Free Republic

'You can't just destroy small communities along the way'An impassioned and oftentimes angry cohort from a small California city turned up ready for a fight this week in opposition to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s proposal to bisect the town. On Monday, residents of Shafter, a rural town of 22,000 just about 20 miles northwest of Bakersfield, showed up en masse to provide almost two hours of unanimous testimony opposing the plan to their city council. Individual pleas from community members often began calmly and then crescendoed into yelling (or even escalated to holding back tears) following a presentation by...

During an interview with CNN aired on Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Story Is,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said that New York City mayoral candidate Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D) isn’t bad for the Democratic Party and responded to a question on if democratic socialism belongs in the Democratic Party by saying the party needs to be a bigger tent and “you can disagree on certain issues. But when we fundamentally believe in the values of growth and inclusion and we believe in social justice, racial justice, economic justice, the things that bind us together, I think we’re all better...

New polling, conducted after videos of former Rep. Katie Porter‘s interactions with a journalist and a staffer went viral, shows the former congresswoman and Republican Steve Hilton at the front of the pack of contenders in the 2026 race for California governor. But it also shows many likely voters are still undecided. Hilton, a former Fox News host who got his start in politics in the United Kingdom, led the new Emerson College poll with 16%. Porter, who served three terms in Congress representing an Orange County district before mounting an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate last year, was nearly...

During his first month in office, Mayor Daniel Lurie achieved something remarkable: He received near-unanimous approval from San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to make himself more powerful. The board voted to broaden Lurie’s power to dole out contracts related to homelessness, mental health and drug abuse, and to reduce its own control over the process. In interviews with over a dozen people who work in city politics, most agreed that the new administration is a sea change from former Mayor London Breed’s way of doing things, which was marked by interdepartmental animosity, bad blood with supervisors, and corruption. “There’s a...

As mail-in ballots began arriving for California's redistricting plan, voters in some counties have found a strange feature in their ballot envelopes: A hole that shows if they voted "no." Check it out: VIDEO AT LINK............. And lest anyone think this is just a bunch of conspiracy theorists overreacting, the Los Angeles Times addressed the issue with a statement from the California Secretary of State. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Monday pushed back against a torrent of misinformation on social media claiming that mail-in ballots for the state's Nov. 4 special election are purposefully designed to disclose how...

Gov. Kathy Hochul embraced mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani Tuesday — calling him “eminently reasonable” and claiming they’ll find a way to cover the tab for his socialist dreams without raising taxes. Hochul offered her comrade in the Big Apple mayor’s race a political lifeline during a news conference in Queens, telling reporters the pair would somehow scrounge up funds for the Democratic nominee’s top agenda items, such as universal childcare. “I found him to be eminently rational and understands this is something that would take an act of the legislature and the governor to sign,” Hochul said when asked if...

As Californians start voting on Democrats’ effort to boost their ranks in Congress, former President Obama warned that democracy is in peril as he urged voters to support Proposition 50 in a television ad that started airing Tuesday. “California, the whole nation is counting on you,” Obama says in the 30-second ad, which the main pro-Proposition 50 campaign began broadcasting Tuesday across the state. “Democracy is on the ballot Nov. 4.” The spot is part of a multimillion-dollar ad buy promoting the congressional redistricting ballot measure through the election. Proposition 50 was spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California...

Far-left Democrat Katie Porter, candidate for governor in California, is facing myriad obstacles of late, despite leading the polls against other challengers. One is the disastrous interview with CBS Los Angeles in which she crashed and burned like the Hindenburg. Another is leaked video of the deranged F-bomb-laced tongue lashing she gave to a staffer. And third, her record as a domestic abuser has resurfaced. Years ago, her ex-husband said in court filings, she regularly verbally abused him, and one awful night, dumped scalding mashed potatoes on his head. “Argumentative” ReporterThe latest trouble for Porter is the interview that quickly...

The Palisades Bowl mobile home park remains debris-covered, nine months after the fire and months after the neighboring park was cleaned FEMA denied cleanup services, arguing it couldn’t trust that the land owners, with a history of attempting to redevelop the park into something more lucrative, would let residents rebuild Former residents are running out of insurance money and aid to pay for temporary housing, still with no clear path home. As local and state leaders celebrate the fastest wildfire debris removal in modern American history, the Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Estates — a rent-controlled, 170-unit enclave off Pacific...

A New York City man with nearly two dozen arrests is facing even more time behind bars for allegedly fatally striking a cancer survivor with his motorcycle last year, according to police. Timothy Bohler, 31, is accused of slamming into Lelawattie Narine, 52, with his Jiajue motorcycle in the Bronx at around 8:30 p.m. on March 22, 2024, the New York Daily News reported. The pair reportedly fell into the street, with Bohler abandoning his motorcycle and feeling the scene on foot. Narine, who was standing on a nearby street corner at the time of the collision, suffered a severe...

Experts worry about health, sustainability of non-stick pots and panss you’re pulling out pots and pans to cook Thanksgiving dinner this weekend, some culinary experts are warning Canadians about the pitfalls of a common, convenient tool you might be turning to: non-stick cookware. When she was just starting out in the industry, maintaining a food blog, Julia House spent hours researching the right tools to buy for her ever-growing kitchen, wanting to know which products would last, and which ones were safe. “The nature of non-stick pans is there isn't one on the market that will last forever, period. Full...

Billionaire Tom Steyer pledges $12 million to support Proposition 50, which could give Democrats five more congressional seats in California. Charles Munger Jr. has donated $32 million to the opposition, arguing that the measure undermines California’s voter-approved independent redistricting commission. As California voters receive mail ballots for the November special election, which could upend the state’s congressional boundaries and determine control of the House, billionaire hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer said Thursday he will spend $12 million to back Democrats’ efforts to redraw districts to boost their party’s ranks in the legislative body. The ballot measure was proposed by Gov. Gavin...

I just signed legislation allowing the 800,000 rideshare workers in California to unionize. California is determined to give working people a voice, to give them choice, give them dignity, and give them a say about their future.

The “emergency” special session called by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham ended this week with all five Democrat-sponsored bills passed, some on party-line votes. However, the real headline was the deep partisan divide and the governor’s furious reaction to Republicans for opposing her vaccine legislation. The two-day session, which cost taxpayers an estimated $250,000, was ostensibly meant to offset federal funding cuts. But much of the time was consumed by heated exchanges over decorum and the content of the Democrats’ agenda, which Republicans said was drafted in secret and offered little room for participation. House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong (R-Magdalena) told...

The far-left Wall Street Journal reports that at the end of 2024, there were only 100,000 motion picture jobs in Los Angeles County, compared to 142,000 two years earlier. That’s a 30 percent collapse. The Journal spends a thousand or so words laying out the symptoms without diagnosing the disease causing it. Here are some of the report’s bullet points: * After the boom that saw the studios spending billions to bulk up their streaming services with lousy TV shows and movies, that screeched to a halt a few years ago. Compared to 2022, 30 percent “fewer movies and TV...

Gov. Gavin Newsom is threatening to withhold billions in state funds from any California college that signs onto an agreement crafted by President Donald Trump's administration requiring schools to agree to support the President's education agenda in order to have access to federal dollars.

Race to replace Gavin Newsom continues to thin as longtime Calif. legislator exitsThe California governor’s race is continuing to slim down. Toni Atkins, the first openly gay president pro tempore of the California State Senate, and a longtime legislator, became the latest candidate to drop out of the race this week, citing polling data. “It’s with such a heavy heart that I’m stepping aside today as a candidate for governor. Despite the strong support we’ve received and all we’ve achieved, there is simply no viable path forward to victory,” Atkins said in a statement Monday. She continued, “With Donald Trump...

(DCNF)—U.S. job growth in the year through March was much weaker than previously reported, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revisions released on Tuesday. The U.S. economy likely added 911,000 fewer jobs in the year ending in March — or an average of almost 76,000 fewer each month — according to the BLS’ preliminary benchmark revision. The report comes after job growth slowed in August, with the U.S. economy adding just 22,000 nonfarm payroll jobs, according to data released Friday by BLS. ADVERTISEMENT The jobs report revisions were even worse than the downward adjustment of 700,000 that was previously...

In case anyone had any doubt where this gerrymandering fight is going: And here’s California Democrat Rep. Zoe Lofgren with absolutely no shame, confirming that wholesale Republican voter disenfranchisement is exactly where the party is going: Just put aside the Texas Republicans for a moment, even though their cause is righteous. Put them aside, because even though they are the reason California’s Ms. Lofgren and her fellow travelers are up in arms, we don’t need them to make the point that the gerrymandering is already insanely lopsided!Eight blue states have zero Republican representation. Zero. That’s fully 16% of our 50...

In April, there were 9 Republican mayors in America’s 50 biggest cities. In May, that number fell to 8. Democrats are celebrating Omaha’s mayoral election win as proof that Republicans are out of step with America, when it’s really evidence how the nation’s cities have fallen out of step with America. There was a time when America’s cities were symbols of progress, but they have long since become sinkholes of decline, clinging to a handful of industries that employ a tiny fraction of their population as evidence of their relevance. When Americans think of big cities, they think of tall...