Free Republic

A Westlake man has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for throwing rocks and ignited debris at California Highway Patrol officers trapped underneath a freeway overpass during a violent anti-immigration law enforcement protest last year, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Ismael Vega, 42, was also ordered to pay $253,415 in restitution. Vega pleaded guilty on April 29 to one count of obstructing, impeding and interfering with law enforcement during civil disorder and was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison. During the evening of June 8, 2025, Vega was part of a large group of protesters...

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...

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 new complaint requests that the federal government investigate the tax-exempt status of a left-wing nonprofit that has allegedly fomented violent riots. The Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) filed the complaint Tuesday morning with the IRS seeking an investigation into People’s Forum, Inc., a New York-based Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) linked to socialist megadonor Neville Roy Singham. CASA’s complaint alleges that People’s Forum routinely organizes and funds protests that engage in illegal activity. "People's Forum Inc. is the tax-exempt fiscal sponsor of many progressive and radical organizations, including the Venceremos Brigade, which engage in demonstrations often crossing the threshold...

Multiple street takeovers occurred overnight across in and around Los Angeles, according to video obtained by KTLA. Not many details surrounding the takeovers were available from law enforcement officials. At least four were captured on camera at the following locations: Carson: Main Street and Albertoni StreetWilmington/Carson: Lomita Boulevard and Figueroa Street Broadway-Manchester/Florence: Manchester Avenue and San Pedro StreetManhattan Beach/El Segundo: Sepulveda Boulevard and Rosecrans AvenueAt Main and Albertoni, dozens of cars were seen near the intersection as motorists not participating in the takeover maneuvered around the situation. Further video shows fireworks exploding and a fire being set on the street...

Taxpaying Angelenos write big checks every year. They dump billions into homelessness services –– and the tents, needles and suffering still turn neighborhoods into obstacle courses. Then Mayor Karen Bass drops her latest pearl of wisdom: Homeless folks use meth “to stay awake for protection on the city’s dangerous streets.” Bless her heart. This isn’t compassionate; it’s Olympic-level mental gymnastics that insults every working stiff paying the tab while watching their city circle the drain. It perfectly explains why Bass’s approval hovers in the 32%–36% range, with disapproval in the 57%–66% zone in recent polls. Let’s be real about how...

Ghana has recorded 14 arrests linked to false news and offensive speech in less than 16 months, nearly double the number documented during the previous administration’s entire eight-year tenure, according to the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA). The rise has triggered a sharp debate in one of West Africa’s most stable democracies over whether authorities are simply enforcing long-standing laws in a new digital environment, or edging into a more restrictive approach to public speech. The controversy carries added political weight because President John Mahama, while in opposition in 2022, warned that using state power to intimidate dissent was...

Last month and early this month, Camilla Alhassan shared a series of videos alleging, without providing evidence, that the president sacrificed 32 cows as part of a ritual to help him win the 2024 general election. The 43-year-old also alleged that a government initiative to distribute sanitary pads to recent flood victims was an attempt to conceal what she claimed he had done. The judge turned down an appeal for a lighter punishment, ruling that a custodial sentence would discourage similar conduct. Prosecutors had argued that Alhassan, who has more than 70,000 followers on TikTok, had made a series of...

In Mayor Karen Bass’s Los Angeles, the rule of law is separate and not equal when it comes to street food — with illegal immigrants and rogue vendors getting a free pass on violations while citizen restaurateurs and licensed food stands are subjected to fines, high costs, burdensome regulations, and even closures. In short, L.A. and the surrounding counties have two sets of rules. Other progressively-run cities like New York and Minneapolis also are catering to “vulnerable” and undocumented immigrant street vendors. But California is leading the way in sanctuary food practices. The Los Angeles County Health Department, citing immigration...

Before the Boyle Heights warehouse fire, Lineage representatives lobbied City Hall over the rooftop solar array. The company says it was seeking a safer alternative to rapid shutdown devices. A year before a massive fire at a Boyle Heights cold storage building sent polluted smoke into surrounding communities, the operator of the facility came to Los Angeles City Hall with a request.Lineage asked about removing an emergency shutdown switch from the solar panels on the roof of the structure, according to the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety.A spokesperson for Lineage said that the company was inquiring about what...

There is a word for demanding tens of thousands of dollars from a man before you’ll give him back what you took from him. That word is extortion. But in Los Angeles, when the thing taken is a house, the state calls it a landlord-tenant dispute and tells the victim to hire a lawyer. That single act of miscategorization, repeated thousands of times across California, has built an entire criminal industry, and the people who investigate it for a living are now begging the city to admit what everyone already knows. Former LAPD Lt. Moses Castillo and veteran private investigator...

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...

A 19-year-old woman accused in a violent attack on an elderly Los Angeles street vendor has been taken into custody, authorities announced. Harmunie Heaven Church’s June 25 arrest comes 10 days after a cellphone video captured Arabelia Martinez, 62, a food vendor who has worked in the 700 block of Figueroa Street for years, being brutally beaten. Video that circulated online showed Church, according to police, confronting Martinez and spraying sauce toward her cart. Martinez responded by throwing what appeared to be Tajín seasoning in the suspect’s direction, escalating the conflict.

California is a blue state, and one of the manifestations of its political orientation has been a tolerance for one of the nation’s highest levels of taxation. The state’s tax rates on retail sales and personal and corporate incomes are among the highest of any state. Although tax rates on real estate are relatively moderate, high property values still translate into high bills for their owners. Specific taxes, such as those on fuel, utilities, cigarettes, liquor, medical care, gambling, guns and ammunition, contribute even more. Overall, state and local governments and school districts collect around $400 billion in taxes every...

The Mamdani regime in New York City has already been making noises about moving on this sort of thing, and now the LA County Board of Supervisors is following suit. People will call this socialism but in some ways this is worse. They’re not just proposing a government takeover of private property, what they’re proposing to do is to use government power and taxpayer money to seize private property and turn it over to their political allies who will run ‘community groups’. This is fundamentally no different than politicians using eminent domain to seize property and transfer it to their...

LOS ANGELES —Jurors have deadlocked in the trial for a troubled Uber driver accused of lighting a blaze in the Santa Monica Mountains that investigators say led to one of the most destructive fires in U.S. history. Jurors told U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang on Thursday they were unable to come to a unanimous verdict. They’re expected to return the following day. Jonathan Rinderknecht, 30, is accused of starting a fire on Jan. 1, 2025, which prosecutors say later grew to become the deadly Palisades Fire. He is facing three counts of arson related to the destruction of federal property....

Karen Bass was out of town for a major fire that affected the entire LA region. No, we’re not talking about the Palisades Fire of January 2025, when she was, infamously, in Ghana to represent the Biden administration at a foreign presidential inauguration. We’re talking about the Boyle Heights fire, which continues to rage in East LA, and which has spewed black smoke into the summer sky. The emergency caused smoke to hover over the World Cup match between Iran and Belgium in Inglewood, and over the Dodgers-Orioles game in Chavez Ravine. It’s a major international embarrassment, evoking bad memories...

A wave of investigators descended on comedian Carlos Mencia’s Encino mansion Thursday as officers moved methodically through the property, hauling out boxes, sealed cases, and bags of materials tied to a sweeping tax fraud investigation. Photos from the scene show a heavy presence from the California Franchise Tax Board enforcement team, with officers posted across the driveway and front entrance as they carried evidence containers from inside the home to waiting vehicles. Multiple images capture officers actively removing stacked banker-style boxes and hard cases from the residence, staging them outside the property in organized piles. Black duffel bags and additional...

The FBI is now investigating voter fraud in Los Angeles. Federal agents descended on the streets of Skid Row in downtown LA Thursday following allegations that the homeless had been paid to vote in the June 2 primary. About 20 agents swooped in on the notoriously blighted area after homeless people staying there claimed they’d been bribed with cash to sign multiple registration forms, forge signatures, and fill out voter information for the mayoral and gubernatorial primaries. The California Post looked on as plainclothes agents questioned Skid Row residents, asking them if they were paid to vote or were aware...