Free Republic

A civil rights leader who was gay and a confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was posthumously pardoned by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who also announced Wednesday what may be the nation's first process for forgiving those convicted under outdated laws punishing homosexual activity.

The Sacramento Bee is premiering its new documentary “S.A.C.” on Dec. 12 at the Sofia Tsakopoulos Center for The Arts. The documentary explores the legacy of Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old unarmed black man shot to death by Sacramento police officers in March 2018.

California’s tax plan is “so egregious” that residents of every socioeconomic background are leaving the state, host of Fox Business Network’s Charles Payne said Wednesday. California Democrats have raised taxes on high-income families again and again. While the left claims the measure doesn’t impact taxpayer migration or hurt state tax revenue, a new study conducted at Stanford University finds the opposite. The report reveals a 2012 income tax increase drove away many high earners. As a result, the state only netted about half the revenue gains it expected. The increase in 2012 jumped from 10.3 percent to 13.3 percent and...

The University of California is dumping fossil fuel investments from its nearly $84 billion pension and endowment funds, calling them a financial risk. An opinion article in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times says UC will make its endowment fund “fossil free” by month’s end and its pension fund will soon follow. The pension fund covers 320,000 people. …

California announced last week that it has added Iowa to the list of states on its ever-expanding “travel ban” list because of that state’s new prohibition against funding gender-transition surgeries under Medicaid. The announcement by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra means that as of Oct. 4, California will no longer offer taxpayer-funded trips to Iowa for any public employee or student at a state-run university. Becerra’s authority came from a 2016 California law signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown that bars state-funded travel to other states that undercut LGBT rights. The blacklist already included Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma and...

California lawmakers approved a statewide rent cap on Wednesday covering millions of tenants, the biggest step yet in a surge of initiatives to address an affordable-housing crunch nationwide. The bill limits annual rent increases to 5 percent after inflation and offers new barriers to eviction, providing a bit of housing security in a state with the nation’s highest housing prices and a swelling homeless population. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has made tenant protection a priority in his first year in office, led negotiations to strengthen the legislation. He has said he would sign the bill, approved as part...

Crime-ridden San Francisco has introduced new sanitized language for criminals, getting rid of words such as “offender” and “addict” while changing “convicted felon” to “justice-involved person.” The Board of Supervisors adopted the changes last month even as the city reels from one of the highest crime rates in the country and staggering inequality exemplified by pervasive homelessness alongside Silicon Valley wealth. The local officials say the new language will help change people’s views about those who commit crimes.

The parents of two transgender children have told how they supported them unconditionally, after they both decided to transition to the opposite sex from an early age. Ben Faryna and Sara Kaplan, from Berkeley, California, welcomed a biological daughter and then a biological son, to their family. But at the age of eight, James Kaplan, now 11, who was born a biological girl, realised he had to transition from female to male. And just a few years later Olivia Kaplan, now 7, who was biologically born a boy, realised at 4 that she wanted to transition from male to female....

Elections come and go, but the season for political advertising sometimes seems to never end. Facebook users in California, for example, may have noticed ads in recent months showing a woman with duct tape over her mouth and text that warns: “Legislators are leaving sexual assault survivors from public universities out to dry.” The ads urge readers to sign a petition seeking to add public universities to legislation that would give students at private universities more time to sue their schools over sexual assaults. […] Now, California legislators are considering a proposal by Assemblyman Kevin Mullin that would require groups...

If the government were to require that only men or only women had to pay a tax of several hundred dollars a year solely because of their sex, that would be an unconstitutional denial of equal protection under the 14th Amendment. Yet that is exactly the effect of the so-called tampon tax.

California is planning to intensify its enforcement against the state’s thriving illegal marijuana market, including launching an ad campaign Friday that urges consumers to seek out licensed shops with safe products. The state has been under pressure by the legal industry to do more to stop the illicit pot economy, which in Los Angeles and other cities often operates in plain sight. According to some estimates, up to 80 percent of sales in the state remain under the table, snatching profits from legal storefronts. “We are going to start having a more aggressive enforcement stance to come after the illegal...

[...] What do you think of when you hear the word “witch”? Pointy black hats? The Salem witch trials? The free-spirited members of the pagan religion Wicca? Today’s working witches, whose prominence is growing thanks to social media, primarily see themselves as healers. They help clients who are struggling to cope with life’s hurdles — heartache, aging, misogyny, work stress — and who find that more culturally accepted remedies, such as therapy and meditation, aren’t enough. They want to help you be your best possible self, or as the Oracle puts it, “My contribution is to … cultivate beauty and...

John Diepersloot squinted under a bright Central Valley sun, pointing to the damage to his fruit orchard that came with the California bullet train. He lost 70 acres of prime land. Rail contractors left mounds of rubble along his neat rows. Irrigation hoses are askew. A sophisticated canopy system for a kiwi field, supported by massive steel cables, was torn down. But what really irritates Diepersloot is the $250,000 that he paid out of his own pocket for relocating wells, removing trees, building a road and other expenses. “I am out a quarter-million bucks on infrastructure, and they haven’t paid...

San Francisco officials decided Tuesday to force some people with serious mental illness and drug addiction into treatment, even if it goes against the spirit of a city known for its fierce protection of civil rights. Several members of the Board of Supervisors voiced deep concerns Tuesday about the possibility of taking away a person’s civil liberties, but the proposal for a pilot program passed 10-1. Mayor London Breed and other supporters say the move — known as conservatorship — is necessary to help people who are often homeless, addicted to drugs and have a mental illness, making them a...

In other parts of the country, they’re fighting about whether to build a border wall or whether to deport asylum seekers. But here in California we’re having an entirely different type of debate. When Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposed expanding health coverage to all undocumented immigrants up to age 26, his fiercest criticism came from those who felt his proposal was not nearly ambitious enough.

Business software maker Salesforce is telling gun retailers they must stop selling AR-15s if they want to continue using the company’s business applications. The Washington Post reports that Salesforce is a $120 billion San Francisco-based company whose “skyscraper…towers over the city as the tallest building and a major landmark.” They are now telling customers who sell firearms that they are barred from using Salesforce “technology to market products, manage customer service operations and fulfill orders” unless they cease selling AR-15s. Salesforce’s “Acceptable Use Policy” goes beyond a ban on AR-15s, to include any semiautomatic firearms “that have the capacity to...

California residents working for companies like Lyft and Uber would get the rights of employees entitled to a minimum wage and workers compensation under a law the state Assembly passed on Wednesday. The sweeping bill, which now goes to the Senate, carries new standards defining whether workers are employees or independent contractors, upending how workers are treated in industries from trucking to the burgeoning gig economy. Under those standards, for example, workers could only be classified as independent contractors if they are free from the control or direction of an employer and they do work outside a company’s usual course...

The smoke hasn’t cleared yet, but Beverly Hills is poised to become the first U.S. city to end most tobacco sales. The City Council in the world-renowned enclave of the rich and famous unanimously indicated Tuesday that it’s ready to snuff out most sales when it meets again on May 21. The proposal currently contains a loophole allowing cigarette-loving tourists to obtain smokes at hotels. Three plush cigar lounges would also be exempt from the ordinance. The city “has always taken the lead when it’s come to restricting smoking,” Mayor John Mirisch said. “Let us try to be a light...

A decision to affix an American flag graphic to the side of freshly painted Laguna Beach police cars is dividing residents who are alternately praising the image as patriotic or panning it as too aggressive. After hearing the criticism and acknowledging that the image they approved didn’t quite match the final results, officials agreed to reconsider their February decision to paint the Laguna Beach Police Department’s fleet of 11 squad cars. The City Council will take up the issue again at its Tuesday meeting. “People are screaming that the American flag on a police car is somehow or another …...

The California Coastal Commission is set to empower local government to take thousands of properties through eminent domain along 1,100 miles of coastline to prepare for sea level rise. Despite California being battered by 4-8 inches of torrential rain and flooding from an El Niño weather cycle, E&E News reported that the State of California in late January will authorize eminent domain authority for local jurisdictions to implement a “managed retreat” policy that will allow taking and demolishing coastal homes and businesses. […] CCC retreat guidance is expected to also entail dismantling and relocating of dozens of wastewater treatment and...