Free Republic

California Democrats are building a wall of money to defend the congressional seats they took from Republicans in 2018, new Federal Election Commission financial reports show *** In the Central Valley, Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock (Stanislaus County), took in $789,093 in the quarter that ended March 31, leaving him with $3.5 million in campaign cash. His Republican opponent, veterinarian Ted Howze, raised $71,147 in the first quarter, leaving him with $100,575 in the bank. *** Brian Maryott, a San Juan Capistrano city councilman, is challenging Democratic Rep. Mike Levin in a district that bridges San Diego and Orange counties. But...

...A popular political twitter username, Thao Nguyen @helloitsthao (followed by people like Matt Gaetz and Scott Pressler), posts election news and data from around the country. All the data posted under her twitter handle is backed up by statistics posted on local, state and national sites. She gathers it, so we don’t have to...You can see that from 2016-2018 we lost around 75k voters, but from 2018-2020 we have seen 35,210 new Republican voters.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who was sued by gun-rights groups after trying to shut down firearms dealers in the wake of coronavirus concerns, is abandoning the effort. The sheriff said Monday he's heeding a federal Department of Homeland Security advisory issued on Saturday that listed gun and ammunition dealers as “essential critical infrastructure workers." Villanueva called the non-binding memo “persuasive" and announced that his department won't order or recommend closing businesses that sell or repair firearms or sell ammunition in the nation's most populous county.

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to remove Sheriff Alex Villanueva as head of the county's emergency operations. On Monday, Villanueva came out and blasted the vote. "If you're asking the public to stay home, cooperate with authorities, the same applies to the Board of Supervisors," the sheriff said. "They need to remain focused on this united front against the spread of the coronavirus so that together we can save lives." The move is based on a report on the communications efforts after the 2018 Woolsey Fire and comes as more cases of...

The sheriff's department previously suspended enforcement of its decision after the county counsel's office declared gun stores essential businesses. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is closing gun stores Thursday in unincorporated areas of the county and the 42 cities where it provides law enforcement, after suspending efforts earlier this week following the county counsel's office declaring gun stores essential businesses during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Neither hurricanes nor 9/11 caused as big a surge in gun sales as Coronavirus - Gun shop owners have never seen such a surge in sales — not after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, not in reaction to mass shootings, not even when Category 5 hurricanes threatened to flatten South Florida. Fear and uncertainty about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic are motivating people to buy guns and ammunition as they seek protection from possible doomsday disintegration into lawlessness, with home invasions, looting, runs on banks, and fights over food, medicine, hospital beds and shelter across the land. "Our sales are...

LATEST, March 24, 8:43 p.m. Los Angeles County health officials backtracked Tuesday on their announcement that a child died from coronavirus, saying it’s possible the death was caused by something else.

After hours of pushback from residents, gun stores, Second Amendment organizations, and even the county attorney, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva reversed course early Wednesday morning and now says his office is suspending attempts to force firearm retailers to lock their doors. Villaneuva announced the move on social media, saying it will be up to Gov. Gavin Newsom to determine what is, and isn’t, an essential business.

Society is on lock-down and on the brink of being under martial law, and citizens are beginning to panic over scarcity as grocery store shelves remain empty. Meanwhile, the sheriff in town is releasing criminals and reducing arrests, all while telling citizens not to do anything to protect themselves. If this sounds like the plot of a “Joker” reboot, you’ll be shocked to learn that it’s literally the strategy of Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

When 69-year-old Marietta Jinde died in September 2016, police had already been called to her home several times because of reports of possible abuse. A detective described conditions at the woman’s home in Gardena as “horrendous.” She was so emaciated and frail that the hospital asked Los Angeles County adult protective services officials to look into her death. Yet by the time a coroner’s investigator was able to examine Jinde’s 70-pound body, the bones from her legs and arms were gone. Also missing were large patches of skin from her back. With permission from county officials and saying they did...

Rolling power outages began Saturday in Glendale and were set to cycle through two different areas in the city. The outages - employed to ease strain on the electricity distribution system amid high temperatures -- began as early as 12:45 p.m., Glendale Water & Power reported. They are formulated on an as-needed basis, and anyone experiencing an outage will have power restored an hour after service was disrupted, according to the utility. The Pacific Community Center at 501 S. Pacific Ave., is available as a cooling center until 9 p.m. Saturday, and the Adult Recreation Center at 201 E Colorado...

Full title: California Begins Massive Voter Roll Clean-Up – Notifies Up to 1.5 Million ‘Inactive’ Voters as Part of Judicial Watch Lawsuit Settlement (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has been informed that Los Angeles County has sent notices to as many as 1.5 million inactive voters on its voter rolls. This mailing is a step toward removing the names of voters who have moved, died, or are otherwise ineligible to vote. The massive mailing is the result of a settlement agreement with Judicial Watch requiring the County to remove as many as 1.5 million inactive registrations....

A man’s body was found early Monday in the West Hollywood home of prominent Democratic donor Ed Buck, authorities said. Deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s West Hollywood station responded to the Laurel Avenue apartment complex at 1:05 a.m. in response to a report of a person not breathing, the department said in a statement. At some point, the 911 caller performed CPR, the department said. Paramedics pronounced a man dead at the scene. The cause of death was not yet known. The dead man’s name has not been released, but Nicole Nishida, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A former state senator convicted of lying about his residence and three refugees from Vietnam who could face deportation are among 38 people pardoned Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Brown’s pardons also include a man who just lost his Paradise home in a wildfire. The Democratic governor also commuted the sentences of 70 people still serving time, including Walter “Earlonne” Woods, who co-hosts a podcast called “Ear Hustle” from inside San Quinton state prison. Former Sen. Roderick Wright was convicted of felony charges of voter fraud and perjury in 2014 when a...

A flea-borne typhus outbreak in the Los Angeles area has also rocked Long Beach – the third city to be struck down in the region. Officials have this year recorded 12 cases of the bug in the city, home to 470,000 people and around 20 miles (32km) south of downtown LA. A further 20 cases have been recorded in Pasadena since the start of 2018 - and 59 in the whole of LA County in total. Pasadena and Long Beach are both technically in LA County, however they have their own health departments which record their own figures.

A series of four anti-gun bills were approved late this week and are heading to Gov. Jerry Brown for signature. The measures — Assembly Bill 2888 and Senate Bills 221, 1100, and 1177 — passed the state legislature and now head to the state’s Democratic governor for further consideration. AB 2888 would expand who can file for one of California’s Gun Violence Restraining Orders, adding coworkers, employers, and school employees to the list that currently includes family members and police. Such orders, largely pioneered by the state, have been derided as “turn in your neighbor” laws as they allow for...

Some members of a Los Angeles County watchdog panel are calling on Sheriff Jim McDonnell to launch a thorough investigation into allegations of a secret society of deputies that brands its members with matching skull tattoos. The revelation this week that a deputy admitted to getting inked two years ago as part of a ritual within the Compton station has raised concerns that deputy cliques, long part of a controversial agency subculture, have persisted despite the department’s reform efforts. Hernán Vera, who serves on the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission, said the deputy’s admission in a lawsuit over a fatal shooting...

Hundreds of thousands of voters’ names have been accidentally left off the rosters in Los Angeles County because of a printing error. About 2.3 percent of registered voters in the county — or 118,522 voters — were missing on the lists for Tuesday’s primaries, according to The Los Angeles Times. But those voters are still able to cast provisional ballots, though they won’t be verified right away. This will have an impact in more than a dozen House districts, but will likely have the most dramatic effect on the race to replace retiring GOP Rep. Ed Royce, where Democrats are...

Long ago, in a far away country (2017 in California) a dying city locked treasure in a forgotten vault, to be handed over to the new, larger regime. The treasure was inventoried then ignored for several months. During that time, from March 6, 2017, to August 31, 2017, the treasure, 23 Beretta .40 caliber handguns and 8 Glock .40 caliber handguns, disappeared.  No one admits knowing who purloined the treasure or where it has gone. At the end of March 2018, the city gave up on finding the treasure on its own, without controversy. They offered a reward close...

Los Angeles County's homeless population is increasing faster than the supply of new housing, even with the addition of thousands of beds in the last two years and millions of dollars beginning to flow in from two ballot measures targeting the crisis, according to a long-awaited report by the region's homelessness agency. The report showed that officials two years ago far underestimated how much new housing would be needed when they asked city and county voters to approve the tax measures. ... Peter Lynn, executive director of the homeless authority, said Friday that new cost figures had not been calculated,...