Free Republic

January 24, 2018 at 2:26 pm Editor’s note: Breaking views are thoughts from individual members of the editorial board on today’s headlines. California’s bullet train project has basically been one long, embarrassing and wasteful disaster ever since it got started. Alas, it persists. The latest update on the first phase of the project, the 119-mile Central Valley section considered the easiest to build, came out a week ago, when the rail authority had to revise its 2016 cost estimate of $7.8 billion in favor of the more realistic though perhaps still optimistic $10.6 billion. It was originally expected to cost...

A Mexican man living in the U.S. illegally used his job as an Uber driver to target intoxicated young women and was charged Monday with raping, assaulting and robbing four victims, California prosecutors said. Alfonso Alarcon-Nunez drove women to their homes, assaulted them, and stole property including cellphones, computers and jewelry, officials said. He collected his fare payments through the smartphone app Venmo to disguise his identity and his Uber records...California issues driver’s licenses to immigrants in the country illegally and Alarcon-Nunez had a valid license since 2015. Alarcon-Nunez’s immigration status will not have a bearing on the prosecution, Dow...

Those who campaign for a disarmed population take comfort in persuading themselves that gun ownership is declining in the United States.This is the primary goal, after all. If gun ownership is declining, they can claim they are “winning”.The most commonly cited evidence that gun ownership is declining is the General Social Survey, which shows a gradually declining percentage of households in the United States that tell survey-takers they have guns in the household.But the number of guns sold in the last decade skyrocketed.  At the beginning of 2008, there were about 301 million privately owned guns in the United...

California lawmakers are targeting the expected windfall that companies in the state would see under the federal tax overhaul with a bill that would require businesses to turn over half to the state. A proposed Assembly Constitutional Amendment by Assemblymen Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, and Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, would create a tax surcharge on California companies making more than $1 million so that half of their federal tax cut would instead go to programs that benefit low-income and middle-class families. “Trump’s tax reform plan was nothing more than a middle-class tax increase,” Ting said in a statement. “It is unconscionable...

Newly implemented ammunition controls forced a temporary halt to ammo sales at 131 Walmart stores throughout California. On January 1, 2018, Breitbart News reported that California’s ammunition controls took effect. These controls require that all ammunition be purchased in-state and that those purchases be conducted via a California-approved dealer. Moreover, an individual must secure a “California vendor license” to be recognized as a California-approved ammunition dealer. This means that if the state is delayed in issuing the licenses dealers will necessarily be unable to sell ammunition.

The Republican-backed federal tax bill flipped the tables on a never-ending question for California politicians: Will high taxes lead the state’s wealthiest residents to flee the Golden State for the comparable tax havens of Florida, Nevada and Texas? Republicans reliably raise that alarm when Democrats advocate for tax increases, like the 2012 and 2016 ballot initiatives that levied a new income tax on very high-earning residents. But now, with the federal tax bill cutting off deductions that benefited well-off Californians, the state’s Democrats suddenly are singing the GOP song about a potential millionaire exodus. “People with higher incomes pay a...

CARSON (CBSLA) — A pet owner is probably telling his dog she’s an extra good girl Friday after a harrowing couple of days during which she went missing. “Man, I had a heart attack!” Daniel Ashimine told CBS2 News. “I don’t care about my car, I really love my dog!” Ashimine was reunited with Holly after she hitched a ride in his car, which was stolen as it was parked behind his restaurant Monday. “My wife and I started driving all over the place looking for the dog,” said Ashimine. “The last couple of nights I didn’t get any rest.”

Organizers have collected nearly 100,000 signatures to recall Judge Aaron Persky from his position in June over what critics say was a a lenient sentencing of Stanford University student Brock Turner, who sexually assaulted an intoxicated female student in 2015. Turner was hit with a six-month county jail sentence, of which he served three months due to a state law aimed at reducing jail overcrowding.

The latest notion by the Trump Resistance: Turn state tax bill into a charitable contribution to get around Republican tax law. Sacramento I’ve routinely slammed California’s Democratic leaders for their plodding lack of creativity in dealing with the state’s many crises. Pick a problem (infrastructure, poverty, housing, etc.) and they have the same basic solution: Raise taxes, expand a bureaucracy, and give the government more power and money to “do something.” It would never dawn on them that the biggest problems are in the areas where they’ve intervened the most. But it’s time to give credit where it’s due. Their...

full title: PHOTOS=> Sanctuary State Signs Pop Up on California Highways for the New Year: “Felons, Illegals and MS13 Welcome!” Anonymous Street artists moved out to highways once again to ring in the new year by posting messages to the “Welcome to California” highway signs. The signs were put up north of Lake Havasu, Arizona, Primm, Nevada and on Highway 95 in California and read “OFFICIAL SANCTUARY STATE, Felons, Illegals and MS13 Welcome! Democrats Need The Votes!” The highway signs are apparently commemorating California’s new Sanctuary State status. NOTE: It is unclear who originated this action. Here are a few...

Denver, Colorado just took a step closer to being and smelling like India. The Denver City Council gave their city a big flaming bag of poop for Christmas. On Monday the city council unanimously voted to decriminalizing low-level crimes like pooping on the sidewalk. NO Clean Up On Aisle 5 In Denver, people are required to dispose of dog poop, but humans defecating can just leave it anywhere they like. You would think they would stop there, but noooooooo!

California ammunition sales are surging as residents rush to beat the January 1, 2018, implementation of new gun controls targeting ammo sales. The incoming controls are the outworking of Proposition 63, passed by voters in 2016. On December 15 Breitbart News reported that California’s war on guns would broaden to include a war on ammo in 2018. These controls include a ban on any ammunition not purchased within the state of California. Moreover, they narrowly define legally purchased ammo as that which is acquired via a licensed dealer in the state. These controls will not only lessen the supply of...

“My high-speed rail proposal will lead to innovations that change the way we travel in America,” Obama boldly proclaimed during his first year of his first term. A recent Investor’s Business Daily article pointed out that the recent Amtrak train derailment near Tacoma, Washington, was on a stretch of track that was the direct result of President Obama’s pie in the sky vision of high-speed rail under his stimulus plan. Monday’s crash of the Amtrak train, which killed three and injured many more, was remarkable in that this was the very first route of this line on a new track...

California sheriffs who opposed adopting a “sanctuary state” law are now being tasked with implementing the law in their jails and retention policies. The law, which began as Senate Bill 54, was issued in response to President Trump’s campaign against illegal immigration. According to the Los Angeles Times, the sanctuary law “is designed to limit the people that California law enforcement agencies can detain, question or investigate at the request of federal immigration officials. But its impact will largely rely on county sheriffs whose departments play a vital role in immigration enforcement.” In sum, the law is an attempt to...

On Monday, The Hill reported that Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., walked out of a moment of silence on the House floor for victims of Sunday’s mass shooting at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Lieu said he “will not be silent” after yet another massacre. “My colleagues right now are doing a moment of silence in the House of Representatives’ chambers,” he said. “I respect their right to do that and I myself have participated in many of them.” “But I can’t do this again, I’ve been to too many moments of silences. In just my short period in...

State Department investigation provides insight on Democrats’ imported electorate. President Donald Trump estimated that three to five million illegals had caused him to lose the popular vote, which Hillary Clinton carried by 2.8 million votes. Trump duly launched a commission on voter fraud headed by vice president Mike Pence and Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach. That probe had Democrats bellowing through their bullhorns. “There’s simply no evidence of widespread voter fraud in this country. Period.” That was California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 84, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who is seeking another term next year. As it happens,...

California to tax pot as much as 45% by Aaron Smith @AaronSmithCNN October 31, 2017: 2:24 PM ET Buying legal marijuana in California could be pricey enough to keep the black market healthy. Between customers, retailers and growers, taxes on cannabis may reach as high as 45% in parts of the state, according to a Fitch Ratings report. Those high taxes may keep consumers away from legal marijuana stores once the recreational retail market goes live on January 1. "High effective tax rates on California cannabis may complicate the state's efforts to establish legal markets" said analysts Stephen Walsh and...

Santa Clara County officials said they “are not going to be intimidated” by the Trump Administration’s hard-line immigration crackdown after the county was targeted in a nationwide series of federal immigration sweeps that yielded nearly two dozen arrests in the South Bay.

Just one day after California Governor Jerry Brown compared supporters of President Trump to cave dwellers, he told the United Nations the U.S. is not run by Trump. Speaking at a UN roundtable event on Tuesday, the Democrat vowed to fight climate change despite Trump’s stand on the issue.

Jail and court records showed Mejia, an admitted gang member, had been arrested and jailed at least five times in the ten months between his release from state prison and murders. Each time Mejia was arrested he spent only a few days in jail while under the supervision of County probation officers, according to booking records. The secret report is said to detail how carefully the probation officers kept tabs on Mejia, and why efforts were not made to impose a more significant consequence for the repeated arrests, County officials have said. "The public's right to know must be balanced...