Free Republic

Should California tell farmers throughout the country how to run their farms? Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, says no. "It's exactly what our founding fathers wanted to avoid," King said. But the rural-state lawmaker is concerned over California's strict laws on egg producers and other farmers as a result of Proposition 2, a ballot initiative passed by voters in 2008. The law requires egg producers to increase their cage size to more than 200 square inches, more than triple the industry recommendation. As a result, farmers from other states must comply with California hen cage standards if they wish to sell...

DENVER– Senate President John Morse issued a national plea for help to out-of-state supporters from Boston to San Francisco as Colorado Democrats went on the offensive Tuesday to save him from a recall vote. A spokeswoman for A Whole Lot of People for John Morse announced Tuesday that a protest had been filed to nullify the recall petitions within hours after the Colorado Secretary of State’s office declared that the petitions were sufficient to force a recall election. Meanwhile, Morse urged out-of-state supporters to help him keep his Colorado Springs legislative seat by donating their money and time. “[A]ny help...

A San Bernardino homeowner alerted to an intruder by his daughter shot and wounded the burglar after he tried to attack the homeowner late Saturday, June 15, police say. Leonard Guerra, 35, of San Bernardino, was arrested for investigation of burglary and false imprisonment and booked at a hospital jail ward, where he was listed in critical but stable condition, Sgt. Travis Walker said in a written statement. The home in the 2200 block of West Mill Street was being renovated. Shortly before 11:30 p.m., Guerra broke into the residence, police said. “When a female family member who lives in...

BANNING {Californai} (CBSLA.com) —Authorities have installed a dozen surveillance cameras in Banning to watch its residents. Banning Police Chief Leonard Purvis said the cameras are a way for officers to keep an eye on the city without having as many patrols on the ground. “We definitely don’t want anybody to feel that we’re trying to be Big Brother, we just want to be able to provide an extra presence,” he said. While the cameras aren’t manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the video is stored for 30 days. “They’re not going to know when we’re watching and...

Journalist Michael Hastings, whose blunt Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal led to the resignation of the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, died Tuesday in a car crash in Los Angeles, according to the magazine and a website for which he worked. Officials with the Los Angeles County coroner's office could not immediately confirm if the 33-year-old Hastings was the person who died around 4:25 a.m. when a car smashed into a tree and caught fire on Highland Avenue near Melrose Avenue in the Hancock Park area

Aetna Inc. said it would stop selling individual health insurance policies in California next month, and nearly 50,000 existing policyholders will have to find new coverage by January. The company's announcement Monday comes a month after it opted not to participate in California's new state-run insurance market for consumers, a key component of the new federal healthcare law. Aetna was a distant fourth in the state's individual health market with a 5.2% market share in 2011, according to Citigroup data. Anthem Blue Cross, Kaiser Permanente and Blue Shield of California dominate that business with a collective 87% market share in...

Tesla Motors said Thursday it would demonstrate a way to quickly recharge electric cars by swapping drained batteries for fresh power cells. Tesla chief executive and founder Elon Musk used popular the messaging service Twitter to put out word that a "live pack swap demo" was taking place at the company's design studio in the Southern California city of Hawthorne. Video from the event was to be posted on the Tesla website about 0430 GMT on Friday, according to Musk. Making it fast and easy to restore full power to electric car batteries is seen as a big step in...

Exactly six months after 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., a small group from Organizing for Action stood here Friday with 26 flags and signs calling for stricter gun control. [Snip] The protest drew three members of Organizing for Action, a nonprofit group that supports President Barack Obama's agenda, to the National Orange Show Events Center. "It's three people today, but it will be 23 next time, and we'll see the time after that," Lewis said.

California is so broke… It could be the setup to any number of outrageous punch lines, but few jokes could top the reality in one Golden State town. Antioch police are apparently experiencing a staff shortage so severe that public servants of all stripes are being drafted to help enforce law and order. An ongoing program known as “We’re Looking Out for You” provides training to local mail carriers and trash collectors in the hopes they will be able to spot crime being missed by genuine authority figures. The city of more than 100,000 currently deploys as few as five...

In 2014, Obamacare’s blizzard of regulations and mandates will transform the U.S. market for health insurance, among people who buy coverage for themselves. Of increasing concern is the phenomenon of “rate shock,” whereby many Americans face substantial increases in their health insurance premiums. Much of the debate has focused on young men, the “bros” who will bear the brunt of Obamacare’s rate hikes. But in California, women and men will see equally high jumps in the underlying cost of individual-market premium

There's dumb and then there's really dumb. The executive of Sacramento County in California recently attributed the increase in his county’s pension costs to “investment losses during the recession.” The official, Brad Hudson, is right that public pension costs are growing, but not that investment losses are to blame. To the contrary, these expenses are rising despite gains in pension-fund investments. Oh really? The article goes on to say that the Dow is up 15% from December 31st 2007 to June 3rd of this year. True. But annualized this is less than a 3% rate of return, while the pension...

"It's a chain reaction – when people listen to music, they ask for alcohol, which will lead to adultery." Yep. Happens every time. "Music has magic, it gets in your blood and makes you want to get up and dance and forget your personality. Your butt is shaking and she's going to get up and her butt is going to shake – where is the religion then?" Where indeed? That's why Muhammad -- and Lenin -- hated music. Anyway, this Muslim music festival is going to go on, even though the imams are against music. But what is striking is...

ModMark wrote: One of the coal plants shut down in Chicago was built ~90 years ago. While upgraded in the 1950's. it still did not meet EPA standards before Obama was elected. These plants were grandfather in when the clean air act was past. These ancient relics should have been converted to natural gas long ago.Do you really want to live next to one of these ancient plants? –in response to Obama Promise Kept: Coal Plants to go Bankrupt with New EPA Carbon Cap Dear Comrade Mark, The building was built 90 years ago, but the actual power plant generating electricity is considerably...

The current controversy involving the Internal Revenue Service merely scratches the surface of the problems with that agency and exposes some of the effects that these problems have on the American people. I have personal experience to support this assertion. In 1996, I was the co-founder of a nonprofit organization – the American Civil Rights Institute – whose mission is to eliminate the consideration of race and ethnicity in public education, public employment and public contracting. Given the sensitivity of race in America, I am well aware that this objective places our organization and me personally at the center of...

Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Calif., believes that if her Assembly Bill 926 passes, researchers will be able to pay egg donors as they develop medical advances that can help all women. To her, the bill is an issue of simple fairness -- gender equity, really. Since a well-intended 2006 bill banned researchers from paying egg donors more than expense reimbursement, researchers have been at a competitive disadvantage, while affluent couples can offer fertile women top dollar. UCSF Professor Marcelle Cedars lamented at a hearing of the state Senate Health Committee on Wednesday that the status quo robs potential egg donors of...

As the state Senate finished voting Saturday on a bill to extend a tax on managed care plans, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told reporters at the back of the room, "That is what's called a supermajority." Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign the spending plan before the next fiscal year begins July 1.

The Legislature passed a major piece of the federal Affordable Care Act on Saturday, opting to expand Medicaid to 1.4 million low-income Californians, as it rushed to meet its deadline to complete a state budget. The action came a day after lawmakers passed the main budget bill outlining a $96.3 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that starts in July. … “We don’t know for certain that this will contain the costs; that’s certainly the goal. But … we also make sure that health care is not considered a privilege of the fortunate few but as a basic human...

Jenny Price believes everyone should have access to the public beaches in Malibu Traditionally it has been hard for people to access the beaches because access is blocked by homes of the rich and famousShe has created an app which tells ordinary people which bogus 'No Trespassing' to ignoreBeachfront homeowners in the exclusive L.A. neighborhood of Malibu are up in arms about a new smartphone app which provides anyone using it with evaluable information about how to get to the area’s hard to reach public beaches. Environmental writer Jenny Price passionately believes that everyone deserves access to the area's public...

Sen. Barbara Boxer is planning an amendment to the Senate's immigration bill which would redirect funds committed to border security to reimburse state and local governments providing health care to newly legalized immigrants. Boxer plans to take $250 million, and likely much more, out of border security and use it to underwrite uninsured immigrants health care costs.

Aetna Inc said on Saturday it has notified California's insurance regulator that it plans to stop selling health policies to individual consumers in the state at the end of 2013. -snip- But people with individual health coverage with Aetna will have to find alternative coverage by year's end. -snip- The move comes as California, the country's most populous state, prepares for the fall launch of a state health exchange authorized by President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.

AN DIEGO-A group rallied in downtown San Diego tonight voicing their concerns over immigration and deportation. The San Diego Dream Team organized the event that attracted about 50 people. The group started downtown outside The Immigration and Customs Enforcement office and then walked to the federal courthouse holding candles and chanting. “We should not be deporting mothers and fathers,” said Liz Arizona. ”I would like to see an end to deportation.” Members of the group stood up and told their stories. Each one somehow dealing with the immigration issue and hoping for change. Karen Guzman’s father was deported five years...

Aetna Inc (AET.N) said on Saturday it has notified California's insurance regulator that it plans to stop selling health policies to individual consumers in the state at the end of 2013. The company will continue to offer health insurance to employers and Medicare beneficiaries in California, as well as dental and life-insurance products, Aetna spokeswoman Anjie Coplin told Reuters. But people with individual health coverage with Aetna will have to find alternative coverage by year's end.Aetna had informed California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones of its decision to exit the market, Coplin said, but it was still in the process of...

That's the allegation contained in a class action lawsuit, and it was reported by no less than the New York Times in 2007.  Business Insider noted this and other troubling information on the possible magnitude of NSA spying on Americans. Over the weekend James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times - who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for this story on the NSA gaining the cooperation of U.S. telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to customer data - mentioned a detail from 2007 (emphasis ours):In Virginia, a telecommunications consultant reported, Verizon had set up a dedicated fiber-optic line running from New Jersey to...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who helped draft the immigration reform bill currently being discussed in the Senate, says he will walk away from the negotiations if it includes a controversial amendment to provide immigration benefits for gay couples. "If this bill has in it something that gives gay couples immigration rights and so forth, it kills the bill. I'm done," said Rubio during an interview on the Andrea Tantaros Show on Thursday. "I'm off it, and I've said that repeatedly. I don't think that's going to happen and it shouldn't happen. This is already a difficult enough issue as it...

Hollywood is planning to bring movies centring on the story of data-snooping whistleblower Edward Snowden and the equally controversial US drones programme to the big screen, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Few details are available about either project, but the drones movie appears to be further along the road to a potential release. Production company Lakeshore Entertainment has picked up an untitled screenplay for an "action thriller with military elements" from writer Spenser Cohen, a recent University of Southern California graduate who last year sold a screenplay for upcoming true-life Somali pirate drama High Target Value. Hollywood agency WME is...

SAN DIEGO — An Army doctor who was sexually abused as a teenager by a scoutmaster in San Diego County sued the Boy Scouts of America Wednesday, alleging negligence. In the suit, filed in Superior Court in Vista, Army Maj. Drew Belnap said he was plied with alcohol, then sexually assaulted by Scoutmaster John Atwood in 1991 while Belnap was attending Schoepe Scout Reservation at Lost Valley in Warner Springs. The camp is operated by the Orange County Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Belnap was 15 when he met Atwood in 1989.

George Lucas echoed Spielberg's sentiments at an event touting the opening of a new USC School of Cinematic Arts building, saying big changes are in store. Steven Spielberg on Wednesday predicted an "implosion" in the film industry is inevitable, whereby a half dozen or so $250 million movies flop at the box office and alter the industry forever. What comes next -- or even before then -- will be price variances at movie theaters, where "you're gonna have to pay $25 for the next Iron Man, you're probably only going to have to pay $7 to see Lincoln." He also...

RIVERSIDE COUNTY: Democratic chairman apologizes for comment The chairman of the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee is apologizing for making a reference to Vaudeville-era character “Stepin Fetchit,” who some consider racially insensitive. Howard Katz made the statement during a gathering of central committee membership in Moreno Valley on Monday, June 10. “It was a stupid statement,” said Katz, a retired IBM manager who lives in Temecula, during a phone interview Thursday morning. The incident has promoted calls for Katz’s resignation, but Basil Kimbrew, chairman of the California Friends of the African American Caucus, said that as far as he’s concerned...

The Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is pressuring public schools in this country to make special accommodations for Muslim students and to deny comparable accommodations for students of other faiths. For example, CAIR’s instructional material for teachers entitled “An Educator’s Guide to Islamic Religious Practices” advises schools to permit Muslim students who wish to attend Friday congregational worship (known as Jum’ah) to “request a temporary release from school.” In Michigan, CAIR went beyond dispensing general advice from its guidebook. In April, 2013, it pushed for public schools in Dearborn, Michigan to accommodate Muslim students who wish to comfortably...

A UC Berkeley senior who is a venomous supporter of the jihad against Israel and member of several Islamic supremacist groups with links to jihad terror has been nominated to become the University of California student regent for the 2014-15 academic year.

The Energy Department helped a struggling government-backed clean coal power plant in California secure a new owner in a donor to President Barack Obama and agreed to revised terms that raised the risk of taxpayer losses, government investigators have found. The Department's Office of Inspector General said that officials helped keep Hydrogen Energy California afloat after its initial backers moved to terminate their DOE contract in the face of fading commercial prospects. The project was acquired by Massachusetts-based SCS Energy, headed by Democratic donor James Croyle, in 2011. He gave $2,300 to President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign and $31,400 to...

As the North American natural gas boom continues, state legislators across the country have targeted hydraulic fracturing for new regulations, proposing a range of 50 bills involving bans, moratoriums and increased disclosure requirements, according to a new Colorado State University study. Much of the new legislation tries to address issues such as water use, air and water quality monitoring and fluids disclosure, as many non-industrial communities grapple with the impacts of hydraulic fracturing and the changes it brings. For example, Illinois passed new rules in May requiring drillers to publicly disclose the chemicals they use, and on water testing. And...

When Jan Cooper purchased her .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver 20 years ago she never expected she’d be using it to defend her husband and her home. Cooper, a 72 year-old grandmother living in Anaheim heard the sounds of her Rottweiler barking outside around 12:30 AM on Sunday morning. Outside she saw the silhouette of a man walking towards her home. Cooper immediately called 911 and can be heard during the call pleading for dispatch to send officers. Undeterred by the dog, the invader–later identified as 31 year-old Brandon Alexander Perez, came onto the Cooper’s back porch and attempted...

Schools in the state of California will soon be required to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their preference. A bill being discussed in the state senate would mandate that schools have bathrooms and locker rooms that are fully equipped for transgender students, as well as requiring the schools to allow transgender students to take part in sports and other activities of the gender of their choosing. Assembly Bill 1266 is aimed at prohibiting “discrimination against transgender students” in the state’s school districts, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), the bill’s sponsor, told The Christian Post....

ANAHEIM (CBSLA.com) — A 72-year-old woman fired a gun at a would-be home invasion robber over the weekend in an unincorporated area of Anaheim. Jan Cooper said she was home with her 86-year-old husband, a decorated World War II veteran, in the 10000 block of Gilbert Street around 12:30 a.m. Sunday when she heard an intruder at her front door. The suspect, however, couldn’t get through the locked door, so he attempted to enter through a sliding glass door at the back of the home. The grandmother, while on the phone with a 911 dispatcher, said that’s when she warned...

I somehow managed to completely miss this from a couple of weeks back, but it’s an especially interesting and kind of epic piece of news from a state that’s home to some of the largest, most cultishly do-or-die green interests in the country and a legislature currently dominated by a liberal supermajority. When I first caught wind of the fact that Californians were getting ready to introduce a proposal to ban fracking, I suspected that they would definitely have a fighting chance of getting the thing passed — but it turns out that enough of California’s legislators are at least...

Strobridge Elementary School in Hayward, Calif., held a toy-gun exchange program over the weekend, according to a report from CBS-5 San Francisco. Inspired by gun buy-back programs that focus on getting weapons off the streets, Principal Charles Hill felt a similar program for toys made a lot of sense. "Playing with toys guns, saying 'I'm going to shoot you,' desensitizes them," said Hill, "so, as they get older, it's easier for them to use a real gun." Students who participated were given books in exchange for their toy guns. They were also enrolled in a raffle to win a bike,...

<p>Today, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu is introducing a proposed ballot measure for family-friendly workplace rules.</p> <p>Chiu’s legislation, modeled on similar measures in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, would grant employees who are parents or caregivers a “right to request” a flexible work schedule, like telecommuting, job sharing, working part time or adjusting their start time.</p>

Elementary School Beginning Toy Gun Turn-In Program by William Bigelow 10 Jun 2013 Strobridge Elementary Principal Charles Hill has a brilliant idea: he’s holding a toy gun exchange next Saturday in which students of the Hayward, CA school can turn in a toy gun to receive a book and a raffle ticket to win one of four bicycles. Really. Hill believes that children who play with toy guns may not think real guns are dangerous. “Playing with toy guns, saying ‘I’m going to shoot you,’ desensitizes them, so as they get older, it’s easier for them to use a real...

Last week, I spent some time traveling through a state that in recent years has become too much of a foreign territory for Republicans: California. The last Republican presidential nominee to win California was George H.W. Bush in 1988, and statewide gubernatorial and Senate candidates haven’t done as well. I think Republicans will not be a successful national party again until we can compete everywhere, every time, for every vote — coast to coast. I began my trip to California by speaking to technology companies and executives in Silicon Valley. I met with Facebook, eBay, Google and smaller companies. What...

RESEDA (CBSLA.com) — A San Fernando Valley high school has been vandalized with hate messages, including threats to President Barack Obama, authorities announced Monday.

This is now San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr's third year on the job, so the chief is not new. He is still, however, taking a new approach to policing, or at least how policing is perceived by the public. He is very, very sensitive to how his department's work is perceived by the public, and takes initiative to engage the media (he even calls reporters personally, which is definitely new). So it's not surprising that he took initiative to dispute the American Civil Liberties Union's report released Tuesday that noted black people are hauled off to jail more than...

The Supreme Court is giving California raisin producers a new day in court to object to a government program that aims to stabilize prices by regulating the market. … The farmers say the program unfairly prevents them from selling their entire crop when the government determines that there otherwise would be a glut of raisins that would drive prices down. They say the program unconstitutionally takes their private property without compensation. …

June 10, 2013 ‘Impeach Obama’ Protest Causes Giant Southern California Traffic Jam Timothy Whiteman A TEA Party sponsored “Impeach Obama” demonstration on a major Southern California freeway overpass caused traffic to backup at least ten miles, as the organizer apologized for “any small inconvenience” drivers may have dealt with, as reported by the San Diego-based local news portal the Carlsbad Patch on June 9, 2013. Flying a number of American flag as well as the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party-adopted Gadsen flag, protesters flashed to motorists on the Interstate 5 southbound lanes in Carlsbad, California placards stating “Remember Benghazi,” “Obama...

I just don't understand how John Zawahari could have allegedly shot and killed all those people at Santa Monica College last Friday. After all, not only is murder against the law, the city of Santa Monica has strict gun control laws as does the state of California. And also, according to its website, Santa Monica College is a gun free school. Here's what it says in the website: ______________________________________ Weapons Prohibition on Campus Possessions of firearms or replicas, ammunition, explosives, knives/blades longer than 21/2 inches, other weapons, or fireworks are against the law in the College community or at College...

Perhaps you, like me, assumed that the City of San Francisco, California would avoid any governmental sponsorship of a particular religion, and would never house a place of worship of a specific religion on its own property. And if such government sponsorship ever came to light, you would be certain that the ACLU and the atheist activists would raise their voices in protest. But not when it comes to Islam. The San Francisco Chronicle's investigative duo Matier and Ross tell us: Muslim cabbies now have their very own place at San Francisco International Airport to wash their hands and feet...

An elementary school in Hayward, Calif. will sponsor a toy gun trade-in, encouraging kids to swap their harmless toy weapons for a chance to win a new bicycle. The purpose of the trade-in is to stop children from playing with toy guns, which may make them more likely to commit violence with real guns, said Strobridge Elementary principal Chris Hill. “Playing with toys guns, saying ‘I’m going to shoot you,’ desensitizes them, so as they get older, it’s easier for them to use a real gun,” Hill said in a statement to Mercury News. The trade-in will take place on...

Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on Sunday had harsh words for the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald revealing last week that the National Security Agency is looking at phone records of virtually all Americans. Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Rogers said, “I know your reporter that you interviewed, Greenwald, says that he’s got it all and now is an expert on the program. He doesn't have a clue how this thing works” (video follows with transcript): Congressman Rogers on NSA Phone Surveillance: ‘Greenwald Doesn’t Have a Clue How This Thing Works’ GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, we're just about...

BART's top-paid worker of 2012 never worked a day With a gross salary of more than $333,000, BART's highest-paid employee last year wasn't its general manager, police chief or a worker who racked up gobs of overtime scrubbing grime from filthy train seats. It was someone who did no work at all for BART in 2012: Dorothy Dugger, the agency's former general manager who resigned under pressure more than two years ago. Under a lucrative retirement scheme, Dugger, 57, quietly stayed on the books, burning off nearly 80 weeks of unused vacation time, drawing paychecks and full benefits for more...