Free Republic

California has long been a refuge for people big on ideas but short on realism. Whether it is the famous sunshine, its gorgeous coastline, or the state’s tolerance for even the most extreme buffoonery, California has played center stage for more than its fair share of “movements” – from beatnik and other counterculture revolutions to murderous cults. Knowing this history helps to understand why a state with an economy larger than most countries in the world, is swiftly heading towards total collapse. The people running California today are the same ones who for decades believed they could change the world...

Wildfires in Oregon, California, and Washington State this summer made for spectacular headlines. The media took their lead in press releases issued from the respective state capitals to blame drought—allegedly induced by man-caused climate change—for what they called the worst fires in history. But was climate change really the underlying cause? And were the fires really the worst in history? A bit of real history can be enlightening. Peshtigo is today a small city in northeastern Wisconsin, but 150 years ago it was the site of the largest and deadliest single wildfire in North American history. On October 8, 1871,...

With so much happening in the news every day, from the congressional hearings on our withdrawal from Afghanistan to the budget crisis and more, it’s easy to overlook some of the truly horrendous things taking place in our nation. But what California’s Governor Newsom recently signed into law cannot be overlooked. It is nothing less than a frontal assault on parental rights, also hurting the very children it claims to protect. Although there were two controversial bills Gov. Newsom signed last week, we’ll focus here on AB 1184. As reported by California Family Council, this bill “prohibits insurance companies from...

The Babylon Bee has done it again. After the California governor’s blowout victory in the recall election, the Christian satirical site had a meme noting the large-scale exodus underway in California, with the headline, “Gavin Newsom Named U-Haul Salesperson Of The Year.” But there’s a largely-overlooked religious controversy in California right now that is no laughing matter. We have seen in recent decades the massive attempt to rewrite American history and to erase God from it. Whole books have been written on this subject, like Dr. James S. Robbins’ Erasing America or Jarrett Stepman’s War on History. We have seen...

The nation's largest state has just voted in an election triggered by one of the nation's weirdest recall processes, and the results have come out just about where they've been before. California Gov. Gavin Newsom was elected governor in 2018 by 62% to 38%, a result that was, unsurprisingly in an era of straight-ticket voting and strong partisan allegiance, almost identical to President Joe Biden's 64% to 34% margin over Donald Trump in 2020. As of this writing -- and it has taken California weeks to fully count its votes in recent general elections -- incomplete returns show 64% of...

The California recall election turned out well for the Democrats. With Gov. Gavin Newsom sinking in the summer polls, the party had been staring starkly at the prospect of losing the nation's largest state and seeing its governor replaced by talk-show host Larry Elder, who had vaulted into the lead among the 46 candidates seeking to replace Newsom. Elder had rallied Republicans and started to surge, which terrified the Democrats. Not only might they lose Newsom, but they could get in the governor's mansion in Sacramento what leftists took to calling "the black face of white supremacy." Result: A panicked...

“Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” That quote isn’t from Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder. It’s the conclusion of the bipartisan 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III.There is increasing evidence of vote fraud in the California recall election.Torrance, California Police found 300 recall ballots and multiple California drivers licenses in a felon’s car. In the San Fernando Valley, election officials are telling Republican voters that they have already voted. At one precinct in Woodland Hills, election officials were saying...

Muhammad Ali once said, "It ain't bragging if you can back it up." So, I'm gonna brag. I've got the best track record of political predictions anywhere on radio or TV. I talk three hours a day on the radio with my show, "Wayne Allyn Root: Raw & Unfiltered," on USA Radio Network. I also hosted 750 episodes of my own talk show for three years on Newsmax TV. I've written literally thousands of newspaper columns and commentaries over the past decade. And I've written 14 books. My 15th book comes out on Thursday: "The Great Patriot Protest & Boycott...

Ever since the 1960’s, liberals have clubbed conservatives over the head with images of civil rights clashes in Alabama, including grainy video of Birmingham police chief “Bull” Connor turning fire hoses and snarling dogs on black protesters. And left-leaning politicians have compared everyone from Barry Goldwater to Donald Trump to the reincarnation of segregationist Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace. No hysterical ranting could ever eclipse Joe Biden’s uber-insulting speech to a group in Danville, Virginia attacking Mitt Romney’s plan to unchain Wall Street. Invoking images of slavery in Alabama, Biden screamed, “Unchain!?! Gonna put y’all back in chains.” Subtle. Which...

With Governor Gavin Newsom’s recall looming in less than a week, this is America’s chance to send a message to Washington DC and the rest of the country that common sense is making a comeback. When Howard Cosell the late sportscaster and native Californian appeared on the 1970s sitcom The Odd Couple, he called the Felix Unger character (played by the late great Tony Randall) an “inane drone.” A drone is a worker bee that, in its mindlessness, works tirelessly for the Queen and the Hive without any thought. To borrower from Mr. Cosell, if Californians don’t vote to recall...

California once was run by conservatives and mostly centrist Democrats. True paleo-liberal governors like Pat Brown greatly expanded the welfare state. But they also believed in pushing integration and building freeways, dams, aqueducts and power plants, while preventing forest fires, directing the mentally ill into state hospitals, and ensuring that the state enhanced the housing, timber, oil and gas, nuclear and agricultural industries. So, why would anyone deliberately destroy that heritage? Why allow California to have the highest aggregate basket of income, sales, property and capital gains taxes in the nation, the highest gas and power prices in the continental...

The election to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom is now less than two weeks away. According to California law, Newsom will be removed from office if more than 50% of those casting ballots vote in favor of recall. The ballot also asks who should replace the governor if he is recalled. However, Newsom's replacement would be whichever person named on the ballot receives the most votes. There is no requirement that he or she must receive more than 50% of the votes, or indeed any specific percentage at all. At this writing, conservative commentator and talk show host Larry Elder...

With the possible exception of the United States itself, there exists few, if any, places on planet earth with a mythos quite as alluring as California. Woodie Guthrie’s 1944 ballad This Land is Your Land is a song about many things, but at face value is about the beauty of America’s geography. In one of the most famous folk songs written about this nation, Guthrie spends much of his time alluding to the beauty of the regions in the once-Golden State. Almost 55 years since Guthrie’s passing, the ‘endless skyway’ he described is now clouded by the smoke of preventable...

Will Gov. Gavin Newsom be the second Democratic California governor to be recalled and removed from office in this (or the last) century? Polls suggest that's one possible result of next month's recall election. If so, it would be a startling result. We have just seen the second consecutive Democrat elected governor of heavily Democratic (61% President Joe Biden) New York, in both cases for alleged sexual misconduct. It would be more politically significant for a second consecutive Democrat elected governor of even more heavily Democratic (63% Biden) California get the boot for policy reasons. Gray Davis, the governor who...

What a difference 20 days can make in politics. Three weeks ago, Larry Elder was in Glendale, California sitting behind the microphone of his nationally-syndicated Salem Radio Network talk show. Upstate in Sacramento, Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) was lounging with his rich liberal friends, anticipating an easy win in the September 14th recall election. And across the country—at the governor’s mansion in Albany—Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) was happily polishing his Emmy Award and checking the mailbox for more royalty checks for his book American Crisis, which offers his “leadership lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.” (Of course, that supposes your concept...

The real threat to states like Arizona is not COVID, it’s CALVID, Arizona turning into California. People fleeing the deteriorating state are flocking to Arizona and bringing their failed political views with them. Former Californians now make up about 10% of the population in Arizona. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey titled an op-ed for The Orange County Register in March warning those considering moving to Arizona, “Leaving California? Don’t Forget Why.” He joked about thanking the California governor during a speech for growing Arizona’s economy. More people are leaving the state than moving there. A survey in 2019 found that 53%...

After conservative Salem Radio Network talk host Larry Elder’s stunning court victory this week reinstating him to the September 14th ballot the “tectonic plates” have indeed just shifted in the race to recall California’s bloviating and incompetent Gov. Gavin Newsom. Newsom—once San Francisco’s mayor who almost single-handedly turned the city memorialized by singer Tony Bennett as the place “I left my heart” into a feces-laden homeless encampment that is dead last on any family’s list of vacation destinations—managed to become Governor of California through a combination of dumb luck (follow the bouncing ball: his aunt was once married to Nancy...

Source: YouTube/ScreenshotSalem radio host Larry Elder announced Monday he is entering the recall election in California to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom. "I’m running for governor because the decline of California isn’t the fault of its people," he said in a press release. "Our government is what’s ruining the Golden State. Our schools are closed to both students and their parents. Our streets aren’t safe from rising violent crime or the disaster of rising homelessness. And the scandals of Sacramento aren’t going to stop on their own. It’s time to tell the truth. We’ve got a state to save." Elder is...

With zero media attention and an 80-0 vote, the California Assembly has approved a plan to facilitate a reduction in federal income taxes for a constituency consisting mostly of wealthy Californians. Only Californians with income from non-employee business activities operating through partnerships, LLCs and subchapter S corporations will benefit from Assembly Bill 150. Individuals who earn their livings as employees will garner no benefit from AB 150. Individuals who operate their businesses through sole proprietorships or as single member LLCs will also be excluded from any benefit. While California cannot seem to grapple successfully with homelessness, COVID, water, power etc.,...

Question my sanity, but I'm considering running in this election to recall California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. Here's a big reason why. No one doubts that bad K-12 public school teachers exist. There is a phenomenon known as the "turkey trot," in which bad teachers wind up in the worst schools. Why? There is a connection between bad schools and lack of parental involvement. When you have strong parental involvement, parents pressure their schools to remove such teachers. Because of strong, protective teachers unions, these teachers are rarely fired, merely shuffled from school to school, until they land in one...