Free Republic

Ms. Bass struggled amid criticism of her initial response to the Los Angeles fires in January. The opposition over President Trump’s immigration raids have offered her an opportunity. For the past three days, Mayor Karen Bass has been a high-profile figure across Los Angeles. She turned up at parking lots where federal officials had conducted immigration sweeps. She posted updates on social media seeking to reassure embattled immigrants that the city would fight for them. She held a news conference at City Hall to rally her constituents and assail President Trump for deploying the National Guard. “It’s the last thing...

Due to his criminal history, Hunter Biden has agreed to revoke his license to practice law in Washington, D.C. Hunter was previously convicted on three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses, according to the Department of Justice. He was also convicted of three felony charges related to the purchase of a revolver in 2018. Nevertheless, his father, former President Joe Biden, pardoned him in December 2024 — despite the fact that the former Democrat president had vowed not to pardon him numerous times prior. “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I...

A plan to build the largest reservoir in California in decades, Sites Reservoir about 70 miles north of Sacramento, is being challenged as ecologically destructive and not worth the cost in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups Wednesday. The $4.5 billion project, which seeks to boost water supplies for drought-plagued cities and farms, was recently put on the fast track by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The suit, though, alleges the reservoir’s environmental impact report was insufficient, failing to address harm to fish and greenhouse gas emissions — problems opponents say make the additional water hard to justify. “It’s not a negligible...

Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles abruptly removed the city’s fire chief on Friday, seeking to end the increasing acrimony between the two officials in the weeks since a wildfire devastated the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood. Ms. Bass said in a statement that she had removed Kristin Crowley, the chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, effective immediately. The announcement came after Ms. Bass said publicly that she herself made a mistake in leaving the country and traveling to Ghana days before the fires broke out. For weeks, she has privately told friends that she never would have left had...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨BREAKING: Mayor Karen Bass FIRES LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley. 1:29 PM · Feb 21, 2025

Collin Rugg✓@CollinRugg NEW: LA Mayor Karen Bass says she’s investigating why she was allowed to go on a trip to Ghana days before the LA fires. Investigating someone else for something you did is wild. Bass: That level of preparation really didn't happen. So it didn't reach that level to me. No one said you shouldn't have gone on a trip. Reporter: Why didn't it happen? Bass: I don’t know. That’s what we are investigating.

During a portion of an interview with FOX 11 Los Angeles released on Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass stated that “there were warnings, that I, frankly, wasn’t aware of” before the fires in the city.Bass said, “We need to look at everything about the preparation and all of that for the fires, because, I think, when we evaluate that, we will find that, although there were warnings, that I, frankly, wasn’t aware of, although there were warnings, I think our preparation, it wasn’t what it typically is. Meaning that, before there’s a major weather event, for example, last week,...

Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are two lucky Hollywood stars ... 'cause both of their houses appear unscathed while the rest of their neighborhoods burn around them. TMZ has obtained photos and video of the two properties ... showing Hanks' cliffside home and Spielberg's sprawling, wooded estate still standing. Check out the clip ... the house just above Hanks' went up in flames -- with smoke still wafting in the air -- while Tom's pad stands without even a speck of ash on it. It's quite the coincidence that these two houses have survived the blaze while so many other...

LOS ANGELES: The guy Mayor Bass hired as the Pacific Palisades Recovery Czar is getting paid $500,000 for three months of work. His job is to build the plan and she's going to hire additional consultants to do the rest of the work. Steve Soboroff is best known for his tweet about Trump's supporters being too white. Previously he ran the Parks and Rec Commission - expect good things Los Angelinos. 🤣

Gavin Newsom just appeared on CNN and explained that people ‘can’t rebuild the same.’ Newsom suggests that there is a new reality due to the ‘science’ and climate change, and that all of that has to be taken into account as people rebuild. In other words, Adam Carolla was right. Newsom and other authorities in California may be handing out building permits, but it’s pretty clear that there will still be red tape and new rules for rebuilding. Watch:

State Farm General, the largest home insurer in California, sent a desperate letter to the state government requesting it immediately approve emergency price hikes to its insurance policies in the wake of the destructive Los Angeles fires. On Monday, the company sent a four-page letter to the California Department of Insurance pleading with regulators to allow an average rate increase of 22 percent for homeowners. State Farm, a California-based subsidiary of the much larger State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, also wants to be able to slap condo owners and renters with a 15 percent increase. Those who rent out...

State Farm, California’s largest property insurer, is demanding a 22% emergency rate hike after the Southern California fires, saying that over the last years it has paid out $1.26 in claims for every dollar in premiums it has collected. Since the passage of Prop. 103 in 1988, state regulators have had to approve any rate hikes, which has led to rates not keeping up with rising claims and risks. State Farm says that as a result, it has lost $5 billion over the last nine years in California, and that it had no option but to stop underwriting new policies...

Evangelist Franklin Graham has commented on whether God is “judging” Hollywood as catastrophic wildfires continue to ravage Los Angeles, destroying entire communities. Speaking about the situation, Graham, the CEO of Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, stated, “People have lost everything. A lot of people are asking ‘Why?’ and that’s a hard question to answer.” He added, “We want to reassure them of God’s love — that He cares for them and that He hasn’t turned His back on them.” The fires have claimed at least 24 lives and burned through 40,000 acres in the Greater Los Angeles...

DEI: LA Mayor Karen Bass is hiring an ‘outside consultant’ to rebuild the Pacific Palisades in a more equitable and environmentally sustainable way. She intends to award the contract without authorization from the property owners. ... CORRUPTION: California updated the law to allow Mayors like Karen Bass to take contributions from contractors and consultants to the city if they are award via competitive bid starting on Jan 1, 2025. This exemption is significant because it means that vendors winning contracts through competitive bids can still donate to political campaigns of officials overseeing the contract process—potentially leaving room for continued influence...

California wildfire cleanup challenged by electric and hybrid vehicle batteries.. Highly combustible lithium-ion batteries used in electric and hybrid vehicles are complicating cleanup efforts in the Los Angeles neighborhoods ravaged by wildfire damage. Phase 1 of the federal cleanup is underway, as surveyors with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) work to remove and dispose of hazardous materials, including lithium-ion batteries found in charred vehicles and decimated homes. The EPA warned that batteries should be considered "extremely dangerous," even if they are believed to be intact, and "can spontaneously re-ignite, explode, and emit toxic gases and particulates even after the fire...

They involve voter identification rules and water, the president signaled.President Donald Trump said on Friday that he wants Los Angeles and California to fulfill two requirements before he offers federal support to wildfire-devastated areas in the state.“I want to see two things in Los Angeles. Voter ID, so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state,” Trump told reporters in North Carolina.Trump is slated to visit the Los Angeles area on Friday after visiting western North Carolina, which was devastated by...

President Trump gets a thing or two done. In his first term in office, President Trump apparently thought he could operate as if the federal government were a corporation he headed as Chief Executive and Commander in Chief of the armed forces. He assumed those beneath him would give him honest counsel, would perform their assigned duties, and follow his directives. He learned otherwise. All the steps he took the first week after beginning his astonishing second term are those a wise CEO and commander in chief must take to do the job he promised and was elected to do....

Gavin Newsom can't be trusted with billions in bail-out money for the torched neighborhoods of Los Angeles. That much is obvious to your humble West Coast, Messed Coast™ correspondent. That's what you call a cold open to this week's West Coast, Messed Coast™, report where I've been keeping close track of the fire response. Gavin Newsom and his minions in public office — especially L.A. Mayor Karen Bass — can't be trusted to properly account for what will be a years-long effort to rebuild the charred parts of L.A. County. The governor who lost or misspent BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in...

President Donald Trump got into a heated exchange with embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass as they clashed over her handling of the wildfire crisis. It came after Trump was greeted by California governor Gavin Newsom on the tarmac as he arrived in Los Angeles to view the devastating aftermath of the recent wildfires. The two men then engaged in a very awkward handshake as Newsom - a Democrat who Trump has derided as 'Newscum' - humiliatingly thanked the president for coming. Newsom, who Trump has blamed for failing to prevent the fires, said his state needed 'a lot of...

“Lawmakers in the House passed a bill this week aimed at reforming policing in this country. It's called the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act…this bill would ban chokeholds and make it easier to pursue misconduct claims against officers, among other reforms. The lead author is Congresswoman Karen Bass from California,” reported NPR on March 5.Well, Rep. Karen Bass certainly qualifies as an expert on “police misconduct,” considering that for decades she’s been providing aid and comfort to a police state that jailed and tortured political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin’s during the Great Terror and murdered more...