Free Republic

Abigail Spanberger ran for governor of Virginia as a sane, middle-of-the-road Democrat, but once elected immediately went communist crazy. Among her rapidly developing acts of comradely solidarity is an “assault weapon” and magazine capacity ban. There is, of course, no such thing in firearm nomenclature as an “assault weapon.” There are military assault rifles, which fire intermediate cartridges and have select fire—automatic—capability, but such rifles are essentially banned by federal law. What Spanberger is targeting is America’s most popular rifle, the semiautomatic AR-15 and anything like it. The bill also bans magazines of greater than 15 round capacity, which encompasses...

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — Lawmakers in Connecticut met Wednesday for a public hearing on a bill to ban Glock pistols because of how easy they are to convert from semi-automatic to fully automatic.The Hartford Police Department said it has seized dozens of Glocks that have been converted to fully automatic through the use of a relatively inexpensive modification known as a “switch.”

Katelin Holloway and Ben Ramirez thought they had found their forever home when they purchased a spacious North Beach property for $4.75 million in 2021 — a four-story residence with five bedrooms, sweeping skyline views and room for their growing family. Instead, the couple is now facing the possibility that the house must be carved back into four separate apartments after city officials determined the building was improperly converted from a multi-unit property years before they bought it, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. SNIP According to city officials and tenant advocates, the building had previously been altered from a...

Gov. Hochul has spent much of her 4 ¹/₂ years in office facing a time bomb left by her predecessor: drastic, legally binding greenhouse gas reduction targets that the state has no practical means of meeting. The 2019 Climate Act requires New York to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about one-quarter from that year’s levels by 2030. The state has made little progress toward this goal, in part because officials shuttered New York’s largest nuclear power plant in 2021. The law remains on the books, and its defenders balk at revision. If Hochul can’t persuade them to change it, Albany’s...

The Colorado legislature is moving quickly to pass bills that would prevent people from making their own firearms without government permission. Two bills appear likely to become law. The two bills are expected to be signed by Governor Jared Polis. House Bill 1144 has passed the House 40 – 25 on a party-line vote and was introduced in the Senate yesterday. Senate Bill 43 passed the Senate 19-16, with four Democratic senators joining 12 Republican senators to vote against it. House Bill 1144 prohibits the manufacture of firearms by “3D printing”, except for people licensed by the government:Knowingly manufacturing or...

For a few years now, it has been blindingly obvious that New York had over-promised and over-committed on impossible “climate” goals that could not be achieved. In various posts I have referred to this as an approaching “cliff,” or perhaps as the “green energy wall.” It has been entertaining to ponder what the final disaster might look like. This week has had a lot of developments. Most interesting is the growing split among the governing Democrats between, on the one hand, those who see disaster coming and are looking for some kind of graceful exit and, on the other hand,...

As gas prices continue climbing in California — already the highest in the nation — residents are increasingly venting their frustration at Gov. Gavin Newsom, accusing him and Sacramento of piling on policies and “taxing us to death.” The backlash centers on draft regulations tied to the state’s Cap-and-Invest program, overseen by the California Air Resources Board, which sets a statewide cap on greenhouse gas emissions and requires major polluters to purchase allowances for each ton of carbon they emit. Critics say tightening those caps — strongly backed by Newsom — could further drive up the cost of gasoline and...

Many Black, middle-class NYC property owners say they’d be among the biggest victims of the Democratic Socialists of America’s proposed tax hikes. Some told The Post the DSA’s Marxist measures — which include higher taxes for individuals making over $300,000, and taxing inheritances over $250,000 — would hurt New Yorkers like themselves who spent decades building up retirement accounts, paying off homes, and planning their estates to benefit their loved ones. “The reason you invest is to acquire wealth with the hopes of putting it towards your legacy, for your family — and this will greatly affect my family,” said...

Shocking surveillance video captured a brazen daylight stabbing in San Francisco’s Chinatown on Thursday — showing a hooded man casually walking up behind an apparent stranger before plunging a knife into his back.

Last night, San Francisco’s mayor, Daniel Lurie, was attacked by two men while being driven through the Tenderloin district. According to a report from an ABC News outlet, the confrontation arose after a group of people blocked the SUV that Lurie was being driven in; at one point Lurie himself exited the vehicle to engage the individuals on the street, but quickly scuttled back behind the safety of his security detail when the confrontation turned physical. Classic.AdvertisementClearly the men were bums, based on the handcuffed man’s appearance:San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie attacked while being driven through the Tenderloin. This post...

The SWAT response and shelter-in-place order in Lake in the Hills Thursday morning was due to a search warrant on a 20-year-old man allegedly possessing 38 rounds of pistol and rifle ammunition without a FOID card. Joel Fernandez, 20, was arrested without incident at his residence in the 1400 block of Clayton Marsh Drive in Lake in the Hills and was charged with four counts of possessing ammunition without a valid Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card, a Class A misdemeanor. At around 9:50 a.m. Thursday, the Lake in the Hills Police Department – assisted by the Carpentersville Police Department and...

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pals in the state Legislature are pushing a bill to give him the power to slap a 25% tax liability “surcharge” on Big Apple corporations. The democratic socialist mayor and his liberal followers have been on an ideological crusade to hike taxes on the wealthy and corporations to pay for their freebie-filled promises made during the 2025 campaign. “This legislation would authorize New York City to charge a surcharge on corporate taxes, allowing the city to increase its corporate taxes should the mayor and City Council deem this necessary and appropriate,” said Assemblywoman Diana Moreno and Sen....

A powerful San Francisco group is unleashing $10 million this year to kill taxes that they say will destroy the city’s fragile economic recovery — and potentially increase the price of food and goods for already cash-strapped residents. Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, a moderate advocacy group, plans to beat back a wave of lefty initiatives and candidates this year that they say will derail years of progress in liberal San Francisco, according to its director Jay Cheng. One of the group’s main targets is a so-called “CEO tax” — a June ballot measure backed by progressives and labor...

S’no thank you. The Mamdani administration failed for hours to attract any emergency shovelers at one Queens garage Sunday — while planning to try to dig out New Yorkers with a fourth of the force the city used for its last mega-storm. Despite Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s widespread attempted promotion of the city’s public-fueled emergency shoveling program, a sign-up sheet at the Maspeth Sanitation garages was empty, city workers told The Post during a visit late Sunday morning. “I haven’t seen anybody sign up yet today. No, no one,” the employee said. There were also no signs of shovelers lining up...

One of the first tasks that a new Mayor has in New York City after taking office is to present a budget. Given that an annual New York City budget is well north of $100 billion, you would think that this is a serious undertaking. But our new Mayor is the 34-year-old play-acting college socialist Zohran Mamdani. How does he handle the task? Mamdani kicked the process of with a press conference at City Hall on January 28. Here is a transcript and video of his remarks. Excerpt: I want to speak directly to New Yorkers, who have for too...

Somehow, they didn't foresee this happening when the billionaires fled the fleecing. Most of New York City's public employee unions endorsed Zohran Mamdani for mayor -- UFT teachers union, AFSCME, SEIU Local 1199 -- a lot of the big important ones. So it must have come as a surprise them that Mamdani's first target to finance his huge $120 billion budget is likely to come not from billionaires, as he claimed would happen, but from a raid on their pension funds, which by the way, cannot flee. Oh, what irony. Instead of going after the millionaires when the billionaires fled,...

As national Democrats search for a unifying theme ahead of the fall’s midterm elections, a California proposal to levy a hefty tax on billionaires is turning some of the party’s leading figures into adversaries just when Democrats can least afford division from within. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders traveled to Los Angeles on Wednesday to campaign for the tax proposal, which has Silicon Valley in an uproar, with tech titans threatening to leave the state. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is among its outspoken opponents, warning that it could leave government finances in crisis and put the state at a competitive disadvantage...

With Mamdani as Mayor residents are reporting hearing the “Islamic Call to Prayer” on the streets of Manhattan. Five times a day! Amy Mek added: My lord, America – the conquest we’ve warned about is exploding now. The Adhan isn’t a “beautiful call to prayer”; it’s a militant declaration: “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is greater than your gods, laws, freedoms), “There is no god but Allah” (all other faiths are false). Blared 5× daily from loudspeakers – 5 AM wake-ups included – it’s forced submission on non-Muslims, pure civilizational jihad straight from the Muslim Brotherhood playbook. THIS IS NOT NORMAL –...

California is increasingly importing gasoline through the Bahamas — a workaround to a 106-year-old US shipping law that forces domestic fuel shipments onto costly American vessels. More than 40% of the gasoline California imported in November was routed through the Caribbean hub, a record high which comes as drivers in the state are paying an average of $4.58 per gallon, the most in the country, according to Bloomberg News. Gasoline refined along the US Gulf Coast — primarily in Texas and Louisiana — is first shipped roughly 1,100 to 1,300 nautical miles to Freeport in the Bahamas, where it is...

New regulations will bar cardrooms from offering blackjack and other player-dealer games — a move opponents say will devastate the industry in California. Under one of the two new rules, cardrooms cannot offer blackjack, the world’s most popular casino card game. Players would no longer “bust” by exceeding 21 points, and cardrooms may not use the name “blackjack” or include the number 21.