Free Republic

The founder of an organic baby formula company has branded Gavin Newsom’s plan to offer free diapers to all new babies born in the state as “grifting nonsense.” Newsom announced the Golden State Start initiative on Friday, a partnership with nonprofit Baby2Baby that will give every newborn delivered in participating hospitals 400 diapers for free.

Gavin Newsom has announced that the state of California will be paying out $20 million to the company Baby2Baby in order to provide families free diapers. However, the one issue that critics have pointed out is that the co-CEO of the company, Norah Weinstein, sits on the board of Newsom's wife's California Partners Project. Newsom made the announcement for the diapers ahead of Mother's Day, this upcoming Sunday. "California is taking on the cost of raising a family head-on — delivering free school meals, making preschool free for every four-year-old, expanding after-school programs, and now making sure parents leave the...

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom did his best to insult several Southern states in a social media post Thursday. “Confederate states are rushing through rigged maps to erase Black districts off the map,” Newsom wrote above a map demonstrating the possible effects of redistricting in Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina. It is strange we should have “black districts” in the first place. Newsom makes no acknowledgement of this. “If this doesn’t make you angry, it should,” Newsom continued. (An aside: Why wouldn’t a dispassionate analysis suffice? I find the constant encouragement to anger, or joy,...

Last week, the FBI raided 22 shady day-care businesses in Minneapolis, Minn., as the federal government expanded its investigation of social-services fraud there. On Monday, Vice President JD Vance added Columbus, Ohio, to his fraud task force’s agenda in the wake of a new report alleging a billion-dollar Medicaid scam. Both investigations were spurred by the dogged work of citizen and independent journalists like Nick Shirley in Minneapolis and Luke Rosiak in Columbus, who knocked on doors and interviewed dozens of supposed service providers to uncover the truth about fraudsters who may have bilked the federal government of billions. And...

Critics of California’s long-overdue high-speed rail project are aghast after statehouse Democrats pushed through legislation that would give the rail auditor the power to shield its reports from the public. The bill, which passed the California Assembly on Monday and sits at the state Senate, lets the Inspector General do so if publication “would pose a substantial and articulable risk to the project or to state operations if publicly disclosed.” The role of the Inspector General has gained even more prominence in light of new estimates that the total cost of the train has ballooned to $231 billion. The fantasy...

AB 1608 would rename and expand the powers of the High-Speed Rail Authority’s Inspector General while creating broad exemptions to withhold records California’s high-speed rail project, originally pitched to voters as a $33.5 billion endeavor under Proposition 1A in 2008, has spiraled into a staggering taxpayer nightmare with estimates now exploding as high as $231 billion — a more than 700% increase. Against this backdrop of relentless cost overruns, Assembly Democrats are advancing legislation critics say is explicitly designed to conceal the extent of the waste and shield the failing project from public accountability. AB 1608, authored by Assemblywoman Lori...

California’s soaring cost for its dragged-out high-speed rail construction was inflated by another recent political embarrassment for the state: labor icon Cesar Chavez.

Calls are growing for California’s high-speed rail to be abandoned completely after revelations the estimated cost of completing Gavin Newsom’s fantasy train project has ballooned to a staggering $231 billion. The latest cost revisions for the project — revealed during a Senate Transportation Committee meeting — left lawmakers fuming after the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office flagged numerous concerns. State Sen. Tony Strickland, vice chair of the STC, said the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plan continues to obscure true costs — and now he’s calling for the entire project to be scrapped.

California’s High-Speed Rail boondoggle is now estimated to cost taxpayers $231 billion, up from its original $33.5 billion price tag in 2008 when voters passed Proposition 1A. “Our country has never seen a fiscal disaster of this magnitude,” California Rep. Kevin Kiley said on X Monday. Voters were deceived by the original ballot summary and language in Proposition 1A from 2008, but the state’s lawmakers seem to find that fact inconvenient. And, the entire project is lacking in private, public and debt funding to complete even the most minor operating segment – nearly 20 years later. “If it is built,...

Democrat governors, many believed to be vying for the party’s 2028 presidential nomination, gathered on Thursday for a pricey Los Angeles fundraising event. The private gathering — where tickets cost as much as $100K a pop — was attended by top party members like Gov. Gavin Newsom, Arizona’s Gov. Katie Hobbs, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, among others, the LA Times reported. A ticket to attend the event, closed to the press, cost anywhere from $45,000 up to $100,00, with the money going to the Democrat Governors Association (DGA). The evening was expected to rake...

Two years and two weeks have passed since Gov. Gavin Newsom issued his first return-to-office order, which directed state employees to begin working from government offices two days a week. Newsom upped the in-office requirement to four days last year, but subsequently postponed that mandate after facing steep push-back from state employees and labor groups. In the intervening time, unions have filed lawsuits, lawmakers have introduced legislation and state workers have continued rallying, all to push back against the governor’s mandate.

The 2028 Democratic primary has already begun — and this time, the candidates aren’t trying to hide it. Potential contenders including former Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are openly embracing — or at least acknowledging — their interest in a White House run. It’s a departure from the political gamesmanship that once defined presidential politics, when would-be candidates sought to intentionally cloud their intentions out of fear that acknowledging them could backfire. It also reflects the wide-open nature of the race, with no clear front-runner — or anointed figure — for the first time in years....

KB Home, one of the largest homebuilding companies in the U.S., plans to relocate its corporate headquarters from Los Angeles to Arizona, marking the latest example of a major company shifting leadership operations out of California. The homebuilder announced it will move its headquarters from Westwood to Tempe beginning in spring 2027, transferring executive leadership and key corporate functions to the Phoenix metro area, according to a report from LA Magazine. Company leaders cited lower costs, operational efficiency and Arizona’s business climate as major reasons for the move. The shift reflects a broader trend in which some large companies have...

Just hours after a mass shooting that left eight children under the age of 15 dead in Louisiana, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is bashing the NRA “and their lackeys in Congress.” “This is an unspeakable tragedy. Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones suffering in Louisiana,” Newsom’s press office said on X. “Repeated horrors like this don’t happen anywhere else but this country.” Calling the mass shooting a “total moral failure,” Newsom’s press office said the National Rifle Association “and their lackeys in Congress are complicit in this madness.”

Hunter Biden critiqued the Democratic Party’s leadership as overly civility-focused and driven by a consultant class, arguing they lack the spine to counter a re-energized Republican opposition. He praised California Governor Gavin Newsom as the party’s “greatest warrior” and urged a shift toward aggressive advocacy and fighting in hostile terrain to redefine the party’s strategy. The remarks, linked to tensions with DNC elites and perceived disloyalty to his father, cast internal party dynamics in a light of loyalty challenges and vision gaps. Biden’s comments call for broader unity beyond party labels and signal potential implications for 2028 contenders. Analysts note...

A cousin of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, is throwing his tech fortune behind two of the governor’s biggest critics. Siebel Systems founder Tom Siebel, second cousin of Siebel Newsom, gave $50,000 to San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan’s bid for California governor and another $10,000 to Republican former Fox News Host Steve Hilton. Siebel sold Siebel Systems, an enterprise software firm, to Oracle to 2006 for approximately $5.8 billion, making him a billionaire with an estimated net worth of around $4 billion currently.

Last month, we received a report from a whistleblower who claimed that illegal aliens were staying in San Francisco’s homeless shelters. Following up on the tip, we visited numerous publicly funded shelters in San Francisco, and spoke to employees and residents about their policies, sometimes through a translator. We discovered not only that the shelters were housing illegal immigrants but also that they were apparently housing a population of male-to-female “transgender” illegal aliens, who had hoped to obtain “gender-affirming care.” And, to our shock, state and local governments apparently are providing it.

It’s not exactly a surprise. California has become the single most corrupt state in the country and the one that is most blatant about walling its corruption around with laws. California’s legislature hid FBI investigations and costs for politicians “in the public interest”. It passed a law hiding corruption. Its capitol annex project had everyone involved signing non-disclosure agreements to hide costs. And of course it was the one place that prosecuted a man for exposing the Planned Parenthood baby parts business. The moment Somali fraud became a national story, California politicians began issuing warnings. Not to the fraudsters, but...

Medi-Cal, unemployment and general welfare fraud are the three main sources, according to journalist Chris Rufo A journalist who claims that California has lost at least $180 billion due to fraud joined "Will Cain Country" to share the findings of his exposé entitled "Gavin Newsom's Empire of Fraud." Chris Rufo of City Journal co-authored the piece. He told host Will Cain on Tuesday that California's fraud stems from three main sources: Medi-Cal fraud, unemployment fraud and general welfare fraud. "And if you add these all together, under Gavin Newsom, experts and HHS officials estimate that California has lost somewhere between...

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....