Free Republic

Four of Oakland’s biggest employers are funding a $10 million security plan for the downtown area amid growing crime concerns. Blue Shield of California, The Clorox Company, Kaiser Permanente and PG&E, all headquartered in Oakland, announced Thursday in a joint news release that they're working together on the program. It includes an increased security presence downtown, safety training for employees and subsidized transportation and escorts for workers walking in the area. In the district that includes downtown Oakland, violent crime increased by 49% between 2022 and 2023, according to statistics from the Oakland Police Department. Robberies and aggravated assaults also...

Embattled New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez will not run for re-election in November, although he still refuses to hand in his resignation, The Post has learned. “He will not be running,” said a source close to Menendez. The three-term federal senator, who resigned his powerful position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee following the initial indictment last year, faces an 18-count indictment — and stiff competition from a group of Democratic primary challengers.

Oakland's largest employer has reportedly told workers that due to safety concerns in the city, taking breaks indoors is recommended. Kaiser Permanente, which was founded in 1945 and is headquartered in Oakland, has recommended employees "stay in their buildings for lunch and work, in response to street robberies of workers who went out to grab something to eat." The memo also reportedly advised employees to avoid in-person meetings, if possible, and only recommended the Claremont Hotel in the Berkeley Hills for out-of-town guests. Kaiser's news was met with consternation by local businesses, which are already struggling with lower foot traffic...

One of the 18 co-defendants charged alongside former President Donald Trump asserts that prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia are forcing those who cannot afford – or were not offered – bail to spend weeks in squalid conditions more befitting of a third-world country than a U.S. jail cell. Harrison Floyd, one of the leaders of the former president’s “Black Voices for Trump” coalition, has been charged by District Attorney Fani Willis with conspiring with Trump and others to overturn the results of Georgia’s 2020 election. Speaking with Newsmax, Floyd said he spent “close to a week” in jail because prosecutors...

From subway attacks to shootings, violent crime is surging in New York City -- a startling reversal after years of record declines. On Thursday, a 40-year-old woman was shoved onto the subway tracks in Manhattan's Union Square station just before a train pulled in. She fell between the rails and a row bed, police said, escaping with minor injuries. A suspect was immediately arrested. Hours earlier on Wednesday night, a man was shoved onto the tracks of the 42nd Street-Bryant Park station by a panhandler after refusing to give him money, authorities said. The victim was able to get back...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The head of the Department of Homeland Security visited Portland, Oregon, on Thursday, just hours after issuing a scathing statement that called the protesters who have taken to the streets every night for nearly two months “violent anarchists" and a "violent mob” that have kept the liberal Northwest city under siege.

BRENTWOOD, NH (WMUR/CNN) - A New Hampshire homeowner is under court order to clean up his yard that's littered with thousands of boxes. If he doesn’t, the town will do it for him and stick him with the bill. Meanwhile, his neighbors are hoping their community will finally go back to normal. Michael Bates found himself back in court after failing to clean up his property in Salem, MA. The town estimates that there are some 2,000 boxes containing printers in the yard.

America's biggest public toilet. In this new video, Paul Joseph Watson discusses San Francisco is a Sh*thole, unveiling America's biggest public toilet. The video serves as a frightening reminder of what Democrats have done with every city they've run. Will yours be next?

WASHINGTON – The United States Department of State authorized on Monday the voluntary evacuation of all non-emergency government employees stationed in Haiti and their families due to widespread protests in the country. The US government’s advisory comes after protests erupted in Haiti on Friday after the government decided to hike fuel prices by 37-50 percent, a decision which has since been reversed, but which has failed to quell the protests. “The US government authorized the voluntary departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and their families. Right now, the US government has limited ability to provide emergency services to US citizens,”...

On Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti warned American citizens, volunteers and missionaries in Haiti to stay in place and hunker down after angry demonstrators attempted to get past a barricade and security guards at a Port-au-Prince hotel. CNN reports that American Airlines, JetBlue and the Spirit Airlines (whose official slogan is: “We’re like a Greyhound bus with wings”) canceled all flights to Haiti following unrest in the country related to rising fuel prices, corruption and widespread poverty. When comparing them side-by-side, the story of the American Revolution ain’t got shit on the history of Haiti. For black people, Haiti...

California’s Democrats are on an accelerated path of destruction of the once Golden State. In Parts l and ll of my series on how California’s leftist Democrats have turned the Golden State into a sh*thole, I explain how California’s ruling party is doubling down on business-destroying policies, energy destroying policies, education destroying policies, and policies destroying California’s abundant natural resources. The new law claiming sanctuary state status is blatantly unconstitutional, as is “legalizing” marijuana. But Wait!!! There’s More!!! Democrats have proposed an Assembly Constitutional Amendment authored by two uber-leftists, Assemblymen Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, and Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, to extort...

Californians love sermonizing on the plight of America’s poor and disenfranchised—if only penny-pinching republicans would shell out for a bigger welfare state then all our problems would be solved. Why not build more homes for the homeless, or invest in better education for our kids? The state can solve the problem of poverty, they argue. And to be fair, they’ve put their money where their mouth is: over the last few decades California has built one of America’s most lavish welfare states. There’s just one problem: it’s not working. The sad truth of the matter is that California’s poverty rate...

In the latest example of Trump derangement, the Boston City Council and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker are joining forces to condemn what they say are the president's latest example of racism. While there's no concrete proof the president actually used the "shithole" word and Democrats and their media are blindly taking the word of a documented liar in the United States Senate, it's again quite ironic white Massachusetts liberals are lecturing the rest of America about racial intolerance when Boston has a well-deserved reputation of treating black people like second-class citizens in their own hometown.

Across the Colima-Michoacán-Guerrero tri-state area, the U.S. government prohibited employees from travel: “to the entire state of Guerrero, including Acapulco”; “armed groups operate independently of the government in many areas” “in Michoacán state, with the exception of Morelia and Lazaro Cardenas cities and the area north of federal toll road 15D”; “by land, except on federal toll road 15D” “to Tecoman or within 12 miles of the Colima-Michoacán border and on Route 110 between La Tecomaca and the Jalisco border” Further north, Sinaloa (Level 4, “do not travel”) on the Gulf of California was the same subsistence farming region of...

According to the US Census Bureau’s Official Poverty Measure, California’s poverty rate hovers around 15 percent. But that doesn’t tell the full story. The Census Bureau measures poverty in reference to a uniform national standard, which doesn’t account for differences in living costs between states, ie. the cost of taxes, housing, and medical costs can differ greatly depending upon where you are. The Public Policy Institute of California found that, when accounting for these differences, California’s true poverty rate is 20.6 percent—the highest in America. In fact, it’s nearly twice the national average of 12.7 percent.

Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town. Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health. That danger was considerable, because it was, in the words of the Peace Corps doctor, "a fecalized environment." In plain English: s--- is everywhere. People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust – onto you, your clothes, your food, the water. He warned us the first day of training: do not even touch water. Human feces carries parasites that bore through your skin and cause...

WORCESTER - A Portland, Maine, police officer was arrested Saturday during a concert at the Palladium on Main Street. Zahra Munye Abu, 24, faces misdemeanor charges after acting unruly and refusing to leave when asked by security, according to Worcester police. The charges include assault and battery, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace and trespassing. She was released on personal recognizance at 1 a.m. Sunday. Officer Abu has been a Portland police officer for two years, gaining attention as Maine’s first Somali police officer, according to a 2016 story in the Portland Press Herald. She was born in a...

DOCTORS have warned a suspected outbreak of “eye-bleeding fever” must be declared an epidemic and emergency measures imposed to tackle the disease. Dr Mukuzi Muhereza, from the Uganda Medical Association (UMA), has warned action must be taken over reports of growing numbers of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) cases. He warned the disease is “highly contagious” and said the people “must be protected” to prevent it spreading. The infection causes victims to suffer from a burning fever before beginning to bleed from orifices including their eyes, anuses and mouths. It comes amid a growing war of words between the UMA and...

HEALTH bosses have confirmed they are facing an outbreak of the “eye-bleeding fever” after four people died of the suspected disease in weeks. Uganda’s health ministry has today finally admitted it is facing the risk of a large-scale explosion of the viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF). VHF causes victims to suffer a burning fever before beginning to bleed from orifices including their eyes, anuses and mouths. It comes after a girl, nine, was reportedly killed by the infection Uganda, and three people died in neighbouring South Sudan of similar symptoms. Uganda health minster Sarah Opendi confirmed emergency response teams are now...

Actor and producer James Woods is mercilessly scorching former President Bill Clinton as “Haiti’s devil incarnate,” accusing Clinton and his “crooked family” of destroying the poor island nation after it was devastated by a horrific earthquake in 2010. “This is how #BillClinton and his horrid criminal cohorts destroyed #Haiti,” Woods tweeted Sunday, sharing a video about the issue. “The ONLY ‘s—hole’ part of Haiti was Bill Clinton’s involvement, he and his crooked family. Bill Clinton was Haiti’s devil incarnate.” *snip* A man in the video explains: It’s more than true. The money is more than $6 billion. You see, after...