Free Republic

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California officials knew a computer upgrade for the state's unemployment insurance program was vulnerable to problems before it was installed. The Sacramento Bee reports that officials underestimated how many unemployment claims would be affected by a glitch in the $188 million system upgrade.

The head of the Senate panel overseeing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that the agency’s chief is committed to restarting its operations as soon as possible once the government shutdown ends. “Knowing Gina McCarthy the way I do, Administrator McCarthy, she will get up and running as fast as she can,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said at a press conference on Wednesday. “And knowing the workers as well as I know them, they care deeply," she added. "Their morale is low, but they know that America is behind them." Boxer’s comments came as House and Senate leadership was scrambling...

Twofer: MAIG Mayors going to prison (Don’t drop the soap, boys) October 15, 2013 It’s been a busy week for Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) group of gun-grabbing mayors. First up, Filthy Filner, the San Diego Mayor who had a reputation for sexually harassing lots of lots of ladies, pled guilty to some reduced charges. Rumor had it his plea was to avoid convictions with the word “sexual” in them.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi dared Speaker John Boehner to call a vote on Republicans’ latest debt ceiling proposal, saying it will receive no Democratic votes and result in default. Speaking in front of the White House after the House Democratic leadership met with President Barack Obama, Pelosi offered a scalding commentary on the latest GOP proposal, which she said would have to pass “with 100 percent Republican votes.” “I think it’s a little frivolous, more than frivolous, reckless to put a bill on the floor like that when the markets are watching what’s happening here,” Pelosi said. “But nonetheless,...

"You know, the president signed a bill that left himself out of Obamacare but put members of Congress in. I think it's time that the president go into Obamacare, and I mean really into Obamacare." "Look, I think if the president thinks so well of Obamacare and the vice president thinks so well of Obamacare, he should be in it. So I think for the members of the -- for Sebelius to not be in Obamacare and then not feel the pain of its complete and total failure to perform at the scheduled levels is a good example of where,...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Tuesday he would vote for a “clean CR” to end the government shutdown. “I’ll vote for a clean CR," Issa told CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. “Republicans in the House have always been for a clean CR increase if it meant we began the serious negotiations on the kinds of reforms that need to happen…entitlements as a shortcut for it. That's what the deal is about right now.” Democrats have pressed Republicans to bring a continuing resolutio to the floor that funds the government and does nothing else for weeks. GOP leaders have...

Mr. Speaker: The debt limit exists for a simple reason: to assure that public debt isn’t recklessly piled up without Congress periodically acknowledging it and addressing the spending patterns that are causing it. If a debt limit increase is supposed to be automatic, as the President suggests, there really is no purpose to it. A new dimension has now appeared in this discussion. Unlike every one of his predecessors, this President has vowed that unless Congress unconditionally raises the debt limit, the United States will default on its sovereign debt. But a failure to raise the debt limit would not...

SAN DIEGO – Former San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, driven from office by sexual harassment allegations, was charged Tuesday with felony false imprisonment and two counts of misdemeanor battery involving three women.

Southern California has always been an invented place. Without a major river, a natural port or even remotely adequate water, the region has always thrived on reinventing itself – from cow town to agricultural hub to oil city, Tinsel Town and the “Arsenal of Democracy.” Today, the need for the region to reinvent itself yet again has never been greater. Due in large part to regulatory pressures, as well as competitive forces both global and national, many industries that have driven the Southland economy – notably, aerospace, garments and oil – are under assault. A high cost of living, particularly...

RICHMOND -- A San Francisco-based group of financiers called Mortgage Resolution Partners has been calling on Sacramento and other California cities for more than a year, pitching a plan to use government powers of eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages and refinance them for the benefit of homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth. Most communities took a pass, saying the novel plan was too risky. Not Richmond, a largely working-class city in the Bay Area. There, a determined and articulate Green Party mayor has helped steer the plan through the City Council in recent months. Today, the...

The federal government shutdown claimed another casualty Monday - the annual American Indian ceremony on Alcatraz in protest of Columbus Day. Indian activists and their supporters could not take the morning ferry to Alcatraz, as they've done since the mid-1980s, for prayers, songs, dancing and speeches because the island - part of the National Park Service - is closed. Instead, they gathered at Pier 33, from where they usually depart, and marched to Washington Square Park in North Beach, heart of the city's Italian heritage and Columbus Day festivities, then headed for Coit Tower to protest by the Christopher Columbus...

Sen. Barbara Boxer likened GOP lawmakers to people who abuse their spouses on Monday when discussing the current government shutdown and the looming debt limit deadline. The California Democrat, who like most in her party, blames the lack of government funding and current impasse over raising the debt ceiling on Republicans who have insisted on passing measures aimed at dismantling the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. First she compared the current budget crisis to walking down the street on a nice day and then deciding to bash yourself in the head with a rock. Then she said: “It’s a...

The good news: the ban does not extend to ammunition used for target shooting.The bad news: It extends to more than traditional hunting.    The bill applies to the taking of all wildlife.  From the bill: (b) Except as provided in subdivision (j), and as soon as is practicable as implemented by the commission pursuant to subdivision (i), but by no later than July 1, 2019, nonlead ammunition, as determined by the commission, shall be required when taking all wildlife, including game mammals, game birds, nongame birds, and nongame mammals, with any firearm. There is no exemption for self defense, protection of...

California’s Modesto Junior College decided it was just too dangerous for Army Vet Robert van Tuinen to pass out copies of the Constitution of the United States on campus. Van Tuinen was hoping to gain support for his proposed Young Americans...

To some outside California, Gov. Jerry Brown always will be kooky Gov. Moonbeam, no matter what he does. To California Democrats, however, Brown is the political mastermind who persuaded voters to approve a ballot measure to increase taxes -- no small feat, considering that 65 percent of voters rejected a similar measure by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009. The increased revenue and an improving economy lifted Sacramento out of its habitual shortfalls. To some Sacramento Republicans who fought Brown's efforts to put the tax increases before the voters, Dao Gov has become an object of worship. They call Brown...

WATSONVILLE — “I have been waiting for this day to come,” said Rosario Medina, a junior at Pajaro Valley High School and publicist for the school’s Queer Straight Alliance (QSA) club during the annual lunch-time rally in celebration of National Coming Out Day. “On this day I could just express myself and be me,” she said.

In what may be California's last chance to build a "hydrogen highway," lined with thousands of high-tech vehicles emitting nothing but water vapor from their tailpipes, Gov. Jerry Brown has approved a plan to construct 100 hydrogen fueling stations across the state by 2024. Only a year ago, the California Air Resources Board required Big Oil to pay for the new stations. But after oil companies threatened to sue, Brown agreed to a compromise in which the costs of building hydrogen stations will be shifted to car owners through existing vehicle registration fees.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Friday that will allow children in California to have more than two legal parents, a measure opposed by some conservative groups as an attack on the traditional family.

So far more than 16,000 people have signed up for health insurance on Covered California, which is the state's way to access Obamacare.Right now Rakesh Rikhi pays $950 a month to insure himself, his wife and two children with Kaiser. He came to the health trust in San Jose to get help determining if the new affordable care act truly will be affordable. Rikhi was stunned to learn that through covered California he can get a similar Kaiser plan for his family for $400 less a month. He quickly did the math and found he had just saved $5,000 a...

Via RCP. Wait, wait, wait — before you start shaking your first at him, isn’t his point here oddly simpatico with what tea partiers say every day about Beltway squishes like King himself? It all depends on what benchmark you use to define “Republican.” The Republican establishment of the past 10 years has been fiercely interventionist, willing to bend on civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism, and happy to back new entitlement programs like Medicare Part D so long as their guy’s in the White House. Rand Paul, by contrast, tilts towards isolationism, wants to sue the NSA...

San Diego Judge Gary Kreep, a conservative legal activist who led a failed fight to challenge President Obama’s citizenship, has been exiled to traffic court after several Superior Court rulings favoring defendants’ constitutional rights. Kreep, 63, was reassigned on Sept. 9 from the downtown San Diego courthouse to a Kearny Mesa facility that handles traffic offenses and small claims. The move came after prosecutors from the City Attorney’s Office began to boycott his courtroom over his legal approach. For instance, Kreep often declined to take away a defendant’s 4th Amendment rights against search and seizure — something prosecutors can legally...

The wait is over for California’s law-abiding gun owners, sportsmen and Second Amendment supporters. Governor Brown has signed some anti-gun bills and one anti-hunting bill into law. However, he also vetoed several anti-gun bills. Below is a list of the bills signed into law and vetoed as well as a link to the respective descriptions given by Governor Brown. The NRA will be looking over all the recently signed laws and our legal options for law-abiding Californians. Thanks to NRA members, gun owners, sportsmen and Second Amendment supporters who tirelessly called and e-mailed their state legislators and the Governor urging...

SAN DIEGO — Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife, Anne, can move forward with plans to remodel and expand their beachfront La Jolla home, the California Coastal Commission ruled Friday. By a 7-4 vote, the panel rejected an appeal by Anthony A. Ciani, an architect and former La Jolla resident, who had argued, among other things, that the expansion would be illegal and exceed the size allowed on the 0.41-acre beachfront lot. Coastal Commission staff had said in their report to the panel that Ciani’s claim was in error. They had recommended the appeal be denied. The...

A passenger door fell off a private plane taking off from Monterey Regional Airport onto the roof of nearby motel, but wasn't discovered for 17 hours. "Every hour we didn't hear we felt better that it didn't hit someone or cause injuries," airport general manager Thomas Greer said Friday. The estimated 75-pound door plummeted about 1,000 feet before crashing into the roof of a rear, second-story building at the El Castell Motel at North Fremont Street and Casa Verde Way. The crash site was less than a block from the Monterey County fairgrounds.

The intense political polarization of the United States is most clearly reflected by the dysfunctional nature of the federal government. At a more local scale, it is seen as well in the growing movement to create new states by splitting existing ones. Most of these cases involve the desire of people in rural, conservative counties to secede from the more liberal states in which they are currently located. A front-page story in the October 7 edition of the New York Times, for example, highlights a drive to devise a new state of “Northern Colorado.” Eleven Colorado counties will vote on...

For more than a year, Assembly Speaker John Pérez dated a Hollywood funeral director who faces fraud allegations in one of the biggest financial scandals to rock the U.S. funeral industry. During their relationship, Pérez, a Los Angeles Democrat, mixed political business with his personal life in ways that showed poor judgment, ethics experts say. A Pérez spokesman said the lawmaker conducted himself appropriately during a casual dating relationship. Tyler Cassity, proprietor of a boutique cemetery called Hollywood Forever as well as a Mill Valley cemetery, and defendant in a $600 million fraud lawsuit in his native Missouri, accompanied Pérez...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi cheerfully led Spanish-language chants of “Si se puede” — or “Yes we can” — at a rally Tuesday for amnesty and immigration, but turnout for the event at the National Mall was far below the organizers’ predictions of 100,000 attendees. The barriers at the event were set to accommodate 35,000 people, but less than half the area was occupied. Loudspeakers and a large display screen at the rear of the area were almost devoid of listeners or viewers. The rally was held on public land during a widely hyped government shutdown that has seen the...

Sen. Barbara Boxer said Tuesday that closure of the Environmental Protection Agency will permit companies to dump toxic wastes and otherwise treat the environment “like it’s your private ditch.” “People do it every day of the week, and we stop it because we have cops on the beat,” Boxer said. The California Democrat and chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee said EPA would remain shuttered indefinitely under the House GOP’s strategy of re-opening parts of the federal government. “If you look at all their mini-bills, not one of them restored any funding for any agency that comes close...

Sen. Ben Cardin asked House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday to “put down the gun” in the shutdown stalemate. “It’s time for Mr. Boehner to put down the gun and put more faith in the democratic process,” the Maryland Democrat said, reading aloud from a Baltimore Sun editorial, at a news conference with Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) to discuss the shutdown’s impact on environmental work. Cardin, again quoting from the Sun editorial, said it’s appropriate to use terms like “ransom” and “hostage” to describe the GOP demands to defund the health care law as a price...

SACRAMENTO, CA October 9, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – California Governor Jerry Brown has signed two bills allowing non-physicians to perform abortions and reducing health standards for abortion facilities, saying the new laws “support the health and well-being of women.” California is the fifth state to allow or not explicitly ban the practice of non-physician abortion, joining Montana, New York, Oregon, and Vermont. California Governor Jerry Brown ran for the Democratic pres California Governor Jerry Brown ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, 1980, and 1992. The bill, A.B. 154, introduced by San Diego Democrat Toni Atkins, would authorize midwives, nurse...

With the partial shutdown of the federal government dragging on, first lady Michelle Obama has canceled a fundraising trip to California that was scheduled for this weekend, Democratic Party officials said Tuesday. Obama was supposed to have visited Los Angeles on Friday and then headed to the Bay Area .. ... Democratic insiders said there was queasiness at the prospect of the first lady raising millions from wealthy donors and campaigning for Democratic causes while thousands of federal employees are furloughed because of the partial government shutdown. Because the events were political fundraisers and not public appearances, most of Obama's...

California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill on Monday that would have allowed non-citizen legal immigrants to serve on juries in the most populous U.S. state, saying that such service was an obligation that went along with citizenship.

Over 2.6 million illegal immigrants reside in California and Gov. Jerry Brown is signing more illegal laws to give them the same rights as U.S. citizens. On Thursday, he signed a bill that will allow up to 1.3 million illegals up to obtain CA drivers licenses. Another bill signed by Brown prohibits employers to retaliate against workers because of their lack of citizenship. The CA Governor also signed the “Trust Act” which halts the deportation of illegals when arrested for minor crimes and prohibits law enforcement to contact I.C.E. agents. To add to the illegal bills signed by Gov. Brown,...

Serial abuses of justice by America’s top law enforcement official should be enough to make just about any tinhorn banana republic dictator blush. Yet regarding any embarrassment evidenced by the leader of the free world… not so much. Despite the fact that our attorney general has been indicted for contempt of Congress on both felony and civil charges, has repeatedly lied under oath, and has routinely turned a blind eye to laws that he is duty-bound to enforce, Mr. Holder continues to serve at the behest of his presidential mentor. At least he has so far. Apparently not so very...

Meet Tom Waschura, Californian, father of two – oh, and right: Obama supporter. Just got a letter from his healthcare provider telling him that his private health insurance just went up by ten grand a year: “I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today,” Waschura said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner, who is leading the Republican charge to defund Obamacare. “I really don’t like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this. When you take $10,000 out of my family’s pocket each year, that’s otherwise disposable income...

NEW YORK Managing Editor Paul Steiger of The Wall Street Journal and Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. of The Washington Post were both asked to be part of last weekend's unique joint Op-Ed piece by the editors of The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, which defended the publication of stories about the secret SWIFT bank monitoring program, E&P has learned. But each declined. "We had talked about doing something together," Steiger said. "But when I looked at it and thought about it, our position was so different from theirs -- that nobody asked us not to publish [our...

Only a few months have passed since President Obama last boasted that al Qaeda is on "the path to defeat." The jihadist groups can work independently, but most are reported to coordinate their carnage with Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's successor as the al Qaeda leader. And it was he, the United States says, who ordered coordinated attacks on American embassies and consulates in August, a plan that prompted the United States to close more than 20 of them. Where is this leading? The State Department says "current information suggests that al Qaeda, its affiliated organizations and other terrorist groups continue...

"Gunman who took hostages at Louisiana bank posted chilling Facebook messages" SNIPPET: "The gunman who took three hostages at a Louisiana bank Tuesday -- killing one of them before being shot and killed by police -- recently posted chilling messages on Facebook, including a cartoon strip about hostages.   In a post on Sunday, 20-year-old Fuaed Abdo Ahmed displays a cartoon strip that focuses on an apparent hostage situation." SNIPPET: "Ahmed's final post, made Tuesday just hours before the hostage standoff began, is of a photo of a man with a sword attacking a tank.Under the photo is a quote...

.............. The offer is the latest effort by Democrats to entice Republicans to vote on a clean CR – something GOP leaders have refused to do in the face of opposition from conservatives insisting that provisions to scale back ObamaCare be included in the package. Boehner's office was quick to refuse the Democrats' offer, arguing that the barriers to a spending deal are coming from Democrats in the Senate and White House, not Republicans in the lower chamber. "At this point, it's Senate Democrats and the President who are blocking progress on reopening the government and providing the American people...

Gov. Jerry Brown this morning signed into law the TRUST Act, which will prevent police from handing over many nonviolent jail inmates to immigration authorities for possible deportation. The governor also signed seven other immigration-related bills into law, including one that allows undocumented immigrants to practice law in California. “While Washington waffles on immigration, California’s forging ahead,” Brown said in a statement. “I’m not waiting.” The signings came as immigrant-rights supporters in the Inland area and across the country are rallying to push the House to pass a comprehensive immigration-reform bill with a path to citizenship. A San Bernardino march...

California may have solved its fiscal crisis, but at a painful cost: Rob Schneider has renounced his Democratic allegiances. In a video, the noted thespian blames Democrats for a hostile business climate whose impact is hampering his own film career: "The last time I made a movie in California was seven years ago," says Schneider, "and that’s because we’re not being competitive." It's also possible other, nonpolitical reasons are at work

Congress is consumed with the troublesome government shutdown, but House Democrats are trying to kick-start the stalled debate over immigration reform. “The American people have spoken,” Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia of Florida said this week. “They want Congress to take on this issue.” Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., said he’s sure there are enough House votes to pass a bill that “fixes our broken immigration system, including provide a path to legal residency and ultimately to citizenship to millions of people who work hard everyday in this country.” …

Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry, on a tour aimed at pushing “red state” tax and business policies to drive growth, said Friday that a major economic difference between California and Texas is that “we don’t judge success on the number of people we have on public assistance.” “California has substantially more liberal public assistance programs,’’ said Perry, considered a possible 2016 GOP presidential candidate, in a wide-ranging interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. “This is a state that’s going bankrupt. You have huge debt out here..and part of that is driven by these very expensive, very rich programs.” “We judge...

HOUSTON — Thanks to Texas' new senator, Dale Huls is out of a job - at least for now. Yet Huls has never been prouder that he voted for him. "Without Ted Cruz this doesn't happen," said Huls, a NASA systems engineer who was among roughly 3,000 federal employees furloughed from Houston's Johnson Space Center after tea party Republicans triggered the partial government shutdown. "This is something Americans have to get used to," said Huls. "Even if it affects your livelihood, you've got to stand up." Perhaps more than anywhere else, Texas embodies the factors behind the shutdown: big government...

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation allowing children to have more than two parents. Leno's measure grew out of an appellate court case involving a biological mother, her same-sex partner and a man who had an affair with the mother while she was temporarily separated from her female lover. In the 2011 case, the California Court of Appeal held that courts could not recognize more than two parents even if doing so would protect the child from harm.

Once famous as a land of opportunity, the Golden State is now awash in inequality, growing poverty, and downward mobility that’s practically medieval, writes Joel Kotkin. 22 inShare.10 California has been the source of much innovation, from agribusiness and oil to fashion and the digital world. Historically much richer than the rest of the country, it was also the birthplace, along with Levittown, of the mass-produced suburb, freeways, much of our modern entrepreneurial culture, and of course mass entertainment. For most of a century, for both better and worse, California has defined progress, not only for America but for the...

The perfect follow-up to Ed and AP’s posts from yesterday, with a special focus on the humiliating stats-padding fact-check MKH wrote about on Tuesday (via NRO):(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Clearly, California’s obstructionist Republicans must be responsible for these hiccups. And in all fairness to state officials, they’ve only had three-and-a-half years since passage to train navigators and launch a functioning website. That they failed to execute either task is a side note; Californians should rest assured that the government will administer their healthcare in a professional, prompt and competent manner.

San Francisco's famous Cliff House restaurant on Thursday joined other popular attractions that closed as a result of the federal government shutdown. An employee answering the phone at the restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the western end of the city said the business closed its doors after Wednesday night because of the shutdown. Because Congress failed to pass a budget by the end of the day on Monday, all federal services deemed "non-essential" have been shut down until an agreement is reached. National Park Service spokeswoman Alexandra Picavet said the Cliff House had to close because it is a...

Photo by Oleg Volk, Rifle is a Remington model 8 SB-374 is the bill on Governor Brown's desk that would ban most centerfire hunting rifles that are semi-automatics in California.  It is clear that this is another long slide down the slippery slope of gun confiscation.  I say ban, because anyone who bothers to consider it can see that gun registration is gun confiscation in slow motion. Here is a short list of additional rifles that will be required to be registered.  The legal supply will be cut off.  No more will be legally allowed into the state.  Notice...

Warner BrothersCalifornia Gov. Jerry Brown will soon decide whether to sign a bill that expands his state's "assault weapon" ban to cover any centerfire rifle with a detachable magazine. That's a very broad category, the National Rifle Association notes, since "millions of semi-automatic rifles have magazines that can be removed with the push of a button," including "classic hunting rifles like the Remington Woodsmaster, Browning BAR, and the Ruger 99/44, among many others." The actual language of the bill, S.B. 374, refers rather confusingly to "a semiautomatic centerfire rifle that does not have a fixed magazine with the capacity to...