Free Republic

Something strange is going on out in Marin County, California. The elected officials there have instituted a pilot program offering a universal basic income in the form of a monthly stipend to a limited number of participants. That in and of itself isn’t unique, as programs such as this have been tested in other places, such as Stockton, California. A couple of aspects of this program, however, really are unique. The most glaring among these is the fact that in order to qualify, participants have to be women. No males need apply. On top of that, the program is not...

The North American B-25 crashed Saturday evening a few miles southeast of the Stockton Metropolitan Airport. Three people were on board. One person walked away and two others were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries. The aircraft was extensively damaged. (San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Showing President Trump’s image is enough to trigger many college students. But who knew it could also get you prosecuted by a taxpayer-funded institution obligated to follow the First Amendment? New Jersey’s Stockton University, a 20-minute drive from Atlantic City, charged a student with disruptive behavior, discrimination, harassment, creating a “hostile environment,” causing “harm” and cyberbullying. His violation? Using Trump’s image as his Zoom background during an online class July 1. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is representing doctoral student Robert Dailyda, warning the public university in a letter Friday that it has no legal authority to punish a student for sharing...

Forget grassroots movements. Two Democratic billionaires are currently trying to purchase the Democratic nomination for president. Billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg have already thrown millions around in their efforts to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Michael Bloomberg has used his philanthropic foundation to mask the candidate's purchase of political influence. The New York Times recently reported on how Bloomberg's foundation is strategically giving millions to certain cities across the country, and now the mayors of those cities are beginning to line up to endorse Bloomberg for president. (Via The New York Times) Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has assets totaling $9...

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang wants to give cash to every American each month. Susie Garza has never heard of Yang. But since February, she’s been getting $500 a month from a nonprofit in Stockton, California, as part of an experiment that offers something unusual in presidential politics: a trial run of a campaign promise, highlighting the benefits and challenges in real time. Garza can spend the money however she wants. She uses $150 of it to pay for her cellphone and another $100 or so to pay off her dog’s veterinarian bills. She spends the rest on her two...

A video captured a large fight in Stockton Thursday afternoon near Stagg High School.

Stockton, Calif., is sending 'debit cards loaded with $500' to a select group of residents starting Friday as part of a closely watched experiment in universal basic income, the first led by a U.S. city. the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, or SEED, to provide insight on whether a long-term basic income program is a viable creative approach to lifting residents out of poverty. "The need has only been reiterated" in the last few weeks of preparation, SEED director Sukhi Samra said. "Folks are ready to use this money to pay bills, to save for the future, to pay off debt...

Camden, New Jersey Detroit, Michigan Cleveland, Ohio New Haven, Connecticut Memphis, Tennessee Stockton, California Birmingham, Alabama New Orleans, Louisiana Oakland, California Modesto, California Reno, Nevada St. Louis, Missouri

Back in May, we looked at a story out of Stockton, California, where their new, young mayor, Michael Tubbs had some unusual plans in mind. Stockton is frequently plagued with violent crime and deals with endemic poverty issues. Tubbs wanted to find a unique way to help some people out. A few of his ideas were clearly well intended and forward thinking. For example, he was partnering with private sector benefactors to try to offer college scholarships for qualifying students without further burdening the municipal budget.Some of his other ideas were a bit more, um… out there. And he’s...

I’m pretty sure I know how California will fail. I don’t know exactly when it will happen, but after the result in the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District two weeks ago, the Golden State’s rendezvous with fiscal perdition is going to happen sooner than we think. Let’s talk about the “how.” California’s foundering won’t be precipitated by a single catastrophic event. Apart from the threatened CalExit, voter initiatives to partition the state, or the Big One shaking us into the Pacific, it won’t be the equivalent of a sudden, unexpected stroke on a random Tuesday that brings...

(Full Title) CALIFORNIA CITY TO GIVE $500 A MONTH TO ANYONE-BUY DRUGS, BOOZE, GAS FOOD-SOCIALISM WORKS! DAILY MAIL: Stockton, California will become the first city in the country to participate in a test of Universal Basic Income, in which 100 residents will be given $500-dollars-a-month, with no strings attached. The program aims to create a level of income that no one will fall beneath. By providing impoverished residents a regular sum of money that they can use on anything they wish, be it food, clothes, gas, or starting a new venture, those behind the program believe it could go a...

Michael Tubbs, the 27-year-old mayor of Stockton, California, has a radical plan to combat poverty in his cash-strapped city: a “no strings” guaranteed basic income of $500 a month for its residents. Starting in early 2019, Tubbs plans to provide the monthly stipend to a select group of residents as part of a privately funded 18-month experiment to assess how people use the money. “And then, maybe, in two or three years, we can have a much more informed discussion about the social safety net, the income floor people deserve and the best way to do it because we’ll have...

Tubbs, a Stockton native and Stanford graduate who is all of 27 years old, wants to give at least $500 a month to a select group of residents. They'll be able to spend it as they wish, for 18 months, in a pilot program to test the impact of what's called guaranteed basic income. If the very sound of that knocked you half off your chair, this next initiative might finish the job. Stockton is about to award stipends of up to $1,000 a month to residents deemed most likely to shoot somebody. This program is called Advance Peace, and...

STOCKTON, Calif. (KCRA) — At least five students were arrested Friday as hundreds of others from several Stockton high schools walked out of classes in protest of gun violence after last week's deadly shooting at a Florida high school. Students at Stagg, Edison, Chavez, Lincoln and Village Oak high schools were walking along streets, creating traffic problems in the area as streets were blocked off. Stockton police said some students threw rocks and damaged both police and citizen vehicles. Five arrests were made, including charges of battery on an officer, resisting arrest, taking an officer's baton and vandalizing vehicles, including...

If the states are supposed to be laboratories for democracy, where new ideas that reflect regional attitudes can flourish, then cities are like micro-laboratories. Local governments can try out ideas that would never get statewide traction. Unfortunately, some California cities are more like laboratories run by Dr. Frankenstein, where frightening concepts are given life — and local residents have few other choices than to flee to other places. Most conservatives are familiar with the goings-on in San Francisco, where stringent rent-control laws have — I know you’re surprised by this — led to the least affordable rents and most unaffordable...

Michael Tubbs, the 26-year-old mayor of Stockton, California, thinks handing out $6,000 a year to low-income residents (with no strings attached) is the way to lift people out of poverty. “Stockton is absolutely Ground Zero for a lot of the issues we’re facing as a nation,” Tubbs told CBS San Francisco (video below). “Ideally, I would like to serve 100 families for 18 months at $500 a month.” Stockton is experimenting with a welfare program called “universal basic income,” which gives low-income residents $500 a month, no questions asked. The money is coming from a private grant. The California city,...

Residents to get $500 a month, no questions asked, as starting point The mayor of Stockton, California, is leading an experiment with “universal basic income,” which is set to start by giving low-income residents $500 a month, no questions asked. Mayor Michael Tubbs calls his city “ground zero” for issues like wage stagnation, rising housing prices and loss of middle-class jobs that affect the nation. The Central Valley city went bankrupt in 2012, and for decades it has been trying to diversify its agriculture-based economy. “I feel that as mayor it’s my responsibility to do all I could to begin...

They were certain they knew the identity of the long-missing hijacker known as D.B. Cooper, and now the self-appointed investigators wanted their man to turn himself in to the FBI and sign over his life rights for a book and movie project... Rackstraw watched the documentary, he said in an interview. He watched himself being ambushed. He watched the man whose son found the ransom money along the Columbia River deny that it had been planted there. He watched a Northwest Orient flight attendant examine an old photo of him and his decades-old NBC interview and repeatedly say she didn’t...

It’s a bombshell development in a 45-year-old cold case mystery. A commercial airplane hijacker escaped with a daring parachute jump in 1971 and was never seen again. A team of private investigators says it has cracked a code that it says shows the infamous hijacker who went by the name D.B. Cooper is, in fact, a man who lives in San Diego named Robert Rackstraw. Rackstraw is a former Stockton resident, whose family also lived in Calaveras County.

STOCKTON — Authorities say an inmate with a skull tattooed on his face has escaped from a work crew in Central California. The San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office says 27-year-old Corey Hughes was discovered missing from his work crew near Interstate 5 in Stockton on Monday afternoon. Hughes was serving time on a weapons charge and is due to be released in February. The sheriff's office released a photo of Hughes, who has blonde hair and a tattoo on his face that resembles a skull and appears to be homemade.