Free Republic

TEXAS has announced plans to charge vehicle owners a $200 annual fee, as well as a $400 one-time fee for new owners. The law, signed by Governor Greg Abbott, is set to take effect on September 1 of this year. Those who have an electric vehicle will be responsible for paying the new annual fee in order to recoup tax money. Electric vehicle owners do not have to pay taxes on gasoline, since they no longer need it. According to the Dallas Morning News, this law will not apply to anyone that owns electric motorcycles, mopeds, or autocycles. These taxes...

Gary Webb, reporter who exposed CIA, dies THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who wrote a controversial series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, has died at age 49. Webb was found Friday morning at his home in Sacramento County, dead of an apparent suicide. Moving-company workers called authorities after discovering a note posted on his front door that read, "Please do not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance." Webb died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Sacramento County coroner's office....

The depiction of accused leaker Reality Leigh Winner through social media is not an “an accurate portrayal of my daughter,” Gary Davis, Winner’s stepfather, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday. In a brief interview, Davis said his daughter served her nation with distinction as an Air Force linguist. He said she speaks Arabic and Farsi and has training in other Middle Eastern languages. “She’s a veteran, six years’ service of the Air Force,” he said. “She received commendations during that time. She’s just a passionate young woman who probably made some mistakes.”

SACRAMENTO — Assemblywoman Nicole Parra and her father traveled to Cuba in early December on what has reportedly become an annual event organized by one of California’s most powerful lobbyists and political fundraisers. Parra, D-Hanford, and other participants said the trip was arranged by Darius Anderson, founder of one of Sacramento’s premiere lobbying firms and a top fundraiser for former Gov. Gray Davis. Since travel to communist Cuba is generally prohibited except under a license from the U.S. government, Anderson’s repeated trips there with lawmakers, business people and others raise a number of questions. Why is a lobbyist arranging religious...

The latest round of national media pandemic messaging is targeted and intentional. The objective is fear… and the scale of the narrative pushed by the national media toward that effort is large. Conversely, the same media objective is to Alinsky those who would be a visible push-back against COVID fear, and that is why Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is being targeted. In the background of this effort is the California recall of Gavin Newsom. The governor and national allied media are working together to weaponize the fear of COVID as a closing message against the recall effort. Newsom’s latest commercials...

The Orange County Register , a major newspaper in Southern California, has endorsed conservative talk radio host Larry Elder in the Sep. 14 recall against Gov. Gavin Newsom. In an editorial Sunday, the Register said : As one of the state’s few right-of-center editorial pages, readers — and the state’s political leaders — no doubt expected us to come to our conclusion that voters should recall Gov. Gavin Newsom. Perhaps that explains why Newsom, whose policies we’ve often criticized, would not meet with our editorial board, despite our numerous attempts to arrange a meeting. … Pick an issue and the...

The campaign to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom has collected 1,950,000 signatures, Katy Grimes of the California Globe reports, far more than the 1.4 million signatures needed to qualify the recall for the ballot. A full 1.6 million signatures were collected entirely by volunteers, and according to organizer Orrin Heatlie, 31.5 percent of the signers were “other than Republicans.” As the recall effort surges, Democrats turn up the volume against it. “Right-wing Republicans in CA are trying to recall Gavin Newsom for the crime of telling people to wear masks and for listening to scientists during COVID,” tweeted Sen....

His resiliency in the primary has caught the attention of the party establishment. Suddenly, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is being taken seriously. For months the Vermont senator was written off by Democratic Party insiders as a candidate with a committed but ultimately narrow base who was too far left to win the primary. Elizabeth Warren had skyrocketed in the polls and seemed to be leaving him behind in the race to be progressive voters’ standard-bearer in 2020. Story Continued Below But in the past few weeks, something has changed. In private conversations and on social media, Democratic officials, political operatives...

Efforts to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom are beating expectations, having reached 150,000 signatures three weeks after launching. According to the petition’s originator, Congressional candidate Erin Cruz, the petition is expected to hit 600,000 signatures by the end of this month. The petition needs to have 1.5 million signatures by February 13, 2020. Cruz is shooting for 2.4 million to make sure enough get certified. If the recall petition reaches its signature requirements, California will hold a new gubernatorial election. Newsom will be forced to step down if he loses. The last time a recall petition was successful in California...

California voters recalled Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday and replaced him with actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, bringing an end to a remarkable campaign that featured one of the planet's best-known entertainers and captivated an international audience. "I will not fail you, I will not disappoint you, and I will not let you down," the Republican Schwarzenegger vowed after receiving a phone call from Davis conceding the race. The Democratic incumbent became the first California governor pried from office, and only the second nationwide to be recalled. Davis was elected to a second term just 11 months ago with less than 50...

The sexual harassment reckoning has exposed many men in positions of power for their bad behavior. Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin and others have either been fired or suspended for sexual misconduct. In the political realm, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) is resigning in early January after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) made his way to the exit after his sexual harassment allegations made it into the limelight; he paid $27,000 to settle a claim in 2015. And yes, that’s our money he used for that expenditure. This reached a boiling point during the...

One Republican who is a maverick on this subject is conservative Sen. Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks, who received 13.5% of the vote for governor in the Gray Davis recall election and plans to run next year for lieutenant governor. McClintock has long thought that the budget should be passed by a simple majority vote. "A perverse result of the supermajority requirement is that it does not constrain state spending," McClintock says. "What it does is bid up the cost of the budget with each additional vote. Every additional vote comes with louder calls for higher spending.

Catherine Stefani has an article up over at the SacBee talking about how she became the head of the Kaliforniastan chapter of Moms Demand Action… Its not much more than a shameless plug and link bait for the civilian disarmament cult, but I thought it was pretty interesting for a couple of reasons… one, I had never heard of Catherine Stefani before this and two, I thought it was incredibly interesting how she talks about how she became involved in MDA:

Some are deriding Nicolas Berggruen and other wealthy reform advocates for jumping into the initiative fray with plans for fixing California's tax system, schools and other services. This editorial board has long been leery of initiatives, and we certainly understand why many are angry about wealth disparities that have grown wider since the recession. Yet Californians shouldn't reflexively reject a reform measure because its backers are wealthy. Instead, we should welcome the energy behind any and all efforts to fix California's governance and finances, and recognize that any change in the status quo will require not only strong grass-roots support,...

Billionaires, Insiders Plan To Place $10-Billion Tax Hike On 2012 California Ballot Acting as the Think Long Committee, they want to change the tax system to increase money for public schools and universities and for local governments. By Anthony York, Los Angeles Times November 20, 2011 Reporting from Sacramento— Joining the battle over California taxes, a group of billionaires and political insiders say they will place a $10-billion tax increase on the November 2012 ballot. The Think Long Committee, which includes Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, former governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad, says its...

SACRAMENTO -- As the debate over state pensions simmers in Sacramento, an appeals court Wednesday overturned part of a negotiated increase in retirement benefits for several thousand regulatory workers, saying the Legislature never approved the full increase or its estimated $40 million cost. The case involves 3,500 to 4,000 employees whose union, the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, reached an agreement with then-Gov. Gray Davis' administration in 2002 to reclassify them as "safety members" of the state's retirement system in July 2004. That entitled them to higher pensions - 2.5 percent of their pay, instead of 2 percent, for each...

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown says he seeks a lot of opinions from around California -- and denies the report from former Speaker Willie Brown suggesting he has tapped former Gov. Gray Davis to help run his transition team. We spoke to Brown, the former two term governor, Sunday regarding the report in the San Francisco Chronicle's Matier and Ross column which is being touted by the campaign of Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. The Whitman team sent out the comments of Willie Brown to M&R, as the former SF Mayor noted he met up with Davis at a recent...

Arnold Schwarzenegger approval drops to record low -- tied with Gray Davis dsiders@sacbee.com Published Wednesday, Jul. 14, 2010 Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's job approval rating has fallen to a record low, matching that of former Gov. Gray Davis from 2003, the year he was recalled, according to a Field Poll released today. Registered voters held an even dimmer view of the job state lawmakers are doing. Though the Legislature's job approval rating ticked up three points from March, it remained a dismal 16 percent, according to the poll. With the state mired in yet another budget crisis, just 22 percent of...

Former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis joined Republican predecessors Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian in filing a friend-of-the-court brief Wednesday supporting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's line-item vetoes of $489 million in state spending this summer. The California Chamber of Commerce, the California Taxpayers Association and the California Business Roundtable also signed the amicus brief. Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto authority to cut the funds out of the July budget revision, which he said was necessary because the Legislature failed to pass the entire deal he negotiated with legislative leaders behind closed doors. Lawmakers left the budget slightly in the red, and Schwarzenegger...

Reporting from Los Angeles and Sacramento -- An ongoing investigation into pension fund corruption across the country intensified Friday as California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown directed subpoenas at politically connected firms and individuals, according to sources familiar with the investigation. Brown issued the subpoenas as part of a probe into "placement agents" who help secure pension fund investment contracts for their clients in return for large sums of money, often millions of dollars. The subpoenas seek information on the use and disclosure of placement agents and potential conflicts of interest, said sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because...