Free Republic

Cherished family heirlooms were among the 21 firearms Michael Roberts surrendered to the Torrance Police Department in 2010, after his doctor filed a restraining order against him. The court order was the result of a dispute Roberts had with a member of the doctor’s staff and, after Roberts pleaded no contest, the matter was resolved. Yet, even though he filed the proper Law Enforcement Gun Release paperwork on four separate occasions, obtained clearance from the California Department of Justice and had two court orders commanding the return of his guns, police refused to hand them over. With the backing of...

Victor Davis Hanson, noting the draconian water restrictions that Gov. Jerry Brown has imposed on California, suggested that Brown and his cohorts have only themselves to blame for the effects of the drought in a piece in City Journal on Thursday. When Brown was first governor, in the 1970s, he opposed a number of projects that might have brought more water to parched Californians. Brown also diverted water to fish and river enhancement that might instead have lessened the effects of the drought.As a result of Brown’s folly, California’s agricultural sector is in great peril. This peril will impact...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Even in 2015, the New York Times is still pretending that desalination does not exist The New York Times just published this article on California’s water shortage:California Drought Tests History of Endless GrowthA punishing drought is forcing a reconsideration of whether the aspiration of untrammeled growth that has for so long been the state’s engine has run against the limits of nature.April 4, 2015LOS ANGELES — For more than a century, California has been the state where people flocked for a better life — 164,000 square miles of mountains, farmland and coastline, shimmering with ambition and...

A punishing drought is forcing a reconsideration of whether the aspiration of untrammeled growth that has for so long been the state’s engine has run against the limits of nature. ... a punishing drought — and the unprecedented measures the state announced last week to compel people to reduce water consumption — is forcing a reconsideration of whether the aspiration of untrammeled growth that has for so long been this state’s driving engine has run against the limits of nature. Can Los Angeles continue to dominate as the country’s capital of entertainment and glamour, and Silicon Valley as the center...

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) said Californians will face heavy fines for taking long showers. Brown said, “This executive order is done under emergency power. It has the force of law. Very unusual. It’s requiring action and changes in behavior from the Oregon border all the way to the Mexican border. It affects lawns. It affects people’s — how long they stay in the shower. How businesses use water.” Brown said to enforce his order, “Each water district that actually delivers waters — water to homes and businesses, they carry it out. We have a state...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Federal authorities say California's $68 billion higher-speed rail could harm the protected kit fox.

There's something very dangerous happening in states across the country. A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors. Some, such as the bill enacted in Indiana last week that drew a national outcry and one passed in Arkansas, say individuals can cite their personal religious beliefs to refuse service to a customer or resist a state nondiscrimination law. Others are more transparent in their effort to discriminate. Legislation being considered in Texas would strip the salaries and pensions of clerks who issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — even...

California governor Jerry Brown said, "Yes, I would" run for president if I were ten years younger. He made the remarks this morning to NBC: Video at source

Sen. Ted Cruz has "rendered himself absolutely unfit to be running for office" -- let alone president -- by insisting that humans aren't to blame for global warming, California Gov. Jerry Brown says. Brown, a Democrat, took aim at Cruz during a Sunday appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," the day before Cruz is expected to announce his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during a speech at Liberty University in Virginia. He blasted Cruz's comment during a late-night television appearance that climate change "alarmists" have a problem. "The science doesn't back them up," Cruz had said on NBC's...

The war of words over climate change is getting blisteringly hot between Gov. Jerry Brown and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, with the Republican presidential candidate blithely dismissing the Democratic governor as one of those “global warming alarmists” who relies on ridicule and insult. A Brown campaign strategist shot back Monday that the “factually irrational” Cruz is apparently now determined to “stand out from a pack of troglodytes in the GOP race for the White House.” The public slap down — and the dis of Brown — came as Cruz formally announced his run for the White House at Liberty University...

When Republican presidential posturing turns into definitive action, the critics come out like clockwork. It happened last week when Donald Trump announced he had formed a presidential exploratory committee and was immediately met with accusations he was disingenuous, unqualified or seeking publicity. Something similar is now underway against Sen. Ted Cruz, who will step before a Liberty University student convocation at precisely 10 a.m. on Monday and reveal he’s running for the White House in 2016. The Texas Republican is skipping the exploratory phase. Caustic headlines have arrived before he even gets to the microphone, these from the last 48...

yes .."why NOT a Jerry Brown Candidacy??"

Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders will propose more than $1 billion in drought-relief spending for California as it heads into a fourth dry year, according to a legislative staffer who has been briefed on the package. The staffer tells The Associated Press that the vast majority of the package to be announced Thursday accelerates spending that voters have already approved for water and flood projects, including last year’s $7.5 billion bond measure. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the staffer is not authorized to speak to the media. The package would provide immediate aid to communities...

Gov. Jerry Brown says he has a message for Republican governors planning to visit California to woo business from the state: Welcome. Florida Gov. Rick Scott is the latest governor to say he’s planning a recruiting trip to California. A letter he sent to shipping companies in California takes shots at Brown’s “tax and spend administration.” […] Brown says California has done the opposite of what Republicans advocate. He says the state is tackling climate change, immigration reform and taxing high-income people, and the state is prospering. …

The California Board of Education has suspended the state’s school accountability system for one year to give teachers and students time to adjust to new standardized tests aligned with the Common Core standards. The board voted at a Wednesday meeting in Sacramento not to produce an Academic Performance Index for the 2014-15 school year. The index uses student results on statewide tests to rank schools and to identify those that need improvement. …

t could soon get easier to live on the streets in the Golden State. As controversy swirled around the police shooting of a homeless and mentally ill man on Skid Row in Los Angeles, legislators in California considered a new set of regulations activists said would “decriminalize” homelessness by providing a so-called “right to rest” in public.

A rather expensive development has surfaced on the way to installing Common Core in California’s hundreds of school districts statewide. Officials have figured out that the big government initiative could collectively cost districts $1 billion every year to set up a new statewide testing system supporting the new curriculum. The question is, who’s going to pay for it? According to the Santa Ana School District, the state, not the district, should foot the bill. Santa Ana along with three other school districts submitted a class action complaint, demanding that California pay for the “next generation” Smarter Balanced Assessments based on...

Conservative think tank Americans for Prosperity (AFP), co-founded by principals of Koch Industries, sued in federal court to prevent ultra-liberal California Attorney General Kamala Harris from using her office to disclose the names and addresses of their 90,000 donors. Harris may have a problem with AFP being a major force behind the Tea Party movement and its support of free markets, entrepreneurship, lower taxes, and limited government spending and regulation. As a federally registered 501(c)(4), not-for-profit educational organization, Americans for Prosperity is allowed under federal law to raise and spend money educating the public regarding issues associated with political campaigns...

Advocates for the projected bullet train running from San Francisco to Los Angeles argued at the Public Policy Institute’s all-day State of Change conference last week that simply getting the project started would catalyze the federal government to pour more money into the $67.6 billion boondoggle. The California High-Speed Rail Authority offered the $67.6 million figure in February 2014 ... As Reason Magazine recently reported, “The CHSRA April 2012 Business Plan is so deficient that it is inconceivable that policymakers would continue to rely on its assertions to evaluate the program.”

Gov. Jerry Brown Considering Expanding Medi-Cal To Immigrants By PHIL WILLON Gov. Jerry Brown is considering expanding state-funded Medi-Cal coverage to residents shielded from deportation under President Obama’s new immigration policies. Nancy McFadden, the governor’s top policy aide, said that possibility is under review by the Brown administration, but implied that the potential cost would be a factor in the decision. “We’re still evaluating, but the president’s recent action on undocumented immigrants could perhaps open a door for more coverage of more people under Medi-Cal,’’ McFadden said. “We’re looking at that. That, of course, is going to cost money.’’ McFadden...