Free Republic

Newly-released documents from Tony Bobulinski, Hunter Biden's ex-business partner, show Hunter worked on a business adventure involving Joe Biden and prominent Democrats. The goal was allegedly to obtain contracts for projects across the country, the New York Post reported. Jim Biden, Joe Biden's brother, allegedly sent a memo on May 15, 2017 to Hunter and three other partners about a limited liability company (LLC). The LLC was to be used "to partner with another firm on 'global and/or domestic' projects involving 'infrastructure, energy, financial services and other strategic sectors,' the documents show." Bobulinski, who served as CEO of the joint...

It's peak summer and hotter than the blazes up and down California. In some places it is the blazes. And with the state's greenie mandates, instead of nice air conditioning like other people have, rolling blackouts have begun, same as you find in third world countries. It's hot as hell, the Sahara has nothing on this California heat: On Sunday, the mercury potentially hit 130F (54.4C) in California’s Death Valley National Park – a temperature that could become the hottest ever recorded on Earth. And it's very bad in places where people actually live, too, such as in San Diego County: Borrego Springs...

The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) casts itself as a spontaneous uprising born of inner city frustration, but is, in fact, the latest and most dangerous face of a web of well-funded communist/socialist organizations that have been agitating against America for decades. The Black Lives Matter movement claims that only whites can be racists. And while justifying violence to achieve “social justice,” the movement’s goal is to overthrow our society to replace it with a Marxist one. Many members of the black community would be shocked to learn that the intellectual godfathers of this movement are mostly white Communists, “queers”...

Nancy Pelosi has long been a thorn in the side of not just conservatives but the House itself. For reasons no Republican could ever grasp, she is a heroine to the left, despite her many serious failures. She is a traitor to her own district; she has never lifted a finger to deal with San Francisco’s catastrophic homeless disaster. She does not even admit it exists! She seems to think she is some kind of monarch, a queen bee. In fact, she is a vicious elitist. She and her husband, like Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her husband, are the ultimate...

Every year, Rachel Bronson, President and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who has a degree in political science from Columbia, gets up in front of a fake clock to announce that the world is doomed. And the media eagerly covers the annual imminent warning of doom as if it came with an open bar. Bronson is not an atomic scientist. Or any kind of scientist. Unless you believe politics is a science. And if politics is a science, then Bronson is the Lysenko of the field, predicting doom out of bias and ignorance. This year, the Doomsday...

California Gov. Jerry Brown to lead Doomsday Clock group By Associated Press Published: 12:17 EDT, 25 October 2018 | Updated: 12:27 EDT, 25 October 2018 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - California Gov. Jerry Brown has been named executive chairman of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group that measures manmade threats to human existence. The group manages the Doomsday Clock. It's a visual representation of how close the Bulletin believes the world is to catastrophe brought on by nuclear weapons, climate change and new technologies. The group announced Thursday that the Democratic governor leaving office in January will take over...

California's New Dystopian Laws Californians, are you ready for the twelve-hundred new progressive laws that take effect this year? Get ready because many of these new rules come with stiff penalties. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8FhWH4uSdk&feature=emb_title  

I'd like to see everyone have a happy and prosperous New Year. But I'm afraid a lot of freelancers and independent contractors in California are going to have it tough in 2020. Thanks to Democrat lawmakers in Sacramento, in fact, hundreds of thousands of part-time Uber drivers and freelance writers like me could lose their jobs or face drastic cuts in their incomes. The culprit is Assembly Bill 5, the "progressive" new state law that rewrites the rules for part-time "gig" workers and forces companies to reclassify their independent contractors and turn them into full-time employees. As of Jan. 2,...

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a new California labor law from impacting more than 70,000 independent truckers. The law, passed late last year, makes it harder for companies to classify workers as independent contractors instead of employees, who are entitled to minimum wage and benefits such as workers compensation. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego on Tuesday granted a temporary restraining order sought by the California Trucking Association while he considers imposing a permanent injunction. He said the association is likely to eventually prevail on its argument that the state law violates federal law. He also ruled...

A nonprofit legal foundation is suing California on behalf of freelance workers who say the state's recently passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) will destroy their livelihoods. Set to take effect on January 1, 2020, AB5 will make it illegal for contractors who reside in California to create more than 35 pieces of content in a year for a single company, unless the outlet hires them as an employee. "By enforcing the 35-submission limit, Defendant, acting under color of state law, unconstitutionally deprives Plaintiffs' members of their freedom of speech as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S....

California's governor on Wednesday signed sweeping labor legislation that aims to give wage and benefit protections to rideshare drivers at companies like Uber and Lyft and to workers across other industries. The closely watched proposal could have national implications as lawmakers, businesses and unions confront the changing nature of work and the rise of the so-called gig economy. "California is now setting the global standard for worker protections for other states and countries to follow," Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, the bill's author, said in a statement. The legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom makes it harder for companies to classify...

Rather than spending the holidays relaxing, Will Griffith needs to decide whether he should immediately leave the freelance gig he's had for the past five years or stick around until his contract is terminated in March. Griffith was one of 200 Vox Media freelancers in California who lost their job on Monday. The company nixed freelancers because of a new state law that defines some positions previously filled by freelancers or gig workers as full-time roles with benefits. The law takes effect January 1. California lawmakers meant for the new law, Assembly Bill 5, to help Uber and Lyft drivers...

Vox Media rooted for the passage of a California gig economy bill that is now forcing Vox to lay off hundreds of its own freelance workers. * Vox Media is laying off hundreds of freelance workers as California’s gig economy rights bill takes effect. * Vox cheered for the gig economy bill on its own news pages. Now it’s letting freelance workers go because of the new law. * This is a painfully ironic, cautionary tale against the broader labor movement represented by politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren. California AB-5 takes effect in 2020 after passage by the California state...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Freelance writers and photographers on Tuesday filed the second legal challenge to a broad new California labor law that they say could put some independent journalists out of business. The law taking effect Jan. 1 aims to give wage and benefit protections to people who work as independent contractors. While the public focus has been largely on ride-share companies such as Uber and Lyft, the lawsuit brought by the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Press Photographers Association says the law would unconstitutionally affect free speech and the media. The lawsuit filed by...

Key Points: Hundreds of Vox Media freelancers will lose their jobs in the coming months. Vox Media is preparing for a California law, Assembly Bill 5, which goes into effect in 2020 and forbids nonemployees from submitting more than 35 articles per year. SB Nation said Monday that it will move its California team blogs, which rely on contractors, to a new system run by SB Nation employees. ========================================================================= Hundreds of freelance writers at Vox Media, primarily those covering sports for the SB Nation site, will lose their jobs in the coming months as the company prepares for a California...

... AB 5 has sent shock waves through the world of companies that employ freelancers and the independent workers whom they rely on since it passed. The law codifies the ABC test — which helps employers determine who should be classified as a freelancer — giving exemptions to some types of freelancers, such as architects, doctors, insurance agents, lawyers, grant writers, real estate agents, tutors, truck drivers and manicurists. The law, which takes effect Jan.1, 2020, could cost the employers a lot of money. It says the exemptions are retroactive. The California Supreme Court just announced this week it will...

Yikes. According to new California laws on water use: you can take a shower or you can do a single load of laundry, but you cannot do both. 55 gal per day limit, or face $1k fine.

Politicians in California value the lives of illegal immigrants, drug dealers, criminals and gang members above those of hard-working taxpayers. No wonder the middle class is leaving the state in droves. Sadly, California is choking on its own insanity. After being featured in major newspapers and international news segments, the recall effort gains steam in California. There are currently two recall petitions in California.

On Jan. 1, California will usher in a host of largely progressive laws that will mean major changes for consumers, workers and businesses, big and small. The laws, passed by a solidly Democratic legislature and governor, include first-of-their-kind consumer-privacy protections, a sea change in the way employers classify independent contractors and a cap on rent increases in a state grappling with sky-high housing prices. For many businesses, the new laws will require significant changes to how they collect data on consumers and whether they pay workers overtime or provide paid sick leave, changes that aren’t required by any or most...

California lawmakers had another busy year passing gun-related legislation. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a staunch proponent of gun control, signed more than a dozen bills one day this fall. -snip If you have a gun-violence restraining order, you’ll be prohibited from buying a firearm for up to five years, under AB 12 by Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks. It takes effect Sept. 1.An employer, coworker, employee or teacher can seek a gun-violence restraining order from a court, allowing police to remove firearms from someone making threats, under AB 61 by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco. It takes effect Sept. 1. You can’t buy guns in...