Free Republic

American investors are bankrolling China’s plan to drive the U.S. military from the Indo-Pacific region and risking their own retirement funds in the process. “Why are we sending American capital to a country and supporting a defense industry that's popping out a couple destroyers and frigates a month and threatening to have total overmatch against us in the Pacific?” White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien said "I don't see why we should be underwriting the Chinese defense industry.” O’Brien singled out the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the largest retirement fund in the country, for a special warning that...

A California law scheduled to take effect in January will reclassify many independent contractors as employees, and that could strip truck drivers in the state of some of their best-paying opportunities, experts warn. According to job search website Indeed, the average annual salary for an owner-operator driver is $222,608. The median salary for a truck driver is $43,680 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Many people are without cell service after PG&E cut power to two milllion people and wildfires burn across California. In Marin County, close to 50 percent of all cell sites are down. In Sonoma County, 17 percent of sites are without power.  "The biggest concern is that when it comes to 911 calls, 81 percent of 911 calls are made from your wireless phone so having cell sites down it's an incredible public safety concern that consumers cannot access emergency services," said Ana Maria Johnson with the California Public Utilities Commission. Johnson said cell towers don't have back-up power systems because cell companies are not required...

... The wildfire crisis is ultimately the product of a state politics controlled by interest groups whose agenda has drifted out of any cognizable relationship with the daily well-being of the state’s average citizen. Because California accounts for less than 1% of global emissions, nothing it does will make a difference to climate, but its ratepayers shell out billions for wind and solar that might be better spent on fireproofing. A generation of ill-judged environmental activism has all but ended forest management in favor of letting dead trees and underbrush build up because it’s more “natural.” At the same time,...

That fire was caused when a dry branch from a eucalyptus tree was flung 30 feet (9 meters) by high winds into a city Department of Water and Power line, which short-circuited and sparked, the utility and Fire Department announced Tuesday. The power line had been operating safely and the DWP had cut away brush and trees from around the line, officials said. Mayor Eric Garcetti called it an “act of God.”

The earthquake struck about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast from the NuStar Energy fuel storage facility in the Bay Area community of Crockett 15 hours before the Tuesday fire that consumed thousands of gallons (liters) of fuel. Aftershocks in the same area were still being felt Wednesday, including one with a 3.4 magnitude. State and local inspectors were investigating the fire that shut down the facility, which according to the company has 24 tanks capable of holding more than 3 million barrels of different kinds of fuels. The seven-hour blaze erupted in towering, stubborn flames Tuesday afternoon at the facility...

Last November, Democrats hailed California voters' rejection of Proposition 6, a law to scrap the state's 2017 massive gas taxes.  They crowed that Californians were glad to pay five bucks at the pump when the rest of the U.S. average was half that.  Big reason?  Because $3 billion of those takings would save the state's tumbledown highways and go to repair roads and bridges.  The rejection came after a voters showed strong signs of wanting to get rid of the tax until a barrage of television ads ran, warning that any vote to repeal the gas tax would mean the state's decrepit highways and bridges would go wanting for repair funds: A vote to repeal the gas tax would...

The People’s Republic of California is at it again; through unelected state officials, California is severing ties to ham radio repeater owners throughout the state, jeopardizing the lives of millions of Californians who depend on these repeaters to operate during emergencies. Last month, repeater operators were sent emails telling them the State would no longer allow them to operate repeaters on public land without paying substantial rental fees. In the letter sent by CAL FIRE, the state claims Ham operators no longer provide a benefit to the state or public safety. They claimed that “constantly changing technological advances” has made...

Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s biggest utility company, shut off electricity to more than 1 million people on Wednesday in an effort to prevent wildfires caused by downed power lines. The utility said it cut power to more than 500,000 customers in Northern California and that it plans to gradually turn off electricity to nearly 800,000 customers to prevent its equipment from starting wildfires during hot, windy weather. A second group of about 234,000 customers will lose power starting at noon, the utility said. The power outages are expected to affect about 2.5 million people. The utility plans to shut...

Not content with micro-stamping, background checks for ammo, and outright bans on handguns that aren’t individually tested to be “safe”, California is back on the gun control warpath. If state Sen. Anthony Portantino’s bill passes in a final vote in the Legislature this week, California residents will soon be barred from buying more than one semiautomatic rifle a month. Purchases of any semiautomatic rifles will also be off-limits to anyone under the age of 21. Portantino’s bill originally called for limiting monthly purchases on all long guns – shotguns and bolt-action rifles included – but he decided to exclude those...

Seven years after its land buying program began, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has yet to acquire hundreds of parcels, even though the state has the power to condemn property in the way of its future tracks. At the same time, the rail authority has become landlord to surplus acreage that serves no purpose in furthering high-speed rail but still must be managed by the state. It owns toxic waste sites, vacant lots and rental homes.

Election security is more than Russian hackers trying to change votes. We must secure the chain of custody of ballots, validate the identity of the voter, and maintain updated voter lists. Thus far, Democrats have shown no interest in any of that. Take, for example, the race between former Republican Rep. David Valadao and Democrat T. J. Cox in California’s rural 21st district. When polls closed, Valadao led Cox by 6,000 votes — or 8 percent. That margin was wide enough for media outlets to call the race for Valadao. However, late ballots delivered by third-party groups broke so heavily...

California’s governor is expected to sign into law a bill that critics say would make it difficult, if not impossible, for trucking companies in the state to use independent contractor owner-operator truck drivers. If signed into law, Assembly Bill 5 “will put tens of thousands of owner-operator truckers, who service agriculture, retail and other industry sectors, out of business," said the California Trucking Association in a press release. AB 5 originally passed the California State Assembly back in May, and was passed late in the evening Sept. 10 by the state Senate. It codifies last year’s Dynamex California Supreme Court...

‘Trump will be a dynasty that will last for decades that will turn the Republican Party into a new Party’ President Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale told a crowd at the California Republican Party Convention Saturday that California is the leading state for donations. This announcement was made to Republican delegates and guests gearing up for the 2020 election year at a convention in Indian Wells, California. President Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale told a crowd at the California Republican Party Convention Saturday that California is the leading state for donations. This announcement was made to Republican delegates and guests...