Free Republic

It's time for Sacramento County to back down and allow success to happen with Sacramento's most vulnerable women through a proven program We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.—~Mother Teresa Today, American’s mental health institutions have become county jails. Especially in California, following the 2011 prison realignment which resulted in moving “non-violent” prisoners from state prisons down to county jails and letting the “non-violent” out of jails. And Propositions...

On a Sunday night nine years ago, musician Kevin Robert Harris II was sitting in his parked car outside an Inglewood studio when a car pulled alongside him and opened fire, emptying numerous rounds into the promising young artist. Voviette Morgan, FBI special agent in charge of the criminal division in Los Angeles, said the number of rounds and different guns used "is significant ... (and) unusual in an investigation like this."

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg lost control of the Sacramento City Council meeting Tuesday when Black Lives Matter activists turned the meeting into a riot. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg lost control of the Sacramento City Council meeting Tuesday when Black Lives Matter activists turned the meeting into a riot. The council meeting was supposed to be an opportunity to address the recent police shooting of Stephon Clark, a 22-year old black male with a lengthy criminal record. The brother of Stephon Clark interrupted the Sacramento council meeting, took ahold of the microphone to attack the Sacramento cops who shot his brother,...

On Thursday, for the second time in a week, protesters blocked the entrances to Golden 1 Center and prevented thousands of fans from entering a Sacramento Kings game in an effort to continue calling for action by local officials following the police killing of Stephon Clark. Sacramento police responding to a call about someone breaking car windows shot and killed Clark, a 22-year-old black man, on Sunday, March 18, in his grandmother’s backyard. Video of the shooting released last Thursday showed that officers, reportedly believing Clark had a gun, fired 20 shots at him. An after-the-fact search revealed that they’d...

SACRAMENTO -- Four days after 22-year-old Stephon Clark was shot and killed by police officers in his grandparents' backyard, protesters gathered inside and outside Sacramento City Hall. Officers believed Clark had been breaking into cars in the neighborhood and shot him because they say they thought he had a gun. He was only holding a cellphone. "The death of one more man of color is one too many," Mayor Darrell Steinberg said earlier Thursday before the protest began. Protesters clogged major downtown Sacramento streets near City Hall as the Thursday commute was about to begin. Earlier in the day, the...

Julianne Benzel, a teacher at Rocklin High School, asked students if school administrators would permit an anti-abortion protest, gets placed on administrative leave as a consequence A California high school teacher has been placed on leave after she wondered if her school would permit an organized walkout to protest abortion. According to CBS Sacramento, Rocklin High School’s Julianne Benzel said all she did was have a conversation with her class last Thursday and Friday about the “politics of protest” — a lesson ahead of yesterday’s school walkouts. However, this seems to have angered some students and their parents. Benzel said...

Liberal Senator and potential 2020 presidential hopeful Kamala Harris issued a stark warning to Attorney General Jeff Sessions Thursday; telling the Senior Trump aide that “California represents the future” of the United States, not the past. Harris was speaking with MSNBC News’ Chris Hayes when she scolded Sessions for his remarks in Sacramento Wednesday night; telling a roomful of law enforcement officers that California must obey “federal statutes” regarding immigration guidelines. “This Administration and Jeff Sessions in particular have clearly put a target on the back of California and California’s going to fight,” Harris told Hayes. “And, I think that...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is scheduled to be in Sacramento on Wednesday to make what his office describes as a “major sanctuary jurisdiction announcement,” just blocks from the state Capitol, where a new law making California a sanctuary state was passed and signed. Sessions did not provide advance details of his announcement, but his Justice Department has been in an escalating legal battle with California, dozens of cities and counties in the state, including San Francisco, and hundreds nationwide whose laws and policies restrict local police and jailers from taking part in federal immigration enforcement. His targets have included the...

California Democrats are speechless as they watch their prized Sacramento gun control senator, Leland Yee, head to prison for weapons trafficking, accepting bribes, and extorting money. “The crimes that you committed have resulted in essentially an attack on democratic institutions,” Breyer told Yee, who nodded as the judge addressed him. “This is a serious, serious injury to a governmental institution.” Breyer called his involvement in that crime “hypocritical” and “unfathomable” given his past advocacy for gun control. The judge gave him 30 days to surrender to the U.S. Marshal’s Service, which will turn him over to the federal prison system....

This wild turkey wasn’t too pleased with traffic on Riverside Boulevard in Sacramento’s Land Park neighborhood on Thursday, Feb. 15th.

Last month, a local California newspaper left more than 19 million voter records exposed online. Gizmodo confirmed this week that the records were compromised during an apparent ransomware attack. The Sacramento Bee said in a statement that a firewall protecting its database was not restored during routine maintenance last month, leaving the 19,501,258 voter files publicly accessible. Additionally, the names, home addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers of 52,873 Sacramento Bee subscribers were compromised. “We take this incident seriously and have begun efforts to notify each of the individuals on the contact list and to provide them resources to help...

What, pray tell, does Rep. Devin Nunes think he’s doing by waving around a secret memo attacking the FBI, the nation’s premier law enforcement agency? He certainly isn’t representing his Central Valley constituents or Californians, who care much more about health care, jobs and, yes, protecting Dreamers than about the latest conspiracy theory. Instead, he’s doing dirty work for House Republican leaders trying to protect President Donald Trump in the Russia investigation. It’s no accident that this latest attempt to discredit the FBI and distract the public is happening at the same time special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe appears to...

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...

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...

Deborah Onsurez, 56, was found Thursday morning in Modesto, California. Authorities believe multiple stray dogs attacked her in the driveway of her home. Onsurez's injuries were severe and she was pronounced dead at the scene. ... Stray dogs everywhere, that's Stanislaus County for you ... They're a big problem in area known as South Modesto. ... dog attacks aren't uncommon. In November, a pit bull attacked at least three people in Elk Grove, a suburb of Sacramento that's about 60 miles from Modesto. And in 2014, two separate pit bull attacks in Stanislaus County - one left a man dead.

The sexual harassment reckoning has exposed many men in positions of power for their bad behavior. Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin and others have either been fired or suspended for sexual misconduct. In the political realm, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) is resigning in early January after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) made his way to the exit after his sexual harassment allegations made it into the limelight; he paid $27,000 to settle a claim in 2015. And yes, that’s our money he used for that expenditure. This reached a boiling point during the...

In the coming days, Republicans in Congress will try to stampede their tax bill through the reconciliation process and towards President Donald Trump’s desk for signing. If they manage this, it won’t be because reconciliation has made the House and Senate versions of the bill somehow fairer; there’s no way that two horrific versions of “reform” alchemically morph into something even halfway decent. To the contrary: if they steamroll this plunderous legislation through, it will be so that they can deliver tax breaks, at any cost, to the wealthy conservative donor class, and, equally important, so they can stick it...

Gerald Walpin, whose lawsuit to win back his job as inspector general overseeing the Americorps program was dismissed two weeks ago, has filed an appeal in the case. Walpin, who was fired by President Barack Obama during his dogged efforts to investigate Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.,...

An elderly woman was knocked out as three robbers ran out of a Citrus Heights pharmacy after stealing prescription drugs, police said Thursday. The 86-year-old woman was entering the store when she was pushed backwards, fell and was knocked unconscious.

Facing a campaign to repeal the state’s new gas tax increase, Sacramento-area politicians and transportation officials gathered under a freeway underpass Monday to tout projects that are expected to be funded by the hike. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, county Supervisor Phil Serna and others spoke in praise of Senate Bill 1, which has continued to generate opposition from Republicans after the Democratic-controlled Legislature approved the measure in the spring. Caltrans officials Monday outlined more than $1 billion in projects that will be “accelerated” in the region as part of the $52 billion statewide anticipated from higher gas taxes and vehicle...