Free Republic

Shocking surveillance video captured a brazen daylight stabbing in San Francisco’s Chinatown on Thursday — showing a hooded man casually walking up behind an apparent stranger before plunging a knife into his back.

Last night, San Francisco’s mayor, Daniel Lurie, was attacked by two men while being driven through the Tenderloin district. According to a report from an ABC News outlet, the confrontation arose after a group of people blocked the SUV that Lurie was being driven in; at one point Lurie himself exited the vehicle to engage the individuals on the street, but quickly scuttled back behind the safety of his security detail when the confrontation turned physical. Classic.AdvertisementClearly the men were bums, based on the handcuffed man’s appearance:San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie attacked while being driven through the Tenderloin. This post...

The SWAT response and shelter-in-place order in Lake in the Hills Thursday morning was due to a search warrant on a 20-year-old man allegedly possessing 38 rounds of pistol and rifle ammunition without a FOID card. Joel Fernandez, 20, was arrested without incident at his residence in the 1400 block of Clayton Marsh Drive in Lake in the Hills and was charged with four counts of possessing ammunition without a valid Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card, a Class A misdemeanor. At around 9:50 a.m. Thursday, the Lake in the Hills Police Department – assisted by the Carpentersville Police Department and...

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pals in the state Legislature are pushing a bill to give him the power to slap a 25% tax liability “surcharge” on Big Apple corporations. The democratic socialist mayor and his liberal followers have been on an ideological crusade to hike taxes on the wealthy and corporations to pay for their freebie-filled promises made during the 2025 campaign. “This legislation would authorize New York City to charge a surcharge on corporate taxes, allowing the city to increase its corporate taxes should the mayor and City Council deem this necessary and appropriate,” said Assemblywoman Diana Moreno and Sen....

A powerful San Francisco group is unleashing $10 million this year to kill taxes that they say will destroy the city’s fragile economic recovery — and potentially increase the price of food and goods for already cash-strapped residents. Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, a moderate advocacy group, plans to beat back a wave of lefty initiatives and candidates this year that they say will derail years of progress in liberal San Francisco, according to its director Jay Cheng. One of the group’s main targets is a so-called “CEO tax” — a June ballot measure backed by progressives and labor...

“ SALEM, Ore. (KATU) — Oregon lawmakers will vote on legislation aimed at undoing several federal tax changes at the state level as lawmakers work to stabilize the state budget. Senate Bill 1507 is designed to “disconnect” Oregon’s tax code from portions of H.R. 1 — President Donald Trump’s recent federal spending and tax package — after the changes automatically flowed into state taxes. The state’s Legislative Revenue Office estimates it will generate about $311 million in additional revenue during the current biennium, money Democratic leaders say is needed to maintain funding for schools and core government services.“

New York City is expecting something like two feet of snow, and the city’s government, led by socialist/Communist Zohran Mamdani, is encouraging able-bodied New Yorkers to help shovel the city out after the storm. But only, of course, if they have proper identification: Lefty Mayor Zohran Mamdani opposes requiring ID’s to vote — but mandates no less than five forms of identification in order to shovel snow. The New York City Sanitation Department website says that in order to register as an emergency snow shoveler, an applicant must provide two small photos sized 1-1.5 square inches, two original forms of...

S’no thank you. The Mamdani administration failed for hours to attract any emergency shovelers at one Queens garage Sunday — while planning to try to dig out New Yorkers with a fourth of the force the city used for its last mega-storm. Despite Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s widespread attempted promotion of the city’s public-fueled emergency shoveling program, a sign-up sheet at the Maspeth Sanitation garages was empty, city workers told The Post during a visit late Sunday morning. “I haven’t seen anybody sign up yet today. No, no one,” the employee said. There were also no signs of shovelers lining up...

One of the first tasks that a new Mayor has in New York City after taking office is to present a budget. Given that an annual New York City budget is well north of $100 billion, you would think that this is a serious undertaking. But our new Mayor is the 34-year-old play-acting college socialist Zohran Mamdani. How does he handle the task? Mamdani kicked the process of with a press conference at City Hall on January 28. Here is a transcript and video of his remarks. Excerpt: I want to speak directly to New Yorkers, who have for too...

Somehow, they didn't foresee this happening when the billionaires fled the fleecing. Most of New York City's public employee unions endorsed Zohran Mamdani for mayor -- UFT teachers union, AFSCME, SEIU Local 1199 -- a lot of the big important ones. So it must have come as a surprise them that Mamdani's first target to finance his huge $120 billion budget is likely to come not from billionaires, as he claimed would happen, but from a raid on their pension funds, which by the way, cannot flee. Oh, what irony. Instead of going after the millionaires when the billionaires fled,...

Dogs have graced my life and those of my family and friends immensely. And Muslims? Not so much. New York City is going to the dogs, courtesy of Marxist Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Which is ironic as Muslims are not dog lovers. In fact, in response to a news item about two grocery stores removing people with dogs, Muslim anti-Israel activist Nerdeen Kiswani recently tweeted: “Finally, NYC is coming to Islam.” She added that dogs “are unclean.” She later claimed her remarks were a “joke.” That pathetic attempt at backpedaling was the real joke, and a bad one. Rep. Randy...

As national Democrats search for a unifying theme ahead of the fall’s midterm elections, a California proposal to levy a hefty tax on billionaires is turning some of the party’s leading figures into adversaries just when Democrats can least afford division from within. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders traveled to Los Angeles on Wednesday to campaign for the tax proposal, which has Silicon Valley in an uproar, with tech titans threatening to leave the state. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is among its outspoken opponents, warning that it could leave government finances in crisis and put the state at a competitive disadvantage...

With Mamdani as Mayor residents are reporting hearing the “Islamic Call to Prayer” on the streets of Manhattan. Five times a day! Amy Mek added: My lord, America – the conquest we’ve warned about is exploding now. The Adhan isn’t a “beautiful call to prayer”; it’s a militant declaration: “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is greater than your gods, laws, freedoms), “There is no god but Allah” (all other faiths are false). Blared 5× daily from loudspeakers – 5 AM wake-ups included – it’s forced submission on non-Muslims, pure civilizational jihad straight from the Muslim Brotherhood playbook. THIS IS NOT NORMAL –...

California is increasingly importing gasoline through the Bahamas — a workaround to a 106-year-old US shipping law that forces domestic fuel shipments onto costly American vessels. More than 40% of the gasoline California imported in November was routed through the Caribbean hub, a record high which comes as drivers in the state are paying an average of $4.58 per gallon, the most in the country, according to Bloomberg News. Gasoline refined along the US Gulf Coast — primarily in Texas and Louisiana — is first shipped roughly 1,100 to 1,300 nautical miles to Freeport in the Bahamas, where it is...

New regulations will bar cardrooms from offering blackjack and other player-dealer games — a move opponents say will devastate the industry in California. Under one of the two new rules, cardrooms cannot offer blackjack, the world’s most popular casino card game. Players would no longer “bust” by exceeding 21 points, and cardrooms may not use the name “blackjack” or include the number 21.

A Palestinian activist has called for dogs to be banned as pets in New York City claiming they aren't Islamic. Nerdeen Kiswani said dogs have a 'place in society' but 'not as indoor pets.' 'Like we've said all along, they are unclean,' she wrote on X. After receiving fierce backlash she later claimed that her post was a 'joke'. '[Laughing] at the Zionists frothing at the mouth at this, thinking they're doing something,' she wrote. 'It's obviously a joke I don't care if you have a dog, I do care if your dog is s***ting everywhere and you're not cleaning...

In his famous 20th century novel "The Sun Also Rises," Ernest Hemingway’s character, Mike Campbell, was asked by a friend how his financial ruin had happened. Campbell replied to the question simply, "Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly." Just a cursory look at today’s headlines and one can see this very idea of "gradually and then suddenly" playing out in the fiscal health of many blue states. California, the poster child for a state heading down the road to financial ruin, is slated to lose four congressional seats in the 2030 census due to population loss. Moreover, major companies such...

It's not hard to understand why people live in California, nor why it boomed in the decades after World War II. There are few places more blessed by God than California, even with its mudslides, wildfires, and earthquakes, which deterred not a single person from moving there. It is, in most ways, a paradise. If there was anyplace that could be said to embody the American Dream, or at least the postwar American Dream in which anybody could aspire to be middle class, it was California. New York City may be where people went to strike it big, but California...

The Democratic Socialists of America LA chapter has released a 40-page, 9,000-word manifesto that lays out an aggressive, six-to-eight-year plan to seize control of the nation’s second-largest city and impose full-blown socialism In what can only be described as a chilling blueprint for economic destruction and social chaos (see below), the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Los Angeles chapter has released a 40-page, 9,000-word manifesto that lays out an aggressive, six-to-eight-year plan to seize control of the nation’s second-largest city and impose full-blown socialism. This radical document, published in 2025, doesn’t mince words: Los Angeles is “on the burning edge...

California’s already sky-high gas prices are expected to surge after Valero abruptly shuttered its Benicia refinery amid a spiraling “oil crisis,” a new report claims. The Benicia refinery began shutting down on Saturday, four months earlier than planned, a former Valero manager told the California Globe Tuesday. US gas prices: national average of $2.883 with California's average at $4.368, and a legend for retail prices ranging from $2.370 to $4.404. The closure will cause the state’s already sky-high gas prices to soar, a new report said. Thermal imaging showed the facility went cold as the Crimson Pipeline – which transports...