Free Republic

Apparently, it's panic time for Democrats in their one-party blue state of California. The Los Angeles Times reports that they are facing armageddon in the upcoming governor's race, whose "jungle" primary is in June. According to the Los Angeles Times: SAN FRANCISCO — Leaders of the California Democratic Party, along with liberal activists and loyal power brokers, are openly expressing fear that their crowded field of candidates running for governor may splinter the vote and open the door to a surprise Republican victory in November.SNIP The bottom line here is that Democrats wouldn't have this problem at all if they...

The man set to become one of the world’s youngest artificial intelligence billionaires started his entrepreneurial journey as a bored preteen living in Los Angeles. When Ali Ansari was 12, living with his family in a single room at his aunt’s house in Woodland Hills, his immigrant mother told him to stop wasting time staring at his phone and try making money with it. He took his father’s loafers and listed them on eBay for $50. “My dad was like, ‘Why the hell did you sell my shoes?’ ” Ansari said. “My mom was like, excited.” While it was a...

Former Rep. Katie Hill, the California Democrat who resigned following her très bizarre multi-layered sex scandal with a younger female congressional staffer, who then presented herself as the victim of harassment, bullying, and revenge porn in a New York Times op-ed, is back. She’s not back in Congress, but back to her pre-Congress homeless nonprofit grift. Allegations and photos emerged of Rep. Katie Hill and her husband involved in a “throuple” threesome relationship with a young congressional staffer in 2019. Hill also had allegedly been involved in a sexual relationship for a year with her finance director, RedState reported. She...

There's conspiracy theories, and then theres Patrick Soon-Shiong, the surgeon who owns the LA Times, talking about how he's now seeing spike proteins "from COVID" in the aggressive tumors of his patients. A billionaire oncologist just went on national television and said the words millions have been waiting to hear publicly.Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong – the surgeon who invented the nanoparticle chemotherapy Abraxane, sold companies for billions, and now owns the LA Times – appeared… pic.twitter.com/ZWA960vha9— Camus (@newstart_2024) November 30, 2025Chris Cuomo: 'When you look in tumors what are you seeing? Dr. Soon-Shiong: 'There's now evidence that when you actually biopsy...

California’s Democratic supermajority quickly pushed through a redistricting measure that favors their party. Voters will consider it in November. The effort was in response to Texas Republicans adopting a redistricting plan favoring their party, which they took up at Trump’s behest. In an evening social media post about a supremely partisan battle that could reshape American political power for generations, President Trump sounded ebullient.“Big WIN for the Great State of Texas!!! Everything Passed, on our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself,” Trump wrote, of the nation’s most populous red...

The emergence of two videos showing former Rep. Katie Porter in an unfavorable light have cast a cloud over her gubernatorial prospects, feeding perceptions among some that the Irvine Democrat is thin-skinned and a short-tempered boss. How Porter responds in coming days could determine her viability in next year’s race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to both Democratic and Republican political strategists.“Everyone’s had a bad day. Everyone’s done something that they wouldn’t want broadcast, right? You don’t want your worst boss moment, your worst employment moment, your worst personal moment, captured on camera,” said Christine Pelosi, a prominent...

A strawberry delivery driver was arrested by Border Patrol near Gov. Newsom’s Little Tokyo news conference, becoming “collateral damage.” Angel Minguela Palacios endured six weeks of harsh detention conditions, watching fellow detainees give up and self-deport. Over more than a month in detention, the 48-year-old father prayed he’d get back to his family. The lights never dimmed and Angel Minguela Palacios couldn’t sleep. He pulled what felt like a large sheet of aluminum foil over his head, but couldn’t adjust to lying on a concrete floor and using his tennis shoes as a pillow. He could smell unwashed bodies in...

The majority of California Democrats do not want former Vice President Kamala Harris to make another White House run in 2028, according to a UC Berkeley/Los Angeles Times poll released Tuesday. Almost two-thirds of registered voters in California and 51% of Democrats said Harris should not seek the presidency again following her two failed White House bids in 2020 and 2024, according to the survey. Meanwhile, roughly 45% of California’s registered voters said they were “very” or “somewhat” enthusiastic about the prospect of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom running for president, while 36% said the same about Harris. “She [Harris]...

FAIRVIEW, N.C. — Jamie Ager has spent much of the past year rebuilding his farm in the foothills of western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene tore through the region, cutting power, destroying fences and scattering livestock. Then, earlier this year, Ager lost his beef contract with local schools, a casualty of billions of dollars in cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Trump administration. Now, the fifth-generation farmer is running for Congress — part of a new crop of Democratic candidates the party is turning to as it tries to compete in the tough, often rural districts it...

The Department of Justice said Tuesday that UCLA violated the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students who reported harassment and intimidation during a spring 2024 pro-Palestinian campus encampment... In a letter addressed to UC President Michael V. Drake, DOJ officials said “Jewish and Israeli students at UCLA were subjected to severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment that created a hostile environment by members of the encampment.” The letter faulted UCLA for not taking down the encampment until after it was attacked by pro-Israel group. In addition, the department found UCLA was “inadequate” in its response to complaints from Jewish...

NEW YORK — For years, Marianne Hirsch, a prominent genocide scholar at Columbia University, has used Hannah Arendt’s book about the trial of a Nazi war criminal, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,” to spark discussion among her students about the Holocaust and its lingering traumas. But after Columbia’s recent adoption of a new definition of antisemitism, which casts certain criticism of Israel as hate speech, Hirsch fears she may face official sanction for even mentioning the landmark text by Arendt, a philosopher who criticized Israel’s founding. For the first time since she started teaching five...

Federal agents descended upon a California home connected to the “TikTok Cult” pastor who was the subject of a recent Netflix documentary series Friday — as part of an investigation into sex trafficking and other criminal claims. Several people were detained after a Tujunga home partially owned by Pastor Robert Shinn was raided by agents from the FBI, IRS, US Postal Service and Department of Labor, the Los Angeles Times reported. Officials served warrants related to allegations of sex trafficking, money laundering, mail fraud, tax evasion and COVID-19-related fraud, according to the outlet. The identities of those detained were not...

On Sunday, our thoughtful and reserved president reposted on his Truth Social site a video generated by artificial intelligence that falsely showed former President Obama being arrested and imprisoned. There are those among you who think this is high humor; those among you who who find it as tiresome as it is offensive; and those among you blissfully unaware of the mental morass that is Truth Social. Whatever camp you fall into, the video crosses all demographics by being expected — just another crazy Trump stunt in a repetitive cycle of division and diversion so frequent it makes Groundhog Day...

Has any American company run away from a public commitment faster than Target?In an Aug. 19, 2020, conference call, Target Chief Executive Brian Cornell forthrightly put his company in the forefront of the quest for racial and ethnic justice. George Floyd had been murdered by Police Officer Derek Chauvin, abetted by several other officers in Minneapolis, Target’s home city, only about three months earlier. Calls for recognition of the racism exposed by the killing were still reverberating nationwide.“Our team is passionately demanding equity and justice for our Black colleagues and guests,” Cornell said. “We are united in that passion and...

WASHINGTON — For generations, official American documents have been meticulously preserved and protected — from the era of quills and parchment to boxes of paper to the cloud, safeguarding snapshots of the government and the nation for posterity. Now, the Trump administration has sought to expand the executive branch’s power to shield from public view key administration initiatives. Officials have used apps like Signal that can auto-delete messages containing sensitive information rather than retaining them for record-keeping. And they have shaken up the National Archives leadership. To historians and archivists, it points to the possibility that President Trump will leave...

The Trump administration has rolled out Project 2025-aligned policies on trade, immigration, the federal workforce, the media, diversity initiatives and voting and transgender rights.The White House said Trump’s policies are “based on the best interests of the American people, period.”Experts have questioned the legality or wisdom of some policies, and liberal activists have promised to resist. In his Project 2025 chapter on trade, economist Peter Navarro called on the next U.S. president to bring about a domestic manufacturing “renaissance” by adopting reciprocal tariffs against trading partners and taking a particularly hard line on China.Promptly after being elected, President Trump appointed...

For years, the bright green turf of Whitsett Fields Park has served as a joyous hub for Los Angeles youth soccer — particularly for thousands of immigrant families in the San Fernando Valley. On most weekends, the sprawling North Hollywood complex echoes with the shouts of hundreds of boys and girls, as vendors hawk aguas frescas, balloons and candy along the sidelines. But recently, immense grief and worry have settled over this close, Latin American community. Just last week, a well-known coach and Salvadoran national was charged with murder in the killing of 13-year-old soccer player Oscar Omar Hernandez during...

Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman will allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty again in Los Angeles, undoing one of the signature policies of his predecessor, George Gascón. The move comes as little surprise: Hochman campaigned on the issue almost as soon as he announced his challenge to Gascón in 2023. But it still marks a significant shift in one of the largest prosecutor’s offices in the nation. Under California law, the death penalty can only be sought in cases where a defendant is accused of murder with special circumstances. That can include multiple homicides or cases where the victim is...

After years of hustle, film and TV producer Stephen Love found himself in a situation many of his peers would salivate over: He was in four bidding wars. Studios clamored to snap up his projects. Hollywood trade news outlets gushed about their merits, bolstering Love’s career and reputation. But all the while, Love was shooting commercials and music videos and trying to get consulting gigs to make ends meet. He even drove for ride-share companies. The son of a preacher and a teacher, Love, 35, grew up on a farm in York, S.C., almost 40 miles south of Charlotte, N.C....

Pro-Bass forces argue that she is under attack from “wealthy oligarchs,” including Rick Caruso and Elon Musk.The rallying cry from the mayor’s allies follows the toughest two months of her political career.Proponents of the recall say Bass has mishandled the wildfire, public safety and other issues. For more than two months, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has faced lacerating criticism over her handling of the Palisades fire — her absence from the country when it erupted, her wobbly public appearances once she returned, even her failure to preserve her text messages.In recent days, pro-Bass forces have been pushing back hard,...