Spencer Pratt’s underdog campaign for Los Angeles mayor is now in limbo. After being in a solid second spot since Election Day Tuesday, Pratt fell to third place behind the two communists who teamed up to elbow the native Angeleno out of the race. As of this writing, Pratt’s second-place standing has been eclipsed by Nithya Raman, a far-left city councilwoman. Mayor Karen Bass has won more than 34.68% of the vote and the right to go to the November election and face the runner-up.
ans of outlaw country music will recall an old song called “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues,” which appeared on Waylon Jennings’s 1973 album Lonesome, On’ry, and Mean. Grok tells me that the original version of the song—a folk-pop version, written and performed by Danny O’Keefe and released the year before—was the “hit” version, but I’d be willing to bet that Waylon’s take is better remembered today.
In any case, the song, which is about loneliness, regret, fading youth, and feeling left behind, starts with the lyrics. “Everybody’s gone away / Said they’re movin’ to L.A. / Ain’t a soul I know around/everybody’s leaving town.”
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department used helicopters to fly in ballots from vote centers across the region
“They're picking up ballots from 8 cities including Lancaster, Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Lakewood, Santa Monica, Van Nuys, Pomona, and Torrance. Once they arrive,… pic.twitter.com/9JN9lX4gFL
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) June 4, 2026
h/t Auntie Polly
The trial of a 29-year-old charged with sparking a wildfire that went on to become the deadly Palisades inferno, the most destructive blaze in Los Angeles history, is set to begin on Monday in a case that has gripped the city as Angelenos seek answers more than a year after the deadly fire.
Jonathan Rinderknecht, an occasional Uber driver, is accused of starting a small blaze on New Year’s Day 2025, later dubbed the Lachman fire. Although the Los Angeles fire department extinguished the fire on 2 January, it reignited five days later due to high winds and tinderbox conditions after burning undetected deep in the dry hillsides.
What’s the emptiest place on the West Coast, Messed Coast™ this week? It appears to be the election counting offices in California where navel-gazing vote counters are taking their sweet time to tell Californians if their vote for change has been diluted by Tom Steyer and Karen Bass ballot harvesters and vote “cure” experts. We have an update.
In the last decades of the 20th century, California reinvented a brash new capitalism that created new, more innovative archetypes. Today, some of those companies – Apple, Google and Facebook – are among the largest in the world, with assets greater than those of all but a few countries.
Under Governor Gavin Newsom, California has sought to transform its massive prison system into a Nordic-style rehabilitation program. Newsom has placed a moratorium on all executions, transferred condemned prisoners to facilities across the state, dismantled San Quentin State Prison’s death row, and turned the notorious prison into a therapeutic center, with art, classrooms, a café, and podcast studios.
Former President Joe Biden’s administration oversaw an unprecedented wave of migration across the southwestern border of the United States. Migrants convoyed in “caravans” in hopes of overwhelming border authorities. Cartels trafficked drugs and people in droves. At some points, American authorities estimated that more than 130,000 people were crossing into the U.S. each month; arrivals came not just from Latin America but every corner of the earth.
Should California codify Islamic religious observances into state-recognized holidays in the United States?
As a nation, the essence of who we are as a People is rooted in our Judeo-Christian values and principles, dating back to the Magna Carta. This shared moral vocabulary has shaped Western thinking since America’s founding. Why, then, would any State in the Union formally endorse or incorporate into our educational and other public institutions a religious doctrine with practices antithetical to the belief system?
Steven Spielberg has said goodbye to Hollywood and joined the growing list of billionaires fleeing California ahead of a hefty new proposed wealth tax as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) remains committed to taxing the state into prosperity.
Last week, Dr. Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said there was significant Medicare/Medicaid fraud in California related to hospice services. We’re not really surprised to find massive fraud happening under Gavin Newsom’s watch. The guy was given tens of millions of dollars to end homelessness in the state. That money is gone, but homelessness has gotten worse, and we can connect those dots.
There are three jars, sealed and placed in the courtyard of Lara and Jarad Fisher’s rented home in west Los Angeles. Inside each is rubble and ash, like specimens harvested from a faraway planet.
They are the family’s only remnants of their home after the Palisades fire, which tore through their neighbourhood on January 7 last year, killing 12 people and destroying 6,837 buildings.
Their eight-year-old daughter, Liv, did not want to return for many months, until she suggested collecting the ashes. “She wanted to go back to dig,” said her father, Jarad, 47.
California has delayed its cancellation of thousands of commercial driver’s licenses held by migrants, setting it up for another showdown with Washington.
The Department of Motor Vehicles announced on Tuesday that the 17,000 migrant truck drivers whose licenses had been revoked can now keep them for 60 more days, which could enable the drivers to retake tests and do whatever is necessary to remain legal.
The LA Times published a story yesterday headlined “The first home has been rebuilt in the wake of the Palisades Fire.”
Gavin Newsom may be saddled with an awful record. But the California governor is rapidly emerging as a leading bet – even a frontrunner in some polls – in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. How is this possible?
The simple answer is that Newsom might be the ultimate candidate for the attention-deficient generation. He is a political chameleon who changes positions compulsively – not according to facts, but to whatever best seems to fit the national mood. We witnessed this after last year’s presidential election, when he began ‘bro-washing’ his slick image with some cringe-worthy appearances on podcasts. One of these even included an embrace of gun ownership – a surprise to many of his supporters who had voted for him on the basis of his strong anti-gun record.
Playboy Enterprises announced on Wednesday that it will relocate its headquarters from Los Angeles to Miami Beach, becoming the latest high-profile company to abandon California in favor of what some call more business-friendly environments.
Ben Kohn, chief executive of Playboy, described California as being “anti-business,” saying the state is an “extremely expensive place” to operate.
h/t KB
