Free Republic

Less than a week after a massive clean-up of homeless encampments on the Venice Beach Boardwalk, new arrivals continue to swarm the area, DailyMail.com can reveal. City officials promised they would return at the end of July to finish the job, but residents and shop owners say enough is enough, and tell DailyMail.com that last week's sweep was 'all for show'. Last week, a concerned resident who asked not to be identified captured a couple on video taking up camp near the popular boardwalk.

In the end, we didn’t crush the virus, but we did crush a lot of ordinary people.Did lockdowns take more lives than they saved? It’s an important question. Earlier this month, the Rand Corporation and the University of Southern California, working on behalf of the National Bureau of Economic Research, released a working paper to ascertain just that.Most casual news consumers might not have heard about it, and that’s not surprising because here’s what they found:We find that following the implementation of shelter-in-place policies, excess mortality increases. … We failed to find that countries or U.S. states that implemented [shelter...

In a drastic move signaling California's looming drought crisis, federal water managers announced Wednesday they're cutting water allocations to farms and cities again. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which supplies water in California through the Central Valley Project, said it expects to cut its delivery to the urban areas it serves by more than half, allocating 25% of the contracted amount rather than the 55% that was announced earlier. Water districts in the San Francisco Bay Area that have contracts with the Central Valley Project and are affected by the cut. The federal government also announced that their water allocations...

This week, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) publicly confronted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) and asked her questions about the Green New Deal she is pushing for America. Greene says she "chose this venue because in the House any inconvenient questions I raise are routinely gavelled 'out of order' by the Democrat committee chair. When I learned that AOC was holding a press conference I thought I'd ask my questions there, but she ran away." AOC professed herself "severely frightened by the encounter. There was no one to intervene on my behalf. It was just her and me in front...

Backers of the measure want Congress to clarify the constitutional right to bear arms (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)A group of Hawaii state legislators wants Congress to repeal the right to bear arms — or at least specify that it is not an individual right. The resolution filed Tuesday in the Hawaiian Senate, SCR42, is backed by freshman state Sen. Stanley Chang, best known for defeating the chamber’s last Republican in 2016. Chang’s measure, which has four co-sponsors, would request Washington discuss either scrapping the Second Amendment altogether or clarifying that it only applies to organizations such as state militias. Chang, a...

Vietnam's ruling Communist Party was on track Tuesday for a smooth power transition after settling a power struggle between the party chief and the pro-business prime minister trying to unseat him. Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung effectively withdrew from the contest to become the Communist Party general secretary, clearing the way for his rival to keep the post in what appears to be a compromise to present a united front to the nation, delegates at a party congress said Monday. [...] The path is now clear for Nguyen Phu Trong to stay as general secretary, the de facto top position...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling that a Portland bar owner must pay about $400,000 in damages to patrons he told to stay away. The state investigated a bar formerly known as the P Club after the owner left a voice message for one of the Rose City T-Girls, a group of transgender customers that frequented the bar Friday nights.

Obama’s actions have been designed to turn America into a one-party state, much like the People’s Republic of China or Cuba or even Iran For those who drank the hope and change Kool-Aid, here’s some bad news: the ‘fundamental transformation of America’ is in full swing and as they used to say in show biz, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” That’s because the last 18 months of this corrupt narcissist’s rule will make the first six-and-a-half years look like a high school civics lesson in good governance. I have always found it ironic that the son of a Kenyan Muslim...

Chinese police broke up a dinner party attended by activists in the eastern city of Hangzhou Tuesday night and detained a dozen people, according to an activist who attended the dinner. Activist and blogger Wang Wusi said he and another 10 people were released after spending about two hours in police custody. He said police held Wen Kejian until Wednesday morning, when he was released although without his cell phone or computer. Wen is a signatory of Charter 08, a document calling for democracy and the end of one-party rule in China. …

Phakisho Mojaplo, 20, belongs to a new generation of South Africans who never experienced firsthand the harsh system of white minority rule that ended in 1994, and will vote in national elections for the first time on Wednesday. She is deeply dissatisfied with what she describes as a growing culture of elitism and corruption in her country despite its new freedoms and other advances during her lifetime. Chief among Mojaplo’s grievances is her sense that the ruling African National Congress, which is expected to win re-election with a possibly reduced majority, has betrayed the commitments to clean governance and basic...

On Monday, President Obama will preside over the grand reopening of his administration. It would be altogether fitting if he stepped to the microphone, looked down the mall, and let out a sigh... There's no indication that the president's clashes with House Republicans will end soon... The challenge for President Obama’s speech is the challenge of his second term: how to be great when the environment stinks...The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP... How should the president proceed then, if he wants to...

Bill Berryhill's pitch to voters at a recent candidates forum came down to more than just his positions on issues affecting San Joaquin County's 5th Senate District. It was about the balance of power in the Capitol."Do you realize if one party gets sole power, you think you're taxed to the max now? Guess what? You better grab your wallet, because they only have one way to go and that's to tax and spend, tax and spend," the Republican assemblyman told the crowd at Tracy's Kimball High. Berryhill is running in one of a handful of newly drawn swing seats...

State Sen. Anthony D. Galluccio was led away in handcuffs today, sentenced to one year in jail for violating the terms of his home confinement. A judge sentenced the Cambridge Democrat after a full day of testimony over his failed Breathalyzer test Dec. 21. Galluccio blamed the bad test results on his toothpaste. He must now serve out his term in the House of Correction. Developing ...

Howie thread starting with his Sunday Herald column

National Public Radio is running a series of broadcasts this week called "California in Crisis." And NPR is not alone. Network and cable television news shows, public broadcasters, major out-of-state newspapers and countless magazines are taking turns recounting and analyzing California's economic and fiscal travails. The tone of many reports is found in the German word "schadenfreude." It means taking pleasure from the distress of others. The state's periodic social and economic upheavals have always generated that kind of media attention, something along the lines of "tarnish on the Golden State." But the current spate has an even edgier tone,...

Talk radio had a field day yesterday with Lawrence Schools Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy, the one who took the required English proficiency test not once, twice, three times - but four times - before he passed. The latest: In a broadcast interview about new high school uniforms, heavily accented Laboy, whose first language is Spanish, said he “axed” the students about them. He meant to say, “asked.” Now there are two ways you can look at this. No. 1: It goes to show how nutty we’ve grown around here. Why would anyone hire a superintendent of schools with such troubles with...

Synopsis: Designating specified firearms as assault weapons; prohibiting with specified exceptions a person from transporting an assault weapon into the State or possessing, selling, offering to sell, transferring, or receiving an assault weapon; requiring the Handgun Roster Board to compile and maintain a roster of prohibited assault weapons; etc. Senate Bill 43 is a pdf file: http://mlis.state.md.us/2007RS/bills/sb/sb0043f.pdf

No young person who has ever followed politics with the ferocity of a sports fan, no citizen who has been an idealist for at least a few hours, hasn't daydreamed about a third party or independent candidate – a third party winner, actually. At some point everyone with a civic soul, no matter what their ideological flavor, has yearned for an independent spirit to break through the homogenized, cuisinarted horse manure that is modern American politics. Yet we are stuck with the same two parties, ad nauseam. It's like a world where there are two baseball teams, the Yankees and...

Instant runoff voting (IRV) is a voting reform that asks the voter to rank the candidates in order of preference. It is simple, common-sense reform that will greatly improve our democratic process. IRV has many benefits including giving voters a wider range of choices, eliminating the spoiler factor with third-party candidates, saving taxpayer money, and decreasing negative campaigning. We need to continue educating more Americans about this simple, practical reform. Click the links above to learn more about IRV and what you can do to help. Now is the time to implement IRV across the country!

May 01, 06 fairfieldcountybusinessjournal.com Dems choose high taxes while working families struggle http://www.fairfieldcountybusinessjournal.com/archive/050106/0501060019.php DebraLee Hovey For all their high-minded rhetoric about supporting middle-class and working families in Connecticut, when helping them involves easing their tax burden, the liberal Democratic majority in the General Assembly almost always come down on the side of higher taxes. Their reflexive opposition to cutting taxes was on display for all to see recently when they killed a Republican measure that would have lowered electricity bills for most ratepayers. Their timing could not have been worse. In addition to shouldering one of the highest overall tax...