Free Republic

A friend of ours in northern Virginia received this flier delivered to her apartment’s front door this morning: The ad, attacking President Obama, declared, “WE’VE SEEN STORMS IN VIRGINIA, BUT NONE LIKE THIS…”Below an image of ominous storm clouds is the stern visage of President Obama staring out into space. Next to it is this text: Barack Obama’s policies have added $4 billion in debt each day he’s been in office.America CAN’T AFFORD this debt.

Tony Krvaric knew he wasn't going to get much help from the national presidential campaign in his effort to get people to the polls to boost local GOP candidates to victory. So the San Diego County Republican Party chairman spent more than $15,000 on Mitt Romney bumper stickers, lawn signs and other campaign swag to motivate voters and volunteers. "There's a lot of enthusiasm for Romney and Ryan, and I want to tap into that," Krvaric said. "That will help all my local candidates." No matter what happens nationally, the presidential race is all but decided in California, with President...

The I-am-so-thrilled-the-Giants-won-the-World-Series-that-I-want-to-set-something-on-fire compulsion is well recognized, if not well understood. Surely these firebugs realize they had no more to do with the victory than a local housecat. Still, it happens every time there's a big win, so we should probably be pleased that it is mostly just trash bins and random bits of paper and wood. But there are also moments that make you wonder exactly what is wrong with people. Among the objects set ablaze Sunday night was the shoeshine stand of Larry Moore, the dapper, homeless shoe shiner of Market Street. Moore's friend and benefactor, Loren Lopin, says...

With polls showing that Republican Mitt Romney has significantly eroded President Obama's once-robust lead among women, both parties have turned their attention in the final days of the 2012 campaign to a key slice of the women's vote that could be crucial to victory - millions of potential "Obama defectors." Women who voted for the Democrat in 2008, and are considering jumping ship this year, are a target of impassioned campaigning as Republicans and Democrats aim for the margins in battleground states. Nancy Keenan, who heads NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation's largest reproductive-rights advocacy group, said Monday that her organization...

Stuck in a standoff with teachers unions, the San Francisco and Oakland school districts have abandoned efforts to bring in up to $15 million each to develop high-quality math classes for upper-elementary and middle school students. The two districts spent months preparing a joint application for the next round of federal Race to the Top funding - which required districts to incorporate student test scores, among other criteria, in teacher evaluations. And because of that critical clause, union leaders refused to sign, as required by the federal application.

AMES, Iowa (AP) — President Barack Obama is poised to eke out a victory in the race for the 270 electoral votes needed to win re-election, having beaten back Republican Mitt Romney's attempts to convert momentum from the debates into support in all-important Ohio, according to an Associated Press analysis a week before Election Day. While the Democratic incumbent has the upper hand in the electoral vote hunt, Romney has pulled even, or is slightly ahead, in polling in a few pivotal states, including Florida and Virginia. The Republican challenger also appears to have the advantage in North Carolina, the...

On the heels of a sex scandal involving a female patient, another woman has acknowledged having a sexual relationship with physician and U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais while she was under his medical care. The second woman described DesJarlais as "the nicest guy" and said he cooked dinner for her at their first get-together in 2000. But she also said they smoked marijuana during their relationship and remembered DesJarlais prescribing her pain medication on dates at his home. "His biggest thing that's completely unethical is him just picking up women while he's a doctor," the woman said in an interview last...

In TV commercials and campaign stops, Gov. Jerry Brown has told Californians that voting against his tax-hike measure, Proposition 30, will mean devastating cuts for public schools. Yet the governor's finance team concedes that state spending will go up next year regardless of your vote.So what's a voter to think? Does the state of California really need more of your money?This newspaper's review of state budget figures found: The estimated $6 billion in extra revenue annually from Proposition 30 quickly would put the state on track to return to peak spending levels before the Great Recession. The inflation-adjusted tax burden...

Barack Obama is charismatic and inspiring, but he won office too early in his career and he is a victim of his own success. Sweeping into office with majorities in the Senate and House, Obama quickly passed a Democrats-only stimulus package that didn't deliver as promised. Then he signed a health care package that increased the burden of health care on private employers and failed to attract a single GOP vote. Obama's Affordable Care Act helped unseat moderate and other Democrats who had voted for the package, handing the House to Republicans. Suddenly Obama had to work across the aisle....

The governor of California may not be toast – yet – but, one might say, he's turning browner by the moment in the heat of a political campaign he hoped would be his legacy achievement. Two new statewide polls confirm what political instincts – and Jerry Brown's body language – were already telling us: His tax increase measure, Proposition 30, is fading fast with scarcely a week remaining until Election Day. Proposition 30, a $6 billion per year boost in sales and income taxes that Brown said would resolve the state's chronic fiscal problems, never was particularly popular with voters,...

Handing down a victory for Knox County prosecutors, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals today ruled Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood must recuse himself from presiding over retrials for three defendants convicted in the 2007 torture-slayings of a young Knox County couple. A stay previously entered in the retrial of these cases will remain in effect until the chief justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court appoints a replacement judge or pending further orders of this court of the Supreme Court, Judge Robert W. Wedemeyer wrote in the ruling for the three-member panel. "Upon that appointment, the new trial judge shall review...

Gov. Jerry Brown continues stumping today for his tax initiative, Proposition 30, as a new Public Policy Institute of California poll finds that support for it among likely voters has dropped below 50 percent. The outlook for Molly Munger's rival measure, Proposition 38, is even less bright, as David Siders reported last night.

After getting stiffed by the city of San Bernardino for millions in payments, CalPERS is objecting to the city's right to file for bankruptcy protection. In a lengthy court filing late Wednesday, the California Public Employees' Retirement System suggested San Bernardino is using bankruptcy protection to avoid paying its debts. The city owes CalPERS about $5.2 million. The city's action "raises a serious question of whether its underlying purpose has been merely to 'buy time' and 'evade creditors,'" CalPERS wrote in a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Riverside.

Nobody in Hollywood has been clamoring to make “Ishtar 2.” Or re-imagine “Howard the Duck.” Why? Because they were BOMBS, that’s why. So why in the name of “Gigli” would Mitt Romney’s campaign — er, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads superPAC – dust off Clint Eastwood to make a campaign commercial touting Mitt? All it does is remind people of the great Eastwood’s royal bomb at the RNC just two months ago. Yes, his ad-libbed “conversation” with a chair. But in politics, attention spans are Tweet-short these days. So here’s Clint coughing up his full-throat-of-gravel Clintyness backing Mitt. . . .

SAN FRANCISCO -- A woman backing out of her garage in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood drove over and killed a man sleeping outside her home, police said Wednesday. The man was sleeping on the ground outside the 28-year-old woman's garage on Third Street near Bryant Street at 7 a.m. Tuesday when she backed out in her sedan and rolled over him, . . .

SACRAMENTO -- In a closely contested state Senate campaign, Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani has been urging voters to judge her on her legislative achievements, saying on her website that she is "proud to have a record of standing up for the people of my district." Voters who try to examine the record of the Central Valley Democrat may come away with the wrong impression. They would not be able to tell that Galgiani remained silent during 136 votes, adding her vote to those pieces of legislation only after the bills had already passed or failed. Nor would they see that she...

BENICIA -- Rumors are swirling that Valero is putting its two California oil refineries on the market, including one in Benicia that is the city's largest employer. The speculation follows a Wall Street Journal report last week that said the San Antonio-based company has enlisted Citigroup Inc. to help find a buyer for the facilities. The article cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter. Valero operates a 78,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Wilmington outside Los Angeles and a 132,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Benicia. Together, the plants represent about 10 percent of the company's U.S. refining capacity. Valero, which has been critical of California's...

So far this year, three California cities have filed for bankruptcy protection, and it's likely they will be joined by at least a few others in the not-too-distant future. That's not merely journalistic speculation. Moody's Investment Service, which closely monitors state and local governments for the huge municipal bond industry, issued an unusual public warning the other day that other California cities may be headed down the same path. "To summarize," Moody's said, "we expect … more bankruptcy filings and bond defaults among California cities, reflecting the increased risk to bondholders as investors are asked to contribute to plans for...

NASHVILLE — Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey says there's a good chance Democrats will be left with just seven seats in the Tennessee state Senate after the Nov. 6 election. House Speaker Beth Harwell's most optimistic Republican scenario has the minority party with just 24 representatives remaining. They and other Republican leaders say there's virtually no doubt that the GOP will hit a new high-water mark in the 2012 elections by gaining a two-thirds "super majority" in both chambers of the Legislature. There is considerable confidence in Republican ranks that they will go beyond that to what some are calling "a...

Gloria Romero grew up in Barstow, the daughter of a railroad worker, and like many of the desert community's young, left for the big city – in her case Los Angeles, where she earned advanced degrees, and became a college professor and later a Democratic state legislator. By happenstance, however, Romero's most important legislation – empowering parents to take control of failing public schools – is making its first impact in Adelanto, just a few miles from Barstow. This week, a San Bernardino County judge ordered Adelanto's school board to stop stalling and grant the charter school petition of parents...