Free Republic

FULL TITLE: Senator who authored California’s ‘sanctuary state’ bill sends condolences to family of slain officer As Twitchy reported earlier, Cameron Gray posted a must-read thread about the number of House members from California who took to social media to demand answers about the deaths of two children in Border Patrol custody but never thought to tweet about Cpl. Ronil Singh, who was shot and killed by an illegal immigrant. Well, there was one tweet and another retweet at least. President pro tempore of the California State Senate Kevin de León, probably better known to out-of-staters as the Democrat who...

Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has selected corrupt former DOJ career embed, Douglas N Letter, as Chief Legal Counsel for the House of Representatives. Mr. Letter has agreed to come out of retirement to aid the House effort, and structure legal pathway to impeach President Trump.

An illegal immigrant is responsible for the death of police Newman Cpl. Ronil Singh in the state of California. Singh stopped the suspect Wednesday morning for a DUI, before the two engaged in a gunfight. Singh died trying to defend himself. He was just 33 years old and leaves behind a wife and 5-month-old son. The suspect had been on the run until authorities captured him just this afternoon.Keep that context in mind as you read this tweet that was recently sent out from Rep. Ted Lieu's Twitter account. In it, he complains about President Trump's new threat to shutdown...

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein penned a letter on Thursday urging the chamber's Judiciary committee to schedule a hearing about Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and its “treatment of immigrant children.” The letter was addressed to incoming Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and said the request came “in light of the deaths of two young children in Border Patrol custody this month.” An 8-year-old boy from Guatemala, who was identified by the country’s consul in Phoenix as Felipe Gomez Alonzo, died on Tuesday while in U.S. custody, immigrations officials previously said. Customs and Border Protection revealed that the boy died...

"Confidentiality protections extend to the ordinary taxpayer and the President alike," the D.C. Circuit said in a ruling Tuesday that upheld the dismissal of a suit seeking Trump's tax records. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday upheld a ruling dismissing an attempt to overcome IRS privacy rules to acquire President Donald Trump’s tax returns through a public-records lawsuit. The Electronic Privacy Information Center attempted to use a Freedom of Information Act request to get the president’s tax returns, which he has withheld citing a pending Internal Revenue Service audit. Legal experts contend nothing prohibits the...

(CBSLA/AP) — Thousands of teachers who may go on strike against the nation’s second-largest school district next month marched and rallied in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday. United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) union estimates 50,000 were there. The crowd had relief from overcrowding at the top of their wish list. **SNIP** UTLA teachers and supporters wore red for unity. They are seeing red over LAUSD’s reluctance to part with more green. “I want to see investment in the schools and in the kids,” said LAUSD parent Carmen Montecito. UTLA says if LAUSD would just tap in to its almost $2...

The other three suspects — Andrew Garcia, Alejandra Guerrero and Jonathan Del Carmen — have all been convicted in the deadly attack... According to prosecutors, 24-year-old USC engineering student Xinran Ji was walking home from a study group around 1 a.m. on July 24, 2014 when he was attacked by four assailants, including Ochoa. They beat Ji with a metal baseball bat and wrench in a robbery attempt gone awry, according to prosecutors, leaving the 24-year-old to escape to his apartment near campus. Ochoa is accused of hitting the victim with a bat and then running away... Ji left behind...

Everybody knows San Francisco is the city with glittering streets — well, glittering because of all the puddles of shattered glass from car break-ins. But there’s another pervasive property crime here that doesn’t get as much attention because there’s no evidence left behind. It’s called “porch piracy,” and it’s the swiping of packages off people’s front steps. All that’s left is an empty doorstep and the resident’s frustration.

According to a press release sent out by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, nine individuals have been charged "with a dozen felony counts for allegedly offering money and cigarettes to homeless people on Skid Row in exchange for false and forged signatures on ballot petitions and voter registration forms." "The defendants are accused of engaging in the solicitation of hundreds of false and/or forged signatures on state ballot petitions and voter registration forms by allegedly offering homeless people $1 and/or cigarettes for their participation, prosecutors said. The alleged offenses occurred during the 2016 and 2018 election cycles," the release...

It's no secret that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) is facing a challenging bid for her former post as Speak of the House. The icing on the cake though? She thinks that it's time for her Democratic colleagues to come together and unite over her potential speakership.On Friday, Pelosi sent a letter to her Democratic colleagues, urging them to "support the nominee of our Caucus for Speaker on the Floor of the House." The Democratic Party's rules require members to vote for whoever the nominee is.Here's a copy of the letter (emphasis mine): November 23, 2018Dear Democratic Colleague and...

Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, both members of the Judiciary Committee, called on the White House Monday to make a deal to fill court vacancies. ~snip~ They offered accepting Judge James Rogan, a Trump pick, as long as their choice — Judge Lucy Koh — is also confirmed. They also proposed that each party select a nominee from the other’s list to confirm.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has done what we all knew she was going to do if the Democrats retook the House: mount a bid for speaker (again). It’s a slam-dunk, right? Well, she isn’t exactly the real face of the party. Moreover, she’s incredibly unpopular, a figure that jacks up the GOP base (and fills its campaign coffers), and a whole host of new Democrats don’t support her bid in the leadership. The question is whether the new class sticks to their word. Pelosi did raise money for them, despite their explicit opposition to her reassuming the House speakership. In all...

This is not good news for Christine Blasey Ford. After raking in a million dollars in donations from a GoFundMe campaign, and as she shops offers for a book detailing allegations of an assault she can not remember, things just got worse for her. On Saturday Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released the committee’s report on her allegations and what did it find? There is “no evidence to support the allegations.”

Nancy Pelosi made headlines last week stating that if Democrats reclaim the House of Representatives, a top agenda item will be to pass laws banning disagreement on LGBT issues. Of course those aren’t the exact words she used, but when “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” are elevated to protected classes in anti-discrimination law, that’s the effect that the government policy has.

The Bay Area's "cruel and inhuman" conditions for homeless residents violate a number of human rights, according to a reportwritten by United Nations Special Rapporteur Leilani Farha. Farha revealed her findings before the UN General Assembly two weeks ago, after previously reporting that homeless residents in San Francisco and Oakland had been denied "access to water, sanitation and health services, and other basic necessities." In January, she went on a fact-finding mission to assess the state of the Bay Area's homeless encampments, which are teeming with trash, feces, and discarded needles. In Oakland, Farha witnessed rats digging through the mud and families camped outside...

Midnight blue California is often cited as an indicator of national trends. If this is still the case, then the big blue wave predicted by some pollsters and progressive pundits will become a big blue drip. Early voting in the Golden State is trending bright red. Election Day is around the corner and Californians have been voting for three weeks. Given the data on who has voted so far, it does not point to a big surge for Democrats. There are scores of first time candidates running for office but actual voter turnout in California so far has been average...

The closing campaign strategy of President Donald Trump and Republicans is often depicted as mainly an effort to galvanize the GOP's blue-collar white base through fear-mongering about immigrants and incitement of racial-cultural tensions around imagery of angry Democratic mobs and protesting African American athletes. But there's a second piece to the strategy that's also crucial: Trump and Republicans want college-educated white voters, particularly suburban women, to ignore all that unpleasant racial and cultural demagoguery entirely - and focus only on the economy. It is widely observed that Democrats are favored to take back the House because of a backlash against...

With the midterm elections just days away, there’s little indication that California is seeing a “blue wave” of Democratic votes, at least in the early returns of vote-by-mail ballots — and in some key races that will help determine control of the House, Republican voter response has been strong. There are still a lot more ballots to come in, cautioned Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., which supplies voter information to a variety of political campaigns. But so far, according to a mail ballot tracker he runs, Republican votes are keeping pace with the number of Democratic ballots....

A watchdog group filed a Senate ethics complaint Monday against Sens. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren for sending out fundraising emails asking for donations to support their votes against Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh — even before they cast their votes against him. While voting and then asking supporters to back that decision with cash is common, the watchdog group, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), says asking for money ahead of time crosses the line into vote-buying.

.........When it comes to the generic-ballot results, however, location matters. Where Democrats dominate, their lead is understandably massive — 30 points, in fact. But in the battleground districts where Democrats expect to pick up seats, that lead evaporates, turning into a five point lead for Republicans, 49/44: Democratic candidates are preferred by a 30 point margin (60% to 30%) in Democratic-held districts, while Republican candidates are preferred by a 15 point margin (55% to 40%) in Republican-held districts. In the 11 California districts deemed competitive by the Cook Political Report, likely voters are divided (49% Republican candidate, 44% Democratic candidate)....