Free Republic

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H.L. MenckenIn the third decade of the 21st century, Mencken’s quotation needs to be upgraded. It’s not just that the common people are getting what they wanted good and hard, it’s that the virtue-signaling affluent leftists are finally getting it too. Certainly, that’s the conclusion to be had from a story about rising shoplifting in Marin County, once a very safe community and also one of America’s most fanatically Democrat-voting counties.To appreciate the news story I’m about to share...

In November 2020, over 80% of Marin County, California, residents voted for Joe Biden. This was to be expected. In 2018, 64% of Marin’s residents voted for Gavin Newsom. Only 12% voted for John Cox, the Republican candidate. Another 8% of votes went to yet another Democrat. Now that Marinites have gotten their solid Democrat governance, though, they’re not happy with one of the main Democrat goals: Turning expensive suburbs into densely populated urban areas. Welcome to the new NIMBYs (“Not in my back yard”). Marin County is one of the wealthiest areas in America, coming in at number 13...

Something strange is going on out in Marin County, California. The elected officials there have instituted a pilot program offering a universal basic income in the form of a monthly stipend to a limited number of participants. That in and of itself isn’t unique, as programs such as this have been tested in other places, such as Stockton, California. A couple of aspects of this program, however, really are unique. The most glaring among these is the fact that in order to qualify, participants have to be women. No males need apply. On top of that, the program is not...

Two Marin County, California, firefighters were rescued Friday after becoming trapped while battling the Woodward Fire in northern California, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said Saturday. The California wildfires have burned more than 1 million acres, CNN reports.

California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom is behind on his property taxes again. Maybe this explains why the governor allowed his Napa Valley winery to stay open but ordered other wineries in the state to close down. ... Marin County Tax Collector's website currently lists Gov. Newsom's property taxes on his Kentfield estate as delinquent. Newsom did manage to pay his property taxes on his Sacramento mansion this year, but not without racking up a late-payment penalty of some $2,094.15. In March, Newsom became the first governor to issue a stay-at-home order in response to the Wuhan coronavirus. A month later,...

Marin transportation officials were cautiously optimistic Monday after a recent court ruling upheld a major funding source for several local highway projects, but the funding could be in limbo because of appeals. “We have tremendous congestion and these projects are congestion relievers,” said Dianne Steinhauser, executive director of the Transportation Authority of Marin. “We hear from the public constantly about how bad the congestion is right now. We’re hoping that this money starts flowing. It’d be great to see it by the end of 2019.” Regional Measure 3, the June 2018 ballot measure that increases tolls for seven Bay Area...

Concerned citizens submitted 12 petitions to change the name of the Dixie School District in Marin County. The district Board of Trustees now has 40 days to vote “yes” or “no” on the proposals. California state law requires a governing school board to consider any proposal for a name change put forth by fifteen voters in a school district. (California Education Code 35001.) On Wednesday night, the Board of Trustees will discuss the process of considering the petitions and will hear a presentation on the potential costs to change the district’s name on signs and other materials. The Superintendent estimates...

Two Bay Area counties sued 37 oil, gas and coal companies Monday asserting the companies knew their fossil fuel products would cause sea level rise and coastal flooding but failed to reduce their greenhouse gas pollution. The lawsuit was part of a coordinated litigation attack by Marin, San Mateo County and the city of Imperial Beach.

The names of the tech workers in this story have been changed.Ten thousand miles from Silicon Valley, in a room near the Black Sea, Yegor Karpenchekov dreams of money. At night, while the rest of Odessa sleeps and cocaine smugglers drift in and out of the port under cover of darkness, Yegor logs onto FaceTime and talks to a 70-year-old woman in San Francisco. Her name is Sally Faubion, and five months ago she recruited Yegor from the freelancer marketplace UpWork to code her apps. She believes "divine intervention" brought them together; for Yegor, it was likely $20 per hour...

The California Assembly on Thursday unanimously approved a bill to rename the Waldo Tunnel after late comedian Robin Williams. The Waldo Tunnel is a tunnel on U.S. 101 between the Golden Gate Bridge and Sausalito in Marin County. William Waldo was a California politician who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1853. The tunnel’s archways are painted in rainbow colors, which is why people sometimes call it the "rainbow tunnel." Williams was a long time resident of Marin. The idea to rename the tunnel started with an online petition that received more than 60,000 signatures. Julie Wainwright, who started the petition,...

NOVATO (CBS SF) — After George Lucas ran into a buzzsaw of opposition from his wealthy Marin County neighbors when he tried to expand his Skywalker Ranch studio, the filmmaker might be getting some payback with plans for one of the largest affordable housing projects in the Bay Area.

A firefighter tackled a woman allegedly trying to set a person on fire in Mill Valley, and investigators are wondering if she might be responsible for a number of other crimes. Nai Feuy Saelor, 24, of Richmond was booked Sunday on charges of arson, assault with a caustic chemical and vandalism counts, according to Marin County jail records. Officers said an off-duty Marin County firefighter saw a woman throwing lighter fluid on a 50-year-old woman off Panoramic Highway on Mount Tamalpais. He then tackled the woman before she could set the victim on fire. "The sheriff's department took its samples...

<p>A Marin County technology executive was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after he got off his bicycle and beat a motorist unconscious during an alleged act of road rage in Mill Valley, a city police official said.</p>

Marin man's lifestyle is efficient, but he failed to apply for proper permits.David Hoffman is not your typical outlaw. For one, every conversation veers toward inevitable topic of conservation and sustainability. He can’t understand why people need things like septic tanks – or whey they use perfectly good drinking water to wash their cars. It’s not Hoffman’s ideas that got him into trouble. It was the execution. Forty-years of it. Four decades ago, Hoffman started some home improvements on his house in the wooded hills of the Marin County town of Lagunitas. He harbored ideas and theories of how people...

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas could, indeed, make good on his idea of building affordable housing right next door to the high-income NIMBYs who blocked his plans for a production studio near his Lucas Valley ranch complex. His Marin County neighbors and conservationists have dismissed Lucas' musings as sour grapes, and say low-income housing could never be built in such a remote and environmentally sensitive location.But those in the know disagree.There's a feeling on the Board of Supervisors, which has final say over the project, that it fits into the county's desire for more low-income housing - and by the...

Filmmaker George Lucas is pushing forward with plans to build low-income housing at Marin County's picturesque Grady Ranch, a vow of his that was widely dismissed as an insincere attempt by the billionaire to thumb his nose at complaining neighbors. The Marin Community Foundation announced Tuesday that it is working with Lucasfilm to "explore options" for building affordable housing in the location where the movie mogul wanted to build a film studio until residents in an adjacent subdivision protested. . . . Lucas...withdrew his plans last month to build a large mission-style movie-making studio on Grady Ranch, blaming the Lucas...

MARIN COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- A Marin County smoking ban is on hold while lawmakers consider weeding out marijuana from the measure. The ordinance as written would outlaw smoking in unincorporated county apartments and included marijuana and other herbs as well as tobacco. It was abruptly sent back to committee Wednesday when Supervisor Kate Sears said only tobacco should be banned...

Marin County, the affluent Bay Area community outside of San Francisco, is too white, says the Feds. According to data culled from the recent census, Marin County contains seven of the 10 whitest cities in the Bay Area. And to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), that’s a problem. According to the Bay Citizen: The draft report, released Wednesday, came in response to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s determination that Marin had “failed to comply” with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and two other anti-discrimination statutes. Marin’s Community Development Agency recommended amending zoning regulations to...

As much as a million gallons of sewage has poured into Marin County's Corte Madera Creek this week - including sludge from a pipe that ruptured Wednesday - following a series of mishaps that officials believe could be sabotage. The raw sewage bubbled out of a badly clogged pipeline in Kentfield Friday. Then, about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, a large pipe apparently burst underneath a berm used by locals as a jogging trail next to the creek, about three-quarters of a mile west of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. An undetermined amount of effluent spewed out of the ruptured pipe, said Brett...

Sally C. Pipes is president and chief executive officer of the Pacific Research Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank founded in 1979. Prior to becoming president in 1991, she was assistant director of the Fraser Institute, based in Vancouver, Canada. This proves to be a lively informative meeting that is open to the entire county of Marin. Please take time to read her partial BIO and begin to invite everyone you know to this outstanding event in Marin County.