Free Republic

A robot-powered burger joint is coming to San Francisco. In 2012, secretive robotics startup Momentum Machines debuted a machine that could crank out 400 made-to-order hamburgers in an hour. It's fully autonomous, meaning the robot can slice toppings, grill a patty, and assemble and bag the burger without any help from humans. The internet flipped out. Years of relative silence ensued, but in January, Hoodline's Brittany Hopkins learned that the San Francisco-based startup had applied for a building permit to convert a ground-floor retail space in the SoMa neighborhood into a restaurant. Now it looks like the restaurant is actually...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday signed six gun-control bills into law, including a requirement that ammunition purchasers undergo background checks. The governor vetoed five other measures. “My goal in signing these bills is to enhance public safety by tightening our existing laws in a responsible and focused manner, while protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners,” Brown wrote in a message. Brown approved bills that would ban the sale of semiautomatic rifles equipped with bullet buttons allowing the ammunition magazines to be easily detached and replaced. The National Rifle Assn. Institute for Legislative Action accused the governor of exploiting the...

Stacey Dash is definitely not impressed with Jesse Williams’ headline-making speech on racism and inequality at the BET Awards on Sunday. In a blog post on Wednesday, the 49-year-old always outspoken actress bashed Williams’ speech, calling the entire BET network racist. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: BET is keeping racism and segregation alive and this past Sunday’s awards show proves it,” Dash writes. “Particularly the speech given by Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams, whose tirade after receiving the 2016 BET Humanitarian Award for his black activism was nothing short of an attack on white people.”

The Star-Spangled Banner survived the rocket’s red glare and bombs bursting in air – only to face a modern-day threat – silly town ordinances and petty bureaucrats. I’m not sure if it’s an epidemic of anti-American nincompoopery sweeping across the fruited plain or if it’s a general lack of common sense. Maybe it’s both. I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Firestone Complete Auto Care centers in Riverside, San Bernardino and Upland are among 22 locations accused of fraud by the California Department of Consumer Affairs Bureau of Automotive Repair after an undercover sting operation. Undercover Consumer Affairs investigators who went into the three Inland auto care centers to purchase new tires on May 12, 2015, were billed for parts that were not replaced and services that were not rendered, according to a 64-page complaint against Bridgestone Americas, Firestone’s parent company.

You might remember that Andy Johnson, the rancher from Wyoming, just won his case this week against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That battle concerned their environmentally friendly stock pond on their private property. The EPA demanded that he remove the pond and threatened him with fines of $37,500 per day if he did not comply. The case was settled this week and the Johnson Family are happy. However… He is not the only citizen that the EPA has targeted. More cases are coming to light on the extreme overreach of this organization. Disabled Navy veteran Joseph Robertson, 77, of...

While I was visiting another member of the gun culture, I was shown a new acquisition, a Springfield XD in .45 caliber.  I was struck by the the warning label on the box “NOT LEGAL IN CALIFORNIA” and “W/HIGH CAPACITY MAGAZINE”.I object to the term “High Capacity Magazine”.  The magazines are not high capacity, they are standard capacity.  Magazines of ten rounds or less are reduced capacity. The idea that a Constitutionally protected item could be forbidden by state law reminded me of how topsy turvy the interpretation of the commerce clause of the Constitution has become.When the American...

People used to expect that attending something sponsored by religious organization required abiding by mores and behavior that religious body professes. There was a simple option for avoiding the ideas or practices of a belief system you don’t agree with: don’t frequent their space. This courteous expectation naturally applied to all religions and expressions of faith. California is now attempting to end this system of free association that allows people to define their local and religious cultures. California Senate Bill 1146 (SB 1146), which is slated for a vote Tuesday, seeks to limit the religious exemptions from federal Title IX...

Perhaps you’ve read or heard about the 29-year-old California driver, Stacey Sanchez, who was driving drunk, hit a pedestrian, and continued driving home with most of his body impaled in the front windshield. One of 69-year-old Jack Ray Tenhulzen’s severed legs was also sticking out the back window when Sanchez parked and went inside her home to sleep. If you read yesterday’s local media update to the horrific story, when Ms. Sanchez appeared in court, way down at the bottom of the article you’ll find this: […] Superior Court Judge James Mangione kept Sanchez’ bail at $1.5 million. She also...

Popular homosexual YouTuber Calum McSwiggan reportedly faked an alleged hate crime attack on himself in West Hollywood on Monday, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Nurses with convictions for crimes of violence, sexual offenses and drug thefts are able to evade detection in six states, which have far fewer protections in place than most states when it comes to licensing healthcare workers ... While candidates for jobs such as massage therapists or private investigators are required to submit a fingerprint for checks against state and FBI conviction records, the nurse licensing systems in Colorado, Wisconsin, New York, Vermont, Maine and Hawaii rely on self-disclosure and complaints. The porous process allows nurses disqualified from obtaining licensure in other states to obtain a license in one of...

A new multi-nation survey finds that confidence in Donald Trump's ability to manage foreign policy should he become U.S. president is rock-bottom in a host of countries in Europe and Asia.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is looking into options to challenge a Supreme Court ruling that effectively determined a lower court’s decision neutering President Obama’s executive amnesty would stand. The ruling would help to prevent Obama from ignoring U.S. laws and from allowing many illegal aliens to stay in the U.S. without deportation. The statements from Attorney General Lynch were made during an interview with Reuters. The Reuters writer appears to have confused the ruling, as SCOTUS did not make the decision to block President Obama’s executive amnesty, they simply tied in their decision–which led to the Fifth Circuit’s ruling...

California voters will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana after Secretary of State Alex Padilla said Tuesday that initiative proponents turned in more than enough signatures to place the question on the November ballot. A successful vote in California would mean one in every six Americans lives in a state with legal marijuana sales, including the entire West Coast. The initiative is promoted by a well-funded and politically connected coalition spearheaded by former Facebook president Sean Parker. It asks voters to allow people 21 and older to buy an ounce of marijuana and marijuana-infused products at licensed retail outlets and...

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) -- The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a measure that would ban the city employee retirement system from investing in companies that participate in firearm and ammunition manufacturing. The resolution by the supervisors could have a ripple effect throughout the country as the debate about gun control grows in the wake of a mass shooting in Orlando two weeks ago at a gay nightclub that left 50 people dead and several others injured. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee is trying to gather support nationwide by asking the mayors of both Boston and New York...

Everyone expects neo-Nazis to be thuggish and simpleminded. They're losers who need a movement that tells them they are winners, so they troll for grievances and battles from which they can emerge as both morally superior and victims. They hate freedom. Traditionalist Worker Party leader Matthew Heimbach even wrote a piece, "I Hate Freedom," in which he explained, "Freedom is a word and a concept that everyone loves and enjoys because of the license that it gives us as a society; that is why freedom failed and that is why freedom must die." Like I said, white supremacists are losers....

Police in Central California say two family dogs killed a 3-day-old baby after her mother left her on the couch and walked away for a few seconds... The girl’s mother had left the door open because it was hot and she thought the dogs were tied up in the back yard. The baby died at a hospital shortly after the attack. the two male dogs, which are believed to be a mix of shar-pei and pit bull are owned by the woman’s brother.

San Francisco has the unfortunate honor of appearing in a new propaganda video for the Islamic State released Sunday, no doubt to coincide with the city’s massive Pride celebration, since persecution of LGBT people is a hallmark of deranged fundamentalists. Several alleged terrorists appear on screen to praise Omar Mateen, the Orlando gay nightclub shooter, and Larossi Abballa, the man who attacked a French police officer and his family June 13, the day after the Orlando shooting. The trio reportedly encourages more attacks in the U.S. and Europe, and this is when the footage of San Francisco starts to roll...

WASHINGTON - As Hillary Clinton campaigned with Elizabeth Warren for the first time Monday, the joint appearance raised the question: Is America ready for two women on a presidential ticket? Clinton is, of course, the first woman ever to clinch a major-party nomination for president. And she’s considering adding a second woman to the ticket, with Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, as a running mate. “There is a wow factor to having two women on the ticket,” said Jim Hodges, a former governor of South Carolina and a Clinton ally who urged the campaign to select a woman. “It’s...

The unveiling is set for 6 p.m. Jan. 27. The statue itself is currently under tarps on the northwest corner of Lincoln Park in Selma. Palomino — a muralist, filmmaker, writer and mixed-media artist — describes the piece as a tribute to farm workers and agriculture. The statue melds the Aztec Earth goddess of life and death, Coatlicue, on the front with farm workers on the back into the form of a worker’s truck.