Free Republic

Among all the ways that COVID-19 affects our lives, the pandemic confronts us with a profound moral dilemma: How should we react to the deaths of the unvaccinated? On the one hand, a hallmark of civilized thought is the sense that every life is precious. On the other, those who have deliberately flouted sober medical advice by refusing a vaccine known to reduce the risk of serious disease from the virus, including the risk to others, and end up in the hospital or the grave can be viewed as receiving their just deserts. That’s even more true of those who...

LOS ANGELES — In a year marked by record-breaking wildfires, extreme heat and unprecedented water shortages, California lawmakers say there’s another — seemingly distant, but just as urgent — climate catastrophe the state cannot afford to ignore: sea level rise. This oft-overlooked threat is the focus of more than a dozen new bills and resolutions this year — a remarkable political awakening mobilized by years of research and piecemeal efforts across the state to keep the California coast above water. There’s Senate Bill 1 — the very first measure introduced this legislative session — that confronts sea level rise adaptation...

Kamala Harris on Friday took a swipe at Joe Biden for declaring 'independence' from Covid on July 4 - and appeared to blame scientists for the administration's failure to be better prepared for Omicron and Delta as the new strains threaten to send the country spiraling back to pandemic shutdowns. Harris, in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, said: 'We have not been victorious over it. 'I don't think that in any regard anyone can claim victory when, you know, there are 800,000 people who are dead because of this virus.' -snip- The vice president insisted that the virologists...

SAN FRANCISCO — The rapid growth of Omicron is prompting officials to warn that hospitals could easily become overwhelmed, potentially within weeks, as they deal with a combination of the newest variant of the coronavirus along with patients hit by a holiday wave of the Delta strain. California and the rest of the nation now face a formidable winter. According to the state’s COVID forecasting models, there are plausible scenarios in which a winter surge could hit hospitals worse than the summer Delta wave, which strained facilities across swaths of the state. The combination is “a perfect storm for overwhelming...

A man near the University of Southern California fought back against three armed would-be robbers, killing one of them with a gun they dropped during the altercation. Three armed men in their 20s exited a vehicle early Saturday morning in South Los Angeles and attempted to rob the unidentified man, Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson Norma Eisenman told the Los Angeles Times. An altercation broke out after the victim resisted complying with the suspects. One of the suspected robbers then dropped his handgun, and the victim picked it up and shot the suspect, according to police.

Crews of burglars publicly smashing their way into Los Angeles’ most exclusive stores. Robbers following their victims, including a star of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and a BET host, to their residences. And this week, the fatal shooting of 81-year-old Jacqueline Avant, an admired philanthropist and wife of music legend Clarence Avant, in her Beverly Hills home. After two years of rising violent crime in Los Angeles, these incidents have sparked a national conversation and led to local concern about both the crimes themselves and where the outrage over the violence will lead. “The fact that this has...

[H/T Jane Long]Funny story.A month ago The New Yorker wrote a long piece on Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns the Los Angeles Times and is the richest man in Los Angeles.Dr. Soon-Shiong made his billions thanks to a chemotherapy drug called Abraxane, which is a repatented and dressed-up version of a nasty and somewhat effective drug called paclitaxel. Abraxane came out in 2005 and was among the first cancer drugs to cost a few thousand dollars a month - a price that seems almost quaint now, when some cost 10 times that much. (Because pharmaceutical companies are all about helping...

To the editor: I was born and raised in England, and after many years in the U.S. I am still bewildered by how the 2nd Amendment has been manipulated by a powerful minority. ("Will Rittenhouse acquittal lead to more armed confrontations at protests?" Nov. 19) The origins of this amendment, ratified in 1789, are clearly rooted in the desire to form state militias to frustrate any perceived overreach by a stronger federal government. The progenitor was the English Bill of Rights Act of 1689, which had a provision allowing the people to bear arms and possibly protect a newly formed...

Inglewood Morningside football coach Brian Collins did not have kind words for the Inglewood High coaching staff on Saturday morning when discussing his team’s 106-0 loss to the Sentinels in a game that saw Inglewood quarterback Justyn Martin throw 13 touchdowns passes, including a two-point conversion pass with a 104-0 lead. Collins said he was proud of his players for not quitting. He said a running clock did not start until the second quarter despite attempts to switch to a running clock earlier. Inglewood led 59-0 after the first quarter. Inglewood head coach Mil’Von James is in his third season....

For the sake of our two-party system, I would have liked to believe that Republican Glenn Youngkin, should he win the Virginia governor’s election on Tuesday, could show the way to a post-Trump restoration of the GOP, away from the crazy and the culture wars. After all, Youngkin is a moderate businessman who has long been a traditional Republican. But I can’t, because that’s not how he’s campaigned against former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Youngkin is no Donald Trump, but neither is he disavowing the worst of Trump. He’s using weasel words, but all the same he’s corroding faith in...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said that his own daughter, who recently turned 12-years-old, has not received her COVID-19 vaccination despite the state's mandate for students.The governor said, according to the Los Angeles Times, that his daughter has not been vaccinated because she has "a series of other shots to get first."Last week, California became the first state in the country to implement a vaccine mandate for school children at least 12 years of age following approval from the Food and Drug Administration. This, after the city of Los Angeles in September required public school students ages 12 and up...

The Supreme Court term, which begins Monday, will be the culmination of five decades of efforts by conservatives to seize control of the court.... This will be the first full term with five staunch conservatives: Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.... The court’s most watched case — Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, to be argued on Dec. 1 — could dismantle principles of abortion rights set in 1973... Another area the court will reopen for consideration is gun rights. From 1791, when the 2nd Amendment was ratified, until 2008,...

A number of comedians have spoken out against cancel culture in recent years, including Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Burr, David Spade, Kevin Hart, Michael Che, and Ricky Gervais. But there’s one comic who doesn’t think the trend of funnymen and women losing jobs for politically incorrect jokes is a problem — Jay Leno. The former host of “The Tonight Show” told the Los Angeles Times that stand-up acts have always had to adapt to the new norms, saying, “You either change with the times, or you die.”

After the FBI seized Joseph Ruiz’s life savings during a raid on a safe deposit box business in Beverly Hills, the unemployed chef went to court to retrieve his $57,000. A judge ordered the government to tell Ruiz why it was trying to confiscate the money. It came from drug trafficking, an FBI agent responded in court papers. Ruiz’s income was too low for him to have that much money, and his side business selling bongs made from liquor bottles suggested he was an unlicensed pot dealer, the agent wrote. The FBI also said a dog had smelled unspecified drugs...

Conservative Larry Elder is rising in California and Democrats are terrified.Gavin Newsom and his supporters, including the liberal media are now taking this very seriously because they believe Elder could actually pull this off.The liberal Los Angeles Times newspaper has resorted to begging their readers not to recall Gavin Newsom.Hot Air reports:The LA Times begs Californians not to boot NewsomWe’re one month out from the California recall election and the polls have continued to tighten, though most of them predict Newsom surviving by a slim margin. Perhaps it’s the unexpected closeness of the vote that moved the editorial board of...

<p>Just when I think I’ve seen it all from so-called “progressives” and their allies in the mainstream press in the debate over transgender rights, one of them surprises me with something even more ridiculously idiotic and twisted than the last.</p>

90 Days since she was tapped as the point person on the Border by the Biden Administration, Kamala Harris finally visits the border. Her performance in this arena has been so bad, even far-left publications are critical of her actions: The liberal Los Angeles Times said Vice President Kamala Harris has been ineffective in her role only five months after fawning over her so hard that the paper’s coverage was labeled “inappropriate and disappointing.” The L.A. paper was ridiculed on social media in January when it announced “Covering Kamala Harris,” a project described as “a beat dedicated to her historic...

In an interview last year, Mr. Freeman argued that the austere cuts enacted at his newspapers reflected a more realistic understanding of the industry’s direction and better positioned Alden-owned publishers for the pandemic’s downswing. “We were prepared for a real step down in terms of a recession because we were honest about what was needed in the future,” he said. “Numbers don’t lie.” The newspaper industry’s numbers looked bleak even before the pandemic. Annual advertising revenue dropped 70%, or $34 billion, between 2005 and 2018, according to estimates by the Pew Research Center. More than 1,800 newspapers closed between 2004...

Prosecutors brought an indictment alleging that former Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan, while working for downtown developers, set up a job for the family member of a city commissioner; had his company hire a relative of a City Council aide; and proposed a fake consulting contract with another city staffer’s mother. Such job offers, even modest ones, were a way of greasing the wheels of the city bureaucracy, prosecutors allege. Experts say indirect bribes can be more difficult to uncover than a typical quid pro quo in which someone gives money directly to a government official. In one example, prosecutors accuse...

In a Los Angeles Times Op-Ed on Thursday, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., vigorously defended her earlier call for protesters to "get more confrontational" if former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin hadn't been convicted of killing George Floyd. Waters, in her Thursday Op-Ed, described how she attended a peaceful rally before the verdict and was asked: "What do we do if we don't get a guilty verdict? What should protesters do?" She responded: "We got to stay on the street. And we've got to get more active, we've got to get more confrontational." On Tuesday, Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree...