in ballot that can arrive at an election office seven days late and still...

We keep hearing about the Democratic Socialists of America now that several openly bold Communists and Marxists have been elected to public office, or have made it through primary elections. They typically run as regular Democrats, sounding fairly normal, promising the usual: universal healthcare, offering up Land Acknowledgements, defunding the police, making the wealthy and big corporations “pay their fair share,” Medicaid expansion, free child care, expanded paid family leave, ending “corporate greed,” rental assistance, student loan debt relief, yada, yada, yada, and then they pivot to communist ideals once in office. Rather than explain the DSA, let’s hear from...

In summary According to state law, campus police can own military weapons to uphold safety as long as they report it to the public. However, not every college follows every part of the law, according to an investigation by CalMatters into all 148 public colleges and universities in California. ================================================================================== For many public colleges and universities in California, keeping their campuses safe includes owning military-grade weaponry — AR-15s, stun grenades designed to cause temporary blindness and sonic weapons that resonate so loudly they are known in the armed forces as the voice of God. According to state law, campus police...

You have to admit that what Gavin Newsom lacks in brains and sound policy he makes up for in sheer hubris. That's the only reason that Newsom could say with a straight face that his state is a global model for fire management. Perhaps that's true in a sense; Canada was burning so much that people as far south as Virginia were seeing, smelling, and feeling the impacts. That's because Canada, like California, refuses to do basic fire management like clearing brush and old growth. This is nothing to brag about, of course. But brag Newsom did. "I can say...

A California ex-con was found guilty of murder for fatally shooting an innocent woman in a beef over a stolen motorcycle in Kern County. Luis Villachana, 51, of Kern County, faces life in prison for opening fire on Ruth Ann Cummings, 44, in her car in 2024 as she arrived at a home in Oildale where the Villachana had threatened to kill her husband and daughter. “I’m gonna smoke all you guys,” Villachana said before pulling the trigger, according to court papers. The drama began on the morning of August 29, 2024, when a motorcycle belonging to Villachana was stolen...

California policymakers are dangerous not only to their neighbors but to the entire country because their ideas are often adopted by imitators in state houses and city halls. Plastic bag bans. Overbearing climate regulation. Draconian COVID rules. A crusade against condiment packets. Almost added to that list is a punishment for retail chains that dare close their stores. One San Francisco city supervisor, Bilal Mahmood, had hoped to tax shuttered grocery stores and pharmacies, because, in his view, “no San Franciscan should be forced to choose between long walks, expensive rides, or going without basic necessities.” Had Mahmood had...

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday he’s stopping more than $1 billion in federal Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota over suspected fraud. “We are not sending Medicaid dollars out the door until we have confidence that they are being spent lawfully and appropriately,” Kennedy said at an announcement on Tuesday. Kennedy said if California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) want the money to fund low-income healthcare, “they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate.” Kennedy blamed the Biden administration and the Democratic leadership in both blue states...

Tennessee is courting David Ellison’s Paramount, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. In a letter to Ellison on July 2, Tennessee Deputy Governor Stuart McWhorter urged the Paramount CEO to relocate the studio’s corporate headquarters amid a rift with California over its $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. “Our success is rooted in fiscal discipline, low taxes, predictable governance, and a steadfast belief that government should be a partner in private-sector growth,” stated the letter. “Companies that choose Tennessee find more than a favorable business climate — they find a state committed to helping them succeed.” The invitation was delivered...

Ruby Rippey-Gibney — the former San Francisco City Hall aide whose affair with Gov. Gavin Newsom nearly upended his political career — will tell her side of the story for the first time in an upcoming Vanity Fair piece, The California Post has learned. Details of the piece remain unclear, but a source familiar with the matter said Rippey-Gibney intends to recount her perspective on the affair that rocked San Francisco politics in 2007 and has remained one of the most embarrassing moments in then-mayor of San Francisco Newsom’s life and career. The story comes as Newsom is widely expected...