Free Republic

Crazy lady running for California Senate puts up huge "DISOBEY TRUMP" billboard. Do these Democrats really wonder why they get called treasonous? Treason is pretty much their main platform right now. When the main TP you have is 'resist' with no clear solutions, you have lost

Step one: Find an expert with an impressive-sounding academic title to legitimize shoddy advocacy propaganda. Meet Brian Levin. He's the one-man band behind something called the "Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism" at California State University, San Bernardino. The "center" (that is: Levin) claims to be "nonpartisan" and "objective." But he is a former top staffer of the militant, conservative-smearing Southern Poverty Law Center, which was forced to apologize earlier this year after including famed black neurosurgeon and GOP 2016 candidate Ben Carson on its "extremist watch list" of hate groups. At SPLC, Levin infamously posited that the...

SACRAMENTO — A Santa Monica advertising firm that produced a tax-funded $23-million ad program touting the benefits of preschool settled a suit after one of its subcontractors made $2.5 million in payments, the firms have announced. GMMB Inc. alleged in a suit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in April that the subcontractor, Durazo Communications, failed to pay some television stations that aired the commercials, which were funded by the First 5 California Children and Families Commission. (snip) The suit attracted attention when Hector Ramirez, the commission's chairman, called on the Los Angeles Police Department and the state Bureau...

State contractor sues subcontractor; police and auditor notified. Sacramento -- Nearly $3 million in public money earmarked for pro-preschool commercials is missing, marking a weird twist in the controversy surrounding a move by a state commission headed until recently by director Rob Reiner to air the commercials while Reiner was working to get a preschool initiative on the ballot. The new head of the First 5 California Children and Families Commission and the commission's lead advertising firm acknowledged Thursday that $2.8 million owed to Spanish-language television stations for commercials aired last fall is unaccounted for. The firm, GMMB Inc., filed...

California's First 5 commission is investigating the apparent disappearance of nearly $3 million in tax money owed to television stations that aired its recent preschool ads, the commission chairman said today. Hector Ramirez, First 5 California Children and Families Commission chairman, also called on the Los Angeles Police Department and California Bureau of State Audits to find out what became of $2.8 million given to the Los Angeles public relations and advertising firm Durazo Communications. The firm was supposed to use the money to pay the TV stations. "What we're going to be doing is just conducting a full investigation...