If you want to learn how to govern a state, look no further than California. Then do everything they don't.
They say California is really a beautiful place. I wouldn't know. I've never been there and have no desire to
visit. But apparently the state richly deserves the derisive nickname of "the land of fruits and nuts." So many
terrible ideas have had their origins in California, and these ill-advised anti-capitalist ideas have a tendency to spread
to the other 49 states.
If you're going to successfully manage a state, you'd be better off using Texas as an example. The state of Texas must
be doing something right, because that's where people are going as they leave California.
Years ago, I started a page about
The California Energy Crunch of 2000, which was
an energy crisis resulting entirely from rabid environmentalism, poor planning, price controls, and
various other effects of leftist politics. Californians oppose the development of every practical
source of energy, but then, when there's not enough electricity to go around, they whimper when the
lights go out.
The subsection about "Sanctuary Cities" has moved to a page of its own,
located here.
Subtopics on this page:
Decades of leftist politics, resulting in a steady stream of bad ideas
Wildfires in Australia share the same set of contributing factors as the fires in California
Wildfires and intentional power outages
Homeless people supported by California taxpayers
High speed rail
Gun control
Mass exodus: Individuals and companies are leaving California
California compared to Texas
The nanny state knows best
Wasted money
Taxes
Radical environmentalism and restrictive environmental laws
Decades of leftist politics
.... resulting in a steady stream of bad ideas.
California
Earthquakes Can't Do As Much Damage As Progressive, Blue State Government. Here's where California is today after two decades of
progressive, Blue State governance:
• Executive magazine has named California the worst state for business for 15 straight years.
• California imposes the heaviest regulatory burden on small businesses in the country.
• The business tax climate is worse only in New Jersey.
• Businesses of all sizes continue to flee the state.
• Property rights are being violated at an alarming pace. Just ask the "Central Valley farmers
who've had their land seized in the name of high-speed rail" and are still waiting to be compensated by the state.
• People are leaving in large numbers, and many who haven't yet are desperate to escape.
• That is if they are able to leave, because many of the roads and highways leading out are so
cracked up they're hard to navigate. Forty-one states have better systems.
• The state's unofficial "road diet" means that motorists have to spend more time on the crumbling
tracks than they should because the state has the worst traffic congestion on Earth.
• Liberty continues to be crowded out by growing government authority. The Cato Institute ranks
California 48th in freedom among the states, a position it has occupied since 2011.
• The state has had the highest poverty level in the country in recent years.
• While California's public education system is failing, the state has gone to war with charter
schools, which are not only popular with parents and students, they raise student achievement.
• The highest average gasoline price is found in California, which not coincidentally also has the
highest gasoline tax in the nation.
• Even though it accounts for only 12% of the U.S. population, 25%-30% of the nation's homeless live in California.
• The runaway public employee pension system threatens to devour the state.
Recalling Gavin Newsom Is Not
Just Good For California, It's Good For America. There have been 54 recall attempts against California
governors since 1913. Only one has been successful — the recall against Governor Gray Davis in 2003. Governor
Gavin Newsom is well on his way to becoming only the second successfully recalled Governor in California's history. The
sheer odds of a successful recall against a sitting Democrat are great enough to make anyone roll their eyes at the thought,
and in any other period in history this most recent recall effort would be just another silly footnote in California's whacky
political history.
An
L.A. councilman lied to the FBI. Probation officials say he deserves no jail time. It was the first blockbuster
case to surface in the federal corruption probe of Los Angeles City Hall — a multi-count indictment accusing
former Councilman Mitchell Englander of taking envelopes of cash, lying to the FBI about that money and obstructing its
investigation. Englander, while serving in office, made false statements to FBI agents during three separate
interviews, prosecutors said, providing untrue information about his dealings with a businessman who gave him $15,000 in two
casino bathrooms. The case was resolved quickly, with Englander pleading guilty to a single count of scheming to
falsify material facts. But now, prosecutors are voicing objections to the sentence recommended by federal probation
officials: three years' probation, a $9,500 fine and no jail time or community service.
Re-Open
Cal Now, Day 2: Sheriffs John D'Agostini and Scott Jones—Constitutionality of the Lockdown Orders and the Rule of Law. The necessary element
of a "Police State" is cooperation from law enforcement to do just that: "enforce" the orders given, no matter how burdensome, unreasonable, and more
importantly, unconstitutional. Thankfully, there are Sheriffs in certain California Counties who take seriously their oath to the Constitution, the
rule of law, and their commitment to serve the people over and above a Governor's or unelected bureaucrat's executive orders or restrictions. [...] Then he
laid out simpler questions that even a 6th grader could understand:
• What amount of force is appropriate to enforce health orders?
• If someone is resisting compliance to health orders, what sort of force is appropriate for us to use against that person?
• Are we supposed to cite someone or release them if they are violating health orders or are we supposed to book them in jail?
• What if we see a public official violating health orders? As we've seen on the news, are we supposed to issue a warrant for that public official?
People in the audience actually yelled, "Yes!" to the last question, then everyone dissolved in laughter and applause. Newsom's French Laundry
debacle looms large in our legend.
Docs
reveal Governor Newsom's secret $1B CCP mask deal. A conservative legal watchdog group has announced that it
received hundreds of pages of documents revealing the contract materials and communications related to a $1 billion contract
for face masks between the California Office of Emergency Services (OES) and the Chinese Communist Party linked BYD.
BYD reportedly has been barred by law from some federal contracts for providing faulty electric vehicles and lithium
batteries to U.S. buyers. The documents, all 848 pages of which can be viewed here, reveal that an OES legal
representative admits that the state deviated from their normal procurement process for this contract. Additionally, in
the contract with the OES, BYD uses a different name, Global Healthcare Product Solutions, LLC., and BYD provides no
liability or warranty for the masks if they are faulty.
Elected
DA's Throughout California Slam LA County DA Gascon's Policies, Refuse to Grant Jurisdiction. Now it's not just
the majority of his 1,000 subordinates who are publicly and vehemently opposed to new Los Angeles County District Attorney
George Gascon's policy directives. Three elected California District Attorneys (all female, interestingly enough) have
slammed Gascon's policies, and two of them sent letters directly to Gascon refusing to allow him to prosecute any cases that
arose in their counties.
New California COVID Orders:
Residents Can Travel No More Than 120 Miles From Their Homes. Despite insanely restrictive lockdowns for 10
months, travel restrictions, quarantine requirements, business closures, mask mandates and school closures, California has
some of the worst COVID numbers in the nation. The state currently has a total of just over 3,800 COVID
fatalities. Of course, in a state of 40 million that is .0095% of the population, but we're really not allowed to put
perspective on COVID-19 numbers these days. That little tidbit was for the curious. In a state like this one,
there is no such thing as policy failure. If a policy isn't working, we just get more of it. On Wednesday, the
California Department of Public Health announced new "guidance" for people in California who have the nerve to want to wander
around their free country. CDPH wants Californians to stay within 120 miles of their residences except for
"essential" travel.
Petition
to Recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom Exceeds 1 Million Signatures. The petition to recall California
Gov. Gavin Newsom exceeded one million signatures this week. "The people are being heard loud and clear, and it is
not a matter of IF we are going to reach our goal necessary that will trigger a recall election of Newsom, it is just when we
cross the finish line," Orrin Heatlie, the lead proponent of the effort to remove the Democrat, in a statement. There
are approximately nine weeks for organizers to gather 500,000 additional signatures, which would put the petition on the
ballot for Californians to vote on. March 17 is the deadline. Heatlie called the recall campaign a "literal
steamroller and Gavin Newsom's failed policies are being runover and flatten [sic] by the People of California who will no
longer be held hostage to his dictatorial failed policies." Newsom's office hasn't responded to requests for comment on
the petition.
Soros Soars, GOP Cowards
Cower. I devoted my Dec. 15 column to newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón and
his benefactor George Soros. Gascón has one goal: to put the people of L.A. at the mercy of criminals.
He's the face of anarcho-tyranny, and George Soros is the wallet. [...] As I wrote in my Dec. 15 column, a key element in
Gascón's victory was the fact that the local GOP didn't lift a finger to oppose him.
The
riskiest American county to live in might surprise you. There are more than 3,000 counties in the United
States. If I were to ask you which one of them was the riskiest place to live, you might be tempted to say it would be
a county encompassing Baltimore or Portland. Perhaps New York City and Chicago would make your list. In some
cases, you might be correct, but not for the reasons you think, at least according to a new study compiled by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. You see, my initial reaction was to think about places with the highest violent crime
rates, gang violence and street mobs. But what FEMA was looking at was the odds of a natural disaster striking and
wreaking havoc on residents. And coming in at the top spot on the National Risk Index was Los Angeles County.
The reasons have nothing to do with the Crips and the Bloods or their incompetent government, however.
Los
Angeles County Prosecutors Sue Gascon For Not Enforcing The Law. Los Angeles County District Attorney George
Gascon hasn't even been in office for a month yet but he's been making more headlines than the pandemic. Unfortunately
for Gascon (and the citizens of his county), few of those breaking news items have been of the good variety. The wildly
liberal, anti-cop DA has been working overtime to empty the jails and prevent the prosecution of criminals, even as crime
rates have been surging in the City of Angels. The latest news out of his office won't be changing that pattern at
all. His own prosecutors are going to court to ask a judge to block their new boss's orders and prevent them from
having to break the law themselves by carrying out his directives. And it looks like they have a pretty solid case.
San
Francisco will give $5,000 to help your small business, unless you're a white guy. No check for the
privileged. At least that's the plan in San Francisco where they're passing out $5k grants to small businesses, but
making sure only the right kind of people get the relief. They say they are using this as an opportunity to advance the
city's "equity goals." In a press release from the mayor, she says they are prioritizing "minority-owned businesses
including women-owned, immigrant-owned, people of color-owned businesses," with the money. For those unfamiliar with
history, this is a practice formerly known as "discrimination." Maybe after these white male business owners watch
their livelihoods crumble to nothing around them, they can take some time to examine their privilege.
San
Francisco Proves It's In Full Societal Regression by Embracing Pre-Civil Rights Era Methods. San Francisco
apparently forgot that we in America judge people by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin, but the
radical left that has taken over the city has long abandoned the idea that virtues we've learned over the past decades mean
anything. According to a press release by San Francisco Mayor London Breed, money is to be distributed to struggling
businesses across the city. The catch? Priority will be given to businesses according to race and sex.
LA
Orders Everyone to Stay Home; Asks Hollywood to Maybe Pause. If anyone needed any further reminders that not
only are we not all in this together, but a handful of powerful special interests are calling all the shots. The
essential and non-essential categories are gigantic scams. In California, not only is Hollywood considered essential,
but while people are being ordered to stay home, Hollywood is being asked nicely if it wouldn't possibly consider pausing
production. [...] This isn't the treatment that restaurants are getting. It's also not the treatment that so many other
businesses are on the receiving end of. Small businesses that are told to close and don't close, are harassed by
inspectors. [B]ut Hollywood is politely requested to maybe please consider pausing production. Don't expect the
entertainment industry, which pays the bills of California Democrats, to abide by this any more than they abided by the early
proposed curfew for filming, which was almost immediately rescinded. We're not all in this together.
4
California Small Business Owners Share Their Struggles to Survive Under Lockdowns. California small businesses
are crumbling under the weight of a new stay-at-home order and a lack of meaningful financial assistance.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, issued a new region-based lockdown order for California on Dec. 3, forcing more
California businesses to close their doors or severely limit operations. "We are at a tipping point in our fight
against the virus, and we need to take decisive action now to prevent California's hospital system from being overwhelmed in
the coming weeks," Newsom said in a statement announcing the new restrictions.
The Editor says...
Various governors and county kingpins have been saying things like, "We are at a tipping point in our fight against the virus," for almost a year now.
According to them, we're always at a critical moment in history: We must act immediately if we are to forestall disaster! This moment is
critical! Don't ask any questions, just do as we say! It's only for a few (more) weeks! Trust us!
California
Supreme Court Rules Thousands Of Sex Offenders Are Eligible For Early Release. On Monday [12/28/2020], the
California Supreme Court ruled that thousands of inmates convicted of non-forcible sex crimes may be eligible for early
release under a ballot measure that was overwhelmingly approved by voters four years ago. The initiative, called
Proposition 57, was written by then-Governor Jerry Brown (D) and passed by nearly two-thirds of the electorate. It was
crafted to reduce the state's prison population, saying any person found guilty of a "nonviolent felony offense" would be
eligible for early parole. Brown said it was never intended to cover sex offenders. However, the original
language did not exempt them from consideration. Lower appeals courts had ruled that nonviolent sex offenders could not
be excluded, and the high court affirmed those rulings.
California
is clobbering small businesses with a retroactive tax grab. Isabel Rubinas of Glen Ellyn, Ill., operates
Lollipop Seeds, a virtual boutique that sells clothing for young children online. And like many small specialty
businesses, its sales have slumped badly during the COVID-19 pandemic. It's also being clobbered by the California
Department of Tax and Fee Administration, the state agency that oversees the collection of sales and use taxes. This
month the CDTFA froze Rubinas' business bank account in Illinois in an effort to collect thousands of dollars in taxes on
sales that Lollipop Seeds made to California shoppers through Amazon.com in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The freeze threatens
to push Lollipop Seeds out of business. And her dilemma is not unique.
California
Gives Criminals Vaccine Before Elderly. Criminals are currently the top victim class among Democrats. And
that means privileging killers, muggers, and rapists above everyone else. California, as usual, leads the way in the
pro-crime dystopia.
The
Sovietization of California. [Scroll down] Yet, here I am, sitting in a state where corruption reigns
(one of the leading Democrats of the last half-century told me years ago that politicians in California are window dressing;
the real power in California is wielded by unions) and where, for nine months, normal life has been shut down, schools have
been closed and small businesses have been destroyed in unprecedented numbers. During these last five days in Florida,
a state governed by the pro-freedom party, I went anywhere I wanted. First and foremost, I could eat both inside and
outside restaurants. At one of them, when I stood up to take photos of people dining, a patron who recognized me walked
over and said, "I assume you're just taking pictures of people eating in a restaurant." That's exactly what I was
doing. I even took my two grandchildren to a bowling alley, which was filled with people enjoying themselves playing
myriad arcade games as well as bowling. None of that is allowed almost anywhere in California. It is becoming a
police state, rooted in deception and irrationality. Restaurants have been shut down (except for takeout orders), even
for outdoor dining, for no scientific reason. After ordering Los Angeles county restaurants closed, the health
authorities of Los Angeles county acknowledged in court that they had no evidence that outdoor dining was dangerous; they
ordered restaurants closed, even to outdoor dining, solely in order to keep people home. The left's claim to "follow
the science" is a lie. The left does not follow science; it follows scientists it agrees with and dismisses all other
scientists as "anti-science."
Recalling
Gavin Newsom. Governor Gavin Newsom is a disaster. Newsom is hypocritical, incompetent, and a
non-thinker. How bad does California have to get before people will consider someone who has an "R" after their
name? Just look at his actions over the past year. American Thinker interviewed many who think that the
governor needs to be recalled. Orrin Heatlie is the lead proponent of the nonpartisan recall effort. He feels
that the governor is acting as a tyrant, taking action over and over against the will of the people. He thinks, with
plnety of evidence, that the governor is out of touch with reality: the bill that put independent contractors out of work,
the bill to reduce penalties for certain sex crimes, the worsening of the homeless problem, mismanaging the gas tax, the
high-speed rail line to nowhere, fumbling fire management, and of course his handling of the pandemic, just to name a few of
his missteps. Under the state law for recalls, a hard copy of the petition must be signed in ink, rather than handling
it online. Heatlie is hoping every Californian will sign the petition. The court has granted an extension until
March 17th because they are halfway there but need about 900,000 more signatures. Tom Del Beccaro is working in synch
with Heatlie in an effort to recall Newsom. Del Beccaro agrees with Heatlie on all the reasons why Newsom should be recalled.
California
Dems Shut Down State Over Lack of ICU Beds, After Adding Only 7% More ICU Beds in 8 Months. Governor Newsom's
latest shutdown order closes down small businesses and warns residents to stay at home if their area's number of available
beds in intensive care units drops below 15%. "By invoking a Stay at Home Order for regions where ICU capacity falls
below 15 percent, we can flatten the curve as we've done before and reduce stress on our health care system," Governor
Newsom, fresh from partying at the French Laundry, declared. Spring had given way to summer and then to autumn and
winter, and California Democrats are still using the pretext of preserving "ICU capacity" and "flattening the curve".
The rationale of shutting down an entire state, not so much for the sake of stopping the virus, but for keeping enough beds
open in intensive care units, never made much sense even back then. It's insane now.
Is
Small Business Aware of California's $21 Billion Surplus? A report from the bipartisan Legislative Analyst's Office
says California's savings account could grow to more than $18 billion by the end of 2021. California had a record
$21.5 billion surplus in the state budget in 2018. Newsom and the Democratic-controlled state Legislature spent more
than half of that money on paying down debts and boosting reserves. About $4 billion of it went to support ongoing
programs while the rest was used for one-time projects. Where did it go exactly and where is it going? Small
business owners deserve to know. As Congress debates more funding, a contentious point was federal dollars bailing out
states[, and] we see now that Pelosi is lying as California does not need a bailout.
Motion
Filed To Depose Gov. Newsom Over Calif. Protest Bans At Capitol. The complaints continue to pile up
for California Governor Gavin Newsom. Not only is Newsom combating a massive recall effort across the state, but some
are calling on him to testify about the ban on protests he made at the Capitol last spring. A motion requesting a
deposition was filed by plaintiffs Ron Givens and Christine Bish. Both are involved in a lawsuit that began in April
when California Highway Patrol refused to issue permits for demonstrators at the Sacramento Capitol. CHP claimed the
decision was made in the interest of public safety amid the pandemic. As it's a civil case, attorneys for the state
argued that Newsom, the former highway patrol commissioner, and the public health director cannot be deposed because all
witnesses currently or previously held public office.
California
Sheriff Rejects Court Order To Reduce Inmate Population, Blasts The ACLU. The sheriff of Orange County,
California, said on Wednesday that he would fight a recent order issued by a local superior court judge to significantly
reduce the number of inmates housed in the county's jail system due to COVID-19 concerns. According to FOX 11 News,
Sheriff Don Barnes "is refusing to release any more" incarcerated people despite the mandate. "These people who remain
in the jail, they may have diabetes, but they're also charged with murder," Barnes told the outlet during an online
interview. "Or they may be over 65, but may be a child molester." Sheriff Barnes posted an open letter to social
media on Wednesday afternoon announcing his intention to appeal last Friday's directive by Judge Peter Wilson to cut the
detainee population in all congregate living areas by 50%. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed in April by the
America Civil Liberties Union seeking to protect medically vulnerable people from coronavirus infection.
California
Sheriff Refuses To Release 1,800 Inmates After Judge's Order. A California sheriff is refusing to comply with a
judge's order to release 1,800 inmates from Orange County jails, including individuals who have been imprisoned for murder,
due to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic. County Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson on Friday ordered the
release of 50 percent — or 1,858 inmates out of 3,716 — to curb the transmission of COVID-19, the
disease caused by the CCP virus. "I have no intention of releasing any of these individuals from my custody," said
Sheriff Don Barnes, pushing back against the order. "We are going to file an appeal and we're going to fight it and if
the judge has any intent of releasing any one of these individuals, he will have to go through line by line, name by name,
and tell me which ones he is ordering released."
With
his star dimmed, California's Newsom could face recall. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has had a rough
year. The next one might be even tougher as a recall effort appears to be gaining momentum, fueled partly by outrage
over the first-term Democrat dining with friends at an opulent restaurant while telling state residents to spurn social
gatherings and stay home. It's not uncommon in California for residents to seek recalls but they rarely get on the
ballot — and even fewer succeed. Several launched against Newsom faded but another attempt is drawing
greater attention as his fortunes change while he enters a critical stretch in his governorship.
Inside
Soros DA George Gascon's Office: Deputy DA's Threatened, Intimidated to Uphold New Policies. Soros-funded
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, as we've reported, made major waves during his first week in office. On
day one, he issued nine Special Directives instituting "criminals first" policies like failing to prosecute many
misdemeanors, a blanket prohibition on seeking the death penalty or life without parole, and a ban on charging juveniles as
adults. Throughout the week, victims, law enforcement officers, and court personnel were shocked to see the results of
those policies in action in the courtroom (including a failure to charge enhancements or "strikes" against a man accused of
decapitating two of his children).
Judge
to California's 3rd Largest County: On Account of COVID, Release Half Your Convicts. How do you empty a
large county's jail system by half? That's a question currently demanding an answer, as a West Coast judge has ordered
that very thing. As reported by The Daily Wire, on Friday, Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson dictated Sheriff Don
Barnes must liquidate Orange County's jail system by 50%. The decision comes following the American Civil Liberties
Union's April lawsuit demanding the release of disabled and vulnerable inmates in light of the pandemic.
New
DA Gascon to decline prosecution on range of low-level crimes. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's
Office will no longer prosecute a range of misdemeanor crimes, from resisting arrest to drug possession to making criminal
threats, according to a memo issued this week by new DA George Gascon. [...] The memo spells out misdemeanors which should be
declined or dismissed before arraignment, with a number of exceptions at the discretion of the prosecutor. Among
them: Trespassing, disturbing the peace, driving with no license or a suspended license, making criminal threats, drug
possession, drinking in public, loitering to commit prostitution and resisting arrest, among others.
As
The CA Recall Grows and Small Businesses Revolt, Newsom Gaslights and Says he Has "Great Reverence" for Small
Business. Governor Gavin Newsom is feeling the heat of a growing Recall effort that already has over 800,000
signatures, small businesses that are refusing to go through a second lockdown, and County Sheriffs who are refusing to
enforce this latest Stay-At-Home effort and are essentially telling him to go pound sand. [...] When confronted with his
hostile policies toward small business via some regulation he has allowed the legislature to vote in and that he signs, or
another tax, he does a song and dance about his "humble" small business beginnings and how much he "respects" them.
Nobody is buying it anymore.
Tyranny
Reversed: California Judge Slaps Down Newsom Over Religious-Worship Shutdowns. Just how huge a precedent
will the recent Supreme Court decision in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn turn out to be? We can take one
measure from a California court late yesterday [12/10/2020] in Father Trevor Burfitt v Gavin Newsom. In a stinging
rebuke to Gov. Newsom, Judge Gregory Pulskamp imposed an injunction against enforcement of California's planned COVID-19
restrictions. Using Brooklyn as a guide, Pulskamp ripped California's arbitrary decision to shut down houses of
worship while allowing commercial businesses to remain open. Any such limitation on an explicit and textual constitutional
right requires a strict scrutiny standard, Pulskamp ruled and cited Brooklyn for support. But Pulskamp wonders
whether the restrictions even pass a smell test.
White males are no longer considered. Isn't that racial discrimination?
LA
Times editor to Feinstein: Be "selfless" so Newsom doesn't have to choose between a Black or Latino replacement for
Harris. "Selfless," in this case, means "get out of our way so we can indulge our identity-politics wishes."
This plea from LA Times editor Erika Smith coincidentally comes at the same time as today's big New Yorker piece about Dianne
Feinstein's alleged mental-acuity decline. One has to wonder whether this might be motivating the Capitol Hill sources
who talked with Jane Mayer, too. [...] The problem, as Smith sees it, is that Gavin Newsom has to pick someone to fill out
Kamala Harris' remaining Senate term. The opening has created a food fight between the two key ethnic demographics of
the Democratic Party in California. Black party leaders see the Harris seat as theirs, while Latino leaders have grown
tired of waiting for their turn at California's Senate representation.
LA
District Attorney Whistleblower: Gascon's Sentencing Special Directive Is Illegal. New Los Angeles
District Attorney George Gascon has had the most active first week on the job of probably any officeholder ever,
anywhere. On Day One he issued nine Special Directives to his staff, instituting a wet dream of Black Lives Matter and
Antifa justice policies — and decreed that those policies should be implemented in all pending cases and even up
to 20,000 cases in which the criminals were already sentenced. On Day Two he dropped charges against a "protester"
accused of trying to wreck a train (you read that right) during a protest against the LA Sheriff's Department after deputies
shot and killed a known gang member and drug dealer, Dijon Kizzee, who'd pulled a gun on them. We can't wait to see
what the rest of the week will bring.
New
Los Angeles DA Snubs Staff, Meets With BLM, Will Implement Radical Progressive Agenda. The worst fears about
the new district attorney in Los Angeles County, George Gascón, are already materializing. After defeating the
incumbent DA on November 3, Gascón was sworn in on Monday [12/7/2020]. Gascón announced that his office would
immediately end cash bail for many offenses, refuse to pursue the death penalty, and cease trying juveniles as adults for
violent offenses.
California
Court Order Frees 250 Criminal Illegal Aliens into U.S.. Criminal illegal aliens who were released from
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody due to a court order in Adelanto, California, have been re-arrested for
child sex crimes, burglary, drug possession, and drunk driving. By October, ICE released more than 250 illegal aliens
from their Adelanto detention facility after a court order mandated that they free up space. Those released were put in
the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program that places GPS ankle bracelets on each illegal alien as they are freed into the
interior of the United States.
LA
Restaurant Owner Rips Garcetti Hypocrisy: Why Shut Me Down While Allowing A Hollywood Canteen In My Parking
Lot? Earlier this week, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti banned outdoor service at restaurants in response to
the COVID-19 transmission spike. That includes Pineapple Hill Grill and Saloon in Sherman Oaks, whose owner Angela
Marsden sunk $80,000 into social-distanced outdoor dining infrastructure and had planned to reopen today. Marsden went
to the store yesterday to collect a few items for a planned protest, but got a big surprise when she arrived at the parking
lot adjacent to her dining patio. [Video clip]
Bar
Owner Forced To Close Her Business in LA Livid After Movie Studio Gets Approval for Food Tent Next Door. Bar
Owner: "And I walked into my parking lot and obviously Mayor Garcetti has approve this, has approve this being set
up. This is being set up for a movie company." [Video clip]
Supreme
Court sides with church challenging Calif.'s COVID-19 restrictions. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday [12/3/2020] ruled
against a pandemic-related order by California Gov. Gavin Newsom banning some indoor religious services, agreeing with
critics that it is unconstitutional. In a one-page order, the high court granted a petition from lawyers for Harvest
Rock Church in Pasadena, Calif., seeking to set aside a lower court ruling upholding Newsom's ban.
California Secedes
from Black America. [Scroll down] Proposition 16, which would have allowed for favoritism of nonwhites in
public employment, education, and contracting, lost by a wide margin. Yet the backers of Prop. 16 outspent the
opposition $30 million to $2 million. And what a list of backers it was! The California Democrat Party and every
Democrat officeholder in the state championed Prop. 16, as did every major newspaper. Every leftist "social justice"
organization — the ACLU, NAACP, NOW, the ADL, BLM, even the Sierra Club and the PTA — backed Prop. 16.
So did the Chamber of Commerce, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, Microsoft, Uber, Dropbox, Reddit, Lyft, Yelp, AirBnB, Instacart,
Gap, Levi's, United Airlines, Wells Fargo, the 49ers, the Giants, and the Oakland A's. Soros backed it. The Chan/Zuckerberg
Initiative backed it. Ava DuVernay backed it. Kaiser, Blue Shield, and PG&E backed it. All those heavy hitters.
All that money, and in a "blue state" no less. And yet... it wasn't even close. The big bucks, the big endorsements, the
push from big business and big tech, came to nothing.
Governor
Preen. If Hollywood were to cast a governor and future president, and if a straight white male were still
politically acceptable, he would look like California's Gavin Newsom. The 53-year-old governor, a former mayor of San
Francisco, Newsom handsomely epitomizes the preening politics of the California elite class that has nurtured and financed
his career from the beginning. Like aristocrats of the past, Newsom seems oblivious to the realities felt by
constituents among the lower orders. In the face of massive wildfires, he postures on climate change, conflating fires
with an angry mother Earth — as opposed to poor land management — and uses the conflagration to justify
a radical policy of switching to all-electric power over the next decade, with the elimination of gas-powered cars by 2035.
In the midst of a near economic free-fall, he favors raising taxes and works to tighten pandemic lockdowns; and, with the
state losing its ability to train workers, he backs an education system where almost three out of five California high
schoolers graduate unprepared for either college or a career.
Who
Paid For the (Alleged) $15,000 Wine Bill Gavin Newsom and Friends Racked Up at French Laundry? [Scroll
down] Newsom can receive up to $500/year in gifts from someone who's not a registered state lobbyist. Could they
get around that restriction by claiming it was Newsom's wife who received the gift, and not the Governor? Nope. A
gift to Jennifer Siebel Newsom is considered a gift to Gavin Newsom for the purposes of FPPC reporting. If someone else
paid for Newsom's dinner, the only possible way that could be done without skirting required financial disclosure rules would
be if his longtime friend, the birthday boy, paid for the dinner, and if none of the lobbyist birthday boy's clients had
business currently before the state. Given that executives from the California Medical Association, clients of lobbyist
birthday boy, were in attendance, and that we're in the middle of a pandemic, claiming that exemption might not work.
But who knows. This is Teflon Gavin we're talking about.
Gov. Newsom's
Regime Is Crumbling. The era of one-man rule in California is over. A California Superior Court has ruled
in favor of me and fellow legislator James Gallagher in our lawsuit challenging Gov. Gavin Newsom's abuse of
power. The judge ruled that Newsom violated the state constitution by unilaterally ordering that all registered voters
be sent mail-in ballots. More importantly, she found good cause for a permanent injunction restraining Newsom from
issuing any further unconstitutional orders that make "new statutory law or legislative policy." The court rejected
Newsom's extraordinary claim that a state of emergency centralizes the state's powers in the hands of the governor, thus
turning California into an autocracy. This is the unlawful basis on which Newsom has collapsed our system of checks and
balances, issuing 58 executive orders and changing over 400 laws unilaterally.
Gavin
Newsom's apology for flouting his mask and social distancing regs make him the most obvious liar since Joe
Isuzu. I am enjoying the squirming of Nancy Pelosi's nephew, California Governor Gavin Newsom, now that he has
been exposed as completely disregarding the COVID guidelines he is trying to force 40 million Californians to follow.
The very same man who told us that when dining out we should put a mask on in-between bites, that we should have no more than
10 people (from no more than 3 households) at our outdoor Thanksgiving celebrations was spotted and photographed
violating all of his strictures on the rest of us. Even worse, the party was held at The French Laundry, one of the fanciest
and most famous restaurants in the world. And it was a 50th birthday party for one of his old friends, who just happens to
be a lobbyist. Also in attendance: The CEO and chief lobbyist of the California Medical Association, who like
Newsom obviously don't believe the mask and social distancing regulations are genuinely important. You've probably seen
the utterly phony "apology" he made to Californians at a press conference. But take a good look at his smiles as he
lies like a Persian rug. He seems to think that the rubes, who are expected to give up their family gatherings at
Thanksgiving, are so dumb that they will buy it.
Gavin
Newsom Manufactures a COVID Crisis to Make California Miserable Again. Fresh on the heels of the Sacramento
Bee's criticism of Gavin Newsom's multi-family extravaganza at the famous French Laundry, a swanky $350-a-person-before-the-wine-is-ordered
restaurant in Yountville, California, and after having his wrist slapped by the state Judiciary for exceeding his constitutional authority
in issuing emergency lockdown orders, he's decided that he really doesn't care what the plebs of his state think or what the law says about
his executive limitations. He's locking the state down again. The reason, as he and the media would have you believe, is that
California is experiencing a surge in positive COVID-19 tests, having just crossed the one million mark in cases. You're supposed
to focus on that big, scary number and not Gavin Newsom's blatant hypocrisy or his unlawful executive overreach, and certainly not the many
questions swirling about the looming prospect of the Trump legal team's potentially exposing massive election fraud, which could have an
enormous impact on the future of our republic.
Rules For Us and Rules For Them.
Of all the quotable lines in George Orwell's Animal Farm, few resonate as much as this one: "All animals are equal, but
some animals are more equal than others." [...] That quotation has been referred to often in recent days after
Gov. Gavin Newsom — fresh off of issuing a new set of edicts admonishing Californians to dine alone at home
and curtail their Thanksgiving celebrations — was caught dining with his wife and 10 other friends at a birthday
party for a prominent lobbyist at the French Laundry in Yountville. It's bad enough for the governor to seemingly violate
his own edicts, but to do so in Napa Valley, at one of the nation's toniest restaurants, certainly gave off the wrong vibe.
Don't
[Bring California's Problems To] The Rest Of America. California's political class is widely regarded as among
the most corrupt, irresponsible, hypocritical, hard left and incompetent of any comparable group of state politicians in the
country, which is saying a lot. The troubles have been on full display this week. A week after imposing sweeping
new restaurant closures across much of the state and telling Californians not to gather in groups for Thanksgiving,
California Gov. Gavin Newsom admitted on Monday that he attended a birthday party for an old friend at an ultra-swank
Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry. Never mind that the party for his buddy, himself a lobbyist, also included
a bunch of medical industry lobbyists. The photos show not only more people in attendance than allowed under state
guidelines, neither the governor nor his wife were wearing masks.
Gavin
Newsom's Thanksgiving hypocrisy: Witness at 3-star Michelin restaurant says governor ate inside and NOT outdoors like
he claims. California governor Gavin Newsom dined indoors when he joined friends for a birthday dinner earlier
this month, a witness has claimed, challenging the governor's account of the celebrations. The witness, a woman who has
not been identified, said she was eating at the French Laundry restaurant on the same night as Newsom — who was dining in a
private room with 11 other people. She said a sliding glass door to the room was initially left open, but was pulled
across because the governor and his party were being 'very loud'.
Newsom
considering statewide curfew as he orders emergency business shutdowns. Nearly three-quarters of California
counties must now operate under the state's most stringent pandemic restrictions, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Monday,
and health officials are considering a statewide curfew as coronavirus cases surge more dramatically than they did during a
summer spike. Indoor dining, gyms and movie theaters, among other businesses, must either remain closed or shut down in
41 of the state's 58 counties. The governor said he is "sounding the alarm" due to "the fastest increase California has
seen" since the pandemic began. Coronavirus cases have doubled in the last 10 days across the state, which hit the
grim milestone of 1 million coronavirus cases last week.
The
California Elections Pandemic. The once Golden State, renowned for creating and exporting much of what
constitutes American popular culture, now exports a vote-fraud rich, elections-stealing contagion across the nation. [...] A
consequence of Californizing elections will be rampant cynicism. Sullen distrust will take hold. Voters, in
droves, may elect not to vote. Yet nonparticipation may be the best case. In time, the nation may devolve into
warring political factions, who thuggishly vie to control the levers of power. Does that seem surreal?
Investigate Latin America, where countries are colored with rigged elections and associated violence.
California
judge rules Gov. Gavin Newsom overstepped authority with mail ballot order. A California judge has ruled
that Gov. Gavin Newsom overstepped his authority when he issued an executive order requiring vote-by-mail ballots sent
to all registered voters, according to reports. Sutter County Superior Court Judge Sarah Heckman ruled Friday
[11/13/2020] that Newsom did not have the authority to amend or change existing election law — even during a
pandemic. The ruling put a permanent injunction on Newsom, prohibiting him from changing existing law under the
California Emergency Services Act (CESA), according to KCRA. The ruling does not affect the results of the 2020 general election.
One-Party
Democrat Rule Is Killing California, And It's Coming For The Country. [Scroll down] COVID sucked the air
out of the room in the presidential debates, and in the media in general. However, my home state was never debilitated
by the Wuhan virus, which likely hit the West Coast in the early months of this year before spreading through the rest of the
country, and never overwhelmed our hospitals. The real epidemic we are witnessing on our streets daily and with which
so many of us have firsthand experience is the drug epidemic. Corona victims are not falling down dead on our streets,
like they did in videos from China; opiate addicts are. During our never-ending lockdown, drug overdoses in San
Francisco reached two a day. For comparison, San Francisco has seen a total of 149 COVID deaths. While nearly all
coronavirus patients eventually recover, few druggies do, so they stay on our streets until death, blocking off entire
sections of the city and taking over public transportation.
Newsom's
Latest COVID Regs [are] Nuttier Than a Holiday Fruitcake. Not many Californians will be trekking over the river
and through the woods to Grandmother's house for the holidays this year if Gov. Gavin Newsom has his way.
According to guidelines issued by his office, Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations in the Golden State can include members
of no more than three households, including everyone present — hosts as well as guests. Granny will
obviously have to be a little more careful about which set of aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews she invites this year.
And for those who do wrangle an invitation, forget about singing any Christmas carols — or music of any kind, for
that matter. Newsom's edict directs that:
• instrumental music will be allowed, but only if the
musicians maintain at least a six-foot physical distance between themselves (and all musicians must be from one of the three
households; playing of wind instruments is strongly discouraged);
• everyone singing or chanting
should wear a face covering at all times;
• all those singing, shouting, chanting or dancing should
maintain physical distancing beyond six feet; and,
• they are strongly encouraged to do so quietly (at
or below the volume of a normal speaking voice).
Liberal
California Emigrants are Toxic. Since 2012, California has overwhelmingly sent more transplants to Arizona than
any other state. When surveyed, escaping Californians cite high taxes, high crime rates, unaffordable housing,
out-of-control homelessness, and high unemployment rates as their top reasons for fleeing. Who is responsible for
creating such an alarming living environment within the state? California liberals. A November, 2020 report
produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University stated that California has 395,608 regulatory restrictions.
The sheer volume and scope of California regulations creates such a compliance nightmare that they kill entire industries,
send housing prices to unattainable heights, and restrict even commonplace liberties for which conservative leaning states
are known. Piled onto California's endless river of regulations are its nonsensical laws and policies. Twenty
major metropolitan cities or counties in California have established laws, ordinances, regulations, or other practices that
shield illegal immigrants from prosecution after committing a crime.
Judge
rules California Gov. Newsom's vote-by-mail order was improper. A California judge ruled that
Gov. Gavin Newsom's executive order requiring mail-in ballots to be sent to every registered voter in the state was
unconstitutional. Sutter County Superior Court Judge Sarah Heckman issued her ruling on Monday [11/2/2020], which also
contained a permanent injunction, instructing the governor not to issue further orders that would be similarly
improper. Tuesday's election will be unaffected by the ruling because a vote-by-mail order was ultimately passed by the
state's Legislature.
Judge
rules California's Newsom overstepped his authority with election order. A California judge on Monday
[11/2/2020] issued a tentative ruling in favor of two Republican state lawmakers who had filed an abuse of power lawsuit
against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. Executive Order N-67-20, which Newsom signed in June, required that counties
mail all eligible voters vote-by-mail ballots before Election Day and regulated the number of polling stations.
Assemblymembers James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, and Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, challenged Newsom's order in court, arguing that
Newsom's Emergency Services Act — implemented in March amid the burgeoning coronavirus pandemic —
prevented the governor from issuing more executive orders or creating new laws.
California
governor sends his children to private school as local public schools remain closed. California Gov. Gavin
Newsom is sending his children to attend modified in-person instruction at a private school even as the public schools that
serve his local district remain closed for now. Newsom's children are "phasing back into school," he told media on Friday
[10/30/2020], "and we are phasing out of our very challenging distance learning that we've been doing, so many parents are doing up
and down the state." The governor and his wife Jennifer Newsom have four children. They were in private school
prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
CA
Governor Gavin Newsom Ignores Crime Surge yet Claims Preparation for Post-Election Chaos. The headline in the
Hill yesterday, "California governor preparing state for civil unrest following election," is laughable. Governor Gavin
Newsom's idea of any form of preparedness is to stay at home and wear a mask. If anything, his policies of the last
year have guaranteed the civil unrest, rather than any measures to quell it. [...] Of course, King Gavin gave no specifics
about exactly what he planned to do to prepare for any potential election night chaos. Chief Dominick Rivetti of the
Beverly Hills Police Department has already announced that he will close down Rodeo Drive on Election Day and the day after,
and his police department will be on high alert from the Halloween weekend through Tuesday [11/3/2020].
King
Newsom bans indoor gatherings for Thanksgiving and Christmas. California won't allow indoor family gatherings
for the holidays, Christmas and Thanksgiving, and outdoor gatherings are limited to three families for a maximum of two
hours. This is arbitrary and tyrannical. "Gatherings that include more than 3 households are prohibited.
This includes everyone present, including hosts and guests. Remember, the smaller the number of people, the safer,"
reads the "Guidance for Private Gatherings," issued by the California Department of Public Health on October 9.
SF
DA Chesa Boudin surveys crime victims on how to make life easier for their attackers. Chesa Boudin, the radical
left-wing San Francisco District Attorney on whose watch San Francisco has become a crime-infested Caracas-like hellhole, is
starting to draw criticism from crime victims for his unwillingness to prosecute crimes. And adding insult to injury,
he's now using them as fodder for a survey on how to make their attackers' lives better. [...] The aim of course is to use
the responses to advance his political career, smothering out the victims' real concerns in order to advance his let-'em-out
political agenda in a quest for higher office. Always the P.R. man, Chesa is focused on gaslighting the public for his
own self-aggrandisement, claiming he's prosecuting criminals, while he's mainly attempting to get the victims of crimes he
never prosecuted to answer his survey with carefully worded options on what his priorities should be, leaving off the option
of 'prosecuting violent crime' and taking violent thugs off the streets as choices.
L.A.
County Sends Health Department Workers To Fine Church That Sued Newsom. A Catholic church in Los Angeles County
is alleging that the local government dispatched two health department officials to harass them in retaliation for their
priest suing Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state officials. On Oct. 15, two health officials
showed up at Our Lady of the Angels Church in Arcadia, California, a congregation affiliated with the dissident Society of
St. Pius X. The officials watched approximately 11 parishioners leave the building from the sidewalk and then
cited them for holding indoor worship services in violation of COVID-19 restrictions, according to a copy of the citation
forwarded to The Daily Wire. The citation carried with it a $1,000 fine.
California's
Gavin Newsom goes bonkers issuing Thanksgiving COVID orders. For someone whose previous career was in San
Francisco's trendy restaurant industry, California's Gov. Gavin Newsom has some bizarre ideas about why people gather;
what a comfortable dining experience is; and how people, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, will do what they do.
Nope, he's got some weird stuff up, motivated, he says, by a supposed new wave of COVID: [...] Anyone with a lick of common
sense knows that neither he nor his constituents are going to observe these ridiculous diktats on the country's biggest
family holiday from the comfort of their own homes. The arbitrariness of these regulations is incredible. Two
hours together? Why not one point five hours instead? Thousands of lives could be saved!
The
Grinch Who Stole Thanksgiving. Governor Gavin Newsom's Department of Health has issued an updated "Guidance for
Private Gatherings" in time for Thanksgiving. Basically, fun is illegal in California: ["]Gatherings that
include more than 3 households are prohibited. This includes everyone present, including hosts and guests.["]
So if you have three kids, you can invite two of them. ["]All gatherings must be held outside. Attendees
may go inside to use restrooms as long as the restrooms are frequently sanitized.["] This would not work well in
Minnesota.
California
Just Declared War On Thanksgiving With Kafka-Level Regulations. Gov. Gavin Newsom just gave Californians
more regulations for an early Christmas present — and anyone hoping to celebrate the holidays with family better
hope there's a gift receipt. Just in time for the Thanksgiving and Christmas festivities, when most families gather
with loved ones, California's Democrat governor has issued a new set of regulations that bans gatherings of more than three
households. Additionally, no indoor gatherings are permitted, so don't plan on eating around the dining room table
unless you lug it out into your backyard. Newsom's ban on gatherings of more than three households means that a family
with more than two grown children can only have two visit at the same time. According to the Pew Research Center,
almost two-thirds of mothers in their young forties in 1976 had three or more children. If those mothers are
grandmothers now and their children are grown, that means up to two-thirds of families would be banned from bringing all
their children under one roof for the holidays.
Close
To Half A Million Ballots [have been] Sent To California Voters Who Have Moved Or Died. Why do you suppose
California Republicans are setting up their own ballot drop boxes at churches and gun shops to offer voters a safe way to
ensure their votes make it to election officials for counting? Do you suppose they have some concerns about how well
the mass mail-in voting system will perform when it's put to the full test on November 3rd? Perish the thought.
I'm sure everything will be fine. Well... nearly everything. But we might not be entirely confident about the
eventual fate of roughly 400,000 ballots that went out this month. That's because their voter rolls don't appear to
have been tended very well over the years and that huge slug of ballots went to people who had either moved out of the state
or taken up residence in cemeteries.
Freshman
House Democrat offers the GOP a pickup opportunity amid crumbling campaign. California's 21st Congressional
District was the last district to be called in the 2018 election, with Democrat T.J. Cox defeating incumbent Republican David
Valadao one month after election day. In a year of crazy election news, their rematch has become even more chaotic.
Cox started his 2018 run in California's 10th District, abandoning the crowded primary after the only Democrat running against
Valadao dropped out. Cox's carpetbagging didn't seem to matter too much as he landed the endorsement of the Fresno
Bee, the district's largest paper. Valadao had won his district in 2016 by nearly the same margin as Hillary Clinton
had, but the 2018 Democratic wave proved too much to survive.
California
Democrat Legislature Passed a Stupid "Vote Harvesting" Law and Are Now Paying the Price. To begin with,
California has the most ridiculously lax ballot harvesting law ever imagined. They passed it in late Nov. 2016 after
Donald Trump won the Presidency, and they clearly had in mind making use of it in a variety of nefarious ways in 2018.
They did so to great benefit, flipping several Congressional races in traditionally GOP districts that had become purple over
the course of several election cycles. The basic practice, as employed by Democrats, was to know the home address of
every Democrat who requested an absentee ballot in the 2018 election. One way they did that was by aggressively pushing
registered Democrat voters to ask for absentee ballots and track those who did by their home address given when they sought
the ballot through the party. In the days leading up to the election, an army of volunteers — many of them
union members from all parts of the labor movement in California, started knocking on the doors of those voters. Many
were elderly or otherwise housebound.
How
California Is Turning Into a State Governed by Identity Politics. If you thought racial identity politics were
just a fleeting flirtation of the radical left, California's new laws suggest otherwise. On Sept. 30, California
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into state law a bill setting up a nine-member board to study the amount of reparations that
should be owed to black people for slavery and Jim Crow. [...] But that's hardly the only racially divisive law California
has passed this year, since the Legislature convened in a coronavirus-racked session in June. The same day, Newsom
signed a bill to establish diversity quotas on corporate boards for racial minorities. Corporations with between four
and nine board members will now be required to have at least two racial minorities, while corporations with more than nine
board members will be required to have at least three represented.
Gov.
Newsom Says He Is in 'No Hurry' to Reopen Disneyland, Universal Studios Hollywood. Don't expect Disneyland,
Universal Studios Hollywood and Knott's Berry Farm to open anytime soon, according to California Gov. Gavin Newsom at a
press conference Wednesday [10/7/2020]. He said there is "no hurry in putting out guidelines," but state officials are
continuing to work with amusement parks in California after the pandemic prompted closures in March. He called the
process "very complex," adding, "We don't anticipate, in the immediate term, any of these larger theme parks opening until we
see more stability in terms of the data."
Ignoring
Current Problems, California Cooks up Illogical Reparations Bill. Apparently, when California's one-party
government cannot find solutions to current existential crises, it turns to divisive issues that have little to do with the
safety and well-being of its 40 million citizens. California has the highest gas taxes in the nation, even as its
ossified state highways remain clogged and dangerous. Why, then, does Sacramento kept pouring billions of dollars into
the now-calcified high-speed rail project? When fires raged, killed dozens, polluted the air for months, consumed
thousands of structures and scorched 4 million acres of forest, in response the governor thundered about global
warming. But Newsom was mostly mute about state and federal green polices that discouraged the removal of millions of
dead and drought-stricken trees, which provided the kindling for the infernos. When gasoline, sales and income taxes
rose, and yet state schools became even worse, infrastructure remained decrepit and deficits grew, California demanded that
federal COVID-19 money bail out its own financial mismanagement.
Masks
Are Turning America Into Northern California. [Scroll down] Palo Alto, like much of Northern California,
was a cesspool of fear and grievance. The work being done was obviously incredible; the coolest and most useful
technology on the planet was all being born up and down the Bay Area. But the culture outside of the cushy campuses and
start-ups was one of persistent paranoia. You couldn't cross a street in Palo Alto without hearing voices warning you
of the dangers that lurk about. No, seriously. They had little recordings in the crosswalks that were on a
24×7 loop warning of general dangers. It was creepy. [...] And with the help of masks, that's how Jake Tapper and
Anthony Fauci (the posterboys for their leftist institutions) want all of America to be. And there are plenty of people
across the country who would gladly move into that kind of reality.
Gavin
Newsom goes 'Bananas': 'Don't forget to keep your mask on in between bites'. So Gavin Newsom of California has
gotten excited about masks again, just as Joe Biden and assorted leftists have made it mask-wearing the most recitable part
of the Democrats' party platform in the wake of President Trump's diagnosis of COVID. Joe Biden is out preaching for
the wearing of masks, but for Newsom, merely wearing them at the grocery store is no longer enough. [...] It's also a day
late and a dollar short, being ordered a time when COVID cases are way down in California and deaths are precipitously
declining. [...] A ridiculous order like this, detrimental to public health, is nothing short of the whims of a dictator
drunk on power. It's like a scene from Woody Allen's 1971 Bananas about a fictional tropical dictator who looks
like Fidel Castro.
Newsom's
office tells Californians to wear masks 'in between bites' of food when dining with members from same household in public.
Gov. Gavin Newsom's office told California residents they should wear masks "in between bites" of food while dining in public spaces
with people from the same household. "Going out to eat with members of your household this weekend? Don't forget to keep your
mask on in between bites," the office of the governor tweeted over the weekend. "Do your part to keep those around you healthy,"
the tweet added.
The Editor says...
Fortunately, a tweet is not a law.
California governor's
office tells diners to wear masks 'in between bites'. The office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom has told
residents in the Golden State that if they go out to eat, they should be wearing a mask "in between bites" to protect
themselves from COVID-19. [...] For emphasis, the tweet shows an image of someone at a dining seat wearing a mask, then not
wearing a mask while taking a bite, and then putting the mask on again. However, the image then advises people to
"minimize the number of times you take your mask off." California has allowed limited indoor dining to resume in a number
of counties. San Francisco allowed indoor dining last week at 25% capacity. California has had more than 800,000
cases and more than 16,000 deaths due to the virus.
The Editor says...
That is not true. The total number of deaths from Covid-19 is less than 10,000 nationwide. The number of people
who have died with the virus (not from it) is much higher.
Oops! What an unfortunate error! Better luck in 2024.
L.A.
County: Over 2,000 mail-in ballots sent without the option to vote for president. Nearly 2,100 mail-in
ballots were sent to voters in Los Angeles without the option to vote for the next president of the United States, according
to the Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's office declared them "faulty
ballots," the report noted. "While this has impacted a very small number of Los Angeles County voters ... we
nevertheless apologize to those affected by the mistake," said Michael Sanchez, a spokesman for the county clerk's office,
according to the LA Times.
The Editor says...
This tells you one thing about the Los Angeles County election officials: Nobody checks the ballots before they are
sent out. Or worse, they knew there was an omission and thought nobody would notice. Or worse still, they hate President
Trump so much that they were willing to interfere in the election. In any case, I can confidently predict the number of
county officials who will lose their jobs as a result of this: Zero.
Gavin
Newsom Edges Ahead in the Country's Dumbest Governor Competition. COVID-19 has certainly exposed one of two
things. Either some of the dumbest people in the country are leading our states, or they are so hyperpartisan they will
beclown themselves to toe the Democrats' preferred narrative on the virus. The latest ridiculous instructions come from
Gavin Newsom's office: ["]Going out to eat with members of your household this weekend? Don't forget to keep
your mask on in between bites.["] [...] One of the primary reasons that masking is controversial is because people
don't know how to use [them]. Apparently, this lack of knowledge goes straight up to the governor's office in
California. As a former healthcare worker trained on how to don and doff personal protective equipment (PPE) properly,
this is painfully stupid.
A
man wanted to open an ice cream shop, unfortunately he was in San Francisco. It's difficult to open a business
in some parts of the country because of all the red tape involved. One of the places where that's definitely the case
is San Francisco. Last Friday the San Francisco Chronicle published a column outlining Jason Yu's attempt to open an
ice cream shop in the city and the months and months of delays he has faced trying to take his project through various
slow-moving departments. Yu decided he wanted to open a shop selling green tea flavored ice cream back in 2018.
Eventually, he found an empty storefront and in June 2019 he signed a lease which cost him $7,300 per month. He knew it
would take a few months to open but he was prepared for that. He hired an architect to make plans for new electrical
and plumbing but there were no structural changes needed and no changes to the outside of the building. Six months
later, in June 2019, he submitted his plans to the Department of Building Inspection. And that's when his real
nightmare began.
California
Is a Cautionary Tale for America. Anyone with the means to flee Detroit, does so. Likewise, the Golden
State hemorrhages residents, as they build their lives in differently managed states. [...] California bounds from one crisis
to another, with most of them being self-imposed. The latest one involves the raging wildfires that turned our air into
a putrid soup. Obviously, heat waves and high winds were the proximate cause, but poor land management, ill-conceived
liability and insurance laws, and the misuse of existing firefighting budgets are the fundamental problems. The last
crisis involved homelessness. Just because COVID-19 pushed it off of the front pages doesn't mean that it's become any
less severe.
L.A.
Ordered to Pay NRA Six Figures After Losing First Amendment Case. The Washington Free Beacon reports, a
federal court ordered the city of Los Angeles to pay the NRA's lawyer fees of approximately $150,000, just months after he
ruled a city ordinance violated the gun-rights group's First Amendment rights. The City of Los Angeles tried to penalize
any contractor with ties to the NRA. The NRA sued over the ordinance and federal district court judge Stephen Wilson
ruled it was an unconstitutional violation of the NRA's First Amendment rights. The city eventually repealed it and on
Tuesday, the judge ordered city officials to pay the NRA's attorney fees totaling about $150,000.
Bob
Iger quits California economic task force as Disney lays off 28,000 workers. Disney chairman Bob Iger quit
California Gov. Gavin Newsom's coronavirus recovery task force just two days after the Mouse House said it was cutting
28,000 jobs at its US parks business. A Disney rep wouldn't say why or exactly when Iger resigned from the task force,
which was formed in April, according to the Sacramento Bee, which first reported the news late Thursday [10/1/2020].
Disney didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from The [New York] Post.
California
governor signs corporate boardroom diversity law. Hundreds of California-based corporations must have directors
from racial or sexual minorities on their boards under a first-in-the-nation bill signed Wednesday by Gov. Gavin
Newsom. The diversity legislation is similar to a 2018 measure that required boardrooms to have at least one female
director by 2019. Like that measure, it could face court challenges from conservative groups who view it as a discriminatory
quota. Supporters evoked both the coronavirus pandemic that is disproportionately affecting minorities and weeks of
unrest and calls for inclusion that followed the slaying of George Floyd in May in the custody of Minneapolis police.
EPA
chief to Newsom: You don't have the power to ban gas-powered vehicles. EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler
rebuked California governor Gavin Newsom yesterday [9/28/2020] for his executive order barring sales of gas-powered vehicles
in the state by 2035. California no longer has the authority to impose such regulations, Wheeler reminded Newsom, and
it also lacks the power, literally:
Newsom
OKs sterilizing treatments for teens. Despite the medical evidence and moral outcry, Gov. Gavin Newsom
celebrated the signing of a bill that allows gender clinics to provide transgender drugs and surgery known to sterilize
children and adults. Newsom praised AB 2218 for "strengthening protections for LGBTQ+ Californians" and providing an
"additional step forward" in "our march towards equality," in a weekend press release. "By rejecting the concerns of
doctors and parents, and siding with LGBT activists, Governor Newsom is yet again ignoring the heartbreak his policies will
unleash," said Jonathan Keller, President of California Family Council.
California:
The Golden State in Utter Decay. With increasing homelessness, a soft approach to criminal prosecution, and the
ongoing embracing of illegal immigration, violent crimes are increasing after having seen a reduction the past few years.
According to The Trace, "homicides are sharply up this year" in California as a whole, and cities such as Oakland, with a 26%
increase, have seen a significant increase in the number of murders. With the jump in violent crimes, what steps has
California's government taken to reduce certain crimes? They recently passed the controversial bill S.B. 145, which
will ultimately end up reducing accountability and sentences for adults who sexually assault children as young as 14.
What a brilliant idea. Apparently, California's leadership believes that the pedophile community had been treated unfairly.
Group
Robs A CVS In Broad Daylight As Employees And Manager Just Watch. Ever since California decriminalized what the
state considers 'petty crime', this sort of brazen robberies of stores has become more and more common. Add mask laws
to the mix, which conceals criminals' identities, you can bet on a lot more of these broad daylight heists.
[Video clip]
California
Wants Me to Vote, Even Though I Haven't Lived There for Over 8 Years. States across the country are
experimenting with a mass switch to mail-in elections in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But is it wise for states
to make such a big change, especially in light of messy voter rolls around the country? What I was sent earlier this
month by election officials in Alameda County, California, makes me worried that ballots going to the wrong locations will be
a significant concern this year. The Alameda County Registrar of Voters notified me by mail at my parents' address in
Oakland that I would receive a ballot when the state sends them out Oct. 5. This is following Gov. Gavin
Newsom's executive order that all California voters receive a mail-in ballot before the Nov. 3 election.
Pregnant
Black, Pacific Islander women in San Francisco to receive $1,000 monthly supplement. Approximately 150 pregnant
Black and Pacific Islander women in San Francisco will receive a $1,000 monthly supplement during their pregnancies and for
the first six months of their babies' lives, the city's mayor announced. Mayor London Breed's (D) office said on Monday
that the Abundant Birth Project is the first of its kind in the country. The project's goal is to eventually provide a
supplement for as long as two years post-pregnancy. [...] Black infants are nearly twice as likely to be born prematurely
than white infants in San Francisco. Pacific Islander infants have the second-highest preterm birth rate in the city,
according to the mayor's office. Black families also account for half of maternal deaths in the city and 15 percent of
infant deaths, although they represent just 4 percent of all births.
The Editor says...
[#1] There is a lot of discussion about mothers and babies, but no mention of the babies' fathers in the article above.
[#2] What's so special about Pacific Islander women? Which Pacific islands? Are these women U.S. citizens?
[#3] If black babies are so important, why are so many black babies aborted in San Francisco, with the enthusiastic support
of some of the same left-wing do-gooders?
California
imposes racial quotas on corporate boards. California's legislature is mandating racial quotas for corporate
boards. "Experts say" that "runs afoul of constitutional principles," according to the Wall Street Journal. "New
legislation passed over the weekend would mandate that publicly-traded companies headquartered in the state must have at
least one director from a minority community by the close of 2021. There are more than 500 public companies based in
California in the Russell 3000, which accounts for the vast majority of companies."
Poll:
Californians oppose gender mutilation and sterilization bill. Sixty-four percent of California voters do not
want Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill to pay for transgender drugs and surgeries known to sterilize minors and adults,
according to a new poll. The survey, conducted by Spry Strategies in conjunction with the Women's Liberation Front,
shows that conservative Christians and radical feminists, who have joined forces to oppose AB 2218, are more in step with
California voters than state legislators. The controversial bill passed the Assembly 54-10 and the Senate 28-9 late
last month, and now sits on Newsom's desk awaiting his decision.
LA
County's Public Health Director says what we suspected about the lockdown. [Scroll down] Los Angeles
County is America's most populous county, the largest government entity in America that is not a state or the federal
government, and the third-largest metropolitan economy in the world. It's also entirely Democrat-run, as evidenced by
poverty, drugs, and homelessness, as well as its vast wealth inequality. Los Angeles students still cannot go to school
but must, instead, do online learning. We already know that part of the problem is that the teachers' union had some
pretty stringent demands, few related to the students' physical and mental well-being. However, it turns out the
continued school closures are also because of politics. We know this because LA County's Public Health Director,
Barbara Ferrer, admitted as much when speaking to a gathering of school nurses and other school administrators: [...] There
is no scientific connection between the election and the Wuhan virus. There is, however, a cynical connection between
the lockdown and the election. The Democrats know that, and Ferrer finally said it out loud.
Los Angeles
County bans trick-or-treating this Halloween due to coronavirus. Traditional Halloween activities won't be
allowed for residents in Los Angeles County this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to local health
officials. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced a ban on door-to-door trick-or-treating,
carnivals, festivals, live entertainment and haunted houses. "Door to door trick or treating is not allowed because it
can be very difficult to maintain proper social distancing on porches and at front doors especially in neighborhoods that are
popular with trick or treaters," officials said in a news release detailing guidelines for the annual tradition.
Update:
Los Angeles
quickly reverses trick-or-treat ban. Los Angeles pulled a Halloween switcheroo on Wednesday — first
banning, and then quickly unbanning, trick-or-treating. Less than a day after saying the door-to-door candy grab is
banned due to coronavirus concerns, county officials changed course and said the popular children's tradition is now just
"not recommended." The revision came after parents and businesses "went apoplectic with outrage," Deadline reported,
citing a press briefing by LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. Also not recommended — but no
longer outright banned — are LA's popular "trunk-or-treat" events, in which costumed kids go car to car instead of
door to door.
California
to Offer Drive-Thru Voting for November Election in Orange County. Orange County, California, is offering
voters the option to submit a drive-thru ballot this November election season to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
The county will use the Honda Center in Anaheim as a staging location, allowing voters to cast their ballots from their cars
or in person inside the arena, the Daily Pilot reported.
California
DA's new policy to consider looters' 'needs' before charging them. A California district attorney is requiring
her prosecutors to consider looters' "needs" when weighing criminal charges against them. The new mandate, set forth by
Contra Costa County District Attorney Diane Becton, makes it tougher to prosecute looting cases in the county, which sits
just outside San Francisco. Investigators must now consider "was this theft offense substantially motivated by the
state of emergency, or simply a theft offense which occurred contemporaneously to the declared state of emergency?,"
according to the policy reported by local outlet East County Today.
California
Legislature Passes Bill Reducing Penalties for Oral, Anal Sex with Willing Children. California lawmakers
passed a bill Monday that would reduce penalties for adults who have oral or anal sex with a willing minor child if the sex
offender is within ten years of the age of the victim. The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).
California
legislature passes bill easing sex offender registry requirements for sodomy with minors. California
legislators passed a law Monday easing sex offender registry rules for those who commit sodomy or other sex acts with minors
in order to end "discrimination against LGBTQ young people on the sex offender registry." The bill, which now heads to
Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk, would "exempt from mandatory registration under the act a person convicted of certain offenses
involving minors if the person is not more than 10 years older than the minor and if that offense is the only one requiring
the person to register," according to the bill.
Californiastan
Continues Its War on Christians. [Scroll down] But even if a genuine pandemic rather than COVID-Con
raged, pastors should never close churches. Both liberty and the Lord demand that we defy such dictatorship.
California
bill to form reparations task force advances after 33-3 state Senate vote. State senators in California
overwhelmingly supported setting up a task force to study potential reparations for slavery in a bipartisan vote Saturday
[8/29/2020]. The panel would study the effects slavery had on California and recommend to the legislature no later than
2023 what type of compensation would be appropriate, how it might be dispersed and who could be eligible to receive it.
The task force could also recommend other forms of redress besides money.
Having a party is a crime now?
TikTok
celebrities criminally charged after LA house parties. TikTok celebrities Bryce Hall and Blake Gray are facing
criminal charges after they hosted recent parties in the Hollywood Hills despite the city's ban on large gatherings during
the coronavirus pandemic, authorities said Friday [8/28/2020]. The Los Angeles city attorney's office filed misdemeanor
charges Thursday against Hall and Gray. The internet celebrities with millions of followers on TikTok share a home and
allegedly held two parties less than a week apart.
In California, cops
banned from pro-police speech but pro-BLM speech is mandatory. A California Highway Patrol division in Southern
California prohibited officers this month from displaying Thin Blue Line items, meant to honor law enforcement.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Police Department is decorating its precincts with materials celebrating Black Lives Matter, an
organization calling for the defunding of the police. The CHP memo, a roll call briefing document with the Border
Division dated Aug. 14, directed officers to "remove all Thin Blue Line paraphernalia, including anything resembling it ...
immediately. This includes any paraphernalia hung anywhere in the office, stickers/patches on State or personal
property that may be seen by the public during the course of duties, and email signature blocks." The Thin Blue Line,
depicted as a black and white U.S. flag with a blue stripe, represents the sacrifices that law enforcement make to protect
the public and prevent civil unrest. Civilians display the symbol to show their support for the nation's authorities.
Progressive activists, however, liken the symbol to white supremacy and police misconduct. A California police officer who
reviewed the document said it amounted to an official order because of the use of the word "shall." "It's all political so
I understand why they sent it out," he said.
California Gov.
Newsom failed to take promised pay cut, newspaper finds. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been drawing his
full monthly salary despite asking state workers in May to take a pay cut to alleviate the state's burden in fighting the
coronavirus pandemic. Though elected state officials are exempt from such pay cuts, Newsom pledged that he would
voluntarily slash his salary when he asked state workers to make that same sacrifice. But a Thursday [8/20/2020] report
from the Sacramento Bee revealed that Newsom has continued drawing his full monthly salary of $17,479. A spokesman for
Newsom's office blamed the matter on an "administrative error."
Killing Los
Angeles. Things are so bad in so many American cities that our mainstream media outlets do not have the space
or the time to cover it all. Even if they wanted to cover it all, which they clearly don't want to do. After all,
the decline and fall of America's great cities does not make Donald Trump look bad. And the only news that is fit to
print these days is news that makes Trump look bad. As Democrat run cities collapse before our eyes, the media assure
us that there's nothing worth watching there. New York, Chicago, Portland, Seattle... down the drink, as they
say. And the news media are trying to cover up the story, or, at the least, blame it on white Trump supporters.
Anyway, today's story of decline and fall concerns Los Angeles.
Broke California
wants to fund youth sterilizations and sex changes. The California Senate will consider legislation soon to use
taxpayer funds to pay for hormone blockers and sex change operations for minors. The bill, after passing the Senate
Health Committee by a 7-1 vote last week, now moves to the Senate Appropriation Committee and then to the floor of the Senate
before the end of the month. As noted by numerous health experts, the use of cross-sex hormones and surgeries for
adolescents would permanently destroy their reproductive systems, a fact which AB2218 backers seem inclined to ignore.
With
Kamala Harris as VP pick, Gavin Newsom's White House hopes have stalled. Maybe you've noticed:
Gov. Gavin Newsom no longer looks like a promising future presidential prospect. He has been leaped over and left
behind by a California ally, Sen. Kamala Harris. Since Newsom was elected governor in 2018, the expectation has
been that he would seize the first opportunity after this year to run for president. Newsom, 52, wasn't ready this
year. But if President Trump won reelection, the Oval Office would be open in 2024. And if a Democrat ousted Trump,
there'd be another opportunity in 2028.
Hollywood
Apocalypse. Gold's Gym has become synonymous with the Hollywood Dream. [...] Yet today Gold's sits amid
post-apocalyptic scenes which have consumed much of LA, turning the City of Dreams into an urban nightmare from which people
are fleeing in droves. A makeshift tent city made up of flapping tarpaulins and cardboard boxes surrounds the gym on
all sides. Junkies and the homeless, many of whom are clearly mentally ill, walk the palm-lined streets like
zombies — all just three blocks from multi-million-dollar homes overlooking the Pacific. Stolen bicycles are
piled high on pavements littered with broken syringes. TV bulletins are filled with horror stories from across the
city; of women being attacked during their morning jog or residents returning home to find strangers defecating in their
front gardens.
Los
Angeles: Why politicians' COVID bullying attacks will work. Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti has learned
how to govern like a third-world dictator. His threat to shut down the water and power to large house parties that
violate the city's coronavirus guidelines is right out of the totalitarian government handbook. [...] Starting on Friday
[8/7/2020], Mayor Garcetti announced that the city would shut off the power and water to houses, businesses, and other venues
that violated the strict corona virus safety guidelines. This is in response to a large house party that police
attempted to shut down. It turns out these parties are cropping up because the bars and nightclubs are closed as the
city institutes greater restrictions as reported cases increase. [...] And it will work. In the Third World, which is
what many of these cities have come to resemble, practical and authoritarian solutions prevail, especially when there is no
one to enforce the rule of law.
Local
Politicians: America's Achilles Heel. Capping a long, impressive streak of dumb proclamations and
declarations, including suggesting that members of the LAPD put down their batons and "walk hand-in-hand" with the same
rioters who were then torching LAPD vehicles, attacking officers, and looting numerous businesses, Garcetti recently declared
that water and power would be shut off to any residence caught hosting a "large house party." What exactly constitutes a
gathering that is too "large?" Can/should a mayor shut off water and power to privately owned residences during the dog days
of summer, two utilities that the State of California and Garcetti's own Housing Authority have explicitly deemed essential
services necessary for habitation?
Crowd
in California blasts Gov. Newsom for not reopening the state. Hundreds of President Trump supporters
descended onto the streets of Beverly Hills to protest property destruction and the 'villainization' of police while two
similar demonstrations were held in Texas. [...] On Saturday [8/8/2020], a crowd of around 200 Americans carried signs
reading 'Trump 2020' as they marched from West Hollywood to Beverly Hills. Footage showed several protesters waving
American flags, signs reading 'United We Stand,' Thin Blue Line American flags celebrating law enforcement and a plethora of
'Make America Great Again' paraphernalia.
L.A.
County Supervisors Vote to Put Defunding Police on November Ballot. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
approved a proposal on Tuesday to amend the city's charter — which will be presented to voters on November 3 via
ballot — to remove $880 million from law enforcement and "reinvest" the money in "direct community investment"
and "alternatives to incarceration."
The Editor says...
Yes, put it on the ballot in November, and in the absence of massive election fraud,
it will fail. While you're at it, put coronavirus lockdowns on the ballot, too.
San
Fran is crawling with drugs. DA shows more concern for dealers. District attorney Chesa Boudin
acknowledges that the Tenderloin District of the city is plagued by drug sellers from Honduras, but frets that arresting them
isn't really worth it. Boudin, a former public defender who vowed as a candidate to prosecute fewer criminals, is not
inclined to address how the surge in drug sales during Covid lockdowns was affecting city residents, and instead focused on
the plight of the drug dealers themselves. Many were trafficked and their families were at risk at home if they
cooperated with authorities, Boudin said in a webinar last week.
California's Woke Hypocrisy.
No state wears its multicultural veneer more ostentatiously than California. The Golden State's leaders believe that
they lead a progressive paradise, ushering in what theorists Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca call "a new progressive era."
Others see California as deserving of nationhood; it reflects, as a New York Times columnist put it, "the shared
values of our increasingly tolerant and pluralistic society." In response to the brutal killing of George Floyd in
Minneapolis, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti announced plans to defund the police — a move applauded by Senator
Kamala Harris, a prospective Democratic vice presidential candidate, despite the city's steep rise in homicides. San
Francisco mayor London Breed wants to do the same in her increasingly crime-ridden, disordered city. This follows state
attorney general Xavier Becerra's numerous immigration-related lawsuits against the Trump administration, even as his state
has become a sanctuary for illegal immigrants — complete with driver's licenses for some 1 million and
free health care.
Gavin
Newsom's $3.7 Million Estate Was Gifted to Him in 2019; 3 Months Later He Got a $2.7 Million Tax Free Cash-Out. One thing
that's become extraordinarily clear to Californians in 2020 is that there's one set of rules for Gov. Gavin Newsom, and there's
another set of rules for the rest of us. He preaches that we're all in this together and that we have to sacrifice to "meet this
moment," yet he's not missing a paycheck. As California businesses struggle, he sends a $1 billion contract for masks to a
Chinese company. When he shut down wineries throughout 80 percent of California, he kept his open. While the dream of
owning a home is increasingly out of reach for California's families, it appears that Newsom received a $3.7 million estate from
an LLC owned by his cousin then, a few months later took out a $2.695 million (tax-free) cash-out mortgage on it — and
didn't report the gift on any of his financial disclosure forms.
Gavin
Newsom Rages at Trump Discounting Illegal Aliens for States' Representation. California Gov. Gavin Newsom
(D) on Tuesday [7/21/2020] decried President Donald Trump's executive order which will exclude Illegal aliens from being
counted for purposes of congressional apportioning. "Counting every person in our country through the Census is a
principle so foundational that it is written into our Constitution," Newsom said in a statement. "This latest action by
the administration to exclude undocumented immigrants when determining representation in Congress, rooted in racism and
xenophobia, is a blatant attack on our institutions and our neighbors."
The Editor says...
Well, governor, they may be your neighbors (very distantly, I suspect), but if they are here illegally they are not entitled
to representation in the Congress. Anyone other than a public school student should be expected to know that.
City
removes 'Black Lives Matter' street mural because of 'MAGA 2020' request. Street graffiti for me, but not for
thee. That's what lawmakers in Redwood City, California basically told a Trump supporter who wanted to paint "MAGA
2020" on the same street where left-wing activists had painted a Black Lives Matter mural. Last week, Redwood City
(which is located on the San Francisco peninsula) washed away the "Black Lives Matter" mural after a local
attorney — a Trump supporter — argued that since the street was now a public forum, she should be
allowed to paint "MAGA 2020" on it.
California
City Chooses No Speech over MAGA Speech. When faced with the choice of giving a Donald Trump supporter the
exact same right to free expression as the left-wing terrorist group Black Lives Matter, Redwood City, California, chose to
outlaw everyone's speech. How revealing. As Breitbart News reported Monday, Redwood City was so eager to allow
one of its residents to paint a Black Lives Matter mural on city property, the city — and therefore the
taxpayers — provided him with some of the materials.
Los
Angeles mayor says city is 'on the brink' of declaring another stay-at-home order. Los Angeles Mayor Eric
Garcetti told CNN's Jake Tapper Sunday [7/19/2020] that Los Angeles is "on the brink" of another stay-at-home order.
Los Angeles County has seen a surge of cases recently, with new record high hospitalizations and infections. The city
has more than 150,000 cases. "A lot of things went wrong," Garcetti said. He pointed out that cases haven't
increased as quickly in LA as in some cities, but said there is "no national leadership" in efforts to slow or stop the
pandemic. "It was politicized when it should have been unified."
California
Gov. Newsom Helps Chinese Get $1 Billion in COVID Aid. [...] I've learned my lesson this time: Don't
give Democratic governors the benefit of the doubt. I thought I'd learned it the first time. When New York's
Andrew Cuomo looked like he was showing strong leadership in the opening week or two of the coronavirus crisis, I thought
maybe we could put aside our petty differences and praise a politician from the other side. In fact, I did just
that. And then it all ended in tears. It wasn't the rambling, empurpled news conferences that made the
much-criticized presidential media briefings look like relative models of restraint. No, for me the moment I made a
clean break was when I learned the much-hailed hand sanitizer production program Cuomo was fond of touting consisted of
little more than inmates rebottling an outside product inside the Empire State's prisons in order to make the governor look good.
Berkeley
Bans Police-Conducted Traffic Stops, Will Send in Unarmed Civilians. Berkeley, California has approved a plan
that prohibits police officers from conducting traffics stops. The plan, proposed by the mayor and approved in a
virtual city council meeting early Wednesday morning [7/15/2020], is just one part of a major "defund the police" overhaul
planned by the city, Fox News reported. The move to separate traffic enforcement from police work is believed to be the
first of its kind in the U.S, according to the report. Instead of having trained officers conducting traffic stops, the
new policy will send in unarmed civilian city workers to deal with traffic offenders. Police unions for Los Angeles,
San Jose and San Francisco said in a joint statement that serious violations such as speeding, reckless driving, and driving
under the influence — are dangerous offenses and confronting violators can be dangerous work best handled by sworn officers.
California
to Release 18,000 Prisoners by End of August to 'Slow the Spread of COVID-19'. According to the California
Department of Corrections, the state is set to release up to 18,000 prisoners by the end of August to 'slow the spread of
COVID-19.' Officials in California say releasing prisoners will help protect the "health and safety of the incarcerated
population." "These actions are taken to provide for the health and safety of the incarcerated population and staff,"
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Ralph Diaz said in a news release. "We aim to implement these
decompression measures in a way that aligns both public health and public safety."
Nine politicians can stop
teen sterilizations in California, but will they? The fate of a bill to fund transgender treatments that
permanently destroy the reproductive systems of minors is now in the hands of nine California State Senators.
AB 2218, authored by Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D) Los Angeles with principal co-author Senator Scott Wiener (D) San
Francisco, will be heard before the nine members Senate Health Committee when they return to the capitol at the end of the
month. The bill has already made its way through the Democrat-dominated state Assembly with little debate and approved
largely along party lines. It establishes an "LGBT Transgender Wellness Fund," to provide grants to nonprofits,
hospitals, health care clinics (like Planned Parenthood), and other medical providers to pay for puberty blockers, cross-sex
hormones, and mastectomies for minors, as well as cross-sex hormones and "sex-change" operations for adults.
COVID
Madness — Comrade Newsom Shuts Down California Indoor Activities. This is nuts. In an effort
to fundamentally destroy the livelihoods of millions of California small businesses, Comrade Governor Gavin Newsom has
declared that all indoor activities must shut down to top the spread of COVID-19. The overwhelming majority of dictates
around COVID-19 mitigation are not laws. There was no debate; no input from representative government; and no option
for the public to weigh-in on the decisions.
Newsom
shuts bars, indoor dining and most gyms, churches amid rise in virus cases. California Gov. Gavin Newsom
on Monday extended the closure of bars and indoor dining statewide and ordered gyms, churches and hair salons closed in most
places as coronavirus cases keep rising in the nation's most populated state. On July 1, Newsom ordered 19
counties with a surging number of confirmed infections to close bars and indoor operations at restaurants, wineries, zoos and
family entertainment centers like bowling alleys and miniature golf.
Gavin
Newsom gives Californians a glimpse of their future. Once upon a time, California's Governor Gavin Newsom, the
leftist boy wonder of America's largest and most leftist state, was considered to be a top future contender for the White
House. That future is not so clear now that he's made it clear to Californians that every time the Wuhan virus rears
its head, he's again going to shut down their places of work and imprison them in their homes.
California
may release 10% of inmates in pandemic response. California officials will soon release another 2,100 inmates
from state prisons in response to the coronavirus pandemic and in all now plans to release a total of more than 10,000
inmates, or nearly 10 percent of prisoners, as Gov. Gavin Newsom responds to intensifying pressure from advocates,
lawmakers and federal judges.
California
Legislators Violate Our Constitutional Rights. In multiple ways Gov. Newsom has become a
monarch — a benevolent monarch, but a monarch nonetheless. I am amazed at how many aspects of that document
the governor has violated. He would of course argue that his acts are for the public good, but he has tossed the
Constitution out the window. For example, Article 1, Section 8, says that Congress alone has the authority "to regulate
commerce with foreign nations and among the several states." Yet Gov. Newsom has unilaterally shut down varieties of
commerce and restricted travel, even excursions from one's home. Much of this commerce becomes interstate.
State
Lawmakers Urge Newsom to Stop Transferring People in Prison to ICE in Pandemic. Dozens of state lawmakers
called on Gov. Gavin Newsom Monday [7/6/2020] to stop California prison officials from transferring people to federal immigration
detention during the coronavirus pandemic. In a letter signed by 44 members of the state Senate and
Assembly — as well as 18 local elected officials, including Mayor Libby Schaaf of Oakland and Mayor Michael Tubbs
of Stockton — the political leaders said ending the transfers is urgently needed to help reduce the spread of
COVID-19 between detention systems in California.
After
calling for no fireworks for California's 4th of July, Gavin Newsom was in for a surprise. Amid a new outbreak
of the coronavirus, California's Gavin Newsom was adamant that no firework celebrations be done on the Fourth of July,
because the public simply could not be trusted to socially distance. [...] Illegal fireworks were once the province of
illegal immigrants bringing in the lawless ways of Mexico, but now it appears that everyone is doing them, thumbing their
nose at the law same as is done in Mexico and beyond. It goes to show that when the state overreaches, and puts out an
unreasonable demand, widespread disobedience is going to be the result. It happens in Mexico, now it's happening here.
With
the Wuhan virus, Gavin Newsom discovers the perils of crying 'Wolf'. In March, California Governor Gavin Newsom
put California in lockdown to flatten the Wuhan virus curve. Newsom, like Gov. Cuomo, placed virus patients in
nursing homes, which may have contributed to the 2,531 resident and 93 care worker deaths in those homes. The
government also had a hand in the virus's rampage through San Quentin prison, which killed three death row inmates. In
other words, Democrat policies in California managed to produce 42% of the state's 6,263 virus fatalities. With its
lockdown, which initially was to last for two weeks and that instead continued for months, Newsom weakened the California
economy, drove its citizens to despair, prevented people from getting healthcare for other potentially deadly conditions, and
deprived citizens of their constitutional rights.
California's
Governor Forbids Christians From Singing in Church Houses. Golden State Christians have been ordered by
California's governor to stop singing in church. This is a direct assault on the First Amendment, [...] The new
guidance for places of worship was issued on July 1. "Discontinue singing (in rehearsals, services, etc.), chanting,
and other practices and performances where there is increased likelihood for transmission from contaminated exhaled
droplets. Consider practicing these activities through alternative methods (such as internet streaming) that ensure
individual congregation members perform these activities separately in their own homes," the 14-page order reads. The
previous guidelines only encouraged churches to "strongly consider" ending corporate worship, the Sacramento Bee
reported. The governor's office did not indicate how he intends to enforce the law. Can you imagine the optics of
National Guard troops storming into California church houses and arresting choir members for singing, "A Mighty Fortress is
Our God"?
Newsom
Bans Singing In Houses Of Worship After Downplaying Spread Of Coronavirus At Protests. Gov. Gavin Newsom
(D-CA) has issued new restrictions limiting the reopening of the economy in nearly 20 counties across the Golden State.
One of the more controversial measures introduced Thursday will ban singing and chanting at houses of worships, which are
already restricted to allowing 25% of guests or just 100 worshippers (whichever is lower). The Sacramento Bee reported that
in late May, Newsom simply encouraged houses of worship to "strongly consider discontinuing singing, group recitation, and
other practices and performances."
Recall Gavin 2020. Everywhere you look, the
failures of Governor Newsom are obvious and appalling to everyone. For this reason, the Recall Gavin 2020 campaign is
not conservative or liberal, or right or left, or Republican or Democrat. This is a mass uprising. Our Recall
Gavin campaign is building a grassroots organization with over 80,000 California voters already signed up as volunteers to
sign and circulate recall petitions. That number is growing every week. And this is just the beginning. Are
you tired of being locked up, unable to make a living, at the same time as California's prisons are being emptied? Do
you wonder why Gavin Newsom's cronies are building "supportive housing" for the homeless at a cost of over a half-million
dollars per unit, instead of just getting them help in less expensive facilities? Then join the Recall Gavin 2020 movement.
Gov
Newsom orders closing of Calif restaurants, wineries — but HIS remains open. In what is seen as a
major rollback, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered the closures of numerous businesses across 19 counties in
California to counter a surge in coronavirus cases. The order will be enforced for at least three weeks, and includes
restaurants, wineries and tasting rooms, movie theaters, family entertainment centers, zoos and museums, cardrooms, and bars,
Fox 26 reported. While a number of Central Valley counties are included, Napa County, where Gov. Newsom owns a
winery and tasting room is not among the counties affected and the business remains open as of the July 1, 2020 order,
according to the Fox affiliate.
San Francisco will
end mug shots release, citing racial bias. San Francisco police will stop making public the mug shots of people
who have been arrested unless they pose a threat to the public, as part of an effort to stop perpetuating racial stereotypes,
the city's police chief announced Wednesday [7/1/2020]. San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said the department will
no longer release booking photos of suspects to the media or allow officers to post them online. The policy takes
effect Wednesday.
Los
Angeles school police chief releases powerful resignation statement after board slashes funding. Los Angeles
School Police Chief Todd Chamberlain resigned following a decision by the school board to cut millions in funding and remove
officers from campuses. Chamberlain, who stepped into the job just last year, turned in his resignation on Wednesday
[7/1/2020], according to district spokeswoman Shannon Haber, the Los Angeles Times reported. With over 35 years in law
enforcement, Chamberlain made the decision one day after the school board gave in to what he called a "potentially
life-threatening" choice to cut the school police budget by $25 million.
In
the Name of Tolerance, California Blacklists Idaho. In a bizarre show of authoritarianism — even for
them — California state officials have decided to ban state-funded travel to Idaho because of its transgender
law. In a press release, California's attorney general, Xavier Becerra, said: "Where states legislate
discrimination, California unambiguously speaks out. The state of Idaho has taken drastic steps to undermine the rights
of the transgender community, preventing people from playing sports in school or having documentation that reflects their
identity." In his comments Monday [6/22/2020], Becerra was referring to legislation signed by Idaho Gov. Brad Little
that banned biological males who say they identify as girls or women from participating in female sports at public schools,
colleges, and universities. House Bill 500, the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, passed by a significant margin in
Idaho's House and Senate. It wasn't even controversial among Idaho residents.
A
meaty issue: California tries to override the commerce clause. In late 2018, California voters passed
Proposition 12, banning the in-state sale of any pork or veal (regardless of origin) from an animal that had been "confined
in a cruel manner," defined as that which prevents an animal from lying down or turning around freely. [...] Yet, the issue
here is not just that Proposition 12 is bad policy. It's also likely unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's
commerce clause precedents, including its "extraterritorial doctrine." In Baldwin v. G.A.F Seelig,
Inc., the court ruled that a New York milk distributor could not be forced to pay New York minimum prices for milk
supplied by Vermont farms. "New York has no power to project its legislation into Vermont," the court declared, before
noting that the Founding Fathers gave Congress the power to regulate commerce because of "the mutual jealousies and aggressions
of the States, taking form in customs barriers and other economic retaliation" existing under the Articles of Confederation.
Mailing It In.
Assembly Bill 860, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on June 18, is premised on ensuring safety in the era of the
coronavirus. Yet Wisconsinites voted in person in April, and the predicted spike in coronavirus cases from that public
assembly never materialized. The state's caseload did climb, but no steep increase occurred in the days and weeks after
the primary, just a steady rise that has continued, partly driven by expanded testing. Apparently the same can be said
for the locations where George Floyd marches, encouraged by the media and many public officials, were held. The
pandemic, it appears, was a useful crisis — voting by mail has long been a priority among progressives, and the
coronavirus outbreak provided sufficient cover to institute it.
Oakland
Abolishes School Police Department. The Oakland Unified School District abolished its own police force at a
school board meeting on Wednesday night, bowing to the wishes of radical left-wing activists and the Black Lives Matter
movement. The decision came a day after the Los Angeles Unified School District board could not agree on a similar
proposal. It follows nationwide demands from activists, including many Democrats, to defund or abolish the police.
What Happens
When the Madness Ends? What will California's multimillionaire Governor Gavin Newsom do when his silly press
conferences end, but his 13.3 percent income tax rate and 47-cent gas tax still don't come close to closing his $50 billion
annual deficit? Give more adolescent lectures about how the virus and lockdown are "reimagining a progressive era as it
pertains to capitalism"?
There's
a reason racial tension is rising in America - it's by design. In California, Democrats are moving to repeal
Proposition 209. Proposition 209 explicitly bans racial discrimination in hiring and education. In other words,
Democrats in California are now fighting for discrimination. This is not considered strange in 2020. No one even
mentions it. A couple of weeks ago, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky announced plans to bring universal health
insurance to his state, but not for all citizens, just for people with the right skin color. Everyone else would pay,
but only certain ethnic groups would benefit. Andy Beshear is still in office. No one has tried to impeach him
for suggesting this because ideas like this are everywhere now. They're totally unchallenged. This is the most
divisive possible way to run a country. If you wanted to make certain that your children would hate each other, you
would hold them to different standards, and they certainly would. There is a reason that racial tension is rising in
this country — it's by design.
Mask-wearing is becoming
increasingly politicized. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, announced Thursday [6/18/2020] that
mask-wearing is compulsory in most public settings, making California the 11th state to mandate that people wear masks.
Public spaces include every workspace, public transit, and any facility in which people receive medical care. President
Trump, meanwhile, has discounted the benefits of wearing a mask to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Panic
In Beverly Hills: Emergency Order Bans Protests In Residential Areas. The rich and famous are all about
protesting and declaring themselves down with the struggle until protesters forget their place and invade residential areas
of Beverly Hills. Then the masks drop. It's the ultimate Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) — the City of Beverly
Hills issued an emergency order Saturday night [6/13/2020] that bans public gatherings of more than 10 people in residential
areas between 9 PM and 8 AM. What brought this on? Well, it seems a group calling themselves "Occupy" disrupted the
beauty sleep of locals in their posh neighborhood on June 12 between the hours of 10 PM until 1 AM. The group used bullhorns
and "amplified music". The residents want their tranquility back. The emergency order remains in effect until further notice.
California
City Officials Admit to Accepting Bribes. A former Calexico City, California councilman along with a former
commissioner on the city's Economic Development and Financial Advisory Commission, pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday
to corruption charges, admitting that they accepted cash bribes in exchange for promises of official action by the
city. David Romero and Bruno Suarez Soto entered their pleas before U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernard G. Skomal, who set
sentencing for Sept. 4, 2020, before U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo. Romero and Soto, who were charged in
federal court in May, were allowed to remain free on $10,000 personal appearance bonds secured by their own signatures.
Judge
Smacks Down Gavin Newsom's Election Executive Order: "Impermissible Use of Legislative Powers".
Throughout the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic and shutdowns the nation's Democrat governors have shown us just how dictatorial
their aspirations are by issuing reams of overreaching executive orders they claim are allowable due to the public health
emergency. California's Gavin Newsom has been one of the worst offenders, but an order issued Friday [6/12/2020] by
Sutter County Superior Court Judge Perry Parker could put a stop to a number of items on Newsom's wish list. Two GOP
members of the California State Assembly, Kevin Kiley and James Gallagher, filed suit Thursday seeking to invalidate Newsom's
Executive Order N-67-20 pertaining to the November general election and requesting "interim declaratory relief and a
temporary restraining order." [...] Friday morning Parker issued a temporary restraining order suspending implementation of
the executive order, saying it was "an impermissible use of legislative powers in violation of the California Constitution
and the laws of the State of California."
Some
in LAPD Slam City Council Over Private Security Details Amid Budget Cut. While LA City Council President Nury
Martinez was filing a motion last week seeking to cut $150 million from the LAPD budget, she had an LAPD unit standing watch
outside her home providing her family with a private security detail since April. [...] "It's kind of ironic. Here she
is demanding $150 million be reallocated from the police budget, but yet she has security at her house by the Los Angeles
Police Department," said Det. Jamie McBride, who serves as director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the
LAPD's union.
Kamala
Harris, calling for $150 million LAPD defunding, also used LAPD as her private security detail. A Los Angeles
city councilwoman was exposed as a hypocrite for introducing a bill to cut $150 million from the Los Angeles Police
Department budget, while maintaining an LAPD private detail at her home for herself. Security for me, but not for thee,
see, the leftist political elites always gets their takings first. Guess who else is just as hypocritical? Sure
enough, Kamala Harris, Democratic vice presidential frontrunner, who's loudly endorsed these $150 million police defundings,
supporting the idea, along with her political ally, Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was last seen calling the LAPD 'killers.'
Gavin
Newsom to close 200-person veteran's home after budgeting handouts to illegal aliens. Grandstanding
Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom reportedly wants to close a 200-resident veterans nursing home in a budget-cutting
measure while at the same time enthusiastically handing out about $75 million in direct cash benefits to illegal aliens
living in the state. In an extreme example of questionable priorities to say the least, Newsom, a far-left Democrat who
is enabled by a Democrat-controlled legislature, targeted the Veterans Home of California-Barstow for closure to save $2.6
million (or perhaps less) as the formerly Golden State faces a corona-virus-induced budget crisis. For Democrats,
illegal immigrants are among their primary constituencies, particularlyin California where, as noted above, they essentially
run a one-party dictatorship in state that could be the epicenter of voter fraud.
Wealthy
buyers reportedly in 'mad rush' to leave San Francisco. Amid the depths of a global pandemic and financial
downturn, the demand for real estate is unexpectedly rocketing in wealthy regions outside San Francisco, reports
Bloomberg. Agents say that demand is soaring in affluent areas around the Bay Area such as Napa, Marin and further
afield in Carmel, as people who have the means look to get away from the city.
LA
Mayor Garcetti Calls His Cops 'Killers.' The 'Killers' Just Sent a Reply to the 'Unstable' Mayor. Mayors and
governors across the land have run to the cameras and microphones to be among the first to kneel in supplication to the
riotous mobs in the streets. They eagerly do what the Leftists at Black Lives Matter (BLM) and George Soros call for,
such as defunding police departments. They call for rule changes so that cops are defanged in the face of riotous
antifa and BLM mobs. [...] Just two weeks ago, mayors and governors across the land were lauding their first responders for
keeping the peace during COVID. Those days are over. The mob has spoken.
'Abolish
The Police' Is A Slogan For The Destruction Of America. If you thought "abolish the police" — or
it's more moderate iteration, "defund the police" — was just some asinine slogan blue-check journalists, woke
academics, and pandering public officials post on Twitter to show they support the Black Lives Matter movement, then you're
not keeping up with the revolution. This week Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, announced the city would be slashing the
police department's budget by $100 to $150 million and instead "reinvesting in black communities and communities of color."
The cuts to the LA police will make up the bulk of $250 million in funds to be reallocated to "end racism in our city,"
Garcetti said.
LAPD Rips Into Councilwoman Over
Reactionary Department Cuts: "We'll Take Care Of It At The Ballot Box". America is in a free fall and
none of our state and local leaders seem to have a clue how to fix it. Minneapolis got the brilliant idea to completely
eradicate their police department and replace it with some "citizen patrol" weirdness and what could possibly go wrong with
that? Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti made sure the media got lots of pictures of him kneeling just before he announced
the City of Angels would cut $250 million from its policing budget to give to "communities of color." If you think he meant
that he'd be handing out the cash personally to black business and home owners who just had their livelihoods burned to the
ground by looters and rioters, you are wrong. He will be handing that cash directly over to Black Lives Matter.
Where it goes from there is anyone's guess but hey, at least Garcetti will feel like a good person. Understandably LAPD
is not pleased. Not only were they deliberately prevented from stepping in to protect communities from Antifa during
the first days of the riot, they have been maligned and insulted by their own leadership.
As 'defund
LAPD' becomes a rallying cry, Garcetti will seek cuts up to $150 million. When Los Angeles was plunged into a
budget crisis earlier this year, progressive activists demanded that the City Council slash spending at the Police
Department, saying it's wrong to boost funding for officers while cutting other urgently needed services. The debate
over police spending at City Hall has only intensified after several days of protests against police brutality, the LAPD's
response to those demonstrations and the looting that sometimes followed. Activists with Black Lives Matter, Ground
Game LA and other grassroots groups say incidents in recent days where officers have used aggressive tactics including
projectiles and batons only reinforce the need to defund the LAPD.
Eric
Garcetti bows to rioters, vows to cut police budget. Los Angeles is lost. As a resident of Southern
California, I can tell you with a heavy heart that we lost. Los Angeles, arguably the heart of the west coast of
America, has been demolished by leftist policies for years. But in the face of riots over George Floyd's murder, Mayor
Eric Garcetti has done the exact opposite of what he should be doing. Instead of cracking down on crime, he's pulling
money out of law enforcement. On top of that, he's making ludicrous moves like declaring a moratorium on putting people
in the gang data base. As many leftist mayors and governors across the country are doing, Garcetti is making law
enforcement out to be the bad guys, only the Los Angeles Mayor is doing everything he can to be the most "woke" mayor of them all.
America
in the 21st Century: 20 Long Years of Constant Brainwashing. The campaign to brainwash America about the Wuhan
Virus has basically run its course along with the virus itself, and has now been replaced by a brainwashing campaign to
convince us that we should all run out to the nearest riot and take a knee, just like Joe Biden did in that black church on
Sunday. [...] In Los Angeles yesterday [6/3/2020], the National Guard there took a knee before the rioters, which means the
rioters are now in charge of Los Angeles, which is presumably how Mayor Eric Garcetti wanted it anyway.
Garcetti: LAPD budget to be cut by $150M to fund programs
in black communities. Amid nationwide protests ignited by the police-involved killing of George Floyd early
last week, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that up to $150 million will be cut from the L.A. Police Department
as part of relocating some $250 million from the city's budget to fund programs in communities of color.
The Editor says...
Programs? What kind of programs? What does that really mean?
California
Tried to Bail Out Illegal Aliens - and It's a Disaster. California's illegal alien population is its shadow
economy and with many of the industries that employ them shut down, the Democrats who depend on ghost districts populated by
illegals decided that something had to be urgently done to keep the illegal aliens from fleeing back across the border.
The Democrats figured that giving them checks would be cheaper than building a wall to keep them in. But who knew that
a $125 million stimulus program for illegal aliens would become such a disaster? Illegal aliens were eligible to apply
for up to $1,000 with $75 million coming from the California taxpayers bailing out illegals who don't pay taxes. And another
$50 million was supposed to be donated by wealthy lefties. But while the taxpayers of the state were forced to put up
their $75 million, the wealthy politically correct elites who have poured fortunes into electing Democrats didn't pay up.
Newsom
Fiat: No California Protest Can Have More Than 100 People. Regressive Supreme Leader Gavin Newsom is
angry. On Saturday more than 2,000 showed up at the Capitol to protest his dictatorship, issuing 40 Executive Orders
and changing close to 200 State laws, without a vote of the Legislature or even telling them in advance. He signed over
400 NO BID contracts — some for firms owned by the Chinese Communist Party. People are angry — so
they protest. Now, in the name of "safety and health", Newsom has issued another illegal edict — no protest
can have more than 100 people. Watch as that edict is violated in every corner of the State. This is no different
than what the Chinese Communist Party is doing to the people of Hong Kong.
Ballot
harvesting bounty: How Dems apparently used election law change to rout California Republicans. A minor
change in California's election laws may have had a major effect on last month's midterm elections that saw Democrats
steamroll their Republican rivals and claim all but seven of the Golden State's 53 House seats. Despite holding
substantial leads on Election Day, many Republican candidates in California saw their advantage shrink, and then disappear,
as late-arriving Democratic votes were counted in the weeks following the election. While no hard evidence is
available, many observers point to the Democrats use of "ballot harvesting" as a key to their success in the elections.
Hundreds
protest in Sacramento against stay-at-home order. Hundreds of protesters rallied outside the state Capitol on
Saturday [5/23/2020] to protest against California's stay-at-home orders even as residents entered the Memorial Day weekend
with newly expanded options for beachgoing, barbecuing and shopping. The rally to demand that Gov. Gavin Newsom
lift his restrictions on business, religious gatherings and other activities took on the atmosphere of a political rally and
festival on a closed-off street.
California
Democrats Want to Bring Racial Preferences Back. Rather than focus on COVID-19 or the economic recovery,
California liberals insist on pushing their pet issues. The "stimulus" bill rammed through the House this month by
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco was a liberal wish list of subsidies and spending. Now other California Democrats
are ramming through an effort to repeal the state's ban on racial preferences. Two things often happen when a single
political party dominates a state the way Democrats dominate California. First, an echo chamber of the dominant party
convinces its leaders they can steamroll over any opposition. Second, that conviction leads to political overreach.
Caucasian Americans are now only 19 percent of UC students, down from 38 percent a quarter century ago —
this change reflects the increasing ethnic diversity of Californians.
Gavin
Newsom responds to Justice Department warning over church closures. After receiving a formal warning from the
United States Justice Department over church closures, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his state is "weeks away" from
allowing in-person religious services to resume. A group of federal attorneys wrote a letter to Newsom warning him that
prolonged church closures likely violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment due to the fact that similar
non-religious businesses are receiving the green light to reopen in Stage 2.
Darrell
Issa, Judicial Watch Sue Gavin Newsom over Vote by Mail. Former Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Judicial Watch sued
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday [5/21/2020] over his May 8 executive order allowing all voters in the state to
vote by mail — whether they had formally requested to do so, or not. Newsom's order cites the threat of
coronavirus: because "it is unknown to what degree COVID-19 will pose a threat to public health in November," mail-in ballots
must be sent to everyone — but in-person voting must also be provided.
California's Budget
Bust-Up. Every state and municipal budget in America will take a big hit because of the coronavirus lockdowns,
but no public purse is in as much trouble as California's. Its Department of Finance recently estimated that the Golden
State could face a $54 billion shortfall in the fiscal year beginning July 1, which surely must be the largest deficit any
state has ever accumulated, surpassing the $40 billion hole that nearly swallowed Sacramento in 2008. Still, though Governor
Gavin Newsome said last weekend that the staggering deficit was "a direct result of Covid-19," that's clearly not true.
Critics have long warned that the state's tax base is volatile, being increasingly reliant on wealthy residents and
vulnerable to sharp contraction in the next recession. Combine that with California's spending spree —
including expenditures to fix problems that the state's own bad policies have worsened — and the swing from
prosperity to penury isn't hard to understand.
Illegal
Aliens Jam Phone Lines as California Offers $500 Each in Coronavirus Relief. The State of California is
offering $500 each to illegal aliens as part of a $75 million coronavirus relief program — even as it asks federal
taxpayers for help paying for its $54 billion deficit. The program, which launched on Monday [5/18/2020], saw phone lines
jammed as "undocumented immigrants," who are ineligible for the federal aid provided thus far, called a state hotline.
Tyranny
as far as the eye can see. California governor Gavin Newsom is now warning of the potential for a third and
fourth wave of the coronavirus, stating that we must remain humble by what we still don't know about it. While there
may be a lot that we don't know about this sickening virus that was thrust upon the world by communist China, we do know that
what is unfolding is unsustainable and unconstitutional. Our society is nearing a state of partial collapse due to
protracted mitigation in blue states as the Constitution is trampled upon and set on fire. Newsom, like Dr. Fauci,
appears to view our lives through the singular lens of this virus. But life is more complex than that (duh), and Newson
is ignoring the larger reality (or at least pretending to) in order to hold onto power. Citing what we still don't know
about the virus leaves the door wide open for him to continue to rule like an evil emperor.
California:
Give Us Money Or We'll Fire Cops and Firefighters. Governor Newsom is behind in the Most Loathsome Governor in
America race, largely because he hasn't managed to kill as many nursing home residents as rivals like Cuomo and Murphy.
But here he is trying to take first responders hostage. [...] Cops and firefighters are the most expendable employees in
California. Not the billion dollar homeless services infrastructure. Not all the social justice and diversity
personnel. Not, for that matter, the vast useless corps of educational administrators. Nope. We're gonna
fire cops and firefighters because we decided to shut down the state and the rest of the country won't send us money.
Judicial
Watch sues to stop Newsom from giving 75 million tax dollars to illegals. Conservative watchdog Judicial Watch is
asking a California Court to appeals to issue a temporary restraining order to stop Governor Newsom from paying out $75 million
tax dollars to people here illegally. The Lower Court found that JW's lawsuit is likely to succeed on the merits since Newsom
has no right to dole out the money, but illegal aliens need the money and that outweighs everything. Today's [5/18/2020] filing
asks the Court of Appeal to command the Superior Court to issue the restraining order against California Governor Gavin Newsom and his
Director of the California Department of Social Services Kim Johnson, enjoining them from making what is now an imminent, May 18,
2020, illegal expenditure of $79.8 million of taxpayers' funds to illegal aliens pending the final determination of the taxpayer
action brought by Judicial Watch in the lower court.
California
is offering $500 cash payments to unauthorized immigrants who don't qualify for stimulus checks or unemployment
benefits. California is rolling out a program on Monday that will give $500 cash payments to unauthorized
immigrants shut out of traditional government aid programs because of their immigration status. The New York Times
reported the $75 million taxpayer-funded program funded will be conducted by phone to reduce in-person contacts. It's
expected to distribute cash to 150,000 people and the maximum amount awarded per household is $1,000. "California is the
most diverse state in the nation. Our diversity makes us stronger and more resilient," Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a
statement last month about the program. "Every Californian, including our undocumented neighbors and friends, should
know that California is here to support them during this crisis. We are all in this together."
The Editor says...
[#1] Yes, they're "shut out" because of their "immigration status," to wit, they are not supposed to be here
at all. [#2] "We're all in this together" is the new Big Brother catch phrase designed and intended to
stifle dissent. You may notice Big Brother repeating this catch phrase over and over in every grocery store.
Gavin
Newsom: First responders 'first ones laid off' unless California gets federal COVID-19 funds. California
Gov. Gavin Newsom says first responders will be the "first ones laid" off unless federal bucks arrive in the Golden
State in the near future. The Democrat appeared to be playing a political game of chicken with Republicans in Congress
over the weekend during a discussion about the coronavirus pandemic with CNN's Jake Tapper. Mr. Newsom specifically
had a message for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans when asked about a $3 trillion relief bill
being "dead on arrival."
There's Something
Happening Here. Thousands of flag-waving Californians descended upon the State Capitol Friday [5/15/2020] for a
protest of Gov. Gavin Newsom's statewide stay-at-home lockdown order, which has caused millions of residents to lose
their jobs and businesses," wrote Katy Grimes in the California Globe. Down in Huntington Beach in Orange
County, as Fox News explained, protesters were backing up traffic for a mile on Pacific Coast Highway, while others staged
rallies in San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. What could have prompted these Californians to get out in the
streets? Governor Gavin Newsom had declared them "nonessential" and they showed up with signs reading "All jobs are
essential." So, basically they want their lives back. This is not what their governor wants, however. On
Wednesday, Newsom told reporters, "we believe we are weeks, not months, away from making meaningful modifications to that
indicator," a reference to his shelter-in-place order. The San Francisco Democrat didn't say what the modifications
would be or when he would make them, and he didn't want people expressing their opposition in public.
Dems
discovering that with sanctuary cities, what goes around, comes around. Atwater, California, has declared
itself a sanctuary city — sanctuary from tyrannical government draining the lifeblood from the people. If
leftist tyrants can provide safe haven to illegal invaders, why not have sanctuary cities that protect Americans from our
newly anointed dictators? So this rural city of fewer than 30,000 people located in the center of California has
decided to free itself from the suffocating chokehold of the state. At the end of April, the City Council voted
unanimously to open businesses and churches.
California
town declares itself 'sanctuary city' for businesses, opens up in defiance of stay-at-home order. A central
California city has declared itself a "sanctuary city" for businesses and will open up in defiance of the state's
stay-at-home order. The city council in Atwater passed a resolution Friday allowing businesses to open despite
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's order for businesses to remain closed, according to ABC30's Vanessa Vasconcelos.
California
City To Allow Reopenings, Declares Itself A 'Sanctuary City' For Business. The central California city of
Atwater has declared itself a "sanctuary city" for businesses. The Friday [5/15/2020] resolution passed by the Atwater
City Council allows business owners to open, openly defying Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom's coronavirus-related
stay-at-home order. The resolution affirms "the city's commitment" to "fundamental" human rights. Churches and
other nonprofits are included in the resolution, according to ABC30's Vanessa Vasconcelos.
California
governor: Shrink prisons to help cut budget. Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to significantly shrink
the footprint of California's prison system, partly because of massive budget cuts prompted by the pandemic but also because
of philosophy. The revised budget he sent to state lawmakers this week envisions closing two state prisons in the
coming years; cutting nearly one in five of the 43 inmate firefighter camps; and eventually closing all three state-run
juvenile prisons.
California
Democrats say 10-year rent-relief plan 'not a giveaway'. California Democrats on Tuesday proposed giving
tenants struggling during the coronavirus pandemic 10 years to pay their rent. The state would purchase unpaid rents
and allow renters a decade, starting in 2024, to pay it back without interest, under the proposal by Senate President Pro Tem
Toni Atkins, tthe Sacramento Bee reported. Landlords would receive a tax credit dependent on committing to not evict
tenants. "This is not a giveaway," Democratic state Sen. Steven Bradford said, according to The Associated
Press. "Our goal is to keep tenants houses and keep landlords out of foreclosure."
California
Revives Affirmative Action. On May 5, just a day after the California Legislature reconvened, an assembly
hearing was held for the controversial Assembly Constitutional Amendment NO. 5 (ACA-5) in the Committee of Public Employment
and Retirement. With a long session of contested public comments over the phone, ACA-5 was passed with a 6-to-1 vote
under the moralistic appeal of "hope for all." While purporting to increase diversity and representation, ACA-5 fails to
meaningfully address structural issues behind achievement gaps and racial discrepancies for both political and philosophical
reasons. Instead, the bill proposes a statewide reinstitution of government preferences in public employment,
education, and contracting along rigid racial lines. The utopian and myopic scheme, wrapped around feel-good rhetoric
with a steep price tag, will not only fall short of establishing long-lasting diversity, but can further compromise true
equality and the merit-based principle, both of which are bedrocks of American democracy.
California:
Gavin Newsom Orders Vote-by-Mail for November Election. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday signed
an executive order permitting all registered voters in the Golden State to vote by mail in the upcoming presidential
election, citing concerns stemming from the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. "I signed an executive order that will allow
every registered voter in California to receive a mail-in ballot," Newsom said. "That mail-in ballot is important but
it's not an exclusive substitute to physical locations."
The Editor says...
In other words, you're being encouraged to vote in person, in addition to mailing in your ballot, and any other ballots you find in the
trash can at the post office, or in your neighbor's mailbox, or in the dumpster at an apartment complex.
San
Francisco DA Says His Father, Convicted Murderer And Former Member Of Terrorist Group, Should Get Out Of Prison. San
Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin believes his father, convicted murderer and former Weather Underground member David Gilbert,
should be released from prison due to the coronavirus pandemic. Gilbert and Boudin's mother, Kathy Boudin, were convicted of murder
in 1983 for serving as getaway drivers during a bank robbery that left three people dead at the hands of their co-conspirators.
California
Is Ready to Get Rid of Gavin Newsom. Across California on May 1, tens of thousands protested in defiance of
statewide lockdown orders. In Sacramento, the west lawn of the state capitol building was filled with protesters, with
thousands more marching along the sidewalk surrounding the capitol grounds. Additional thousands driving their cars and
honking their horns created three hours of total gridlock on the streets that loop around the capitol. Noteworthy
protests have taken place in San Diego, Encinitas, Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, Paso Robles, Santa Rosa, and even tiny
Lakeport on the shores of Clear Lake. There is no end in sight. While the media has typecast these growing
protests as populated by right-wing extremists, Trump supporters, and remnants of a geriatric Tea Party movement, the reality
in California is different. In Laguna Beach, the protest was organized by surfers. Overall, these protests
included people who claimed never to have been involved in politics, people who identified themselves as former Democrats,
and young people. Thousands and thousands of youth: children, teenagers, college students, twentysomethings.
A generation is waking up.
Is
California Thinking About Coronavirus Internment Camps? Gavin Newsom, governor of the "nation-state" of
California, is raising what he calls an "army" of 20,000 government employees who will trace the spread of coronavirus across
the state. Those found guilty, or rather, infected, are likely to run into an uncomfortable change in their
lives. In Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, a pilot program was launched this week to trace infections and
exposure, according to County Health Director Dr. Robert Levin. When infected persons are found, he said, they are
"immediately isolated." As more people are tested, Levin continued, "we will find more and more people who have
COVID-19." "We will isolate every one of them, and we will find every one of their contacts, and we will make sure that
they stayed quarantined, and we'll check in with them every day." Seems innocuous, even helpful. But: [...]
Liberal
District Attorney Boasts 'I'm Keeping San Francisco Safer by Emptying the Jail'. San Francisco District
Attorney Chesa Boudin is bragging about his city's jailbreak policies that have been implemented throughout the coronavirus
pandemic, claiming in a Los Angeles Times op/ed that he is "keeping San Francisco safer by emptying the jail."
Uber,
Lyft Sued by California in Major Gig-Economy Crackdown. Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. were sued by
California for allegedly violating a new state law designed to give gig-economy workers the benefits of employees.
While expected, the lawsuit filed Tuesday [5/5/2020] in state court marks a serious threat to the business model of an array of
companies that save on labor costs by classifying workers as independent contractors. If the companies ultimately lose
the suit, they could be forced to pay for overtime, health care and other benefits.
Free O.C. California
governor Gavin Newsom's executive order closing the beaches of Orange County, Calif., is what you get when you govern by
Twitter: A news photo showing a crowded Orange County beach makes the social-media rounds, provoking the predictable
outrage storm; Governor Newsom, rather than investigate, issues an executive order to placate the social-media circus; that
executive order is based on powers that the governor does not enjoy, and the Democratic governor singles out the historically
Republican cities of Orange County. It is not even clear that there was a real problem for Newsom to solve. One
photograph did indeed show an Orange County beach looking like spring break; other photographs showed a much more dispersed
and socially distanced crowd.
Orange
County DA 'outraged' after commissioner releases 7 dangerous sex offenders due to COVID-19 restrictions. Orange
County, Calif. District Attorney Todd Spitzer stated Saturday [5/2/2020] that he is "outraged" after the state ordered
the release of seven high-risk sex offenders from the county's jails over concerns they could contract coronavirus.
Appearing on "Fox & Friends Weekend" with host Jason Chaffetz, Spitzer said that the issue at hand is not just in Orange
County or California, but "is a ruse that has been pulled on the American public, on jails and custodial facilities all over
the nation."
Gov.
Newsom Puts Politics Over Data in California Shutdown. Los Angeles County, which has implemented the most
draconian beach closures in the country, has in excess of 1,000 coronavirus deaths. Orange County, which has
consistently taken a less restrictive approach, has had 45 deaths going into this weekend. Orange County's population
of 3.3 million is larger than 22 states. If it were a state, Orange County's death rate of 0.0014% would be the
49th lowest in the country. The primary hospital in Newport Beach has a 475-beds capacity and has never treated more than
25 people for coronavirus issues at any given time. The leaders of that hospital system believe that the curve has
flattened, and that Orange County needs to responsibly reopen.
Judicial
Watch Sues California to Stop Governor Newsom's Initiative to Provide $75 Million in Cash Benefits to Illegal
Aliens. Judicial Watch announced it filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of California County of Los Angeles
on behalf of two California taxpayers, Robin Crest and Howard Myers, asking the court to stop the state from expending $75 million
of taxpayer funds to provide direct cash assistance to unlawfully present aliens. The lawsuit alleges California Governor Gavin
Newsom overstepped his authority and violated federal law when, without affirmative state legislative approval, he took executive action
to create the "Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants Project" and provide cash benefits to illegal aliens who otherwise are ineligible
for state or federal insurance or other benefits due to their unlawful presence in the United States.
Thousands
of protesters flock to Huntington Beach following state-ordered OC beach closures. Large crowds opposing the
state's coronavirus stay-at-home mandate took to the streets of downtown Huntington Beach on Friday [5/1/2020], a day after
the governor closed Orange County beaches and drew frustration and criticism from some residents and city leaders.
Protesters gathered near the Huntington Beach pier shortly before noon, with the crowd eventually swelling to some
2,500-3,000 people, according to Huntington Beach police Chief Robert Handy. The tightly packed crowd, with most people
not wearing protective masks, repeatedly chanted "U.S.A." as they waited for the demonstration to begin.
California
Cities Vote To Sue Governor For Closing Their Beaches. The cities of Huntington Beach and Dana Point have voted
to take legal action against the state of California after Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) said he would close all beaches and
state parks inside of their cities and the rest of Orange County. According to The Los Angeles Times, Huntington Beach
voted 5-2 in a last-minute meeting in favor of seeking an injunction against the governor, who announced in Thursday's
coronavirus press conference that the state would close all beaches in Orange County in response to "alarm bells," including
packed crowds and a lack of reportedly improper physical distancing.
Governor
Grundy puts Orange County, but not San Diego County, on restriction. Just a few hours ago, I got back from La
Jolla, a rich and deep-blue enclave of the city of San Diego that's the home of Mitt Romney. The just-after-sunset
beach traipse was to see the bioluminescence event. Beach waves turn glow-in-the-dark at night as a result of the red
tide, and it's a rare and completely yowza thing to see. Of course it drew a crowd. Street parking was
competitive. The cars just kept coming and coming on Coast Boulevard near Wipeout Beach, and visitors bunched up at
stoplights to use crosswalks — no slipping across the streets real quick to get to the shore view from the
cliffs. Here's a bit of the pre-weekend flavor, and this was far from the most crowded scene I saw. You can see
that the groups have masks, look more like friends than families, and aren't socially distancing.
Gavin
Newsom, beach cop taking on all California. California's Gov. Gavin Newsom is shutting down the beaches,
just as the entire population of California goes stir-crazy and the sunniest weekend of the year beckons. [...] Unless city
officials intend to deploy every police officer to politicing the beaches, it's very unlikely to be the sort of order that's
going to work. Already there are signs the order will never be heeded. The opening of the beaches, about a week
ago, was brought on by public pressure to open the public space, and that's just for starters. The surfer enclaves of
Encinitas and Huntington Beach have already seen fierce protests and calls to end the lockdown.
No
California-wide beach shutdown: Gavin Newsom went for narrow closure. State officials pushed to close all
beaches and state parks in California to try to prevent overcrowding they feared could spread the coronavirus, but
Gov. Gavin Newsom decided Thursday only to temporarily close beaches in Orange County, an administration official
said. Newsom said at a news conference he was ordering a "hard close" in Orange County after beaches in Newport Beach
and Huntington Beach drew tens of thousands of visitors during a heat wave last weekend. He said he was particularly
concerned about the beach activity because Orange County has more coronavirus cases and hospitalizations than many other areas.
The Editor says...
What happened to "the virus knows no borders?"
CA
Gov Newsom [is] Only Closing Beaches in (Conservative) Orange County. In a move that makes him look even more
petty and dictatorial than before, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he's announcing state parks and
beach closures only in Orange County this weekend instead of closing state parks and state beaches throughout the entire
state as he'd planned, and which my colleague Kira Davis reported. The reasoning outlined by Newsom in the press
conference was nonsensical and inconsistent. More likely is that Newsom wants to punish Orange County officials, whom
he sees as uncooperative (despite his public claims), particularly Supervisor and former Assemblymember Don Wagner.
Orange County was one of the Republican Party's last strongholds in the state until the 2018 election, in which Democrats
swept all seven House seats in the county.
Newsom
to close all California beaches, state parks over coronavirus: memo. California Gov. Gavin Newsom will be
closing all beaches and state parks across the state starting Friday to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, according to
a memo sent to California police chiefs on Wednesday [4/29/2020]. The decision comes after Newsom called out the
massive crowds that flocked to Newport Beach in Orange County last weekend during a heat wave. Newsom called the beach
crowds an example of "what not to do" to make progress toward easing restrictions in the statewide stay-at-home order.
CA
Gov Newsom Warns Sun-Loving Newport Beachgoers "Aggressive" Measures Coming. In a livestreamed update on the
Golden State's response to COVID-19 this afternoon [4/27/2020], California Governor Gavin Newsom threw down the gauntlet to
sun-worshippers in his state, who he was disappointed appeared to be enjoying life over the weekend. That's something
that just can't stand, man! Newsom began his speech with a smile, by thanking "the 40 million" Californians who "over
the course of the last number of weeks have not only bent the curve... but stabilized it." But the governor's smile only
lasted about 24 seconds, when he said this: [...]
California
to close all beaches after crowds ignore social distancing rules. California will reportedly close all beaches
and state parks beginning Friday [5/1/2020] after swells of beachgoers fled to the shore last weekend in defiance of social
distancing rules. The state's governor, Gavin Newsom, will formally announce the decision Thursday, according to a memo
outlining the move obtained by FOX 11. "After well-publicized media coverage of overcrowded beaches this past weekend,
in violation of Governor Newson's shelter in place order, the governor will be announcing tomorrow that beaches and all state
parks in California will be closed, effective Friday, May 1," said the notification, which was sent out to all California
police chiefs on Wednesday.
San
Francisco Bay Area Extends Lock-Down Order Throughout May. It is being reported the San Francisco Bay area will
remain in a state of forced lock-down with an extension of the stay-at-home orders throughout May. Considering this is
the home of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, this decision highlights an expectation that the federal government will bail out local and
state governments. We anticipated this type of approach where Blue states & Blue regions will keep their economies
closed as long as possible to inflict maximum political damage. Simply, if San Francisco were not confident they will
gain a federal bailout they would not be keeping their economic system closed for another entire month.
To
Help Out with the Pandemic and Unemployment, California Will Now Pay Seniors to Order From Restaurants. If
you're a restaurant-lovin' California senior citizen and lookin' to make a few extra bucks, you're in luck. Assuming
you fit the profile, the state will now pay you to wine and dine yourself — if you order your grub. On
Friday [4/24/2020], Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new program wherein local, state, and federal money (so if you're
local, will you be triple-taxed for this?) will be paid out to eligible seniors who order food from nearby restaurants.
Newsom
Ordered by CA Supreme Court to Defend $75 Million Giveaway to Illegals. Californians struggling to make ends
meet during extended coronavirus shutdowns were not amused when their governor, Gavin Newsom, announced the creation of a
public-private partnership to give away $125 million ($500/person) in pandemic relief grants to illegal immigrants who are
ineligible to receive unemployment benefits or federal stimulus checks (because they are not here legally, duh). Newsom
further explained that of the $125 million in funding, $75 million would come from taxpayer funds (without explaining any
legislative process appropriating such funds) and that "a group of charities" had promised to chip in $50 million.
Democrats'
Fascism Shines Through. On April 14, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he's planning to give
$125 million in public and private funds to 150,000 adults living in the state illegally. Newsom understands that
illegal immigration is the future of the Democratic party. Californians are ordered to stay at home. Illegal
aliens are welcome to come there any time. Everything that Newsom and his party have done for illegals —
sanctuary cities, free health care, driver's licenses, in-state tuition — will encourage more to come here in
violation of our immigration laws. Fascists don't believe in the rule of law, unless it benefits them directly.
Newsom
won't share details on $1B mask deal with China. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is facing pushback as state
lawmakers have begun demanding details of his nearly $1 billion deal to receive 200 million masks per month from a Chinese
manufacturer. Just two weeks after announcing the deal, Newsom has remained largely mum on the specifics.
Advisers to the California Democrat have declined requests for comment from the Los Angeles Times about the agreement, which
was inked with Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD — which stands for Build Your Dreams — earlier
this month. BYD was formed in 1995 as a battery manufacturer. In 2008, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway
purchased a 24.8% stake in the company.
California's
'Reopening' Economic Task Force Is As Absurd As It Gets. California Governor Gavin Newsom has introduced his
new economic task force to begin plans for reopening the economy. The task force is 80 members and will include:
[#1] Former Governor Gray Davis, who — in a rare event of complete voter unity — was recalled from the
governorship for his utter incompetence. [#2] Former Governor Jerry Brown, who brought us our disastrous pension
liability. [#3] Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who gave us the current Democrat super majority by bringing us the
insane notion of "jungle primaries." [#4] Failed presidential candidate and very rich man Tom Steyer, who proudly
supports a New Green Deal and is very vocal about working to end vital business in the energy sector. Let's not forget
that Newsom said recently he views this crisis as a chance to usher in a "new era" of progressive policies.
How
Much Do The Pelosi's Have Invested In China? Pelosi may present herself as the defender of the little
guy. She is anything but. In 2018 her net worth was roughly $160 million. She is married to Paul Pelosi who
runs a top tier investment and real estate firm in San Francisco. Over the course of decades, as Nancy has risen
through the ranks of the Democratic Party, the Pelosi's have gotten fabulously wealthy. There have been any number of
allegations over the decades that Nancy and her husband have profited in ways that are clearly illegal from the access a
senior politician enjoys. Over a span of years, Nancy Pelosi used her influence to steer more than $1 billion to the
expansion of a light rail line into a San Francisco neighborhood where her husband owned commercial property and in which
business associates of his then purchased additional properties. The value of real estate in the area exploded with the
arrival of light rail, and the Pelosi's made a killing. There has also been an almost unending number of allegations
that Paul Pelosi has benefited from what is known as insider trading. That is, he has made sometimes enormous purchases
of stocks based on information allegedly provided to him by Nancy, who was privy to sensitive, non-public information by way
of her position.
Newsom:
California unemployment center hours extended, $125M fund created for undocumented immigrants. California Gov. Gavin
Newsom on Wednesday [4/15/2020] said he has extended the unemployment call center hours to help the record 2.7 million Californians
who have filed claims and created a fund to help undocumented immigrants, who comprise 10% of the state's workforce. The Employment
Development Department's call center will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week, rather than closing at noon Monday
through Friday. Newsom extended the hours through an executive order.
Because the state has a HUGE budget surplus...
California
will pay illegal immigrants not included in coronavirus stimulus. California will be the first state to send
money to illegal immigrants who did not qualify for assistance under the $2.2 trillion federal coronavirus stimulus package
passed last month. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced the allocation of $75 million in taxpayer
funds for $500 payments to 150,000 adult immigrants who are reeling from the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Editor says...
Wouldn't it be far less expensive to deport them all? But that would require some concern about wasting the taxpayers' money.
Illegal
Immigrants in Los Angeles Can Apply for Pre-Paid Debit Cards. Los Angeles will be doling out pre-paid debit
cards to residents who have faced economic hardship due to the coronavirus lockdown, and living in the country illegally
won't disqualify you from getting the cash. Los Angeles officials have begun accepting applications for a no-fee debit
card that provides cash to residents who were already living under the poverty line before the coronavirus crisis began and
have since had their incomes dramatically reduced because of the outbreak, KTLA5 reported.
Gavin Newsom Declares California a "Nation-State,"
Suggesting It is Independent of Federal Authority. Look, either formally secede — with my
enthusiastic Bon voyage! — or get ready for invocation of the Insurrection Act and civil war by the usual
means. We're not going to have this [nonsense] where every state has to buckle under leftwing federal diktats
but that liberal states are free to secede-in-part whenever the federal government is not leftwing. If America isn't
working for you anymore — Leave. We can work out the details later. I suggest that all border
counties be permitted to vote to leave or stay on a county-by-county basis. We don't need to keep states intact when
we're dividing the country. Then I suggest we mutually agree that any citizen of one America has the right to move to
the other America as a citizen within five years of division. After five years, you're a foreign immigrant like
any other, and the countries can choose to accept or reject your request for citizenship as they like. The five year
period will permit a lot of self-sorting.
California
governor planning coronavirus aid for illegal immigrants. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state
Legislature are working on a coronavirus aid plan for the state's illegal immigrants and others not covered by the federal
government's $2.2 trillion relief package. Newsom, a Democrat, disclosed the plans Tuesday [4/7/2020], according
to The Associated Press. "Californians care deeply about undocumented residents in this state," the governor, a former
mayor of San Francisco, said.
Newsom
is Giving Emergency Grants to Illegal Alien Small Business Owners. On Friday [4/3/2020], a reporter from
Telemundo asked California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom what emergency relief he would be providing for illegal aliens
amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. "No state in America does more to help residents regardless of their immigration
status," the governor rightly assured the reporter. Newsom first bragged about the state's healthcare coverage for
illegal aliens before explaining how his administration is now helping illegal alien small business owners obtain grants
while a large part of the American economy remains shut down.
California
to release 3,500 inmates early as coronavirus spreads inside prisons. California is granting early release to
3,500 inmates in an effort to reduce crowding as coronavirus infections begin spreading through the state prison system.
Lawyers for Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday told a panel of federal judges the state is taking "extraordinary and unprecedented
protective measures" to slow the spread of the virus and protect those who live and work within California's 35 prisons.
The accelerated parole policy — affecting inmates due to be released over the next 60 days — comes
in the face of pressure to do much more.
LA
County Sheriff Orders Closure of Gun Stores, Releases 1,700 Inmates. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva
has released 1,700 inmates from county facilities and is ordering gun stores in the county closed. Fox 11 reports the
gun store closures are part of the coronavirus stay-at-home order while the release of the inmates is an attempt to slow the
spread of the virus in county facilities.
Gov.
Gavin Newsom says state won't issue guidance on whether gun stores are essential businesses. California
Gov. Gavin Newsom will not offer official guidance on whether gun stores can be classified as essential businesses and
remain open during the state's shelter-in-place order. Newsom was asked about the issue after Los Angeles County
reversed course on a move to close gun stores amid the spread of coronavirus in the region and the county's shelter-in-place
order. L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva initially ordered the closing of gun stores, but legal counsel for the
county determined gun stores are essential businesses and must remain open. Villanueva then rescinded the order.
LA
Sheriff Suspends Efforts To Close Gun Stores. Confusion swirled as the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
Tuesday temporarily suspended its efforts to close gun stores during the coronavirus outbreak. The decision was made as
the county counsel's office works to clarify whether gun stores are considered essential businesses under California
Gov. Gavin Newsom's statewide order, a sheriff's spokesperson confirmed to CBS2 Tuesday night [3/24/2020].
California's
Stay-at-Home Order Is a Legal Mess. California Governor Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home order may well be necessary
as a matter of public health in the face of the new coronavirus — I will leave that to epidemiologists to
determine. But viewed as a legal declaration, it's a total mess. [...] The order is also drafted so badly that it
creates contradictions with the state's own website explaining it, with the governor's own speech rolling it out, and with
common sense. As written, the order does not say clearly that Californians can leave their homes to buy food or
medicine or other necessities. It doesn't say whether they can go out to help family members or friends who are
themselves vulnerable or otherwise in need. It is silent on going out for exercise. Although context suggests all
these may be permitted, the formal legal implication of the text would be that all are prohibited.
Newsom
executive order allows California to commandeer hotels, motels to house coronavirus patients. Gov. Gavin
Newsom, the California Democrat, released an executive order on Thursday [3/12/2020] that includes the authority for
Sacramento to take over hotels and motels for medical use for coronavirus patients, in a move he said will help the state of
40 million prepare for any widespread outbreak. Some patients in the state have already been moved to hotels. The
Desert Sun reported that a 120-room hotel in San Carlos, which is near San Francisco, has been already tapped to house
passengers from the Grand Princess cruise ship. The first-term governor told reporters that besides hotels and motels,
state officials are also scouting for potential lodging in "mothballed" facilities and state parks. The executive
order, according to the report, has been designed to allow the state's Health and Human Services Agency and the Office of
Emergency Services to commandeer private property for coronavirus treatment.
Government
Outlaws Freelance Work. Freelance jobs are "feudalism," says California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez.
She persuaded California's legislature to pass a new law reclassifying freelance workers as employees. That means many
people who hire them must now give them benefits like overtime, unemployment insurance, etc. Politicians said it would
help freelancers a lot. Of course, much of the media agreed. [...] Young reporters just don't understand that stifling
economic freedom always creates nasty side effects.
California
Is a Cruel Medieval State. One way of understanding California is simply to invert traditional morality.
What for centuries would be considered selfish, callous, and greedy is now recalibrated as caring, empathetic, and
generous. The current ethos of evaluating someone by his or her superficial appearance — gender or
race — has returned to the premodern values of 19th-century California when race and gender calibrated
careers. We don't pay medieval priests for indulgences of our past and ongoing sin, but we do tweet out displays of our
goodness as the penance price of acting amoral. A paradox ensues that Californians both have a high, indeed smug, view
of themselves and yet do a lot of damage to their fellow human beings.
California's Gig Law Comes For
the Scooters, Destroys Independent "Juicers". California's "gig economy" law — AB5 —
continues to have disastrous consequences across the state. The list of jobs affected or outright destroyed is huge and
growing every day. The wedding industry is collapsing. Festivals are closing. Theaters and music venues are
closing. A nursing shortage is now upon us because qualified nurses can no longer pick up extra side-jobs in areas like
hospice care. The law has even killed Christmas: mall Santas can no longer contract their services.
Calif.
Bill Would Fine Stores With "Boys" and "Girls" Departments. [Scroll down] But should [Evan] Low's bill
become law, a retailer could actually have some fun with it. I'd comply and combine the sections, for instance, but
then label different displays as "blue" or "pink." Were it questioned by a government bureaucrat, I'd ask how he could be
so closed-minded as to associate a color with a sex. Better still might be to label displays as "Little XY" or
"Little XX." Upon interrogation, I'd expound upon how "experts" maintain that one can be genotypically male but
phenotypically female. "How could you be such a bigot, sir (or is it madam?), as to assume that the girls entering my establishment
don't have an XY chromosome configuration?" As for Low, he justified his bill with the usual lowbrow leftist boilerplate.
New
California Bill Requires Retailers Create 'Gender-Neutral' Aisles For Children. A new bill introduced in the
California Assembly would require retailers to create "gender-neutral" floor-spaces for children's merchandise, with the goal
of banning sex-specific labeling labeling such as "girls aisles" and "boys aisles." The bill proposed by Democratic
Assemblyman Evan Low, requires all retail department stores with 500 employees or more to comply with the newfound gender
standards of the Left.
The Editor says...
In a free country, businesses are allowed to arrange their stores in any manner they choose.
Sorry,
Democrats: Party's Over. It makes me smile to know that fewer people are watching CNN than have fled from
California in the last few years. These days even Jed Clampett wouldn't be convinced that Californy is the place he
ought to be. He would have the sense to take his money to Texas where the taxes are reasonable and you won't be
flash-mobbed by SJWs chanting that you're an eco-criminal for striking it rich in the energy sector. Modest as Jed's
education may have been, I think he would have understood that energy is a good thing and letting junkies poop in the aisle
at Costco is a bad thing. Even cousin Jethro would have winced at the mountain of filth that Pelosi and her party have made.
New
California bill would require gender neutral sections in retail stores. A new California bill would require
some retailers to have gender neutral floor space inside their stores, Politico reports. The bill, called Assembly Bill
2826, was introduced by Assemblymember Evan Low, a Democrat from Campbell. According to Politico, retailers would be
able to sell the same products, as long as they dedicate space where customers can find clothes and toys regardless of
whether the items have been marketed to boys or girls.
Housing crisis:
Berkeley law would put renters first. City officials say the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act would give
tenants more leverage and help them stay housed in one of the country's most expensive real estate markets, which has pushed
rents sky high and contributed to a growing homeless crisis. The median home price in Berkeley was $1.3 million
last year, nearly doubled from $704,000 in 2013, [Berkeley Mayor Jesse] Arreguin said.
Gavin
Newsom Says Doctors Should Write Prescriptions For Housing. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom said
that medical doctors should be able to prescribe housing in the same way they prescribe medication to sick people Wednesday
during his 2020 State of the State Address. "Health care and housing can no longer be divorced. After all, what's
more fundamental to a person's well-being than a roof over their head?" Newsom asked during the address. "Doctors should
be able to write prescriptions for housing the same way they do for insulin and antibiotics." The crowd erupted in applause.
AB5 Backfire: California's
poorly designed "gig-work" law is already having unintended consequences. AB5 took effect on January 1, and
it's already causing trouble. A limit on the number of articles that freelance writers could produce for one publication
resulted in layoffs for some California journalists and a First Amendment lawsuit from others. Workers in more than 135
occupations claim that losing contractor status hurts them, while independent theater and arts groups are facing thousands of
dollars in costs they can't afford because they must now treat staff as employees. Lorena Gonzalez, the assemblywoman
who wrote AB5, has introduced another law to remove the article cap for writers and address the status of musicians.
A sign of poor legislation is the need to rewrite it immediately after it takes effect.
A California-style Brexit.
Since AB5 took effect on January 1, hundreds of thousands of Californians are finding their businesses in tatters.
Musicians can't join bands for a one-night gig, chefs can't join forces with caterers, nurses can't work at various hospitals,
and writers must cap their submissions per media outlet to 35 per year. Under the law, these freelancers can no longer
conduct the same business-to-business transactions they have for years or even decades. Clients with whom they fostered
valuable relationships are gone — as are their successful careers and incomes. An overwhelming majority of
professionals in fields affected by AB5 identify as liberals and have generally voted along the blue line. Today,
however, many are so disillusioned with their representatives that they're changing political loyalties.
Congressman
Calls on California to Fire Pension Official Tied to Chinese Spy Program. A Republican lawmaker urged
California to fire a top pension fund official because he participated in a Chinese program that the FBI has called
"non-traditional espionage against the United States." Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to
investigate Yu Ben Meng, the chief investment officer at California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), for his
"long and cozy relationship" with the Chinese Communist Party. The letter also decried CalPERS's investment in Chinese
companies that built up the regime's military presence in contested waters of the South China Sea and produced surveillance
equipment used for China's brutal crackdown in Xinjiang. "Governor Newsom, if it were up to me, I would fire
Mr. Meng immediately," Banks said in a letter to the governor.
San
Francisco's mayor admits to affair and accepting gifts from the city's disgraced homelessness chief. San
Francisco's mayor has admitted to having a fling with and to accepting thousands of dollars in unreported gifts from the
city's disgraced former homelessness chief who is now at the center of an FBI corruption probe for accepting kickbacks.
Mayor London Breed admitted on Friday to briefly dating Mohammed Nuru, San Francisco's former Director of Public Works,
around 20 years ago, leading to calls for her resignation from the city's top job. Nuru, 58, resigned from his post
earlier this week after he was arrested and charged by the FBI in January for a series of alleged public corruption schemes.
SF
Mayor London Breed says she 'dated' now-indicted poop-patrol chief Mohammed Nuru. Apparently, Kamala Harris
wasn't the only ambitious and comely San Francisco female pol who "dated" a San Francisco political pooh-bah to advance her
career. Harris dated San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. Now San Francisco mayor London Breed says she dated
Mohammed Nuru, San Francisco's entrenched director of public works (famous for its "poop patrols"), taking a $5,600 "gift"
from him and "forgetting" to disclose it. [...] Nuru's now under indictment for kickbacks, pay to play, bribery, wire fraud,
and use of public services for private gain in what's called San Francisco's biggest political scandal in years. [...] The
pair have known each other, apparently intimately, for 20 years. And Nuru is a very powerful, entrenched fixture
on the scene in San Francisco politics.
Maxine
Waters: CA Should Have More Say In Primary Because Of Big Money Raised At Beverly Hills Parties. For
years now, Democrats have been claiming they want big money out of politics. Yet Maxine Waters just claimed on national
television that California should have more sway in the Democrat primary process because of all the big cash generated for
Democrats at fancy parties in Beverly Hills.
San Francisco
car break-ins are so common that the city's district attorney is proposing reimbursing residents whose windows are
smashed. San Francisco's district attorney is proposing creating an auto-burglary-assistance fund that would
reimburse residents for the cost required to repair shattered windows from break-ins. The DA, Chesa Boudin, is
proposing using $1.5 million from the mayor's office to fill the fund. If it passes, it could be the country's
first fund of this kind.
Texas
Sues California Over Economic Sanctions on Religious States. One of the more bizarre elements of our cold
civil war is California's imposition of economic sanctions on any states that provide any element of religious freedom.
California has currently imposed economic sanctions on eleven states. And then it messed with Texas.
Sorry,
you cannot compel Americans to vote. Democratic California Assemblyman Marc Levine has introduced a clearly
unconstitutional bill which mandates that anyone registered to vote must attend a voting booth and file a response.
Levine says his intended law is justified and necessary because "democracy is not a spectator sport — it requires
the active participation of all its citizens ... Those rights come with a responsibility by registered voters to cast their
ballot and make sure that their voice is heard by their government." While registered voters would not have to select a
candidate in order to conform with Levine's desired law, they would have to file a ballot return, even if unmarked. But
as I say, this bill is patently unconstitutional.
Orange
County Has Released Thousands Of Criminal Illegal Aliens Because Of California's Sanctuary Law. The Orange
County Sheriff's Department has been forced to release thousands of criminal illegal aliens in the past two years, with both
the sheriff's department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement blaming California's statewide sanctuary law.
California's SB 54, legislation that largely restricts cooperation between ICE and law enforcement, went into effect in
January 2018. Since that time, Orange County has released over 2,100 illegal aliens back into the community despite ICE
detainers placed on every single one of them, the agency announced in a Wednesday press release. The sheriff's
department released 1,106 inmates without notifying ICE in 2018 and released another 1,015 again in 2019 without notifying
the agency.
California's
primary vote count could take longer than ever. Californians start voting Monday in a high-profile Democratic
presidential primary that has no clear front-runner and could take longer to count than any previous election in a state
already notorious for slow ballot counting.
Coastal States Are in the Fight
of Their Lives. Is the Rest of America Listening? AB5 — otherwise known as the "Gig Economy"
bill is much more dangerous and not just for us, but everyone in the nation. This bill makes independent contracting
illegal. It is absolutely the most communist legislation I have ever seen passed in my lifetime as an American.
It was aimed to get at Uber and Lyft and instead entrapped anyone who contracts their services. And I do mean
anyone. I spoke to a man who had to close his theater production because how can you hire 42 seasonal actors as W-2
employees every few months and then fire them and then rehire and on and on? You can't. Independent theater will
die. Linguists, courtroom reporters, translators, transcribers, truckers, rideshare drivers, musicians, caterers,
bartenders, writers, freelance journalists... anyone who earns money by contracting their services is now out of work or
about to be. It is the most massive and disturbing overreach I have ever seen, and yet hardly anyone else in the
country is paying attention.
How
the Golden State Embraced Corporate Socialism. Gavin Newsom, the lily white, urbane, coiffed scion of San
Francisco's posh royalty, is California's highest-ranking Democrat. He presides over a party that has taken progressive
ideals beyond absurdity to the brink of tyranny, a socialist party that openly disparages whiteness and wealth. One
would think that the party of Gavin Newsom is bent on destroying everything Gavin Newsom represents. So what's going
on? To understand the rise of Newsom, and every other hyper-privileged Democrat who even today remain in firm control
of the progressive movement, it is necessary to define a 21st-century version of corporate socialism. This goes well
beyond the use of the term merely to describe government subsidies for, say, the oil and gas industry, or, for that matter,
the wind and solar industry.
Oklahoma
governor bans state-funded travel to California after being put on Golden State's blacklist. The governor of
Oklahoma has banned all state-funded travel to California after officials there placed a similar ban on travel to his
state. Oklahoma's Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who is in his first term, announced the ban in an executive order
on Thursday, barring all non-essential travel by state employees to the Golden State, with exceptions for business recruiting
trips, college sports games and trips by schools to participate in out-of-state programs.
Oakland
Becomes First California City To Ban Background Checks For Prospective Renters. Following a unanimous vote by
the city council Tuesday night, Oakland has now become the first city in California to ban criminal background checks on
potential renters. "Indescribable emotions and feelings," said John Jones III of Oakland, who got out of prison in 2012
and struggled to find a place to live in Oakland despite his well-paying job as an aviation mechanic. Jones said he's
among the many who left prison only to end up on the streets, contributing to Oakland's homeless crisis. That's why
he's been lobbying hard for the Oakland City Council to pass the Fair Chance Housing Ordinance, which says landlords will no
longer be allowed to turn down potential renters because of criminal convictions.
California
Now Pushing Free Health Care for Illegal Immigrant Seniors. California has waged a war on the concept of
citizenship by essentially sidestepping the will of the American people and intentionally undermining immigration laws.
Worse, by extending social welfare to those illegal immigrants, the state is signaling that the concept of citizenship itself
is meaningless. It's clear that California's craziness doesn't stop, as [Governor] Newsom and the state's Democrats
have doubled down to extend free health care coverage to even greater numbers of illegal immigrants. Newsom's latest
proposed budget now aims to extend free health care coverage to illegal immigrants 65 years old and older as a part of the
state's Medi-Cal program. This would add $80.5 million to the budget this year and $350 million annually once fully
implemented, according to Politico.
Tents,
Homelessness, and Misery: 9 Things I Saw in San Francisco. Home to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's congressional
district, San Francisco is reliably and overwhelmingly blue in every election (with perhaps a few votes going to the Green
Party). In just the past year, the city's Board of Supervisors declared the National Rifle Association to be a
"domestic terrorist organization," and the school board voted first to paint over, and then to hide, a mural of George
Washington in one of the city's high schools — a mural, incidentally, painted by a leftist who strove to show both
Washington's greatness and flaws. Such actions are just par for the course for San Francisco, a city of more than
884,000 that in the past decade also banned fast-food restaurants from including toys with most children's meals; prohibited
city-funded travel by local employees to 22 pro-life states; raised the minimum wage from $9.79 to $15.59 an hour; and, after
banning plastic bags in 2007, first set a 10-cent fee for each nonreusable bag at stores, and then a 25-cent fee per
bag. Yes, leftist insanity has long been the norm for San Francisco.
First,
the purges: Comrade Chesa Boudin fires prosecutors for ... prosecuting. What would it be like if Hugo
Chávez and Bill Ayers ran the city prosecutor's office? San Franciscans are about to find out, now that Ayers's
stepson, Chesa Boudin, son of Weather Underground terrorists and translator to none other than Hugo himself, has made his
first move as San Francisco district attorney. He's kicked off his term with purges for insufficient revolutionary
fervor, taking a page from Andrei Vyshinsky, Stalin's famous show trial prosecutor who enforced ideological purity. [...]
Bottom line: Chesa has no use for such prosecutors who prosecute, and the only thing he wants prosecuted is "the
system," the idea of there being laws against crimes. It goes to show the depth of ideological conformity being
demanded now in what's clearly going to be a highly politicized D.A.'s office. Professionalism is the enemy of the
people now.
San
Francisco, solid blue city of — empty storefronts and missing young people. San Francisco is getting
to be a hellhole and not just because crooks are having a field day, or a vast homeless army has prompted new tech
'innovations' in poop-map apps. It's actually becoming a city with a hollowed out look, redolent of some place like
Steubenville, Ohio or maybe Utica, New York, during the bad years, empty storefronts and missing young people. So much
for the trope that leftwing cities, with their walkable boulevards full of food trucks, handmade crafts, knitting shops,
bookstores, artisan cheese shops, gourmet restaurants, and cafes are more lively and liveable than rightwing places.
For awhile, that did seem to be the story. But it's coming to an end. Sure, there's vast wealth. But
despite California being in an economic boom, the place is starting to look like Venezuela.
Abortions are okay, but stray dogs must be preserved.
'We
want to be a no-kill state.' Newsom calls for end to animal euthanasia in California. Gov. Gavin Newsom
wants California to stop euthanizing animals, and he's ready to put taxpayer money toward the cause. "We want to be a
no-kill state," Newsom said during a press conference where he presented his 2020-21 budget. Specifically, Newsom's
budget calls for a $50 million one-time general fund allocation to the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program to develop a
grant program for animal shelters, with a goal of helping local communities "achieve the state's policy goal that no
adoptable or treatable dog or cat should be euthanized," according to the budget summary.
Does California Want to
Secede? On Friday [1/10/2020], Governor Gavin Newsom will present the state's budget for the next fiscal
year. In it, he will propose that the state of California sell its own brand of prescription drugs in order to
"increase competition in the generic drug marketplace and lower the cost of medications by having Sacramento contract
drugmakers to manufacture certain prescriptions under a state label." [...] Because California is so large, with such a huge
economy and so many people, the state's dominance generally steers industry and other governments in the direction it
wants. No company that does business with state governments can afford to ignore what California is doing.
Bloomberg
sees California as model for U.S. The Democratic presidential candidate and former New York City mayor likes a
lot of what he sees in the Golden State and thinks its efforts on climate change, gun control and criminal justice reform
sets a benchmark for other states to emulate. "I think that California can serve as a great example for the rest of
this country," Bloomberg told supporters at the opening of his Angeles headquarters.
Workers
Resist California's Newest Bad Law. As of Jan. 2, Uber and Lyft drivers, independent truckers, freelance
writers, photographers, artists and musicians and the companies who hire their services have to abide by AB 5. The
law, which was originally concocted to destroy the business models of Uber and Lyft and has exemptions for 50 professions, is
a cynical and transparent gift to unions from the same Democrats who have been wrecking my one-party state for decades.
AB 5's proud mother, leftwing Democrat Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, claims it's intended to protect
part-timers and freelancers from being "exploited" by their evil, greedy employers. Her law is supposed to provide
independent contractors with the same benefits and workplace protections that full-time employees get and — most
important to the Democrats — therefore make it possible for them to unionize.
New
California Law Prohibits Showering and Doing Laundry on the Same Day. "So all of the sudden I can smoke
marijuana as much as I want but I can't take a shower?," newsman Mark Kriski said. "Unbelievable. That's where
our state has gone." KTLA news anchors and reporters debated on LIVE TV the stupidity of a new California law
that effectively prohibits showering and doing laundry on the same day.
A tale of two states
in decline. Taxpayers in California and New York shoulder some of the heaviest tax burdens in the nation, and
now new data show the two have something else in common: Their growth rates have slowed. It's probably no
coincidence. According to the California Department of Finance, during the year that ended June 30, more people left
the Golden State than moved in — the first time that's happened since 2010. [...] One obvious reason: As the
Los Angeles Times notes, the Golden State has one of the highest tax burdens in America. Here in New York, meanwhile,
taxpayers also bear some of the nation's highest tax burdens. And guess what: This state has long been watching
its share of the national population shrink. No, taxes alone aren't to blame: Both states, for example, are
famous for their progressive policies, hostility to businesses and onerous mandates.
California Preening.
In truth, the Golden State is becoming a semi-feudal kingdom, with the nation's widest gap between middle and upper incomes —
72 percent, compared with the U.S. average of 57 percent — and its highest poverty rate. Roughly half of America's
homeless live in Los Angeles or San Francisco, which now has the highest property crime rate among major cities. California hasn't
yet become a full-scale dystopia, of course, but it's heading in a troubling direction.
New
California law to provide subsidized healthcare for undocumented immigrants. Under the new law SB 104
California will offer government subsidized health benefits for undocumented immigrants under the age of 26. Previously
only undocumented immigrant children could apply. It's part of new funding for MediCal. Gov. Gavin Newsom
says there will be "An additional $450 a month in subsidies reducing premiums by 25%. No state in America does that."
Sarah Dar from the California Immigrant Policy Center says this will make a healthier community.
Least-Educated
State: 2,471,189 California Residents 25 and Older Never Completed 9th Grade; Highest Percentage in Nation.
California once again ranked No. 1 among the 50 states for the percentage of its residents 25 and older who have never
completed ninth grade and 50th for the percentage who have at least graduated from high school, according to new five-year
estimates (2014-2018) released Thursday by the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. California, as CNSNews.com
reported last year, also ranked No. 1 for the percentage who never completed ninth grade and No. 50 for the percentage who
had graduated from high school in the five-year estimates (2013-2017) the Census Bureau released in December 2018. In
California, according to the new five-year estimate, 2,471,189 residents 25 and older had never completed ninth grade.
The Editor says...
So much for the claim that "immigrants make our communities stronger."
Car
burglaries in some California cities are at crisis levels. Prosecutors say their hands are tied. An
epidemic of car burglaries in San Francisco over the last few years has led one Democratic lawmaker to propose plugging a
loophole in state law that allows some break-ins to go unpunished, but the Legislature has balked at prosecutors' requests to
make obtaining convictions easier. The proposal, which would eliminate a requirement that prosecutors prove a car's
doors were locked at the time of a break-in, has been shelved two years in a row in legislative committees. Lawmakers
struggling with prison crowding and public pressure to enact criminal justice reform have been reluctant to do anything to
put more people behind bars.
Why the Law?
The latest and most high-profile district attorney race victory went to none other than the stinking, crime infested city of
San Francisco. Does the name Chesa Boudin ring a bell? No not to me either, at first. Not until it was
revealed he is the son of 1960s radical leftist, American terrorist bomber Bill Ayers. It matters not that Boudin, a
defense attorney, has never prosecuted a single case. I bet he'll make a great district attorney for victims of crimes
(sarc.). Boudin has already stated he will not prosecute public urination, prostitution and "quality of life crimes"
for the homeless. What about quality of life for the hardworking tax payers and business owners? Supporters of
Boudin claim he wasn't financed by George Soros, but this statement is disingenuous.
Thought San Francisco's
Quality Of Life Couldn't Get Worse? Think Again. San Francisco garnered national headlines with the
election of its new district attorney, a progressive, which means there will be zero progress made in the homelessness
crisis, and little if any made toward reducing crime in the city and county. Chesa Boudin, a one-time deputy public
defender who has never tried a case, was elected in a close race, and will assume office in January. Before he had a
chance to decide if the new drapes in his office were going to be socialist red or blue state blue, Boudin announced that he
would not prosecute quality-of-life crimes such as "public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a
sidewalk, etc." We assume public defecating on streets and sidewalks, today's San Francisco "treat," will also go unprosecuted.
California
DMV Makes 50 Million Dollars a Year Selling Drivers' Info to Private Companies. A California Department of
Motor Vehicles document revealed that the government agency is generating $50 million a year by selling drivers' personal
information to private companies. According to a report from VICE, which received the document through a public records
request, revenue from selling information — which includes names, physical addresses, and car registration
information — has climbed from $41 million in fiscal year 2013-2014 to $51 million in 2018-2019.
In an email explaining the numbers, the California DMV did not specify which private companies have purchased the data, but
said the list may include insurance companies, vehicle manufacturers, and prospective employers.
Most
city workers pay $0 in healthcare premiums. Garcetti said he'd change that. He hasn't. In a major
policy reversal that critics say will cost the city and taxpayers millions of dollars, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has
abandoned his long-stated goal of getting the city's public employee unions to pay a portion of their healthcare costs.
Under contracts signed this year that were supported by the mayor, many of City Hall's largest unions will continue to
contribute nothing toward their healthcare premiums. Garcetti also backed agreements with several smaller unions,
allowing those employees who had been contributing 10% of their premiums to stop paying in January.
Correcting
Voters' Mistakes. Californians must no longer have recourse to the recall election. If Golden Staters
still have the recall, surely they'd be using it to oust their useless mayors who have allowed their once-beautiful cities to
degenerate into filth and ruin. They'd also be mounting a recall of their new governor, Gavin Newsom. Back in
2003, before the mass exodus to Texas, there were still enough decent Californians remaining to recall and oust Gov. Gray
Davis. Davis's replacement, Arnold Schwarzenegger, might have become a terrific governor had he been paired with a decent
legislature. But the Governator didn't have a decent legislature; it was populated with progressives.
What
Happened to California Republicans? [Scroll down] A cynic might argue that once a federal judge allowed
undocumented immigrants to enjoy the full array of state services and entitlements, there were incentives for millions of
other immigrants to enter the U.S. illegally, and California in particular. Statistics suggests they did just
that — often to the chagrin of Democratic politicians, the United Farm Workers and other liberal groups who
worried about the negative effects of illegal immigration on entry-level wages, unionization and poor citizens' access to
overtaxed social services. [...] The final irony? Those most hurt — and growing the most angry —
are the immigrants who once fled to a different California that now no longer exists.
California's Burning. California's
young and bold new progressive governor Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco, probably figured he'd be thrust into
the national limelight after signing a host of must-do liberal measures ranging from statewide rent control to a new
union-crafted law that seeks to essentially ban companies from using outside contractors. He also signed a ban on the
sale of animal furs, stopped state agencies from leasing public lands for any oil-and-gas-related infrastructure (to stop the
Trump administration from expanding resource "exploitation" on neighboring federal lands) — and even signed a law
forbidding hotels from handing out those little bottles of shampoo and conditioner.
Son
of Two Unrepentant Terrorists Wins DA San Fran Race. "Chesa Boudin has won the election to become San
Francisco's next district attorney," CBS News reported late Saturday. "The people of San Francisco have sent a powerful
and clear message," Boudin said in a statement. "It's time for radical change to how we envision justice. I'm
humbled to be a part of this movement that is unwavering in its demand for transformation." People in the vast
hinterland to the east might wonder who Chesa is, exactly, and what kind of transformation he has in mind. Bernie
Sanders was first to congratulate the victor, and San Francisco voters knew Chesa served as a translator for the regime of
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Still, a full understanding must start with Chesa's mother, Kathy Boudin, a Weather
Underground terrorist.
Lucky
San Francisco: With Chesa Boudin as DA, good luck getting a cop when you want one. Well, Chesa Boudin has
finally done it: he's gotten himself into the San Francisco D.A.'s seat, after a lifetime of standing up for crooks and
mastering criminal "justice" from Bill Ayers's stepdad berth and Hugo Chávez's knee. Like the way criminal justice
works in Caracas? In San Francisco, Hugo Chávez's trusted adviser is now there to help. He's there to
"transform," as he says. That's his brand, as the Bay Area tech marketing hipsters say. This won't work out too
well if you've got bums vomiting at your doorstep, gang members shooting with muzzle flashes 'round corners, and junkies
setting up camp on your sidewalk. We've already seen the boulder-warfare some of the homeowners are putting up in a
desperate bid to stop it. Such people can probably now look forward to getting arrested.
San
Francisco Voters Elect Radical District Attorney, Son of Cop-killing Terrorists. Progressive candidate Chesa
Boudin wants to free criminals but prosecute police and ICE agents for doing their jobs. It's no surprise Boudin hates
cops so much. His parents did, too. Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert were terrorists in the Weather Underground who
murdered two police officers and a security guard during a 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored security car outside New York
City. There should be a law that children of terrorists who share their parents' worldview are barred from holding
public office, especially the role of the chief law enforcement officer. Boudin's dad is still in prison so he can't
kill any more cops, but his mother is out. Naturally, she is an assistant professor at Columbia University. After
his parents killed the cops, Boudin was sent to live with two other terrorists, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Dohrn
declared war on the United States and was on the FBI's Most Wanted list.
California
Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted for skipping funeral of deputy allegedly killed by illegal immigrants. The same
day a federal grand jury indicted two illegal immigrants accused of murdering Deputy Brian Ishmael, El Dorado Sheriff John
D'Agostini took aim at California's drug and sanctuary policies, singling out Gov. Gavin Newsom for skipping his funeral
in favor of a meeting with the state's beleaguered power provider.
Newsom
runs up against US Justice Department rules in pardoning immigrants. Attorney General William Barr is trying to
deport some legal immigrants who were convicted of crimes many years ago. Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to spare
some of the same immigrants from deportation by pardoning them. It's shaping up as another round in the Trump
administration vs. California. The immigrants are legal U.S. residents who, because they have not become
citizens, face potential deportation for past crimes that were punishable by sentences of a year or more. Barr,
overturning long-standing decisions by immigration courts, declared last month that migrants convicted of long-ago crimes
could be deported even when their home states had retroactively reduced or erased their sentences.
San
Francisco Supervisor Chants [in Opposition to] the [Police Officers Association] During DA Candidate's Campaign Rally.
Heading into 2020, it seems we've entered into an age in which anyone, from Twitter troll to elected public official, can say whatever
strikes their fancy no matter how abhorrent, destructive or violent, from any microphone they can manage to find, and with near
impunity. Oh, sorry. I mean, any liberal. Conservatives can't do that. Take, for example, San Francisco
Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer, who, after clunking her way up to the stage to stump for left-wing district attorney candidate Chesa
Boudin, used her moment at the podium to rant against the city's 2,000-member police union by leading the audience in the chant, [...]
English
Is the International Language of Success — Except in California. It's been two decades, but I still
remember the excitement of helping to pass California's Proposition 227, which I thought would rescue Spanish-speaking kids
from an education ghetto of frustration and failure. It was an uphill battle. We fought an education bureaucracy
including California's powerful teachers' unions, book publishers who received lucrative government contracts, and even Jerry
Perenchio, the late Republican billionaire CEO of Univision, who donated $1.5 million to the efforts to maintain California's
"bilingual" education system. We won. Sixty-one percent of Californians were ready for a change. Amid
chants of racism and cultural insensitivity, Latino parents would tell me they knew that education and learning English in
their adopted country were key to their kids' futures. Unfortunately, the victory wouldn't last.
Power
and Gas Cutoffs in Blue States Represent a Failure of Governance. California — a state that by
itself constitutes the world's fifth-largest economy, is endowed with vast stores of human and natural resources, and has one
of the planet's most amenable climates for human habitation — is failing. The Golden State is host to one of
the country's worst homelessness epidemics. It's a state in which 19th century diseases such as typhus and tuberculosis
are making a comeback. More people are moving out of the state than into it. Its rates of violent crime are on
the rise. It has more failing schools than any other state in the Union. And now, true to basket-case form,
California is home to massive, rolling power outages. But unlike in the developing world, these blackouts are not a
result of resource deficiency but the voluntary imposition of darkness on the public.
California's
Prop 47 leads to [a] rise in shoplifting, thefts, [and] criminal activity across [the] state. These brazen acts
of petty theft and shoplifting are a dangerous and all-too-common consequence of Proposition 47, a referendum passed five
years ago that critics say effectively gives shoplifters and addicts the green light to commit crimes as long as the merchandise
they steal or the drugs they take are less than $950 in value. The decision to downgrade theft of property valued below
the arbitrary figure from felony to misdemeanor, together with selective enforcement that focuses on more "serious" crimes,
has resulted in thieves knowing they can brazenly shoplift and merchants knowing the police will not respond to their
complaints, say critics.
Is
California Becoming Premodern? California is now a one-party state. Democrats have supermajorities in
both houses of the legislature. Only seven of the state's 53 congressional seats are held by Republicans. The
result is that there is no credible check on a mostly coastal majority. Huge global wealth in high-tech, finance, trade
and academia poured into the coastal corridor, creating a new nobility with unprecedented riches. Unfortunately, the
new aristocracy adopted mindsets antithetical to the general welfare of Californians living outside their coastal
enclaves. The nobodies have struggled to buy high-priced gas, pay exorbitant power bills and deal with shoddy
infrastructure — all of which resulted from the policies of the distant somebodies.
California
to train poll workers how to interact with transgender voters. All poll workers in California will be trained
on how to properly interact with and assist transgender and gender-nonconforming voters when they cast ballots.
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D) announced the new initiative last week, saying his office is partnering with
the Equality California Institute ahead of next year's presidential primary.
Is
California's governor really this clueless about high gas prices and power outages? California Gov. Gavin
Newsom finally noticed that his state has the highest gas prices in the nation, and he's angry. So angry, in fact, he
ordered his Attorney General to investigate the decades-long mystery. "There is no identifiable evidence to justify
these premium prices," Newsom wrote in a letter to state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. "If oil companies are
engaging in false advertising or price fixing, then legal action should be taken to protect the public." Newsom
correctly identified the symptom but remains clueless about the cause. He at least pretends to be.
Why
California's AB-5 is a threat to the American way of life. I am freelancing this article. Doing so means
that I work from home, set my own schedule and have most days of the week free to write books. While books provide the
bulk of my income, freelancing provides substantial extra money that my family and I have come to expect. Barring any
unforeseen change in circumstances, over the next year I'll freelance dozens of articles at a rate of one or occasionally two
a week. If I did that in California, I'd be opening up my employers to legal penalties. Bill AB-5, authored by
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, has just passed, limiting California freelancers to submitting 35 articles to a publication a
year without being hired by that company. Thirty-five may seem like a lot, but that limit makes a weekly column
impossible, let alone working for online companies where you might submit a short article or two daily and reach that limit
within a month.
How
California's new gig economy law could put freelancers out of business. If I lived in California, I'd be
staring down unemployment. A new law governing freelance work was signed into law late last month. It isn't
scheduled to take effect until January, but if panicking freelancers aren't able to force a change before then, many will be
banned from doing their jobs. It's a classic case of well-intended but functionally destructive regulation: In
the name of protecting workers, Assembly Bill 5 will prohibit some them from working. In the resultant chaos, a lucky
few will secure full-time jobs while the rest are "helped" right out of a stable income stream. A.B. 5's primary target
is gig employers like ridesharing apps Uber and Lyft, whose drivers are classified as contract workers, not employees.
That means they aren't entitled to benefits like health insurance or paid time off even if they're working full-time hours,
which A.B. 5 seeks to change.
California's
legal weed profits going up in smoke. Legal marijuana in California as a business was supposed to be a
no-brainer. How could it not be profitable in a liberal state pushing 40 million residents where some of the best weed
in the world has been grown for decades? But nearly three years after Proposition 64, the law legalizing the adult use
of the drug, was passed, California cannabis producers are not seeing the windfalls predicted. [...] The California law gives
local governments the right to regulate the pot shops so towns can prohibit them. A whopping 80% of the state's towns and
cities have turned legal pot shops down.
Rev.
Franklin Graham Condemns San Francisco Ban on Travel to Pro-Life States. Christian evangelist Rev. Franklin Graham
said progressive leaders in San Francisco who have banned travel for city employees to states that have enacted abortion restrictions
"want everyone to swallow the lie that abortion is a woman's right."
The Editor says...
Let the San Francisco bureaucrats stay in California for the rest of their miserable lives. I can't see how this travel ban has
any negative effects. What can't they accomplish over the phone?
California's
War on Citizenship. California — a one-party state dominated by progressives — has become
the model for where progressivism will go when completely unchecked. Now, even the basic concept of citizenship is
under full-blown assault as the state has moved on from being a "sanctuary state" for illegal immigrants to outright
insisting that noncitizens have the same access to the levers of power as citizens. California Gov. Gavin Newsom
recently signed legislation that would allow illegal immigrants to serve on government boards and commissions. He also
signed another bill that would make it illegal to make immigration-related arrests at courthouses.
San
Francisco bans city employees from business travel to 22 states with pro-life laws. The City of San Francisco
has added 22 states with pro-life laws to a blacklist that prevents city employees from traveling to those states using city
funds or dealing with businesses based in them.
California
says independents can vote in Democrats' 2020 primary, but not Republicans'. California's more than 5.6 million
independent voters will be allowed to vote in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, but not in the Republican contest, Secretary
of State Alex Padilla announced Monday [10/21/2019].
California
governor pardons three convicted immigrants to help block deportations. California Gov. Gavin Newsom
announced Friday [10/18/2019] he's pardoning three immigrants who've been convicted of crimes as part of an effort to protect
them from deportation to their home countries. The three men — originally from El Salvador, Iran and
Cambodia — broke the law as teens or young adults, served their sentences and have taken steps to rehabilitate
themselves, the governor's office said.
California
legalizes eating roadkill. Awash in feces, blackouts, wildfires, opioids, junkyard highways, homelessness,
illegals, measles, typhus, and leprosy, California's one-party blue Legislature and its far-left governor have nevertheless
gotten around to the important things.
California
opens state boards to undocumented immigrants and other non-citizens. Undocumented immigrants and other
non-citizens will be allowed to serve on state boards and commissions after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills
Saturday [10/12/2019] intended to integrate immigrants further into society. SB225 by Sen. Maria Elena Durazo,
D-Los Angeles, expands eligibility for state appointments to any California resident over the age of 18. In a signing
message, Newsom said applicants deserved to be considered on their merits, rather than their immigration status.
California
Gov. Gavin Newsom Signs Bill Forcing Public Universities to Dispense Abortion Drugs. California
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill into law that requires public colleges and universities in the state to distribute
abortion drugs, effectively turning the schools into first-trimester abortion clinics. On Friday [10/11/2019], Newsom
signed SB 24, which was championed in the State Senate by Sen. Connie Leyva (D) as a reproductive rights issue.
California adopts
nation's broadest gun seizure laws. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 15 gun-related bills
into law Friday, tightening the state's already-stringent Second Amendment restrictions. One of the bills, which
expands a so-called "red flag" law to allow co-workers, employers and educators to seek gun violence restraining orders
against firearms owners they fear are a danger to themselves and others, was vetoed twice by Newsom's predecessor, Jerry
Brown. Newsom also signed a companion bill allowing the gun violence restraining orders to last one and five years,
although the gun owners could petition to end those restrictions earlier. The bill also allows judges to issue search
warrants at the same time as they grant the orders. The warrants can be used immediately if the gun owners are served
with the relinquishment orders but fail to turn over the firearms or ammunition.
Say Goodbye to Charter Schools.
There's no way to reform public schools, in California or elsewhere, given that they are government monopolies that are dominated by
unions. They will put kids first, as one former teachers' union official reportedly said, after the kids start paying dues.
People who think that such schools can be improved through new reforms and more money probably believed that the Soviet economy could
have been fixed with a better-developed five-year plan. The only way to deal with that reality is to escape. In 1992,
California passed one of the nation's most far-reaching school-reform experiments, by making it easy to create publicly funded
alternative schools where kids could flee. The original law authorized the establishment of 100 charters. The state
now has more than 1,300 of them, and they educate 11 percent of the state's students.
Democrats
[are] turning California into a third-world hellhole. While they try to blame climate change and the
infrastructure, the reality is that neither of those has caused any significant changes in the last ten years —
but now, suddenly, due to Democrat policies, Californians have to start living in the 18th century. The Democrats who
run California also refuse to build more water storage capacity even though the state's population has dramatically
increased, ensuring that water has to be rationed during droughts. Democrats are turning California into a third-world
country economically. The income inequality between the über-rich Silicon Valley workers and the rest of
Californians is huge, just like in third-world countries, while the elites live in luxury and the rest live in squalor.
Federal
Judge Halts California Law Requiring Trump to Release Tax Returns in Order to Appear on 2020 Primary Ballot. US
District Judge Morrison England on Tuesday issued a temporary injunction against a California law which required Trump to
release his tax returns in order to appear on the 2020 primary ballot. Last month, the federal judge temporarily
suspended the law and announced he would be releasing a formal written injunction by October 1st. On Tuesday
[10/1/2019], Judge Morrison, a George W. Bush appointee, released a written opinion and argued the law signed by Governor
Gavin Newsom violated the Presidential Qualifications Clause contained in Article II of the US Constitution and violated
the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause as set forth in the 14th Amendment.
California
Shocked To Find Bill Decriminalizing Retail Theft Resulted In... More Retail Theft. A few years ago, California
passed one in a series of bills aimed at emptying the jails and prisons. Proposition 47 carried the disingenuous name
of "the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act and its stated purpose was to keep non-violent offenders out of jail. To
achieve this goal, the state decriminalized a number of lesser offenses, including retail theft. The law raised the
value of the amount of merchandise someone could steal while still only being charged with a misdemeanor to nearly one
thousand dollars. To the great surprise of the government, people noticed this change and began taking advantage of
it. They have now recorded multiple years of steadily increasing, organized robbery. These plots are known as
"mass grab and dash" thefts and they generally involve large numbers of young people all entering a store at the same time,
grabbing armfuls of merchandise and dashing back out to their vehicles and hitting the highway. Not only are robberies
on the rise, but arrests and prosecutions are down. Who could possibly have predicted this?
Gavin
Newsom calls for impeaching Trump, gets slapped with recall petition from California's locals. California's
far-left governor, Gavin Newsom, is out there with the best of them, loudly calling for the impeachment of President
Trump. It's nothing new for him, given that he ran for governor in 2017 on this platform. [...] From his point of view,
it makes sense, because even though he's been on the job for only about a year, he's shown that he's always been more
interested in sounding woke than actually governing. Just tour the poop-strewn, disease-ridden streets of any
California blue city with a high Newsom vote count for a whiff of it.
Federal Judge
Blocks California Law That Would Force Trump To Disclose Tax Returns. A federal judge temporarily blocked
California's law requiring presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns in order to gain a spot on the primary
ballot Thursday [9/19/2019]. The California law would require any candidate running for president or governor to give
the IRS tax forms for the past five years, after which portions of them would be edited for public viewing, the Los Angeles
Times reported. This could be an issue for President Donald Trump as he runs for president again in 2020 because he has
refused to disclose his tax returns, despite efforts by Democrats to force his hand.
California
judge blocks law requiring Trump to submit tax returns to compete in state's 2020 primary. A federal judge in
California Thursday granted the Trump campaign's request to block a new law that requires presidential and gubernatorial
candidates to release five years of tax returns to run in the state's primary elections. The law signed by
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, in July would have left the sitting president off of the ballot in California's March
2020 primary unless he submitted five years' worth of his tax returns by a Nov. 26 deadline, the Los Angeles Times
reported. Under SB 27, Trump would be included on the general election ballot in November 2020. Oppoenents [sic]
of the law argue depressed GOP voter turnout in the primary could discourage voters from showing up to vote for the president
in the main race.
Federal
Judge: This Tax-Return Requirement For California's Presidential Primaries Smells Unconstitutional.
Indeed it does, and the injunction issued by US district court Judge Morrison England Jr represents a victory for Donald
Trump — if a temporary one. California had passed a law requiring all presidential primary candidates in the
state to publicly release the last five years of their income tax returns to qualify for the ballot. A former fringe
candidate joined Donald Trump in challenging the law for its super-constitutional efforts to add state-level qualifiers to
federal office, and Judge England issued an injunction against its enforcement.
The Editor says...
This is what's known as a bill of attainder.
California
adds Iowa to 'travel ban' over refusal to fund gender transitions. California announced last week that it has
added Iowa to the list of states on its ever-expanding "travel ban" list because of that state's new prohibition against
funding gender-transition surgeries under Medicaid. The announcement by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra means
that as of Oct. 4, California will no longer offer taxpayer-funded trips to Iowa for any public employee or student at
a state-run university. Becerra's authority came from a 2016 California law signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown that
bars state-funded travel to other states that undercut LGBT rights. The blacklist already included Alabama, Kentucky,
North Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma and Mississippi.
The Editor says...
California is attempting interfere with the other states entirely for the purpose of endorsing and legitimizing homosexuality.
Gov.
Newsom Commutes Sentences of 21 Violent Criminals Incarcerated in CA Prisons, Including 4 Murderers with Life Sentences.
Far-left California Governor Gavin Newsom commuted sentences of 21 violent criminals including 4 murderers with life sentences
without possibility of parole. One of the murderers was arrested in 1993 for fatally shooting a man during a carjacking and
another was incarcerated in 1991 for killing an armed guard during a robbery. A man who served 31 years of 2 life
sentences for a double murder in 1988 was also given clemency by Newsom.
California
Introduces Bill to Ban ICE Detention Centers, Private Prisons. The state of California is cracking down on
"private for-profit prisons" after introducing a bill to ban the facilities. Moreover, it means shutting down U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement's privately run detention centers. The bill AB-42 passed the state assembly
Wednesday [9/11/2019] with 65 votes in favorable votes. According to Newsweek, it would mean shutting down
four detention centers holding "up to 4,500 inmates."
The
Left's determination to destroy us from within. Governor Newsom of California has reached into the gutter for a
new and obscene low. So dishonorable is this man that he signed into law a bill that "struck down a more than
century-old law that required any able-bodied persons 18 years of age or older to assist a police officer who requested help
during an arrest." [...] Newsom, and the rest of the Democrat governors and mayors that destroyed their own states and cities,
have not only ruined the municipalities that they control, but have destroyed countless lives — namely, of
those who barely subsist on the streets of these cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Seattle, Baltimore,
Chicago. They willingly promulgate the drug use of their homeless (they pass out free syringes) and seem to tolerate
the vast homeless encampments and all they entail: discarded needles, public defecation, crime, disease —
in short, the destruction of the cities they've been allowed to take over and ruin.
Gov
Newsom signs bill, now legal for citizens to refuse police officers' request for help. Gov. Gavin Newsom
just made it legal for anyone in the state of California to refuse to help a police officer requesting assistance. The
California Democrat on Tuesday [9/3/2019] signed into law a bill that struck down a more than century-old law which required any
"able-bodied person 18 years of age or older" to assist a police officer who requested help during an arrest, The Sacramento
Bee reported.
California's
Newsom signs bill allowing citizen to refuse to help a police officer. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a
Democrat, on Tuesday [9/3/2019] signed a bill that no longer requires any "able-bodied person 18 years of age or older" in
the state to help an officer who requests assistance during an arrest. The Sacramento Bee reported that the old law,
the California Posse Comitatus Act of 1872, was common in the country's early days, but Sen. Bob Hertzberg, a Los
Angeles Democrat who sponsored the bill, called the old law a "vestige of a bygone era." The law was employed to help
catch runaway slaves, the report said. The old law made it a misdemeanor that carried a fine of up to $1,000 for
refusing to help a police officer who requested assistance during an arrest.
The Editor says...
If the only purpose for that law was to have citizens assist the police with the capture of runaway slaves, there might be
some reasonable basis for repealing it. Surely the elected officials of California don't believe such a thing.
Governor Newsom's action reeks of race-based political opportunism, and the unintended consequences are not many days away.
San Francisco Board of
Supervisors Declares NRA a Domestic Terrorist Organization. San Francisco's legislative body has challenged
other American cities and states to follow its lead and formally condemn the National Rifle Association (NRA). The
Californian city's board of supervisors passed a resolution on Tuesday officially labeling the gun rights' group a domestic
terrorist organization. [...] It said the NRA "musters its considerable wealth and organizational strength to promote gun
ownership and incite gun owners to acts of violence."
San
Francisco Declares NRA a 'Domestic Terrorist Organization'. San Francisco, the "sanctuary city" for illegal
aliens — now crowded with homeless people camping and defecating on sidewalks — has just declared the
National Rifle Association a "domestic terrorist organization." The resolution, which the Board of Supervisors passed
unanimously Tuesday, urges the rest of the country to "do the same." The resolution accuses the NRA or mustering "its
considerable wealth and organizational strength to promote gun ownership and incite gun owners to acts of violence."
Crony Capitalism on Steroids.
California lawmakers want to bring back central-planning agencies that squander taxpayer dollars on corporate welfare and
abuse eminent domain — in the name of fixing a housing shortage that these agencies helped create.
California's War on Cars.
Traffic has long been horrific throughout California, especially in the Los Angeles basin and the Bay Area. But like
every bad thing in this state, it just keeps getting worse. The 2018 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard tops the ranking of
most congested cities, with drivers spending an annual average of 104 hours stuck in gridlock. Other California cities
made the ranks of 50 most congested cities across the globe. The obvious solution is to, well, build more roads, even
though decades of neglect — and reams of environmental impediments such as the California Environmental Quality
Act (CEQA) — would make that a daunting task if state officials wanted to do so. But they have no interest
in doing so. Their goal is to coerce us into giving up our cars or at least driving much less. They've caused the
crisis and are not about to let it go to waste.
Armchair quarterbacks:
California
Governor Signs Use-of-Deadly Force Bill Aimed at 'Changing the Culture of Policing'. California Gov. Gavin
Newsom (D) announced on Monday [8/19/2019] that California is now a "model for the rest of the nation" when it comes to the
use of deadly force by police officers. Newsom on Monday signed Assembly Bill No. 392, which says police officers may
"use deadly force only when necessary in defense of human life." According to the text of the bill, the "authority to use
physical force...is a serious responsibility that shall be exercised judiciously and with respect for human rights and dignity
and for the sanctity of every human life."
Cosmic Injustice.
In the last years of Arnold Schwarzenegger's governorship, Arnold more or less gave up on the existential crises of illegal
immigration, sanctuary cities, soaring taxes, water shortages, decrepit roads and bridges, homelessness, plummeting public
school performance, and a huge exodus out of state of middle-class Californians. Instead he began to lecture the state,
the nation, and indeed the world on the need for massive wind and solar projects and assorted green fantasies.
California
prefers 'free range rats' over humans. Proposed poison ban. California is prepared to sacrifice human
lives for the sake of wildlife apparently. The wise Progressives have let fester a growing health risk in allowing
their rat population to explode with no interest in controlling their expanding population. The Democrats want to ban
rat poison. You can't call them lazy. Once a female rat reproduces, she could have 15,000 descendants by the end
of just one year! Note: Your rat mileage may vary.
'Flagrantly
illegal.' Trump sues California over new law targeting his tax returns. President Donald Trump, the California
Republican Party, and the national GOP joined together Tuesday [8/6/2019] to sue California over a new tax-return law Gov. Gavin
Newsom signed last week. The law requires Trump and other presidential candidates to release the last five years of their tax
returns to get their names on the state's 2020 primary ballot.
California's
Gavin Newsom torched as red-hot hypocrite for calling Trump's wall wasteful. California's leftist governor,
Gavin Newsom, got it in the teeth on Twitter after he tried to decry President Trump's border wall as, of all things,
government waste. [...] And it didn't end well for him. He drew about 6,000 replies, virtually all of them negative,
with a large number of them clearly from the locals.
Berkeley
becomes first US city to ban natural gas in new buildings. Berkeley became the first city nationwide to ban the
use of natural gas in new low-rise residential buildings in a unanimous vote Tuesday by the City Council. [...] In June 2018,
the council declared a climate emergency and called for a review of Berkeley's greenhouse emission reduction strategies.
The city determined in a report last year that gas-related emissions have increased due to an 18% population growth since 2000.
The Editor says...
I wonder if the Berkeley politicians understand that they share the atmosphere with 7.7 billion other people, most of whom
would love to have cheap and abundant natural gas available, rather than the firewood, coal, or dung they're currently using.
The city council's action is not just symbolic: It affects the construction of already-unaffordable new houses.
In
California, don't call them 'public servants,' call them 'the government gang'. As a Californian of more than
three decades, I have watched the highways deteriorate, with no new construction of freeways (or reservoirs for that matter)
while the population soared. I have watched the schools go from bad to horrendous. Meanwhile, taxes have soared
to levels that are driving out middle class taxpayers in very large numbers. The rest of us who are not members of the
government gang watch as the gang members get rich.
California
Gives Green Light to Health Care for Illegal Aliens. California is the first state to allow taxpayer-funded
health care benefits to go towards people residing in the U.S. illegally. Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill
into law on Tuesday which would allow low-income adults under the age of 25 to receive state Medicaid benefits through its
Medi-Cal program regardless of immigration status.
Democrats
take their next step to destroy the USA. California has approved a new budget expanding Medi-Cal coverage to
illegal aliens up to the age of 26. This will cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars, even without factoring in
the costs created by the obvious incentive the program will create for illegals to move to California. Moreover, the
formerly Golden State is bringing back the individual mandate, in part to fund the Medi-Cal expansion for non-residents of
California. This means that residents of the state who don't want to — or need to — buy health
insurance, as well as those who can't afford it, will have their money confiscated by the government to provide health care
to illegal aliens.
California
Assembly Approves Resolution That Calls for Church Acceptance of LGBTQ. The California State Assembly voted 9-2
to send to the state senate a resolution calling on "religious leaders to counsel on LGBTQ matters from a place of love,
compassion, and knowledge of the psychological and other harms of conversion therapy." While no one would argue with
the aim of being more loving and more compassionate in our counsel of our fellow man, the people's representatives do not
possess any authority in the arena of religious practice.
California
Democrats Propose Bill to Allow Illegal Immigrants to Hold Party Leadership Positions. Democratic lawmakers in
California have introduced a bill that will allow illegal immigrants to hold leadership positions within the Democrat Party
on the state and local level, Breitbart reports. Current state law limits noncitizen participation in party politics,
but the bill, SB 288, would change that, letting noncitizens, including illegal immigrants like Dreamers, serve as state
convention delegates and county committee leaders within the Democratic Party, which will allow them to be involved with
party platform and other issues.
California
Democrats Push Bill Allowing Illegals Party Roles: 'They're Already Leaders'. A bill proposed last week by California lawmakers could
grant illegal aliens the ability to serve in Democrat Party leadership positions locally and statewide. The new bill, SB 288, would allow
them to be part of shaping the party's platform, including serving as state convention delegates and county committee leaders.
The
Plan to "Make America, American Again". California Dems made sure the people of Mexico and other foreign
countries understood the borders were open, no one would ever be sent back, and Democrats would give them every form of
welfare for free. Then they gave illegals drivers licenses. They registered illegals automatically at DMV. They
made sure there was no Voter ID at the polls. Recognize the plan? Gavin Newsom gave it away. This is now the
national plan for Democrats. Make the whole country into California.
California's
Gov. Gavin Newsom puts out a video for illegals on how to obstruct ICE. I thought it was satire, something
cooked up by his political enemies. You couldn't put out a less attractive video than the one Gavin Newsom did for
illegal aliens on Twitter, advising them himself on how to obstruct ICE from any deportation maneuvers. [...] Leave aside the
fact that he's the governor of a U.S. state, supposedly there to represent the interests of that state's citizens rather than
those of the foreigners who come here without papers, quite illegally, and run up the tab using his state's services.
Hillary's
People's Republic of California Jungle Primary Voter Suppression. In the 2018 midterm general election
California voters had the choice for US Senate on the general election ballot between liberal Democrat Senator Diane
Feinstein or even more liberal Democrat opponent. There were no Republicans on the US Senate General Election ballot in
2018. Two years earlier, in 2016, liberal Democrat Kamala Harris was elected US Senator by defeating Liberal Democrat
opponent Loretta Sanchez in the general election. Again, There were no Republican candidates on the general election
ballot for Senator in 2016.
California's
Progressive Betrayal. The recent California Democratic Party convention in San Francisco exposed the divide
between the state's progressive and working-class voters. Progressives, in their militant certitude, support left-wing
policies that often don't affect them; it's the working class that suffers the consequences of these proposals. But the
Green New Deal, widely embraced by party leaders, pushed too far, triggering a backlash at the convention. The state's
private-sector labor unions, notably the building trades, organized a "Blue Collar Revolution" protest against the Democrats'
climate legislation. The Democrats are calling for the elimination of fossil fuels by 2030, which would result in
California's immiseration, especially for workers in the state's energy-production sector, the nation's fourth-largest.
In 2012, the oil and gas industry employed over 400,000 Californians, but these workers — unionized and
well-paid — can expect pink slips with the green package.
California
Says, 'Go West Young Illegals, Go West'. Doctors and hospitals are in the gunsights of many Democrats who want
Medicare-for-all as a draconian price control scheme by government over all medical care in the US. Hospitals are told they
charge too much and doctors are vilified for earning too much. What a relief that a sugar daddy has appeared, a rich
boyfriend, a benefactor with a fat wallet, ready to bestow his financial largess on financially strapped healthcare
providers. This sugar daddy is named Gavin, tall and handsome with good hair. I speak of California Governor
Gavin Newsom, who finalized a deal with the California legislature, "to provide full health benefits to low-income illegal
immigrants under the age of 26."
Can
California Be Saved, or Is It Too Late? How did this state, once the envy of all others, become the pathetic,
indebted loser state it is today? The answer is simple, single-party Democratic rule. [...] State taxes in California
are the highest in the nation, as are our sales taxes. We fall nearly last in education. We have the most
homeless, the most illegal migrants. The state spends $30 [billion] on illegal immigration per year. Like
all cities run by progressives, our entire state is a disaster of Democratic making.
California
lawmakers weigh budget proposals to cover health care for illegal immigrants. California lawmakers are weighing
proposals this week that would offer government-funded health care to adult illegal immigrants but are at odds over how far
to go. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed $98 million a year to cover low-income illegal immigrants between
the ages of 19 and 25, but the state Assembly's bill would cover all illegal immigrants over the age of 19 living in
California — a proposal that would cost an estimated $3.4 billion.
California
to pay full health benefits for illegal immigrants. Democrats in the [California] state Legislature reached an
agreement Sunday afternoon [6/9/2019] as part of a broader plan to spend $213 billion of state and federal tax money over the
next year. The agreement means low-income adults between the ages of 19 and 25 living in California illegally would be
eligible for California's Medicaid program, the joint state and federal health insurance program for the poor and disabled.
The
dystopian nightmare that is California has been brought to you by... Democrats. Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles
Times reported a week ago on the obscene condition of downtown Los Angeles, "A mountain of rotting, oozing, stinking trash
... stretching a good 20 yards along a skid row alley. Rats popped their heads out of the debris like they were in a
game of Whac-A-Mole, then scampered for cover as a tractor with a scoop lurched toward them. ... The trash problem is not
confined to any one street, but this particular location on the 800 block of Ceres Avenue is surrounded by food distribution
companies that sell to shoppers, vendors, stores and restaurants. I counted seven within a block, so you have to
wonder — given the colonies of football-size rats — about the potential contamination of the food
supply chain and the spread of disease." What does the city say when confronted about the slow, or nonexistent, pace
of cleanup?
Berkeley
loves its sanctuary label, but a housing crisis is testing its liberal values. This eccentric Northern
California enclave was a sanctuary long before the designation became a must-have merit badge for any left-leaning
city. Berkeley politicians proclaimed the place a refuge for Navy sailors resisting deployment to the Vietnam War
nearly a half-century ago. It was the birth of a movement to protect the outcast — and, in some cases, the
outlaw — from rules that this beat-of-its-own-drum city and its followers found immoral, most recently the
deportation of undocumented immigrants. But California's housing crisis is testing whether Berkeley can remain that
kind of place.
SF
supes get 12% pay raise while everyone else at City Hall gets a lot less. San Francisco's supervisors will be
getting a 12% raise this year, more than three times the size of those being given to other elected officials and city
employees. The raise was approved by a 3-1 vote of the Civil Service Commission on Monday [5/20/2019] and represents a
$15,016 pay hike, bringing the board members' salaries to $140,148 this year — plus benefits.
Los
Angeles Prohibits Employees From Traveling to Alabama Because It Banned Abortions. Los Angeles County has
imposed a one-year travel ban to Alabama in response to the state's new abortion law, which is the most restrictive in the
country. Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solia, author of the motion, said the state's law is an "attack not only
confined to the residents of those states, but an act of aggression upon all of us." "We must stand in solidarity and in
opposition against extremist and unconstitutional laws that put the health and wellbeing of families at risk," Solis said.
"The constitutional and human right to a safe and legal abortion is part of the very fabric of the United States."
California
lawmakers weigh budget proposals to cover health care for illegal immigrants. California lawmakers are weighing
proposals this week that would offer government-funded health care to adult illegal immigrants but are at odds over how far
to go. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed $98 million a year to cover low-income illegal immigrants between
the ages of 19 and 25, but the state Assembly's bill would cover all illegal immigrants over the age of 19 living in
California — a proposal that would cost an estimated $3.4 billion.
Sacramento's Biggest Gasbags.
Don't be alarmed by soaring California gasoline prices, which have topped $4 a gallon at most gas stations around the state.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders are on the job, as they sniff out the culprit behind rising prices.
They are pretty sure it has something to do with bad corporate behavior, based on their latest public statements. Stay
tuned — but you might not want to buy that giant gas-sucking SUV just yet. The cause of the high prices is
obvious to those of us familiar with the state's gasoline-related policies. In 2017, then-Gov. Jerry Brown pushed
through his signature increase in gas taxes to fund the road-infrastructure improvements that his administration had neglected
as it ramped up social spending. The law adds 12 cents to each gallon of gasoline and 20 cents to each gallon
of diesel and could add far more to the price in coming decades.
Trump,
Pareto, and the Fall of the Elites. Encouraging mass immigration of illegals who compete for lower-level jobs
does not help the underprivileged, rather it creates a new group of voters that will support the Democrats. It also
helps privileged groups by supplying cheap labor. Take, for example, wealthy Marin County, California. Marin is
largely populated by well-to-do and highly educated professional people. An underclass of often illegal immigrants
provides affordable services such as yard work and babysitting. In the 2012 presidential election, Marin voted 74% for
Obama. In the 2016 election, Marin voted 77% for Hillary and only 16% for Trump. Another wealthy California
county, Santa Clara County, is the heart of Silicon Valley. In the 2016 election, Santa Clara County voted only 21% for
Trump. Fresno County, California, a county that is majority Hispanic with a very high poverty rate, voted 43% for
Trump. California as a whole voted 32% for Trump. The nation as a whole voted 46% for Trump. In the borough
of Manhattan, in New York City, one of the wealthiest places in the country, only 10% of the votes went for Trump. Clearly
the privileged class votes Democratic and strongly opposes Trump. In places inhabited by elites, the Democrats dominate.
California
moves to keep Trump off 2020 primary ballot. The California Legislature is trying again to force presidential
candidates to publicly disclose their tax returns, hoping a new Democratic governor known for his clashes with President
Donald Trump won't block them this time.
California
Politicians Hiked Gas Tax, Now Demand Investigation Into State's $4 Per Gallon Gas Prices. As lieutenant
governor, Gavin Newsom supported a 2017 bill increasing the state's gas taxes. When running for governor in 2018, he
opposed a ballot initiative that would have repealed that same increase. It's 2019, and Newson, now the state's
governor, is demanding an investigation into why the state's gas prices are so high. On Tuesday [4/23/2019], the
governor sent a letter to the California Energy Commission (CEC) asking that the state agency investigate the Golden State's
roughly $4.03 per gallon gas prices, currently the highest in the country (and well above the national average of $2.86 per gallon).
What 'Free Money' Means to Me.
Officials in Stockton, Calif., a hard-pressed agricultural and industrial city 75 miles northeast of San Jose, are enjoying
the glow of media attention from their ongoing, first-in-America program to provide residents with a Universal Basic Income, or UBI. [...]
This is about more than helping a few residents in a mid-size city pay medical bills, buy groceries, repair the car, or spend the
weekend in the Sierra foothills gambling at the Jackson Rancheria Indian casino (there are no limits on how the money is spent,
after all). It's about setting the stage for a national political "discussion" that might eventually involve large, direct
taxpayer payments to lower-income residents. The research and storytelling will be used to soften us up for the hard sell, which
will come in various state or federal proposals, and will sometimes be linked to plans for reparations.
California.Gov.Con.
If Gavin Newsom runs for president, [Eleni] Kounalakis may run for governor, or even higher office. In that quest, Eleni will again deploy
daddy's money and promotional support from Markos, who believes that a woman's proper place is in the White House. Eleni gets all this,
plus California's imported electoral college, from places like El Salvador and Mexico. For Clinton cronies, California offers the best
of all possible worlds.
Government 'Oversight'
Is a Very Bad Joke. [Scroll down] The 67-page audit of [the California] DMV found a "reactive culture
that has adversely impacted the field office customer experience," outdated management structures, a third of customer-service
windows closed even as people waited in lines that went around the DMV field offices — and pretty much
everything else that anyone who has visited a California DMV office would know. The audit suggested changes, but
the agency reacted in normal fashion and requested more money. DMV offices, which I've described as a cross between bus
stations and Soviet bread lines, have been like this since time immemorial (although they're better in some states) and will
always be this way. We must deal with the agency if we want to drive. There are no customers that must be
satisfied because we have no other choice.
Money
in the Toilet — The Billion Dollar Cost of Public Bathrooms. The fastest rising item in the country
isn't gold or bitcoin, it's the cost of a public bathroom. In '08, a San Francisco Weekly article fumed that a park
restroom in Golden Gate Park was costing taxpayers $531,219. Fast forward, a decade later the cost of a park restroom in the
Golden Gate Boathouse had ballooned to $2 million or $4,700 per square foot. The modern bathroom had a third All-Gender
option that the '08 bathroom didn't. But adding a non-gender shouldn't have quadrupled the price. Inflation would
have kept the cost well below a million. Why did a 15-foot by 28-foot bathroom cost millions? Part of the answer
may be that San Fran privileges minority businesses and requires that 15% of work hours be carried out by "disadvantaged" workers.
As
Trump vows to shut the border to illegals, Gavin Newsom makes a suspicious trip to El Salvador. [Scroll
down] One can just picture how this trip looks from the Salvadoran side of things. Here come Big Daddy, the
California governor, the gringo who's already laid out a banquet of goodies for Salvadorans in California, from free health
care to free education, to sanctuary state protections to enable illegals to work, coming there supposedly to find out how he
can offer...even more goodies to Salvador's uneducated lower middle classes. The idea is to get even more of them to
come over. Big Daddy comes down with the Santa sack full of goodies.
California
executes a 'moratorium' on the death penalty. During the past eight years, California voters have twice
reiterated their support for the death penalty by defeating propositions seeking to overturn it. If anyone was confused
about Californians' understanding of the death penalty representing an important part of justice, in 2016 they even passed a
proposition calling for the speeding up of executions by shortening the decades-long appeals process. In other words,
Californians want the death penalty, and they want to it happen faster and more often.
Gavin
Newsom Doesn't Care about Crime Victims. On March 13, California governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive
order granting a reprieve to all 737 convicted murderers awaiting execution in the Golden State. [...] All 737 reprieved
death-row inmates had been found guilty of murder by a jury of their peers, beyond any reasonable doubt. The convicted
murderers had also exhausted all the possibilities of the appeal process, which in the California criminal justice system is
quite extensive. Gavin Newsom is not an attorney and not a judge. The governor did not attend the trials and
produced no new exculpatory evidence in any of the cases. Those awaiting execution include Richard Allen Davis, who
kidnapped and killed twelve-year-old Polly Klaas, and "Tool Box Killer" Lawrence Bittaker, who raped and killed five teen
girls in 1979 after torturing them with pliers and screwdrivers.
Killing the Death Penalty via
Edict. To my conservative friends who like when chief executives push the envelope on "national emergencies"
and executive orders, I offer you California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Last week, he grabbed national headlines for his
decision to grant reprieves to all 737 prisoners on California's death row based on his own personal feelings: [...]
Governors have the power to pardon people and give reprieves. But just as advocates for limited government believe that
presidents should let Congress take the lead on spending matters, they too should prefer that governors stick to the spirit
and not just the letter of the law. Such reprieves are meant for particular cases — not as a means to change
public policy.
California
Drug Legalization Leads to Political Corruption. California is going full narcosocialist and there's a price to
pay for that. The price is deeper corruption and criminality. [...] While part of the LA Times story tilt claims that
this is about "black market" drug dealers, most of these examples appear to involve those that were legal or trying to go legal.
But that takes us to the baffling difference between a black market drug dealer and a legal drug dealer is that the latter is paying
off the government. Now we have drug businesses getting in trouble for paying off government officials in the wrong sort of
way. We want drug dealers to legalize by legally paying off the government.
Gov.
Newsom to order halt to California's death penalty. Gov. Gavin Newsom is suspending the death penalty in California,
calling it discriminatory and immoral, and is granting reprieves to the 737 condemned inmates on the nation's largest Death Row.
"I do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as its government continues to sanction the
premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people," Newsom said in a statement accompanying an executive order, to be issued
Wednesday [3/13/2019], declaring a moratorium on capital punishment in the state. "The death penalty is inconsistent with our
bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian."
California's
Rendezvous With Reality. Californians brag that their state is the world's fifth-largest economy. They
talk as reverentially of Silicon Valley companies Apple, Facebook and Google as the ancient Greeks did of their Olympian
gods. Hollywood and universities such as Caltech, Stanford and Berkeley are cited as permanent proof of the
intellectual, aesthetic and technological dominance of West Coast culture. Californians also see their progressive,
one-party state as a neo-socialist model for a nation moving hard to the left.
California's
Gov. Newsom inherits a steaming load of scandal from Jerry Brown. California's Gov. Gavin Newsom has
inherited a steaming load of financial scandals from Jerry Brown regarding high-speed rail and the Oroville Dam. Gavin
Newsom is the first Democrat California governor to follow a sitting Democrat governor in over a century. Newsom
campaigned as an ally of Gov. Jerry Brown by trumpeting how Brown eight years earlier had overcome a crisis projected by
the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office to included a $6.4-billion current budget deficit, a $19-billion deficit for
the following year, and another five years of $20-billion-plus deficits.
North
Carolina vote fraud case shows just why Congress should ban ballot-harvesting nationwide. [Scroll down]
Sure enough, in California, this same ballot-harvesting that was illegally practiced in North Carolina is completely legal
and completely responsible for deep-red Orange County suddenly going blue in the last congressional election. Candidate
after candidate who had been leading in the 2018 midterm count all of a sudden saw those large leads reversed, with all of
them shifting to the Democratic side, with leftists taking all the congressional slots.
Gov.
Gavin Newsom touts proposed $25 million in California aid to asylum seekers. Gov. Gavin Newsom and local officials
in San Diego on Thursday [1/31/2019] touted a proposed $25 million in state funding to address a growing humanitarian crisis
involving migrant families seeking asylum in the U.S. and blamed the Trump administration for manufacturing a problem at the border.
With prodding from San Diego lawmakers, Newsom has called for spending $20 million over three years to aid local nonprofits and
community organizations that provide services to asylum-seeking migrant families.
The Editor says...
President Trump did not "manufacture" the problem of uncontrolled illegal immigration across the Mexican border. That problem
has existed for decades, but in recent years has been exacerbated by the Democrats, who offer numerous incentives for immigrants.
See more
under Welfare programs attract illegal aliens and other immigrants.
California's
Gavin Newsom Proposes Tax on Drinking Water in First Budget. California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed his
first budget for the state on Friday [1/11/2019], and it includes a tax on drinking water. The budget, titled
"California for All," declares drinking water a "fundamental right," and adds: "The Budget includes short-term measures
to bring immediate relief to communities without safe drinking water and also proposes an ongoing sustainable funding source
to address this problem into the future."
The Editor says...
Wait a minute. If drinking water is a "fundamental right," why should it be taxed? Indeed, why does your city
government send you a utility bill and charge you for water, if it's a right? No, in reality, food and water and
housing and medicine are not "fundamental rights," regardless of the number of politicians who say they are.
California
Gov. Gavin Newsom seeks to add more illegal immigrants to state health care plan. Newly sworn-in California
Gov. Gavin Newsom, vowing to provide "sanctuary to all who seek it," has proposed extending state health care coverage to more
illegal immigrants living within the Golden State's borders. Hours after assuming office, Mr. Newsom released sweeping
health care proposals to raise the age limit for illegal aliens covered by Medi-Cal from 19 to 26, which would make California "the
first state in the nation to cover young undocumented adults through a state Medicaid program," according to a Monday [1/7/2019]
release from the governor's office.
Cpl.
Singh Was Laid to Rest. Guess Which Politicians Were Conveniently Absent. Just when we thought
politicians in California couldn't get any more horrible, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom proved us wrong. Apparently the
reason he was absent from Cpl. Singh's funeral yesterday was because he was too busy watching the Sacramento Kings
play basketball.
Jerry
Brown "Legacy": Highest Poverty in Nation, Highest Homelessness/Worst Affordable Housing. We are a few days
away from the end of the Brown Administration. His legacy is clear, if you listen to the Democrats. They claim
California has the most poverty in the nation — true. We have a shortage of homes — true.
We have a massive homelessness problem — true. All of this has become his legacy. Add to this the
$200 billion train boondoggle, his cutting off water for farmers and the worst roads and freeways in the
nation — California is a Third world State.
Fighting
Trump and Freedom, California Creates 1,000 New 2018 Laws. That the Land of Fruits and Nuts is legislating from
soup to nuts is significant because, while often forgotten, a law generally is a removal of a freedom. After all, laws
virtually always state that there's something we must or mustn't do. Thus, the more laws we have, the less free we are
from governmental control. And given that governments continually enact more laws but hardly ever rescind any, this
means that every year we're progressively less free. So what liberties were robbed in California this time around?
The
Grapes of Wrath — in Reverse. [I]n the last decade and a half, about 6 million Californians
over the age of 25 left the state; in the last 30 years, perhaps 10 million fled. There are no accurate
statistics on the political ideologies of the departed or even their actual numbers. But most studies suggest that the
reasons for radical outmigration were quality-of-life complaints, soaring home prices and taxes, poor state services, failing
infrastructure and schools, and rising crime. [...] According to one study, at least 13,000 companies fled the state over the
last decade.
Democrats: A plague
on the nation. Governor Brown has effectively destroyed California, now benighted by rampant homelessness and the crime
that accompanies a population of illiterate, drug-addicted, gang-affiliated, criminally inclined persons adrift on our streets.
And now another young officer has been killed by an illegal alien thanks to the left's obsession with protecting the throngs of migrants
crossing the border into the U.S. It should be obvious to every American by now that our progressive left does not have the
best interest of Americans at heart.
California
Spends $100 Million to Maximize Census Cash Jackpot. California is spending over $100 million preparing for the
2020 Census to maintain its top spot to maximize the federal population spending jackpot. The key for California to
keep growing its top spot in state and local government spending that hit $587.9 billion this year is maximizing its number
of legal and illegal residents who currently justify $107.5 billion in direct federal transfers and about $376 billion
of indirect transfers to pay for federal salaries, income support, student financial aid, U.C. grants, corporate subsidies, and
a slew of other items. California has allocated $100.3 million for "outreach" this year to maximize the number of state
residents to be counted in the 2020 U.S. Census. Only 10 other states have allocated any cash for "outreach."
California's funding is over 27 times the $2.3 million by number-two Georgia and 66 times the $1.5 million
funded by number-three Illinois.
San
Francisco mayor trying to get brother, a convicted killer, out of lockup 20 years early. San Francisco Mayor
London Breed sent a letter to departing Gov. Jerry Brown in late October asking him to "consider leniency" and commute
the sentence of her older brother, who has served nearly two decades of a 44-year sentence on a manslaughter conviction,
according to reports. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday that the mayor has joined other members of her
family in requesting an early release from prison for Napoleon Brown, who struggled with drugs from a young age.
Jerry
Brown's 'Twin Tunnels' Project on Hold. The project, officially called the California Waterfix, aims to divert
water from the Sacramento River underneath the California Delta to storage facilities further south, from which water can be
pumped to southern California. The "twin tunnels" were to be Brown's major infrastructure legacy, in addition to the
California High-Speed Rail system, which faces significant financial and engineering hurdles. But it faced intense
local opposition from the communities in the Delta, who faced considerable disruption to their lives. The project was
also opposed by many environmental groups, and farming groups that were meant to benefit — at a price —
showed lukewarm support.
DA
Gascón carried guns on planes, then whistle-blower was fired, suit says. A former senior investigator says
he was fired for blowing the whistle on his boss, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, who he alleged carried
a gun while flying — in violation of federal law. Gascón reacted with a "pattern of retaliation and
harassment" that culminated in the termination of senior investigator Henry G. McKenzie on Oct. 30, 2017, according
to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
Study:
More than 7-in-10 California Immigrant Households Are on Welfare. More than 7-in-10 households headed by
immigrants in the state of California are on taxpayer-funded welfare, a new study reveals. The latest Census Bureau
data analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) finds that about 72 percent of households headed by noncitizens and
immigrants use one or more forms of taxpayer-funded welfare programs in California — the number one immigrant-receiving
state in the U.S. Meanwhile, only about 35 percent of households headed by native-born Americans use welfare in California.
After
California's ballot harvest: What is to be done? The ballot-harvesting issue, which gave Democrats an
absolute monopoly of power in even Orange County, signals a sort of the bottom dropping out in California. Now that
Democrats have discovered they can flip any race based on selective collections of mail-in ballots by Democratic
door-knockers from voters who didn't ask for them, their one-party state of the past 20 years in California has gotten even
more entrenched in power. One gets the sense that the landscape has changed and what the voters want no longer
matters. Voting is no longer about you, or what you think or the decisions you make, it's now all about that
unasked-for piece of paper on the kitchen table known as a ballot and how Democrats can get their hands on it. You are
incidental. The creepy Democratic machine, with its 1980s PRI-style politics, rigged this state this way, and in so
doing would make Hugo Chávez or Daniel Ortega envious. PRI Mexico was, after all, once called "the perfect
dictatorship." Now the title has moved on to California. It amounts to stolen democracy, which ultimately
cries out for revolution.
The Cloward-Piven strategy: Overload the system to intentionally break it.
California
Democrats plan to extend Medicaid to illegal immigrants. State Assembly member Joaquin Arambula, a Democrat and
a doctor, announced the plans Monday [12/3/2018] as the legislature convened at the state capitol, according to the Los
Angeles Times. Should the bill advance, California would become the first state to extend Medicaid coverage regardless
of immigration status. State projections for last year's bill found that 1.8 million people in California are uninsured
and reside there illegally; roughly 1.2 million would qualify for Medi-Cal, the name of the state's Medicaid program.
Trump: The Last President?
The Governor isn't the Governor of California, especially when he won in a 57% to 43% victory. The Governor is the
Governor of the Left, and will represent the Left, not the electorate in general. The swing vote, which has moderated
elections nationally is absent in California. The swing vote means that the most uninterested people have the levers of
power. That category of people simply does not exist in California. Party leader? Sure. Governor?
Well, in name only. In reality, the recently elected Governor is the Democratic Party leader.
Pelosi
tells audience, 'San Francisco values, that's what we're about'. Has Nancy Pelosi joined the GOP team anxious
to scare voters away from voting for the donkey party? The pejorative use of the expression "San Francisco values," to
indicate a loss of decency, tradition, and sanity, has at least two decades of history, and arguably almost three and a half,
since Jeanne Kirkpatrick denounced "San Francisco Democrats" at the 1984 Republican Convention. Today, San Francisco is
the exemplar of a city that has driven out the middle class and features the worst-looking income gap between rich and
poor. San Francisco's poor languish in its streets in the worst display of the degradation of poverty this side of
Calcutta. San Francisco's homelessness, its open drug use, and the spread of human feces on the sidewalks there have
made being a pedestrian there a health risk.
Gavin
Newsom Helped Mother's Assisted Suicide. A recent article in the New Yorker extolling the (probable)
next Governor of California reveals that Gavin Newsom helped his mother commit assisted suicide. [...] When I first read the
piece, I assumed she didn't die in California because assisted suicide was a felony there in 2002, and Newsom was a member of
the San Francisco Board of Supervisors sworn to uphold the law. Wrong. She died in San Francisco.
California
city council candidate is caught dropping off his wheelchair-bound mom, 86, so she can panhandle. A nonpartisan candidate
for city council in Southern California has been accused of dropping off his elderly, wheelchair-bound mother to panhandle for the last
decade, even though they're not homeless. David Chey has been caught on camera leaving Soon Chey, 86, in her wheelchair in the
downtown district of Laguna Beach with a sign that reads, 'please, help me.' 'They have a brand new car, live in a condo in Irvine,
yet beg for our help,' local business owner Heidi Miller told DailyMail.com.
California
Ranks as Poorest State, One of the Worst for Income Inequality. Despite all the wealth in the state and the
Democrat control of state government, California actually ranks as the poorest state in the country after costs of living are
factored in. A whopping 19 percent of Californians live below the poverty line. While California represents just
12 percent of the nation's population, Californians represent a third of all Americans on welfare. The average monthly
cost of rent in the state is 43 percent higher than the national average. Nearly a third of Californians spend more
than half of their earnings on housing. The situation is made worse by skyrocketing energy costs. "Residents who
can afford rent or a mortgage are on the hook for electricity rates burdened by green initiatives and regulation that grew
500 percent faster than the national average from 2011 to 2017."
San
Francisco to Allow Illegal Aliens to Vote. In July, the Department of Elections issued voter registration forms
to illegal aliens to vote for members of the San Francisco Board of Education in the 2018 election, reported ABC7 News.
Now that the illegals are registered and ready, they will be voting in November.
The
piously politically correct blue state that bankrolls Putin. CalPERS, the $326-billion California state pension
fund for some two million state cops, firefighters, and bureaucrats, has never been shy about its trumpeting its political
correctness. It's positively famous for its pullouts of tobacco investments, Turkey investments, apartheid South Africa
investments, and coal investments, and so famous that you probably would never have heard of the fund were it not for its
pullouts. It's not that they are that awful in themselves — they often try to push back on calls to
divest. But they've always been seen by leftists as a tool to oppose President Trump. So in general, name the
lefty cause, and out they pull. Well, with one little exception: Putin's Russia. On that one, they've
shelled out nearly half a billion dollars to the Russian government (not companies, but the government) through its bond
buys. And hey, they're one of Russia's top foreign investors, top ten among foreigners.
Rich
San Francisco businesses could face homelessness tax. San Francisco has come to be known around the world as a
place for aggressive panhandling, open-air drug use and sprawling tent camps, the dirt and despair all the more remarkable
for the city's immense wealth.
Jerry
Brown's get-out-of-jail-free card in California. Here's a story that's making the news in San Diego as a local
district attorney protests, but it's actually a state problem that goes back to the usual lefty suspects, starting with
Gov. Jerry Brown. Thousands of murder convictions are likely to be vacated due to a change in state law that
effectively says that if you were the guy sitting in the shotgun seat of the car as the other guy pulled the trigger, you get
off scot-free — you're no longer convicted of murder, too. The County of San Diego alone is set to release
about 150 such charmers onto the streets, and the other 57 counties are going to have to do similar. All told, about
800 of them are reportedly going to get let out.
San
Francisco: Land of the Living Dead. Effectively, there's nothing in this news story that you don't know
already. Anyone who has followed the news and who reads this blog knows full well that downtown San Francisco has been
given over to drug addicts and the homeless. In the most liberal blue city in America, Nancy Pelosi's home town, you
cannot walk the streets in many neighborhoods. What's news is the place it appeared: The New York Times.
The paper of record sent a reporter and a photographer out to document the nightmare that is the streets of San
Francisco. They did not pull any punches. They told it like it is.
The
One-Party State. [Scroll down] Dan Walters, a longtime political journalist in Sacramento, will tell you
it was the end of the Cold War that really brought about Democratic dominance. He points to the decline of the defense
and aerospace industries, major employers in Southern California, which prompted an exodus of Republican voters —
middle-class, white, and suburban — to cheaper states. Los Angeles County regularly went for the GOP in
elections. It's simple arithmetic, says Walters. When the GOP lost Los Angeles, it turned California over
completely to the Democrats. Today, the state is a liberal's dream. It's multicultural. It's largely
urbanized. It is socially and environmentally progressive. People here frequently boast, without a trace of
smugness, that if you want to see America in 10 years, look at California.
Weak passwords banned in California from
2020. Default passwords such as "admin" and "password" will be illegal for electronics firms to use in
California from 2020. The state has passed a law that sets higher security standards for net-connected devices
made or sold in the region. It demands that each gadget be given a unique password when it is made.
California's
Socialist Oligarchy: Making the State Unaffordable. Nowhere are the consequences of California's
oligarchical socialism more evident than in the cost of housing. State legislation has made it nearly impossible for
developers to construct new housing outside the so-called "urban growth boundary." Instead, development is redirected into
the footprint of existing urban areas. While there is a natural tendency as population increases to see higher density
redevelopment in urban cores, by restricting outward expansion of urban areas, the value of the limited remaining eligible
land becomes artificially inflated. But established landowners and large development firms benefit from these
restrictions. They are able to withstand years, if not decades, of expensive permitting delays and endless
litigation. They are able to afford millions in permit fees because these costs are offset by their ability to sell
residence units — from high-rise condos to detached single family dwellings — at prices far beyond what
they would cost in a normal market. These billionaire business interests get richer, while ordinary Californians who
want to own or develop land cannot afford to go through the permit process.
The
One-Party State. The state [of California] has the most liberal environmental laws and regulations in the
country, which hamper the development of affordable housing. A San Francisco Chronicle investigation in 2017
showed rising housing costs driving lower-income Californians out of their homes and into the streets. Homelessness has
skyrocketed in both the cities and the rural areas of the state. While 12 percent of the U.S. population is in
California, 25 percent of the country's homeless live there. From Sacramento to San Diego, you can't help but notice
the multitudes of people living on the street. Look at the housing shortage and homelessness, the decline of manufacturing
and other blue-collar jobs, and the growth of a tech economy that rewards disruption over predictability, and you see why some
are suspicious of the California way.
California
will require women on corporate boards under bill signed by Brown. California became the first state in the
country to require that women be included on companies' boards of directors, as Gov. Jerry Brown literally sent a
message to Washington on Sunday [9/30/2018] in signing legislation that corporate associations opposed as unconstitutional.
Brown signed SB826 into law after it passed the Assembly and the Senate last month. The bill mandates that all publicly
traded California companies have at least one woman on their boards by the end of 2019.
The Editor says...
Notice how much of California's official business is transacted on Sundays.
California
Passes Law Allowing 12-Year-Olds To Get Tax-Paid Transgender Treatments. You have to be 16 obtain a driver's
license in California, 18 to buy a rifle, engage in consensual sex, or get married without parental consent, and 21 to buy a
handgun, alcohol, or marijuana. But in the nation's most progressive state, you only need to be 12 years old to
privately seek and consent to treatment for gender transitioning.
America,
don't be like California. Once again, California has the highest poverty rate in America. According to
the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent report, the Golden State's Supplemental Poverty Measure averaged 19 percent between
2015 and 2017. Nationwide, poverty dropped in 2017 from 14.7 percent to 14.1 percent, but California's rate was
proportionately 35 percent higher than the national average. In spite of (or perhaps to divert attention from) its
high poverty rate, California's left-wing political class continues its unrelenting sermonizing to the rest of us.
California
DMV Gives Illegal Voters a Surge. Last week California's Department of Motor Vehicles sent 23,000 "erroneous"
voter registrations to the office of Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who maintains the list of registered voters. The
DMV blamed it technical errors and said none of the erroneous registrations involved undocumented immigrants. Padilla
was "extremely disappointed and deeply frustrated" and the DMV assured him it wouldn't happen again. Legitimate voters
have good reason to believe Padilla was not disappointed but delighted. The odds are strong that illegals make up most
if not all of the newly registered voters. The registrations of illegals will be happening again, in greater numbers,
as the November election approaches. The day after the 23,000 registrations made news, it emerged that from late April
to early August, the DMV registered 182,000 "new voters," with the largest number, 112,000, choosing "no party." Neither
the DMV nor Padilla would explain the numbers but the trend is evident and all by design.
San
Fran Green Lights Illegals To Vote. Our country has twisted itself in knots over the possibility of foreigners
(ie: Russia) having unduly influenced our elections (even though recounts and investigations have confirmed that the
outcome was NOT changed by foreign interference). You'd think that would be reminder enough as to just how precious the
individual value of a lawful voter is, and how it must be safeguarded against anything that would erode the value of that one vote.
California
moves toward corporate gender quotas, ignoring Norway's failure. Supporters of California's move toward the
nation's first-ever corporate gender quotas have insisted the bill will be good for business, but that's not what happened in
Norway. After the Norwegian Parliament required that women make up 40 percent of publicly traded corporate boards in
2006, stock prices plunged and firm values dropped as boards added less experienced female directors, while the numbers of
public firms decreased and private companies increased. "The quota led to younger and less experienced boards,
increases in leverage and acquisitions, and deterioration in operating performance, consistent with less capable boards,"
said the 2012 paper by USC professor Kenneth R. Ahern and University of Michigan professor Amy K. Dittmar.
Trump on the Ground.
For months, I've been driving on different routes through the vast San Joaquin Valley back and forth from the California
coast — and through the usually economically depressed small towns on and near the Highway 99 corridor through the
Central Valley. The poverty rate in many valley counties is higher than in West Virginia. It is a world away from
Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the Stanford or Caltech campus, Malibu, and Pacific Heights. In an overregulated, overtaxed
state of open borders and sanctuary cities, with the nation's near highest electricity and gasoline prices, and facing a
looming state and local pension unfunded liability of well over $300 billion, one might not expect much of an uptick from
the supposed Trump economic revival. California's calcified strategy, after all, is that global lucre pouring into coastal
high-tech and finance will more than balance out the economic damage wrought by state government. Sacramento is a sort
of court jester to Menlo Park.
A
last-ditch effort to pull California back from the brink. I fully understand the hatred and contempt many, if
not most, conservatives feel toward California. A state blessed with so many advantages has surrendered to left-wing
madness and, worst of all, pretends it has something to teach the rest of America. In the thirty-some years I have
lived here, California has gone from Reagan Country to thrusting people on the order of Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom onto
the national stage. Of the two, Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco (and former husband of Kimberly
Guilfoyle, late of Fox News and currently rumored to be an intimate friend of Donald Trump, Jr.), is in a position to do more
harm in the immediate future, as he is running for governor of California on a platform of state-paid universal health care,
including for illegal aliens who manage to cross the state border, from Mexico or Nevada or Oregon.
California,
Poverty Capital. According to the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure — which accounts for
the cost of housing, food, utilities, and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of
income — nearly one out of four Californians is poor. Given robust job growth in the state and the
prosperity generated by several industries, especially the supercharged tech sector, the question arises as to why California
has so many poor people, especially when the state's per-capita GDP increased roughly twice as much as the U.S. average over
the five years ending in 2016 (12.5 percent, compared with 6.27 percent). It's not as if California policymakers have
neglected to wage war on poverty. Sacramento and local governments have spent massive amounts in the cause, for decades now.
Why
California's Gavin Newsom campaigns for free health care for illegals. Gavin Newsom, leading candidate for
governor of California, and a Democrat, has a new goodie on offer: free health care for the state's three million illegals.
The former mayor of San Francisco said so in this podcast, explaining that there is no reason not to "wait around" to extend
Medi-Cal coverage to anyone who asks, regardless of immigration status.
California
craziness: Congress may have to stop state from giving 'free' health care to illegal immigrants.
California has escalating crime, cities teaming with homeless people, clogged and crumbling roads, massive unpaid bills, some
of America's highest taxes, and some of its worst public school systems. So what's the plan by Gavin Newsom, the
Democratic Party's candidate for governor, to improve the situation? On Tuesday he suggested giving free health care to
illegal immigrants. Speaking on a left-wing podcast, the former mayor of San Francisco said: "I did universal
health care when I was mayor, fully implemented, regardless of pre-existing condition, ability to pay, and regardless of your
immigration status. I'd like to see that extended to the rest of the state. San Francisco is the only universal
health-care plan for all undocumented residents in America."
Gavin
Newsom: I'm Bringing Single Payer To Everyone In California, Regardless Of Immigration Status. Gavin
Newsom is currently running for Governor in California and, barring something dramatic, he is going to win. So when he
says he plans to bring single payer to California as Governor, there's a very good chance he'll get his shot. Today,
Newsom appeared on the Pod Save America podcast where he was asked about his health care plans. Newsom made clear he
wants a single paper system that is for everyone in the state regardless of immigration status. "I'd like to see if we
can control our own destiny," Newsom said. He continued, "I'm not naive about it. I did universal health care
when I was Mayor [of San Francisco], fully implemented regardless of pre-existing conditions, ability to pay, and regardless
of your immigration status.
Dem
Gubernatorial Candidate: Gov't Should Pay for Universal Health Care for Illegal Immigrants. Gavin Newsom,
Democratic candidate for governor of California, said on liberal podcast "Pod Save America" that the state government should
pay for universal health care for illegal immigrants. In the episode, released Tuesday, the candidate and current
lieutenant governor of California touted his involvement in San Francisco having "the only universal health care plan for all
undocumented residents in America." "I did universal health care when I was mayor — fully implemented,
regardless of pre-existing condition, ability to pay, and regardless of your immigration status. San Francisco is the
only universal health care plan for all undocumented residents in America. Very proud of that," Newsom said. "I'd
like to see that extended to the rest of the state."
Just Another Word
for Nothing Left to Lose. [Scroll down] And, of course, there's virtually no area of our lives — outside
our sexual behavior and reproductive "choices" — that should be free from state interference. It should be no surprise,
then, that the libertarian Cato Institute's latest "Freedom in the 50 States" report finds California nearly at the bottom,
in 48th place. New York and Hawaii were worse, but California has been remarkably consistent in its ranking over the
past 16 years. Whenever there's some think tank report comparing the states for some bad thing, I always start at
the bottom to find my home state. Not surprisingly, we have the highest taxes in the country, even with 1978's
Proposition 13 putting the kibosh on uncontrolled property-tax hikes. We have a high level of public debt, [of]
course. As Cato points out, the state actually has one of the lowest percentages of government employees (11.2 percent
of private employment). But the reason is simple: California pays its employees such astoundingly high pay and benefit
packages that it simply can't afford to hire any more of them.
California
Gov. Jerry Brown Sets Record of 1,018 Pardons in 8 Years. California Gov. Jerry Brown used his
executive powers to issue 36 gubernatorial pardons on Friday, to hit a record of 1,018 pardons in eight years in
office. Although 22 of those were for murder and 13 for attempted murder or manslaughter, Brown said each of the
pardons he provided went to individuals that had had "demonstrated exemplary behavior" and lived "productive and law-abiding
lives" following their convictions and time served in prison, according to the Fresno Bee.
California
Initiative Filed to End Proposition 13 Protections for Commercial Properties. Funded by Silicon Valley deep
pockets — including the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, the personal charity of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his
wife Priscilla Chan; a coalition of teachers unions; the League of Women Voters; affordable housing advocates; and other
"social justice warriors" organized as "Schools and Communities First," — the activists submitted the signatures
to the Secretary of State on August 14 to place an initiative on the 2020 ballot to increase California commercial
property tax revenue by $11 billion.
Milk Or Water: California
Bill Aims To Curb Kids' Soda Drinking At Restaurants. A new state bill would give kids two options with their
meals at restaurants — water or milk. Senate Bill 1192 would make water or milk the default drink for kids
meals in a push to reduce obesity and access to sugary drinks for children. The bill passed the Assembly and is on its
way to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk. If he signs it, California would be the first state in the nation to have such a law.
A Tale
of Three Cities. San Francisco is being overrun with the homeless and illegal aliens due to its sanctuary city
status and virtue-signaling leadership. The streets are littered with human feces, hypodermic needles, and syringes,
turning the once beautiful "City by the Bay" into a cesspool. What's the response of San Francisco leaders?
Banning plastic straws.
California
lawmakers grill DMV official over ballooning wait times. The leader of the state Department of Motor Vehicles
apologized on Tuesday for a recent steep increase in hours-long wait times at the agency's locations across California, as
complaints over excessive delays sparked new scrutiny from legislators. "The wait times you are experiencing are not
what we ever want our customers to go through," said DMV Director Jean Shiomoto, who testified at an Assembly hearing
convened to address the issue following months of public frustration.
Secret
DMV office serves lawmakers, Capitol staffers. In California, long lines are a fact of life at Department of
Motor Vehicles offices across the state, but for California lawmakers and their legislative staffers, there's an alternative.
KCRA has learned of a DMV office that is not open to the public. It's located inside the Legislative Office Building on
N Street, adjacent to the state Capitol.
The
Mask Slips In Santa Barbara. A little noticed detail in Santa Barbara's recent drive to criminalize plastic
straws, which culminated in the Santa Barbara city council taking testimony from a nine-year-old about the planetary menace,
has come to light in recent days. During that council session, councilman Jesse Dominguez said the following in
response to citizens who asked "what's next?": "Unfortunately, common sense is just not common. We have to regulate
every aspect of people's lives." Take that one in for a moment, for it expresses the core impulse of liberalism today.
'We
Have to Regulate Every Aspect of People's Lives'. A Santa Barbara city councilman inadvertently let slip the
primary purpose of progressivism in 21st century America. The city recently criminalized the use of plastic straws.
Speaking to that issue, Councilman Jesse Dominguez said, "Unfortunately, common sense is just not common. We have to
regulate every aspect of people's lives." Got that? "We" are smarter than you and know what's best for you better
than you do. Perhaps realizing that his comment revealed a fundamental truth of progressive thought, Dominguez tried
to walk back his gaffe: [...]
California
Wants to Reinvent the Power Grid. So What Could Go Wrong? Two decades ago, when California deregulated
the delivery of electric power, lawmakers, regulators and even some environmentalists hailed the decision as a way to lower
consumers' bills. The strategy proved disastrous. The plan resulted in an energy crisis that sent power bills
soaring, prompted billions in penalties against utilities and banks for manipulating the new electricity market, and led
Congress to enact laws to help prevent it all from happening again. Now the state's leaders have a new proposal for an
energy makeover, this time to create a single authority to manage the electric grid for most or all of the West. This
plan, too, promises to cut costs for consumers — by as much as $1.5 billion a year — while helping
to bolster use of carbon-free power sources.
California's
Tax War On Business Owners — Part 1. In the early 1990s, the U.S. economy was hit by a triple whammy:
1) the Savings & Loan Crisis, 2) high oil prices as the result of the first Gulf War, and 3) a good-sized recession.
Following that recession, the U.S. economy experienced slow growth. So, recognizing that middle market companies are the primary
source of economic growth, Congress amended the Internal Revenue Code to incentivize the creation of new companies — "mainstreet"
companies and lower middle market companies. Subject to certain restrictions, upon sale of the company, founding owners would be able
to exclude up to a certain amount of gain. With California's tax code "conforming" to the Internal Revenue Code, the same
pro-growth incentive would have been available on a business owner's California income tax return. But, given the title of this
article, it couldn't be that simple — and it's not.
San Francisco: The City of Bans.
Who would have guessed that cafeterias would even be a public-policy issue? I've worked at companies with them and
without them. But I would have found it more likely for lefties to require such things rather than prohibit
them. Many workers, even in well-paid industries where such cafeterias are common, struggle financially given the high
cost of living in the Bay Area. Here's a chance for the city to help assure that they get a healthy meal while they
work those long hours doing whatever IT people do. What did I miss? "The supervisors introduced the legislation
because they say tech companies' employees are hurting local restaurants by taking advantage of the perk and eating in-house,
rather than patronizing neighborhood eating establishments," reported Smart Cities Dive.
'Calexit'
supporters revamp campaign with plan to convert half of California into 'autonomous Native American nation'.
Organizers of a long-running initiative to secure California's secession from the United States now say they want to give
away nearly half of the state, including all of its federal land, to form an "autonomous Native American nation."
"Calexit," as the proposal for California's secession is known, was given the green light by the state government earlier
this year to begin collecting signatures to place the measure on the November ballot. Advocates had until mid-October
to gather 365,880 signatures of registered voters to put it up for a statewide vote.
California
Is Not as Big or Blue As You Think. The National Popular Vote plan is an interstate compact in which the
compacting states agree to award their electoral votes to the person who gets the most votes in all 50 states. It is
based on Art. I, Sec. 2 of the Constitution which grants state legislatures the plenary (and exclusive) power to
award electors, and the founders' expectation that states would use that power to maximize their influence in the selection
of the president. The first thing I hear, when the proposal is presented, is that "California is so big, it will run
the country" (mainly because I am from California) if the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact takes effect. My
conservative friends use California as an example of "what not to do" when it comes to public policy, and so, if California
is going to run the country under the state statutes implementing the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, then, they
say, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is dangerous.
California's
'foreclosure capital' to give away $500 a month to residents in experimental welfare program. A California city
is set to become the first in the nation to embark on an experiment of Universal Basic Income, paying 100 residents $500 a
month without any conditions. The program's purpose is to eventually ensure that no one in Stockton, with a population
of 300,000, lives in poverty. The receivers of the cash will be able to spend the money on anything they want without
any strings attached. It will launch by 2019 and the 100 fortunate residents will receive the cash for a full 18 months
as part of its testing phase before deciding whether to roll it out across Stockton.
Cost
of anti-ICE protests prompts California county to forgo $3M federal contract. Citing the cost of managing
anti-ICE protests outside one of its facilities, authorities in a Northern California county this week severed a $3 million
contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that allowed the federal agency to detain illegal immigrants in one of
its cities. Contra Costa County, across the bay from San Francisco, thus became the second county in the region this
month to cut ties with ICE, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The county's West County Detention Facility, in
Richmond, which averaged 200 immigrant detainees a day, had drawn protesters for months. At a news conference, Sheriff
David Livingston suggested the demonstrations played a large role in the contract's termination.
Is
California's Democratic Party swinging too far left? By Nov. 7, Democrats will learn if their left turn steered
them to victory or took them off a cliff. The state party's endorsement of Kevin de León, a self-proclaimed socialist's
upset of an establishment Democrat in a New York City congressional primary and talk of abolishing Immigration and Customs
Enforcement and enacting single-payer health care show an embrace of progressive politics that heartens liberal activists
enraged by conservative policies pursued by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
California's Pointless
Net Neutrality Efforts. California is moving ahead with some of the most ambitious — and
pointless — net neutrality laws in the country that will only make the patchwork laws springing up around the U.S
even murkier. California's bill offers stronger language than the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) rules
established under the Obama administration and repealed this spring. The state legislation not only prevents internet
service providers from throttling speeds or blocking websites, but it also bans excessive zero-rating practices of ISPs
exempting its own services from data caps while counting the usage of third-party apps against the limits.
California
governor signs soda tax ban into law. California cities and counties are banned from taxing sodas and other
sugary drinks for the next 12 years under a bill signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. The deal was
rushed through the legislature and to the governor's desk on Thursday. In exchange for the law, the nonalcoholic
beverage industry is withdrawing a ballot measure that had been slated for November. It would have raised the voter
threshold to approve local sales tax increases on any item, not just soda taxes, from a majority vote to a supermajority
vote. Signatures were gathered for the ballot through a campaign funded by the beverage industry.
San Francisco:
Poster-Child For The Failure Of U.S. Cities' Blue Model. By any standard, San Francisco is one of the most
beautiful cities in the world. So why has it suddenly become an unappealing place to visit and to live? [...] San
Francisco proudly calls itself a "progressive" city. It follows what writer and scholar Walter Russell Mead calls the
progressive "Blue Model" of governance. Yet, the policies it follows — high taxes, inane regulations, petty
nanny-state authoritarianism, tolerance for rising lawlessness and disorder on its streets in the name of "compassion" —
are the very ones that have driven middle-class and working-class citizens out. Only the rich and the so-called homeless,
who have been welcomed into the city and are a growing issue, can afford to live in the city.
California's
Oligarchs and Agitators. If one were to distill the essence of California's Democratic party into a one-page
document, it would be hard to beat a recent mail piece showing the SEIU's candidate endorsements for California's top
jobs. According to its website, the Service Employees International Union Local 1000 (SEIU) "is a united front of
96,000 working people employed by the State of California, making Local 1000 the largest public sector union in California
and one of the largest in the country."
Look
What California Thinks is an Emergency Bill. California is a Socialist nightmare with oppressive government
regulations and high taxes killing the middle class. Housing is so costly that it's greatly adding to the number of
homeless. The open borders and sanctuary cities policies have allowed killers, perverts, and drug dealers to get
protection everywhere in the state. With all the problems they have, they rushed through a bill that could make you
laugh. According to the Washington Examiner, the oh-so-urgent bill that had to be rushed through bans California cities
and counties from taxing sodas and other sugary drinks for 12 years. Are you surprised that a nanny state banned
taxes? Don't be. The reason they did it was to keep high taxes on everything else!
Court
reinstates California law allowing terminally ill people to end their lives. The law allows adults to obtain a
prescription for life-ending drugs if a doctor has determined that they have six months or less to live.
The Editor says...
The writers of this law apparently assume that doctors know everything, which they don't, and that
doctors' diagnoses are always right, which they aren't.
California
school board votes to name elementary school after illegal immigrant activist/journalist. At a divisive time
for U.S. immigration policies, a California school board has decided to name a new elementary school after an award-winning
journalist who disclosed in 2011 that he had been living in the U.S. illegally.
Thefts
rise after California reduces criminal penalties. California voters' decision to reduce penalties for drug and
property crimes in 2014 contributed to a jump in car burglaries, shoplifting and other theft, researchers reported.
Ridiculous
Bay Area housing costs may be reflected in a large drop in births. A harbinger of the absurdly high cost of
housing in the San Francisco Bay Area may be visible in the region's maternity wings. San Francisco is a city of few
children. You're more likely to see a French bulldog roaming Alamo Square Park than packs of kids frolicking among the
Victorians. The lack of youngsters is indicative of a larger issue in the city: the absurdly high cost of
housing. According to a new study, when housing prices go up, the birth rate goes down.
Soros
push to elect progressive DAs in California fails to attract voters. New York billionaire George Soros'
multimillion-dollar effort to reshape California's criminal justice system by propping up progressive district attorney candidates
backfired Tuesday [6/5/2018], with most of his candidates suffering major defeats. Soros, together with other wealthy liberal
donors and groups, spent millions on would-be prosecutors who favor lower incarceration rates, crackdowns on police misconduct and
changes in a bail system that they argue discriminates against the poor. But most of the money went to waste as their
candidates lost to more traditional law-and-order prosecutors who didn't share progressive views or have hostile attitudes
toward police.
America's King of Poverty.
I know it is not a pleasant topic but let's take just a moment and think about poverty in this country. Which state do
you think has the highest poverty rate? Must be Mississippi or Alabama or one of those Southern states. No it
ain't. The state with the highest poverty rate is... wait for it, CALIFORNIA!!! Yep, our progressive, income
redistributing state which accounts for 12% of the country's population is home to about 1 in 3 of all U.S. welfare
recipients. Our poverty rate exceeds 20% when the national average is around 15%. It is not as though California policy
makers have neglected to wage their assault on poverty. Since 1992 California has spent nearly $1 trillion on
benefit programs. Clearly it hasn't worked. Then again paying poor people to be poor never does.
The
lawless, porn-respecting, MS-13-loving, humorless American left. [Nancy] Pelosi says the low unemployment is meaningless, the tax cuts
are "crumbs," and that consumer confidence is low despite it being at an 18-year high. They see, hear, think, and propagate what they want
to be true, not what is true. Even California voters made a tiny dent in the left's socialist grasp on the state. No one
expected Republican John Cox to come in second. All Californians should be horrified by what has become of their once golden state.
Thanks to the polices of Gov. Brown, ex-senator Boxer, Feinstein, Kamala Harris, A.G. Becerra, etc. (it is a one-party Marxist
state), California is a disaster of incalculable proportions, drowning in the homeless, the illegal migrants, traffic, and the highest gas prices
in the country.
California
Desperately Needs A State Electoral College. This November a Republican — businessman John
Cox — will be one of two gubernatorial candidates in the state of California. This is significant because of
the Golden State's unique "jungle primary" system in which the top-two vote-getters proceed to a run-off election regardless
of party. The "jungle primary" was championed by former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. His reasoning
was that eliminating party-identification in a race would give Republican candidates a better chance in a deeply blue
state. Of course, the effect was just the opposite. With so many blue voters, the controversial system virtually
guarantees that the top two candidates are Democrats. The result has been that many voters not aligned with the
Democrat platform have been repeatedly forced to choose between candidates that don't in any way represent them.
California
Attorney General adds Oklahoma to growing travel ban list. I am so old that I remember when California Attorney
General Xavier Becerra was fighting against travel bans. Let's get in the Wayback Machine and turn the dial to March,
2017: ["]California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra issued a statement Monday [6/4/2018] saying President Trump's
decision to rescind a travel ban bogged down in court challenges 'confirms what we all knew: the travel ban was unconstitutional
and un-American.'["] Becerra, a social justice warrior and leading general in the War on Trump, relies on one of the
tried-and-tested tools of progressive activism: The Double Standard. This week, he issued his own travel ban on that
red bastion of traditional values and implemented a travel ban on Oklahoma.
Oklahoma
officials unfazed after landing on California's state-travel blacklist. Oklahomans weren't exactly crying in
their sweet tea after learning that their state has been added to California's blacklist on state-sponsored travel.
"There appears to be more and more Californians sharing our values as we are seeing more Californians move to Oklahoma," said
Michael McNutt, spokesman for Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, in a statement. "With our state's economy being as strong
as it is, we won't miss a few Californians traveling on state business showing up in our state."
Prop
68: A Yes Vote is a Reward for Bad Behavior. This adds about $400 of new debt onto your family's tab, that you'll repay in future
taxes plus interest. It promises to be used to prepare for droughts. Remember the $5 billion that was supposed to be used on
new reservoirs a few years ago? It wasn't. The best way to prepare for droughts is to store water from wet years so that we
have it in dry ones.
With
free health care for illegals, California Democrats hand a big campaign contribution to the GOP's Cox. For
Democrats, succoring illegals and doling out nationalized "free" health care are signature issues. What better way to
enact that agenda than to offer California's abundant illegal aliens free state health care? That's the scheme they've
cooked up, in their relentless push to make California a West Coast imitation of socialist Venezuela. It's so bad that
it's likely to draw California voters toward Republicans.
California
rebukes Trump with health care push for immigrants. California is poised to become the first state in the
nation to offer full health coverage to undocumented adults even as the Trump administration intensifies its crackdown by
separating families at the border. The proposal — which would build on Gov. Jerry Brown's 2015 decision
to extend health coverage to all children, regardless of immigration status — is one of the most daring examples
yet of blue-state Democrats thumbing their nose at President Donald Trump as they pursue diametrically opposed policies,
whether on immigration, climate change, legalized marijuana or health care.
California
assisted death law overturned in court. A judge in Riverside County on Tuesday overturned California's
controversial assisted death law nearly two years after it took effect, ruling that the Legislature improperly passed the
measure during a special session on health care funding.
Report finds cases of STDs reach all-time
high in California. The number of cases of sexually transmitted diseases in California reached a record high
last year and officials are particularly concerned by a spike in stillbirths due to congenital syphilis, state health
authorities said Monday [5/14/2018].
California
Bill Seeks to Replace Washington or Lincoln's Birthday Holidays with 'May Day'. A Democrat California
assemblyman introduced a bill seeking to make "May Day," or International Workers Day, a state holiday that would replace
President George Washington's or President Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Assemblyman Miguel Santiago's (D-Los Angeles)
legislation calls for consolidating the two presidents' birthdays to be observed on the third Monday in February as a single
"President's Day" holiday, but it also calls for the state to observe May 1 as "International Workers Day."
Leftist
pol in California proposes scrapping Washington's Birthday in favor of Marxist May Day. Leftists are
notoriously touchy whenever anyone questions their patriotism, and the mask seems to be off with a California assemblyman's
proposal to scrap Lincoln's or Washington's birthdays as holidays and replace them with the communist May Day. Surreal
as this sounds, it's true.
California
Bill Wants To Drop Washington/Lincoln's Birthday And Replace It With Communist Holiday. The California Assembly
discussed Thursday [5/10/2018] a bill that would replace Abraham Lincoln or George Washington's birthday with International Socialist
Workers' Day as a paid holiday. California Democrat Assemblyman Miguel Santiago introduced Bill AB-3042, which would allow schools
to replace Washington Day and Lincoln Day with Presidents' Day and install an "International Workers' Day" — conventionally
known as "May Day" — as a second holiday. "I'm aghast that a bill like this would be able to get through committee,"
California Republican Assemblyman Matthew Harper said to the Assembly. "Are we in competition to be the laughing stock of the
United States?"
The Editor says...
Yes, such a competition is apparently underway, and California is far ahead, although New York is catching up.
California
Demands That Christians 'Evolve'. There's a new legislative proposal banning all conversion therapy as a fraudulent business practice — by
not just mental health providers but anyone. Since the "independent fact-checkers" are quick to swarm around conservative "misinformation," FactCheck.org,
PolitiFact and Snopes have all cried "False" at the idea that this bill is a threat to the sale of the Bible. They declared that a threat against Bible
sales is nowhere in the text of California Assembly Bill 2943, offered by gay assembly member Evan Low. That is correct ... on its face.
It doesn't mention the Bible. However, the bill would amend the state Consumer Legal Remedies Act, adding the ability to sue for damages for
"advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual." Any efforts to change someone's
sexual orientation "in a transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer are unlawful."
That's more than therapy. It's any kind of an argument.
California
Voters Oppose Arming Teachers to Shoot Back if Under Attack. By a wide margin California voters support more
gun control and oppose arming teachers to shoot back if under attack. The opposition to armed teachers was uncovered
via a Berkeley-IGS Poll and reported by the Sacramento Bee. The poll found 61 percent of voters opposed arming
teachers while only 37 percent supported it. When viewed by political affiliation, 83 percent of Democrats opposed
allowing teachers to be armed to protect themselves and their students, while 75 percent of Republicans supported the idea.
Christians'
Munich Moment in California. Scarcely any moment in American history is as important for America's Christians as the developing crises
over religious freedom now happening in California. The legislature of Sacramento not only is underhandedly banning books opposed to the
doctrines of the transgender religion (including the Bible), but also has threatened Christians' rights to free assembly and freedom of speech.
According to its website, Summit Ministries, an organization devoted to advising Christian youths on how to live out a Christian worldview, has
canceled its scheduled appearances at Biola University in Los Angeles "due to concerns that California will forbid some of what it teaches."
Summit's concern is real.
How
Homeschoolers Defeated California's Push to Take Power From Parents. They came by the hundreds, one newspaper
said — "perhaps thousands." Some traveled hours, others waited hours, all for the opportunity to protest one of
the most outrageous homeschooling bills ever introduced: California's AB 2756. Spilling out into crammed hallways
and overflow rooms, families poured into the Statehouse just for the opportunity to spend a few minutes speaking out on a measure
that would give the government more power over parents who educate at home. Initially, the bill tried to mandate fire
inspections of all homeschooling families (which, not surprisingly, firefighters rejected). Then the proposal was
amended — this time to force homeschooling families to give out private information about the names and address
of homeschooling families.
They Keep Telling Us Who
They Are. The California legislature is processing a bill to ban and criminalize all speech, all writing, that
goes against "LGBTQ priorities". Assembly Bill 2943, which has already sailed through two committees, would criminalize
"efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions." It seems to be aimed at practicing psychologists, psychiatrists,
or counselors whose clients ask them to help them get rid of unwanted sexual attractions; but the bill is so vaguely written
that it could be used against virtually anybody — commentators who dissent from the agenda of Organized Sodomy,
parents who teach their children that there are only two "genders," and Biblically orthodox churches where homosexual
acting-out is presented as a sin.
Yes,
California Is on the Verge of Banning Some Christian Books, Here's How. Late last week, I wrote an article that
caused a bit of a furious reaction in social-justice Twitter. Activists claimed I was lying, arguing in bad faith,
and/or exaggerating the effect of California's AB 2943, a bill that purports to declare "sexual orientation change efforts"
to be an "unlawful business practice." I claimed the bill was so broad that it could even ban books. And I'm
right. It can and would.
California
Bill Would Criminalize Speech, Books Opposing LGBT Agenda. In a direct assault on the freedoms of speech and
religion, the California Assembly on Thursday [4/19/2018] overwhelmingly approved a bill that would, in effect, prohibit the
dissemination of traditional Christian teaching on homosexuality and transgenderism. The Assembly voted 50-14 to
criminalize "a transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer" that
consists of "advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual." The
bill defines "sexual orientation change efforts" as "any practices that seek to change an individual's sexual orientation.
This includes efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or
feelings toward individuals of the same sex."
New California Bill
Would Mean Banning the Bible. The bill in question is California Assembly Bill 2943. It would treat as a criminal
violation of the state's consumer fraud act "the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer" that consists of "advertising,
offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual." Don't be misled into thinking that
this bill bans only professional counselors from trying to alter same-sex attractions. It goes well beyond that.
California launches
an attack against churches!? A California State Assembly is gearing up to vote on new bill that could ban the
sale of books and punish churches that encourage children to stick to traditional gender norms. Yes, you read that
right — they want to ban books that say things like, "Girls wear dresses" and shutter churches that encourage boys
to wear slacks. Assembly Bill 2943 would make it "unlawful business practice" to engage in "a transaction intended to
result or that results in the sale or lease of good of services to any consumer" that engages in "sexual orientation change
efforts with an individual."
California's
crazy-intrusive politicians can't keep their hands off anything — Next up? Homeschoolers!
[Scroll down] The recently introduced Assembly Bills 2756 and 2926 are cases in point. This first, AB 2756,
requires fire marshals to perform in-home inspections of home-schoolers every year, implying that somehow home-educators are
less fire-safe than other individuals. This is, of course, egregiously discriminatory on its face. But wait.
The second one is even worse! With AB 2926, Assembly Member Susan Eggman proposes forming an appointed committee to
"investigate" homeschooling. The "instruction" committee would subsequently share its findings so that the California
legislature might consider how best to regulate those families. Because there isn't anything a bureaucrat loves
more than a new regulation! And these particular bureaucrats are already doing such a fine job of regulating
our public schools that roughly half of California public school students surveyed reported experiencing bullying.
California
Has Highest Poverty Rate In America. Democrats in California have consistently rejected forcing work
requirements on the able-bodied individuals who receive welfare. Forcing those who can work to look for a job and/or
maintain employment before receiving benefits is a policy unpalatable for the democrats who control the state.
Americans in California are mostly jobless and the ones who can find work are actually having their money taken through the
highest state income tax in the union to support immigrants, the majority of which are on welfare.
Why
do Democrats love tax hikes so much? California is already seeing residents and businesses flee the state
because of its sky-high taxes. Yet unbelievably, two Democratic state assemblymen have proposed to more than double the
state business tax — hiking it from 8.84 percent to 18.84 percent on businesses with annual net incomes of
more than $1 million. This would be the highest state corporate tax rate in America. The rationale for the giant
tax hike? Denying the companies tax savings from the federal income tax cuts recently signed into law by President
Trump. Soak the rich! Billions in new tax revenue for the state! What could possibly be wrong with that?
California's
latest contradictions — Welcoming criminals but warning about 'dangerous' coffee. Imagine a state
that passes a law welcoming, embracing and protecting criminals, directly endangering citizens. Then imagine that same
state passing laws, and judges issuing orders that make no sense except to micromanage people's lives in the name of keeping
them safe. A contradiction indeed, and especially ripe in California. The same week that a number of cities and
counties in California sued their own state over the dangerous law making the state a "sanctuary" for illegal alien
criminals, a judge issued a ruling to save Californians from themselves and their coffee-drinking habit.
Can America Survive
the Latest Plague? The left survives within a self-made mirage that uses well written speeches containing caring and poetic language
and emotional appeals that appear to be on the side of good, protecting the weak and needy in society. But in fact, the left exploits and
manipulates both weak and poor to continue to remain in power. Consider the infected American cities of Detroit, Baltimore, and Chicago,
where the left has total control and can implement whatever programs it wants, and look at the result: perpetual devastation, crime, and
misery. California, a once wealthy and successful state, is now an insolvent laughingstock of the world.
California
Democrat Introduces Bill to Force Websites to Use 'Fact-Checkers'. California State Senator Dr. Richard
Pan (D-Sacramento) has proposed a bill, the "Online False Information Act," that would require anyone who posts news on the
Internet to verify their information through "fact-checkers." The bill, filed quietly in late February as SB 1424,
requires all California-based websites to develop a plan to fight "fake news," to use "fact-checkers," and to warn
readers — including via social media — of "false information."
The Editor says...
Why stop at social media? Why not require the same of broadcasters and newspapers? Is CNN always
100% accurate? Is MSNBC never misleading? Is The New York Times not biased?
The Justice
Department Sues California. On Monday [4/2/2018], the Department of Justice filed suit against the state of California,
challenging a state law that purports to prevent the federal government from selling federal lands without the permission of a state
agency. Passed by the California legislature in October 2017, Senate Bill 50 declares that, with limited exceptions, "conveyances
of federal public lands in California are void" unless the State Lands Commission is provided a "right of first refusal" or "the right
to arrange for the transfer of the federal public land to another entity." The statute also prohibits purchasers of federal land
from recording the deed to the newly acquired property without an accompanying "certificate of compliance" from the state commission
and provides for a $5,000 civil penalty for buyers who violate this provision.
'Remarkably
stupid': Calif Dems push 'first of its kind' legislation restricting when a cop can use his gun. Talk about
handcuffing police, California Democrats are pushing an unprecedented law to limit when a cop can use his/her weapon.
Following the shooting death of an unarmed black man in Sacramento last month by police, state lawmakers have proposed
legislation that raises the threshold for when an officer may open fire, Huffington Post reported.
Trump
is right — California is out of control. When President Trump recently visited California, he came
away with the sense that it "is totally out of control." If he arrived at that conclusion from just a single visit, imagine
how many who live in the state feel. To be fair, California itself isn't out of control. There are many among the
40 million who honorably and honestly go about their daily business. Outside of Antifa riots and some infantile
behavior on college campuses, there are no mobs in the streets; crime is up but not unrestrained; there are multiple efforts
brewing to break up the state, but none are threatening violent insurgencies (though there is a Calexit movement that calls
for the state to leave the union). What is out of control is California's ruling class. Much of its political
agenda is hostile to basic human liberty and mocks the limits on what government should be allowed to do in an ostensibly
free society.
Is
The Golden State Trying To Secede? There may be hope in California yet. Despite the state's political descent into
madness by illegally declaring itself a "sanctuary state," the resistance it growing. California has a political and legal fight
on its hands, one it can't win.
Is
California Governor Jerry Brown Mentally Ill? The entire country is talking about the collapse of California due to decades of
insane liberal policies. And what is Governor Brown's response? He implemented hundreds more destructive liberal rules, regulations,
and giveaways to illegals. An article listing the top ten stupidest new California laws includes "Single-User Restrooms," "Controlling
Cow Flatulence," "Legalizing Child Prostitution," and "Felons Voting." Governor Brown signed a new law making California a sanctuary state,
doubling down on his bizarre quest to undermine American citizens. [...] Numerous California families have suffered devastating losses of family
members killed by illegals with long felony records who have been deported several times and welcomed back with open arms by Brown. One
mom whose son was killed by an illegal with two DUIs and two felonies said Brown should be arrested for treason.
California
Appoints Illegal Alien to State Office. California has its first illegal alien in state office, after Senate
President pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) appointed Lizbeth Mateo to the California Student Opportunity and Access
Program Project Grant Advisory Committee. Mateo, an attorney, was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. illegally at the
age of 14 with her parents, who are also illegal aliens, according to the Sacramento Bee.
San
Francisco Is Suffering From The Excesses Of Its Own Liberalism. I live in a reasonably decent section of San Francisco, and
from what I gathered in speaking to many others, everyone has had his or her version of San Franciscan traumas. San Francisco, one of
the richest cities in the country and home to a booming center of intellectual capital, has suffered from the excesses of its own liberalism.
Bloated and inefficient spending, combined with a gross shortage of housing only worsened by rent-control antics and a fat city bureaucracy, has
left a city in utter disrepair. [...] The relative "coronation" of Democrats each election on the local and state level has led to a general
erosion of performance from the reigning party, which rarely feels the pressure to perform, given the absence of a legitimately competitive
rival party.
Is California becoming
America's Taiwan? Taiwan is an independent nation — in its ambitions, its economy, its democracy.
But many countries refuse to recognize it as a separate country, deferring to mainland China, which claims Taiwan as a
possession and responds with threats when Taiwan goes its own way. California shares aspects of this conundrum.
Our state has the ambitions, economy, and democracy of a leading nation. But it remains very much a part of the United
States, which responds with threats when California goes its own way.
California
Has Become a Disgraceful State. At one time, California was the envy of America, attracting people from around
the nation to move to a state offering opportunity and the chance to pursue ambitious dreams. With scenic beauty, the
Pacific Ocean coastline, the major cities of San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco, California recruited entrepreneurs
looking for economic growth. As the home of Hollywood and multitudes of celebrities, California presented an enticing
potential to enjoy "lifestyles of the rich and famous." Today, California has become an economic and cultural
disaster. The state is home to over 114,000 homeless people, one quarter of the total in the nation. In San
Francisco, a health crisis has developed as the homeless have created a mess in the downtown area, littering it with fecal
matter, spent needles and piles of trash.
I
hope Democrats defend sanctuary cities. It's bad policy, and it'll cost them. The Justice Department is
now challenging several laws in California that not only interfere with the nation's immigration policies but also place
American citizens and law enforcement personnel at risk. The idea that laws can be ignored and that state and local
politicians can affirmatively warn lawbreakers of how to escape apprehension is incredible. It is indefensible.
We either have laws, or we don't. And if our elected leaders don't want to uphold the law, they can either change them
or resign. The law is not optional once you have made a pledge to uphold the duties of your office. Open-border
radicals in California and other liberal strongholds must be held accountable. Of course, liberals would have you
believe that they are only interested in protecting the poor, the oppressed and the hardworking who have nowhere else to go.
But in many cases, their actions allow dangerous and sometimes repeat criminals to be shielded from deportation or prison.
Dear California: Call
Me When the Commies Leave. I don't care what the libs do to the likes of New York, Chicago, or the Pacific
Northwest. Let the progressive loons have cities and states that are already cold, wet and miserable. But, as I
often asked audiences, why should we let them have a place as glorious as California? Apparently, no one was
listening. When the Democrats gained a super-majority stranglehold on the California legislature, they didn't waste any
time letting their far-left freak flag fly. As soon as some bills were floated, then passed, people began asking me in
private and in public interviews about the legislative madness issuing forth from Sacramento. I thought most of it was
boilerplate liberal lunacy that wouldn't stand up to any strict legal scrutiny, which made me shrug it off.
How
a list of 23 crimes now dominates California's debate over prison punishment. California has a long history of
mixing crime and punishment with raw politics. But outrage doesn't always translate into coherent policy, and
unintended consequences can spark even more public anger. With that in mind, consider the last two years of debate over
what should, and should not, be a "violent" crime. That debate begins with the index of crimes in section 667.5 of the
California Penal Code. The list was first enacted in 1976, and has been tinkered with so many times it's hard to say
whether it's a fair representation of the most heinous crimes.
California
has worst 'quality of life' in US, study says. Awards season is in full swing in California, and the Golden
State just took home a booby prize of its own. California ranks dead last among U.S. states in quality of life,
according to a study by U.S. News, ranking behind New Jersey (49th) and Indiana (48th). The ignominious honor reflects
California's low marks in the sub-categories of environmental quality and social engagement. The latter category
measures voting participation and community bonds. Californians scored poorly in part because they're simply
insufferable, U.S. News suggested.
U.S.
News Crowns California Worst State for 'Quality of Life'. The U.S. News & World Report has named
California the worst state for "quality of life," largely due to the high cost of living. U.S. News ranks the 50
U.S. states each year on eight major social and economic categories to determine an overall competitive ranking. California
received an overall score of 32 in 2018, based on sub-category rankings for a Health Care (11); Education (26); Economy (4);
Opportunity (46); Infrastructure (38); Crime and Corrections (28); Fiscal Stability (43); and Quality of Life (50).
U.S. News found California's high cost of living to be its biggest detriment, despite its having the largest economy
in the nation. San Jose and San Francisco both ranked in the 20 top places to live in U.S., but two communities
were also in the most expensive for housing.
Pelosi
the 'most right-wing'? Only in San Francisco. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is regarded by most Republicans as a
far-left liberal. But a recent column identifies the San Francisco Democrat as the "most right-wing" candidate running in her
district this year. Emily Cadei, a correspondent for the Sacramento Bee, wrote Monday [2/26/2018] that Pelosi —
who'll turn 78 on March 26 — will be forced to fight off three opponents, all coming at her from the left,
when she seeks re-election later this year.
Dianne
Feinstein No Longer Left-Wing Enough for California. This is a woman who was once mayor of San Francisco, who has
argued for the confiscation of guns from law-abiding gun owners, and whose lifetime ACU rating is under 10%. (Meaning she
has voted conservatively less than 10% of the time.) But Kevin de Leon is an even bigger anti-gun zealot, a man so far
left he introduced environmental regulation so radical (banning all fossil fuels in California) not even the hard-left Democrat
legislature would go for it. (Probably because existing renewable energy bills have already made California's electric
bills look like Michigan's car insurance premiums. Worse, actually.
Democratic
Lunacy on Full Display in California. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has promised everything she can for
the young illegal aliens and her increasingly restive left-leaning caucus. The House members are grousing privately
about how their leader is ruining their brand across the country. As for the illegal aliens and their activist
enablers, they overwhelmed one of her press conferences in San Francisco. They badgered her US Senate colleagues,
including Chuck Schumer by protesting outside of his home in New York State. Two weeks ago, Pelosi stood for 8 hours to
demand that a clean DREAM Act be attached to the latest budget-spending bill. Nothing happened.
Meanwhile, since 2016 the Democratic Party has moved further left than anyone would have anticipated since 2016. They
will embrace every letter in the LGBTQAI etc. list, they want to repeal the Second Amendment, abolish the First, get rid
of the United States Constitution.
San Francisco Prisons
Implement Reforms Giving Transgenders Special Treatments. San Francisco prisons formally announced they are implementing
a policy for transgenders that will respect their gender preferences, house them in the cells of their chosen identity, and offer other
gender identity services. The San Francisco Sheriff's Department announced Wednesday [2/21/2018] that inmates who identify as
transgender, gender variant or non-binary will be able to choose a name and gender identity upon entering the prison. They will
also get to determine if a man or woman will search them before they're admitted into the prison, according to CBS San Fransisco.
Diseased Streets.
How dirty is San Francisco? An NBC Bay Area Investigation reveals a dangerous mix of drug needles, garbage, and feces
throughout downtown San Francisco.
California's
Paradox: More Immigration, More Poverty. California is a land of untold opulence. Hollywood's
glitter dazzles the gawking masses, while the world's most profitable companies, Google, Apple, and Facebook, funnel cash
into the Golden State from every corner of the earth. And yet California is also desperately poor. One-in-five
Californians live in poverty, the state's income inequality is worse than Mexico's, and untold thousands live on the
streets. California is a dystopia. How can so much wealth and poverty coexist? This is the California
paradox. It was not always this way. California used to be home to America's largest and most affluent middle
class. Now it is a playground for the rich and a prison for the poor. How did the Golden State become America's
poverty capital?
Tucker:
Violent Criminal Illegals Now a 'Protected Class' in California. Illegal aliens — including violent
criminals — have become a protected class in California, Fox News host Tucker Carlson declared Tuesday
[2/13/2018], reacting to the state's new sanctuary policy: "It doesn't matter even if they have a history of crime,
even violent crime. In California, illegal aliens are now a protected class. And even more significant, the state
itself is now in direct opposition to this country's most basic laws." Carlson listed several ways California's laws give
special treatment to illegal aliens: [...]
California
Will Block Oil And Coal Shipments, Risks Constitutional Battle. California officials plan on preventing the
federal government from transporting oil and gas using existing pipelines in the state, according to a report Wednesday [2/7/2018]
from The San Francisco Chronicle. Officials on the California Coastal Commission are urging the federal Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management (BOEM) to rescind plans allowing companies to drill for oil off the coast. They are still hoping for
an exemption from the oil drilling plan, that Florida has received.
Starting
Today, San Francisco Is Erasing Everybody's Misdemeanor Pot Convictions. San Francisco District Attorney George
Gascón announced today [1/31/2018] that his office will proactively expunge and seal the records of misdemeanor
marijuana offenders, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The office will also resentence offenders who received a
felony pot conviction. Proposition 64, the 2016 referendum item that legalized recreational marijuana in California,
allows pot offenders to petition for resentencing if their crime would have received a different penalty, or no penalty at
all, under the new law.
California's
Soft Secession Accelerates. California's progressive government is one part healthy federalism and one part
unhealthy separatism. If (and this is a big if) the state can temper its soft secession, California's progressives may
actually — in all their radicalism — show us a path out of our dangerous national polarization.
But first, let's chronicle what California is doing. Its resistance to the White House is well known. The state
government has filed 26 separate lawsuits against the Trump administration. That's roughly one new complaint every two
weeks, with challenges touching at least 17 different subject areas. Moreover, California is now a "sanctuary state"
and therefore sharply limits the extent to which its citizens or public entities can voluntarily cooperate with federal immigration
authorities. It's even considered imposing penalties on companies that worked to build a Trump border wall.
Eek! A man! In
the case of San Francisco city policy, it isn't so much how many heroin needles should be distributed outside the quinoa
cafes, or what punishment to exact upon sippers of straws. It isn't about what to do with car break-ins, which have
spiked to fever proportions and are growing at 26% annually. Nor is the debate about housing, where vibrantly
successful Democrat policy has caused "inflation adjusted construction costs [to] increase in San Francisco over the last
16 years by 60% not including changes in land values." All of these policies are right on the mark.
The trouble is the skin color and sex of the people in city hall.
New
California law will automatically register illegal immigrants to vote... and it all begins on April Fool's Day! A new
law in California that goes into effect this spring will automatically register people to vote — including immigrants who are
in the country illegally. In 2015, the state passed a law called the California New Motor Voter Act to increase voter rolls by
simplifying the process to register to vote. The legislation, which goes into effect April 1, will automatically register
people who apply for a new driver's license or new state ID at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Why
are so many people poor in the Golden State? It's not as if California policymakers have neglected to wage war
on poverty. Sacramento and local governments have spent massive amounts in the cause, for decades now. Myriad state
and municipal benefit programs overlap with one another; in some cases, individuals with incomes 200 percent above the
poverty line receive benefits, according to the California Policy Center. California state and local governments spent
nearly $958 billion from 1992 through 2015 on public welfare programs, including cash-assistance payments, vendor payments,
and "other public welfare," according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Unfortunately, California, with 12 percent of the
American population, is home today to roughly one in three of the nation's welfare recipients. The generous spending,
then, has not only failed to decrease poverty; it actually seems to have made it worse.
California
AG: 'We will prosecute' employers who violate sanctuary laws. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra warned
employers Thursday of legal repercussions if they assist federal immigration officials in an impending crackdown in the
sanctuary state, The Sacramento Bee reported. Under a new state law — the Immigration Worker Protection
Act — employers and businesses could face fines of up to $10,000 if they provide employee information to U.S.
Immigration Customs, Becerra said. If employers "start giving up information about their employees or access to
their employees in ways that contradict our new California laws, they subject themselves to actions by my office.
We will prosecute those who violate the law," he said at a news conference.
California
Democrats want businesses to give half their tax-cut savings to state. 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.
Crazed
California AG Threatens Charges Against Employers Aiding ICE Raids On Illegal Aliens. In a shocking admission
Thursday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D-CA) threatened his office will charge employees cooperating with ICE
raids on illegal aliens. [...] The news comes amid Homeland Security head Kirstjen Nielsen telling the Senate Judiciary
Committee Tuesday [1/16/2018] that her Department is preparing to arrest leaders of sanctuary cities.
'We will
prosecute' employers who help immigration sweeps, California AG says. The state's top cop issued a warning to
California employers Thursday [1/18/2018] that businesses face legal repercussions, including fines up to $10,000, if they assist
federal immigration authorities with a potential widespread immigration crackdown. "It's important, given these rumors that
are out there, to let people know — more specifically today, employers — that if they voluntarily start
giving up information about their employees or access to their employees in ways that contradict our new California laws, they
subject themselves to actions by my office," state Attorney General Xavier Becerra said at a news conference. "We will
prosecute those who violate the law."
The Editor says...
The AG is very selective about the laws he will defend. "We will prosecute those who violate the law," he says.
But that doesn't mean he will prosecute those who are not supposed to be in this country.
Does
the California Model Really Work? The alleged success of the California model is one of the more intense
controversies in the nerdier corners of public-policy debate. For many progressives, California's metastasizing
liberalism proves you can have Scandinavian-style social policies and tax rates and still have robust economic growth.
For conservatives, California is like a bumblebee. On paper, [it] shouldn't be able to fly — and yet it
does. Thus the cottage industry on the right of prophesizing California's inevitable demise.
Making
California Mexico Again. After the November 2016 election, California governor Jerry Brown, a three-time
presidential loser, denounced the victorious Donald Trump and pledged that the Golden State would go its own way, perhaps
even launching its own satellites. Brown's attorney general Xavier Becerra, once on Hillary Clinton's short list as a
running mate, also defies the federal government. Senate boss Kevin de León, which is not the name on his birth
certificate and voter rolls, authored the state's sanctuary legislation that has made false-documented illegals, even
criminals, a privileged, protected class. In early January, after the legislation kicked in, California's Assembly
speaker Anthony Rendon took things to a new level. "There is no sensible place for barriers between California and
Mexico," said Rendon, heading south with fellow Democrats on a four-day mission to Mexico.
San
Francisco Requires Poop Maps To Help Pedestrians Avoid Human Waste. For those who have maintained that San
Francisco is full of ... whatever, there is now living proof. How much poop is there on the streets of the City by
the Bay? Would you believe there is an online map to track human feces on the city's streets? There is.
According to Fox News, one area of the city reported a 140% rise in feces. As Jay Caruso of RedState noted, "Public
urination is so widespread it has damaged subway elevators and escalators, building walls and power poles." When did the
gleaming jewel that was San Francisco become a repository for poop? Mayor Willie Brown terminated ordinances; city
district Attorney Terence Hallinan would not prosecute "victimless" crimes involving drugs and prostitution.
What's the Matter with California?
The progressives who control every aspect of the state's government are not necessarily stupid people, but they are
malign. They understand that increasing welfare spending only encourages the arrival of more recipients on whom to
spend it, and the high likelihood that those new constituents will vote Democrat as soon as they are able, legally or
otherwise. Already, some 55 percent of "immigrants" receive means-tested benefits, while only 30 percent of native
Californians do so. California's army of bureaucrats contributes as well, as does the state's highly restrictive land-use
ordinances and environmental restrictions, which drive up the cost of housing in what is already the nation's most expensive
real-estate market.
Why
California is the 'poverty capital of the America'. An excellent op-ed in the L.A. Times today by Kerry Jackson
is on why California — with its liberal politics and generous welfare system — is the "poverty capital
of America." According to the Census Bureau, one out of five California residents is poor. This despite the state's
per capita GDP rising twice as fast in the last five years as the national average. From 1992 to 2015, state and local
governments spent nearly $1 trillion to help the poor. The state, with 12% of the American population, is home today
to about one in three of the nation's welfare recipients. Jackson then reaches the not so astonishing conclusion:
"The generous spending, then, has not only failed to decrease poverty; it actually seems to have made it worse."
Why
is liberal California the poverty capital of America? Guess which state has the highest poverty rate in the
country? Not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia, but California, where nearly one out of five residents is
poor. That's according to the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure, which factors in the cost of housing, food,
utilities and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income. Given robust job growth
and the prosperity generated by several industries, it's worth asking why California has fallen behind, especially when the
state's per-capita GDP increased approximately twice as much as the U.S. average over the five years ending in 2016 (12.5%,
compared with 6.27%).
Hate-speech
Laws USA? California Prosecutes Man for Anti-Muslim Posts. California is already flouting federal immigration
law with its "sanctuary" status. Now it's also ignoring the most American of laws — the First
Amendment — prosecuting a man simply for posting five anti-Muslim messages to Facebook. The hapless
defendant is 41-year-old Mark Feigin, who expressed his opinions at the Islamic Center of Southern California's (ICSC)
Facebook page in 2016. Feigin is certainly an acerbic, acid-tongued, foul-mouthed fellow, and he admits to sending the
messages. But while many may not like their substance and/or style, they're clearly an example of constitutionally
protected speech.
Rainbow Textbooks Adopted
in California. Late last year, the California board of education brought to an end a decades-long campaign to
emphasize lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender historical figures in state social-studies/history textbooks, approving
K-8 volumes that make identity politics of all kinds the core of the subject. California has had enormous influence
on the nation's history textbooks in the past, and single-interest groups have long flocked to Sacramento to try to gain
expanded, favorable inclusion. The LGBT lobby has been notably assertive. [...] In 2006, Sen. Sheila Kuehl of Santa
Monica — the state's first openly gay legislator — introduced a bill that would require textbooks
to include LGBT contributions to state and national history.
California
federal court rules high school football player can't be ordered to stand for national anthem. A California
federal court has ruled that a high school football player cannot be ordered to stand for the national anthem before
games. The decision, made by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California on Dec. 21, struck down
statutes enforced by the San Pasqual Valley Unified School District, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday [12/30/2017].
The district prohibited students from "kneeling, sitting or similar forms of political protest" at sporting events and "required
students and coaches to "stand and remove hats/helmets during the playing or singing of the national anthem," according to court
documents.
California
Prosecuting Man For Anti-Muslim Insults. Here in the United States of America, the California Attorney General
is actually prosecuting a man for Internet insults.
Six
Insane California Laws That Will Be Implemented On Monday. [#3] Employers can't ask applicants abouttheir salary history:
Private employers — yes, private employers — can't ask people who want money from them silly questions like how much money they've made in
the past or are making at their current job. It will be interesting to see the inevitable unintended consequences of AB 168.
It will be at least a little more difficult for a company to gauge what a reasonable offer looks like without knowing what an applicant is
currently making or recently made. Sure, employers will ask questions like, "What would you like to make?" and smart applicants will
clarify their expectations at some point in the interview process. But, really, it's not the government's business how an employer and
an applicant work out any mutually benecial agreement.
Gov.
Jerry Brown Pardons Immigrant Felons Facing Deportation. In California governor Jerry Brown's endless attempts
to drag California to third world nation status, he is now pardoning immigrants convicted of felonies in order to save them
from being deported.
California
becomes 'sanctuary state' as Gov. Brown defies Trump administration. California became a "sanctuary state"
on Thursday [12/21/2017] as Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation protecting illegal immigrants in defiance of
the Trump administration. The bill, approved by the state's legislature last month, bars police from asking people about
their immigration status or participating in federal immigration enforcement activities in most cases starting Jan. 1.
Mileage
Tax Could Drive More Middle-class Residents From California. A proposal to charge California drivers for every
mile they drive threatens to bring an end to a way of life in the Golden State. For decades, the California lifestyle
was almost synonymous with Californians' love affair with the automobile. The Golden State's freeways were legendary,
and Californians' fascination with cars was celebrated in a number of car-themed songs during the 1960s (e.g., "The Little
Old Lady From Pasadena," "Little Deuce Coupe"). The scenes of teenagers cruising in their cars in American Graffiti were
based on the memories of the film's director, George Lucas, during his own teenage years in early 1960s Modesto. But
the combination of impossibly heavy traffic on those beloved freeways, the state's imposition of ultra-strict automobile
emissions requirements, and increasingly higher gasoline taxes have diminished considerably the joy that Californians
experienced driving their cars.
Report: California's
$15 Minimum Wage Will Destroy 400,000 Jobs. California's massive state-wide jump to a $15 minimum wage could
conservatively cost around 400,000 potential jobs, according to a new Employment Policy Institute study. "California
Dreamin' of Higher Wages," strives to evaluate what the state's jump to a $15 minimum wage will mean when it fully kicks in
in 2022 by attempting to contextualize it with the empirical effects of previous minimum wage increases in the state going
back to 1990. The results are pretty dire. They believe that by the time the minimum wage fully kicks in the
state will have lost 400,000 jobs as a consequence. These job losses will not be evenly distributed throughout the state's
workforce. They will hit food service, retail, and agriculture jobs the hardest. Overall, this a four percent loss
of jobs out of workforce estimated at around 10 million.
Some
Real Talk For Conservatives About 2018. We conservatives need to get our heads right about the mid-terms or
liberals will end up guzzling patriot tears and their gloating will be flat-out intolerable. We're not doomed in
2018 — I mean, it's not like tax reform or pulling out of the Paris Climate Scam, which have already killed
millions of people, including me and you. But, if we fail to get on course for victory then we're going to see Nancy
Pelosi and the Gropeocrats back in charge and trying to make America into California. Trust me. You
do not want to live in the United States of California.
California
still hasn't paid a dime of the $1.2 billion in claims from people whose homes and businesses were destroyed by Oroville Dam
crisis. California has not paid any of the $1.2 billion claims stemming from the Oroville Dam crisis, it has
emerged. The main spillway of the nation's tallest dam was heavily damaged in February, after heavy rains forced the dam
operators to continue using it[.] The flows exacerbated damage to the structure, eventually carving a massive gash through
the concrete spillway.
California
Sued by Students & Parents for Failing to Teach Literacy. A group of parents and students has filed what it
hopes will be a landmark lawsuit against the State of California for its public schools failing to teach literacy.
Public Counsel and the prestigious Law Firm of Morrison & Foerster sued the State of California, the State Board of
Education, the State Department of Education, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson for their
collective failure to provide every child in the state access to literacy as required under the California Constitution.
Poll:
CA Dems in Trouble Over High Costs, Jobs, Taxes & Illegal Aliens. California Democrats could be in trouble in
2018, with the latest USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll finding registered voters' top concerns are the traditionally
Republican issues of high cost of living, jobs, taxes, and illegal immigrants. The USC poll found that the most
important concerns for voters are the high cost of living, at 21.8 percent; followed by jobs, at 9.9 percent;
taxes and fees, at 8.9 percent; and illegal immigration, at 6.9 percent.
Politico:
Jerry Brown, President of the Independent Republic of California. David Siders writes in Politico that California Governor
Jerry Brown, as he visits Europe en route to the United Nations climate talks, is functioning rather more like the leader of a country
distinct from the United States than merely the governor of one of fifty states within that powerful union.
Average
price per gallon up 17 cents in Los Angeles since gas tax took effect. The average price for a gallon of gas in
Los Angeles County is up 17 cents compared to last week after a new 12-cent gas tax was tacked on at the pump. In
Orange County, the average price-per-gallon is 18 cents more than it was one week ago.
California: Proof That
Everything The Liberals Run Turns [Bad]. [Scroll down] It seems to be a habit of government leadership on
the far Left to make everything they govern worse than they found it. It's not only a habit, it seems to be a
requirement. If you challenge them they double down! Again, why? California Democrats want a free college
education for all, including illegals. Free healthcare for all, including illegals. They want more taxes and,
according to Governor Brown, Californians that don't want to pay more taxes are selfish. Democrats who run this state
don't want to explain what they did with the tens of millions of dollars they took from Californians in the guise of taxes
then redirected away from the projects they collected it for. And now, not only do they want Californian's to pay
again, but they also want the Federal government to bail them out. Yup, it's everyone's fault but theirs! And
we all get to pay for it.
California,
the sanctuary state, will reap the whirlwind. Earlier this month, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 54, a
historic state law that thumbs his state's nose at federal authority. Beginning in January, the law states, California officially
becomes a so-called sanctuary state. The term "sanctuary" is, of course, not univocal. It was once used to describe a
sensible law enforcement strategy, by which otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants who report crimes or cooperate with the police
are not asked about their immigration status, lest they hesitate to help authorities in the future. Unfortunately, that is not
what "sanctuary" means in this case.
California
first state to legally recognize third gender option. California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Sunday [10/15/2017]
signed new legislation that will allow state residents to choose a gender option other than male or female on official documents.
The legislation, a top priority of civil rights groups, also makes it easier for transgender people to change their gender
identification on birth certificates or driver's licenses.
New
California law allows jail time for using wrong gender pronoun, sponsor denies that would happen. California
health care workers who "willfully and repeatedly" decline to use a senior transgender patient's "preferred name or pronouns"
could face punishments ranging from a fine to jail time under a newly signed law. [...] The bill itself is aimed at
protecting transgender and other LGBT individuals in hospitals, retirement homes and assisted living facilities. The
bill would ensure those facilities accommodate transgender people and their needs, including letting them decide which
gender-specific bathroom they prefer to use. "It shall be unlawful for a long-term care facility or facility staff to
take any of the following actions wholly or partially on the basis of a person's actual or perceived sexual orientation,
gender identity, gender expression, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status," the bill reads.
California
Sues Trump For Granting Employer 'Choice' on Obama Birth Control Mandate. California wasted no time filing a
lawsuit against the Trump Administration, claiming it discriminated against women when it rescinded the Obama-era mandate
that requires employers to pay for birth control in their healthcare plans.
Knowingly
exposing others to HIV will no longer be a felony in California. Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Friday
that lowers from a felony to a misdemeanor the crime of knowingly exposing a sexual partner to HIV without disclosing the
infection. The measure also applies to those who give blood without telling the blood bank that they are
HIV-positive. Modern medicine allows those with HIV to live longer lives and nearly eliminates the possibility of
transmission, according to state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego), authors
of the bill.
California
to become a 'sanctuary state' in 2018. Gov. Jerry Brown placed new limitations on state and local law
enforcement's ability to help the federal government enforce immigration violations by signing California's controversial
"sanctuary state" bill into law on Thursday [10/5/2017]. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León introduced Senate
Bill 54 weeks after the 2016 election to stifle President Donald Trump's campaign pledge to ramp up deportations and
prevent the federal government from using California police officers to accomplish his goal.
Leftists Never
Fight. [Scroll down] California passed Prop 8, with Blacks supporting it at the 70%+ level, which
defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Prop 8 passed with 52% of the voters supporting it. Yet the Democrat
governor and the Democrat attorney general refused to defend the law as they were required by their oath of office. That
alone shows that Democrats are fascists; it's not up to the governor to decide which laws are constitutional or not; that's
the job of the courts. However, the state courts supported the legality of Prop 8. Not to be deterred,
Democrats took it to a federal court where a closeted gay judge who stood to benefit from ruling against Prop 8
suppressed the will of the people of California.
Bill
advancing universal free school meals for California's hungriest kids heads to Assembly. A bill approved in
Assembly Appropriations this past week would expand free and reduced breakfast and lunch for hundreds of thousands of
students on Medi-Cal. SB 138 — the "Feed the Kids Act" will address childhood hunger by removing a massive
layer of bureaucratic red tape from the State school meal program enrollment process and by serving all students in very high
poverty schools for free. The legislation would develop a universal enrollment process by ensuring that all school
districts utilize Medi-Cal data to seamlessly enroll income-eligible students in free and reduced-price school meals.
With
220 languages spoken in California, courts face an interpreter shortage. Federal law enforcement began
investigating California's courts seven years ago after receiving complaints that two Korean-speaking women in Los Angeles
had been denied court interpreters. Courts in other states also were examined and faulted. Along with California,
they began working to comply with U.S civil rights law, which bars discrimination based on national origin. Failure to
act meant the possible loss of federal money. But nowhere has the task been so challenging as in California, the most
linguistically diverse state in the nation.
California
Tries to Leverage Hurricane Harvey to Fund $20 Billion Flood Control. California hopes to leverage the attention on Hurricane
Harvey flooding to convince the federal government to fund some of the $20 billion needed to repair the dilapidated Central Valley
flood control infrastructure. Harvey has killed at least 34 and caused over $190 billion in damage thus far. The
1,000-year flood is expected to cost the U.S. economy about 1 percent of GDP, or $190 billion, according AccuWeather.
California
Crime Wave Follows Criminal Justice Reform. In November 2014, California voters approved Proposition 47, which
downgraded drug possession and many property crimes from a felony to a misdemeanor. As Debra Saunders reminds us,
proponents argued that lesser punishment for low-level offenders would enhance public safety. Unfortunately, this
utterly counterintuitive notion has not panned out. In San Francisco, according to a police spokesman, theft from cars
is up 47 percent this year over the same period in 2014. Auto theft is up by 17 percent. Robberies are up
23 percent. And aggravated assaults are up 2 percent. (To be fair, burglaries are down 5 percent).
How about Los Angeles? It has seen a 12.7 percent increase in the overall crime this year, according to the
Los Angeles Times. Violent offenses are up 20.6 percent; property crimes by 11 percent.
California
initiative would legalize psychedelic mushrooms. California would become the first state in the nation to
legalize psychedelic mushrooms if a long-shot ballot initiative passes muster with voters next year. The measure is
backed by a legalization activist who says he kicked his heroin habit with the help of a mushroom trip in Death Valley.
It would exempt Californians over the age of 21 from a state law that criminalizes mushrooms containing psilocybin, the
compound that gives some mushrooms psychedelic properties. "There is a cultural fascination with mushrooms that goes
really deep," said Kevin Saunders, the activist behind the initiative. "The soccer moms are all pretty much, for lack
of a better term, high now, and some of them are taking mushrooms."
California
Set To Be First State To Add "Gender X" Designation To Licenses. Up until now, state issued identification
cards around the country have limited gender designations to 'male' and 'female' because, well, biological science has
historically taught us that those were the only two options. But that hateful and narrowed-minded micro-aggression
perpetrated by our genetic code will no longer be tolerated in the state of California, whether it's a scientifically proven
fact or not. As the San Francisco Chronicle points out today [8/29/2017], California's legislature is currently
considering SB 179 that will add a new "nonbinary" gender designation to the state's identification cards.
ACORN
Sues California to Allow More Illegals to Vote. An ACORN offshoot and other left-wing pressure groups are suing
California in federal court because the state hasn't made it easy enough for Democrats to flood voter rolls with illegal
aliens and foreign nationals who aren't legally eligible to vote. Throughout the years Mickey Mouse, Mary Poppins, and
celebrities living and dead were registered to vote because now-defunct ACORN and its allied groups were allowed to pollute
the voter rolls.
California
Could Start Jailing People Who Don't Use Transgender Pronouns. A bill that passed the California state senate
and is now moving through the Assembly could threaten jail time for anyone who refuses to use a transgender person's
preferred pronoun. The law is currently limited in its effects to nursing homes and intermediate-care facilities, but
if passed, those who "willfully and repeatedly" refuse "to use a transgender resident's preferred name or pronouns" could be
slapped with a $1,000 fine and up to one year in prison, according to the California Heath and Safety code. The state
senate passed the bill 26-12 at the end of May. Since then, the Assembly Judiciary committee recommended the bill
unanimously and the General Assembly held its first hearing on the legislation Wednesday [8/23/2017].
Calexit
III? New ballot measure plots route to California independence. On Thursday, people unhappy with California's
place in the United States filed yet another proposed ballot measure that could lead to the Golden State striking out on its
own. This time, the goal is convening a U.S. constitutional convention to overhaul what proponents call a moldy
national blueprint out of step with life in California. The measure says a reworked Constitution should include a
provision creating a "clear and reasonable path for states to achieve complete independence from the United States should
any state so choose." No state has become independent under the existing U.S. Constitution.
On
Illegal Immigration, California Decides They Really Like The 10th Amendment. If you remember back to the debate
over Arizona's SB1070, a law that allowed law enforcement to enforce federal law as written, California, California law
makers, and California papers took the stance that immigration was the purview of the federal government, and that states
couldn't change that in the least. Today, though, as we discuss illegal aliens, California wants to do its own thing[.]
California Can't Fix
Its Housing Problems. Even California's liberal Democrats are starting to understand that the state's housing
crisis is fundamentally a supply-and-demand problem. Home prices have soared to astronomical levels, with a median
price above $750,000 in the nine-county Bay Area and nearly $700,000 in Orange County. Years of growth controls and
local regulations have restricted housing supply and added as much as 40 percent to the price of every new home
that's built. Housing is the key reason California has a 24 percent poverty rate (using the U.S. Census Bureau's
new cost-of-living-adjusted index), the highest in the nation.
Socialists
create youth shortages in California. Socialism has long been associated with shortages, and nowhere is that
more evident than in California, land of surf, sun, skiing, skateboarding, and other youth-oriented pursuits. The
socialists have managed to chase out the youth.
A
Guide to How Bad the Democratic Party Is Right Now. In the Golden State, the progressive wing of the party is
irate that California Democrats shelved a $400 billion state-based single-payer initiative. Death threats were hurled
at state lawmakers for tabling the measure, which met a legislative death because it had no funding mechanisms within the
bill. Also, the leadership election to lead the state's Democratic Party has led to a contested election, where the
establishment figure won, but the Bernie Sanders supporting insurgent has failed to concede.
Democrats Rigging
Election in Broad Daylight. Here in California, the Democratic leadership is busy rigging rules in an election.
The issue is covered on the front pages. But Democrats control every lever of power, so nothing can derail their efforts to save a
vulnerable Democratic senator from a recall. Now the state's ethics watchdog, the California Fair Political Practices Commission,
is in on the action.
Judicial
Watch threatens to sue California - after finding 11 counties with more registered voters than eligible citizens. Dems will often argue
that such fraud is "not widespread," but they're loathe to define what, exactly, 'widespread' means. How many bogus votes need to be cast before
blue states care? Enter Judicial Watch. They're threatening to sue the state of California because Governor Moonbeam's voter rolls have gone
completely off the rails. In 11 counties, Judicial Watch found that there were more registered voters than citizens of legal age.
Sometimes by as much as 144%[.]
Still
Think Our Elections Are Fair?: 11 California Counties Have More Registered Voters Than Voting Age Adults. Right
now there are plenty of Democrats who think Russia hacked our elections, but they'll laugh at Trump's accusation that illegal
immigrants stole the popular vote from him (which is very likely). The truth is that our elections are seriously
compromised, and not by the Russians. The latest example of this fact comes from California, where it was recently
discovered that there are 11 counties that have more registered voters than eligible voters.
L.A.
County hands $1.3 billion to illegals for welfare. Los Angeles County is a massive draw for illegals, with more
than a million flocking there and setting up home — and now we know why. Not only is it hallowed sanctuary
ground; it's also, apparently, taxpayer-dole-out central. Look at this, from Robert Rector with the Heritage
Foundation: "They get $3 in benefits for every $1 they spend," he said, speaking of the costs of education, police,
fire, medical and housing that illegals get, compared to what they pay back by way of taxes. This isn't conjecture.
It's based on analysis of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services database. Among the findings:
In 2015, more than 58,000 families received $602 million in benefits. In 2016, more than 64,000 families received
$675 million.
California
Risks Billions in Sanctuary City Suit Against Trump Administration. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra
is launching a preemptive legal assault against the Trump Administration's promise to pull tens of billions of dollars of
federal funding from "sanctuary cities" that do not cooperate in enforcement against illegal aliens. Attorney General
Becerra is leading a coalition of 300 cities, 18 counties, and the State of California that intend to sue the Trump
Administration over U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' plan to begin cutting off funding to jurisdictions tagged by the U.S.
Justice Department as "sanctuary cities" that harbor illegal aliens from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents,
according to the Sacramento Bee.
Judicial
Watch Warns California: 11 Counties Have More Voters than Voting-Age Citizens. Judicial Watch, a conservative
watchdog organization, has sent a letter to California Secretary of State Alex Padilla on behalf of the Election Integrity
Project, noting that there are 11 counties in the state with more registered voters, and alleging that the state may
be out of compliance with Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
Feinstein
Says We Can't Increase Immigration Enforcement Because No One Will Pick Our Fruit. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein warned
that President Donald Trump's immigration plan would severely cripple the agriculture industry in a Wednesday evening [8/2/2017] interview.
"We're the largest agricultural producer in America[.] It's a $50 billion industry. We employ tens of thousands of agricultural
workers," The Democratic senator said on CNN. "They are among a class that this would be prohibited. It would cripple agriculture if
they didn't have the people coming in to do this work[.]"
Boss
tells state workers: Kick ICE out of California labor offices. California's top labor law enforcer wants
federal immigration agents to stay away from offices where state investigators weigh claims about underpaid employees and
workplace retaliation. Labor Commissioner Julie Su last month directed her staff to turn away Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agents unless the federal officers have warrants. Her directive followed three instances over the past 10
months in which immigration agents sought information about California workers who had filed claims against employers.
In two cases, immigration agents attempted to attend hearings where investigators discuss claims with workers and their
employers, Su said. In all three cases, the agents left when they were asked, she said.
L.A.
County Paid Out $1.3 Billion In Welfare To Illegal Aliens. On the bright side, it's expected that the Los Angeles County will
spend $200 million less in 2017, as fewer illegal aliens arrive and more have left, mostly due to allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) to do their job, to enforce the laws that are on the books, unfettered by politicians and political appointees. We keep being told that
illegal aliens are a boon for our economy. Well, the illegals are getting $3 in benefits for every $1 they spend. It sure seems that
they are more of a drain on taxpayer money that giving more back.
Tucker
Debates 'Calexit' Supporter Who Calls CA 'Not the US'. Tucker Carlson reported that the United States may lose
a star on its flag for the first time ever, if "Calexit" becomes reality. Carlson said the Calexit movement wants
California to become an independent country through a ballot initiative in 2018 that would require 585,000 signatures to get
started. Shankar Singam, a supporter of Calexit and vice president of the California Freedom Coalition, told Carlson
such a split does not have to be "hostile."
California
is working to avoid a shortage of legalized marijuana, state pot czar says. With Nevada suffering a shortage of
legalized marijuana, California's state pot czar said Wednesday [7/19/2017] that efforts are being made in her state to make sure
sufficient licenses go to farmers, testers and distributors to supply retailers. Providing temporary, four-month licenses
to support some businesses including growers is planned "so we don't have a break in the supply chain," Lori Ajax, chief of the
Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation, said in testimony at a legislative hearing. Legal sales began July 1 in Nevada,
but it immediately became clear there was not enough supply to meet demand, in part because unique rules provide alcohol
wholesalers exclusive distributor rights. California does not have the same limits on who can distribute cannabis.
California's
Judicial Council racial sensitivity bureaucrats dress up as black convicts for office party. If anyone needed
proof that California is over-larded with do-nothing, malevolent bureaucrats, maybe the Judicial Council's Halloween party,
which featured racial sensitivity bosses dressed in blackface and turning their cubicles into jail cells, is just that
example. Sure enough, it's an agency that oversees racial sensitivity programs for California's court system.
33
Percent of American Welfare Recipients Live in California. The liberal state of California is a prime example
of why liberal policies must not be adopted anywhere around the country as one-third of America's welfare recipients reside
in the state.
California
Democrats Target Conservative College Students. California state senator Josh Newman, Fullerton Democrat, was
the key vote to approve Jerry Brown's recent $5.2 billion tax hike that jacks up what Californians will pay for gasoline,
diesel fuel, and vehicle fees. At the California State University in Fullerton, College Republicans Amanda McGuire,
Ryan Hoskins and Brooke Paz led efforts to recall Newman. The state Democratic Party responded by changing the rules on
recall elections and targeting the three students with a lawsuit. "This lawsuit intends to stop the petition from
circulating and halt the recall process, falsely citing deceptive messaging as grounds for suing," explains a press release
from the College Republicans. According to the Republicans' secretary Ryan Hoskins. "This lawsuit is the
definition of frivolous and more than an obstruction of the very processes that every Californian should hold dear."
Will
California Ever Thrive Again? The basket of California state taxes — sales, income and
gasoline — rates among the highest in the U.S. Yet California roads and K-12 education rank near the bottom.
After years of drought, California has not built a single new reservoir. Instead, scarce fresh aqueduct water is still
being diverted to sea. Thousands of rural central California homes, in Dust Bowl fashion, have been abandoned due to a
sinking aquifer and dry wells. One in three American welfare recipients resides in California. Almost a quarter
of the state population lives below or near the poverty line. Yet the state's gas and electricity prices are among the
nation's highest. One in four state residents was not born in the U.S.
California
Democratic Party Sues Conservative College Students In Unprecedented Move. Three members of the Cal State Fullerton College Republicans
have been named in a lawsuit backed by the California Democratic Party in retaliation for their work to recall State Senator Josh Newman, who was
the pivotal vote in support of April's $52 billion gas tax increase.
California
Dems panic over their tax hike. Democrats control both houses of the California State Legislature with 2/3 majorities, allowing
them to pass any bills they wish, with no possibility of obstruction from the powerless GOP. As Democrats will when they feel empowered,
they recently passed a major hike in gasoline taxes that will take over $5 billion a year more from the pockets of motorists.
Tucker
on SF's $190K Payout to Illegal Immigrant: 'You Shouldn't Pay a Criminal for Breaking the Law'. An illegal
immigrant is set to be awarded $190,000 from San Francisco after police turned him over to immigration authorities, which is
a violation of the city's sanctuary policy. Pedro Figueroa-Zarceno, who is from El Salvador and was living in the U.S.
illegally, walked into a police station on December 2, 2015, to recover his stolen car. When he left the station, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) immediately took him into custody. Figueroa-Zarceno recently reached the massive
settlement agreement with the city attorney's office. The agreement must be approved by the city's Board of Supervisors.
111
terminally ill end lives under new California law. California health officials reported Tuesday that 111
terminally ill people took drugs to end their lives in the first six months after a 2016 law made the option legal in the
nation's most populous state. The data was part of the California Department of Public Health's first report on the law
since it went into effect June 9, 2016. According to the data generated from forms doctors were required to submit between
June 9 and Dec. 31, 2016, a total of 191 people received life-ending drugs after being diagnosed with having less than
six months to live and 111 people took them and died.
Texas,
three more states on California's banned travel list. California is restricting publicly funded travel to four
more states because of recent laws that leaders here view as discriminatory against gay and transgender people. All
totaled, California now bans most state-funded travel to eight states. The new additions to California's restricted
travel list are Texas, Alabama, Kentucky and South Dakota. They join Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee
as states already subjected to the ban. California Attorney Xavier Becerra announced the new states at a Thursday press
conference, where he was joined by representatives from ACLU Northern California and Equality California. "We will not
spend taxpayer dollars in states that discriminate," Becerra said.
Minimum Wage Madness Begins to Kill Off California's
Restaurant Industry. The restaurant industry is a canary in California's coalmine of moonbattery. Minimum
wage insanity is killing it: [...] It's bad enough in big cities on the coast. Wages, like prices, are lower inland and
in smaller towns. That means that one-size-fits-all central planning is even more unsupportable regarding the minimum
wage. Unemployment is already significantly higher away from the coast in California.
California's
descent to socialism. California is widely celebrated as the fount of technical, cultural and political
innovation. Now we seem primed to outdo even ourselves, creating a new kind of socialism that, in the end, more
resembles feudalism than social democracy. [...] This new progressive synthesis promises not upward mobility and
independence, but rather the prospect of turning most Californians into either tax slaves or dependent serfs.
Half-baked
single-payer health plan amounts to political stunt. On Thursday [6/1/2017], the California state Senate made
the bold move of voting to create a single-payer health system without having any idea of how to pay for it. Ostensibly
spurred by concerns over the future of the Affordable Care Act at the federal level, Senate Bill 562 by Sens. Ricardo
Lara, D-Bell Gardens, and Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, would create a single-payer system which would cover health expenses for
every resident in California. Considering the magnitude of such a proposal, the very least that is owed is a thorough
accounting of how exactly such a program would be paid for. After all, according to estimates from a legislative
analysis provided to the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 22, the proposal is anticipated to cost $400 billion
per year, more than double the state budget.
Hey,
California, Ready To Spend $400 Billion For Your Single-Payer Disaster? California's so-called progressive
Democrats, fresh off their classy "flipping off" of Donald Trump at their state convention, now want to flip off the entire
state by imposing a reckless, economy-destroying single-payer health care system on the state's citizens. If voters
don't stop this madness they'll get what they deserve.
Report:
California Single Payer Healthcare Will Double State Expenditures. The state of California seems determined to
go broke. They want to institute a single payer healthcare system but the cost would be astronomic. In fact, it
would be more than the state's budget.
California
Considers Sanctuary State Legislation to Protect Pot Industry. California lawmakers are talking about doing for
their state's new marijuana industry what they are also trying to do for illegal immigrants: create a sanctuary state where
local police are ordered not to cooperate with federal authorities. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the man who has
the power to unleash enforcement of the federal anti-marijuana law that could shut down the multibillion marijuana industry
in California and every other state where smoking weed for the fun of it is legal.
Democrats Love
Affair With Communism. A bill narrowly passed the house in California, repealing part of the law enacted during
the Cold War era in our country's history when communists were really active and infiltrating our government, attempting to
overthrow it. The bill proposed to eliminate the section which allowed the firing of public employees if they were
members of the Communist Party. The bill now goes to the Senate and its author, Democrat Assemblyman Rob Bonta, hopes
that it will pass. "Assemblyman Randy Voepel, a Southern California Republican who fought in the Vietnam War, said
communists in North Korea and China are still a threat." Assemblyman Travis Allen, also a Republican, said that "this
bill is blatantly offensive to all Californians. Communism stands for everything that the United States stands against."
California
moves to let Communists work in government. The California government may soon employ openly Communist people
in its ranks. The state assembly passed a bill Monday that would repeal a policy that had made being a member of the
Communist Party a fireable offense. The legislation was supported along party lines with most Republicans opposing it
while Democrats mainly favored the policy. It would overturn a bill was signed into law during the Red Scare of the
1940s and 1950s when Americans worried Russian spies were trying to take over the country.
California
State Assembly Votes to Make Communism Great Again. Being a communist would no longer be a fireable offense for California
government employees under a bill passed by the state Assembly. Lawmakers narrowly approved the bill Monday [5/8/2017].
California
Democrats Make Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day Disappear. Monday April 24 was Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day and in Los Angeles
thousands marched in the street outside the Turkish consulate. Up in Sacramento, ruling Democrats ignored the Armenians and instead held
"Muslim Day at the Capitol," hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
California's
Road To Single-Payer Ruin. Never let it be said that California doesn't march to the beat of a different
drummer. While the rest of the country has had second, third and even fourth thoughts about having a single-payer
health care system, the Golden State boldly marches forward into fiscal oblivion.
California
Is Seceding from the Constitution. The entire nation has of course watched as the city of Berkeley and the
University of California, Berkeley ceded control over free speech to violent left-wing mobs. Both the city and the
campus have placed the safety of rioters over the liberty of their conservative citizens, refusing to protect that liberty on
the dubious grounds that someone might get hurt. Thus, city and school leaders have knowingly and intentionally granted
a heckler's veto to the far-left, in effect making the First Amendment a dead letter at one of the nation's (and the world's)
most prominent universities. The rot extends far beyond Berkeley. Just this week, the California assembly's
judiciary committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of AB 569, a bill that would prohibit religious employers from enforcing
entirely normal rules of Christian conduct on their employees. Thus, it would be illegal for Catholic schools to
require that their employees choose life rather than get an abortion.
California's
latest move to "fight the wall" is truly something out of La La Land. There are still budget battles and (probably) blockades
from the 9th Circuit to come, but sooner or later the President is going to get some work started on the border wall. But if and when
he does, California is laying some landmines in advance for any private contractors who dare to bid on the job and pour a single yard of
concrete. In a move being dubbed, "Build it and be banned," California legislators are proposing to impose a permanent ban for
government contracts on any company who takes part in the project.
California
gas tax hike prompts fierce backlash from the right. A 12-cent gas tax hike recently approved by California's
Democratic leaders has prompted a huge backlash on the right, with a grassroots coalition vowing to ensure it never takes
effect. A combination of AM-radio talk show hosts, a consumer advocacy group and a GOP assemblywoman have joined forces
to battle the measure — set to kick in this November — that would give California the dubious honor of
the second-highest gas tax in the nation at 73.2 cents per gallon. Only Pennsylvania residents will pay more, with a
77.7-cent tax.
Berkeley
Mayor Is Member of Militant Leftist Organization's Facebook Group. The mayor of Berkeley, California, is a
Facebook member of a leftist militant organization that has been linked to violent incidents in the city. Mayor Jesse
Arreguin's personal page shows he's a Facebook member of Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight for Equality By
Any Means Necessary (BAMN). According to a 2001 article in the East Bay Express, BAMN, founded in 1995, is
"allegedly a front group for an obscure Detroit-based Trotskyist political party called the Revolutionary Workers League."
Even by UC Berkeley standards, students considered the group extreme.
Single
Payer Is Fool's Gold For California. While the latest Republican attempt to repeal and replace ObamaCare may
have failed, Democrats in California and in D.C. are just getting started in their effort to eliminate the health law.
Unfortunately, they're angling to replace ObamaCare with something even worse.
Police
arrests are plummeting across California, fueling alarm and questions. In 2013, something changed on the
streets of Los Angeles. Police officers began making fewer arrests. The following year, the Los Angeles Police
Department's arrest numbers dipped even lower and continued to fall, dropping by 25% from 2013 to 2015. The Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department and the San Diego Police Department also saw significant drops in arrests during that period.
California
has fewer arrests, but not necessarily less crime. The number of arrests by police in California has plunged in
recent years, but that doesn't necessarily represent good news on crime, according to an analysis published Saturday [4/1/2017].
Los
Angeles Middle School Faces Budget Cut For Having Too Many White People. Los Angeles parents are outraged after
their middle school announced budget cuts because there are too many white students, according to Sunday [3/26/2017]
reports. Walter Reed Middle School announced there would be layoffs and larger classes because the school's white
student body is too big, reports ABC 7. The Los Angeles Unified School District gives schools money only if
white students make up no more than thirty percent of the student population.
California's
Chief Justice: Enforcing Immigration Laws Goes Against The Rule Of Law. Since when is moving to another
country against the law? And since when do we enforce the laws we have on the books?
Nigel
Farage and the 'Bad Boys of Brexit' set their sights on splitting California in two. The 'Bad Boys of Brexit'
who led the campaign to break Britain away from the European Union have taken on a new exit challenge: splitting California
into two states. Former UKip leader Nigel Farage and Leave backer Arron Banks have just returned from the United States,
where they helped raise $1million (£800,000) for a 'Calexit' campaign, which would split California into two eastern and
western regions. There are several 'Calexit' campaigns competing for a referendum in the United States, with one aiming
to remove the state from America entirely as a response to President Donald Trump being elected last year.
CA
Bill Would Make Not Disclosing HIV+ Status to Partner Just a Misdemeanor. People who are HIV positive have long
been required to disclose this status before engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse. Considering the life-threatening
condition caused by HIV, it stands to reason that potential partners have a right to know, since the disease is easily passed
through sexual contact. However, in what is being described as a test of just how much feelings have changed on the disease,
a group of lawmakers in California have presented a bill that will make it no longer a felony to engage in unprotected sex without
disclosing the condition to their partner, instead making it a misdemeanor. Because of "the stigma."
What
does it take to be a librarian in San Francisco? 1) You have to know how to shelve books. 2) You have to know
how to check out books. and 3) You have to know how to inject heroin addicts with anti-narcotics drugs.
San
Francisco's withdrawal from national terror intelligence network hikes risks, officials say. San Francisco has
taken its defiance of the feds to a new level, ending its cooperation with the FBI in an anti-terror initiative begun after
9/11 — a move crtitics say could get innocent people killed. Critics say the sanctuary city by the bay's latest
decision to forego cooperation with Washington, by dropping out of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, could put lives at
risk. The JTTF has been credited with foiling 93 Islamist terrorist attacks and plots against the U.S. since 2001,
including 12 this year, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation. There are another 1,000
investigations into suspected terror activity nationwide.
Five
festering problems the Democrats cynically ignore. [#5] The connection between illegal immigration and California's electoral power:
California declared itself a sanctuary state and now houses a quarter of the nation's illegal immigrants. The elected officials at all levels of
that state government will openly defy any attempts to enforce existing federal law that could reduce the number of illegal immigrants. The
massive presence of illegals distorts our representative system. There are at least 4 million illegals in California. It
requires a special liberal variety of naïvité to believe that none of them votes. Even if none does, they are all counted in the census,
which determines congressional representation and some federal funding allocations. If only citizens were counted, California would have
five fewer congressional seats and electoral votes. Those seats would go to, for example, Ohio (2), Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The
Democrats who've declared California a sanctuary state know exactly what they are doing.
California's
12,209,605 Medicaid/CHIP Enrollees Outnumber Populations of 44 States. In the fall of 2013, the Obamacare
exchanges opened to enroll people in health insurance plans for 2014. The average number of Medicaid/CHIP enrollees in
California in July-September 2013 — the last quarter before the Obamacare exchanges opened — was
7,755,381, according to CMS. By November 2016, the latest month for which CMS numbers are available, the number of
Medicaid/CHIP enrollees in California was 12,209,605. That is a three-year increase of 4,454,224 — or
57.43 percent.
California
Goes One Step Beyond ObamaCare, Proposes Single-Payer Healthcare System to Include Illegal Aliens. California
Democrats made a surprise move late Friday to foil President Trump's promise to repeal ObamaCare — by introducing
a stand-alone, single-payer healthcare system in California. The Mercury News reported that two California lawmakers
Friday introduced legislation to replace private insurance with a government-run health care system covering all 38 million
Californians — including its undocumented residents.
The Oroville
Dam disaster is yet another example of California's decline. A year ago, politicians and experts were predicting
a near-permanent statewide drought, a "new normal" desert climate. The most vivid example of how wrong they were is that
California's majestic Oroville Dam is currently in danger of spillway failure in a season of record snow and rainfall.
That could spell catastrophe for thousands who live below it and for the state of California at large that depends on its stored
water. The poor condition of the dam is almost too good a metaphor for the condition of the state as a whole; its possible
failure is a reflection of California's civic decline.
California
spent on high-speed rail and illegal immigrants, but ignored Oroville Dam. The flood danger from the Oroville
Dam receded Monday, but California was hit by a wave of criticism for failing to heed warnings about risks to the spillway at
a time when the state spent generously on illegal immigrants and high-speed rail. California Gov. Jerry Brown, a
Democrat, came under fire amid reports that federal and state officials for years rebuffed or ignored calls to fortify the
massive 50-year-old dam, which provides water to more than 20 million farmers and residential consumers. "What's
Governor Brown doing?" former state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a Republican, asked in a Monday [2/13/2017] post on Facebook.
"The same thing he's been doing for decades — obstructing progress."
California
Goes Confederate. "Calexit" supporters brag that they will have enough signatures to qualify for a ballot measure calling for California's secession
from the United States. [...] [California] hosts the largest numbers of impoverished and the greatest number of rich people of any state in the country. Eager
for cheap service labor, California has welcomed in nearly a quarter of the nation's undocumented immigrants. California has more residents living in poverty
than any other state. It is home to one third of all the nation's welfare recipients. The income of California's wealthy seems to make them immune from
the effects of the highest basket of sales, income, and gas taxes in the nation. The poor look to subsidies and social services to get by. Over the last
30 years, California's middle classes have increasingly fled the state.
California
Lawmakers Want 'Third Gender Option' for Drivers' Licenses. Legislation introduced in California would create a
third gender option on drivers' licenses and expedite the process for individuals to change their sex on their birth
certificate without undergoing a sex change. The "Gender Recognition Act," sponsored by state senators Toni Atkins of
San Diego and Scott Weiner of San Francisco, would add "nonbinary" to the list of male and female genders on state
identification documents.
California
Democrats propose adding third, nonbinary gender option for driver's licenses and other official documents.
California driver's licenses and birth certificates could have a third option for gender in addition to male or female under
legislation unveiled Thursday [1/26/2017] by Democratic lawmakers. The bill by state Sens. Toni Atkins (D-San
Diego) and Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) would establish a new nonbinary gender marker for official state documents.
Lawmakers framed the measure as an expansion of rights for transgender, intersex and other people who do not identify as male
or female.
California's Recipe for
Voter Fraud on a Massive Scale. The media have exhibited a pathological determination to ignore any possibility
of voter fraud, in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary.
California
Lt. Gov: We'll Stop Trump's Wall with Environmental Suits. President-Elect Donald Trump's plan to
build a border wall along with U.S.-Mexico Border will be challenged through environmental lawsuits, according to California's
second-highest official. California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said in an interview with 'The Golden State Podcast' that
he would use specific environmental laws in the state to stop the border wall from being built, at least in southern California.
The Editor says...
In this case, environmental laws are being used as weapons. The matter at hand has nothing to do with the protection of the environment.
One thing politicians and environmentalists do well: they obstruct and impede their enemies' progress.
California's
Picky-Choosey Attitude to Complying with Federal Immigration Laws. California, the would-be renegade state that
has declared itself a statewide sanctuary for illegal aliens, has hired former Attorney General Eric Holder to "defend" it
against expected actions from the incoming Trump administration (such as, presumably, withholding federal funds for its
sanctuary status); and has a referendum petition circulating that would direct it to secede from the Union. Yet the
state finally has found an immigration-related law that it can love.
Janet
Napolitano Triples, Quadruples Down On Supporting Illegal Aliens. University of California President Janet Napolitano has
tripled down on her support for illegal aliens in the United States. She has also openly challenged the incoming Trump
Administration on the policy of deporting illegal aliens. In a recent speech Napolitano stated that the University of
California system supports illegal alien students and will provide them with millions of dollars in financial aid.
The
Great California Earthquake of 2018: First State To Default. I would like to direct your attention to something
boring but infinitely informative regarding the nature of this mismanaged state. Employers who utilize labor pay into
the FUTA, or the federal unemployment tax, at a rate of 6% and are credited back an offset of 5.4% that they previously paid
the state, leaving a small federal liability of only 0.6%. However, if the state-run U.I. trust gets overdrawn, as it did
in California for going on its third year now, it automatically pulls an emergency loan out from the federal government to
service the underfunded account. And if that is not repaid by November 10, and it defaults, then the government forces
employers to pay it. They just defaulted. Our company received a mystery bill in the mail two weeks ago, explaining
our new $15,000 owed. We got a shock, as it was not expected. I presume that many employers won't be able to pay it.
It's
Still a Mad, Mad California. Abstract idealism on behalf of the distant is a powerful psychological narcotic that allows caring progressives
to dull the guilt they feel about their own privilege and riches. Nowhere is this paradox truer than in California, a dysfunctional natural paradise
in which a group of coastal and governing magnificoes virtue-signal from the world's most exclusive and beautiful enclaves. The state is
currently experiencing another perfect storm of increased crime, decreased incarceration, still ongoing illegal immigration, and record poverty.
All that is energized by a strapped middle class that is still fleeing the overregulated and overtaxed state, while the arriving poor take their places
in hopes of generous entitlements, jobs servicing the elite, and government employment.
CalExit! Now that America is on the road to free
government, the Progressives are talking about secession again. The big one is CalExit, a movement to have California break off
from the rest of the country. This has been spurred by the election, where normal Americans broke mostly for Trump, but
Californians voted in heavy numbers for the anti-American candidate. If you look at the bill of particulars on the CalExit
site, the inability to dictate election results to the rest of the country is one reason they want to leave. [...] The major benefit
of losing California is we would lose their trillion in bad debt that threatens to destroy the bond market. California has been
able to kick its problems down the road because of its statehood. It is the stinky pile of sub-prime mortgages in the AAA rated
MBS. Independence would force some responsibility on California. It could also force reform on the Cult of Modern Liberalism,
which has thrived by shifting the costs of its polices onto others. If not, the rest of us would be free of them anyway, which is
what matters.
L.A. city and
county creating $10-million legal defense fund for immigrants facing deportation under Trump. Los Angeles city
and county leaders on Monday [12/19/2016] unveiled a $10-million fund to provide legal assistance for residents facing
deportation, the region's boldest move yet as it prepares for an expected crackdown on illegal immigration by Donald
Trump. If approved by lawmakers, Los Angeles' two top government agencies could find themselves in the position of
using public funds to challenge policies sought by the White House and Republican Congress.
California's
Gift to Its Neighbors: Expanded Cigarette Smuggling Opportunities. For too many years, Arizona has led
the pack — or at least taxed the hell out of it — with among the higher cigarette taxes in the
West. "A cigarette tax higher than in neighboring states and cheaper prices on American Indian reservations have helped
fuel a growing black market for cigarettes in Arizona," the Cronkite News Service reported in 2014. It's true that few of
us actually paid that $2.00 per pack tariff for a pack of smokes; with every single state bordering us stealing less from
smokers and a long, handy border with Mexico, half of all of the cigarettes sold in the state are smuggled from elsewhere,
according to research by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Tax Foundation. Many Arizonans avoid getting
mugged by enjoying life on the receiving end of smuggling routes. But we could be benefiting by running goods in
the other direction.
CA's
Senator Boxer Attempts To Block Her Own Bill. California Tea Party activists have long battled the bureaucrats
and politicians over policies related to water. One of the most well-known of the myriad of issues is the diversion of
water from farms in the Central Valley (a major source of this nation's fruits and nuts... outside of San Francisco, that
is). One goal of this reallocation of a prime agricultural resource is the protection of a bait fish known as the Delta
Smelt. Last week, the House of Representatives easily passed a major water bill that includes emergency aid for Flint,
Mich., and boosts U.S. ports, dams and waterways. This bill, known as the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), was
initially co-authored by the notorious Senator Barbara Boxer, who infamously derided a Brigadier General for referring to her
as "ma'am".
California to release "non-violent" rapists, shooters,
hostage takers. Whenever a proposition comes on the ballot in California to release criminals from jail, it
always passes, since the criminals already outside of jail outnumber the law abiding citizens. That's why it will come
as no surprise when California voters vote for Proposition 57 which will release "non-violent" criminals. The only
problem is that California has a very expansive definition of "non-violent" in its legal code: [...]
Ditching
Electoral College would allow California to impose imperial rule on a colonial America. California has been called the Left Coast for
quite a while. Just about everyone in Silicon Valley except Peter Thiel and in Hollywood except Pat Sajak supported Clinton. White middle
class families have been pretty well priced out of the state by high taxes and housing costs, and the Hispanic and Asian immigrants who have replaced
them vote far more Democratic. Those developments have put California increasingly out of line with the national average. In 2012, six
states and D.C. were more Democratic. In 2008 it was eight states and D.C.; in 2004 it was seven. Now it is only one, and not by much.
The
Anti-Trump Riots Are a Smoke Screen. Many seem bewildered by the anti-Trump riots and demonstrations. [...] They know
full well that they aren't going to overturn the election. These privately funded forces are being used to create pressure to
destroy the Electoral College so they won't have to deal with it next election. This is how the Left operates. Make a big
deal over here to force the hidden agenda over there. The plan is to make enough trouble that Congress will move to abolish the
EC to get some peace. For clues as to who is behind this effort, one only has to watch to see which member of Congress proposes
such action. The answer of course is California Senator Barbara Boxer.
California jumps
the shark. This election confirmed, if it was needed, the death spiral of the state's Republican Party.
Thanks, in part, to Donald Trump — and his magnetic anti-appeal among Latinos, women and the educated —
the GOP did even worse here in the presidential race than in 2012, when it couldn't muster 40 percent support, and has lost
several legislative seats, allowing the Democrats to re-establish their coveted two-thirds supermajority in the Assembly —
and possibly in the Senate as well. The progressives also won most of the major propositions — most critically,
the extension of a high income tax rate on the state's affluent population through 2030. We may have more freedom to smoke
pot, but it won't be so easy to start a business, buy a house or build a personal nest egg, if you are anything other than a
trustifarian or a Silicon Valley mogul, or are related to one.
California
Voters to Decide Whether Schools May Teach Students in Spanish. Voters in California will weigh in Tuesday on a
decades-old debate about bilingual education in the state's public school system. The outcome ultimately could
determine whether California schools will continue to be required to teach in English, or may use Spanish or another
language. Although largely overlooked in a crowded election season, the issue has split Californians into two camps,
those who believe the country benefits from a multilingual society and those who believe such policies hurt students and
serve only to further ethnic and racial divides.
CA
Attorney General: Use Of Term 'Illegal Alien' Is Offensive, Must Stop Treating 'Undocumented' As
Criminals. This is the chief law enforcement officer in California.
Food
Stamp Craze: U.S. Spends $3.6 Billion to Give $70 Billion in Benefits. Not only does the government spend a breathtaking
$70 billion a year to give a record number of people food stamps, it wastes billions more to administer the bloated welfare program.
Some states spend a lot more than others to distribute the free food vouchers and the discrepancies are downright outrageous. The government
dedicates $3.6 billion annually just to administer food stamps (renamed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to eliminate stigma),
according to a federal audit that includes mind-boggling figures. For instance, California, the state with by far the largest food-stamp
roll, spends a lot more than the national average to execute the federal nutrition program. The Golden State doles out an average of
$34.06 a month for each of its 2 million food stamp cases while other states, like Ohio, spend only $9.55. Some California counties
are off the charts with administration costs.
The
7 Ugliest Propositions on the California Ballot. [For example,] Prop. 57 — Jerry Brown's "Let's Put
Violent Criminals Back On The Street" Act is a terrible measure. Don't be fooled by the false and misleading ballot
title and summary that leftist Attorney General Kamala Harris put on this one — it will reduce prison sentences
for many, many violent criminals and put them back on the streets. Worst of all — the sentencing
"reforms" in it are retroactive — so victims of violent crimes trying to recapture some dignity and meaning in
their lives will be re-victimized because of this cruel and dangerous ballot measure.
LAPD
Officers Ordered To Shoot Only After Non Lethal Options Exhausted. Los Angeles Police officers must now exhaust
all forms of non-lethal means before shooting a suspect. The L.A. Police Commission approved a wide array of law
enforcement reforms Tuesday including training for officers to help in de-escalation and verbal skills when faced with a
violent perpetrator. According to Police One, the academy already teaches recruits to use all non-lethal means prior to
shooting their service weapon, but establishing a policy at the department level means LEO's may be punished for not using
another means instead of their firearm.
Ethnic
cleansing? California town now less than 10 percent white. Ethnic cleansing used to be a bad thing.
But in America, when it happens to white people, it's called progress and the "new face of California." The town of Santa
Ana has been almost 100% purged of white people. They were pushed out not by tanks and machine guns, but by a massive
influx of people speaking a different language and bearing a different culture who expected everyone to adapt to their
norms. Today Santa Ana is nearly 80% Hispanic and less than 10% white. We have a city in America that now
demographically perfectly mirrors many cities in Mexico.
If
Proposition 55 passes, the state budget will rely even more on California's highest earners. If voters approve
Proposition 55, the state will continue depending on [Paul] Taybi and other wealthy Californians to fund a significant
portion of schools, parks, road repairs, police, prisons and many other government services. Those paying the higher
rates, which kick in for single and joint filers making more than $263,000 and $526,000 a year respectively, contributed
almost $34 billion in income taxes in 2014, roughly a third of all state general fund revenue. California's
reliance on the wealthiest taxpayers means the state is especially vulnerable to their bottom lines.
California
petitions to become first state to offer ObamaCare to illegal immigrants. California's health care exchange is
requesting that it be allowed a waiver from ObamaCare regulations in order to allow illegal immigrants to buy insurance on
the exchange — which would make California the first state to extend ObamaCare to illegal immigrants. In a
Sept. 30 letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, Covered California's Executive Director Peter Lee said
that the Affordable Care Act has been "tremendously successful" in the state and has cut the rate of uninsured in half.
What
Could Go Wrong: California Lets Felons In Jail Vote. Forget about the fact that the great majority of felons vote
Democrat; California Governor Jerry Brown had no political motivations at all when he signed AB 2466 on Wednesday [9/28/2016]
allowing thousands of felons in California to vote. Starting January 2017, convicted felons still in jail will be able to cast
their vote.
Liberals
rejoice over legalization of child prostitution in California. Social justice warriors everywhere rejoiced at
the news that California has decriminalized, or effectively legalized, child prostitution. After all, prostitution is
basically a victimless crime, right? And progressives have spoken loudly about emptying jails of "non-violent" offenders.
California
governor signs bill allowing felons to vote from their jail cells. Convicted felons serving jail sentences in
California county jails will now get to participate in an activity besides three meals a day and recreation time: voting in
elections. Governor Jerry Brown signed new legislation into effect as part of a reform backers say will help prisoners
transition back into society while still serving time for their crimes. The bill he signed would let thousands of
felons doing time in county jails to vote in California elections, the LA Times reported.
BART
tax could quadruple original claim. It turns out that the average property tax bill required to support BART's
proposed $3.5 billion bond measure on the November ballot could be as much as four times what the transit agency
claimed. Two months ago, I reported that the taxes needed to pay off that bond borrowing would be about double BART's
public estimate. Well, it could be even twice that. That's because legal language in Measure RR allows BART to
issue bonds at up to the state limit of 12 percent interest, far higher than assumed for the previous estimates.
California
Could Let Felons Behind Bars Vote, Despite What the State Constitution Says. California Gov. Jerry Brown
is considering whether to sign a bill that would allow tens of thousands of incarcerated felons to vote, while continuing to
deny the vote to others. The Legislature sent a bill to Brown's desk that would restore voting rights to an estimated
50,000 convicted felons who are behind bars in county jails, but not to felons who are serving their sentence in prisons.
SF
official suggests taking slaveholders' names off schools. George Washington, the guy on the quarter, could soon
be facing the ax in San Francisco as surely as his fabled cherry tree. The president of the San Francisco school board
thinks it's time to consider renaming schools that bear the names of slave owners — including Washington and his
friends and fellow presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. Board President Matt Haney said Tuesday [9/6/2016] he
will introduce a resolution before the board this month to clarify the rules for renaming San Francisco schools with an eye
to encouraging the communities at Washington High School, along with Jefferson and Monroe elementary schools, to consider
whether they want to make a change.
Left's
California Dream Built on Ignorance. The Democrat-owned legislature — the ones that are not in jail
or under indictment — passed a bill that would gradually raise the minimum wage from $10 to $15 in 2022. The poll
says 64 percent of Californians support that. That is while 66% of them believe that people will be laid off and 65 percent
say that businesses will leave the state. What would have been interesting is if the people who took the poll would have asked
poll participants: Would you support the increase if your son or daughter were laid off? Would you support it if your
spouse's business relocated to Utah, North Carolina or Texas? It is always easy to say that policies are good when they are
affecting the other person or their family.
One
California city is paying people not to commit crimes. A San Francisco suburb is testing a controversial
strategy to combat the gun violence that's plagued the community — paying people not to commit crimes. The
experiment known as "Advance Peace" is being conducted in Richmond, Calif., and works like this: The 18-month
fellowship hires convicted felons to "court" troubled youth — who so far have avoided arrest due to lack of
evidence — with offers of cash and out-of-town vacations if they mend their ways. If, after six months,
a "fellow" in the voluntary program begins to achieve specific goals, they can earn up to $1,000 a month.
A
Victory for Religious Freedom at Christian Universities in California. A California lawmaker who is sponsoring
a bill that would have allowed the use of taxpayer dollars to punish and publicly shame Christian universities for operating
according to their beliefs has removed an offending provision from the legislation. In announcing his legislation in
April, state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D), sponsor of SB 1146, had referred to his action of denying First Amendment rights
to religious schools as closing a "loophole that allows private universities to discriminate against students and staff based
on their gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation."
California
bill SB 1146 threatens minorities and the poor. Current California law exempts religious schools from
nondiscrimination laws in cases where applying these laws "would not be consistent with the religious tenets of that
organization." This is sensible and reflects our nation's founding principles of religious freedom. For years now,
this policy has worked well, enabling church-run colleges and universities to hire personnel and establish policies and expectations
regarding religious practice and personal conduct that reflect their beliefs and values. SB 1146 proposes to drastically
narrow that historic exemption so that it would only protect seminaries or other schools that train clergy and ministers.
Muslim Appreciation Month.
The State of California is planning to proclaim August Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month. Why? Because CAIR
wants them to! Turns out, California isn't Mexifornia after all. It's Caliph-ornia.
Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month.
Remember the false report that Obama was going to name November to be National Muslim Appreciation Month? The terrorist
facilitators at CAIR apparently do — except for them, the fake story isn't satire; it's an excellent suggestion.
California is run by the sort of people who might agree. [...] Readers may recall that just last year 14 people were killed
and 22 seriously injured in a Muslim terror attack right there in California. But no month will be set aside to honor
victims of Islam, because that would be Islamophobic.
Here's
the US city with the highest pot use. San Francisco has a new claim to fame: The city has the highest
rate of marijuana use in the country, according to a new survey. In the survey, which was conducted from 2012 to 2014
nationwide, 15.5 percent of people in San Francisco said they had used marijuana in the past month. That's much higher
than the national average of 7.7 percent. Perhaps not surprisingly, parts of Colorado (where recreational marijuana use
is legal) also had high rates of marijuana use. About 14.8 percent of people in the northeastern part of the state, the
Denver area, and the northwestern and southwestern parts of the state reported using marijuana in the past month.
Will
California Ever Thrive Again? There was more of the same-old, same-old California news recently. Some 62 percent of
state roads have been rated poor or mediocre. There were more predications of huge cost overruns and yearly losses on high-speed
rail — before the first mile of track has been laid. One-third of Bay Area residents were polled as hoping to leave the
area soon. Such pessimism is daily fare, and for good reason. The basket of California state taxes — sales, income,
and gasoline — rates among the highest in the U.S. Yet California roads and K-12 education rank near the bottom.
After years of drought, California has not built a single new reservoir. Instead, scarce fresh aqueduct water is still being diverted
to sea. Thousands of rural central-California homes, in Dust Bowl fashion, have been abandoned because of a sinking aquifer and dry
wells. One in three American welfare recipients resides in California. Almost a quarter of the state population lives below
or near the poverty line. Yet the state's gas and electricity prices are among the nation's highest.
California
Reps Urge Obama To Stop California From Giving Illegals Obamacare. House Republicans representing California
pressured the Obama administration to stop its plan to expand Obamacare to illegal immigrants in the state Wednesday
[6/30/2016]. Rep. Darrell Issa spearheaded the effort in a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services
signed by a number of California representatives slamming the plan's potential to further stagnate the economy and increase
the burden on taxpayers in the state. The California legislation would allow for a waiver permitting illegal immigrants
in the state to buy private health insurance through the Obamacare exchange — allowing an estimated 390,000 more
people the option to purchase plans.
Californians
Will Decide Whether to Legalize Cannabis This Fall. Yesterday [6/28/2016] the Control, Regulate, and Tax Adult
Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA) officially qualified for this November's ballot in California. [...] Like the legalization
measures approved by voters in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska, the AUMA would let adults 21 or older possess up to
an ounce of marijuana at a time. Like all of those states except Washington, it also allows sharing (up to an ounce)
and home cultivation (up to six plants per household). Unlike the four states that have legalized marijuana so far, the AUMA
explicitly allows deliveries to consumers and on-site consumption at businesses licensed for that purpose. Both of those
options would be subject to approval by local governments, which also could ban marijuana businesses entirely and regulate
(but not ban) home cultivation.
PG&E
to close Diablo Canyon, California's last nuclear power plant. California's last nuclear power plant will be
phased out by 2025, under a joint proposal announced Tuesday morning by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and labor and
environmental groups. Under the proposal, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County would be retired by
PG&E after its current Nuclear Regulatory Commission operating licenses expire in November 2024 and August 2025. The power
produced by Diablo Canyon's two nuclear reactors would be replaced with investment in a greenhouse-gas-free portfolio of
energy efficiency, renewables and energy storage, PG&E said in a statement.
Blackout:
California In Power Grid Emergency: "All Customers Should Expect 14 Days Without Power". The power grid
is under direct threat as a result of the unprecedented, but little reported, massive natural gas leaks at Alisco Canyon that
was ongoing for four months as an intense summer heat wave sets in. California will have its first test of plans to
keep the lights on this summer. With record-setting heat and air conditioning demand expected in Southern California,
the state's power grid operator issued a so-called "flex alert," urging consumers to conserve energy to help prevent rotating
power outages — which could occur regardless.
Blackout California. The shutdown
of the leaking Aliso Canyon underground gas storage facility has caused a loss of about 70bcf of stored gas that Southern
California utilities have historically counted on to see them through the hot, high-demand summer months. The
California Independent Service Operator (CAISO), which manages the California grid, estimates that as a result all customers
should expect to be without power for a total of 14 days this summer. Some 21 million Southern Californians
stand to be directly affected. Are blackouts on such a scale likely? It seems they are.
The Editor says...
Yep, the lights and the air conditioning won't work for a few days — in the hottest part of the year — but they sure got rid of all those
nuclear power plants, didn't they? Yessir, they sure managed to outlaw coal in their state. I'll bet they wish they could
wash their dishes, but they sure saved Mother Earth from certain destruction.
San
Francisco Charter Amendment Would Grant Illegal Immigrants a Vote in Local Schools. A potential San Francisco
ballot proposal could give illegal immigrants a voice in Bay Area schools. A charter amendment by San Francisco
Supervisor Eric Mar is intended to grant illegal immigrants with children in school the right to vote in San Francisco
Unified School District school board elections. Two similar measures were presented in the past, but they were rejected
by voters. "The time is right for San Francisco to make history, to pave the way for immigrant parents to have a say in
the policy decisions that impact their child's education and who gets to sit on the Board of Education," Mar said in a statement.
California
to ask feds to allow undocumented immigrants to use Obamacare. California could become the first state to ask
the federal government to let undocumented immigrants buy insurance under the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed legislation Friday that attempts to allow people in the country illegally to
purchase the insurance through Covered California without costing the state or federal government anything.
Federal judge rules
California transgender inmates must get some female items. A federal judge ruled Thursday [6/9/2016] that California prison officials must let
transgender inmates have more female-oriented commissary items including nightgowns, robes, sandals, scarves and necklaces as part of a settlement that will
make the stat the first to pay for an inmate's sex reassignment surgery. California agreed in August to provide some items to transgender inmates who
are housed in male prisons, aside from providing surgery to 56-year-old Shiloh Quine. U.S. Magistrate Judge Nandor Vadas decided that the policy didn't
go far enough. He said transgender inmates housed in men's prisons should have many of the same items provided to female inmates. Shiloh's
attorneys argued that the state was keeping some items from transgender prisoners "based solely upon gender norms" rather than security concerns.
The End of the Free-Speech Consensus.
What happens when the consensus for free speech evaporates and those with political power become willing to use any means necessary to silence
people who hold unpopular views? We'll probably soon receive the answer in California, as the state's dominant Democrats set the stage for
prosecutors to take action against climate-change "deniers." "A landmark California bill... would make it illegal to engage in climate-change
dissent clearing the way for lawsuits against fossil-fuel companies, think tanks and others that have 'deceived or misled the public on the risks of
climate change,'" explains a Washington Times report. The bill, S.B. 1161, passed through two committees but ultimately was shelved.
But like most "landmark" bills, this one will keep coming back until it passes. The bill even comes with an Orwellian name, "The California
Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act."
San
Francisco Moves to Open Voting to Illegals. San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Eric Mar says the political
climate is right to grant illegal immigrants the right to vote. While even notoriously liberal San Francisco voters have
rejected past efforts to grant voting privileges to illegals, Fox News reports that Mar thinks the backlash against Donald Trump
will yield a strong turn-out of Latino and anti-Trump voters to the polls to pass his proposed charter amendment.
LGBT
Bill Threatens California's Religious Schools. A California state bill its sponsors say will prevent discrimination
based on sexual orientation and gender identity at private universities is threatening to expose faith-based schools to enormous
legal threats, school officials warn. SB 1146, introduced in February by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens,
which passed the state Senate May 26, is designed to close "a little-known loophole" in California law under which private
colleges can make admission, housing, and faculty decisions based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation,
according to a press release from Lara's office. Lara is part of the state Legislature's seven-member California Legislative
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Caucus, which advocates for LGBT rights.
One law
for us, another for you. The California state Senate voted 28-8 Wednesday [6/8/2016] to exempt itself from the pointless
gun-control laws that apply to the rest of the populace. Legislators apparently think they alone are worthy to pack
heat on the streets for personal protection, and the masses ought to wait until the police arrive. This is just one of
many bills Golden State politicians used this legislative session to set themselves apart from the little people, the ones
who pay their inflated salaries. Annual compensation for legislators averages about $140,000, not counting luxurious
perks such as taxpayer-funded cars and free gasoline. By comparison, the average Californian earns $50,000 a year, and
the unemployment rate is 11.9 percent — far above the national average. Exact salaries for state assemblymen and
senators are obscured by the use of a "per diem" payment scheme that shelters a significant chunk of income from taxation.
San
Francisco to try yet again to give illegal immigrants voting rights. After two failed bids to grant voting
rights to illegal immigrants, some San Francisco officials believe they have found the man who can make it happen:
Donald Trump. A proposed charter amendment drafted by Board of Supervisors member Eric Mar would give illegal
immigrants with kids in the public school system the right to vote in school elections. Voters have rejected two
previous ballot proposals, but Mar is betting on anti-Trump sentiment to carry the pro-illegal immigrant proposal if he can
get it on the November ballot.
If
You Share Undercover Exposés of Planned Parenthood, You Could End Up in a California Jail. The
California legislature is considering a bill that would make it impossible to expose Planned Parenthood with recordings
unless they give their permission, but it is even worse than that. Anyone who publishes, shares, emails the recordings
would also be held liable for criminal prosecution. The bill moved to the State Senate last week. This is a
serious effort. Abortion mills are the latest protected class.
California's
Crazy Election Quirks Limit Voter Choices and Create Chaos. New polls show that the Democratic primary in
California is neck and neck between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. If the election is close, and Hillary narrowly
wins, it could be because arcane and suspect rules gave her an artificial advantage. A Hillary win would rob Sanders of
the ability to claim momentum and would blunt his efforts to fight for the nomination up until the Democratic convention.
California has made such a royal mess of its entire primary system that it needs to do a complete overhaul to restore the
credibility of the system.
Trump
is Correct about the California Drought. On Friday, May 27, the prospective Republican candidate for president
Donald Trump went to the city of Fresno, the capital of California's farming community, and declared: "there is no drought!"
This seemingly brash statement was met with ridicule and scorn across the blogosphere — how could anyone make such a
so-called "stupid" statement when everyone knows that California has experienced a historically high dry spell since 2013?
But was Trump right? Arguably yes. Here's why.
Three
Excellent Examples of Investigative Journalism on Migration Topics. There has been all too little investigative reporting
regarding immigration matters, but there were two remarkable exceptions to that last month, and a third late last year. These
three long, well researched articles dealt with scandals in a huge California visa mill, multiple problems in the EB-5 program, and
in the H-2B program for temporary alien non-agricultural workers, perhaps the most ignored of the migration trouble spots.
California
Senate sidelines bill to prosecute climate change skeptics. A landmark bill allowing for the prosecution of
climate change dissent effectively died Thursday [6/2/2016] after the California Senate failed to take it up before the deadline.
Senate Bill 1161, or the California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act of 2016, would have authorized prosecutors
to sue fossil fuel companies, think tanks and others that have "deceived or misled the public on the risks of climate
change." The measure, which cleared two Senate committees, provided a four-year window in the statute of limitations on
violations of the state's Unfair Competition Law, allowing legal action to be brought until Jan. 1 on charges of climate
change "fraud" extending back indefinitely.
California
moves to criminalize undercover filming at Planned Parenthood. In the wake of an undercover investigation into
Planned Parenthood's alleged fetal trafficking operation, the California state legislature is considering a bill that would
criminalize publishing secretly recorded video footage of "health care providers." AB 1671, which has been backed
by Planned Parenthood, would criminalize the publication of confidential interactions with state-licensed medical personnel,
including abortionists and clinician staff, punishable by up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine per violation.
The
Dead are Alive and Voting in California. The only question is how many Undead-Americans will vote for Bernie
Sanders over Hillary Clinton. Because the dead are voting. And we must not deny the franchise to undead Democrats.
That would be wrong and un-American. It would put us on the wrong side of history. California can lead the way to the
restoration of voting rights for the dead, right after voting rights for felons.
Feds
to Pay California to Finance FREE MediCaid Health Care for Illegal Aliens. The responsibility of the Fed is to
keep illegal aliens out of this country — instead Obama is importing them and giving them "free" health care —
while cause honest citizens to pay higher taxes, receive lower quality health care and to crowd the system so honest Americans
must wait while the Obama imports get their care.
California's
Political Water Wars Heat Up. Water wars are historic undertakings in California. Countless other
publications have written recently about the proposed ballot measure that would redirect High Speed Rail bond money for
water-related projects and prioritize the use of water, But what makes this story interesting is the coalition of opponents,
their motivations and techniques being employed. The Committee to Stop the Special Interest Water Grab, led by David
Guy, president of the Northern California Water Association, Tim Johnson, president of the California Rice Commission and a
"contract administrator" at California Rice Industry Association, and political operative Steve Maviglio of Forza Communications
and big supporter of High Speed Rail, have launched an all-out assault campaign against the California Water Priorities Initiative.
Lawmakers reject John Wayne Day
over racism concerns. What a California lawmaker intended as a benign resolution honoring a late,
world-renowned movie icon exploded into an emotional debate over decades-old racist comments.
California
Looks to Cover Illegal Immigrants Under Obamacare. In an unprecedented move, California legislators look to
extend Obamacare health coverage to the state's estimated 2.6 million illegal immigrant population. If passed and
signed into law, California would be the first state in the nation to request illegal immigrants be covered through a state
exchange, the Los Angeles Times reported. It is against the law for California to allow illegal immigrants to enroll in
Covered California, the state's Obamacare health insurance exchange, Sally C. Pipes, president and CEO of the pro-free-market
Pacific Research Institute, told The Daily Signal in an emailed response. "The law does not allow illegals to enroll in
the state exchanges or the federal exchange Healthcare.gov," Pipes said.
CalPERS
Could Get Hands on Billions in Private-Sector Retirement Funds. Instead of addressing the estimated $600 billion
in unfunded liabilities in California's beleaguered public-employee pension system, Democrats in Sacramento have instead decided to
"solve" a growing pension crisis in the private sector. In 2012, Governor Jerry Brown signed a measure that created an
investment board and authorized a "feasibility study" of various options for a state-backed private-pension system. That
study came out last month, and the legislature is now vetting bills that would put its recommendations into action. The
plans under consideration would mandate participation in the new state-run retirement system for firms with five or more workers,
though the workers themselves could opt out. Employers that don't comply would face fines and other penalties.
21st Century
California Reverts Back to the Wild West. [Scroll down] Today I generalize that about every old rural
farmhouse in these environs can be characterized by three traits: a) the house is a rental and not connected with the
corporate fields around it; b) there are two to three families, in illegal fashion, living in ramshackle trailers and sheds
on the property; c) the authorities don't dare enforce zoning or health laws, on the grounds that enforcement is a bad
investment of their limited time and budget. If I find a dead dog dumped on the alleyway (as I have three or four times
over the last 12 months), with a rope around his neck and his insides exposed from dog fighting, I bury him and pass on
calling the animal-control people. In fairness to them, what would they do, run an investigation into rural dog
fighting — in a state in which felons are routinely released from prisons and jails, and sanctuary cities offer
amnesties? I suppose a Queensland with his face ripped off is small potatoes. (Does multiculturalism trump the
ASPCA or PETA?) Nor do I ever contact the state EPA or the county when monthly I collect baby carriages, car seats,
tires, used paint cans, old Christmas trees, mattresses, and dirty diapers dumped on the side of the road —
despite occasional junk mail signifying the address of the polluter.
San
Francisco Torn as Some See 'Street Behavior' Worsen. From her apartment at the foot of the celebrated zigzags
of Lombard Street, Judith Calson has twice peered out her window as thieves smashed their way into cars and snatched whatever
they could. She has seen foreign tourists cry after cash and passports were stolen. She shudders when she
recounts the story of the Thai tourist who was shot because he resisted thieves taking his camera. And that is her
tally from the last year alone. [...] Recent data from the F.B.I. show that San Francisco has the highest per-capita property
crime rate of the nation's top 50 cities.
Love Finds a Way in Oakland.
This month, Oakland's City Council voted 5-3 to adopt "Love Life" as the city's motto. [...] "Love Life" is the brainchild of
Donald Lacy, whose daughter LoEshe — the name means "Love Life" in Nigerian — was killed near McClymonds
High School in 1997. The 16-year-old died in the sort of senseless random gang-turf shooting that has taken too many young
black lives in Oakland. [...] Enter racial politics. Because Schaaf and some motto foes are white, while McElhaney and some
other supporters are black, "Love Life" fans suggested that opponents lacked empathy for victims of street violence.
Religious
group sues San Francisco over open-air urinal. A religious organization has filed a lawsuit against the city of
San Francisco to remove an open-air urinal it calls unsanitary and indecent from a popular park. The Chinese Christian
Union of San Francisco filed a civil complaint last week demanding the city remove the concrete circular urinal from the
iconic Dolores Park. The group says the urinal, which is out in the open and screened only with plants for privacy,
"emanates offensive odors," "has no hand-washing facilities" and "it's offensive to manners and morals."
Should
California AG Harris Be Investigated for Tax Code Violations? California attorney general Kamala Harris is the
state's top charity regulator, overseeing California's Registry of Charitable Trusts. Ms. Harris has decided to
bypass federal law expressly requiring her to obtain Schedule B information directly from the IRS on a case-by-case basis if
she has a legitimate need for donor information to enforce her state's charitable solicitation laws. Instead of abiding by
federal law, she's employing a dragnet method, demanding that all charities registering with her office submit their Schedule B
donor lists to the Registry in order to solicit contributions from Californians.
San
Francisco Passes Fully Paid Parental Leave Bill. San Francisco could soon become the first city in the nation
to provide both parents with six weeks of fully-paid parental leave after a birth or adoption. The measure, which was
unanimously passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday [4/5/2016], will now require the signatures of Gov.
Jerry Brown and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. Both have indicated they will sign.
Casualties
of a Living Wage: A California Bookstore Owner's Minimum Wage Story. After more than a decade at the helm of
her bookstore, Ann Kinner faces an uncertain future because of new measures at the city and state level to raise the minimum
wage. On June 7, San Diego residents will vote on a ballot measure to raise the city's minimum wage to $11.50 an hour
in 2017. This proposal, coupled with a bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday raising the state minimum wage to
$15 an hour by 2022, has left Kinner in knots.
California
Department Of Justice Raids David Daleiden's Home. The California Department of Justice raided the home of
David Daleiden, the pro-life journalist behind the undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood's harvesting and sale of
human organs from aborted children. Daleiden explained in a Facebook post that authorities with the California
Department of Justice raided his home Tuesday afternoon and seized all video footage of Planned Parenthood employees'
involvement in selling organs from aborted babies — including damning footage which has yet to be released.
Daleiden noted that the California Department of Justice serves under the authority of California Attorney General Kamala
Harris, who has benefited politically from Planned Parenthood: [...]
Planned
Parenthood: David Daleiden Speaks out on Home Raid. Undercover investigator David Daleiden's home in California
was raided Tuesday [4/5/2016] by officials under the office of California Attorney General Kamala Harris. Harris has
been investigating Daleiden for months, after his video exposé of Planned Parenthood's alleged baby-parts scheme.
His videos allegedly showed Planned Parenthood personnel actively negotiating the sale of the livers, lungs, hearts and other
organs of aborted unborn children.
Abortion
Activist Claims Planned Parenthood Videos Caused Raid At His Home. An anti-abortion activist who made undercover videos at
Planned Parenthood clinics said in a social media posting that California Department of Justice agents raided his home Tuesday [4/5/2016].
California
to Pay $5400 to Make Poor Sick People Dead. California Medical — its version of Medicaid — will
pay $5400 for the drugs to make the suicidal terminally ill poor, dead. Worse, Medical recipients don't have access to good
cancer treatment and doesn't pay well for palliative care.
California is first state
to approve $15 minimum wage. California has become the first state in the nation to approve a statewide $15
minimum wage. Both the State Assembly and State Senate passed the measure on Thursday afternoon [3/31/2016].
Governor Jerry Brown said he would sign it on Monday. "No one who is working full time in California should
live in poverty due to a low wage," said Democratic State Senator Mark Leno, who cosponsored the bill.
Heaven Help
California's Non-Urban Cities Under a $15 Minimum Wage. If anybody is wondering why so many California
residents outside of the big cities want to break away and make their own states, just take note of the news today that
California legislators have made a deal with the all-powerful unions to jack up the minimum wage for all industries and all
employers across the state to $15 by 2022 and then tie future increases to inflation. Small business in California will
have until 2023 to comply. There are 13 counties in California that still have double-digit unemployment figures,
according to the state's own data. The data isn't seasonally adjusted, so keep in mind that unemployment naturally rises
at the start of a new year. But even taking into account an adjustment there are significant populations in the state
struggling to find work. None of these high unemployment counties are connected to the big cities.
San
Francisco mayor bans city workers from traveling to North Carolina. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said in a
statement Friday [3/25/2016] he doesn't want any city workers to travel to North Carolina unless necessary in wake of its legislation
which blocks anti-discrimination for gay, lesbian and transgender people. "We are standing united as San Franciscans to
condemn North Carolina's new discriminatory law that turns back the clock on protecting the rights of all Americans including
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals," Lee said in the statement.
Palo
Alto residents who earn up to $250,000 a year to qualify for subsized housing. The well-heeled California
neighborhood, where a plot of land recently sold for $2.7 million, is home to some of America's richest entrepreneurs who
work a few miles away in Silicon Valley. With house price averages an eye-watering $3 million, even those earning
$250,000-a-year are spending two-thirds of their monthly salary (around $14,000) paying off their mortgage. It means
workers such as teachers, janitors, firefighters, social workers, police officers and more are not paid enough to afford the
local rent, driving up congestion as they commute in.
California
AG Kamala Harris wants your private information from the IRS. Charity donor information on Schedule B is protected under federal
law as confidential. Charities and their donors worry that imperious, uber-liberal Ms. Harris will leak this confidential information to
their ideological opponents and her allies. Among its various acts of lawlessness and lawbreaking, Lois Lerner's IRS was caught leaking
this type of confidential donor information of the National Organization for Marriage to its opponents.
The
Weirdness of Illegal Immigration. When someone ignores a federal statute, then it is naturally easy to flout
more. In Los Angeles, half the traffic accidents are hit-and-run collisions. I can attest first-hand that running from an
accident or abandoning a wrecked vehicle is certainly a common occurrence in rural California. Last night on a rural road,
a driver behind me (intoxicated? Malicious? Crazy?) apparently tried to rear-end me, then turned off his lights, sped up, and
at the next stop sign pulled over swearing out the window in Spanish. In this age and in these environs, why would one call
a sheriff for a minor everyday occurrence like that? The point is simply that when there is no federal law, no one has any
idea how several million arrive in the U.S., much less what exactly they were doing before their illegal arrival. [...] To read the
local Fresno Bee is to collate a daily tally of stabbings, shootings, gang violence, carjackings, thefts, and chop
shops — without any exegesis why this is so. Cuts in law enforcement? Therapeutic approach to the law?
A complete failure to integrate and assimilate the second generation of illegal immigrants? The inability to offer jobs in
a command state economy?
CA's Knee-Jerk Bill Forbids Travel to Un-PC States.
Hopefully, this Californian lawmaker puts more thought into the other bills he introduces. This week, Evan Low, a Democrat,
introduced a bill that would ban California state employees from traveling to states that passed a version of the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act. "No one wants to send employees into an environment where they would be uncomfortable," Low
reportedly said, as if hurt feelings are enough to hamper the state's ability to cooperate with other members of the union.
But here's the kicker: the lawmaker doesn't know how many states his little bill would affect. Furthermore, the bill would
only apply to government employees. [...] This isn't the first time Low introduced a bill for the gay-rights community. Last May,
Low co-authored a resolution with two other California lawmakers responding to the FDA's blood donor guidelines that forbid sexually
active homosexuals from donating blood.
California's
violation of federal civil rights laws. In August 2014, the California Department of Managed Health Care,
suddenly and without prior notice, issued a mandate to private market healthcare plans in California requiring them to cover
all abortions as a "basic health care service" — including late-term and gender selective abortions. (Prior to
this mandate, California limited coverage to medically necessary abortions.) The new mandate violates a longstanding federal
civil rights law — the Weldon Amendment. Congress first enacted Weldon in 2002 to protect healthcare providers
and insurers from governmental discrimination on the basis that they choose not to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or
refer for abortions. The victims of this type of governmental discrimination have only one recourse: file a complaint
with the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights (OCR). This has proven entirely futile.
California
is considering a travel ban on states with anti-gay laws. Like always, lawmakers jammed a mountain of bills
into the legislative queue just ahead of the Feb. 19 deadline to introduce them. Many of them affect state employees.
Some would install new laws and regulations that pile on workload (it happens every year to DMV staff) or by altering some aspect of
how state government itself conducts business. Now, with the 30-day waiting period to start hearing those measures just ahead,
here's one to watch: Assembly Bill 1887 by Assemblyman Evan Low, a Democrat from Campbell. Low wants to prohibit
state employees from government-funded travel to states that have "a law in effect that sanctions or requires discrimination on the
basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression," according to his bill's language.
The Editor says...
Is homosexuality really that important to California politicians? No, but control certainly is. The government wants
unlimited power to control the way we act and think, and the ability to make us associate with those whom we would prefer to avoid.
The New California Crime Wave. Something
amazing has happened in California. First, a brief background: Crime rates across the state, after a long period of steady decline, had
reached fifty-year lows in 2014. Then, that November, a 60 percent majority of California voters — presumably incapable of
accepting such good news without a measure of collective guilt — decided that it would be a really enlightened idea to pass Proposition 47,
a ballot initiative bearing the cheery name "The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act." The purpose of this measure was to downgrade many types of
drug possession and property crimes from felonies (punishable by more than a year in prison) to misdemeanors (which often entail no prison time
at all). For the benefit of squeamish skeptics, the self-assured proponents of Prop 47 condescended to explain that these reduced
penalties would not only alleviate prison overcrowding, but would also make California's streets safer by placing drug offenders into warm-and-fuzzy
treatment and counseling programs, rather than into disagreeable prison cells. If you think this sounds like a familiar old tune, you're quite
correct. It was #1 on the left-wing hit parade throughout the 1960s, when it became the theme song of skyrocketing crime rates across the United
States. And now the Golden Oldie is back, in the Golden State. The tangible results of Prop 47 were both immediate and breathtaking.
Within a year, there were some 14,000 fewer inmates in California's state prisons and local jails, just as the Proposition's backers had promised.
But the other half of their promise — improved public safety — somehow failed to materialize.
San
Francisco Public Library hosts drag queen story hour for children. What do drag queens and children have in common?
They both find joy in wrapping themselves in feather boas and all things shiny and glittery. A San Francisco nonprofit recognizes
this shared interest in dressing up and is joining forces with the San Francisco Public Library to bring drag queens and children
together. Radar Productions, a group giving voice to queer writers and artists, will be hosting Honey Mahogany at the Eureka Valley
Harvey Milk Memorial Library, March 12, noon to 2 p.m, in the heart of the Castro District. Dressed in fabulous drag-queen
garb and full makeup, Honey will be reading stories, painting children's faces and passing out cookies.
New
California Law Forces Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers to Advertise Abortions. Did you hear about the new bill that California Gov. Jerry
Brown has signed into law? [...] The bill he signed (AB775), named the Reproductive Fact Act, aims to punish pro-life pregnancy centers, which offer
women and girls compassionate alternatives to abortion. Under penalty of ruinous fines for every "violation," the law orders the pro-life centers
to post notices and tell mothers that they can abort their babies and have California taxpayers foot the bill via the state's expansive Medi-Cal program.
City
workers in San Diego barred from uttering 'biased' term 'Founding Fathers'. The traditional reference to America's patriotic patriarchs is
considered gender biased, and a city manual banning the term was reinforced this week with verbal orders, according to legal watchdog group, Pacific Justice
Institute. "At a time set aside to honor American icons to whom we owe our constitutional freedoms, it is offensive and indefensible that the City of
San Diego is directing employees not to even mention the Founding Fathers," Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, said in a statement
provided to FoxNews.com. The warning against referring to Washington, Jefferson, Adams and company as "Founding Fathers" first appeared in a section
of a city-issued manual titled, "Bias-Free Language."
After
Hiring 1,000 New DMV Bureaucrats, California Issues 605,000 Licenses To Illegals. After spending $141 million
to hire nearly 1,000 new Department of Motor Vehicle employees to process driver's license applications in the wake of AB60 —
the California law to issue driver's licenses to 1.5 million illegal immigrants — the results are in, and it's clear the
bureaucrats have kept busy. Tuesday [2/9/2016], the DMV said it had issued 605,000 shiny new driver's licenses to illegal
immigrants, with the full 1.5 million expected to be in place in the next two years. The total accounted for more than
half of the licenses issued in 2015. But that's not searchable in a database, accounting to True The Vote.
California's
"unprecedented mass forgiveness" of convicts raises more than a few questions. In case you hadn't heard,
California's governor has been on something of a binge in terms of releasing convicts from prison and reforming the
system to be more fair to everyone. Prison reform and rehabilitation vs isolation is all the rage these days it
seems. The Washington Post ran a feature this week on how wonderfully this has been going and it certainly makes
a grade A effort to paint a happy face on these proposals.
You Can Now Urinate in Public in San Francisco. San
Francisco has installed an outdoor urinal in Dolores Park near the Mission District as part of the more than $20 million renovation of the recreation
area in an attempt to combat a "rampant" public urination issue. "The more options we can give them to relieve themselves, the better for the parkgoers,"
San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener told the Associated Press.
San Francisco park
debuts open-air urinal. San Francisco's iconic Dolores Park is now home to the city's first open-air urinal, the latest
move to combat the destructive scourge of public urination in the City by the Bay.
Kamala
Harris crosses lines of both privacy and the law. California Attorney General Kamala Harris must be so ambitious that she is
willing to tempt fate of multiple civil lawsuits and even criminal charges so she can intimidate her ideological opponents — and
even her supporters. Ms. Harris oversees licensing of charities across the country that ask Californians for contributions. She's
also a candidate for the United States Senate. In disregard of the 1958 landmark civil rights decision NAACP v. Alabama and post-Watergate
reforms to the Internal Revenue Code to protect tax information privacy, Ms. Harris is now telling charities and other nonprofit organizations
that in order to get from her a charitable solicitation license they must first provide her office a confidential federal tax schedule listing
their most valuable donors.
Under
Obamacare, Medi-Cal ballooned to cover 1 in 3 Californians. California officials never anticipated how many
people would sign up for state-run health insurance under Obamacare. The state's health plan for the poor, known as
Medi-Cal, now covers 12.7 million people, 1 of every 3 Californians.
Never
Enough Abortions in California. California is such a pro-abortion state that: 1. It allows non-doctor nurse
practitioners to terminate fetal life. 2. Its voters have twice refused to vote in a "parent notification" law, requiring
that parents of underage girls be told — not approve, just notified — that their daughter had an abortion.
And now: 3. Crisis pregnancy centers — that help women choose to give birth by providing counseling and material
support — will be required to post notices of where abortions can be obtained with phone numbers, as well as that they might
be obtained for free.
America's
Can't-Do State: California's Man-Made Drought Continues. The first desalination plant in a state dragging
itself through a drought has finally opened — a welcome event but also instructive in how nearly impossible it is
to build anything useful in California. [...] The Carlsbad desalination plant was proposed in 1998 and took almost 18 years
to build. But only three of those years were actually spent building. The rest were wasted on politics and the usual Golden
State regulatory and bureaucratic tangle. One of the plant's investors told a California writer that the duplicative state
approval process alone delayed the project by at least a decade and added about 10% to total costs.
San Francisco Is Needle City. In
1997, I went to a "needle exchange" in San Francisco to see firsthand how the "harm reduction program" prevented the spread of HIV among addicts.
[...] Under the new order, San Francisco Department of Public Health spokeswoman Rachael Kagan explained, "you don't need a needle to get a needle."
Users who show up at a "syringe access" center can get a "starter kit" of 20 needles. If they want more than 20 needles, they
have to present used needles. I walked into a nearby facility and walked away with my own starter kit in a discreet plain brown bag.
San Francisco now asks users to leave their discarded syringes in drop boxes at public toilets, pharmacies and clinics. I got a "sharps"
disposal box with my 20-needle kit. Alas, there's another oft-used disposal venue — city streets and sidewalks. If you
walk around the city, then you've seen the used needles.
Half of immigrants in state illegally could
be eligible for Medi-Cal expansion, study finds. Half of Californians in the country illegally would be eligible for the state's healthcare
program for the poor if it were expanded under a proposal by legislators, a new report finds. Some California politicians are pushing to open up
the $91-billion Medi-Cal program to people here illegally, since such immigrants are not allowed to sign up for insurance under Obamacare.
All
20 'Worst Small Cities in America' in California. The annual WalletHub's 2015 "Best & Worst Small Cities in
America" found that all 20 of the worst small cities in America to live in are in California.
California: A state of death. Shortly after
signing a bill allowing assisted suicide in California, Democratic Governor Jerry Brown signed another measure that forces pregnancy crisis
centers to "offer information about affordable contraception, abortion and prenatal care." The information is to be displayed in the
form of a sign tacked to the crisis center's door and must include a phone number to the nearest county services office where family free
or low-cost family planning services can be obtained. Deceptively labeled the Reproductive FACT Act, the measure requires women seeking
help with an unplanned pregnancy to be informed of alternatives, including abortions, which the pregnancy crisis centers do not perform.
Does the government want you to die? Gov. Brown and
his Democratic Party majority in the California state Legislature have benevolently given people the "right to die." Assisted suicide is
now legal in California, but we have to ask ourselves: What is the government's incentive to help people die?[...] The government does not
need give anyone permission to commit suicide. And that leads to the question: What motivates a government to give you permission
to end your life and assist you in the process?
Jerry
Brown Cooks Up A Recipe For California Voter Fraud. Just months after handing out California driver's licenses
to illegals, Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a law to automatically register every driver to vote. Supposedly, it's to raise
turnout. More likely, it's inviting fraud. So how does opening up U.S. presidential elections to the votes of any of the
citizens of El Salvador, Armenia, Mexico or China sound? Foreigners have complained for years about wanting to vote in U.S.
elections and in California. And now they may get their wish — unless California's Gov. Jerry Brown is somehow
kept from enacting AB 1461, a bill to automatically register every recipient of a California driver's license to vote.
Non-Citizens Will Now Vote in At Least
One State. Governor Jerry Brown just sold out the American vote in California. He signed a new version of the Motor Voter
Act that will register every eligible California citizen who acquires a driver's license or renews a license at the Department of Motor Vehicles to
vote. This is after he made all illegal aliens eligible for diver's licenses. Eleven states allow illegal aliens to get driver's licenses.
Gov.
Brown Approves Automatic Voter Registration at DMV for Californians. Targeting California's recent record-low voter
turnout, Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday signed a measure that would eventually allow Californians to be automatically registered to
vote when they go to the DMV to obtain or renew a driver's license. The measure, which would also allow Californians to opt
out of registering, was introduced in response to the dismal 42% turnout in the November 2014 statewide election.
California
opens the door to more voter fraud with new motor voter law. California's Governor had a busy weekend, breaking out his pen and signing
nearly two dozen bills into law. Most of them centered on the voting process in the Golden State, but while liberals are taking a victory lap
there are hints that these maneuvers are going to signal trouble down the line. The big ticket item in the legislative package was the "New Motor
Voter Law." This brainstorm will make voter registration automatic for any person receiving a new driver's license or renewing an existing one.
Cutting
ozone will require radical transformation of California's trucking industry. At a laboratory in downtown Los
Angeles, a big rig spins its wheels on massive rollers as a metal tube funnels its exhaust into an array of air quality
sensors. Engineers track the roaring truck's emissions from a bank of computer screens. The brand-new diesel
truck is among the cleanest on the road, the engineers at the California Air Resources Board testing lab say. Even so,
its 550-horsepower engine spews out more than 20 times the smog-forming nitrogen oxides of a typical gasoline-powered
car — and that won't be good enough for the state to meet stricter federal smog limits adopted this month.
California
to become the fifth state to allow terminally ill patients to legally end their lives. California will become
the fifth state to allow terminally ill patients to legally end their lives using doctor-prescribed drugs after Gov. Jerry
Brown announced Monday [10/5/2015] he had signed one of the most emotionally charged bills of the year.
California
mom claims retailer booted her for complaining about man in girls' restroom. A California mom who says she was
recently kicked out of a sporting goods store after alerting a manager that man had frightened her young daughter in the
women's restroom is demanding answers — and a policy change — from the Washington-based chain.
The woman, who spoke to FoxNews.com but asked not to be identified, said she was shopping with her 12-year-old daughter and
the girl's younger friend when her daughter told her what had happened moments earlier at an REI sporting goods store during
a shopping trip in late August.
The 'Affordable
Housing' Fraud. Nowhere has there been so much hand-wringing over a lack of "affordable housing," as among
politicians and others in coastal California. And nobody has done more to make housing unaffordable than those same
politicians and their supporters. A recent survey showed that the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San
Francisco was just over $3,500. Some people are paying $1,800 a month just to rent a bunk bed in a San Francisco apartment.
It is not just in San Francisco that putting a roof over your head can take a big chunk out of your pay check. The whole Bay
Area is like that.

Everything
Wrong with California in One Photo. Nationwide gasoline prices are below $3 a gallon. But here in California it
is not unusual to see prices still over $4 a gallon. So what do liberals here want to do? Pass a law that mandates
reducing gasoline consumption by 50 percent by the year 2030 — just 15 years from now. This proved
too much even for some Democrats — the ones who represent actual poor and (previously) working people in the Central
Valley, unlike the West LA and Silicon Valley and San Francisco Democrats who represent smug rich people who drive Teslas.
These old-style Democrats said they would not vote for the bill.
California
issuing free diplomas to high school students who flunked out. Plenty of state school systems are struggling
with ways to not only keep up with national mandates and restrictions, but to boost their graduation rates so they can
maintain their funding and reduce criticism from the public. California seems to have come up a rather unique, back door
approach to the problem. You could always take tens of thousands of former high school students who flunked out and simply
give them a diploma anyway.
California
Will Give Free High School Diplomas To Kids Who Flunked Out. The California High School Exit Exam (CASHEE) was
created in 2004, and is intended to make sure that students have a rudimentary grasp of English and mathematics before being
awarded a high school diploma, and to counter the phenomenon of students receiving passing grades while learning almost
nothing. The test is hardly complex. The math test, for instance, only covers 8th grade-level material and
can be passed if students answer 55 percent of questions correctly.
University
of California considering recognizing a "right" to be "free from ... expressions of intolerance". The policy
specifically condemns the expression of particular viewpoints as "intolerant," as having "no place at the University of
California," and a violation of others' rights to be "free from ... expressions of intolerance." For instance, articulating a
view that people with various intellectual disabilities are incapable of various intellectual tasks, or people with various
physical disabilities are incapable of various physical tasks, would be condemned by the authority of the University.
Articulating a view that there are cultural (or even biological) differences between ethnic and racial groups in various
fields — condemned by the authority of the University, without regard to the arguments for or against the particular
assertion. It's just an up-front categorical rule; whatever you want to say along these lines, we don't want to hear it,
we don't care what your arguments are, we'll condemn it, and faculty and students have a right not to hear it.
California Assembly Approves Assisted Suicide
Bill. The ghost of Brittany Maynard came back for yet another haunting Wednesday [9/9/2015] when the California Assembly voted to
allow physician-assisted suicide by a vote of 43-34. After having lost in the California Senate back in June due to efforts largely from
the Roman Catholic Church, the merchants of death simply regrouped and returned to the lower house of the legislature to approve the End of Life
Option Act.
Median
total compensation for Redwood City firefighters — at least $226,365. Back in February 2014 the
California Policy Center publicly announced the Transparent California website, developed in partnership with the Nevada
Policy Research Institute. An article covering this announcement was posted on the Forbes Magazine website, entitled
"Hundreds Of California Government Employees Are Paid Over $400,000 A Year," which a review of 2013 Transparent California
data (2014 data is still being assembled) easily confirms. As a matter of fact, in 2013, total compensation in excess of
$400,000 was paid to 1,292 public servants in California. A staggering 2,818 of California's public employees collected
total compensation in excess of $300,000 in 2013.
Bums Bury San Francisco in Feces. San
Francisco is also a center of leftism. The liberals running the city have laid out a red carpet for dysfunctional street people,
who come from all over the country to collect their freebies and crap on the sidewalk. Combined with the policy of no longer
incarcerating any but the most obviously violent lunatics, this has reduced the city to a cross between a mental institution and a sewer.
Sen.
Dianne Feinstein Wants Obama to Wall-off 1 million Acres in Desert. U.S. Senator Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
asked President Barack Obama on Friday [8/21/2015] to bypass Congress and use the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create three new
national monuments in the California desert. The move would extend federal protection over more than 1 million acres
of mountain ranges, sandy expanses and forests running roughly between Palm Springs and the Nevada border.
No
one showed up for California's green jobs rush. In 2012, California voters were peppered with grandiose promises, such that
they could not resist approving Proposition 39. [...] Naturally, it did not work at all. On Monday, the Associated Press
reported that the program has "created" just 1,700 jobs in three years — just under 600 jobs per year or roughly five
percent of what was promised, at the cost of $175,000 per job. Even that paltry figure fails to account for opportunity
costs — i.e. jobs lost statewide because of the forced diversion of economic resources away from productive industries and
toward green energy. The number of net jobs created is likely zero or less than zero, which is to say that probably a few hundred
or a few thousand jobs have been destroyed so far at a cost of $300 million.
California
moves to provide interpreters in all court cases. Legal advocates say throughout the state, litigants in
divorce, child custody, eviction and other civil cases who have difficulty with English are going into court without
qualified interpreters.
California's
SB3, the Minimum Wage Hike. California has embarked upon a dangerous experiment. The Democrats who secured
total control of the statehouse have been the most productive group of legislators at passing bills in the last 50 years.
Most of these bills were passed stealthily to avoid media scrutiny. The last minimum wage hike was rammed through without
much media attention. The same with the Sick Leave Law that went into effect in July of 2015. These two new costs, when
combined with the federal ACA have increased the cost of labor roughly 35% overnight. None of these assaults on California
businesses were sensibly staggered, nor was the business community even consulted. It's as if the feeling that exists
under the Capital building is a childlike free-for-all to greedily get as much vote-buying, pro-labor legislation in before the
window closes. And now comes SB3, which is to amend the last minimum wage and take it higher, much much higher, for the
entire state.
The Collapse of California.
The place they once called the Golden State is providing a sobering look at America's possible Third World future. [...]
California now has the highest rate of poverty in the country. The drought, which is also not being helped by the rapid
increase in population, is now drying up entire rivers. Not surprisingly, the "watchdog press" is chiefly concerned with
making sure people don't connect the dots between an overcrowded, Third World demographic profile and a Third World way of life.
Without immigration reform,
California citizenship will have to do. It started with in-state tuition. Then came driver's
licenses, new rules designed to limit deportations and state-funded healthcare for children. And on Monday
[8/10/2015], in a gesture heavy with symbolism, came a new law to erase the word "alien" from California's labor
code. Together, these piecemeal measures have taken on a significance greater than their individual
parts — a fundamental shift in the relationship between California and its residents who live in the
country illegally. The various benefits, rights and protections add up to something experts liken to a
kind of California citizenship.
Gov.
Brown doesn't want California to use this word for immigrants. Gov. Jerry Brown signed
a trio of immigration-related measures Monday [8/10/2015], including one removing the word "alien" from
California's labor code because it is seen as a disparaging term for those not born in the United
States. Brown also signed into law legislation allowing noncitizens in high school to serve as
election poll workers and protecting the rights of immigrant minors in civil lawsuits.
Red
Flags Of Corruption Over Huntington Park. In a page-one headline, the Los Angeles Times hailed the
appointment of illegal immigrants to two Huntington Park, Calif., civic commissions as a milestone that "charts a
bold path for immigrants." It was booster journalism at its worst, gushing about illegals gaining participatory
"rights" in U.S. public life that had supposedly been unjustly denied them. It also stood in stark contrast
with the multiple local press reports — KPCC, KTLA, CBS-LA and more — which reported the event
as primarily cause for angry protests.
Thousands
of California convicts to regain voting rights. California restored voting rights Tuesday [8/4/2015]
to tens of thousands of criminals serving sentences under community supervision, reversing a decision by a state
official that they could not participate in elections. Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced the
settlement between the state and the American Civil Liberties Union of California, which sued on behalf of
nearly 60,000 convicts who became ineligible to vote when then Secretary of State Debra Bowen determined in
2014 that community supervision was equivalent to parole.
California's
Medi-Cal explosion. California is coming face to face with the reality of one of its biggest Obamacare successes:
the explosion in Medi-Cal enrollment. The numbers — 2.2 million enrollees since January — surprised
healthcare experts and created unforeseen challenges for state officials. Altogether, there are now about 11 million
Medi-Cal beneficiaries, constituting nearly 30% of the state's population.
Audit
Finds Massive Financial Mismanagement In West Covina. It was a bumbling city that
didn't know how much it was collecting or spending. It signed large contracts without proper bidding
and hired administrators without vetting their qualifications. Its city manager spent lavishly on
meals and arrangements for council members with the city credit card. And it lost $1 million by
selling a developer land it wasn't legally allowed to sell. Those were the findings of a state audit
released Thursday [7/9/2015] that blistered the management of West Covina, whose roiling politics usually
make few ripples outside its east San Gabriel Valley boundaries.
California
Is A Microcosm Of American Mediocrity. California keeps reminding us what has gone
astray with America in recent years. The state is in the midst of a crippling four-year-old
drought. Yet it has built almost no major northern or central mountain reservoirs since the New
Melones Dam of 1979. That added nearly 3 million acre-feet to the state's storage
reserves — a critical project that was almost canceled by endless environmental lawsuits
and protests. Although California has almost doubled in population since the dam's construction,
its politicians apparently decided that completing more northern and Sierra Nevada water projects
was passe. So the parched state now prays for rain and snow rather than building reservoirs to
ensure that the next drought won't shut down the state.
California
regulators approve higher electricity rates for most residents. Electric bills are set
to rise over the next few years for most household customers served by California's major
investor-owned utilities, including Southern California Edison. The increases are a result of
sweeping changes approved Friday [7/2/2015] by the California Public Utilities Commission —
the first statewide rate overhaul since the 2000-01 energy crisis. Modest and moderate consumers of
electricity will bear a greater share of costs, while many larger users of electricity will see
their bills shrink or increase less rapidly.
CA
Water Board Prioritizes Fish Over People. As severe drought conditions in California
continue to worsen, state officials have started to roll out with new regulations to prioritize
various water interests. On Wednesday [6/24/2015], the State Water Resources Control Board
adopted new emergency regulations to protect endangered and threatened fish. Low flows in four
tributaries of the Russian River cause "high temperatures, low oxygen levels and isolated pools of
water that can kill fish," such as the coho salmon and steelhead trout.
California
budget deal to make state first in nation to offer health care to undocumented kids. The $115.4 billion agreement
announced Tuesday [6/16/2015] is expected to win easy approval from the [California] Senate and Assembly before the fiscal year begins
July 1, and its immigrant health care provisions were touted by its backers as a necessity in the face of federal inaction.
The Editor says...
Sometimes there's a reason for "federal inaction." In fact, "federal inaction" is often the best we can hope for.
Goodnight, California.
8:00 PM[:] I'm on the upstairs balcony looking out over miles of lush countryside. It's quite
scenic, something in between verdant Tuscany and the aridness of Sicily. I can hear the ag pumps of
the surrounding farms everywhere churning 24/7. In a normal year they would never be turned on, as
river water irrigated the fields and recharged the water table. Then come two sirens. Will the
power go off? Quite often, someone after too much to drink goes airborne and hits a power pole on
these rural roads. I got back inside in case things go dark to review the mail. The local irrigation
district has not delivered water in four years (what do ditch tenders do when canals and ditches are empty?)
and now wants a tax hike to keep up with increased expenses. In fact, half the mail seems to be
drought information from various agencies.
Has
the federal government ever had sex? Law professors Stephen J. Schulhofer and Erin
Murphy are trying to update the criminal code when it comes to sex offenses, believing current
definitions of rape and sexual assault are antiquated. The focus of their draft is on what
constitutes consent. It adopts the "yes means yes," or "affirmative consent" model that was
passed in California last year. The California law applies only to college campuses, however.
The Editor says...
Really, I try to keep this web site "family friendly," but when you keep track of all the things liberals
do, in places like California, and then put it on a web page, it's not easy to avoid topics like promiscuity.
California's
Unsustainable Comeback. Sometime this year, the Federal Reserve is expected to
increase interest rates. When that happens, many experts believe the market will correct as
investors exit equities. Any setback in the stock market will eviscerate California's income taxes.
California's sexual re-education camps
are coming soon. Not content to redefine consent to mean asking permission before
every step of the sexual process, California is now on the path to teaching high school students the
proper way to have sex — because human nature is now wrong. [...] This means that every
time two college students have sex they have to act like they've never met before and ask for
approval for everything from the first kiss and touch through intercourse. I tried multiple
times to ask the sponsor of the California bill, State Sen. Kevin de Leon, how someone could prove they
obtained consent under his law, but only received press releases and quoted paragraphs from the bill.
California
Senate OKs health coverage for many immigrants here illegally. The state Senate on
Tuesday [6/2/2015] approved a hotly debated measure that would allow many immigrants in the state
illegally to sign up for special healthcare programs that would offer the same benefits as Medi-Cal.
The action comes just days after lawmakers significantly scaled back the plan, which originally
would have offered state-subsidized Medi-Cal to people in the country without authorization.
Water
crisis puts California Democrats on defense. Wherever he goes, Tom Del Beccaro asks
California voters which they would prefer: high-speed rail or more water. Invariably,
the answer is the same. "Everybody says water," said Mr. Del Beccaro, a Republican who's
running for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2016. "I think every dime
that exists should be allocated there. [But] we are spending more than 15 times the amount
on a train than we are on new water. "In my speeches, I also ask people to raise their hand if
they think we have a train crisis," he adds.
Audit
finds millions in overtime pay at L.A. transportation department. Last year, the
average employee who paints stripes on roads and installs street signs for the Los Angeles
Department of Transportation made $48,100 in overtime, almost six times what most other city workers
received. Four supervisors claimed $70,000 in OT, and one manager drew $155,319, effectively
tripling his salary. Those and other findings were in a transportation department audit issued
Tuesday by City Controller Ron Galperin. It revealed in particular that workers in the paint and
sign division collected what Galperin characterized as "staggering" amounts of overtime, costing the
city $3.3 million in a single year and raising concerns that some of the extra pay might have been
claimed improperly.
In
Los Angeles, unions make an offer companies can't refuse. From the truth is stranger
than fiction except if you're in Los Angeles and/or dealing with union personnel file we learn what
happens when reality slaps high-sounding abstract liberal theory in the face. In this instance,
reality wins. Sort of.
Los
Angeles becomes the biggest city yet to approve a $15 minimum wage. The Los Angeles
City Council voted overwhelmingly Tuesday [5/19/2015] to raise the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020,
up from the current $9 an hour, making the city the largest in the country to set a target that has gone from
almost absurdly ambitious to mainstream in the span of a few years. The bill, which will need to clear
a final vote, passed by a margin of 14-1.
Blue state
infrastructure. A month ago, we spent a spring break week in southern California. The
weather was glorious, and we had a wonderful time. But we were appalled by the third-world condition
of California's roads and highways. California's highways are not just decrepit and pocked with
potholes, they are downright dangerous. Billions of dollars would be required to bring California's
roads, bridges, cloverleafs and related infrastructure up to the level that is taken for granted in,
say, South Dakota. But California's Democrats have higher priorities, whether it is doling out
dollars to the party's supporters, funding environmental projects that will never see the light of
day, or finding new ways to attract illegal immigrants.
California
Rings The Mission Bell For Voter Fraud. A bill to automatically register all drivers
is speeding through the California legislature. In a state that already offers driver's licenses to
millions of illegals, this is an invitation to massive fraud. Advanced by Democrats, Secretary
of State Alex Padilla and Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, AB 1461 automatically registers anyone
applying for a California driver's license as a voter in local, state and federal elections. It's
all in the interest of supposedly increasing voter participation. This has the hideous look of a
back-door bill to encourage illegal immigrants to vote in elections they have no right to vote in,
in a country they have no loyalty to.
Starbucks'
Ethos water comes from drought-stricken California. Starbucks' Ethos bottled water,
while promising to help children around the world "get clean water," is quietly helping to drain
drought-ravaged California of its precious H2O, according to a report. The $1.95-a-bottle water
is sourced, in part, from a bottling plant in Merced, Calif., which is ranked in the "exceptional
drought" category by the US Drought Monitor, according to the report.
Port
of Los Angeles police chief indicted for corruption. The police chief for the Port of
Los Angeles has been charged with corruption in an alleged kickback and bribery scheme.
An ironic drought
in California. The present four-year California drought is not novel — even
if President Barack Obama and California Gov. Jerry Brown have blamed it on man-made climate change.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, California droughts are both age-old
and common. Predictable California dry spells — like those of 1929-34, 1976-77 and
1987-92 — more likely result from poorly understood but temporary changes in atmospheric
pressures and ocean temperatures. What is new is that the state has never had 40 million
residents during a drought — well over 10 million more than during the last dry spell
in the early 1990s. Much of the growth is due to massive and recent immigration.
California's class-based water
woes. If you can put aside for the moment the New York Times' stubborn use of the
"farmers use 80% of the water in California" canard,
this article isn't
too bad. It certainly notes the deep class divisions that are taking place in the state.
To put it simply: the rich buy their way out of the restrictions and everybody else can't.
No,
Farmers Don't Use 80 Percent of California's Water. This is a textbook example of how the media
perpetuates a false narrative based on a phony statistic. Farmers do not use 80 percent of California's
water. In reality, 50 percent of the water that is captured by the state's dams, reservoirs, aqueducts,
and other infrastructure is diverted for environmental causes. Farmers, in fact, use 40 percent of the
water supply. Environmentalists have manufactured the 80 percent statistic by deliberately excluding
environmental diversions from their calculations. Furthermore, in many years there are additional millions
of acre-feet of water that are simply flushed into the ocean due to a lack of storage capacity — a
situation partly explained by environmental groups' opposition to new water-storage projects.
Global-Warming
Guacamole. That California's catastrophic drought is a result of global warming has
become a commonplace of contemporary political rhetoric. That truism isn't true: Most scientific
accounts of California's current dry spell link recent low precipitation to naturally occurring atmospheric
cycles, not to global warming. Indeed, most of the global-warming models relied upon by those advocating
more-invasive environmental policies predict that warming would leave California with wetter winters —
winter precipitation being critical to the snowpack-dependent state — rather than the drier winters
at the root of the state's current water crisis.
Red ink could
kill Covered California. Indeed, there's no more money coming from Washington after
the state exhausts the $1.1 billion it received from the federal government to get the Obamacare
exchange up and running. And state law prohibits Sacramento from spending any money to keep the
exchange afloat. That presents an existential crisis for Covered California, which is facing a
nearly $80 [sic] budget deficit for its 2015-16 fiscal year.
Insiders
Detail Culture of Secrecy at California's Obamacare Exchange. Aiden Hill's introduction to the secretive culture at
Covered California came in his first days on the job. He had just been hired to head up the agency's $120 million call
center effort when he emailed a superior April 18, 2013, and got a text message in reply: ["]Please refrain from writing
a lot of draft contract language in government email ... And don't clarify via email ... No email.["]
Big
Idea: California Is So Over. California has met the future, and it really doesn't work.
As the mounting panic surrounding the drought suggests, the Golden State, once renowned for meeting human
and geographic challenges, is losing its ability to cope with crises. As a result, the great American
land of opportunity is devolving into something that resembles feudalism, a society dominated by rich and
poor, with little opportunity for upward mobility for the state's middle- and working classes.
Critics
say California drought caused by misguided environment policies. In an average year,
California gets enough snow and rain to put 200 million acres under a foot of water, but
environmental opposition to dams over the last several decades has allowed the majority of the
freshwater to flow into the ocean, even as the state's population exploded to nearly 40 million
people. The current drought has left farms parched and residents under strict water consumption
orders, but some say it didn't have to be that way.
Californians
can now be fined for long showers! I reported that California Governor Jerry Brown
unveiled the state's first water restrictions in response to the "mega-drought". As I foresaw, the
rules have turned out to be more about revenue generation than resource protection. What I did not
predict is that my teen son and his lengthy showers would make him the latest environmental villain.
Liberals
blamed for California drought. For California Gov. Jerry Brown to crack down on shower-taking and toilet-flushing
to save precious quarts of water as millions of gallons flow into the Pacific Ocean doesn't make a lot of sense to Travis
Allen. [...] With everyday Californians now on the hook for drastic conservation measures, Republicans say the time has
come to focus on the real culprit: a state and federal regulatory framework, fueled by environmental litigation,
that requires a certain aquatic environment for at-risk fish while making it nearly impossible to build dams and other
water-storage projects.
How
the Environmentalists are Destroying California. In 2007, they mobilized around saving
the Delta Smelt, a three-inch baitfish, as an outgrowth of a policy that for decades put animal life
and vegetation ahead of drinking water and food. The Delta Smelt requires a rare and somewhat
precise mixture of fresh and salt water. It is by any measure a fragile species. In
August 2007, Federal Judge Oliver Wanger ruled that the fresh water pumped into the Central Valley,
the lifeblood of its economic base, threatened the survival of the Delta Smelt. He ordered a
severe reduction in the water directed to Central Valley agriculture. The ruling (subsequently
reversed for sloppy science and then upheld) resulted in a loss of thousands of jobs and acres of
farmland. [...] The fight over the Delta Smelt [...] is a fight between people who value a
baitfish over productive farmland and America's food resources.
A
hot water issue in the California drought discussion. The California governor's recent
proclamation that Californians must cut water usage by 25% certainly caught the attention of
Californians and pundits nationwide. Featuring threats of fines of up to $500 per day, and even
restrictions on personal shower habits, Governor Brown wasted little time getting right to class warfare
over our green lawns. Unfortunately, he and the ruling Democratic Party once again resorted to
draconian rationing measures and heavy-handed fees, while offering no leadership and no real solutions
to California's current water crisis.
The
browning of California's green movement. Indeed, an adequate water supply isn't a
luxury issue for Californians, and no serious attempt has been made by liberals viewing the
environment with alarm to deal with it. In part, this is due to the fact that lack of moisture can't
be immediately linked to climate change. And unlike California's initiatives to reduce so-called
environmental threats through various governmental actions, the options for dealing with droughts are few.
The only real alternative is drastic conservation that would impact significantly on the lives of citizens.
An alternative such as desalination of ocean waters isn't feasible because it's a long-term project, and the
residue supposedly left in the Pacific from implementation would adversely affect marine life.
More on the California
Water Waster Fink Squads. Remember that thing I wrote yesterday about how Long Beach, California
was going Full Metal Snitching on 'water wasters?' Guess what! Yup, it's going statewide.
California
Water Authorities To Use New Tool In Fight Against Water Wasters. Water authorities
are using a new tool in a major effort to crack down on people and businesses wasting water in light
of new water restrictions issued by Gov. Jerry Brown to fight the drought. The Long Beach Water
Department says sprinklers at a McDonald's restaurant on Bellflower Boulevard went on for 45 minutes
at a time, twice a night, for an undefined number of nights. Complaints continued to mount as water
pooled and wasted. The department, however, could do little about the wasting. That was before
the smart meter.
The Editor says...
It's easy enough to wield this weapon against McDonald's without much public outcry, but when
it is used against residential water customers, watch out!
Governor Moonbeam Regulates Bathroom Activities.
Changing behavior is what liberal fascists are all about. For them change — specifically,
coerced change — is an end in itself. Stalin figured it out long ago: control food,
control people. But Democrats are doing him one better. Control water, control food production
and people. How will the authorities know if you took too long in the shower? One way is if your
neighbors rat you out, just as in any other police state. Another is the smart meter: [...]
Should California
Spend 4 Billion Gallons to Save a Few Fish? In the the [sic] heart of California's
drought-parched Central Valley, fruit and vegetable supplier to the nation, a water district is
defying a federal order to give some endangered trout a 3.9 billion gallon water ride out to sea.
And it could be the first skirmish in a much wider conflict. The Endangered Species Act protects
steelhead trout, a small population of which are attempting a recovery in the Stanislaus River,
which flows out of the Sierra Nevada Mountains into Modesto, in the San Joaquin Valley. So
earlier this week a federal fisheries agency — it's unclear which one, and there are
several — told the California branch of the Bureau of Reclamation (another water agency)
that the fish needed more water to get out to the Pacific. The bureau in turn passed the order
to the South San Joaquin Irrigation District, telling them to let a pulse of water through the dam
on the Stanislaus.
Feds
order parched California farm district to use 9 billion gallons of water to save 29 fish.
These eco-Marxists are completely insane. Off their rockers.
Marijuana
Plants Soak Up Billions of Gallons of Water in California. California's terrible
drought has become — like just about everything else in the United States — a
political issue. Many liberals have taken to blaming anthropogenic climate change for the drought,
while some conservatives have placed the blame at the feet of "liberal environmentalists." The
political point-scoring is tiring and just plain silly, given that the drought is almost certainly a
result of natural processes — processes that we humans, conservatives and liberals alike,
have precious little to do with. Another problem is that our partisan pugilists are conflating two
separate issues: the drought, which is the lack of rainfall that California has suffered over the
past four years, and the water shortages, which may indeed have some man-made causes.
California Lawmakers
Present Bills to Protect Undocumented Immigrants. A group of California lawmakers on
Tuesday [4/7/2015] presented a package of measures to strengthen protection of undocumented
immigrants and thus alleviate the "political paralysis" in Congress over approving immigration
reform. "In California, there are about 40 million residents... of Mexican, Central American and
Asian origin. So, today we're presenting a package of 10 measures to protect undocumented immigrants,"
Kevin de Leon, the Democratic president pro tempore of the California Senate, told Efe.
Torrance
Police Settle for Illegally Destroyed Guns. California, especially California cities,
have had a bad reputation for decades, of legally stealing firearms. This was primarily done with
police officers confiscating firearms that they came across, without any crime being committed.
Department policy was then to refuse to return the firearm unless a court ordered them to do so. As
the process of obtaining a court order would ordinarily be much more costly than the price of a firearm, most
people who had their firearms stolen by police simply did not bother in attempting to obtain a court order.
Carly
Fiorina blames liberal environmentalists for Calif. water crisis. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO and potential
Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina is blaming California's water crisis on "liberal environmentalists" who
are "willing to sacrifice other people's lives and livelihoods at the altar of their ideology." "With different
policies over the last 20 years, all of this could be avoided," Ms. Fiorina said in an interview Monday [4/6/2015]
on Glenn Beck's radio show, The Blaze reported. "Despite the fact that California has suffered from droughts
for millennia, liberal environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir or a single new water
conveyance system over decades during a period in which California's population has doubled."
The Drought:
California Apocalypto. I think that we've come full circle in California: from the
premodern Wild West of the 19th century to a decadent postmodernism that is every bit as feral,
though the roughness of ascension is always preferable to its counterpart in decline. The day before
Easter, Sacramento tried to stage the world's largest public Easter egg hunt. From news reports it
seems quickly to have devolved into a Darwinian free-for-all, where the ochlos swarmed the
few who played by the rules.
An Engineered Drought.
We're suffering the ramifications of the "small is beautiful," "spaceship earth" ideology of our
cocooned elites. Californians have adopted the ancient peasant mentality of a limited good, in which
various interests must fight it out for the always scarce scraps. Long ago we jettisoned the can-do
visions of our agrarian forebears, who knew California far better than we do and trusted nature far less.
Now, like good peasants, we are at one another's throats for the last drops of a finite supply.
California
is in one of its worst-ever droughts because people are growing too much weed. The
current drought in California, one of the most severe on record, could have been exacerbated by
marijuana cultivation, scientists say. Some marijuana farms are sucking more water from the
ground than can be replaced, threatening the state's water entire supply, according to a study
published in the Public Library of Science journal. The amount of water being used to cultivate
marijuana was said to be "unsustainable" in the report.
Rain Dances in California.
On February 14, 2014, President Barack Obama arrived on Air Force One in Fresno, California, with
Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein aboard. [...] The Democratic entourage, ringed by Secret
Service, posed in the fallow field for Associated Press and the television cameras. It had no clue
how to solve California's water problems. It could have been doing rain dances, for all the good it
was doing. The fact is, the four were doing rain dances for MSM — all of them —
Obama, Boxer, Feinstein, and Brown. [...] A White House that has hijacked drought to serve its ideological
ends makes sound water allocation more difficult to achieve.
California
Accredits Nation's First Muslim College ... Founded By Jihadists. The same California
college board that accredited Stanford and Berkeley has certified the nation's first Muslim college
in what the left is cheering as a breakthrough for diversity. In fact, it's a breakthrough for
jihadism. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges last week officially —
and naively — recognized Zaytuna College, making the Islamist school eligible to receive
federal grants and accept foreign Muslim students on visas. But before liberals celebrate too
loudly, they should know that Zaytuna was founded by pro-jihadists who hate America and Jews and
want to turn America into an Islamic state.
The Scorching of California
by the Green Radical Left. In the 1970s, coastal elites squelched California's
near-century-long commitment to building dams, reservoirs, and canals, even as the Golden State's
population ballooned. Court-ordered drainage of man-made lakes, meant to restore fish to the
1,100-square-mile Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, partly caused central California's reservoir
water to dry up. Not content with preventing construction of new water infrastructure,
environmentalists reverse-engineered existing projects to divert precious water away from agriculture,
privileging the needs of fish over the needs of people. Then they alleged that global warming,
not their own foolish policies, had caused the current crisis.
Two
Planned Parenthood workers who taught high school sex-ed, revealed to be sex-toy instructor and
'pleasure activist'. Parents with students at one California high school recently
learned that two Planned Parenthood employees who taught their impressionable children sex education
also held down some controversial side jobs. One of the sex-ed instructors at Acalanes Union High
School in Lafayette also taught a class on sex toys at a nearby shop while the other identified herself
as a 'pleasure activist' on her now-deleted Twitter profile. The job history of the two teachers
was revealed after parents learned about the school's partnership with Planned Parenthood and demanded
the curriculum be changed.
Common
Core Follies: California report cards to include grades for 'grit', 'gratitude', 'sensitivity to
others'. The entire state of California pubic education system is to begin grading
students on matters a teacher cannot possibly know or evaluate objectively. In a sign of descent
into full indoctrination camp mode, the Common Cores standards adopted by the state are calling on
teachers to grade students on their "grit, gratitude, and sensitivity to others."
Rapper
Tiny Doo facing long prison sentence over lyrics. Song lyrics that glorify violence
are hardly uncommon. But a prosecutor in California says one rapper's violent lyrics go beyond
creative license to conspiracy. San Diego-based rapper Tiny Doo has already spent eight months in
prison, and faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted under a little-known California statute
that makes it illegal to benefit from gang activities.
The Editor says...
Is it not true that every television news show in Los Angeles and Oakland and San Diego features occasional
stories about gang activity? Do those TV stations therefore benefit from gang activities?
California
bars judges from belonging to Boy Scouts. California's Supreme Court voted Friday to
prohibit state judges from belonging to the Boy Scouts on grounds that the group discriminates
against gays. The court said its seven justices unanimously voted to heed a recommendation by its
ethics advisory committee barring judges' affiliation with the organization. In 1996 the state
Supreme Court banned judges from belonging to groups that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation,
but made an exception for nonprofit youth organizations.
California health care
on suicide watch. California, thanks to Obamacare and its exchange, Covered California, has
no one to blame but itself. The state is imposing costly rules and regulations on the health
care system, causing a death spiral in health care delivery.
Gender-neutral
single-stall restrooms now required in West Hollywood. West Hollywood law requiring
all single-stall restrooms in businesses and public places to be gender-neutral will go into effect
this week. The law, which will have no impact on multiple-stall restrooms, mandates that any
facility designed for use by no more than one person not be restricted to a specific sex or gender
identity by signage, design or installation of fixtures.
Police
stop pursuing nearly 79,000 fugitives. Nationwide, police and prosecutors quietly told
the FBI they had abandoned their pursuit of nearly 79,000 accused felons during the past year and a
half, a USA TODAY investigation found. They have given up chasing people charged with armed robbery
and raping children, usually without informing their victims. Police in one county in California
reported they would no longer pursue three of their most-wanted fugitives and a man charged with a
murder for which prosecutors have sought the death penalty.
California
pushes to expand immigrant health care. President Barack Obama's executive order to
spare some immigrants from deportation has galvanized Democrats, immigration groups and health care
advocates in California to push for expanding health coverage to a segment of the population that
remains uninsured.
California
bill would require retailers, restaurants to pay their employees double on holidays. A
California lawmaker said she will introduce a bill that would double the pay of employees who work
over Thanksgiving and Christmas. "I've watched how the retailers and restaurateurs continue to
expand their hours and open up on these holidays that are traditionally family holidays," Assemblywoman
Lorena Gonzalez told the Sacramento Bee. "What people are being called in to do now is a real slap
in the face of family values, frankly."
Opposing viewpoint:
Why I Don't
Mind Working Retail Thanksgiving Day. For the last two or three years, people have
been complaining about Black Friday starting earlier and earlier and claim to feel badly for poor
oppressed retail workers who have to work on Thanksgiving Day rather than spend it with their
families. So here's my take, as an actual retail employee who does work on Thanksgiving.
Obama
is not doing enough to wreck the country. I believe that the economy can potentially
absorb five million additional gardeners and nannies. The challenge will be to create a corresponding
number of rich young liberals to hire them. I was relieved to hear that California Governor Edmund
Gerald "Jerry" "Moonbeam" Brown, Jr., who has welcomed all five million amnesty recipients to his state,
has proposed a new Middle Class tax that will subsidize wealthy left-wing yuppies to bridge the gap between
a livable wage for illegal immigrants and that which liberals are willing to pay them. Brown sees this
as a first step in his campaign to become the Democratic Party's candidate for President of Mexico in 2016.
California
Orders Churches To Fund Abortions — Or Else. For the past four years, the
Obama administration and its friends on the Left were careful to claim that they still strongly
support religious liberty while arguing that Hobby Lobby's Green family, Conestoga Wood Specialties'
Hahn family, and others like them must lose. Principally, they contended, religious liberty
protections could not be applied to Hobby Lobby because (1) It is a for-profit corporation,
(2) It isn't a church (and thus not a true "religious employer," and (3) It is wrong on the
science — Plan B, a copper intrauterine device, et cetera, they claimed, do not cause
abortions. They implied, if not claimed outright, that they would surely support religious freedom
in another case, but Hobby Lobby was unworthy to claim its protections. The State of California
is now calling their bluff.
One more reason to flee California:
San
Diego agrees to turn recycled wastewater into drinking water. Acknowledging California's parched new
reality, the city of San Diego has embraced a once-toxic idea: turning sewer water into drinking water.
California's
next big political fight: Plastic grocery bags. Go to a grocery store in California
and buy all the milk, eggs and vegetables you want. But there's one thing you won't find at the
checkout line, beginning July 1, 2015: Plastic bags to carry your stuff home. Gov. Jerry Brown
(D) on Tuesday signed into law a ban on single-use plastic bags, making California the first state
to prohibit stores from using the ubiquitous carry-alls. Shoppers will be charged 10 cents
for every paper bag and heavy-duty plastic bag they use.
California's
Plastic Bag Ban And A State's Death Wish. California, as is its wont, enacted another
bunch of silly laws this week, topped by a ban on the plastic bags that we all find so handy. [...]
Nobody likes a "torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks and even the vast ocean itself," as
Brown says. Yet plastic bags still end up where they shouldn't be. The answer, however, isn't to
ban the bags, which people use not only for groceries but for everything from toting lunches to
picking up pet droppings. The solution is to penalize those who foul the commons, not just with
plastic bags but with all kinds of other litter. Californians actually may be worse off with the
ban. It could, for example, actually make people sick, since the reusable bags that shoppers are
being urged to switch to can harbor food-borne illnesses.
California
Voters to Decide on Sending Fewer Criminals to Prison. California voters appear poised
to scale back the heavy reliance on incarceration they once embraced, with a measure that would
transform several lower-level, nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors punishable by brief jail stays,
if that, rather than time in a state penitentiary. The referendum on Nov. 4 is part of a
national reappraisal of mass incarceration.
California
becomes first state to ban plastic bags. Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed
legislation imposing the nation's first statewide ban on single-use plastic bags, driven to action
by a buildup of litter and damage to aquatic ecosystems.
California
Gives $3 Million to Groups Providing Free Legal Aid to Illegal Aliens. California Gov.
Jerry Brown is channeling the "progressive spirit" of California in his latest act as governor.
Turns out he just signed a bill that would give $3 million in grants to non-profits that would offer
unaccompanied alien minors legal counsel- which is $1 million more than what the federal government
planned to give in grants nationwide.
California
School Purging Library of ANY Book with a Christian Author or Theme. Ask me again why my children are homeschooled.
Why not $20 an hour? Or $50?
Los
Angeles approves $15.37 minimum wage for hotel workers. The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday [9/24/2014]
to raise the minimum wage for hotel workers to $15.37, one of the highest wage requirements in the country. Hotel workers
in yellow shirts packed City Hall as the council voted 12 to 3 to approve the measure, which will go into effect for
hotels with at least 300 rooms beginning in July. Hotels with 150 rooms or more will have to meet the wage
requirement a year later.
Brown signs package of bills to encourage
voting. Months after statewide voter turnout hit a historic low of 25% in this year's primary election, Gov. Jerry Brown on
Friday [9/26/2014] signed eight bills aimed at getting more Californians to participate in the political process. He also signed
dozens of other bills Friday — a hodgepodge that included new rights for gay and transgender Californians, a requirement
that state prisons expand the availability of condoms to inmates and measures that promote the "farm to fork" movement to increase
consumer access to fresh food.
Jerry
Brown at UN Climate Change Summit: 'Carbon Pollution Kills!' Arriving in NYC aboard the People's Climate Train,
which travelled across the country from Emeryville California, Sister Ayya Santussika, a Buddhist nun, said that climate change
is a "moral issue" and affects everyone of us. [...] Gov. Brown signed some bills on Sunday [9/21/2014] that mandates an increase
in the amount of electric cars for California, reduces the time it takes to get rooftop solar panel permits, and establishes new
regulations to restrict atmospheric pollutants.
The Editor says...
Carbon dioxide is not carbon, for the same reason that water is not hydrogen. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
supports life. It is not a threat. It is not pollution.
"What do you call a man who claims voters' choices have no place in government?"
Brown's
Final Nail In Prop. 187 Is Really A Blow To California's Voters. [I]n 1994, millions
of California's voters, by a margin of 59% to 41%, voted in favor of denying "free" welfare,
education and other benefits to illegal immigrants on the clear logic that a burglar who breaks into
someone else's home doesn't have the right to eat the owner's food. It was a legitimate decision
for a people to make, given that in any democratic system, the participants have the right to
control the purse. But [Governor] Brown's statements and those of his political allies, including
those in the press, suggest an imperial contempt for the will of California's voters.
Pension
'spiking' to cost CalPERS nearly $800 million, controller says. Taxpayers and local
governments are on the hook to pay nearly $800 million stemming from "legal" pension spiking over
the next two decades, the state controller said Tuesday [9/9/2014]. The price tag came as Controller John
Chiang issued a new audit of the California Public Employees' Retirement System. The audit of 11
state and local government agencies found no illegal pension spiking but concluded that the country's
largest public retirement fund makes itself vulnerable to the practice by not aggressively reviewing
its 3,100 member agencies' payroll records.
Nearly
1 in 10 California workers are here illegally, study finds. A report released Wednesday [9/3/2014] by
researchers at USC found that immigrants who are in California illegally make up nearly 10% of the state's workforce
and contribute $130 billion annually to its gross domestic product. The study, which was conducted in
conjunction with the California Immigrant Policy Center, was based on census data and other statistics, including
data from the Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security. It looked at a variety of ways the
estimated 2.6 million immigrants living in California without permission participate in state life.
California
Rep. On Drought: Democrats Believe 'Fish Are More Important Than People'. Rep. David
Valadao (R-Bakersfield) lashed out at Democrats, including congressional opponent Amanda Renteria,
on California's urgent drought problem, saying Democrat policies will fail to provide relief for
millions of Central Valley residents living with severe water shortages. [...] Valadao is not the
only one in the district blasting the allocation of water resources. Area farmers are angry after
the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began releasing 25,000 acre-feet of water from Northern California's
Trinity Lake to help protect the native salmon population on Saturday [8/30/2014], even as farmers have
repeatedly asked for more water to help grow food.
CA
Lawmakers Aim To Ban English Only Instruction in Public Schools. On Tuesday [8/26/2014], a few
hours after Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto said that Illegal Aliens deserve justice in the USA
and Gov. Jerry Brown welcomed all illegal immigrants to California, lawmakers in Sacramento passed a
proposed ballot measure seeking to dismantle the English-only mandate for public schools and
increase multilingual education programs.
Gov. Jerry Brown
Reveals That California Has Just Seceded From the Union and is Now Part of Mexico. This Democrat
Party is completely out of control. It has succeeded in its century-long quest to fundamentally
transform destroy our form of government.
Liberals love freedom of expression — until they disagree with it.
CA Looks To Ban
Confederate Flag. A bill sits on Gov. Jerry Brown's desk to ban California from
displaying or selling the Confederate flag or objects with images of it. The state's Legislature
passed the bill nearly unanimously last week. Assemblyman Isadore Hall III, D-Compton, introduced
the legislation after his mother discovered the Capitol gift shop sold a replica of Confederate money
that contained a picture of the flag, according to the L.A. Times. The lone dissenting vote among
the 67 cast was from former California GOP gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly of Twin Peaks.
He argued the bill would infringe on free speech.
Gov.
Jerry Brown To Mexican Illegals: 'You're All Welcome In California. On Monday evening [8/25/2014], California Governor Jerry
Brown said all Mexicans, including illegal immigrants, are welcome in California. According to the Los Angeles Times, while introducing
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who said America is "the other Mexico," Brown "spoke about the interwoven histories of Mexico and
California." He "nodded to the immigrants in the room, saying it didn't matter if they had permission to be in the United States."
"You're all welcome in California," Brown reportedly said.
Another
Dumb Idea From Los Angeles. The city of Los Angeles is considering paying voters to
encourage turnout. Needless to say, it's a ridiculous idea that will reward low-information voting,
foster political demagogues and breed corruption.
California
AG Kamala Harris to appeal ruling against death penalty. A federal judge's "flawed"
decision declaring California's enforcement of the death penalty unconstitutional will be appealed,
state Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris announced Thursday [8/21/2014]. Harris will ask the U.S.
9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn last month's ruling by U.S. District Judge Cormac J.
Carney, who said decades-long delays and uncertainty about whether inmates will be executed violated the
Constitution's ban on cruel or unusual punishment. Harris personally opposes the death penalty but
promised voters she would enforce it.
CA
Supreme Court Rejects Dems' Anti-'Citizens United' Ballot Measure. On Monday
[8/11/2014], the California Supreme Court blocked an "advisory" ballot measure that Democrats had
hoped to include on the November ballot, with a view to increasing turnout among apathetic voters.
The non-binding measure, Proposition 49, asked voters if they felt the Supreme Court's 2010
Citizens United ruling should be reversed.
Jerry
Brown: Affluent Families Not Producing' Children. Giving what was dubbed the
"California Welcome," Gov. Jerry Brown told attendees at the 31st Annual National Association of
Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Conference in June that affluent families seemed to not be
"producing" children in the state. "I don't know what the affluent families are doing," Brown
said. "They're not producing or something, because half the kids in schools are from low-income families."
The Editor says...
Get a clue, Governor. ALL of the kids in public schools are from low-income families. Anybody with any money
sends their kids to private schools. Like Mr. and Mrs. Obama, for example.
California
Releases Thousands of 'Lifers' from Prison. California continues to stretch the
imaginations of non-liberals. One unthinkable policy is Governor Brown's policy by which thousands
of presumably dangerous prisoners originally sentenced by juries to life sentences in the slammer
are being set free. A Friday [8/8/2014] radio segment on the California Report was downright cheery
about cons being released into local communities. [...] In other words, don't be scared, little
citizens — the murderers and rapists have been taught techniques in anger management.
Is
Big Labor Keeping The L.A. Water Dept. From Replacing Old Pipes? Not an outlandish
question. The water main that broke near UCLA last week was ninety years old, which isn't unusual
here in the City of Angels. The only things more common than fault lines running under this city are
ancient water pipes. It's a situation that even the mayor admits isn't going to get better soon.
As is typical with bureaucracies, the problem is blamed on a lack of money. As is also typical with
bureaucracies, it is really more a problem of prioritization and budgeting than available funds.
Diaper
duty for Calif. taxpayers? Bill would create new welfare program. California is
weighing a first-of-its-kind welfare program that would subsidize diapers for needy families, though
some lawmakers say the plan's a stinker. Assembly Bill 1516, written by Assemblywoman Lorena
Gonzalez, a Democrat from San Diego, would create the taxpayer-backed program within the state's
existing welfare network, called CalWORKs (California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to
Kids). Families that qualify for CalWORKS could be eligible for $80 a month to buy diapers
for children under the age of 2.
One of Obama's big ideas for reforming
health care failed a test in California. "We need to bundle payments so you aren't
paid for every single treatment you offer a patient with a chronic condition like diabetes, but
instead paid well for how you treat the overall disease," Obama told the crowd of physicians.
Obama was articulating what would become one of the key payment reforms in his health care
law — a proposal aimed at giving incentives to providers to control costs by rewarding
them for providing less expensive care. But a study published in the journal Health Affairs
looked at an ambitious three-year pilot program of bundled payments in California that was funded by a
$2.9 million grant from Obama's 2009 economic stimulus package — and found that
the program was such a massive failure, it could hardly get off the ground.
Health premiums
soared, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones says. The cost of health insurance for
individuals skyrocketed this year in California, with some paying almost twice what they did last
year, the state's insurance commissioner said. But Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones predicted
that insurers will ease up in the coming year to prevent California voters from approving tough new
rate controls on the November statewide ballot as Proposition 45. Insurers and opponents of
Proposition 45 dismissed Jones' comments as misleading and politically motivated.
The Editor resorts to mocking derision:
That's brilliant! As long as they're at it, why not limit the price of gasoline to a dollar per gallon?
Divided
they stand? Billionaire in push to carve up California into six states. A billionaire
tech investor says he has enough backing to put on the ballot a plan to split California into six
states. Timothy Draper, a venture capitalist founder of a Silicon Valley-based venture capital
firm that has invested in such tech companies as Twitter, HotMail, Skype and Tesla, told Reuters he
has the 808,000 signatures needed on a petition to force the measure onto a public referendum in
November 2016.
Almonds
Are Sucking the Life Out of California. The new California gold rush is a bit, well,
nutty: According to USDA predictions reported Monday [7/14/2014], farmers will harvest a record 2.1 billion
pounds of almonds this year. That's great news for almond-lovers, but not-so-great news for California,
which produces 80 percent of the world's almonds. A single almond requires 1.1 gallons of water
to produce, and seeing as the state is currently in the middle of a devastating drought, that's water farmers have to
drill deep for — 2,500 feet deep, in fact.
California
Removes 'Husband' and 'Wife' from California Marriage Law. One word can make all the
difference when it comes to definitions. Exhibit A: exchange the words "husband and wife" for a more
inclusive term, and you have the phrase "I now pronounce you spouses." In the state of California,
they are paying special attention to keep their vernacular as progressive as possible. Governor
Jerry Brown (D) signed a bill Monday [7/7/2014] to formally make marriage gender-neutral to reflect the state's
allowance of same-sex unions.
California's Hydromania.
We had a wonderful water storage system for 23 million people in 1980. But it proved completely
inadequate for the 40 million plus of 2014, who assumed household and drinking water, irrigation supplies,
and clean hydroelectric power came out of thin air.
Well drilling
boom in the West. Erected on the edge of hundreds of acres of crops in Kern County,
Calif., crews are currently working around the clock on a massive well. At first glance, you may
think they're drilling for oil. But this project is digging for something of a different value.
Third generation farmer Devon Yurosek and his family have invested heavily in the two thousand foot
water well on their farmland. In the midst of the worst drought in California's history, the
Yuroseks need water to help grow pistachios, pomegranates and cherries. Their well is just one of
a number popping up throughout the area.
Californians
Keep Up With Joneses' Water Use. In five months since the drought emergency was
declared, Californians have cut their water consumption only 5 percent compared with recent years,
according to state officials — a far cry from the 20 percent that Gov. Jerry Brown called
for in January. So, faced with apparent indifference to stern warnings from state leaders and
media alarms, cities across California have encouraged residents to tattle on their neighbors for
wasting water — and the residents have responded in droves. Sacramento, for instance,
has received more than 6,000 reports of water waste this year, up twentyfold from last year.
Advocates
of splitting California into six states gathering signatures. Advocates for Six
Californias, a plan to split the Golden State into a half dozen separate states, are holding a
petition drive this weekend to get their plan on the ballot in 2016. The idea is the brainchild
of Timothy Draper, a venture capitalist from Menlo Park — or as he hopes to some day
call it, the state of Silicon Valley. Draper has sunk $2 million into signature
gathering for the proposal.
Vergara
Case Is California's Education Earthquake. [Scroll down] Teachers gain lifetime tenure after
just 18 months, before their training is even done. It's almost impossible to dismiss them, no
matter what their transgressions — perversion, drug dealing, child pornography, sexual
assault, you name it. The regulations are so cumbersome, it's impossible to fire anyone.
There's also a layoff system that ensures that seniority trumps performance, resulting in top-performing
teachers being laid off over under-performing deadwood who've just been on the job longer. It's a
Mafia-like protection racket for the worst of the worst.
California
Tops List of 10 States With Highest Taxes. The Tax Foundation has ranked the states by their
state income tax rates and among the highest are California, Hawaii, and Oregon.
CA
Legislators Are Highest Paid in USA. Stateline's data, which indicated California legislators are
averaging a base salary of $90,526 per year, is a few months old, and that base salary will be raised to $95,291 in
December as a result of a decision last year by the California Citizens Compensation Commission. The Commission
is also considering a further raise. In addition, the legislators receive an additional tax-free "per diem"
of $141.86 per day every day the Legislature is in session. The closest average salary to the California legislators
is in Pennsylvania, where the average salary is $84,012.
Environmentalists
Cheer California's Latest Plan to Sink Its Economy. Environmentalists are gleeful at
the news reported last week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration that the amount of
recoverable oil from California's Monterey Shale formation — predicted to be the
nation's largest reserve of oil — is a whopping 96-percent below original production
estimates. In response, more than 100 environmental groups signed a letter to the California
Legislature calling for a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing and other "stimulation" techniques
that ultimately would be needed to develop this oil field. They say the new estimates are
"undercutting the misguided rationale" for allowing fracking before more studies are done.
Vergara
v. California: The Most Important Court Case You've Never Heard Of. This school year,
parents learned a tough lesson: The only force on behalf of the public interest is an interested
public. And sometimes the students show us the way. Nine public school children have been
courageously taking on the government in California, where their right to a sound education is rooted in
the Constitution. A judge's decision is expected soon, and their lawsuit is being watched closely in
education circles.
California
takes first step toward curtailing water rights. Some farmers and community water districts in drought-hit
California could soon face limits on their ability to use water from strained streams that flow into the Sacramento River.
The California Water Resources Control Board adopted regulations on Wednesday to limit water use during summer months, the driest
season and the time of year when farmers are most likely to need water to irrigate their crops.
Southern
California City May Drop Lawsuit Against Sriracha Sauce Maker. The mayor of Irwindale
said he will ask the City Council to drop the public-nuisance order and lawsuit against the maker
of Sriracha hot sauce, possibly bringing the months-long conflict to an end. The move comes after
members of Gov. Jerry Brown's office visited the sauce factory.
The Editor says...
The factory had been recently visited by elected officials from Texas who were actively trying to lure the
factory away from California. That would be a really good reason to drop the lawsuit.
Sriracha
CEO Compares California to Communist Vietnam. David Tran is the founder and CEO of
Huy Fong Foods, the maker of the famously tasty Sriracha hot sauce. Grappling for months with
regulators and politicians in southern California about the spicy scents that his factory emits,
Tran recently compared meddlesome government to that of a communist country. It might sound
hyperbolic, but he does know a thing or two about living under the nightmarish bureaucracy of a red
utopia. NPR explains that Tran "escaped" Socialist Republic of Vietnam and "its many intrusions"
three decades ago to start a new life in The Land of the Free.
Sriracha
battle over: Victory for chili as council throws out 'public nuisance' declaration and lawsuit against hugely
popular hot sauce factory. In a victory for chilli fans around the world, a town that is home to
the fiercely popular Sriracha hot sauce company has removed its status as a "public nuisance" and thrown out a
lawsuit that threatened to halt its production. The simple piquant condiment that inspired a global
community of foodies — and whole books of dedicated recipes — had been in undeniably
hot water following complaints from local residents.
In California we don't trust. It
may come as little surprise that Californians are not very trusting of their state government. After all,
Californians have had to deal with more than our fair share of budget crises, tax increases, corruption, mismanaged
agencies and boondoggle projects. Given that California residents have been conditioned for many years to
accept this as the normal state of affairs, it may astound some of us to learn that most other state governments
have earned far greater levels of trust from their citizens.
Atheists
win prayer battle against California city council. Atheists who complained about pre-meeting
prayers conducted by members of the Pismo Beach City Council in California can now claim a win.
Council members say they're going to stop saying prayers at public meetings and that the volunteer
chaplain will no longer be invited to give the opening invocations, The Blaze reported. They've
also agreed to pay a symbolic settlement of $1 to each of the the two plaintiffs — and
another $47,500 to cover the two plaintiffs' legal fees.
Bill
Encourages Schools To Teach About Racial Significance Of Obama's Presidency. A bill that passed the Assembly with
unanimous bipartisan support Thursday encourages California schools to teach students about the racial significance of Barack
Obama's presidency.
Calif. moves to ban judges affiliated with Boy Scouts.
California is proposing to ban members of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) from serving as judges because the Boy
Scouts do not allow gay troop leaders, The Daily Caller has learned. In a move with major legal implications,
The California Supreme Court Advisory Committee on The Code of Judicial Ethics has proposed to classify the Boy
Scouts as practicing "invidious discrimination" against gays, which would end the group's exemption to
anti-discriminatory ethics rules and would prohibit judges from being affiliated with the group.
Two Dems Accuse Party Leaders in CA-33 of Changing Rules
to Favor Wealthy Insiders. Two Democratic Party candidates in the primary race for
California's 33rd congressional district in West Los Angeles have accused local party officials of
using an arbitrary fundraising minimum to favor established insiders — then raising that
minimum at the last moment to exclude them from a recent candidates' forum.
California
Unemployment Holds Steady at Dismal 8.1%. In March, according to the Los Angeles Times, the rate
was 8.1%. In February, it was exactly the same. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the state
only added 11,800 net new jobs in March, many of them in construction, government, education, and health
services. [...] While California remained miserable, unemployment rates in 17 other states rose.
Drought-stricken
Calif. farmers to get more water. Drought-stricken California farmers and cities are set to get more
water as state and federal officials ease water cutbacks due to recent rain and snow, officials announced on Friday [4/18/2014].
Asians Derail
Affirmative Action In California. The express train hurtling to return racial preference
admissions to California — in the form of State Constitutional Amendment 5, which if
placed on the ballot and approved by voters would have overturned Prop. 209 — has just been
derailed by an outburst of opposition from Asian Americans. The eruption of opposition caught SCA 5's
Democratic sponsors by surprise and caused a crucial three Asian American senators to withdraw their support,
depriving the measure of the two thirds senate majority required to place an initiative on the ballot.
Racial
spoils system starting to fall apart in California. California's ruling Democrats are in danger of splintering
their coalition over an attempt to re-introduce affirmative action, which has been banned ever since the passage of
Proposition 209 in 1996, which banned the use of racial preferences by the state, including in higher education.
California
Democrats Await Fallout After 3 Are Caught Up in Scandals. One state senator was charged with
conspiring to traffic in arms from the Philippines, and taking bribes from undercover F.B.I. agents including
one who posed as a marijuana dealer. Another was accused of taking bribes from federal agents impersonating
Hollywood film executives. And a third was convicted of perjury and voter fraud after lying about where he
lived when he ran for office. All three are Democratic state senators from California, and their recent
legal problems have brought rare bad news to a party that has come to thoroughly dominate politics in this state
but now looks besieged by high-profile corruption cases.
Why
did 287,000-plus Californians vote for Leland Yee? One of the odder stats of Election
Night: As of Wednesday morning, 287,590 Californians had cast ballots for indicted state Sen.
Leland Yee for secretary of state. That's good for nearly 10 percent of the vote. That's also
more votes than five other secretary of state candidates who haven't been indicted received.
The poster boy for liberal hypocrisy ignored by national media, but
outrages San Francisco. The liberal media are trying to ignore his arrest, but California State
Senator Leland Yee is such an amusing piñata of liberal hypocrisy that even his home town liberal newspaper
is joining in the mockery fun. [...] Outlets like CNN which ignore this embarrassment to liberals do so
at their peril.
Corruption
Costs Dems Their Supermajority in California. Two years ago, California Democrats celebrated victory
in a decades-long struggle to win a supermajority in the Legislature, where a two-thirds majority is required for
any tax increase. It was the latest chapter in a long descent into inconsequence by California Republicans,
who hold no statewide offices and party registration of only 29.3 percent of the voters. But corruption
has achieved what the Republicans could not. The supermajority is now down the drain as three of the Golden
State's 27 Democratic state senators have within the past two months been convicted or indicted on charges ranging
from bribery to gun-running.
Gov.
Jerry Brown calls for Democratic senators to resign. Gov. Jerry Brown called on three
scandal-plagued state senators to resign on Friday, speaking out for the first time on a series of
criminal cases that have sapped Democrats' power in the Capitol and tarnished the Legislature's image.
California
Dems Worried Their Corruption Scandals Will Benefit GOP. The unethical and illegal behavior of
Democratic state senators in California, where Democrats have total control of the state legislature, is giving
the state's Democratic Party concerns that the GOP may use the misbehavior to regain power. Since the
beginning of 2014, every month has featured a Democratic state senator either being arrested or convicted.
The latest arrest came Wednesday, as Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco was arrested on federal corruption charges.
California
state senator arrested in FBI raids along with Asian gang leader known as 'Shrimp Boy'. State Sen.
Leland Yee and Raymond Chow, were taken into custody after a series of raids by federal and gang task force
officials, but the charges against them remained undisclosed.
California state
senator Leland Yee arrested in FBI sweep. A longtime California politician who was praised for his efforts to
make government more transparent and authored gun control legislation was arrested Wednesday, accused of conspiracy to deal
firearms and wire fraud. The allegations against State Sen. Leland Yee were outlined in an FBI affidavit in support
of a criminal complaint against him and 25 other people. The affidavit was unsealed on Wednesday, as Yee was
scheduled to appear in court.
California state senator
arrested in FBI sweep. A prominent California lawmaker was arrested on Wednesday in an FBI sweep that netted
26 people, a high-profile case that could affect statewide elections and brings to three the number of Democratic
state senators who face criminal charges this year.
California city
approves highest-in-state $12.30 minimum wage. The Richmond City Council voted 6-1 on Tuesday [3/18/2014]
in favor of an ordinance that would raise minimum hourly pay in the city to $12.30 an hour by 2017.
California Seeks to Redefine Consensual Campus Sex as Rape.
In endorsing a bill in the California legislature that would require "affirmative consent" before sex can occur on campus,
the editorial boards of the Sacramento and Fresno Bee and the Daily Californian advocated that sex be treated as "sexual
assault" unless the participants discuss it "out loud" before sex, and "demonstrate they obtained verbal 'affirmative consent'
before engaging in sexual activity." [...] Defining sex as rape merely because there was no verbal discussion in advance
trivializes rape and brands innocent people as rapists (including some people who themselves have been sexually victimized
in the past). Disturbingly, it's not just sex they want to regulate, but also "sexual activity" in general.
A
law so stupid California legislature seeks to repeal it two months after it took effect. California's state legislature is
seeking to repeal an idiotic law that took effect January 1st. It turns out that some feel-good regulatory efforts generate
enough blowback that they can actually be reversed.
Gas Prices May Jump From California
Emissions Law. California's greenhouse gas reduction law already has shaken up the state's industrial sector, costing it
more than $1.5 billion in pollution permit fees.
Grieving
California mom takes down cross on road after group's protest, more appear. A grieving California mom who, under pressure
from an atheist group, went to the site where her son was killed to remove a memorial cross was met at the scene by a throng of supporters
who planted crosses of their own. "They said they have to take that one down," Doug Johnson, a Riverside resident who traveled to
the site with his daughter and six home-made crosses, told The Riverside Press-Enterprise. "But they didn't say anything
about putting another one up."
California's Drought Isn't
Due To Global Warming, But Politics. President Obama visited California's drought-hit Central Valley Friday, offering handouts and blaming global
warming. But the state's water shortage is due to the left's refusal to deal with the state's water needs.
California auto buyers favor Toyota Prius; rest of U.S.
prefers trucks. Toyota's Prius was the best-selling vehicle in the state for the second consecutive year in 2013, highlighting California's
radically different taste in automobiles. Nationally, Ford's F-Series truck has been the bestselling vehicle for more than three decades.
The Prius ranked 16th in sales nationally.
Court overturns restrictions on concealed guns in much
of California. In a significant victory for gun owners, a divided federal appeals court Thursday [2/13/2014] struck down California
rules that permit counties to restrict as they see fit the right to carry a concealed weapon in public. The 2-1 ruling by a U.S. 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals panel would overturn restrictions on carrying concealed handguns, primarily affecting California's most populated regions, including
Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego and San Francisco.
Parched
California's Worst Water Enemy: Its Governor. California Gov. Jerry Brown has blasted as "unwelcome and divisive" a desperately
needed drought-relief bill in Congress that will likely win in the House soon. That's rich coming from a man who's done nothing.
Kiddie Porn Does Not Count as "Moral
Turpitude" to S.F. Govt. A former high-ranking San Francisco government employee convicted of felony possession of child pornography
will continue to receive his government pension because, according to city regulations, evidence of "moral turpitude" is required to revoke a pension
yet viewing violent kiddie porn does not qualify as moral turpitude.
Caltrans accused of trying to
hide Bay Bridge problems. A Caltrans engineer and an outside expert working on the Bay Bridge eastern span accused agency officials
of discounting warnings about cracked welds on the bridge, and telling them not to put their concerns in writing to keep them from becoming public,
according to a report commissioned for a state Senate committee.
California Agency Plans 'Green' Car Vouchers for the
Poor. One longtime critic of federal transportation spending once concluded that it would be less expensive for the government to buy
every new transit rider a Jaguar XJ8 than it would be to build certain new rail systems. Unfortunately, California officials may not have
realized that the idea of buying people new cars wasn't a serious proposal as much as a way to illustrate a point about excessive spending.
California Adopts Failed
Venezuelan Model Of Energy Management. In California, energy officials warn that the state and others like it face a catastrophic collapse
of its power grid due to the many green energy schemes that have made managing energy flow difficult. "Energy officials worry a lot these days
about the stability of the massive patchwork of wires, substations and algorithms that keep electricity flowing," reported Evan Halpert in Tuesday's
[12/03/2013] Los Angeles Times, citing wind, solar and geothermal energy coming online. At a minimum, higher costs would be a certainty as
officials attempt to mitigate the effects of their own green energy policies, if not a total grid collapse.
Slow Motion Gun Confiscation in California. California
has established gun confiscation squads that move through California confiscating guns that were registered. As predicted in the
essay "Gun Registration is Gun Confiscation" written in 2000, gun confiscation is not being implemented in massive door to door
searches, though such confiscations have happened in recent history, such as in the Philippines in 1972, and even during a flood
in Canada this year (2013).
Do single-family homes
threaten the planet? A plan to squeeze most residents of the San Francisco Bay Area into multifamily housing offers a
test case of whether land-use bureaucracies nationwide, encouraged by the Obama administration, should be allowed to transform
American lifestyles under the pretext of combating climate change. Currently, 56 percent of households in the nine-county
Bay Area live in single-family homes. That number would drop to 48 percent by 2030, under a high-density development blueprint
called Plan Bay Area, recently enacted by the Association of Bay Area Governments and the region's Metropolitan Transportation
Commission.
California's alternative-energy program under scrutiny.
California is spending nearly $15 million to build 10 hydrogen fueling stations, even though just 227 hydrogen-powered vehicles exist in the state
today. It's a hefty bet on the future, given that government officials have been trying for nine years, with little success, to get automakers to
build more hydrogen cars. The project is part of a sprawling but little-known state program that packs a powerful financial punch: It spent
$1.6 billion last year on a myriad of energy-efficiency and alternative-energy projects.
California's Brown Signs Bill Permitting Non-Physician
Abortions. The legislation, which had been pushed vigorously by Planned Parenthood, had been strongly opposed by pro-life groups and some physicians, arguing that it amounted
to legalizing back-alley abortions for profit.
Brown signs bill to allow children more than two legal parents.
Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Friday that will allow children in California to have more than two legal parents, a measure opposed by some conservative
groups as an attack on the traditional family. Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) said he authored the measure to address the changes in family structure in
California, including situations in which same-sex couples have a child with an opposite-sex biological parent.
Showing
Contempt For Its Citizens, California Issues Driver's Licenses To Illegals. California's new law letting illegal aliens have driver's licenses
represents a shift in ruling-class priorities from the interests of citizens to those of politically well-organized pressure groups.
Brown vetoes bill to allow non-citizens on juries.
Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed a bill that would have made California the first state in the nation to allow non-citizens who are in the country legally to serve on jury duty.
Jerry
Brown: Illegal Immigrant Driver's Licenses [are] 'Only the First Step'. It's been a whirlwind month for Gov. Jerry Brown — four
weeks in which the California chief executive's desk saw an anti-paparazzi bill and a bill to allow non-physicians to perform abortions, and he
himself lofty praise in Rolling Stone. The latest bill to pass his desk, granting illegal immigrants the ability to apply for driver's
licenses in the state, is "only the first step" of a national movement, the governor told a crowd yesterday [10/2/2013].
Gov. Brown signs
another bill easing conditions for immigrants. Law enforcement officials in California who arrest immigrants in the country illegally
will be prohibited from detaining them for transfer to federal authorities unless they committed a serious crime under one of several bills signed
Saturday by Gov. Jerry Brown to ease conditions for immigrants.
California grants driver's licenses to
illegal immigrants. California's governor signed a bill Thursday [10/3/2013] granting illegal immigrants driver's licenses, in a decision
immigrant rights groups hailed as a major step forward for their movement. The country's largest state becomes the latest to reverse course and
grant legal driving privileges to illegal immigrants.
For
California's Illegal Immigrants, a Great Week. On September 4, in a shocking vote to undermine
safety and to erode federal immigration law enforcement, the California Assembly passed AB 4, the
so-called TRUST Act. AB 4 would prohibit state and local police from honoring U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement detainers in all but the most extreme cases. An ICE detainer advises a state
or local law enforcement agency that it seeks custody of a criminal alien for arrest and removal.
However, when ordered by the state to ignore ICE detainers, local jails must release criminals back onto
the street where they can continue their lives of crime.
Don't tell mom the babysitter's unionized.
If Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has his way, your babysitter soon could join a union and cost you a lot more. The San Francisco Democrat has authored
several domestic-worker unionization bills that have been vetoed by California governors. Now he's back with Assembly Bill 241, which just
passed both houses of the Legislature and is awaiting a signature or veto from Gov. Jerry Brown.
California becomes first state in nation
to regulate ride-sharing. California regulators have approved the nation's and state's first rules for fast-growing ride-sharing companies that
connect passengers to drivers via smartphones.
California passes 'job killer' increase
in minimum wage to $10. While the Economic Policy Institute estimates that the wage increase will affect more than 2.3 million California
workers, groups like the California Chamber of Commerce opposed the bill, calling it a "job killer" that will drive up business costs "worse than any predicted
rate of inflation increase."
California governor to sign driver's
license bill for illegal immigrants. California Governor Jerry Brown said on Friday he would sign a bill authorizing the state to
provide driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, a last-minute reversal of his position.
Ice cream parlor permit hassles
chilling. Tuesday is inspection day for building owner John Vicars. He's got a commercial property on College Avenue, right
in the heart of Oakland's busiest shopping district. His quest is simple: to see an ice cream parlor opened on the ground floor of
the building. But his journey has been a regulatory nightmare. It's taken him nine months to prepare 1,700 square feet of retail
space to the city's satisfaction — at least to where they were satisfied enough to actually come out to inspect it.
California Raises Minimum Wage to $10 an
Hour. The California legislature has passed a bill that will raise the state's minimum wage to $10 an hour within three years, giving
California one of the highest state minimum wage rates in America.
California Legislature OKs minimum wage
boost. A bill that would boost California's minimum wage to $10 an hour by 2016 won approval by the state Legislature on Thursday [9/12/2013]
and was sent to Gov. Jerry Brown, who said he would sign it. The measure would raise the current $8 minimum wage to $9 an hour next July 1
and to $10 on Jan. 1, 2016.
CA Mulls
Allowing Non-Citizens to Work Polling Stations as Translators. The State of California is seriously considering allowing non-citizens
work at polls throughout the state during elections. The Sacramento Bee reported weeks ago that the California Legislature has passed
a bill that would let non-citizens who are "lawful permanent residents who meet all the other requirements for being eligible to vote except for
citizenship" work at the polls.
California
poised to implement first electronic license plates. The idea is that rather than have a static piece of printed metal adorned with
stickers to display proper registration, the plate would be a screen that could wirelessly (likely over a mobile data network) receive updates from
a central server to display that same information. In an example shown by a South Carolina vendor, messages such as "STOLEN," "EXPIRED," or
something similar could also be displayed on a license plate.
The Editor says...
It sure is comforting to know that such a system could never be hacked by some guy with a laptop and a transmitter to make the
plates display offensive words, or somebody else's license plate number. Why would somebody do that? Because license plate
readers are the only means of toll collection on many highways. Bank robbers would love to be able to change the plate number every
half mile. Once again, the California legislature has come up with a brilliant idea that has been carefully thought out.
America the Trivial. At the end of two years of
near-record drought in California, the fate of hundreds of thousands of acres of irrigated farmlands, which feed millions of Americans and earn billions of
dollars in critical foreign exchange, hinges on a snow-filled winter in the Sierra Nevada. You might never know of that razor's edge from the state
legislature. Rather than discussing new dams and canals, it debated whether transgendered youth in public schools could use the bathrooms of their
choice and whether residents should need a permit to buy ammunition.
California
insurance commissioner: We could "have a real disaster on our hands" with identify theft, fraud, and abuse. California rushed
headlong into the implementation of ObamaCare, eager to be the first model state to show off the many wonderful ways in which the law was
ostensibly meant to work. [...] Besides the very glaring problems of sharply higher insurance premiums and major insurers fleeing the
individual insurance market for via-employer insurance only, their "Covered California" exchange's administrators are realizing that
there's another predicament in the works.
Fraud fear raised in California's health exchange. As California
prepares to launch its health care exchange, consumer groups are worried the uninsured could fall victim to fraud, identity theft or other
crimes at the hands of some of the very people who are supposed to help them enroll.
Delta Project:
California's Latest Environmental Boondoggle. Judges have routinely stopped the water flows out of the Delta toward the dry but
agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley and toward Southern California's massive metropolises, to help a tiny endangered baitfish known as the
Delta Smelt. The smelt is viewed as the canary in a coal mine, a bellwether for the ecological health of the waterways. Millions
of smelt are killed each year as they get caught in the giant pumps near Tracy, near the south end of the Delta. Environmentalists also express
concerns about the level of saltwater that moves inland from the Pacific Ocean.
California Board Seeks to Ban
Iconic Beach Firepits. California's South Coast Air Quality Management District is proposing to give cities the authority to outlaw fire
pits within their jurisdictions if they find the fires are nuisances. The proposal jeopardizes one of the iconic images of California's surfer
culture, where surfers often end the day around a fire pit on the beach. The government proposal reflects American Lung Association opposition
to beach fires, claiming they release too much air pollution.
Fracturing in California. Few issues divide
Democrats more than energy policy, as we've learned as unions and environmentalists fight over the Keystone XL pipeline. More evidence now comes
from California, where greens have lost an attempt to ban oil and gas hydraulic fracturing. Democratic leaders brought their fracking moratorium
bill to the Assembly floor last week, and their rank and file revolted. The bill lost 37-24, with 12 Democrats joining 25 Republicans
to defeat it.
California bill would fine big firms
whose workers get Medi-Cal. For years, politicians and labor unions have pilloried Wal-Mart and other large employers for
paying workers so little that many qualify for government health insurance at taxpayers' expense. Now critics fear the public will
get stuck with an even bigger tab as California and other states expand Medicaid as part of the federal healthcare law.
Irvine,
Calif., City Workers Average $143,691 in Total Compensation. Employees of the City of Irvine, Calif., received total
compensation averaging $143,691 in 2012, according to a study published by the California Public Policy Center. Median total
compensation, which means half of the Irvine city employees received less than this amount, and half received more, was $133,782
during 2012.
Calif.
bill would let non-citizens serve on juries. The California Assembly passed a bill on Thursday [4/25/2013] that would make
the state the first in the nation to allow non-citizens who are in the country legally to serve on jury duty.
"Three-strike"
lifers get a second chance in Calif. prisons. California prisons are so overcrowded that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
the conditions amount to cruel and unusual punishment. The state is caught between a tight budget and its "three strikes" law,
which imposes a life sentence after convictions. Last Fall, voters approved a plan to release some of those lifers.
Proposition 36 allows three-strikers to ask judges to let them out early.
California Group Mails Condoms to 12-Year-Olds.
The CFHC [California Family Health Council], a non-profit organization, has set up a website advertising its "Condom Access Project," where teens as young
as 12 years old can receive free condoms in the mail.
To cut STD rate, California considers
condoms in prison. California prisoners have unprotected sexual contact, forced or consensual, even if both are illegal, and this
reality often leads to the spread of HIV and other diseases in prisons and in communities where felons are paroled.
The Editor says...
Apparently the State of California is saying that prison rape is inevitable, so you'd better have a condom on hand.
America's
most dishonest neighborhoods revealed. America's top tax dodging hotspots have been revealed with about a third of fraudsters
in California. Neighborhoods including Beverly Hills and Newport Beach in California, New Carrollton, Maryland and College Park,
Georgia, were among the potential tax evasion clusters targeted for auditing, according to confidential IRS data. They were
identified by the National Taxpayer Advocate using the IRS's confidential tax return data. In all, researchers identified areas of
possible tax cheats in more than 350 communities in 24 states.
CA Crime Skyrockets in Wake of Brown's Prison Release Plan.
In 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law California Assembly Bill 109, a piece of legislation designed to relieve overcrowded prisons in
accordance with a Supreme Court decision. AB 109 enshrined "realignment" into law — a plan to place supposedly "non-violent,
non-serious, and non-sex offenders" in county jails rather than state prisons. In other words, local governments were handed the problem of
prisoners the state didn't want to hold.
California
'Lumber Products Assessment' a tax by any other name. The clowns who frequent Sacramento's seedy bars and whorehouses,
otherwise known as the members of the California State Legislature, have pulled off another midnight raid deep into the pocketbooks of all
Californians. At least street thugs and bank robbers are a one-time occurrence; [...]
To the left, California is now
the model for America. California's dominant Democrats can now raise taxes, float debt and expand government at will.
Republican "obstructionism" forced the state's liberal leaders to control themselves, but that control is over. Every hare-brained
idea will have at a high likelihood of passing. Democrats already are pushing a host of new taxes and proposals that will make it
easier for local officials to raise taxes, also. So the taxing and spending has just begun.
State
auditor: California's net worth at negative $127.2 billion. Were California's state government a business, it would be a
candidate for insolvency with a negative net worth of $127.2 billion, according to an annual financial report issued by State
Auditor Elaine Howle and the Bureau of State Audits. The report, which covers the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, says
that the state's negative status — all of its assets minus all of its liabilities — increased that year, largely
because it spent more than it received in revenue.
California tied with Rhode
Island for highest jobless rate. California's jobless rate was unchanged at 9.8% in January, and that lack of improvement
put the Golden State in a tie with Rhode Island for the worst unemployment in the land.
Golden State's green
jobs bust. President Obama, of course, has completely failed to deliver on this promise of 5 million new
green-collar jobs. The entire U.S. economy has created only 1.2 million jobs since Obama was sworn into office,
many of them in the fossil fuel extraction, production and distribution sector. But in Obama's defense, most of his
green jobs agenda was killed. Cap-and-trade and renewable electricity mandates never made it through Congress.
High-speed rail was killed off by governors in Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin. But where the rest of the nation has
rejected all or most of these proposals, California has embraced them all.
Green state chokes off
its middle class. Los Angeles' water-fueled growth permanently altered entire habitats, including, most famously, the
Owens Valley, which once supported a lake and farming community. It is now a desert. Unfortunately, California
environmentalists are trying to turn much of the Central Valley's farmland back into desert too. Thanks to the Endangered
Species Act, federal courts have ordered farmers to divert hundreds of billions of gallons of water away from crops and into the
Sacramento River, where it is supposed to help revive the delta smelt.
California's expensive
education failure. According to RAND Corp., as late as the 1970s California's public schools still had an "excellent"
reputation. Then, in 1975, Brown (in his first stint as California's governor) signed the Rodda Act, giving government unions
the power to take money directly out of government employees' paychecks. The California Teachers Association quickly poured
this new revenue stream into an organizing drive, more than doubling the union's ranks. The Golden State's politics have never
been the same since — nor has the quality of its public schools.
California at Twilight. We keep trying to
understand the enigma of California, mostly why it still breathes for a while longer, given the efforts to destroy the sources of its
success. Let's try to navigate through its sociology and politics to grasp why something that should not survive is surviving
quite well — at least in some places.
California
Dept. of Transportation: 'Be Sure to Black Out the 'United States' and [the] Motto'. For three years, a private citizen
named Steve LeBard has led the effort to build a privately funded memorial in Orcutt, California — a tranquil small town
located on the Golden State's gorgeous Central Coast — to honor military veterans. And for the better part of those
three years, he has run into a toxic blend of political correctness, anti-Americanism, and bureaucratic senselessness. Today, the
memorial, which was to be built with private funds on a small piece of public land, remains unbuilt.
California
testing limits of gun-control rules in wake of Newtown shooting. California already has the most restrictive gun laws
in the nation. Buying a handgun requires registration, a safety certificate, a 10-day waiting period and a rigorous background
check. All direct person-to-person sales are banned and concealed-carry permits are rare. But now, in the wake of the
Newtown tragedy, lawmakers in the Golden State have launched into a new legislative frenzy to restrict firearms further.
California
parks officials deliberately hid money, report says. Fear of embarrassment and budget cuts led California parks officials to
intentionally conceal millions of dollars in a department account, according to an investigation conducted by the state attorney general's
office. The report, released Friday [1/4/2013], is the most detailed official narrative yet regarding the root of the accounting
scandal at the parks department.
For his next
crisis. Saving the planet isn't easy — or cheap — especially in California. The
state's anti-global-warming cap-and-trade program is the latest gimmick to leave it with yet another big hole to fill in its
budget. The Golden State's new carbon-trading program is the world's second largest, after the European Union's.
The stated goal is to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and another 80 percent by 2050. But
California held its very first "carbon credit" auction last month — and it was a big disappointment.
Study: CA Worst-Governed State in
America. According to a new study from 24/7 Wall Street, California is the worst run state in the nation ... for
the second year in a row. The best run state is North Dakota.
The 11 Death Spiral States. Eleven states made Forbes' list
of danger spots for investors including California, New York, Illinois, and Ohio. They warned (and with the cliff it is even more critical), if
you have muni bonds in these states — clean up your portfolio; if your career takes you there — rent, don't buy!
Pulling billions out of thin air.
As home to the entertainment industry and the land of make-believe, California is known for embracing fads. The latest rage among the
Democrats who just won a supermajority sway in the Sacramento Statehouse may prove to be the most costly. California is starting its own
cap-and-trade program, which taxes carbon-dioxide emissions and other "greenhouse" gases through a convoluted permit system. The Golden
State could end up suffocating its golden goose with this scheme.
California's Road to Perdition.
California was once the envy of everyone. But this promised land is now being controlled by a super-majority of leftists, and the
liberal, pro-union Democrats have only one answer to California's woes: to raise taxes.
No Meat on Mondays in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles City
Council is urging all residents to observe "meatless Mondays" from now on. A resolution adopted on Oct. 24 reads: "Be it resolved,
that the Council of the City of Los Angeles hereby declares all Mondays as 'Meatless Mondays' in support of comprehensive sustainability efforts as
well as to further encourage residents to eat a more varied plant-based diet to protect their health and protect animals."
California Grants
Tesla $10 Million To Build The Model X Electric SUV. California regulators on Wednesday [10/10/2012] approved a $10 million grant
to Tesla Motors to help manufacture its next electric car, the Model X sport utility vehicle. Tesla will pony up $50 million to match
the California Energy Commission grant, which will be used to expand manufacturing capacity at its factory in Fremont, Calif., and to purchase
equipment to make components for the Model X.
A Modest Proposal. California was once the land of
opportunity, but it is going down the tubes. Several of California's prominent cities have declared bankruptcy, such as Vallejo, Stockton, Mammoth
Lakes and San Bernardino. Others are on the precipice, and that includes Los Angeles, California's largest city. California's 2012 budget
deficit is expected to top $28 billion, and its state debt is $618 billion. That's more than twice the size of New York's state debt,
which itself is the second-highest in the nation.
The Obama Paradox. The bluest state is polling at a
20 to 24 point lead for Barack Obama. Who cares that it is struggling with nearly 11% unemployment and facing a $16 billion
budget shortfall? What does it matter that its public schools rated variously from 45th to 49th in the nation and that it is home to one-third of
the nation's welfare recipients, forty percent of the nation's illegal aliens, and the largest prison population in the country? If Ohio
supposedly has a million Obama-phones, I shudder to wonder how many are in California.
And
Will a Jesse James or Billy the Kid Elementary School Follow? California public schools for some time in many surveys of national
testing have ranked 48th or 49th in the nation in math and science, and, inter alia, are part of the various impediments to robust
economic growth in California. No matter — California school boards have better things to worry about.
California's chickens have come home to roost.
[Governor] Schwarzenegger's proposals would have increased eligibility for teacher tenure from two years to five years in the classroom, made the use of
union dues for political campaign contributions voluntary, imposed state budgetary spending limits and redrawn the state's school district funding formula,
and reformed the states' redistricting system. The establishment couldn't have that, and so, in short order, the referenda were soundly defeated at
the ballot box. [...] Fast forward to 2012, when California's debt has swollen to more than $117 billion according to data assembled by State Budget
Solutions. Its unfunded union pension liabilities total more than $500 billion.
LAPD Chief Tells Officers to Ignore Federal
Illegal Immigrant Law. In Los Angeles, where the distinctions between the citizen and the non-citizen are often little more than
abstractions, they are one step closer to vanishing altogether. That such a thing should occur in Los Angeles comes as no surprise to anyone
paying even the slightest attention to recent trends in the city's governance. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is famously sympathetic to the
cause of illegal immigrants, and most members of the city council hold similar views.
California
Governor Brown vetoes bill that allowed towns to release undocumented immigrants. California's governor has vetoed a bill that would have
allowed police and sheriffs to free undocumented immigrants from custody once they became eligible for release even if federal immigration authorities
had asked to hold them for possible deportation proceedings.
Millions in SF health fees don't go to
workers. Restaurants and other businesses in this food-loving tourist mecca collected almost $14 million dollars
in extra fees last year from their patrons, as they sought to comply with the progressive city's landmark universal health-care
ordinance.
The not-so Golden State of America. In
the 1850s droves of gold-hunters hoping to make it rich rushed into what would later be established as the Golden State. The pristine
beaches, vast mountains and plenty of opportunity persuaded some to stay in the state. But now, California is facing a different kind of
rush — one that is causing people to pick up and leave. The state boasts a population of more than 37 million.
However, the Orange County Register reports that 870,550 people left the state between 2005 and 2009. "That's like the whole city of
San Francisco just up and left," the article states. What is chasing people away?
California law barring
parents from 'curing' gay children moves through legislature. A first-of-its-kind state law that would restrict parents from trying to
"cure" their minor children's same-sex attractions seems headed to the governor's desk. If both state houses can agree on the final language,
the legislation, which would ban all sexual orientation change effort (SOCE) treatment for minors, will be sent to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown for his
signature sometime in September. But, so far, there has been no indication from his office on whether he will sign the bill into law.
California
to Issue Driver's Licenses to Illegal Immigrants. The California state Assembly on Thursday [8/30/2012] voted in
favor of a bill that would permit the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants who are
eligible for work permits under a new policy handed down from the Obama administration. The bill is on its way to Governor
Jerry Brown's desk to be signed into law. Fox News reports, "Democratic Assemblyman Gil Cedillo of Los Angeles said he wrote
AB 2189 to make roads safer, and allow young immigrants to drive to school and work." The bill passed in California's
Assembly by a vote of 55-15 after it passed in California's Senate on Wednesday by a vote of 25-7. The only other states to
issue driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants are New Mexico, Utah, and Washington.
California poised to grant driver's licenses to young
illegal immigrants. California is on the verge of allowing hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants to receive driver's
licenses for the first time in nearly two decades. The key question is how to do it. The issue of granting driver's licenses to
undocumented immigrants has raged in the Legislature for much of the past decade, without resolution, but fighting is largely moot now due to a
new federal policy.
Bias alert!
The "new federal policy" is the policy of only one man: Barack H. Obama.
There is no California. There is no such state.
Instead there are two radically different cultures and landscapes with little in common, each equally dysfunctional in quite different ways.
Apart they are unworldly, together a disaster.
California:
First in Liberalism, Last in Everything Else. With decades of success earned with seemingly little effort, California seems
to have decided that it can rest on its laurels. But the days when the state could live off of its looks are quickly drawing to a
close, as a bevy of recent statistics show.
Justice Department opposes illegal immigrant's bid to practice
law. An illegal Mexican immigrant who wants to be licensed to practice law in California has received support from the state's top law enforcement
officer, the State Bar of California, civil rights groups, county bar associations and law professors — but not from the Obama administration.
In a brief to the California Supreme Court, the U.S. Department of Justice said federal law prohibits giving a public benefit, such as a bar license, to
an "unlawfully present alien."
California: Blue Twilight on
the Pacific. California is in a hole but can't seem to stop its compulsive digging. Schools, universities, prisons,
pensions, cities and towns: the state has lost the ability to manage even the most basic elements of communal living.
But foie gras is now illegal there, grandiose plans for white elephant fast trains built with borrowed money waft through the air,
and the state continues to boost the self esteem of affluent and cause-oriented gentry liberals by scattering scarce resources to
the four winds, hunting unicorns when the cupboard is bare.
A
Golden State train wreck. State Sen. Joe Simitian's district office near Stanford's campus is nestled among
shops sporting excruciatingly cute names (A Street Bike Named Desire, Mom's the Word maternity wear) intended to make the
progressive gentry comfortable with upscale consumption by presenting it as whimsical. This community surely has its
share of advanced thinkers who think trains are wonderful because they are not cars (rampant individualism; people going
wherever and whenever they want, unsupervised).
San
Bernardino Files Emergency Bankruptcy Petition. San Bernardino on Wednesday became the third California
city to declare insolvency, joining Stockton and Mammoth Lakes after officials say they filed an emergency petition
for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.
Gastronomical Prohibitionists. In the Sermon on the
Mount, Jesus tells his listeners that a man with a beam in his eye ought not to criticize another with a mere speck in his.
The message: sort out your own crippling shortcomings before presuming to meddle in someone else's. It's good advice
for an individual; it would be even better advice for the state of California. Good counsel, however, has a way of falling
on deaf ears in the Golden State.
Bottled Water Going the Way of the 20-ounce Soda.
The latest law to encourage use of refillable containers comes out of San Francisco. Their ultimate goal is to ban bottled water. San Francisco is a
hardcore environmentalist city and they do not like plastic water bottles. The first step they are taking is to require new buildings with water fountains
to install special bottle-filling taps. That would be the same water that comes out of your kitchen sink which is what bottled water drinkers don't want
to drink. They also don't want anything to do with public fountains where so many have been before.
San Fran Area
Drivers Could be Forced to Install GPS Devices That Tax Their Travel. On Thursday evening [7/19/2012], a controversial study in the San Francisco
Bay Area will be voted upon that could require drivers to allow GPS devices to be installed inside their car. The ultimate goal? Not to see where
they're going, but to evaluate how much they're driving — and consider taxing them for it. [...] The proposed Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) tax could
cost as much as a dime per mile.
Penniless in Paradise.
On the front door of the San Bernardino city hall is a sign that reads: "Out of Order." Broke city, broken door: There's a
certain pleasing symmetry in the fact that the San Bernardino city council meets behind a door that, like the city government itself, does not
work and is in need of replacement. On this particular evening in late July, the council has met to make public what everybody already
knows: Intellectually bankrupt, morally bankrupt — the city is under criminal investigation for sundry financial
shenanigans — San Bernardino is above all old-fashioned bankrupt bankrupt, a pitiful penniless pauper that cannot even afford a
cup of coffee: Seriously — the coffee guy wants cash up front now and has stopped serving the municipal office building
until the city makes good on its latte liabilities.
Welcome to
California: America without Republicans. [Scroll down] What would America look like if the Republican "fever" did break?
We already know. It would look a lot like the state of California, where no non-cyborg Republican has been governor since 1996.
Democrats have also enjoyed complete control of the state legislature since 1997. And they have governed exactly the way you'd expect
Democrats to govern. Spending has more than doubled, from $45.4 billion in 1996 to more than $92.5 billion today.
Income, sales and car taxes have all been hiked. As a result, California has the most progressive income tax system in the nation,
with seven income tax brackets, and the second-highest top marginal rate.
City of San Francisco Bans Apple
Computers. San Francisco has earned a reputation for being, in certain regards, the nation's most permissive city, but even the
City by the Bay has certain limits. Take, for instance, one's choice of computers: If you work for the city, you will not be allowed
to procure an Apple using city funds. Why? Because the computer industry giant with its headquarters less than an hour away from
San Francisco is not "green" enough.
California
Eyes Multiple Parenting Law. California, the battleground state for the arguments for and against same-sex marriage, is now considering
an unconventional law that would allow children to be legally granted more than two parents.
Hey California: Meet Wisconsin. In
November of 2010 Californians rejected a candidate for Governor who pledged to do much of what Scott Walker has done, and instead elected a
Governor who is bought and paid for by labor unions.
Labor Unions Suffer Defeat on
Taxpayer Revolt. Californians, struggling with an $18 billion budget deficit, stuck with a Sacramento political class owned by
Democrats who in turn are owned by labor unions, are facing a massive tax increase in November that will give California the unenviable distinction of
having the highest per capita tax burden in the Country. Even modest efforts to reign in spending or do serious pension reform are easily thwarted
by big labor lobbyists.
California's
Proposition 32: Ending Union Dominance Of California Politics. Is union money distorting California electoral politics? Many
think so. After all, public sector and trade unions are among the biggest donors in California elections. In the years 2000-2010 the
California Teachers Association (CTA) was the single largest contributor to California politics, giving twice as much as the second-largest
contributor, the California State Council of Service Employees.
California is about to hit the wall.
The demography of California today is the demography of America tomorrow, just as the social and fiscal policies of
California in the last decade mirror those of the U.S. government today. One-third of all U.S. wage-earners
today have been amnestied from paying U.S. income taxes, as the top 1 percent haul fully 40 percent
of that huge load. So, too, in California, the well-to-do and the wealthy are hammered, which is why many
have quietly closed their businesses, packed and gone back over the mountains whence their fathers came.
California Still Dead. [Scroll down] That
"new state law intended to reduce bankruptcy filings" was a transparent ploy by government employee unions to prevent cities from using insolvency
protection to get out of crushing pension contracts. And it may not even have been necessary. As Steven Greenhut wrote after the city
of Vallejo went belly up in 2010, even municipal bankruptcy doesn't seem to get taxpayers out of their solemn obligation to pay former government
employees not to work.
California Digging.
Ignoring the first rule of holes, a bankrupt state passing out IOUs welcomes an EPA waiver allowing it to
further kill its economy. Too bad the state can't stop the air pollution imported from a growing China.
Coffers Empty, California Pays With I.O.U.'s.
An ever-widening budget gap joined with intractable political paralysis to deliver California its biggest fiscal blow in
decades on Thursday [7/2/2009], when the state's controller began printing i.o.u.'s in lieu of cash to pay taxpayers,
vendors and local governments. It was only the second time the state had adopted the emergency payment method
since the Great Depression. The National Conference of State Legislatures had no record of any other state's
ever using them.
School system lays off "Teacher of the Year".
A California woman who was named her school district's "Teacher of the Year" has a new title — "job seeker." The district
laid off Michelle Apperson along with thousands of other educators across the state. California has a budget crisis and this is how
officials are dealing with it.
The Editor says...
You might be saying to yourself, "That doesn't make any sense. Why would they do that? And the answer is ... the teachers' union!
'Teacher of the Year' Fired for Lack of Union
Seniority. It doesn't matter anymore how good you are at your job if you live in the failing state of California; if you're on a lower
rung of the ladder in terms of seniority, you're toast. Michelle Apperson, a teacher at the Sutterville Elementary School in Sacramento who was
named "teacher of the year" by the school district, was fired because she was outranked in seniority.
Another Outrage in California.
As of today [6/1/2012], it is legal in California to give hormone blockers to an 11 year-old boy in order to delay the onset of
puberty, but it could soon be illegal for a 17 year-old with unwanted same-sex attractions to receive professional counseling, even
with parental consent.
California budget proposal would end a
science requirement. A little-noticed proposal by Gov. Jerry Brown to eliminate the second year of science as a high
school graduation requirement is sparking concern among educators who fear it could deepen the academic divide among students and
further erode the state's scientific and technological leadership. The recommendation in Brown's revised May budget is aimed
at freeing the state from reimbursing local school districts for the $250-million annual cost of the second-year science course.
The state has not made any payouts to school districts since the requirement was ruled a mandate in 2005, so California owes public
school systems $2.5 billion in unpaid claims.
California's Train to Nowhere.
Some politicians can't resist throwing good money after bad on these money-losing schemes. The latest example is from the People's Republic of
California, where Governor Jerry Brown is acting as if he wants the state to become a basket case.
Can California Be Fixed? Recently, I was
driving down pot-holed, two-lane, non-freeway 101 near Monterey (unchanged since the 1960s) when the radio blared that on a recent science test administered to
public schools, California scored 47th in the nation. As I looked at the congested traffic on the decrepit highway and digested the idea that our public
schools are competitive only with Mississippi and Alabama, I wondered — is that what we get for a more than 10 percent income tax, 10 percent
state and local sales taxes, and the highest gas taxes in the nation?
California's
Budget Woes: No One Ever Mentions Work Disincentives, Welfare Fraud, or Taxpayer Flight. Governor Jerry Brown is browbeating residents
to pass tax initiatives in November which include "a quarter-cent increase in the state sales tax for four years and a seven-year hike on incomes
of $250,000 or more that will range from 1 to 3 percentage points." The totally predictable problem (and, from all appearances, a
bit contrived; the state's controller saw this coming several months ago, and was largely ignored) is that tax revenues aren't coming in as expected.
Media treatment of the problem acts as if this all some kind of uncontrollable act of God which is a by-product of the recession and weak recovery.
California: America's Welfare
Queen. California is the nation's welfare queen: The state accounts for one-third of America's welfare recipients,
though it only contains one-eighth of the population, and there's no good reason for it. [...] The main reason that California is so
dependent on welfare is its uniquely lax enforcement of the provisions of the 1996 welfare reforms. As part of the creation
of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, the federal government put in place a set of regulations on
welfare payments to help or encourage recipients to return to work, such as the five-year lifetime limit on benefits.
California, however, is one of nine states that don't unconditionally enforce this supposedly nationwide provision.
Golden State turns to lead, now leads poverty
rankings. The Golden State has reached a poverty rate that is now twice as bad as West Virginia's and substantially worse than the rates of
poverty in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas, according to a new measure of poverty developed by the federal Census Bureau. Democrat-run
California earned its last-place rank under the federal government's new measure of poverty, which incorporates more detailed analyses of welfare
payments and the local costs of food, gasoline and housing.
It Looks Like Tax Revenue In
California Is Coming Up WILDLY Short Of Expectations. A tipster just sent us this, and it does indeed look like
April tax revenue in California is way below expectations.
Los Angeles insolvency
predictable and preventable. When the nation's second largest city teeters on the verge of bankruptcy, local elected
officials — and especially taxpayers elsewhere — ought to take it as a wake-up call and ponder the evident
public policy blunders that laid the groundwork for such an unnecessary scenario. Los Angeles' potential bankruptcy and
$238 million budget shortfall were predictable and preventable.
Socialism Won't Fix California's Struggling
Public Utilities. We know of the poor quality of products and services provided by government monopolies. Yet
officials in Stanton and Claremont think otherwise. They have discussed spending tens of millions of tax dollars to "buy" their
water systems from a private water company that doesn't want to sell them. To make matters worse, their efforts would require the
use — some would say the abuse — of the power of eminent domain to acquire the properties by force.
Taxpayers will be on the hook for all of this.
Beware The
Predatory State Of California — Even If You Don't Live There. [Apparently] the state of California, desperate
for revenue, is churning out dubious income tax claims stretching back years and collecting the money without due process.
This is theft, pure and simple, and charging the account owner $100 for transacting the theft is also theft.
Harris distorts democracy to aid unions.
We expect judges, no matter their political stripes, to apply the law as written. We expect election
officials to battle election fraud no matter their personal preference for the outcome. Likewise, we
expect state attorney generals, who are the head of California's "Justice" Department, after all, to provide
fair title and summaries of all initiatives submitted to that office — even ones the AG personally doesn't
like. Without any civic spiritedness, people eventually will lose faith that they can make change by
following the rules. [California Attorney General Kamala] Harris, however, is a close ally of the
public sector unions.
Trying to 'Stop the
Bleeding' from Environmental Overreach. Central California Republicans — and farmers across
the state — won a small victory last night in a House committee in a battle that has seen scores of communities
devastated by environmental regulatory overreach. The Delta smelt is a tiny fish that lives is the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley River Delta. In response to the fish's threatened status, influenced
by its sensitivity to environmental conditions and the large-scale pumping operations necessary to send
water south, a 2007 court order citing the Endangered Species Act severely cut back water deliveries through
the agricultural Central Valley.
Mortgage
Deal Props Up California House of Cards. Why should a taxpayer in Houston or Wichita bail out
irresponsible California homeowners, banks and the state's public employees' retirement fund? Yet that's
exactly what the Obama administration is looking to do in its latest effort to shore up a housing market that
continues to sag as large percentages of Americans remain underwater in their mortgages.
California
counties get mail-order condom program. Teenagers in several counties can get condoms in the
mail for free under a program launched this week and supported by state public health officials.
An example of how government can become an obstacle to economic recovery:
It's hard to get a handle on how many businesses have been discouraged by such a permitting and regulation regime, but
you have to assume they are plenty. It should not take two years for a government to say "okay" to a business.
Nor should there be exorbitant fees associated with it.
San
Francisco Red Tape Nearly Strangles Small Businesses. The leftists in charge of the City by the Bay
have made it next to impossible for anyone to start a small business in that town. Just ask Juliet Pries.
In January Pries opened the Ice Cream Bar, an old-fashioned ice cream parlor, in the Cole Valley neighborhood of San
Francisco. But before she could start serving up hot fudge sundaes and banana splits, she was forced to spend
two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars — supplied by family and friends — navigating
the city's labyrinthine planning codes and otherwise satisfying the bureaucrats' whims.
We're in the red ... so let's borrow.
A conservative activist says California intends to continue the borrow-spend-borrow cincreased spending more money
inflationycle despite an announcement that the state is officially out of cash. In a letter to legislative
budget leaders, State Controller John Chiang said California will run out of cash on March 1 unless something
is done quickly. Chiang suggested that the state should delay payments and borrow around $3.3 billion
because tax revenues are $2.6 billion lower than lawmakers assumed.
Electric
Cars: Doubling Down On Dumb. Once again, the regulators in California have decided to lead the
nation in terms of vehicle emission standards, proposing to require that 15.4 percent of all vehicles
sold by 2025 must be electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars, or (currently non-existent) fuel cell cars.
In case you're wondering why this all sounds familiar, it's because California is re-running the same delusional
program that it ran in 1990...
California
Issues Clown Car Mandate. Golden State regulators have passed sweeping emission standards requiring
one in seven new cars sold in the state in 2025 be an electric or other zero-emission vehicle. ... [I]f we've
learned anything in recent years, it's that industrial policy and telling consumers what they need and must
have vs. what they want and find useful doesn't work. Only the marketplace can accurately pick winners and
losers. The government, having no competition, usually picks losers. We have also learned that climate
change is an overhyped fantasy based on ideology rather than science.
America's
worst regulatory agency outdoes itself. California continues its leading role as the national
laughingstock of regulatory absurdity. This week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), forged
another link in its unbroken chain of disastrous environmental policies.
Every Year Boondoggles Pile Up in California.
The left-wing idea that it's good for government to always wildly increase spending is dying a quick death these
days. But this good sense has not made it to every state in the union yet — two disastrous states in
particular; California and Illinois. These two states have not learned the lesson about the ruinous government
spending that is causing the country to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy. Apparently, Illinois and California
are vying for worst-state status. Moody's Investment service, for instance, has rated Illinois the worst,
but Standard & Poor's says it's California.
What
Conservatives and the GOP Dare Not Say about Immigration. The fact is that upon being naturalized,
our modern-day immigrants generally vote Democrat by wide margins — irrespective of whether upon arrival they
were labeled legal or illegal. Massive legal and illegal immigration has already so changed the California
electorate that no Republican can be elected statewide anymore.
Nation's largest welfare
state makes deep cuts. Advocates of welfare reform in California often cite one, eye-popping
statistic as they have pressed for cuts and changes to the program in recent years: The state has
one-eighth of the nation's population but one-third of all welfare recipients.
Workers give up in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, the
falling unemployment rate is slightly misleading, just as it has been for the country overall. When surveyed by the government, fewer L.A.
residents say they're unemployed compared to a year ago. But it's not because they're finding jobs. It's because they're dropping out
of the labor force altogether.
It's
California business as usual as debt, taxes grow. [Scroll down] This sorry state of affairs is indicative
of business as usual in California and provides a basis from which to examine the state's irresponsible budget practices as a
whole. California's current budget process relies heavily on the use of budget gimmicks, especially number shifting and
projection altering that can create the illusion of a balanced budget.
This Is the Nightmare of an Obama Second Term.
If you were wondering what living in Obama's second term would be like, wonder no longer. We in
California are living there now. California is a one-party state dominated by a virulent Democratic Left
enabled by a complicit media where every agency of local, county, and state government is run by and for the public
employee unions. The unemployment rate is 12%. California has more folks on food stamps than any other
state, has added so many benefits and higher rates to Medicaid that we call it "Medi-Cal." Our K-12 schools
have more administrators than teachers, and smaller classes but lower test scores and higher dropout rates with
twice the per-student budget of 15 years ago.
Govt. Funds Campaign To
Reduce Food Stamp Stigma. The effort to boost the food stamp rolls was announced this month [October,
2010] in California, where more than 3 million residents benefit from the federal program each month.
Evidently, state and federal officials believe the number is way too low for the virtually bankrupt state with a
population of about 37 million.
SF Becomes First
US City to Top $10 Minimum Wage. The city's hourly wage for its lowest-paid workers will hit
$10.24 [on 1/1/2012], more than $2 above the California minimum wage and nearly $3 more than the working
wage set by the federal government.
Choking on
Obamacare. Time was, American businesses could surmount such regulatory officiousness.
But government's metabolic urge to boss people around has grown exponentially and today CKE's California restaurants
are governed by 57 categories of regulations. One compels employees and even managers to take breaks
during the busiest hours, lest one of California's 200,000 lawyers comes trolling for business at the expense
of business.
California
Student Sues Teacher, District Over C+ Grade. Bowen Bethards, 17, was a sophomore in Peggy Carlock's chemistry class at Albany High
School in Albany, Calif., outside of San Francisco, in the 2010-11 school year when she gave him the C+ grade at the center of the suit, according
to court records first reported by the Albany Patch. Bethards, in a lawsuit filed with his mother, Laureen, in Contra Costa County Superior
Court last month, claims that he has suffered severe physical and emotional suffering, damage to his academic reputation, and diminished chances of
getting into his college of choice because of the grade.
California —
toxic for business. Last year, the medical technology firm Numira Biosciences packed its bags and
left Irvine for Salt Lake City. When asked about the firm's departure, its chief executive praised Utah's
quality of life but also blamed California's business environment for the move. "The tipping point was when
someone from the Orange County tax [assessor] wanted to see our facility to tax every piece of equipment I had,"
Michael Beeuwsaert told the Orange County Register.
California's
jobs engine broke down well before the financial crisis. Everybody knows that California's economy
has struggled mightily since the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. The state's current
unemployment rate, 12.1 percent, is a full 3 percentage points above the national rate. ... But a
study commissioned by City Journal using the National Establishment Time Series database, which has tracked job
creation and migration from 1992 through 2008 (so far) in a way that government statistics can't, reveals
the disturbing truth.
California's Economic
Suicide. The 262 pages of regulations implementing California's 2006 global warming
legislation, Assembly Bill 32, approved by CARB last Thursday [10/20/2011], will probably reduce employment
more than it reduces emissions. The only thing it will cap is economic growth by bleeding a
patient that is already hemorrhaging red ink.
California
Employment at Record Low 55.4 Percent. The percentage of working-age Californians with jobs has
fallen to a record low, and employment may not return to pre-recession levels until the second half of the
decade, according to a research group. Just 55.4 percent of working-age Californians, defined as
those 16 or older, had a job in July...
California unemployment
rises in July to 12%. California's unemployment rate climbs two-tenths of a percentage point in
July, the U.S. Department of Labor says, to 12%. The state has the second-highest jobless rate in the
nation, exceeded only by Nevada at 12.9%.
San
Francisco goldfish ban exposes America's liberal nutjobs. [Scroll down] The proposal will
probably be kicked into the long-grass, as was the commission's proposed ban on the sale of kittens and
puppies last year. Other things the city has considered outlawing are MacDonald's Happy Meals,
supersizing in fast food chains and circumcision. Obviously, smoking in public places was stopped
years ago. The goldfish ban might seem like a silly story, but it does expose several liberal
pathologies.
California's Book Ban. The
California state legislature has passed a book-banning law. Nobody is calling the book ban a book ban
because the books the book ban bans offend homosexuals. If the legislature had extended legislative
protection to the hurt feelings of, say, Mormons or evangelical Christians, then everyone would have agreed
that it's a book ban. But it doesn't, so don't call the book ban a book ban. You just might get
banned, too.
California
becomes first state in nation to ban 'gay cure' therapy for children. California has become the first state in the
nation to ban therapy that tries to turn gay teens straight. Gov. Jerry Brown announced Sunday [9/30/2012] that he has signed
Senate Bill 1172, which prohibits children under age 18 from undergoing "sexual orientation change efforts." The
law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, prohibits state-licensed therapists from engaging in these practices with minors.
The Editor says...
If there is such a therapy, and it works, that proves that homosexuality is a choice, not a genetic condition, as so many
homosexuals claim. If this therapy doesn't work, why is it so vigorously opposed?
One law for us,
another for you. The California state Senate voted 28-8 Wednesday [6/1/2011] to exempt itself
from the pointless gun-control laws that apply to the rest of the populace. Legislators apparently
think they alone are worthy to pack heat on the streets for personal protection, and the masses ought to
wait until the police arrive.
Chief executives say
California worst place in the nation to do business. For the seventh year in a row, a survey of
chief executives has ranked California as the nation's worst state in which to do business. More than 500
U.S. CEOs polled by Greenwich, Conn.-based Chief Executive magazine based their opinions on numerous factors,
including regulations, tax policies, work force quality, education resources, quality of living and infrastructure.
California
Balks at Public Display of American Flag. In the small town of Orcutt, California, a private
association has raised donations to erect a flagpole and monument between a highway exit and a park-and-ride
lot, at the entrance to the community's Old Town section. The pole would hang the American flag,
encircled by five pillars, one each for the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. The
California Department of Transportation (CalTrans), however, has stymied the effort, calling it an impermissible
act of "public expression."
California
Democrats rally around unions. Framing the union battles taking place across the nation as a
fundamental attack on working Americans, Democratic leaders on Saturday accused Republicans of scapegoating
public employees for political gain. "They are intent on dismantling the very economic ladder that
lifted our middle class and made California the richest and greatest state in the greatest nation in the
world," Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris told thousands of delegates and supporters gathered at the Democrats'
annual convention in Sacramento.
The Editor says...
When you look at the state's net worth, California is not the richest state in the country, by any
means. California is broke, and nearly all the blame should be assigned to left-wing
tax-and-spend Democrats.
Second
Amendment Takes Double Shot in California. A double-whammy came down today against gun rights
advocates in California. First, the California Assembly voted to prohibit the open carry of unloaded
handguns. Current law had allowed unloaded weapons to be carried openly in public. "You are
disarming our citizens" while doing little to disarm criminals, said Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber.
"It is not just the right to keep, it is the right to bear arms," said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks.
Guns for us, not for you.
Some of the most far-out anti-gun laws are found on the left coast, but that could change — for privileged
politicians. A California state Senate committee will consider a bill next week that grants legislators permission
to carry concealed firearms. The measure highlights the growing rift between the bureaucratic class and taxpayers
who don't have the luxury of exempting themselves from bad laws.
America's Most Miserable
Cities. California's troubles helped it land eight of the 20 spots on [Forbes Magazine's] annual
list of America's Most Miserable Cities, with Stockton ranking first for the second time in three years.
California's
Problem Is In Its Head. California Gov. Jerry Brown must rapidly close a $25 billion budgetary
shortfall. But right now it seems almost a hopeless task since the state's disastrous budget is a symptom,
not the cause, of California's much larger nightmare. Take unemployment. It currently runs 12.6%
in California, the nation's second-highest rate. Take livability. A recent Forbes magazine survey
listing the most miserable 20 cities in the nation ranked four California municipalities among the index's
five worst places to live.
Go Bankrupt, California,
Please. We're now 25 billion dollars in the red in California. The governor along
with his Democrat controlled legislature will never do the right thing. They're the same folks who
brought you this mess. When Governor Brown was previously the governor he signed the Dills Act in 1978
that gave civil servants the right to collective bargaining. He did this on his very first day in office
as governor. This revolutionary enactment was the beginning of the end or our state.
Bootleg Lightbulbs
Coming to California. Old reliable, the 100-watt light bulb — safe, cheap, and
bright enough to read, write, cook, shave, and put on your makeup by, will be gone January 1.
The California Energy Commission in September 2010 published its 226-page Appliance Efficiency Regulations,
whereby the 100-watt incandescent light bulb will be outlawed at midnight on December 31, 2010.
Californians with self-imposed rationing, running out of both energy and common sense, have declared that
consuming electrical power is a social vice. Electric power must be curbed, along with banning
Dr. Pepper and Happy Meals. And it's not just light bulbs. These appliance standards will
regulate and ban hundreds of products including...
CARB's Carbon Capers.
In a nearly unanimous vote, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) just approved a statewide cap-and-trade
scheme to limit emissions of CO2 from six hundred major industrial plants, starting in
2012. Proposition 23 on the California ballot, defeated in November, was an attempt to at least
delay the state's Cap-and-Trade law, AB-32, until California's record unemployment eased. However, the
slanted description appearing on both the official Voter Guide and the ballot, written by then-State Attorney
General Jerry Brown and his office, the well-funded "No-on-23" campaign, and some very heavy media bias, had
Californians believing that Prop. 23 would thwart efforts to curb air pollution — i.e., smog.
So Prop 23 went down in flames, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs, and perhaps a million.
Off-the-Books America.
Last week, Victor Davis Hanson wrote about the hollowed-out society in the Central Valley around his native Fresno,
California. ... The elementary school that he attended as a child is now 94 percent Hispanic and well below
standards in English and math. The rural roads are "fast turning into rubble." The irrigation cutoffs
have idled tens of thousands of acres, and unemployment is 15 to 20 percent. There are many rural
"trailer-house compounds" filled with junked cars, lean-tos, and trash, but for some reason, the regulatory state
does not reach out and regulate them.
Missing the California of My
Youth. In what seems like a lifetime ago, Barack Obama promised to fundamentally transform the
nation. California is what a truly progressive government transformation looks like. Thus, in a
sensible America, the decline of California would be the canary call in a coal mine for the nation.
Mascot Politics.
Dr. Victor Davis Hanson's quietly chilling article, "Two Californias," in National Review Online, ought to be
read by every American who is concerned about where this country is headed. California is leading the
way, but what is happening in California is happening elsewhere — and is a slow poison that is
being largely ignored.
California
sings the Blue State Blues. Over 20 years have passed since a Republican presidential candidate carried
California. Democrats have essentially run the state since the early 1990s. How has that worked out for
Californians? By virtually any measure, not very well. First, though, let's get one thing straight. Much
the way frozen food manufacturers call their processed sludge nuggets "chicken," Schwarzenegger calls himself a "Republican."
His election was an aberration, more, without question, thanks to his fame than his party affiliation.
Time to allow
states to go bankrupt. The idea that taxpayers in more sensible states like Indiana and Texas
should have to bail out wealthy Democratic strongholds unable to operate responsibly is explosive. Mark
Steyn has even warned that secession talk could get serious in the face of such looting of the prudent.
California, the neocolonial
state. California imports more cheap labor from a third world country than any other state. California
exports her prisoners. The state of California essentially outsources a substantial amount of its energy production,
importing more of its electricity than any other state. If California were a country, the liberals in academia would
be outraged at this neocolonial behavior. Ironically it has been liberal policies that have lead to California becoming
a neocolonial state.

More climate idiocy from California. If
the looming spectre of rising electricity prices due to CARB's upcoming "cap and trade" isn't enough, now the Department of Water resources has
opted to be less efficient by giving low cost electricity the boot.
Could
California Sink The Obama Presidency? California — the most populous state in our nation — is
bankrupt. Just as is the case in Washington, D.C., nobody in The Golden State dares to say the word "bankrupt"
to describe the state government right now, but it is still nonetheless true. However, since Californians
collectively defied the national trend of abandoning the bankrupting Obama-styled economic policies in the recent
election, and instead voted for more of the same, the 31st state in our union is now on the fast-track for
economic collapse.
California's Assorted Rocks
and Hard Places. News came out on Thursday [11/11/2010] that the California budget deficit is actually
closer to $25 billion, twice what we are told. This follows from last year's $42 billion shortfall,
which was closed by all sorts of one-time tax increases and gimmicks. Here is our general dilemma in a nutshell.
How
Do California and the Titanic Differ? OK, riddle fans, here's a toughie: What's the
difference between California voters and the passengers on the Titanic? The passengers on the Titanic
didn't vote to hit the iceberg. Most Americans understand that California is sinking. What is
almost incredible is that it has voted to sink.
California Wins Dumbest
State Award in Landslide. In the coming years, the unions, who have been bilking Californians in a
protection-racket type scheme, will be taking to the streets in massive, destructive temper tantrums just like
those out-in-the-cold workers in other failed socialist states across the big pond. It won't be pretty.
All the while Californians have been lining the greedy pockets of union masters, they've also saddled their
economy with the greenest of the green anti-pollution laws, which they've just voted overwhelmingly to keep
in place.
San Francisco Defends Helpless Citizens From The
Scourge of Happy Meals. CNN is reporting the San Francisco board of supervisors will formally
approve a ban on most McDonald's Happy Meals today, thus addressing the most serious issue facing the otherwise
untroubled city. The board isn't just tepidly endorsing this measure — they're expected to produce
enough votes to over-ride a promised veto from Mayor Gavin Newsom. The ordinance is intended to control
the distribution of toys with unhealthy food, which has become known as the "food justice movement."
California: The
Lindsay Lohan of States. Listen up, California. The other 48 states — your
cousin New York excluded — are sick of your bratty arrogance. ... You've racked up nearly $70 billion
in general obligation debt, and that doesn't include your $500 billion unfunded pension liability.
Your own analysts predict you'll face a hole of at least $80 billion over the next four years. Your
government's run by a brothel of environmentalists, lawyers, public-sector unions and legislative bums.
When they're not taxing or spending, they're creating regulations and commissions like the Board of Barbering
and Cosmetology and the California Blueberry Commission. Many businesses would leave if it weren't for
your sunny climate.
Coasting to the Left. If this week's
election returns demonstrate that the vast majority of the country is moving to the right, why do the West Coast
and the Northeast continue to embrace liberalism, especially when it has led to economic disaster? Both
California and New York are on the verge of bankruptcy and, according to Forbes magazine, are hostile to business
by way of high taxation and strict regulation of commerce. California currently owes $158 billion,
and New York is holding $60 billion in debt.
California Dreamin'. In a blast
from the past, California voters bucked the national voting trend and returned Democrat Jerry Brown to the
Governor's office he occupied in the 1970s. While the Attorney General votes are still being counted, all
other statewide offices went to Democrats. Voters also removed the two-thirds vote requirement to pass
the state budget, handing the heavily Democrat state legislature a blank check. California is now a
one-party state. The voters want it that way.
California Dreamin'.
I would like to feel elated about the elections last Tuesday, but alas, I live in California. As the rest
of the nation lurches back toward common sense, California defiantly stands as a testament to the power of
delusion. ... The fact that voters keep returning to failed policies and politicians speaks to the power of
propaganda, disseminated through the schools and the media. However, it is also a dismal lesson in
human nature, epitomized by Jesus' observation about a dog returning to its own vomit.
The
'Golden State' Still Doesn't Get It. The midterm elections turned into a sweeping repudiation of
the Democrats' failed status quo — except, that is, in California. There, not only did the Democrats
not lose, they gained clout.
The Brown Wall. [Scroll
down] But the accomplishments stopped in the 1970s with the election of Governor Jerry Brown.
Mr. Brown expropriated the budget money that had been allocated for infrastructure — much of it
raised by motor fuel taxes — and diverted it to his own leftist causes. Aqueducts and freeways
were canceled, including some that already were under construction. Brown also blocked private construction
of power plants. His anti-American Dream was this: If you don't build it; they won't come.
But they came anyway, and now Californians waste millions of gallons of fuel in traffic jams.
The Inexplicables.
California may still have 1 billion recoverable, but untapped, barrels of oil, over a half-million acres of
productive farmland taken out of production to help the three-inch delta smelt, and a great deal of natural
mineral wealth and timber, but we deem ourselves wealthy enough not to need any of that, so smart are our
professors, politicians, journalists, and community organizers in figuring out ways to redistribute the
ill-gotten gains of agriculture, Silicon Valley, the Napa wine industry, and what manufacturing is left in
California.
California Circles the Drain. The
government of the once Golden State is a lead-pipe cinch to lurch into insolvency any month now. The
California State government is an estimated $19 billion in the hole. No exact figure is possible
since no budget (constitutionally required on July 1) has yet been adopted by the state legislature.
Revenues are down and spending is up. The state continues to hire during a "hiring freeze." To
solve the crisis, the Democratic majority in the legislature demands higher taxes on top of already high
taxes which are driving jobs and businesses out of the state.
California's Green Nightmare.
California is the nation's laboratory in green job initiatives of the type that so many politicians in Washington,
D.C., and the states see as America's economic passport to the future. The Golden State was first in the
nation in renewable energy standards, it is the home of the most stringent cap and trade legislation (called
AB 32) to reduce carbon emissions, and it has poured hundreds of millions of state tax dollars into renewable
energy research. So where are all the green jobs? A new 2010 study by the University of California-Berkeley
comes to the sobering conclusion that "the green economy accounts for just 1 percent of California's
jobs."
Wanted:
Grown-up governance. At some point, the grown-ups are going to have to take over.
We're being governed by a gang of perpetual adolescents from the most liberal enclaves in America. ... The
city [of San Francisco], which has thrown the Boy Scouts out of public facilities, has issued tips on how
to bake "safe" marijuana-laced goodies. It's not clear how this will contribute to the general
welfare, except to create more voters with the functioning brains of 11-year-olds who keep getting
hungry. This should make it easier to recruit for one of the political parties.
Full
speed ahead on health care for all. I thought maybe this was a joke, but I researched it and found it to be
utterly, jaw-droppingly, stupefyingly true: The California Senate voted 22-14 on Jan. 28 to create what one
group is calling a "Medicare for all" health-care system that would cost "about" $200 billion a year. ... Isn't this
the same California that has close to a $20 billion budget deficit and is currently asking for a handout of
$6.9 billion from the federal government to tide them over?
Imagine No God in Our
Nation's Classrooms. All high school math teacher Bradley Johnson wanted to do was honor our nation's
history and religious heritage the same way he always had. For twenty five years, a red, white and blue-striped
banner adorned his classroom walls with national maxims such as "In God We Trust," "One Nation Under God," "God Bless
America," and "God Shed his Grace On Thee." A second banner accompanied it, containing an excerpt from the
Declaration of Independence, "All Men are Created Equal and They Are Endowed by Their Creator." But displaying
a portion of the Declaration of Independence and other national mottos was just too offensive to the Poway Unified
School District in San Diego.
De Facto Shariah Law
in America. In the State of California, 7th-grade students at Excelsior Middle School in
Discovery Bay, California adopted Muslim names, prayed on prayer rugs, and celebrated Ramadan under a
state-mandated curriculum that requires instruction about various religions. In 2006, the U.S. Supreme
Court again declined to hear legal challenges by concerned Excelsior parents, who complained that the instruction
was actually religious indoctrination and that Christianity and Judaism were not given equal time and exposure.
Not one nickel
for California. There isn't a single compelling reason to provide the girly-man of American
gubernatorial fiscal responsibility, Arnold Schwarzenegger, with a nickel from our federal coffers. His
failing California remains the poster-child for liberal fiscal insanity and it's time for the free-range
chickens to come home to roost.
Let
California drown, voters say. Most Americans oppose a bailout for California, according
to a Rasmussen survey. Just 27 percent of voters believe the state should receive federal
bailout money while 55 percent think the state should go bankrupt. (For the record,
states cannot declare bankruptcy.)
The Editor says...
Okay, so states can't declare bankruptcy. So what? You don't have to declare
bankruptcy to be bankrupt.
The
Long March From California to Copenhagen. On the one, are those who believe personal freedom
and liberty trump egalitarianism and fraternity. ... On the other side are those who wish a large government
to ensure an equality of result. Their notion is that personal responsibility, talent, behavior, luck,
fate, etc. do not so much determine why one is well off and another not so.
California:
Running a failed state can sure be expensive. Among the many problems California faces now:
The near-junk rating on its bonds means the state pays more in interest. In 2020, Reuters reports, the
state will pay more than $10 billion on interest alone.
California
is Liberalism's "Canary in the Coal Mine". If residents of the other 49 states haven't focused on
California's plight yet, they should. In a real sense, California has become liberalism's "canary in the coal
mine." It is an instructive — and frightening — warning of the toll exacted
by the kind of leftism now in vogue in Washington, D.C.. Put simply, California is in desperate fiscal
straits because it has become a place where government works for only two constituencies: Those who need
public assistance, and unions. Sacramento is so busy responding to the needs of the one and the demands of
the other that the legitimate expectations of regular, taxpaying citizens have been completely ignored.
Public
Sector Unions Tarnish the Golden State. It's an ugly fact of life in California. Public
sector unions are slowly, painfully and inexorably choking the life out of the (once) Golden State. Fully
54% of state government workers — that's almost 1.8 million people — are unionized.
And the unions' primary reason for existence is maintaining the privileges that state employees enjoy, at any
cost to the rest of the state.
The sad story of how public employee unions have all but ruined California.
City Journal's Steve Malanga offers the most detailed and succinct history yet on how public sector unions grew
from being toothless employee associations to having a virtually lock on all of the key power levers in California
and how they've used that power to enrich themselves while all but ruining a once-goldern state. As
Malanga explains, what has already happened in California is well underway across the rest of the nation and
in Washington, D.C.
The Beholden State: How
public-sector unions broke California. The unions' political triumphs have molded a
California in which government workers thrive at the expense of a struggling private sector. The
state's public school teachers are the highest-paid in the nation. Its prison guards can easily
earn six-figure salaries. State workers routinely retire at 55 with pensions higher than their
base pay for most of their working life. Meanwhile, what was once the most prosperous state now suffers
from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation's and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and
stifling regulations. This toxic combination — high public-sector employee costs and sagging
economic fortunes — has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every
municipality in the state.
Accounting for
California's Suicide. [Scroll down] Californians count on the wealth of farming but would
prefer their rivers to remain wild rather than tapped. They like tasteful redwood decks but demand
someone else fell their trees for the wood. Californians drive imported SUVs but would rather that you
drill for oil off your shores rather than they off theirs. They pride themselves on their liberal
welfare programs, but drive out with confiscatory taxes the few left to pay for them. Californians
expect cheap imported labor to tend their lawns and clean their houses, but are incensed at sky-high welfare
and entitlement costs that accompany illegal immigration. Lock 'em up, they say — but the
state is bankrupted by new prisons, constant inmate lawsuits, and unionized employees. In short, after
Californians sue, restrict, mandate, obstruct, and lecture, they also get angry that there is suddenly not
enough food, fuel, water, and money to act like the gods that they think they have become.
Drill, Arnold, Drill!
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is begging for a bailout to close an $11 billion budget gap. He
should be pressing for an oil revenue-sharing deal instead.
Controlling Pests or Controlling
Competition? The Pacific Legal Foundation challenges a California licensing law that would
require a 30-year business veteran to become an apprentice.
California Makes Cars Less
Affordable: California today became the first state in the nation to restrict automobile
emissions of carbon dioxide, the same gas humans exhale. The auto industry pointed out, to no avail,
that the measure would make cars even more expensive and pressure people to buy death traps they don't
feel safe driving.
California: An
Obituary. Only raw and unrestrained liberalism could have destroyed the world's 8th-largest
economy. Boasting unparalleled assets in agriculture, high technology, entertainment, and tourism,
and blessed with ample energy resources, deep-water ports and ideal weather, California has nonetheless
managed to turn itself into a perfect dystopia.
California Democrat proposes mandatory
gun registration. A California Democrat is proposing a new law requiring residents to register
their shotguns and rifles or go to jail, CBSNews.com has learned.
California Teacher Union Rallies Around Bad Ideas.
The California Teachers Association (CTA), the state's largest teachers union and National Education Association
affiliate, organized a statewide rally of teachers and students on March 4 to protest education spending
cuts. The CTA's "solution" indicates it is out of touch with economic and educational reality.
California
Dems Won't Honor Boy Scouts? Thousands of Boy Scouts across California will be gathering this
weekend to celebrate the 100th anniversary of scouting in the Golden State — but they won't have
the blessing of Democrats in the California Legislature.
Oakland
allows industrial-scale marijuana farms. Oakland's City Council late Tuesday adopted
regulations permitting industrial-scale marijuana farms, a plan that some small farmers argued would
squeeze them out of the industry they helped to build. To address concerns from smaller farmers,
the council pledged to create regulations on regulating small- and medium-size marijuana farms
this year.
Cracking California's
Egg Rules. About 150,000 hens at egg producer J.S. West Inc. appear to have scored an
upgrade. They cluck and cackle in an air-conditioned henhouse that got a $3.2 million renovation
this year. ... California's egg farmers are struggling to comply with Proposition 2, the state's new
guidelines on how egg-laying chickens can be kept.
California:
New Is Not Necessarily Improved. Meg Whitman would like to build a new California.
Not me. If I had to choose, I'd opt not to build a new California, but rather to restore the "old
California." That is, I'd revive the California Republic of Old, when men married women, when murderous
thugs were given the noose rather than probation, and when babies in utero were kept safe from abortion
practitioners. The regenerate California I have in mind is a place where a man's handshake is as
binding as a written contract, where chastity is given a place of honor, and where citizens look to God
and to their neighbors in times of trouble rather than to the Welfare State.
There's No Budget,
but California Is All Over the Foreign-Cow Issue. On the brink of insolvency, California may have
to pay its bills with IOUs soon. A budget was due three months ago, and the legislature hasn't passed
one. The lawmakers can, however, point to a list of other achievements this year. Awaiting Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature, for example, is a bill that would bar the state from filming cows in New
Zealand. It's the fruit of five committee votes and eight legislative analyses. California
lawmakers also voted to form a lobster commission. They created "Motorcycle Awareness Month," not to
mention a "Cuss Free Week."
Red Herring Politics.
[Scroll down] One appointment by Governor Jerry Brown ought to tell us a lot about his ideology.
His most famous — or infamous — appointment was making Rose Bird chief justice of the
California supreme court. She over-ruled 64 consecutive death penalty verdicts and upheld none.
Apparently no judge or jury could ever give a murderer a trial perfect enough to suit Rose Bird. To hear
Rose Bird and her supporters tell it, she was just "upholding the law." But, fortunately, the California
voters saw right through that pretense, and realized that she was doing just the opposite — imposing
her own personal opposition to the death penalty in the guise of interpreting the law.
Sherman's
March. A California congressman wants to eliminate right-to-work laws in 22 states where workers
don't have to join unions. If even-higher unemployment is his goal, he has the right idea.
You can put a tuxedo on a pig, but it's still a pig.
Food stamp program
gets a new name: CalFresh. California's food stamp program has a new name, which officials hope
will encourage more people to apply for the nutrition benefit: CalFresh. The new name and logo —
an abstract representation of the diverse produce available in California — was launched Saturday [10/23/2010]
at an event in Long Beach sponsored by first lady Maria Shriver to provide free medical, financial and
educational services to low-income women.
California judge: handgun ammo laws unconstitutional.
A judge has ruled that key sections of a California law restricting the sale of handgun ammunition cannot be
enforced because they are unconstitutional.
OC
Couple Threatened With $500-Per-Meeting Fines For Home Bible Study. An Orange County couple has
been ordered to stop holding a Bible study in their home on the grounds that the meeting violates a city
ordinance as a "church" and not as a private gathering. Homeowners Chuck and Stephanie Fromm, of San
Juan Capistrano, were fined $300 earlier this month for holding what city officials called "a regular
gathering of more than three people". That type of meeting would require a conditional use permit as
defined by the city, according to Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), the couple's legal representation.
California
bans use of tanning beds by minors. Minors in the state of California will no longer be allowed
to use tanning beds after Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill on Sunday prohibiting anyone under the age of 18
from using ultraviolet tanning devices.
California
Bans Tanning Bed Use By Minors... But Abortions Are OK. California Governor Jerry Brown signed
a bill today [10/9/2011] that bans tanning bed use by minors. ... In 1997 a California court overturned a
state law that required girls get the approval of a parent or judge before having an abortion.
California
Law Would Permit Midwives, Other Non-Physicians to Perform Abortions. The California Senate passed a bill September 6
that would make it legal for non-physician medical professionals such as midwives to perform abortions under a statewide training program.
The measure now awaits Democratic Governor Jerry Brown's signature.
Abortionists
don't need a doctor's license: bill rammed through California Senate. Senate Bill 623, introduced by Christine Kehoe,
D-San Diego, extends a program run by the University of California at San Francisco, in which nurse practitioners, midwives, and
doctors' assistants are trained to perform abortions without any further training in medicine. Kehoe argues the bill is
necessary because there aren't enough doctors performing abortions in California.
Criminalizing business:
part II. A recent column in the San Francisco Chronicle vividly illustrates the anti-business mindset of
many Californians. It dealt with the fact that Wal-Mart lost a referendum to allow the retailer to put a store in
Inglewood, California. According to the Chronicle columnist, Wal-Mart was "trying to bully its way into another
targeted community." Putting an issue to a vote is called "bullying" when business does it, and the community
where it wants to locate is called a "target."
California's
New Frisbee Law [is] Just [the] Latest Attempt to Raise Cash. This week, Los Angeles County okayed a new regulation
banning the throwing of Frisbees or footballs on the beaches — which, of course, destroys the purpose of
living in Southern California in the first place. The first offense will earn you a hefty $100 fine; the
second, $200; the third and beyond, $500. You can, of course, apply for a permit. For parents with
industrious children, holes deeper than 18 inches are also banned — so get your kids the
cheap plastic shovels or pay a fine.
LA
County OKs $1,000 Fine For Throwing Football, Frisbee On Beaches. When you head down to the beach
for a little fun this summer, county officials want you to know about some updated rules. The Board of
Supervisors this week agreed to lift an all-out ban on playing with footballs, other balls and Frisbees on the
beach, according to a media statement released by the L.A. County Department of Beaches and Harbors.
Los Angeles County Bans Frisbees on Beaches. The moonbat
micromanagers ruling La-La Land must finally be running out of things to ban. Now they're suppressing fun on the beach.
Hermosa Beach meter maids making
nearly $100K? When contemplating the many reasons cities in California and elsewhere are venturing closer to bankruptcy,
look no further than the relatively lucrative and often-unjustifiable salaries bestowed on municipal employees — and the lofty
pension benefits attached to the high pay. One of the latest examples comes from the California coastal city of Hermosa Beach,
where some community service staffers who collect money from parking meters and manage their operations — positions once
widely known as "meter maids" — are making nearly $100,000 a year in total compensation, according to city documents.
SF to cover uninsured's gender reassignment.
In 2001, San Francisco became the first city in the country to cover the cost of sex change surgeries for transgender city employees. In 2007, it became the
first city in the country to provide health care for all uninsured residents through its Healthy San Francisco program. Now, San Francisco is combining those
firsts into yet another pioneering move by becoming the first city in the country to cover the cost of gender reassignment surgeries for its uninsured residents.
$822,000 Worker Shows California
Leads U.S. Pay Giveaway. Nine years ago, California Democrat Gray Davis became the first U.S. governor in 82 years to be recalled by
voters. The state's 20 million taxpayers still bear the cost of his four years and 10 months on the job. Davis escalated salaries
and benefits for 164,000 state workers, including a 34 percent raise for prison guards, the first of a series of steps in which he and successors
saddled California with a legacy of dysfunction.
Highest-Paid California Trooper Is Chief Banking
$484,000. California Highway Patrol division chief Jeff Talbott retired last year as the best-paid officer in the 12 most-populous U.S. states,
collecting $483,581 in salary, pension and other compensation. Talbott, 53, received $280,259 for accrued leave and vacation time and took a new job running
the public-safety department at a private university in Southern California. He also began collecting an annual pension of $174,888 from the state.
California, where a cop can make $483,581 in one
year. Thanks again to massive pension liabilities, the state has been unable to keep up with the growth of its prison population, resulting in
overcrowding, which in turn resulted in the court-ordered early release of thousands of inmates, many of whom are already on crime sprees.
California
in Chaos. California actually has fewer state government employees per capita than the national average, but its employees
are the best-paid in America. This often has a negative effect on government services. It is hard, for example, to hire enough
cops to keep violent crime down in Oakland if the city can't afford the six-figure compensation packages of the existing officers.
With
billions in the bank, Blue Shield of California loses its state tax-exempt status.
Authorities have revoked the tax-exempt status of nonprofit Blue Shield of California, potentially
putting it on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in state taxes each year. The move by the
California Franchise Tax Board comes as the state's third-largest health insurer faces fresh criticism
over its rate hikes, executive pay and $4.2 billion in financial reserves. The state quietly
stripped the San Francisco insurer of its exemption from California income taxes in August. The
company held that since its founding in 1939.
Israel
Invests in Desalinization; California Builds High-Speed Rail. California is reeling from a drought, rather like
the one suffered by Israel in 1998-2002. California, with an 840-mile coastline on the world's largest ocean, has a water
shortage; Israel, with a mere 170-mile coast line, does not. Israel invests in desalinization; California is building a
high-speed train at a cost of somewhere between $68 billion and $90 billion, the most expensive public works project
in the nation's history with no completion date in sight, but finds the $1 billion price tag on its first desalinization
plant too high to bear, even though its 50 million gallon per day output would meet the daily requirements of something
like 280,000 of the modest-income consumers now the hardest hit by the rationing system in place.
With
new climate legislation, Gov. Brown gets even with the oil industry. Dominant Democrats in Sacramento hang together
more often than not, and that produces victories when only a simple majority vote is required. And that's usually. Republicans
these days are mostly irrelevant in California's Capitol.
Wildfires in Australia share the same set of contributing factors as the fires in California
The Editor says...
The fires in California and in Australia share many traits: In each case, the fires were initially blamed on global warming,
more than anything else. In California, that is still the case. But in each case, the root of the problem is years
of mismanagement, resulting in the accumulation of dry brush.
Terrifying footage of photographer's
journey through heart of wildfire burning in California. Terrifying footage of a photographer's drive through
the heart of the Gamble Fire which has burnt over 1,000 acres in California's Napa County. Craig Philpott managed to
record his journey through the blaze which has destroyed many trees and started to burn parts of the road. This footage
was filmed on August 18. [Video clip]
How
a World Without Borders Became a Ward With No Exit. A New York Times reporter argues that "the fires that have
burned across Australia are not just destroying lives, or turning forests as large as nations into ashen moonscapes [they
mean] the end of Australia as we know it." [...] "We have seen," she added, "the unfolding wings of climate change."
Arson,
mischief and recklessness: 87 percent of fires are man-made. There are, on average, 62,000 fires in Australia
every year. Only a very small number strike far from populated areas and satellite studies tell us that lightning is
responsible for only 13 percent. Not so the current fires threatening to engulf Queensland and NSW. There were no
lightning strikes on most of the days when the fires first started in September. Although there have been since, these
fires — joining up to create a new form of mega-fire — are almost all man-made.
Wildfire
Transcends Continents and Centuries. Australia is currently in its summer season. And, for
non-Australians, that translates to "fire season." This year, these fires have caught international attention and are
being portrayed as much worse than what we've seen in the past. Yet the wildfires happening now in Australia, and those
months earlier in California, are not novel and share much in common.

What
caused the Australian fires? Global warming? Obstruction of fire prevention burns? Arson? The
season's fires have been intense and widespread, but not nearly as much as reported by some media that made it seem as though
virtually the entire continent was ablaze. Eighteen million acres destroyed is a disaster by any measure, but that
acreage represents less than 1 percent of Australia's landmass, and less than 6% of its forests. No one denies the
fires were made worse by dry conditions resulting from a drought and record hot temperatures. But, as measured by the
amount of forestland destroyed, the 18 million acres for this year's fires pale in comparison to the 290 million acres burned
to the ground during the 1974 bushfire season.
Australian
Police Arrest 183 Arsonists for Bushfires. Australian police investigating the bushfires have arrested more
than 180 alleged arsonists since the start of 2019. But apparently they forgot to send the memo to Russell Crowe and Cate
Blanchett, both of whom insisted in their Golden Globes acceptance speeches that the Australian bushfires were in fact caused
by 'climate change.'
The
California drought of 2011-15. Here's an undeniable part of California's drought history the doomsayers try to
hide at all costs. Studies of tree rings, sediment and other natural evidence have documented multiple extreme droughts
in what is now California over the last 1,000+ years, including several that lasted more than 20 years — that's
four times longer than the relatively puny 5-year drought of 2011-15. Twenty years is a long time, but some California
droughts lasted even longer. Much longer. One that began in 850 A.D. is thought by scientists to have
droned on for a mind-numbing 240 years, and that megadrought occurred more than a millennium before the climate crisis
industry invented itself out of whole cloth in the 1980s. The drought of 850 wasn't alone. Fifty years before it
began, another mega-drought, one that lasted 180 years, was just winding down.
Appeasement:
The Root Cause of the Australian Mega-Fires. It's impossible to reduce the number of sociopaths in a society to
absolute zero. And even one sociopath can ignite several fires in proximate locations that can join up into a single
crown fire. How? Because, the fuel — the forest canopy, runs for miles as a single, unbroken
circuit. And it is governments who are, by stealth, opposing the significant breaking of these fire circuits.
The fuel loads pile up waiting for a hot summer ignition. This Australian fire season was preceded by years of drought:
the fuel was plenty, it was dry, it was unbroken — making the disaster inevitable — the arsonist's power
had been multiplied tenfold by those entrusted to protect us. In 2017, Newsweek admitted that ISIS celebrated the
wildfires in California, and that ISIS "supporters suggested laying gasoline-filled bottles in the woods to inflict further
damage" in their newsletter. Why are we making it easier for terrorists to create inextinguishable fires?
Arson,
mischief and recklessness: 87 percent of fires are man-made. There are, on average, 62,000 fires in Australia
every year. Only a very small number strike far from populated areas and satellite studies tell us that lightning is
responsible for only 13 percent. Not so the current fires threatening to engulf Queensland and NSW. There were no
lightning strikes on most of the days when the fires first started in September. Although there have been since, these
fires — joining up to create a new form of mega-fire — are almost all man-made.
The
Australian Wildfires Are About Arsonists — Not Climate Change. In the last couple of months, as many
as 200 wildfires have destroyed Australia all over the continent. Due to the number of fires and location, law
enforcement determined that the blazes were intentionally set, and 183 arsonists have been arrested for the crime so
far. The Left tends to ignore the truth and push lies that work for their political agenda — this time, it
was Climate Change. The Left blames humans, specifically those who do not believe in the political ideology of
human-made Climate Change. Leftists pushed the narrative that we, as humans are not doing enough to stop the earth from
heating up. Climate deniers are blamed. There is one problem: arsonists set the fires. People driving cars,
flying in airplanes, and overeating red meat have nothing to do with the flames.
Fight fire with fire: controlled burning could have protected
Australia. By modern standards, my grandfather would probably be considered an environmental criminal. To
clear land for his farmhouse in north-eastern Victoria — and for his milking sheds, pig pens, chicken sheds,
blacksmith shop and other outbuildings — he cleared hundreds of trees. And he cleared thousands more for his
wheat fields, cattle paddocks and shearing sheds. Old man Hobbs would probably be found guilty of cultural
appropriation, too, because he adopted the Aboriginal method of land-clearing. He burned all of those trees. He
also established fire-delaying dirt paths through surrounding bushland. This was once standard practice throughout
rural Australia, where the pre-settlement indigenous population had long conducted controlled burns of overgrown
flora — known as 'fuel' in current fire-management talk. They knew an absence of controlled burns would
invite uncontrolled burns — such as the gigantic wildfires that have ravaged much of this drought-hit nation
since September.
There's
Only One Way To Make Bushfires Less Powerful: Take Out The Stuff That Burns. As monstrous blazes
overwhelm Australia's south-east, the need for a national bushfire policy has never been more urgent. Active land
management such as hazard-reduction burning and forest thinning must lie at the core of any such policy. Done well,
controlled burning limits a bushfire's spread and makes suppression easier, by reducing the amount of flammable
material. Clearing or thinning vegetation on roadsides and other areas also helps maintain fuel breaks, allowing
firefighters access to forests in an emergency. As former fire chiefs recently pointed out, of all factors driving a
fire's severity — temperature, wind speed, topography, fuel moisture and fuel load — fuel load is the
only one humans can influence.
Are Australia Bushfires Worsening from Human-Caused Climate Change?
[#1] Global wildfire activity has decreased in recent decades, making any localized increase (or decrease) in wildfire activity difficult to attribute to 'global climate change'.
[#2] Like California, Australia is prone to bushfires every year during the dry season. Ample fuel and dry weather exists for devastating fires each year, even without excessive heat or drought, as illustrated by the record number of hectares burned (over 100 million) during 1974-75 when above-average precipitation and below-average temperatures existed.
[#3] Australian average temperatures in 2019 were well above what global warming theory can explain, illustrating the importance of natural year-to-year variability in weather patterns (e.g. drought and excessively high temperatures).
[#4] Australia precipitation was at a record low in 2019, but climate models predict no long-term trend in Australia precipitation, while the observed trend has been upward, not downward. This again highlights the importance of natural climate variability to fire weather conditions, as opposed to human-induced climate change.
[#5] While reductions in prescribed burning have probably contributed to the irregular increase in the number of years with large bush fires, a five-fold increase in population in the last 100 years has greatly increased potential ignition sources, both accidental and purposeful.
The
Green Agenda Is Exacerbating Australia's Wildfire Problem. The unfolding tragedy in Australia is being
interpreted as an apocalyptic portent of a "climate emergency": justification for the drastic prescriptions of Extinction
Rebellion to "close down the capitalist system". Heart-rending tweets from the fire zone convey the raw anger of farmers
burnt out of their homes. But their interpretation is strikingly different. Far from begging everybody to embrace the
green agenda, many are blaming the greens for exacerbating the fires by meddling in the time-honoured practice of burning off
excess vegetation to mitigate wildfires. All over the world farmers are being prevented by "experts" in government quangos
from carrying out controlled burning to manage habitats prone to catching fire.
Submission to Mr Tony Pearce, Inspector General for Emergency Management.
There are some irrefutable facts about the drastic state of the bushfire threat to Southern Australia. These are...
[#1] We have a failed fire management policy and practice in Southern Australia especially Victoria. The failed fire management is resulting in an increasing threat to our forest environment (especially tree deaths), water supplies, life and property loss and a severe decrease in our quality of life.
[#2] The thermal scale of wildfire in Victoria exceeds by a factor of 20 our ability to extinguish.
[#3] Disaster scale wildfires occur about once in every 30 years, but will become more frequent as fuel levels continue to rise.
[#4] "Blow up" fire weather causes disaster fires when ignitions and fuel are present.
[#5] Ignitions cannot be prevented.
Report:
Arson Epidemic, Not Climate Change, Behind Australia's Bushfires. Australian law enforcement has arrested over
180 people for arson in connection with the nation's raging bushfires, as alarmists try to pin the blazes on "climate
change." All of the 183 alleged arsonists have been arrested since the start of this year's bushfire season, the
Australian reported Tuesday, adding that 29 fires were deliberately started in the Shoalhaven region of southeast New South
Wales (NSW) in just three months.
The
Insane True Cause Of Australia's Bush Fires. According to Hallam, the Aboriginal peoples spent up to 30% of
their time on fire management, and their efforts were rewarded by a perfect symbiosis between peoples and their
environment. Then the first boats of "globalists" came and with them the growing inability to deal with the Australian
bush. Much of the Australian bush is not a dense forest, but many thin to thick woody shrubs and bushes, usually very
dry, especially during the summer, mostly grassless, often eucalypt trees, that are extremely flammable.
Delingpole:
Environmentalists Made Australia's Bush Fires Worse. [Scroll down] So, to be clear, there is zero
evidence of any change in climatic conditions that might have increased the likelihood or severity of these bush fires.
This is not — repeat NOT — a man-made climate change story, and anyone who claims otherwise is either a
gullible idiot or a lying charlatan. There is, nonetheless, good reason to believe that the stupidity and
irresponsibility of man is at least partly to blame for this disaster — just not quite in the way that the
left-liberal MSM and the green wankerati would have you believe. Man-made culprit #1: all the firebugs who
have been deliberately starting fires in New South Wales, Queensland, and elsewhere. You won't be surprised that their
involvement has had very little coverage in the left-liberal MSM.

Australia Fires,
And Misfires. I kept hearing so much about the Australian bushfires being the result of or driven by "climate
change" or "global warming" that I thought I'd take a look at just what's happened to the rainfall there. Here are a
hundred and nineteen years of Australian rainfall. [Chart] Here's the curious part. The earth has been undergoing
a mild warming pretty steadily since 1970, about the last half-century. But although the last couple years have been
dry, the last half-century in Australia has been wetter than the previous half-century. Not dryer. Wetter.
And a lot wetter. In fact, anyone under about sixty years old has never experienced dry Australia.
Australia's
Epic Fires Caused By Bad Forestry And Arson, Not Climate Change. Like California, Australia limits clearing and
controlled burning of forest fuel build-up, and reports indicate that almost half the bushfires this season were set by
people. [...] In a nutshell, reports indicate that people have been deliberately lighting almost half the bushfires this season.
Hijacking
Australian 2019 Bushfire Tragedies to Fearmonger Climate Change. MSN's climate fearmongers dishonestly claim
"Australia has experienced steadily worse droughts." Climate fearmongers argue warmer temperatures will evaporate surface
moisture more quickly and exacerbate droughts. But they have the tail wagging the dog. Australia's Bureau of
Meteorology's illustration shows the 1920s and 30s had experienced much worse droughts than recent decades. Furthermore,
during periods of low precipitation, drought conditions CAUSE higher temperatures. Without normal soil moisture to
evaporate, solar radiation is no longer consumed as latent heat of evaporation, but instead, rapidly raises land temperatures.
Don't
blame climate change for Australian wildfires. If all you read was the liberal press, you'd think the
Australian bush fires are Mother Earth's punishment for the heresy of allowing global warming. Reality is a little
different — actually, entirely different. The current wave of wildfires running rampant across the
Australian countryside certainly isn't aided by dry weather and heat, but it's actually the result of environmentalists'
naivete, not climate change. The problem is the same one the United States has with forest fires: people simply not
understanding how the environment works. In both cases, the countryside has evolved to deal with and prosper from
frequent and low-level fires. But if these are suppressed, then the large and hot fires, taking out the canopy, for
example, will eventually happen and entirely devastate the flora and the fauna. It's been environmentalists insisting
we suppress all examples and incidences of wildfires. Therefore, blame for the current damage should be laid at their door.
Scientist
David Packham on what's really causing the bushfires. As former State Fire Chiefs call for a summit on
bushfires, expert and scientist David Packham explains that it has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do
with fuel-loads.
Flashback to 2015:
Bushfire
scientist David Packham warns of huge blaze threat, urges increase in fuel reduction burns. Forest fuel levels
have worsened over the past 30 years because of "misguided green ideology", vested interests, political failure and
mismanagement, creating a massive bushfire threat, a former CSIRO bushfire scientist has warned. Victoria's "failed
fire management policy" is an increasing threat to human life, water supplies, property and the forest environment, David
Packham said in a submission to the state's Inspector-General for Emergency Management. And he argued that unless the
annual fuel reduction burning target, currently at a minimum of 5 percent of public land, "is doubled or preferably tripled,
a massive bushfire disaster will occur. The forest and alpine environment will decay and be damaged possibly beyond
repair and homes and people [will be] incinerated." He said forest fuel levels had climbed to their most dangerous
level in thousands of years.
The Truth About the Australian
Bushfires. It has nothing to do with climate change. [Video clip]
Aussie
Fires ARE Caused by Man — It's Called Arson and Green Policy. It turns out that the fires raging in
Australia are climate-related. They're caused by a climate of hate, irresponsibility, and incompetence manifesting
itself in arson, feckless fire handling, and environmentalist policies creating forest tinderboxes. What's more, that
two Muslim teens have just been charged with lighting a fire is a reminder that jihadists have prescribed such action as a
terror method. [...] In fact, one man-caused fire incident is raising eyebrows. "Western Sydney teen Fadi
Zraika — one of the two teens accused of lighting a grass fire at a Guildford park while bushfires ravaged
NSW — laughed outside court today after appearing on multiple charges," reports the Daily Telegraph. "Police
allege Fadi and Abraham Zreika, both 18, set off fireworks that sparked a grass fire at Bright Park, Guildford, on December
22," the paper continues.
In
Australia, fires expose green folly. Australia is [experiencing] some of the worst bushfires in its
history. Greens blame climate change, but it's a cover-up. In reality, they have themselves to blame. From
here in Australia, it can only be called green folly. Green folly locked up 11% of Australia in a tinderbox of bushfire
fuel, much of which is now burnt or burning. Green folly closed forest tracks and gates; expelled foresters and
timber-workers; and prevented property-owners from removing flammable fuel from their own land and adjacent roads, parks, and
forests. Those responsible for these follies should face Class Action. Green folly promotes electric vehicles,
but not one fire truck, dozer, water bomber, helicopter, ambulance, or naval vessel ran on batteries. They all used
hydro-carbon fuels — diesel, petrol, or avgas. And with so many power lines down, these electric toys could
not have recharged their batteries anyway.
The
disastrous fires in Australia are man-caused, but they're not climate change. Leftists around the world are at
it again, blaming "anthropogenic" (i.e., man-caused) climate change for the Australian fires. While it's true that the
fires are "man-caused," they're not anthropogenic in the way the Left thinks they are. At the Golden Globes, the
glitterati focused on the fires raging in Australia. Russell Crowe, the famous climatologist...er, the actor who left
school at 16, confirmed that the fire was all about climate change, so reparative action is urgently needed: [...] Meanwhile,
ABC made a laughingstock out of itself with a map superimposing Australia across the United States, implying that an area
equal to 25% of America was on fire, even as ABC acknowledged that the fire was, in fact, only as big as Maryland.
If
you want to stop wildfires, put qualified people back in charge of forests. There was a time when Australian
foresters kept Australian forests safe and productive. They maintained access tracks bridges and fire breaks, undertook
prescribed burning, cleared flammable litter from the forest floor, cut suckers, manned fire lookouts, and maintained their
own fire-fighting crews in decentralized districts. University-trained professional foresters were supported by tough,
experienced rangers who learned their job in the bush. Almost every advance in bushfire management in Australia, from
the science of fire behavior to aerial burning, was thanks to our foresters. Into the 1980s, they were regarded as
international leaders. To pay for good forest management, sections of the forest were logged, allowing ground space and
sunlight for the swift re-growth of new trees.
The information
war about astonishing arson figures. Rapidly the word about the astonishing rate of arson and man-made
accidents is spreading, but it doesn't help "the cause" (which for left-leaning journo's appears to be getting left-leaning
politicians elected). For example, the awful Binna Burra fire in September was blamed on climate change. Instead
it turned out to be caused by two teenagers with cigarette butts. Who looks silly pushing a carbon tax agenda to stop fires?
Fighting
Fires with Fire [In Australia]. [Scroll down] First, governments created fire hazards called national
parks, where fire sticks, matches, graziers, and foresters were locked out, and access roads were abandoned or
padlocked. Green-loving urbanites built houses right beside them and planted trees in their yards. The open
forests and grasslands were invaded by eucalypt regrowth, woody weeds, tangled undergrowth, dry grass, logs, dead leaves,
twigs, bark, and litter — all perfect fuel for a wildfire holocaust. These tinderboxes of forest fuel became
magnets for arsonists, and occasionally even disgruntled neighbors, or were lit by wind-blown embers or dry lightning.
With high winds, high temperatures, and heavy fuel loads, some fires will race through the tree tops of oil-rich eucalypt
forests. [...] Central management and control of burn-off policy and firefighting across entire states have failed
completely. Too often, the people in charge did not understand bushfire history and science and they were too
influenced by Green ideology.
Yes,
It's True — It Appears Up To 90% Of Australian Brushfires Started By People / Arsonists. Right now
is summer in Australia and every summer that country faces annual bushfires. This year the number of those fires has
suddenly increased. The radical left was quick to blame "climate change" for the increase in fires. Ah, but now
Australian authorities are pointing to something far more likely — people who have been starting these fires on
purpose.
Wildfires and intentional power outages
The Editor says...
The notion that wildfires are caused by global warming, failure to sign international treaties, or right-wing politics, is absurd.
Left-wing environmentalists pretend to know more about forest management than logging companies, and when they prevent the occasional
clearing and cleanup of the woods, all sorts of combustible fuel accumulates, waiting for the next lightning strike or
uncontrolled campfire to
set it off.
Reality
Check Regarding Utility-Scale Battery Systems During a One-Day Wind/Solar Lull. Hopefully, California learned
an expensive lesson, due to relying on weather-dependent, season-dependent, wind and solar electricity to such an extent, it
decided to close down power plants, that produce reliable, not variable, not intermittent, low-CO2, low-cost electricity,
24/7/365, regardless of weather or season. Typically, California imports electricity from nearby states to cover any
wind/solar electricity short-falls. This was not possible, because the US Southwest had a major, multi-day, heat
wave. As a result, electricity imports to California were curtailed by the exporting states. Prior to the heat
wave, as a part of climate change fighting, California had unwisely closed down 15 of its 19 high-efficiency, low-CO2, gas
power plants, on the Pacific coast. Those plants had not been kept in reserve, i.e., staffed, fueled and kept in good
working order to immediately provide electricity, just in case of a major heat wave. The result was, California had
multiple days with rolling black-outs, i.e., no air-conditioning during periods with temperatures up to 115°F.
Living conditions were made even worse by the smoke of large-scale forest fires.
Today's
California Energy Embarrassment. Yesterday we noted the embarrassment announced in understated fashion by the
U.S. Department of Energy that California imported 25 percent of its electricity in 2019. It seems almost as if someone at
the very excellent Energy Information Administration has a thing about California's silliness, because today's EIA "Today in Energy" brief
has another understated but devastating smackdown for California's energy pretensions. In one sentence, today's brief essentially
says, "Without lots of natural gas-fired power, California is screwed." Of course that's not the actual language —
these are government analysts were talking about. But it's not hard to read between the lines.
California got $1.3
billion in wildfire relief. Victims have received nothing. California has received more than $1.3 billion
in federal aid to rebuild after the 2017 wine country wildfires, the 2018 Camp fire in Butte County and other disasters from
those years. But disaster-affected homeowners and renters have yet to receive a single penny. The cause:
years-long federal and state bureaucratic delays. As a result, renters like [Linda] Adrain are going without permanent
housing while homeowners are unable to cobble together enough money to rebuild their homes. In the Butte County town of
Paradise, which was heavily damaged in the Camp fire, disaster victims are still living in cars and recreational vehicles on
their properties as they await further financial assistance.
California
utility may cut power to 1 million people. Pacific Gas & Electric may cut power to over 1 million people
on Sunday to prevent the chance of sparking wildfires as extreme fire weather returns to the region, the utility announced
Friday. The nation's largest utility said it could black out customers in 38 counties — including most of
the San Francisco Bay Area — as weather forecasts called for a return of bone-dry, gusty weather that carries the
threat of downing or fouling power lines or other equipment that in recent years have been blamed for igniting massive and
deadly blazes in central and Northern California.
NBC:
Say, You Know Who Turned Out To Be Right About Forest Fires? Recall this discussion at the first presidential
debate? This turned into one of Donald Trump's more surprising moments, in which he exhibited preparation on a key
piece of policy before facing off against Joe Biden. Moderator Chris Wallace wanted to introduce climate change into
the debate, and used the forest fires on the West Coast to frame the question. Trump pushed back against the idea that
climate change was responsible, and instead blamed bad forest management for the crisis: [Transcript] Biden actually
avoided the forest-management issue in his answer, as the two of them got caught up in a testy exchange over the Green New Deal
instead. Instead, media outlets and pundits rushed to fill the gap by declaring this a form of climate-change denial.
Neglected
Forest Management, Not Climate Change, Is Why California Is On Fire. [Scroll down] Further examination of
the issue, however, shows that mitigation through prescribed burns and mechanical thinning could prevent the widespread
destruction caused by these western wildfires. In the past, conservationist policies in these states, especially
California, have prevented the proper management needed to keep people and their land safe causing more intense and prolonged
wildfires, not climate change. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledges that mitigation
techniques such as clearing tinder material in these forests through prescribed burns can lower the intensity of these
fires. According to Michael Shellenberger, author, journalist, and environmental activist, claiming that climate change
is the reason for the wildfires is misleading and prevents real, preventative solutions from being implemented.
"Climate change is real, but this monomaniacal focus on whether to use this obsession with it has meant that we've neglected
the health of our forests and really missed an opportunity for conservation as well," Shellenberger recently told The
Federalist.
California wildfires
blamed on something else besides climate change. This year, California's wildfires are being called the worst
in state's history. The governor and others claim climate change is the chief culprit. But Lisa Fletcher has been
tracking the golden state's fires for several years and finds the real problem might be something else.
PG&E
plans to cut power to 89,000 customers in 16 California counties due to weather causing fire risks. Pacific Gas
& Electric plans to cut power to 89,000 customers in parts of 16 counties beginning early Sunday as dry, unseasonably hot
conditions and strong winds continue to increase fire danger across much of Northern California, officials announced Saturday
evening. The shut-off will be in three phases and last until late Monday, officials said.
Largest
California wildfire threatens marijuana growing area. Numerous studies in recent years have linked bigger U.S.
wildfires to global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas, especially because climate change has made California much
drier. A drier California means plants are more flammable.
The Editor says...
If "climate change has made California much drier," why hasn't it affected every other state? Or at least the entire west coast?
Civilization
Requires Collective Common Sense. Large swaths of the American West are now charred by out-of-control
wildfires. [...] A few veteran forest managers have been proverbial voices in the wilderness in recent years. They
warned that ignoring dead trees, limiting the sort of domestic animal grazing that reduces dead brush and dry foliage,
forbidding timber companies from harvesting decaying timber, and preventing periodic controlled burns were collectively a
prescription for the very disasters that now cloud Western skies with fires, smoke and air pollution. In other words,
pragmatic people once understood that tens of millions of dead trees were not to be left alone as mulch for premodern
ecosystems. In the present, the dried-up vegetation has served as veritable napalm, causing traditional fall wildfires
to blow up into biblical conflagrations that consume homes, property and people.
California:
The Golden State in Utter Decay. The current crisis in California that is getting the most national attention
is the plague of wildfires throughout much of the northern part of the state. Such fires have ravaged the area for
millennia, long before the presence of any European settlers, but that has not stopped California leftists and their media
from pointing fingers at climate change and President Trump. Avoiding responsibility for a crisis by blaming anyone and
anything with even a remote chance of culpability is the California way — which leads to a failure to develop real
solutions. None of California's leaders, least of all Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, have accepted any responsibility
for the government's role in the fires. Evidence clearly shows that the decision by the state to revive "fire suppression"
efforts, a practice that essentially delays the inevitable and results in even larger wildfires (and was mostly discontinued in
the 1960s), has been a major contributor to the magnitude of this year's fires. But has the government of California even
paused to reconsider the strategy? Sadly, no.
Newsom
plays both sides in forest management fight as wildfires rage. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has pointed
out that the state's wildfires are located primarily on federal land — and he's right — but now he and
other Democratic governors are trying to block the Trump administration's effort to speed up the clearing of overgrown,
tinder-dry forests. Twenty-three states, including California, Oregon and Washington, sued last month to stop the
National Environmental Policy Act modernization, which would thin the regulatory thicket and red tape blamed for slowing down
federal projects, including forest management on the government's extensive Western lands. The NEPA lawsuit came as no
surprise, given that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has sued the Trump administration 100 times, but critics
accused California Democrats of putting their loyalty to the environmental movement and focus on climate change ahead of
proven strategies for forest health.
It's
Not About Climate Change. It's no secret that dryer [or drier] wood burns more readily than wet wood. Nor
is it news that hotter, dryer weather will dry things faster. What seems to be a secret from less self-evident to some
is that parts of the West Coast get really hot and dry, over and over. According to studies on past droughts, the
recent ones in California are not even close to being the longest. Some droughts have lasted more than a century.
It seems the past 100 years have actually been relatively wet. Even if a one-degree-warmer world led to warmer West
Coast forests, the high intensity of the recent wildfires can't be attributed to air temperatures being 109 degrees instead
of 108. The much bigger problem is fuel loading — the amount of dead wood and other organic matter on forest
floors, compounded by a higher density of small trees.
Sorry,
solar panels won't stop California's fires. The massive fires raging in California are being blamed squarely on
climate change. Alongside ominous photographs of orange skies, the front page of the Sunday Los Angeles Times
blared: "California's Climate Apocalypse." Golden State Gov. Gavin Newsom says the cause is climate change.
Anyone who thinks differently, he insists, is in denial. The governor is right that climate change is real, man-made
and something we need to deal with smartly. But the claim that the fires are caused by climate change is grossly
misleading. Translated into policy, it would steer the state to the worst way to help future Californians. To
understand why, it helps to know that California wildfires used to be much bigger. This past decade, California has
seen an average burnt area of 775,000 acres. Before 1800, however, California typically saw between 4.4 and
11.9 million acres burn every year.
How environmentalists
destroyed California's forests. Once upon a time, forests in California were logged, grazed, and competently
managed. It wasn't always perfect, but generally it worked. Fires, which are a natural part of that ecosystem,
were generally small — not just benign but beneficial. Land management focused on keeping the forest healthy
for all involved, whether they were loggers, ranchers, fishermen, hunters, homeowners, or backpackers. But then things
started to change. Groups such as the Sierra Club and National Resources Defense Council began to drive a myopic agenda
of protecting environmental interests at all costs. Logging was shut down. Grazing was banned. Controlled
burning and undergrowth clearance were challenged and subjected to draconian regulations. Fires were put out as quickly
as possible. So the trees grew closer and closer together. Undergrowth, unchecked by grazing, cutting, or burning,
grew thick and tall enough to reach the branches of mature trees. The forests became thick and overgrown, but man, they
sure looked nice and green from a scenic overlook.
Don't
fall for simplistic claims about wildfires and global warming. [Scroll down] Every fire is
different. The reasons each fire turns out to be milder or more dangerous than the others can include a wide variety of
causes and effects. Random day-to-day wind patterns can turn a seemingly harmless blaze into a massive
conflagration. The frequency and severity of fire can also be affected by long-term drought patterns that predate
modern mass carbon emissions by centuries. Oceanic weather patterns such as "La Nina" can also change the pattern
and course of Western U.S. wildfires, and man's increasing encroachment on natural habitats tends to make them more damaging
to human life and property. Does that mean global warming doesn't affect wildfires? Of course not. We
assume it has some effect.
The Editor says...
Until the last few sentences, the writer was making sense. But then he [or she] lost me. There is no extraordinary global warming.
Therefore global warming is not a factor in the California wildfires. Until there is about 400 degrees of warming, hot weather won't ignite trees.
Six
accused of starting Oregon blazes amid devastating wildfire season. At least six men in Oregon have been
accused of intentionally setting blazes during the state's devastating wildfire season, according to a report. There is
no evidence that the suspects were motivated by politics, despite conspiracies that such an animus has fueled the fires that
have burned more than a million acres, OregonLive reported. Instead, some of the blazes were attributed to petty beef,
relationship troubles and enjoying the "smell of smoke," officials said. One of the alleged arsonists, Jedediah Ezekiel
Fulton, 39, was discovered setting fires July 28 in the woods outside Glide after he became upset with a member of a
local forest protection organization, the outlet reported.
California's
Disastrous Forest Mismanagement. Fire plays a natural role in regulating the lifecycles of trees and
vegetation. In the pre-industrial era, more than 4 million acres burned in California annually. "Skies were
likely smoky much of the summer and fall in California during the prehistoric period," according to environmental scientists
at the University of California, Berkeley. Fortunately, we now have the knowledge and technology to diminish the
frequency and extent of wildfires. Prescribed burns and proactive clearing of dead vegetation are known to reduce the
speed and intensity of fires by diminishing the stock of combustible material, but federal and state agencies have long put a
monomaniacal emphasis on suppression, rather than prevention, of fires.
Western
Wildfires Are Due to Arson and Stupidity, Not Climate Change. Unfortunately, we are living in a world where
facts don't matter much anymore. For instance, the wildfires that have swept across the western United States over the
past few weeks are being almost universally blamed on climate change, even though the facts tell otherwise. The fires
in California and Oregon are not due to climate change. They are due to arson and sheer stupidity on the part of many,
including those who are responsible for the environmental stewardship that is supposed to prevent them in the first place.
9-in-10
wildfires are set by humans. Dear Facebook, Before you flag this as fake news, my source is the National
Weather Service. NWS reported that 87% of the wildfires were caused by humans this year — 7,072 in
California alone. Not all were arson, of course, because humans are pretty careless. But enough are arson to
cause concern in light of Democrats setting cities aflame this summer. The last thing we want is the Antifa arm of the
Democrat Party expanding into rural areas.
National
Weather Service reveals 87% of all wildfires this year have been caused by humans. The Almeda fire in Oregon
that has so far killed two is now under investigation as a potential arson attack after a body was discovered near the start
of the blaze. Ashland Police Chief Tighe O'Meara announced Thursday a criminal investigation has been opened into the
cause of the fire saying he believes the circumstances around the fire are 'suspicious'. Investigators are looking into
the possible connection between the blaze and the death of an unidentified individual, whose body was found near the origin
of the fire. This comes as the National Weather Service (NWS) revealed a staggering 87 percent of all wildfires that
have ravaged America this year were caused by humans.
It
Turns Out a Number of Fires on the West Coast Aren't Because of 'Climate Change'. The left continually tells us
that "climate change" is the reason behind wildfires. In fact, Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee (D) even went so
far as saying we should call them "climate fires." Most of the West Coast — Washington State, Oregon,
California, and Idaho — are on fire. While the left is pushing their climate change theory, police are
arresting arsonists for sparking these dangerous fires. A 41-year-old man was arrested in Oregon for starting one of
the two origins of the Almeda fire, located just outside of Medford. Oregon State Fire Marshal's office spokesman Rich
Tyler said Michael Jarrod Bakkela started one of the fires, which eventually merged to create one giant wildfire. [...]
Bakkela is being held on 15 counts of criminal mischief and 14 counts of reckless endangerment.
Wildfires
Will Become Worse Thanks To Decades-Old Liberal Policies, Says Fire Expert. Former President Bill Clinton made
a significant change to federal land management nearly 30 years ago that created the conditions necessary for massive
wildfires to consume portions of the West Coast, according to one fire expert who predicted the problem years ago.
Shortly before leaving office in 2001, Clinton limited the ability of the United States Forest Service to thin out a dense
thicket of foliage and downed trees on federal land to bring the West into a pristine state, Bob Zybach, an experienced
forester with a PhD in environmental science, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The former president's decision
created a ticking time bomb, Zybach argues. "If you don't start managing these forests, then they are going to start
burning up. Thirty years later, they are still ignoring it," said Zybach, who spent more than 20 years as a
reforestation contractor. He was referring to warnings he made years ago, telling officials that warding off prescribed
burns in Oregon and California creates kindling fuelling fires. Such rules make it more difficult to deploy prescribed
burns, which are controlled burns designed to cull all of the underbrush in forests to lessen the chance of massive fires,
Zybach noted.
Fire Fanaticism.
The real reason for the large fires is the overloading of our western forests over the last several decades, which can be
laid at the feet of excessive and misguided fire suppression starting almost a century ago, and environmentalist opposition
to any pro-active forest management on public lands. Environmentalists without fail run to the courthouse to block
every Forest Service forest thinning plans, delaying and sometime blocking sensible forest management.
Antifa
Claims To Have Ignited The Fires Burning America. It's a terrible thing for the American public to be so stupid
to think that any of this has to do with climate, and to be so cloistered and gullible that you must believe the FedGov when
they tell you this has nothing to do with the communist revolution. When the enemy tells you exactly what he's doing
and why, and when people refuse to believe it, the enemy is winning.

I guess the fires lack Canadian
passports. [It could be that most of the fires in the western U.S. are cases of arson.
If there are no such fires in Canada or Mexico, that would strengthen the argument. But it is also possible
that Canada doesn't have a system to report the locations of such fires.]
Four
people [have been] arrested for arson for deliberately starting blazes along West Coast. Four people have been
arrested for arson for deliberately starting blazes along the West Coast as the death toll from the devastating wildfires
climbed to 29 and Oregon officials warned they are prepare for a 'mass fatality event'. Two men in Washington state,
one man in Oregon and one woman in California are facing arson charges for setting fires in areas that were already grappling
with deadly blazes. At least 20 have been killed in California, eight in Oregon and one in Washington state as
thousands of firefighters struggle to bring the blazes under control and the governors of California and Oregon told
residents to expect more fatalities in the coming days.
The Editor says...
Oh! So it wasn't global warming after all. Shocking.
The Green Road
to Blackouts. California leads the way to electricity blackouts, closely followed by South Australia.
They both created this problem by taxing, banning, delaying or demolishing reliable coal, nuclear, gas or hydro generators
while subsidising and promoting unreliable electricity from the sickly green twins — solar and wind. All supposed to
solve a global warming crisis that exists only in academic computer models. Energy policy should be driven by proven
reliability, efficiency and cost, not by green politics. Wind and solar will always be prone to blackouts for three
reasons. [...]
Wildfires
in California emit more CO2 annually than cars. Since California has lost nearly 1.67 million acres to
wildfires through August 31 this year and based on the assumptions above, about 131.2 million tons of carbon dioxide have
been emitted to the environment in eight months due to wildfires. California had 15.1 million vehicles registered in
2018. Assume all are fuel burning for this exercise. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, fossil
fueled cars emit 4.6 metric tons per year (22 mpg and 11,500 miles driven per year basis). That means California
cars emit 76.4 million tons (not metric) of carbon dioxide annually. California is on a track to double the annual
emissions of vehicles by wildfires in 2020.
Left-Wing
Agitator Arrested for Starting Fire in Washington, Suspected of Starting Two Other Wildfires. A Washington man
with a history of left-wing agitation was arrested Wednesday evening [9/9/2020] after he allegedly started a fire in the
brush along a highway near Tacoma. Jeffrey Acord, 36, was charged for reckless burning in the second degree. He
is now reportedly also a suspect in two other Washington wildfires. [...] The suspected antifa militant has a history of
anti-police protesting and encounters with law enforcement, court records show. According to his Facebook, Acord also
attended a Black Lives Matter march in Seattle on June 5 of this year.
Barack
Obama's Latest Reason to Vote for Joe Biden Is Actually a Reason to Vote Trump. Barack Obama, the Left's
erstwhile patron saint, appears to have taken his deputy Rahm Emanuel's advice to heart: "You never want a serious
crisis to go to waste." On Wednesday [9/9/2020], Obama rushed to blame climate change for the wildfires ravaging the West
Coast, insisting that Californians' "lives" depend on Joe Biden beating Donald Trump in November. As usual, Obama has
the entire situation backward: Climate change isn't the culprit behind the infernos, poor forest management
is — and the climate regulations Obama champions have prevented the controlled burns necessary for keeping the
fires in check.
Environmentalists
Destroyed California's Forests. Millions of acres of California forest have been blackened by wildfires this
summer, leading to the usual angry denunciations from the usual quarters about climate change. But in 1999, the
Associated Press reported that forestry experts had long agreed that "clearing undergrowth would save trees," and that "years
of aggressive firefighting have allowed brush to flourish that would have been cleared away by wildfires." But very little
was done. And now fires of unprecedented size are raging across the Western United States. [...] Year after year,
environmentalists litigated and lobbied to stop efforts to clear the forests through timber harvesting, underbrush removal,
and controlled burns. Meanwhile, natural fires were suppressed and the forests became more and more overgrown.
The excessive biomass competed for the same water, soil, and light a healthier forest would have used, rendering all of the
trees and underbrush unhealthy. It wasn't just excess biomass that accumulated, but dried out and dead
biomass. What happened among California's tall stands of Redwood and Ponderosa Pine also happened in its extensive
chaparral. Fire suppression along with too many environmentalist-inspired bureaucratic barriers to controlled burns and
undergrowth removal turned the hillsides and canyons of Southern California into tinderboxes.
To
stop wildland fires, forestry, not climate policy, is the priority. Smoke from forest fires filled the air in
Western Washington and immediately the finger of blame was pointed at climate change. Prior to the recent fires, the
2020 fire season had been extremely quiet. No matter how the season ends, however, blaming climate change is politics,
not science. Not all the lands burned in the last week are forests, but forestland is a major source of the smoke we
are seeing. The science is quite clear that timber harvests — including commercial timber
harvests — are necessary to reduce the number of fire-prone, unhealthy forests.
Scenes From The Endtimes. Not to get
all biblical on you, but have you checked out these scenes from the West Coast? [Numerous photos]
After
rolling blackouts, California regulators voted to let gas powered plants stay open a few more years. There were
rolling blackouts in California last month on two consecutive days. The reason for the blackouts wasn't a
mystery. There was a heatwave across the region and as the sun went down and California's solar generation started to
fade, the California Independent System Operator (Cal ISO) simply couldn't find enough power from other sources to meet the
demand. The blackouts were ordered to prevent the entire grid from entering a brownout. Several outlets including
NPR and the Wall Street Journal made the point that California's push for green energy was partly responsible for the
situation. In fact, as the LA Times pointed out, the California Public Utilities Commission had been warning about this
exact scenario since last year.
The
Decline and Fall of California in Two Maps. It was known for nearly a week that we were in for record-breaking
heat this weekend, and remember that as it is a holiday weekend, most industry (that is still left in the state) is shut
down, which ought to have made it easier to secure enough power for citizens. [...] You too can have a decrepit grid like
this when you pay twice the national average for electricity that doesn't work when you need it.
Massive
California wildfire sparked by smoke-making machine at gender reveal party [according to] officials. One of the
massive California wildfires that erupted this weekend was sparked by a smoke-making device at a gender-reveal party,
according to authorities. The fire started Saturday morning in San Bernardino County's El Dorado Ranch Park, east of
Los Angeles. A "smoke generating pyrotechnic device" used at the party caused the fire, Cal Fire said in a news release
that also warned residents that a fire can quickly start amid the state's especially hot and dry conditions this time of
year. No charges have been filed in connection with the start of the blaze, which has now spread across roughly 7,050
acres and resulted in more than 500 emergency workers being sent to the area to fight the fire and evacuate residents and
park visitors.
Family
behind party that sparked California wildfire could owe millions. The family behind the gender reveal party
that sparked a California wildfire could be hit with charges — and a massive bill to cover the costs of putting
out the blazes, authorities said. Cal Fire spokesman Bennet Milloy said the group could be on the hook for millions to
cover the hundreds of firefighters, helicopters and planes employed to tackle the El Dorado Fire, the Daily Mail
reported. They also could face a "variety of charges," including arson, which carries a sentence of up to nine years,
Milloy said.
The Editor says...
Yeah, but is it a boy or a girl, or something in between?
California burning. In a remarkably honest
Mother Jones article, Elizabeth Shogren explained that the wildfires that have been terrorizing Northern California in
the late 2010s have been caused by more than a century of fire suppression, resulting in overgrowth which supplied fires with
plenty of fuel to burn through. For thousands of years previously, Native Americans managed the land with controlled
burns, creating secure habitats and preferable hunting conditions — what was necessary for continuation of their
way of life. Traditional practices stand in contrast to our own environmental policies. According to a Reason
Foundation study, the Clinton-era anti-logging policies resulted in runaway growth of tree density. When in the 1990s
the Spotted Owl was placed on the endangered species list, culling plummeted and wildfires became increasingly catastrophic
throughout the West. I think the Spotted Owl is very cute, of course, but it would be nice if we could find a way to
live in harmony with this flock. I doubt the birds like the forest fires either. In the meantime, California
politicians have resorted to their favorite demagogic tropes: blaming climate change and corporations.
Blackouts
and Fires Caused by California's Ineffective Green Policies. In the soft warmth of spring the swallows famously
return to Capistrano, but in recent years they are followed by what seems inevitable summer power outages and fires.
This is not as pleasant an experience for Californians as the return of our favored feathered companions. Every summer,
usually around this time of year, we get our inevitable heat waves. In the past, we used to endure them without fearing
our lights — and computers — would be shut down, and our houses left in ruins. No more.
Almost every year we do not just have a fire season, we have a conflagration. Millions of acres get scorched across
the state, accompanied by mass evacuations. Meanwhile, electricity is cut off to millions more, and the state, already
reeling from an extraordinary economic decline, with the sixth-highest unemployment rate among the states, continues its
pell-mell rush into the 12th Century.
The
Plague of Renewable Portfolio Standards. Wind and solar are feasible only because the operators of the grid
agree to do everything possible to accept whatever amount of wind or solar is coming their way at any time. They assume
this posture toward wind and solar because that is required by various regulations and contracts. All the other sources
of power are ordered to decrease or increase output as needed to balance the amount of wind or solar power flowing at any
moment. If wind and solar are minor players, the burden of accommodating their erratic nature is small. If they
become big players, the burden starts to be a serious problem. In some places, like California, it's starting to get serious.
California Apocalypto.
It is now August in California. So we can expect the following from our postmodern state government. There are
the now-normal raging wildfires in the coastal and Sierra foothills. And they will be greeted as if they are not
characteristic threats of 500 years of settled history, but leveraged as proof of global warming as well as the state's
abject inability to put them out. When the inept state can't extinguish them as it has in the past, it suggests that
it's more "natural" to let them burn. Jerry Brown's team told us that the drought's toll — millions of dead
trees and tens of millions of acres of parched grass and calcified shrubs on hillsides — provided a natural source
of food and shelter for bugs and birds and thus need not be grazed or thinned or harvested. And so the wages of drought
could be in a sense good for an "ecosystem" that otherwise proved to be green napalm for the people of foothill communities.
An old Indian
trick. As wise stewards of the land, North America's Indians routinely started forest fires. They wanted
grazing grounds for the animals they hunted and open spaces to live and hunt on. So before Columbus arrived, there was
a lot less forested land than we have today. The Europeans put an end to the Indian fires, and for centuries, they
harvested the forests for timber. But that has ended in many parts of the country, California in particular.
After the 1906 earthquake, San Francisco was rebuilt using lumber from the Santa Cruz forest, just south of the city.
But I don't believe it's been harvested since. [...] If the Indians managed the land, the fires they started would have
resulted in the firebreaks necessary to stop the spread of a forest fire. Or if this forest had been managed according
to the best practice, limited timber cutting would have been allowed, creating man-made firebreaks. But because the
state of California is governed by lunatics, it just burns.
What
Is The Cause Of The Recent Power Blackouts In California? You may have read in the past few days that residents
of California have been experiencing rolling power blackouts. This has occurred in the middle of a strong heat wave,
meaning that large numbers of people have had their air conditioning, light, refrigeration, and everything else dependent on
electricity, go out just when they are most needed. The blackouts have not been the result of technical failures of the
grid, but rather have been intentionally imposed by the electricity system operator (known as CAISO — California
Independent System Operator) via the various local utilities. So what has caused these blackouts? The official
explanation is that the heat wave is the cause. It has just gotten so unusually hot that demand has risen beyond the
capacity of the system. Many articles in the media reporting on the situation go further to associate the unusual heat
with "climate change." This explanation is complete[ly false]. Yes, there is a strong heat wave going on, at
least in certain areas of the state, but it is not unusual in historical context.
Democrats
Promise to Bring California-Style Blackouts to Everyone. Gotta say, it was bold of Democratic Party convention
organizers to let voters know they plan on passing federal energy policies that would transform the rest of the country into
California. The Golden State is experiencing rolling blackouts even as the Democrats speak. Millions of people
are having their electrical power turned off in the middle of a heat wave — more specifically, their air
conditioners. Blackouts aren't merely an inconvenience, it is an economic drag and dangerous to vulnerable
populations.
Green
California has the nation's worst power grid. More than a million Californians suffered power blackouts last
Friday evening [8/14/2020]. When high temperatures caused customer demand to exceed the power available, California
electrical utilities used rotating outages to force a reduction in demand. The California grid is the worst in the
nation, with green energy policies pursued by the state likely furthering reduced grid reliability. At 6:30 p.m.
on Friday, Pacific Gas and Electric, California's biggest utility, began shutting off power in rolling outages to force a
reduction in demand. Southern California Edison also denied power to homes, beginning just before 7 p.m.
Shutoffs impacted a rotating group of up to 2 million customers until 11 p.m. The California Independent
System Operator declared a Stage Three Electrical Emergency, the first such emergency since 2001. Spot electricity prices
soared to more than $1,000 per megawatt-hour, more than 10 times the usual price.
Why
California's Climate Policies Are Causing Electricity Blackouts. Millions of Californians were denied
electrical power and thus air conditioning during a heatwave, raising the risk of heatstroke and death, particularly among
the elderly and sick. The blackouts come at a time when people, particularly the elderly, are forced to remain indoors
due to Covid-19. At first, the state's electrical grid operator last night asked customers to voluntarily reduce
electricity use. But after power reserves fell to dangerous levels it declared a "Stage 3 emergency" cutting off
power to people across the state at 6:30 pm. The immediate reason for the black-outs was the failure of a
500-megawatt power plant and an out-of-service 750-megawatt unit not being available.
California
forced to defend green goals amid blackouts. Rolling blackouts have forced California to defend its ambitious
renewable energy plans. In recent days, Republican politicians have blamed the blackouts on California's efforts to
limit fossil fuel energy use and phase out nuclear energy. The outages were imposed on a rotating basis over the
weekend amid a severe heat wave made worse by climate change. "This week in California, there were rolling blackouts
because the radical Democrats have mandated impossible restrictions on energy production," President Trump said Thursday
during remarks in Old Forge, Pennsylvania. Trump has also sought to link California's woes with the climate policy
plans of his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. Biden, in his revamped climate plans unveiled in July, sets a target to
eliminate carbon emissions from the power sector by 2035. That's even more ambitious than California's goal, which
targets 100% carbon-free power by 2045.
Wildfires,
Blackouts, High Gas Prices: Californians Fight Familiar Foes Amid Pandemic. Californians are struggling
with raging wildfires, roving blackouts, and sky high gas taxes while simultaneously dealing with government-imposed economic
lockdowns and a pandemic that has so far killed more than 11,000 people in the state. Northern California had roughly
33 active wildfires Wednesday that had burned more than 141,000 acres as they spread, media reports show. The ongoing
fires are accompanied by an intense heatwave, Reuters reported, that has prompted citizens to crank up their air
conditioners, placing pressure on California's already-taxed energy grid and triggering roving blackouts.
Californian
Blackout Fury: "It's Not Just the Heat, It's Also the Anti-Nuclear Power Stupidity". The utter failure of
renewables to deliver during the Californian heatwave appears to be creating a surge of interest in reliable energy. [...]
Renewables have failed to deliver this time, and will do so again. Californian anger at the blackouts will eventually
spill over into action, the scrapping of renewables in favour of reliable energy sources. The only question is, how
many blackouts it will take before Californian voters get the message?
For
Their Own Safety — Amid a Heat Wave — LA Mayor Shuts Off Power to a Party-Hosting Home.
In Los Angeles, it's lights out for those who don't listen to the mayor. In case you've not heard, LA's in the
midst of a heat wave. And if you haven't before felt the West Coast's severe summer simmer, imagine there's an oven
heated to 350 degrees. And your spleen is inside. Nonetheless, on Wednesday [8/19/2020], Mayor Eric Garcetti
shut off some residents' power — and, therefore, their AC. Why? Public health and safety. As
reported by The Daily Wire, a group of TikTok personalities share an abode in the Hollywood Hills. And according to
police, they've recently hosted at least two shameless shindigs. That, of course, goes against the city's COVID
clampdown.
The Editor says...
The Covid crackdowns are all about compliance and submission. They have nothing to do with public health.
Maybe they did for the first few weeks, but they don't now.
Rolling
blackouts, no Uber, businesses flee — California is Democrats' dream for America. After spending the
bulk of his lieutenant governorship waging war against California's last remaining nuclear power plant, Gov. Gavin
Newsom is begging residents to turn up their thermostats as the state battles excruciating heat waves, roaring wildfires, and
now, state-sanctioned blackouts to preserve its worst-in-America power grid. California's power is not as
carbon-efficient as clean nuclear energy, nor is it as cheap as traditional mass fossil fuels. If you're looking to
drink your problems away at your favorite dive bar, too bad; Newsom shut the indoor dining rooms. If you want to sit on
a patio, you have to seek out the establishments that survived the state's shutdown. Soon enough, you might be better
off just binging in your basement, as the California machine has mobilized to abolish the ride-sharing apps that
revolutionized the state.
CAISO
President: California Power Grid teetering close to the edge of collapse. I sent an email to a relative
earlier today predicting that politicians in California would start leaning on system operators to reduce their safety margin
or contingency power in order to avoid rolling blackouts. I had no idea they were teetering this close to the edge
already. In response to rolling blackouts over the weekend, California ISO President Steve Berber warned that
California must maintain its current electricity reserves or risk 'collapse of the entire system of California and perhaps
the entire West.'
California's
Power Failure Is A Frightening Preview Of Democrats' 'Green New Deal'. Among the nightmares ready to descend on
America, should the Democrats win in November, is the so-called Green New Deal. It promises lots of renewable green
energy at a "modest" $2 trillion cost. Just one more scary, extreme policy idea out of the all-digital 2020 Democratic
National Convention. Sound good to you? If so, take a look at California, where some of the worst of these ideas
are already being tried, with disastrous results. The state, once known for its plentiful, cheap and reliable energy
supplies, is now dealing with rolling blackouts as its green energy infrastructure buckles under the strain of summer
heat. This week, as the DNC holds its virtual convention, some 3 million California homes could be periodically without
power as some areas experience 100-degree-plus heat. In addition to major discomfort and inconvenience, such blackouts
if sustained can be dangerous to health — especially for the elderly and kids.
Green
energy push blamed in California's rolling blackouts. California's electricity grid picked an inconvenient moment
to stumble, at least for Democrats seeking to drum up support this week for Joseph R. Biden's $2 trillion green-energy
plan at the Democratic National Convention. The Golden State's ambitious renewable portfolio standard is coming under
fire as the state's energy grid buckles under the strain of an oppressive heatwave, prompting rolling blackouts that have
left millions without power as the state moves to replace nuclear and natural gas as energy sources with solar and
wind. California seeks to generate 60% of electricity via renewables by 2030, but Mr. Biden's Green New Deal is
even more aggressive, calling for a 100% carbon-free grid by 2035 "to meet the existential threat of climate change while
creating millions of jobs with a choice to join a union."
California
is reduced to third-world status. Although I left California some time ago, I'm still connected to alerts from
the emergency services in my former Bay Area home. That's how I first learned that California has been suffering from
rolling blackouts as citizens try to cope with a heat wave. [...] Once upon a time, California had a power grid that was
large enough to serve the state's population. As the population grew, though, the grid did not. Additionally,
California had five nuclear power plants that helped provide stable energy. Two years ago, though, the California
Public Utilities Commission voted to close the last nuclear power plant in California, which PG&E owned, although that plant
will remain online until 2025.
Here's
Why California Can't Keep The Power on During Heat Wave — and Newsom's Deflecting. [Scroll
down] Rolling blackouts affected more than 200,000 customers in the Bay Area Saturday night, but were averted
Sunday. By Monday morning the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), the entity that oversees the state's
power grid, warned that "millions" of Californians would be affected by rolling blackouts Monday afternoon, and
Gov. Newsom sprung into action. Just kidding. Gov. Newsom leaped into "Blame" mode. Since demand
was less than what was seen in July 2006, and no blackouts were needed then, why do we need them now? Newsom knows the
answer — the stupid energy policies that he and Gov. Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown before him enacted —
but instead promised an "investigation," likely headed by a blue-ribbon panel, since he's fond of such committees.
California
Issues First Rolling Blackouts Since 2001, As Heat Wave Bakes Western U.S.. California electricity providers
instituted rolling blackouts Friday night [8/14/2020] — the first since 2001 — as an intense and
prolonged heat wave settled over much of the Western U.S. Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have
experienced brief power outages through the evening, after the body that manages most of the state's electric utilities
declared a Stage 3 emergency to help reduce stress on the larger grid. Electricity demand surged through the day as
temperatures topped the triple digits in many parts of the state and people cranked up fans and air-conditioning units to try
and stay cool. The emergency order was rescinded before midnight and power was fully restored to all affected
households, the California Independent System Operator said in a tweet.
PG&E
starts rotating power outages impacting up to 250,000 customers at a time. San Francisco-based power provider
PG&E Corp said on Friday it has started rotating power outages at the direction of California's grid operator, impacting
about 200,000 to 250,000 customers at a time, given the strain on the power grid during the statewide heatwave. The
company said in a statement it is not calling a public safety power shut-off, which is conducted during specific high fire
threat conditions. PG&E said its outages, directed by the California Independent System Operator, are expected to
impact up to 250,000 customers at a time in rotations of one hour each.
California
Will Use Diesel This Summer to Help Keep Lights On. Despite environmental concerns, California will allow PG&E
Corp. to use diesel-powered mobile generators to keep some electricity flowing when the utility proactively cuts power to
prevent live wires from sparking fires in high wind. State regulators signed off Thursday [6/11/2020] on PG&E's plan to
use about 450 megawatts of diesel generation to power homes, businesses, hospitals and other critical facilities as part of
the utility's effort to reduce disruptions during the shutoffs. Last fall, regulators criticized PG&E for intentionally
blacking out millions of customers to prevent power lines from sparking fires during dry, windy conditions.
When Silicon Valley Goes Dark This Time, There Will Be No
Refuge. Blackouts that hit millions of Californians in 2019 could be doubly calamitous this year with tech
giants Google, Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. among the many companies keeping offices closed until the fall or later in
response to the global Covid-19 pandemic. If utilities cut power again, home offices set up during the pandemic could
go dark and stay dark for days, and they'll have no corporate offices to flee to for power. In October 2019, more than
3 million people were affected by a series of rolling blackouts over more than a week as PG&E Corp. and Edison International
tried to prevent live wires from sparking wildfires. Call it a collision of crises. Blackouts could limit
California's push to revive an economy largely paralyzed by stay-at-home orders this spring. The state, utilities and
individual companies are all seeking ways to deal with blackouts before a wildfire season forecast to be worse than normal.
California's
governor says he's ready to take over embattled PG&E. One year after filing for bankruptcy, PG&E has worked out
deals to borrow money and guarantee more than $25 billion in payouts to wildfire victims, insurers and local municipalities.
It's even come to terms with bondholders. As a result, its shares have skyrocketed 37 percent so far in January.
Mizuho upgraded the stock this week to a "buy." That optimism may be premature. The company has to exit Chapter 11 by
a crucial June 30 deadline, and there is one huge remaining obstacle: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has long talked
about a state takeover of the company.
Experts
blame humans starting blazes for 'major shift' in cause of US wildfires. The number of human-caused wildfires
has increased in recent decades, sparking a shift in what is 'normal' for the devastating blazes, research has found.
The new study of wildfires in America between 1984 and 2016 has found that the leading cause is 'shifting away from lightning
and towards human activity'. In the past, the strongest fires were caused by natural ignition types, like lightning
strikes or El Niño winds, which also tended to be seasonal and easier to predict. Human-caused, or anthropogenic,
fires can be caused intentionally, by arson, or accidentally, for example by dropped cigarettes, fireworks or other negligence.
Climate
Experts Suggest Trump Was Right When He Blamed California's Wildfires On Land Management. Climate experts are
apparently backing President Donald Trump's repeated arguments that California's wildfires were a result of poor land
management rather than climate change-driven, E&E reported Thursday [1/9/2020]. Roughly 75% of damage stemming from
California's wildfires was a result of "the way we manage lands and develop our landscape," Scott Stephens, a professor of
fire science at the University of California, Berkeley, said Wednesday at a conference in Washington. Wildfires used to
burn through 4.5 million acres a year in the 18th century, when indigenous communities populated California's countryside,
Stephens noted. "Fire was almost as important as rain to ecosystems," he added. Stephens was not the only
researcher at the National Council for Science and the Environment to made that point.
How power
shutoffs are changing California's way of life. At all levels of government — from state officials
to small-town mayors — California leaders are in uncharted territory, and scrambling to adjust their plans and
operations to the realities of regular disruption. For now, their only answer to calamitous wildfires is shutting off
power to millions of residents in advance, which residents now lament as a man-made disaster. Mike McGuire, the state
senator representing the Santa Rosa area devastated by fires in 2017, said California is "the canary in the coal mine" as
climate change threatens to upend life across the world. Residents in some of California's most bucolic settings are
stuck figuring it out on their own, rich and poor, urban and rural alike.
PG&E
begins new mass power shutoff likely to affect up to 450,000 people. California's largest power utility began
shutting off power Wednesday [11/20/2019] to hundreds of thousands of people in 18 northern and central counties in the state
as the region faces extreme fire weather that has lasted since October. Up to 450,000 people could be affected by the outage,
according to the LA Times. A virtually rainless fall has left brush bone-dry and forecasts called for low humidity and
winds gusting at times to 55 mph.
California
Burns, Gavin Newsom Fiddles. "Forest management" is not an original concept with the current administration. The
clearing of debris from forest floors, the considered culling of trees to create fire-breaks, and the building of better access roads
to and from forested areas make abundant good sense. So does the idea of not locating rural communities too close to the
wilderness, and of making housing closer in to urban areas more affordable. But even as the president emphasizes such cautionary
measures, he is dismissed as an ignorant nuisance. Those who are allowed an opinion on the subject must first pledge allegiance
to "global warming" as Public Enemy Number One. (Next to Trump himself, of course!) On the other hand, those who question
the extent of man's role in climate change are labeled "flat earthers" by a global warming establishment that unscientifically
cherry-picks opinions among scientists and excludes those that contradict the party line.
California's Burning. Public
utility companies are the antithesis of the free market. They combine the worst of both worlds — a profit
motive married to complete government regulation and control. These are government-granted monopolies that operate at
the behest of regulators and often are indeed poorly managed. [...] The other big issue has nothing to do with climate change
and everything to do with climate-change policies. It involves inadequate brush clearance, which has provided fuel for
the fires. To its credit, the Newsom administration is trying to increase some brush-clearance measures, but its
difficulty in doing so speaks to the broader problem. "In March, the governor declared a state of emergency that
exempted the projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, a law mandating an in-depth analysis of a development's
impacts on land, water, species and other elements," Scientific American explained. "Clearances under CEQA can
take months or years, Newsom aides said. State officials argued they're still conducting analyses to ensure projects
don't hurt species or natural or tribal resources."
Was
There Another Reason for Electricity Shutdowns in California? The blades of the wind turbine are airfoils, just
like the wings of an airplane. Adjusting the pitch (angle) of the blades allows the rotor to maintain constant speed,
which, in turn, allows the generator to maintain the constant speed it needs to safely deliver power to the grid.
However, there's a limit to blade pitch adjustment. When the wind is blowing so hard that pitch adjustment is no longer
possible, the turbine shuts down. That's the cut-out speed. Now consider how California's power generation
profile has changed. [...] By 2018, the state's renewable portfolio had jumped to 43.8 percent of total generation, with wind
and solar now accounting for 17.9 percent of total generation. That's a lot of power to depend on from inherently
unreliable sources. Thus, it wouldn't be at all surprising to learn that PG&E didn't stop delivering power out of fear
of starting fires, but because it knew it wouldn't have power to deliver once high winds shut down all those wind turbines.
Is
California Becoming Premodern? More than 2 million Californians were recently left without power after the
state's largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric — which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year —
preemptively shut down transmission lines in fear that they might spark fires during periods of high autumn winds.
Consumers blame the state for not cleaning up dead trees and brush, along with the utility companies for not updating their
ossified equipment. The power companies in turn fault the state for so over-regulating utilities that they had no
resources to modernize their grids.
How
Big-Government Regulation Contributed to California's Wildfires. Fires are nothing new in California, and
there's something of an interesting history to them that used to not be nearly as tragic as we see today. Chuck DeVore,
vice president of national initiatives at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, reminds his readers at Forbes that as "a
citizen soldier in the California National Guard for two decades, I often heard the gallows humor that California's four
seasons were: flood, fire, earthquake, and riot." DeVore takes to task the editorial board at the Sacramento Bee for
their commentary around the Carr Fire of 2018, in which they suggested that the recent fires are the result of "climate change,
for real and in real time. We were warned that the atmospheric buildup of man-made greenhouse gas would eventually be an
existential threat." "The problem with the Bee's editorial is that making a passionate argument is no substitute
for the truth," DeVore writes.
Gavin
Newsome. Your Carbon Offsets Are Burning. Those who leave their energy-guzzling multi-million-dollar
mansions when they fly off on their private jets to save-the-planet climate change conferences like to ease their consciences
and explain their hypocrisy by pointing to their carbon offsets like paying for trees to be planted somewhere that might
mature in a hundred years or so. There are a lot of trees in California and a good number of them are on fire, thanks
to environmental regulations and policies that are supposed to protect the environment but are in fact destroying it.
The irony in California that the very trees that are supposed to be sucking up those nasty carbon emissions are now a major
producer of carbon emissions.
Here's
How State Regulators Played A Role In California's Rolling Blackouts, Wildfires. California Gov. Gavin
Newsom and other critics are blasting the public utility company responsible for rolling blackouts, but some experts argue
regulators' obsession with climate change is partially to blame. Newsom suggested Friday [11/1/2019] taking over
Pacific Gas & Electric, a public utility company that shut off electricity recently to nearly 1 million customers to prevent
potential wildfires. The California Democrat argued that PG&E's greed and corruption are leading to the massive
blackouts. "It's about dog-eat-dog capitalism meeting climate change. It's about corporate greed meeting climate
change. It's about decades of mismanagement," Newsom told reporters on Oct. 25.
California
Is Becoming Unlivable. Right now, wildfires are scorching tens of thousands of acres in California, choking the
air with smoke, spurring widespread prophylactic blackouts, and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of
people. Right now, roughly 130,000 Californians are homeless, and millions more are shelling out far more in rent than
they can afford, commuting into expensive cities from faraway suburbs and towns, or doubling up in houses and
apartments. Wildfires and lack of affordable housing — these are two of the most visible and urgent crises
facing California, raising the question of whether the country's dreamiest, most optimistic state is fast becoming
unlivable. Climate change is turning it into a tinderbox; [...]
The Editor says...
Whoa, there! The state was turned into a tinderbox by tree-hugging left-wing Democrats who mismanaged the state for
decades. The climate has not changed. Does anyone really believe that the climate in California is
hot enough to ignite trees?
California's
Gavin Newsom, now running scared. [Scroll down] PG&E has no money to put its electrical wires under the
ground after all the "green mandates" the socialists in the California state assembly have foisted on them, forcing them to
convert to pricey, unreliable and wire-transmitted solar and wind power instead of efficient, reliable, cheap fossil
fuels. That's a money pit right there. Now PG&E has even less money to make even that happen and still supply
reliable electricity what with all the billions in lawsuit payouts it must make to residents who have lost their homes in
past wildfires based on this lack of investment. Why did that happen? Not just the greenie mandates for wind and
solar power from the state central planners, the company also was forbidden to clear brush from its electrical lines.
Another greenie diktat from the top that didn't end well.
California
Democrats waste billions on useless climate alarmist schemes while the state burns uncontrollably. The Wall
Street Journal published a superb article that exposes the government lunacy in California where its climate alarmist
propaganda driven Democratic politicians have wasted tens of billions of dollars on energy schemes that are totally useless
in having any meaningful impacts on global emissions levels while ignoring the statewide wildfire disaster that is destroying
massive amounts of property, thousands of homes and taking hundreds of lives.
California
blackouts are a self-inflicted mess — Don't just blame PG&E for the new Dark Ages. California, the
richest state in the nation — and one that's often portrayed as the progressive harbinger of the future for the
rest of the country — has been hit with its latest Third World-style disaster. On top of high poverty rates,
skyrocketing homelessness, rising crime, and the return of medieval-sounding diseases, the state has been hit by a series of
rolling, widespread blackouts. Millions of Californians, many in the most densely populated parts of the country have
had their power shut off by the utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric. [...] Though it's easy to criticize PG&E, which
hardly looks good in this whole mess, there is a lot of blame to go around — and no, it doesn't have anything to
do with "climate change."
PG&E
Warns: 10 Years Of Power Shut Offs Coming To Californians. California residents are facing up to a decade of
widespread, precautionary, power shut-offs until Pacific Gas & Electric Corp., the bankrupt utility giant, will be able to
prevent its power transmission lines from sparking fires, the company's top official said. Californians could
experience power shut-offs for the next ten years. Chief Executive William D. Johnson said at an emergency meeting
Friday of the California Public Utilities Commission in San Francisco, that ten years is a probable timeline. "I think
this is probably a 10-year timeline to get to a point where it's really ratcheted down significantly." Of course, that
isn't sitting well with Californians or politicians.
The Editor says...
In other words, the problem will persist for at least ten years, or until politicians with some common sense take over and start managing the forests
more effectively. In the meantime, you should shop for
a generator, or
install a Tesla Powerwall!
California
Faces "Biggest Blackout Ever" As 2.5 Million PG&E Customers May Have No Power For Days. Earlier this week we
joked that with PG&E now scrambling to enforce intentional blackouts every time there are powerful winds for fears the
bankrupt company's aged infrastructure could cause a new fire, "every time the wind blows California will become Venezuela."
Turns out it wasn't a joke.
California's
blackouts are a cautionary tale, warns former CA Republican Party Chairman. California power company PG&E is
coming for residents' tax money and you could be next, former Chairman of the California Republican Party Tom Del Beccaro
warned Saturday [10/26/2019]. [...] Arguing that "Democrats seeking their party's 2020 presidential nomination have already
embraced some of the same Big Government and radical environmental policies that have brought blackouts to California —
and could bring power outages and shortages to our entire nation should one of them become the next president."
California
Is Burning and It's Not Because of 'Climate Change'. California power company PG&E is preparing to pull the
plug on 850,000 of its customers. PG&E has been deliberately cutting power to its customers in an effort to avoid
wildfires. It isn't working. Massive wildfires erupted in areas where PG&E provides service. The Tick Fire
has burned down several homes and caused the evacuation of more than 40,000 people so far, and other wildfires are burning
throughout the state. In Sonoma County, the Kincade Fire has already torched 34 square miles and destroyed
49 homes. That fire was likely caused by a broken transmission line belonging to PG&E. But PG&E's equipment
couldn't start these huge wildfires without a bunch of dead brush fueling the flames. As Chuck Devore writes in Forbes,
"the outrageous cost to remove a few dead trees from private land is a consequence of California's Byzantine environmental
regulatory patchwork." It's not climate change that's responsible for these massive fires, "it's decades of environmental
mismanagement that has created a tinderbox of unharvested timber, dead trees, and thick underbrush."
Wildfires
Caused By Bad Environmental Policy Are Causing California Forests To Be Net CO2 Emitters. This is California's
big secret: it's not climate change that's burning up the forests, killing people, and destroying hundreds of homes; it's
decades of environmental mismanagement that has created a tinderbox of unharvested timber, dead trees, and thick underbrush.
[...] The irony is that forest management is so bad on public lands that a new report, ordered by the California legislature
in 2010, shows that the portion of California's National Forests protected from timber harvesting is now a net contributor to
atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fires and trees killed by insects and disease. Every year about 3.8 billion board
feet of new timber grows in the Golden State, capturing almost one metric ton of CO2 per acre in the productive timberland
areas. Trees grow until they die, burn, or get harvested. If harvesting declines, tree mortality and fires
increase. It's the tyranny of math.
11 Empty Climate Claims.
Claim [#5]: Global Warming has increased U.S. Wildfires. Fact: Wildfires have been decreasing since 1800s.
The increase in damage in recent years is due to population growth in vulnerable areas and poor forest management.
End
of Discussion: MSNBC Declares CA Wildfires Caused by Climate Change, Nothing Else. As wildfires ravage
California again, after last year's deadliest wildfire season on record, the media wants you to remember: This is
climate change's fault. MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi explained this to his liberal audience on Tuesday's [10/29/2019]
MSNBC Live With Velshi and Ruhle, by touting data from a climate alarmist organization, and not offering any other
viewpoints into his explainer segment. Co-host Stephanie Ruhle began by gushing over the sheer number of wildfires the
state has been facing lately, plus the extended burning season. With that prompt, Velshi responded, "It does make you
wonder, right?" adding, "Why are these fires getting worse and worse every year?" Of course, he had the reason ready:
climate change.
Of Electricity and Ideology.
[Scroll down] "For decades," [Kay] Grimes wrote, "traditional forest management was scientific and successful — that is
until ideological, preservationist zealots wormed their way into government and began the overhaul of sound federal forest management through
abuse of the Endangered Species Act and the 're-wilding, no-use movement.'" U.S. Representative Tom McClintock, whose Northern California
district includes the Yosemite Valley and the Tahoe National Forest, told Grimes that the U.S. Forest Service 40 years ago departed from
"well-established and time-tested forest management practices." "We replaced these sound management practices with what can only be
described as a doctrine of benign neglect," McClintock explained. "Ponderous, byzantine laws and regulations administered by a growing
cadre of ideological zealots in our land management agencies promised to 'save the environment.' The advocates of this doctrine have
dominated our law, our policies, our courts, and our federal agencies ever since."
No
Evidence That Climate Change Causes Weather Extremes: [Part 5] Wildfires. Probably the most fearsome of the
weather extremes commonly blamed on human-caused climate change are tornadoes — the previous topic in this
series — and wildfires. Both can arrive with little or no warning, making it difficult or impossible to
flee, are often deadly, and typically destroy hundreds of homes and other structures. But just like tornadoes, there is
no scientific evidence that the frequency or severity of wildfires are on the rise in a warming world. You wouldn't
know that, however, from the mass hysteria generated by the mainstream media and climate activists every time a wildfire
breaks out, especially in naturally dry climates such as those in California, Australia or Spain. While it's true that
the number of acres burned annually in the U.S. has gone up over the last 20 years or so, the present burned
area is still only a small fraction of what it was back in the record 1930s, as seen in [...] data compiled by the U.S.
National Interagency Fire Center.
Green
Policies Turned California A Charred Black. More than half of California's roughly 105 million acres are owned
by the federal and state governments. It is on these sprawling parcels that the wildfires tend to rage before devouring
private land, homes, and businesses. Public lands "have proved far more vulnerable to forest fires than properties
owned by private groups," Hoover Institution scholar Richard Epstein wrote in California's Forest Fire Tragedy. [...]
The loudest voices assign blame for the fires to man-made climate change. But the human activity primarily responsible
for the destructive spread of wildfires is public policy favoring burned timber over harvested timber. While maybe
well-intended, laws inspired by the 1970s environmentalist movement, which is determined to make sure saw blades and trees
never meet, have stoked the furnaces.
Hero
Citizen Tackles Suspected Arsonist Setting Wildfire in Los Angeles. Legal Insurrection readers may recall that
in the autumn of 2017, a series of wildfires broke out in Southern California. One of those blazes threatened the famed
Getty Center Museum. On Easter Sunday this year [4/21/2019], a suspected arsonist, who set off fires in the Sepulveda
Pass near the Getty Center, was taken into custody after a an alert citizen saw the man lighting the fires and tackled him.
[...] The suspect has been identified as Steven William Adkison, a 31-year-old transient.
False
flag environmentalism is dangerous for America and the world. California suffered some of the worst wildfires
in the State's history in mid-2018. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) is in bankruptcy over the damages where entire towns went
up in flames over faulty electrical infrastructure and high winds, which led to devastating wildfire. But the real
culprits causing this destruction were environmental regulations, green organizations and high-powered, faux environmentalists like
Tom Steyer stopping excess brush and dead trees from being cleared throughout California cities, towns, forests and wilderness areas.
Did
forced focus on green energy lead to California's devastating wildfires? California's bureaucratic behemoth,
the Air Resource Board, implements its "cap and trade" scheme to control carbon emissions. However, the carbon
emissions from the wildfires dwarfed those from standard anthropogenic sources. The 2018 fires released the rough
equivalent of about 68 million tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, about the same amount of carbon emissions as are
produced in a year to provide electricity to the state.

California's
Wildfire History — in one map. Here is an interesting interactive graphic that depicts perimeters of
more than 100 years of California wildfires recorded by Cal Fire and the U.S. Geological Survey. The map [left] shows
all the cumulative fires from 1878 to 2018. It seems as if there is very little of California that has not been touched by
wildfire. Large areas of desert in the southeast are mostly untouched due to lack of vegetation.
Judge:
California Wildfires Caused By Uninsulated Power Conductors NOT Climate. U.S. District Court Judge William
Alsup ruled that equipment owned by the utility company Pacific Gas and Electric was the cause of some wildfires due to tree
limbs and other debris knocking uninsulated power conductors together, NBC News has reported.
The Editor says...
Only a few power lines are insulated, and most of those are underground, so "uninsulated power lines" is not an unusual situation.
If tree limbs are in contact with the lines, that's because the utility hasn't routinely trimmed the trees. I don't know how things
work in California, but in Texas, the utility companies have tree trimming crews in residential neighborhoods all the time. It could
be that environmental activists in California have made this unpopular or illegal, but that's just a guess.
Climate
Change: The Poetry of Dreams and the Prose of Reality. Recent fires in Southern California demonstrated
that Mother Nature can produce in several days more greenhouse gases than all the cars in the region in a whole year.
California's yearly fires have been known since the Spanish conquistadors first visited it in 1542. If we add volcanoes
spitting into the air millions of tons of CO2 every year for millions of years, then according to the proponents' theory, we
should already be living on small islands surrounded by an ocean of melted Arctic ice.
Big
Government Helped Create the Horrendous Nature of the Cali Fires. A new report revealed that incompetent state
regulators in The California Public Utilities Commission failed to implement plans required by state law that could have
prevented the devastating California wildfires. Senate Bill 1028 required the three big California power companies, San
Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric, to provide detailed strategies for reducing fire
threats, according to The San Diego Tribune. The California Public Utilities Commission was supposed to review the
filings, make comments, and follow up to ensure they followed the plans. They NEVER DID! They did NOT
issue directives to the power companies, and it's been more than two years since the law was passed.
Democrats
use vote fraud to play their last hand: global warming. By reopening the old playbook of making global warming
(the flip side of the 1970s anticipated ice age, also caused by man's meddling with the environment) a crisis is the best
strategy left to the Left. In order to execute their gameplan, using and abusing the natural world is not beyond their
scruples or, rather, lack thereof. Throwing communities into chaos by devastating them with flood and fire — please be
reminded of the near collapse of the Oroville Dam last year and now the all-consuming fires wiping out whole towns — through
mismanagement of resources, states such as California have placed millions of citizens in jeopardy. Yet it goes further
according to some credible reports deriving from survivors of the Camp Fire, Woolsey Fire and the conflagrations that wiped
out the wine country just last year. Following the lead of democrat legislators trying to place all the blame on power
companies, the media conveniently forgot their initial reporting of the illegal immigrant who was caught setting some of the
major burns in Northern California. They also have turned a blind eye to the change of fire patterns and how many blazes
began by simply bursting into flame, no spark or ember witnessed anywhere about.
Watch
the gender-reveal explosion that ignited a 47,000-acre wildfire. A border patrol agent's gender reveal party
took an explosive turn and caused a 47,000 acre wildfire. Dennis Dickey pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of
U.S. Forest Service regulations for starting the Sawmill Fire. He has to pay more than $8 million in restitution
according to the Department of Justice. [Video clip]
Even
California Cannot Defy Nature Forever. [Scroll down] Last year, we saw near-normal levels of precipitation.
If our life-giving reservoirs of the state's vast California Water Project and federal Central Valley Project are currently not full,
it is mostly because millions of acre-feet of stored water were released to flow into the San Francisco Bay estuaries and the
delta — contradicting most of the original mandates of the water projects of providing flood control, power generation,
lake recreation, and irrigation for California residents. [...] Left unsaid is that more than 130 million trees died throughout
the state's foothills and mountain ranges during the drought of 2011-2016 and were not removed from the forest floor, providing an
immensity of natural kindling for fires. To walk in a Sierra Nevada forest during summers requires navigating not just over
fallen limbs and branches, but also rotting trees — all amid dead brush and dead but still-towering brown pines.
Gone are the periodic meadows and open spaces of the 1960s and 1970s, when logging companies harvested trees, thinned out the forests,
replanted what was cut, and cleaned up the forest floor. Yet given California's stringent anti-logging regulations of the last
20 years, there is no real California timber industry left, at least as it once was. And scavenging even dead trees
prompts a great debate, as environmentalists lecture on the advantages of letting the dead wood be. Or, as Sierra Club
organizer Daniel Barad put it in a January 2018 Sacramento Bee op-ed: "Dead trees are vital components of the forest
ecosystem and should be removed only when necessary."
How
Governor Jerry Brown Burned California — And Why President Trump Was 100% Right. Nine years.
That's how long a it took a California agency to create a fire zone map. Seven of those years were under the
governorship of Jerry Brown. The fire map was to be a tool for agencies to monitor and manage areas most prone to fires
started by utility companies/power lines. In short, it would require those utility companies to clear out dangerously
dry vegetation, the very practice President Trump said should he been done to prevent the very kinds of disastrous fires that
swept across California taking lives and property. The media lambasted the president for his remarks. As is often
the case, the media was wrong and President Trump was 100% right.
California
Burning: How the Greens Turned the Golden State Brown. Opinions vary regarding how much of this disaster
could have been avoided, but nobody disputes that more could have been done. Everyone agrees, for example, that
overall, aggressive fire suppression has been a mistake. Most everyone agrees that good prevention measures include
forest thinning (especially around power lines), selective logging, controlled burns, and power line upgrades. And
everyone agrees that residents in fire prone areas need to create defensible space and fire-harden their homes.
Opinions also vary as to whether or not environmentalists stood in the way of these prevention measures. In a
blistering critique published earlier this week on the California-focused Flash Report, investigative journalist
Katy Grimes cataloged the negligence resulting from environmentalist overreach.
Actually,
even California says Trump is right about the wildfires. President Trump's critics are belittling him for not
buying the lefty narrative that global warming is to blame for the California wildfires. Instead, Trump points to
decades of mistakes by government agencies that caused the woodlands to become overly dense and blanketed with highly
flammable dead wood and underbrush. He's exactly right. Just ask California officials. Two months ago, the
state legislature enacted a measure that would expedite the removal of dead trees and use "prescribed burns" to thin
forests. In other words: the very same reforms that Trump is now being mocked for proposing. The September law
followed a Gov. Jerry Brown executive order earlier this year that also called for "controlled fires" to improve forest
health. This scientific approach isn't easily conveyed in Trump's preferred mode of communication, the 280-character
tweet. But University of California forest expert Yana Valachovic conceded in a Washington Post interview that Trump's
"general sentiment is correct — that we need to manage fuels." That is, to get rid of dangerous buildups of
dead and dying trees.
Sec.
Ryan Zinke Backs Trump: Years of Mismanagement Led to California Fires. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke
backed President Donald Trump on the years of forest mismanagement that led to the California fires as Zinke joined Breitbart
News Sunday radio with host Amanda House. He suggested that even photos of the devastation don't do justice to what it
was like to see it in person. Pointing to years of neglect and dead and dying timber, he observed, "It was like a
flamethrower of embers shooting through the forests."
Trump
Was Right: Jerry Brown Eased California Logging Rules Back In August. Months ago, California Gov. Jerry Brown
urged state lawmakers to loosen restrictive logging regulations put in place to appease environmentalists — a move that
appears to have confirmed that President Trump's recent critiques of state logging practices was correct. The Santa Cruz Sentinel
reported back in August that Brown was proposing one of the most significant changes to the state's logging rules in nearly half a century.
Loggers
support Trump's claim that wildfires caused by 'poor forest management'. A national logging organization is
offering support to President Trump following catastrophic wildfires in California and a political debate over the causes of
the destructive blazes. "President Trump blamed poor forest management for wildfires in California and throughout the
West, and there is truth to statements he has made," said Daniel Dructor, executive vice president of the American Loggers
Council, a coalition of state and regional associations that represents independent contract loggers.
How
Misguided Environmentalism Is To Blame For California's Wildfires. Part of the reason it is so difficult to manage
California forests is the bureaucratic milieu. The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of land, has 28,000 employees,
and has an annual outlay of $7 billion a year, according to a 2017 Analytical Perspective from the budget of the U.S.
government. For decades, environmental protection schemes have usurped common sense. For example, most fire ecologists
say that the surest way of preventing massive forest fires is to use prescribed burns. The California Environmental Protection
Agency states that "prescribed burning is the intentional use of fire to reduce wildfire hazards, clear downed trees, control plant
diseases, improve rangeland and wildlife habitats, and restore natural ecosystems." Prescribed burns keep forests healthy by
burning up the underbrush that accumulates on the forest floor and by thinning trees. Yet for decades the Forest Service
has suppressed most fires. According to a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection executive summary: "Land
and fire management have in many cases increased fire hazard.
Apaches
stave off wildfires with timber industry, active forest management. The catastrophic blazes that thrive in
eastern Arizona's thickly forested yet arid landscape have a way of fizzling once they jump from the dense national forests
to the Apache reservations, and that's not by chance. On a scorching summer day with fire danger at the extreme level,
forestry superintendent Michael Gutierrez and his crew spent the morning chain-sawing the overgrown junipers surrounding
Seneca Lake on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. Soil conservationist Paul Buck discussed his experiments in
fighting tough alligator juniper using the terrestrial version of the herbicide Round-Up, and forest manager Dee Randall
explained how the scrubby trees could be converted into slabs and sold for furniture as part the tribal timber business.
California's
Devastating Fires Are Man-Caused — But Not In The Way They Tell Us. California is once again on
fire. Northern California's Carr Fire has killed six people, two of them firefighters, and continues to burn out of
control, claiming more than 700 homes and about 100,000 acres. As a citizen-soldier in the California Army National
Guard for two decades, I often heard the gallows humor quip that California's four seasons were: flood, fire, earthquake
and riot. But, what was once an expected part of living in the Golden State is now blamed on larger forces. A
crisis, we are told, should never go to waste. In that vein, the Sacramento Bee editorial board blamed the Carr
Fire foursquare on a man-caused buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In an editorial headlined, "The Carr Fire
is a terrifying glimpse into California's future," they write, "This is climate change, for real and in real time. We
were warned that the atmospheric buildup of man-made greenhouse gas would eventually be an existential threat."
Interior
Secretary Ryan Zinke says 'environmental terrorist groups' enabled wildfires. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's
claim that "environmental terrorist groups" created the conditions that enabled California's wildfires triggered substantial
blowback from environmental groups, who chastised the Trump administration official for downplaying the role of climate
change in the blazes. Zinke said in a radio interview with Breitbart News that environmental extremists were preventing
the government from properly managing forests — leaving excessive fuel on the ground for the deadly blazes.
The statement is just the latest as the Trump administration moves aggressively to open more public land to natural resource
extraction, including logging.
Ryan
Zinke takes ax to climate change narrative in push to save forests from wildfires. Here in the town dubbed the
"gateway to the Sierras," the haze from the Ferguson Fire is fading as Yosemite National Park prepares to reopen, but the
debate over how to stop wildfires from razing the state again next year continues to smolder. California's catastrophic
wildfire season has illuminated the yearslong stalemate between those who want to cut back the overgrown, beetle-infested national
forests and environmentalists who have axed efforts to fell more trees, blaming the destructive fires on climate change.
Adam
Schiff gets schooled on his California green canards. See, the left has been spreading the flammable rubbish
that as California burns, it's not the green left's fault. It's global warming's fault, see, so let's have more green
regulation. California's Jerry Brown, who runs the place, is the prime propagator of this dreck, but [Adam] Schiff is
happy to be his dutiful parrot. [Kimberley] Strassel presented him with a Deep State document showing that even the Deep
Staters could see that the problem with the fires was too much uncleared fuel for them left lying around, what with 129 million
uncleared dead trees. Those trees are left up to keep the environmental wackos happy. Yet truth never deterred Schiff,
who snottily hectored President Trump in claiming that environmental regulations had nothing to do with the sudden upswing in vast
forest fires, which are threatening California's suburbs. ["]Environmental protections have nothing to do with the
wildfires in CA. Climate change does. We're not going to let you use fires as an excuse to clear-cut our
forests.["] Umm, Adam? The fires are clear-cutting California's forests. No need to get Trump involved,
let alone blame him. Clear-cutting is happening whether you like it or not; all you can do is choose whether you want it
done orderly or you like the current free-for-all system, blaming global warming.
California
Fires: Government Policies, Not Global Warming. As large swaths of California are yet again on fire,
environmentalist groups, the leftist media, and Democratic California Governor Jerry Brown are quick to blame climate
change. But the burning in California has more to do with misguided and short-sighted environmental regulations than
with weather or climate. [...] The Endangered Species Act has made it nearly impossible for private-property owners to clear
dead brush from their own land because it may destroy habitats of protected species. From 1993 until 2003, residents of
Riverside County were prohibited from removing brush from their properties because such brush had become a habitat for the
endangered kangaroo rat. When a wildfire broke out there in 2003, the dry, dead brush served as kindling as the blaze
destroyed 2,700 homes and killed 27 people. The rat's habitat was also destroyed. So, in what can charitably
be described as a misguided attempt to save the environment from the ravages of human activities, government regulations have
made the fires worse.
How
Federal Policies, Not Just Warmer Weather, Have Made Wildfires Worse. [Scroll down] WildfireToday.com
acknowledges that warmer and drier weather make fires more difficult to suppress, but adds that important man-made factors
exist that could be far more influential on wildfires. These include: [#1] 100 years of fire
suppression making forests denser, for fires to burn with greater intensity; [#2] fighting large fires less
aggressively for safety reasons; [#3] environmental demands to let fires burn naturally; and
[#4] initially responding with less equipment and personnel to fires. The biggest man-made change in fighting
wildfires appears to have been the U.S. Forest Service slashing the average number of large air tankers on exclusive use
contracts by over 70 percent — from 44 in 2002 to 13 in 2018, according to the Fire Aviation website.
It's
Not Climate Change that is Fueling Destructive Wildfires. The environmental movement got all excited about
preserving our forests and put enormous pressure on governmental agencies to stop cutting down trees, stop logging, and stop
building logging roads into the beautiful forests. Logging provided lumber for building homes, and the price of lumber
went way up, so nobody is building "starter homes" anymore. Ending logging meant that forests were not thinned as they
were when logs were harvested, which means the trees are too close together, and there's more deadwood and brush, which means
more fire danger. There are always consequences for your actions.
California
burns: The "new normal" thanks to Obama Era Environmental Regulations. This past week, the New York Times
reported on California's wildfires stating that "Since 2012, according to state emergency management officials, there has not
been a month without a wildfire burning — a stark contrast to previous decades, when fire officials saw the fall
and winter as a time to plan and regroup." What's the significance of 2012? It is interesting that the New York Times
mentioned the 2012 date, but only attributed the wildfire increases to "the recent historic drought," and "rising temperatures,"
caused by climate change. Nothing could be further from the truth. As California burns, many Californians have been
asking why the dramatic increase in wildfires in the last five years? Except for Governor Jerry Brown. Governor Brown
claims that devastating fires are the "new normal." Supporting Obama-era regulations have resulted in the new normal:
an endless and devastating fire season.
Democrats
[are] turning California into a third-world hellhole. Democrats are turning California into a third-world
hellhole without electricity, water, and freedom. Due to Democrats' love for trees, at least 800,000 Californians will
be without power for several days. Instead of properly managing California forests to reduce the chances of big fires,
Democrats are saying Californians have to go without lights, refrigerators, and air-conditioning. Democrats could also
avoid this by not making the power company financially liable for all forest fire damages, but since PG&E is a company, not
an illegal alien, the Democrats couldn't care less about doing what's best for California.
California
burns: The "new normal" thanks to Obama Era Environmental Regulations. This past week, the New York Times
reported on California's wildfires stating that "Since 2012, according to state emergency management officials, there has not
been a month without a wildfire burning — a stark contrast to previous decades, when fire officials saw the fall
and winter as a time to plan and regroup." What's the significance of 2012? It is interesting that the New York Times
mentioned the 2012 date, but only attributed the wildfire increases to "the recent historic drought," and "rising temperatures,"
caused by climate change. Nothing could be further from the truth. As California burns, many Californians have been
asking why the dramatic increase in wildfires in the last five years? Except for Governor Jerry Brown. Governor Brown
claims that devastating fires are the "new normal." Supporting Obama-era regulations have resulted in the new normal:
an endless and devastating fire season.
A
New Dark Age: California's Blackouts Are Self-Inflicted. California, the richest state in the
nation — and one that's often portrayed as the progressive harbinger of the future for the rest of the
country — has been hit with its latest Third World-style disaster. On top of high poverty rates,
skyrocketing homelessness, rising crime, and the return of medieval-sounding diseases, the state — specifically,
the San Francisco Bay Area — has been hit with a mass blackout. About 1 million people in one of the most
densely populated parts of the country have had their power shut off by the utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric.
The local utility, PG&E, initiated the blackout in an effort to limit the potential for mass wildfires, which ravaged the
state in 2018 and bankrupted the company.
At Least
We're Not Cuba! I'm so old that I remember when the prime responsibility of your state's Public Service
Commission was ensuring the public utilities under their jurisdiction were physically and financially capable of delivering
the services they were chartered to provide. Accordingly, the PSC role was to balance citizens' need for reliable
services and reasonable rates with the need for utilities to earn a reasonable return on investment. When both sides of
this contract begin to operate outside the parameters of their respective charters, i.e. the utility fails to provide basic
maintenance services to maintain the integrity of transmission lines and the PSC to verify they have done so[,] and instead
begin to pursue and promote a "green energy" agenda, this is what happens[.]
California's
Gavin Newsom calls power outages needed. Socialism, including greenie socialism, is always about blaming Those
Greedy Capitalists for whatever hideous policies the government cooks up, which inevitably prompts an unintended
consequence. California's Gov. Gavin Newsom is right there with the best of them, blaming the wreckers and
hoarders for California's massive power outages, taking northern California back to a state of nature and, in the full
greenie spirit, telling us it's needed, necessary, all for our own good.
The
Lights Are Out in California, And That Was the Plan All Along. The power is out in Northern California.
More than 1 million Californians are now without electricity, one of modern life's essentials that is frequently taken for
granted. The blackout was done on purpose — to prevent sparks from powerlines that could ignite deadly
wildfires. Before planned blackouts are through in two or three days, as many as 3 million Californians may go without
power. On the surface, the blackout and its causes are simple to understand. But the deeper causes are
complicated, span decades of public policy, and dozens of overlapping unintended — and intended —
consequences of decisions, both related and unrelated.
PG&E
Power Outage Shut Off: Agency explains why turning power back on could take 5 days. Pacific Gas and
Electric says it could take as long as five days to turn the power back on for nearly 800,000 customers across
California. It's part of preemptive power shutdown due to fire danger, impacting the Bay Area and surrounding
counties. The utility says re-energizing power lines takes time. Crews will need to inspect every power line by
land and air before restoring power.
California's
Devastating Fires Are Man-Caused — But Not In The Way They Tell Us. In 2005 while a freshman
California Assemblyman, I had the chance to visit Northern California and meet with the forest product industry professionals
who grew, managed, and harvested trees on private and public lands. They told me of a worrisome trend started years
earlier where both federal and state regulators were making it more and more difficult for them to do their jobs. As a
result, timber industry employment gradually collapsed, falling in 2017 to half of what it was 20 years earlier, with imports
from Canada, China, and other nations filling domestic need. As timber harvesting permit fees went up and environmental
challenges multiplied, the people who earned a living felling and planting trees looked for other lines of work. The
combustible fuel load in the forest predictably soared. No longer were forest management professionals clearing brush
and thinning trees. But, fire suppression efforts continued. The result was accurately forecast by my forest
management industry hosts in Siskiyou County in 2005: larger, more devastating fires — fires so hot that they
sterilized the soil, making regrowth difficult and altering the landscape. More importantly, fires that increasingly
threatened lives and homes as they became hotter and more difficult to bring under control.
California
Fires: Government Policies, Not Global Warming. As large swaths of California are yet again on fire,
environmentalist groups, the leftist media, and Democratic California Governor Jerry Brown are quick to blame climate
change. But the burning in California has more to do with misguided and short-sighted environmental regulations than
with weather or climate. [...] The Endangered Species Act has made it nearly impossible for private-property owners to clear
dead brush from their own land because it may destroy habitats of protected species. From 1993 until 2003, residents of
Riverside County were prohibited from removing brush from their properties because such brush had become a habitat for the
endangered kangaroo rat. When a wildfire broke out there in 2003, the dry, dead brush served as kindling as the blaze
destroyed 2,700 homes and killed 27 people. The rat's habitat was also destroyed. So, in what can charitably
be described as a misguided attempt to save the environment from the ravages of human activities, government regulations have
made the fires worse.
Fire and Water in California. Liberals exploit
natural disasters — drought, hurricane, blizzard, you name it — to promote their anti-fossil fuels
agenda. Yet now they're outraged that President Trump is daring to fight fire with fire by making a connection between
California's wildfires and destructive green policies. [...] Governor Jerry Brown keeps lecturing Californians that they need
to adapt to a new "climate normal," yet the state government has done little to prepare for warmer and drier times if that is
the future. Lawmakers instead have subordinated fire prevention to pleasing the green lobby.
Fire
and fury: How government failures make wildfires even worse. While East Coasters are heading off for
their August vacations, many families out West are worried that if they leave their home, it may not be standing when they
return. That's the reality when there have been 4,500 wildfires this year so far. [...] Everyone is quick to blame
global warming for this and all other natural disasters. But changes to local weather in this or that part of the
country are by no means part of the same scientific consensus that climate change is real and caused in large part by human
activity. Western droughts and forest fires have been around a long time, and so has climate change, but the fires have
gotten much worse very recently, and government mismanagement of forests is part of the reason.
Jerry
Brown blames everyone but himself for California wildfires. Jerry Brown is at it again. Blaming
Californians for the devastating series of California wildfires month, he went Full Moonbeam and declared the problem a
function of global warming, calling it a new normal about which nothing is to be done. As if wildfires that sweep
away homes in California's unique Mediteranean microclimates have never happened before this past week.
Why
the California Wildfires Are Not Due to So-called Climate Change. Climate alarmists such as California Governor
Jerry Brown would like us to believe that global warming is causing (and worsening) the recent spate of wildfires in the
Golden State. Unfortunately for Governor Brown, the facts and the science simply don't line up with his opinion.
Wildfires are natural occurrences that have been happening since flora first appeared on the Earth. Scientists and
others involved in land and forest management not only accept that such fires will happen as part of the natural ecosystem,
they also see them as beneficial in certain ways. Wildfires occurring naturally reduce fuel loads such as downed trees,
fallen limbs, brush, leaves and other combustible material. When fires burn naturally, they release nutrients into the
soil which would otherwise be wasted in leaves and undergrowth. Some habitats — such as the California
Chaparral — actually depend on fire to a certain extent. Periodic fires burn off species of plants that are
not native and less fire resistant, which gives the native species a leg up in the competition for space.
California
wildfires are burning down public utilities. California's Democrat-controlled Legislature has mastered the game
of deviously nudging public utility regulators to raise fees and surcharges to pay for its progressive environmental
initiatives rather than suffering the voter backlash from raising taxes. California residents, due to abundant hydro
resources and being the nation's third largest oil-producer, used to have some of America's lowest retail electricity
rates. But residents paid 18.32 cents per kilowatt-hour (/kWh) in 2018, about 47 percent more than the
national average of 12.47 cents/kWh. Much of that staggering $14.8-billion-a-year extra cost was siphoned off
through environmental mandates and crony spending.
Environmentalist
Policies Are Exacerbating Wildfires. It's Time to Rethink Forest Management. [Scroll down] As a
Reason Foundation study noted, the U.S. Forest Service, which is tasked with managing public wildland, once had success in
minimizing widespread fires in the early 20th century. But many of these successful methods were abandoned in large
part because of efforts by environmental activists. The Forest Service became more costly and less effective as it
increasingly "rewarded forest managers for losing money on environmentally questionable practices," wrote Randal O'Toole, a
policy analyst at the Cato Institute. Spending on the Forest Service has risen drastically, but these additional
resources have been misused and haven't solved the underlying issues.
Homeless people supported (or at least tolerated) by California taxpayers
Proposed
corporate tax hike in California would aid homeless. A California coalition is proposing legislation to boost taxes on
wealthy multinational corporations to raise more than $2 billion a year to house tens of thousands of homeless people, addressing
what has become a worsening problem in the country's most populous state. Supporters say Assembly Bill 71 would reinvent
California's approach to solving homelessness — providing for the first time an ongoing, sufficient state funding source
to get people off the streets. Opponents say it would contribute to the perception that California is hostile to business.
San
Francisco To Hire Social Workers Instead Of Cops To Handle Homelessness, Drug Addiction, And Mental Illness On Public
Transit. San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system has six vacancies for police officers but plans
instead to fill those positions with social workers to handle issues involving the homeless and those with mental illness or
drug addiction. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the public transit system has $2 million in its budget
to fill the vacancies (for an average salary and benefits package worth about $333,000) but will instead hire a supervisor
and "20 crisis intervention specialists," the outlet reported. Last year, the board approved a plan that only added 10
specialists to BART's bureau of progressive policing.
Overdose
Deaths Far Exceed COVID-19 Deaths In San Francisco. The number of San Francisco residents who have died from
drug overdoses during the past year far exceeds the number who have died from COVID-19. A record high number of 621
people died from overdoses in 2020 compared to the 173 who have died from COVID-19, according to statistics reported by The
Associated Press. In 2019, 441 people died from drug overdoses in the city, which gives 2020 the grim distinction of
having experienced a staggering increase of more than 40%. The overdose statistics of 2019 were a 70% increase from those
in 2018.
San
Francisco Dems Threaten Paper for Reporting on Homeless Mess. When you can't fix the problem, you can always
shoot the messenger. Whether it's election fraud, my topic yesterday, or eliminating crime reporting, also my topic
yesterday, or the homeless mess, Democrats are increasingly trying to shoot the messengers and impose a broad spectrum
censorship locally and nationally. And San Francisco, as usual, points the way.
California, There It Goes.
[Scroll down] Patrick's Roadhouse is still there, but Santa Monica, like the rest of the city, is a shell. As I
wrote a few months ago, 120 stores were smashed and looted in the business district during the May/June Floyd riots. To
this day, it's a ghost town with plywood on nearly every window. You know what else is everywhere? Homeless
people. Not just glassy-eyed gutter punks lounging in decrepit tents. I mean ranting, fully naked zombies
defecating and peeing on every corner. It's been called Skid Row by the Sea for years, but today Skid Marks by the Sea
is more accurate. It looks like someone opened the prison in Aliens 3 and let the inmates out at Wilshire
and Ocean Avenue. (Side note: the median price of a home in Santa Monica is $3,750,000, making it the third most
expensive ZIP code in America.)
San Francisco, Homeless
Encampment. San Francisco's hotels and motels are slowly emptying of the homeless people that the city placed
there during the Covid-19 pandemic. The city simply can't afford the $260 per night, per person, price tag of housing
approximately 2,000 people — just a portion of the estimated 8,000 people who live on the street. Where will
they go? Elected officials have come up with a new plan: turn the whole city into a network of homeless
encampments. In June, city officials and departments developed a list of 42 potential sites that could be equipped with
spaces for tents and mobile bathrooms. The urban campers, most with addiction and mental health issues, would be
provided with free delivered meals and other services. Several sites were erected, including one outside City Hall and
one in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood. Among the other proposed locations: 25 public elementary, middle, and
high schools, as well as a Boys and Girls Club, city parks, and recreation areas.
The
Real Cost of Homelessness. In 2016, Los Angeles Mayor Gil Garcetti proclaimed, as might an emperor or king, he
would empower citizens to "transform their streets and urban corridors into vibrant, walkable spaces that reflect the unique
characteristics of their communities." As of September 2020, Los Angeles has solved its homeless problem. The
approximate 60,000 homeless encamped on Los Angeles' streets, urban corridors, parks, and freeway underpasses vanished to be
replaced by approximately 60,000 unhoused residents. Empowered by Garcetti's hands-off the homeless order of
protection issued for "public health and safety reasons," these unhoused are reimagining their lives free of health and
safety regulations and taxation applicable to the housed.
San
Francisco Residents On Edge Over Rising Number Of Home Burglaries. "Our next-door neighbor got broken into and
they had already experienced another break-in a month prior to that," said Ginny Fang, who lives in San Francisco's North
Beach neighborhood. A spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department said they're getting more reports of
break-ins recently through the garage. "We're doing all we can to step up patrols and to ultimately arrest those who are
committing these crimes," said SFPD Officer Robert Rueca. Fang said thieves several weeks ago stole four of her
family's bicycles by breaking and entering.
California:
The Golden State in Utter Decay. Wildfires, unfortunately, are among the least of California's woes.
Homelessness in the state has become a major problem, and one that is having a significant impact on the quality of life for
taxpayers. According to a San Francisco Chronicle article published last December, "[w]hile the latest counts compiled
by the federal government show that America's homeless population is growing again after more than a decade of declines, the
entire national increase and more can be attributed to California alone." In other words, homelessness continues to be on
the decline in the U.S. if we exclude California. So how does California plan on addressing the problem? A bill
passed by the state's Legislature earlier this month will empower Governor Newsom to appoint a "Homelessness Czar."
Government actions, including regulations which aggressively target landlords and programs that provide handouts enticing the
homeless to settle in the state, have perpetuated the homeless situation, but more taxpayer dollars and government interference
is always the solution for California. Got a problem? Throw money at it, and let the government make it worse.
Video:
San Fran man smokes meth while skateboarding with mattress as a sail. Just another day in San Francisco, with
mentally challenged drug addicts being among the few using the streets and parks of the Paris of the Pacific. Jaded
city residents have become so accustomed to strange human sights they hardly shrug, but it's become so bad that the mostly
liberal inhabitants are starting to turn on their progressive leaders. @SFGotham, an independent researcher who exposes
the city's crime, corruption and policy failures on Twitter, saw something this week that made the crusader look twice.
[Video clip]
San
Francisco's Deathly Compassion. San Francisco has a serious drug problem, particularly among its homeless
population. Roughly 8,000 people live on the city's sidewalks or in its alleyways, public parks, and playgrounds.
People with needles in their arms and legs, holding glass pipes and lighters, are a regular sight. Users go limp in
doorways and tents, or they career about, dazed and distraught, or angry and violent. Dealers selling heroin, Fentanyl,
methamphetamine, and crack are ubiquitous. So, too, are the advocates for "harm reduction," which holds that widespread
drug use should be accepted but its worst effects mitigated. Organizations such as the San Francisco AIDS Foundation,
the Harm Reduction Coalition, the Drug Users Union, and even the Department of Public Health, in partnership with The DOPE
Project, focus almost exclusively on "safe drug use." In fact, the Drug Users Union's goal is "to create a safe
environment where people can use & enjoy drugs as well as receive services." This attitude led to today's humanitarian
crisis: thousands of people living on San Francisco's streets, languishing in an endless cycle of homelessness and addiction.
Insufferable San Francisco.
Where I live, in the San Francisco Bay Area, the American city hardly exists at all. [...] I had figured I could stick around
forever. Then I took my daughter to see The Nutcracker. The two blocks we had to walk from the train
station to War Memorial Opera House made a greater impression on my nine-year-old than any magical offering from the SF
Ballet. The city greeted her with the army of cracked nuts, the ubiquitous 'zombies' who aimlessly roam our
streets. The need to be hyperaware of their presence while pirouetting to avoid discarded syringes and human excrement
left her depressed and terrified for days. My daughter refuses to go to the ballet at the War Zone Opera House ever again.
Hazmat crew cleans up homeless
mess at luxury San Fran hotel. One of the premier West Coast hotels required a hazardous materials cleanup
crew, the result of the city's policy of housing the homeless on the taxpayer's dime during the Covid crisis. The
Intercontinental Mark Hopkins, a luxury hotel atop swanky Nob Hill, dispatched unruly guests to another undisclosed
property. Afterwards, a hazmat team showed up to tidy up the premises, according to ace KRON reporter Erica
Sandberg. "The guests wouldn't abide by the rules. The city paid Ubers and cabs moved them to a different luxury
hotel," she said.
The Editor says...
Homeless bums never "abide by the rules." That's why they're homeless!
Meth
lab found at San Francisco hotel room used as city COVID-19 shelter. Police arrested two adults accused of
operating a low level meth lab at a San Francisco hotel designated as a safe shelter for people on quarantine, at risk for
COVID19, or without housing. The call came in about a strong chemical odor coming from a hotel room and officers
responded to the Civic Center Motor Inn about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday [8/1/2020]. Police and residents had to wait
for a hazmat team to determine the safety of the site.
Police
shut down alleged meth lab in SF hotel reportedly being used as COVID-19 shelter. The San Francisco Police
Department arrested two individuals Saturday [8/1/2020] for allegedly operating a meth lab in the guest room of a hotel in
the 300 block of Ninth Street in the city's Civic Center neighborhood, officials said. Multiple news outlets reported
the incident occurred at the Civic Center Motor Inn, which is being used to offer temporary shelter for people without
housing and at risk for COVID-19.
San
Francisco drafts museum staff as drug gophers for homeless. An interesting development since the Covid
lockdowns in the City on the Bay has been the clandestine placement of homeless people in luxury hotels, such as the
Intercontinental Mark Hopkins on Nob Hill. As it turns out, the government is using unlikely public employees who
otherwise would have been furloughed to serve as vice couriers for them. One such city staffer, for example, was a
curator with the San Francisco city museums before the shut down, said an informed city source who requested anonymity.
San
Francisco reporter details 'disaster' of city's 'hotels for homeless' program: 'It is pandemonium'. Thousands
of homeless people have been housed in San Francisco's empty hotels in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.
However, City Journal contributor Erica Sandberg told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Wednesday [7/15/2020] the policy has been
an "absolute disaster," "It's solving exactly nothing and as a matter of fact, it's making all the problems worse,"
said Sandberg, who described the scene inside the hotels as "about as bad as you can imagine, only exponentially
worse." "You are talking drug-fueled parties, overdoses, deaths, people are being assaulted. You have sexual
assaults going on, it is pandemonium," she said. "It is extremely bad and it needs to stop."
San
Francisco sends guests to luxury Nob Hill hotel ... in a jail bus. San Francisco is housing 'emergency workers'
at the Mark Hopkins on Nob Hill, one of the finest and most storied luxury hotels on the West Coast. It seems some
arrive in jail buses with metal screens and bars on them, as this exclusive PressCalifornia.com photo suggests. And
after they check in, the city pays for their alcohol and marijuana deliveries. Who are these guests and why are they
there? The municipal government, under the guise of housing essential COVID medical teams and responders, is covertly
placing the homeless in city hotels.
After
a lawsuit by residents, San Francisco finally cleans homeless camps out of the Tenderloin district. The
coronavirus pandemic was (and still is) a potential disaster for the homeless. In San Francisco, the city was forced to
reduce the number of homeless people in each of the city's shelters to prevent them from becoming hotspots for the
virus. But doing that meant a lot more people living on the streets. In the Tenderloin district, the number of tents
went from 158 on March 3 to 391 by May 1. Even the police officers who normally handle drug-dealing in the area were
pulled out creating a defacto lawless zone, a homeless version of Seattle's CHOP. And just as happened with CHOP, local
residents quickly got fed up and filed a lawsuit against the city.
Sanctioned
SF tent camp riles Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. The cascade of tents hitting San Francisco's liberal
Haight-Ashbury has stunned merchants and residents alike, and led to an outcry over the city's decision to set up a "safe
sleeping site" at one of the neighborhood's busiest intersections. "We have had a problem with homelessness for some
time, but this is the first time we are seeing tents in the neighborhood," said resident Michelle Leighton, spokeswoman for
Safe Healthy Haight, a neighborhood group formed this month to respond to the city's plan to put a sanctioned tent camp on
the site of the old McDonald's restaurant at Haight and Stanyan streets just across from Golden Gate Park.
San
Fransisco socially distances its homeless encampments amid coronavirus pandemic. San Fransisco is giving
homeless encampments the social distance treatment. The city is joining others around the world in begrudgingly
authorizing its homeless encampments by marking safely distanced spaces for tents and other makeshift shelters. In San
Fransisco's Civic Center, about 80 tents are now lined in tidy rows on a wide street near San Francisco City Hall, part
of a "safe sleeping village" opened last week. The village is one of two Mayor London Breed has planned to open, with
another coming to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.
Free
Booze, Pot, and Smokes for San Francisco's Homeless. San Francisco officials deny direct involvement in a
controversial program, funded by private sources, that provides free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes to homeless people
living in the city's hotels during the Covid-19 outbreak. After news about the special deliveries was leaked and caused
embarrassment on social media, the city's Department of Public Health issued a statement claiming that "rumors that guests of
San Francisco's alternative housing program are receiving taxpayer-funded deliveries of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco are
false." Except they're not false. DPH, which administers and oversees the program, is staffed by city workers,
including doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, and security personnel. The department manages, stores,
and distributes the substances. Employee time is involved. Thus, the program is financed by taxpayers,
even if an outside group provides some of the funding. According to DPH spokesperson Jenna Lane, the philanthropists
who helped purchase the substances wish to remain anonymous.
San
Francisco neighborhood sues over 300 percent jump of homeless sidewalk tents during coronavirus outbreak. San
Francisco is being sued by a law school and residents and businesses in the inner-city Tenderloin District who argue
sidewalks are "unsanitary, unsafe, and often impassable" as homeless people crowd streets amid the coronavirus
pandemic. The number of tents and makeshift structures in the Tenderloin has tripled since January, as homeless
shelters are forced to operate at low capacity in order to enforce stringent social distancing requirements, reports
say. The federal lawsuit, filed last week in part by the University of California Hastings College of Law, does not
seek financial damages but instead demands the city clean up streets littered with drug needles and human waste. The
litigants are also seeking help for people living in sidewalk tents, saying they are at increased risk of COVID-19.
Homeless
People In San Francisco Hotel Rooms Are Being Given Free Alcohol And Drugs. The San Francisco Department of
Public Health (SFDPH) confirmed in a tweet Tuesday that homeless people put up in hotels are being given free alcohol and
drugs. A Twitter user named "T Wolf" who calls himself a "formerly homeless addict," sent a tweet this week saying he's
heard reports of homeless people getting free alcohol, marijuana and methadone. "I just found out that homeless placed
in hotels in SF are being delivered Alcohol, Weed and Methadone because they identified as an addict/alcoholic for FREE.
You're supposed to be offering treatment. This is enabling and is wrong on many levels," he said.
Coronavirus
Isn't Slowing the Destruction of San Francisco. In almost any situation, learning through direct personal
experience is preferable to learning from photos, videos, or a verbal description of another person's experience. [...]
Knowing this, San Francisco-based writer Erica Sandberg has been organizing what she calls "see for yourself/think for
yourself" walks through her city so regular residents can take in the sights, sounds, and smells of the homeless crisis for
themselves and not rely upon the curated experiences of activists, politicians, and the mainstream media. Even more
importantly, her tours are not narrated, allowing participants to draw their own conclusions about what they're
viewing. What they're all seeing is terrifying and a city "spiraling out of control." San Francisco residents have been
subject to a "shelter in place" order since March 17, but most of the restrictions in the order don't apply to people
"experiencing homelessness." From what Sandberg has witnessed, drug dealing and abuse hasn't been affected in any way.
Supes
vote to acquire more hotel rooms to shelter homeless. San Francisco must quickly secure thousands of more hotel
rooms to shelter the homeless amid the spread of coronavirus under legislation approved Tuesday by the Board of
Supervisors. The board's vote comes just days after 92 unhoused people tested positive for the disease after an
outbreak at one city shelter. Board members have clashed with Mayor London Breed and her administration for weeks over
the best strategy for how to thin out the shelter populations. They have called for those living on the street to be
moved into hotel rooms so that they can shelter-in-place, as those who are housed have done under a public health order since
March 17.
Because money is plentiful, and most vagrants are clean, sober, responsible citizens:
SF
plans to lease 7,000 hotel rooms to isolate homeless people from the coronavirus. San Francisco now plans to
lease 7,000 hotel rooms to provide shelter for homeless people as well as first responders and health care workers battling
the spread of the coronovirus, city officials said Wednesday [4/8/2020]. This would more than triple the rooms now
under contract. The city already has committed $35 million for the next three months to lease the first batch of
units. The overall effort would cost San Francisco roughly $105 million — some but not all of which
would be reimbursed by the federal and state governments.
SF
Ditches Plan To House Homeless At Moscone Center During Pandemic In Favor Of Hotel Rooms. San Francisco
officials have reversed a plan to shelter homeless people at the Moscone West Convention Center. Instead, the city will
continue with a plan to place homeless people at hotels in an effort to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, said Trent
Rohrer, director of the city's Human Services Agency.
Bet
Your Life — Vote for Democrats. I can only imagine what the [Wuhan virus] death toll will be in
California. San Francisco has immune-suppressed HIV-AIDs affected citizens (about 12,985 people living with HIV in San
Francisco) and thousands of homeless people living on the streets. So far, the homeless do not seem particularly
affected, but if (or once) it makes an appearance there, I suspect it will take a substantial toll. I suppose many of
these people are already quite unhealthy, live cheek by jowl outdoors on feces-heaped streets, and lack access to means to
practice proper hygiene.
The New Favelas.
Progressives routinely denounce economic inequality, yet the nation's most liberal cities offer the most dramatic
illustrations of it, with tech-driven wealth at the top and addiction-driven homelessness at the bottom. In the past
five years, some streets in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and Seattle have started to resemble Latin American
favelas, or shantytowns, with thousands sleeping in tents, shacks, and packing crates. One United Nations
official recently compared West Coast encampments to the slums of New Delhi. California governor Gavin Newsom has
declared homelessness a "state of emergency." And yet, as the coronavirus pandemic persists, West Coast cities have
legalized and provided services to these encampments, rather than enacting emergency shelter and moving people off the
streets. This reckless decision follows a disturbing trend. Last year, Oakland began supplying 22 officially
sanctioned homeless encampments with services, sanitation, and supplies.
Coronavirus:
L.A. to Move Homeless into Neighborhood Recreation Centers. Mayor Eric Garcetti is going ahead with a plan to
move thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles into recreation centers in residential neighborhoods as part of the city's
response to the coronavirus pandemic. Rumors have been circulating among residents, and were confirmed on Saturday by
the L.A. Times.
The Editor says...
During the current lockdown, you and I can't go to church, or to a wedding or a funeral, but the homeless bums are being moved
into "recreation centers" where they will presumably all live in one room.
Few
homeless off California's streets as virus spreads. Homeless people in California congregated in parks, popped
into each other's tents on sidewalks and packed closely together to get food Friday, routine scenes that took on different
and dangerous significance as state officials try to contain spread of the coronavirus.
A
Real-Life Story of How Coronavirus Hysteria Oppresses People. Commentators have noted the dishonest reporting
of statistics to buttress the false claim that deaths from the coronavirus (hereafter, COVID-19) are far in excess of
mortality from the common flu when in fact the opposite is likely the case. [...] I was indeed shocked when Nathan called me
on March 17 to report that the wedding and reception, for which all the invitations had gone out and for which they had
planned for over a year, were being canceled on the "Order of the Health Officer of the County of Riverside." I obtained a
copy of the so-called "order" that "prohibits" gatherings of ten or more individuals in the County of Riverside.
According to the text of the decree, "Violation of ... this Order is a crime punishable by fine, imprisonment or both." The
edict exempts gatherings of government officials, including those at the Health Department and their colleagues who drafted
the order. Another curious exemption from the order is those involved in "congregate living settings." I suppose
that's to cover Riverside County, California's resident population of homeless bums, who are stuck living in "congregate
living settings" in their feces- and needle-infested encampments.
Because there's so much extra cash on hand...
California
plans to house homeless in hotels during coronavirus pandemic. Gov. Gavin Newsom estimates 60,000 homeless
people will be infected with COVID-19 in the coming months and those people will need a place to recover in isolation.
On Wednesday [3/18/2020] Newsom allocated $150 million in emergency funding to deal with the crisis and announced a plan to
house the homeless in hotels and motels across the state. The state would lease the property and local counties would
control the operations. According to the governor's office, 950 sites have been identified across 53 counties.
Citing
coronavirus, homeless families seize 12 vacant homes in Los Angeles. A group of homeless and housing-insecure
Angelenos seized more vacant, publicly owned homes in El Sereno on Wednesday [3/18/2020], arguing that government officials have
failed to provide the shelter that's necessary for them to remain healthy during the coronavirus pandemic. The occupation
followed a similar takeover Saturday, when two families and a man moved into one of the neighborhood's dozens of empty
homes — all owned by Caltrans. The state agency bought them years ago as part of a now-failed plan to extend
the 710 Freeway.
Watch
Why People Are 'Fleeing California' — It Ain't Pretty. Yes, those lumps of clothes really are
people sleeping on the streets. Cable car rides are often ruined by the unmistakable whiff of sun-soaked urine.
Small business owners — which employ 40% of the workforce — are held down by masochistic
regulators. And people are getting [...] out of California. They're fleeing. A new Prager University video
called "Fleeing California" — which will probably be censored by one of the tech giants [soon] —
highlights the lowlights of California and explains why so many are heading for Texas.
Language warning: Non-stop profanity on the part of the cameraman. Turn the sound off.
Democrat and
Disease Infested San Francisco — where people bring dead animals to restaurants. A crazy guy brought a dead raccoon into
McDonald's. [Video clip]
As
Trump wins praise for effective coronavirus response, blue cities do opposite, threatening its spread it through homelessness. The
left's blue cities do all they can to encourage and reward homelessness, amounting to the country's great enabler of homelessness as a
lifestyle. Blue cities employ and are expanding gargantuan bureaucracies dedicated to "servicing" the homelessness, which encourages
a hunt for more "clients." San Francisco alone spends $77,000 per homeless "client." They also refuse to enforce quality of life
laws, such as those against vagrancy, public camping, drug use, public alcohol consumption, prostitution, and public urination and defecation,
promoting homelessness even more. Some are encouraging squatting on private property. Others are permitting the homeless to take over
public parks and spaces. Some, such as Bill de Blasio's New York, are secretly busing the homeless to other cities to keep them from creating
problems in their own cities. It's a massive tax on those who own the overpriced homes in those cities, but taxes are the left's bread and
butter. It's a money merry-go-round, all done in the name of "compassion."
The
Tired and Poor Are Already Here. Twelve thousand children are homeless here in California, and our homeless
population has risen to 151,000. Last year, California was single-handedly responsible for the national increase in
homelessness. [...] What does it say about our leaders, and our nation, that a closed fist for struggling Americans and an
open hand for those who break our immigration laws is a winning political strategy?
GOP
challenger says Schiff has done nothing to fight homeless crisis in California district. ep. Adam
Schiff's Republican challenger accused the Democrat on Friday of ignoring the homelessness crisis in his California
district. "He's done nothing, or virtually nothing, for our district," Eric Early, who announced his candidacy to
represent California's 28th Congressional District in July, told Fox News. "Certainly not a darn thing for
homelessness." "It's a mess out here, it's terrible," he added. Early, a Los Angeles attorney, made his comments
about Schiff while walking through parts of Echo Park and Hollywood, meeting with homeless people and listening to their
stories about their situations.
Mike
Slater: Newsom's call for 'housing prescriptions' to solve homelessness 'fundamentally misses' problem.
California radio host Mike Slater responded Sunday [2/23/2020] to Gov. Gavin Newsom's suggestion that doctors "should be able"
to prescribe housing like they do medicine, calling it "so off the charts that you don't even know where to begin." Newsom, a
Democrat, initially expressed the idea during his State of the State address last Wednesday, arguing that housing and health care
were intertwined. "The Democrats have been really good at coming up with proposals that are so ridiculous, so off the charts,
that you don't even know where to begin... like, deconstructing what they're talking about," Slater told "Fox & Friends" Sunday.
On Leaving
the Golden State. The fabled Ventura Highway is all that separates my artist loft from the beach where surfing
first came to the United States. [...] Once my coffee is brewed, my cat and I go hang out on the patio where I may or may not
have to chase someone away that is stealing electricity as for some crazy reason all the homeless have smart phones and other
electric gadgets but few means to charge them. From my patio on the 2nd floor landing, I can look down into the central
courtyard and, if early enough in the day, sometimes see people crawling out of the bushes so as to relieve themselves
against a wall. Making this problem worse is the fact that I live around a bunch of retired hippies and there is no one
on Earth less capable of doing anything than a hippie. One thing that many of them have not figured out is that they
should lock down their WiFi. Frankly, the quickest way to attract the kind of person that would steal a cat toy, potted
plant, bicycle or everything out of your car is to have a neighbor or two broadcasting free WiFi.
Homeless
People Are Without Toilets and Going in the Streets. We Asked the Mayor of LA Why. Statistics estimate
36,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles, but the city isn't providing bathrooms to most of them. As the NBCLA I-Team
has found, the tons of human waste landing on city streets are creating an urgent public health threat. In one act
caught on camera, a homeless man is seen waking up on South Hope Street. He unbuckles his belt, walks over to the front
door of a business, pulls down his pants, and defecates right on the door mat in broad daylight.
Taking Property for Fun and
Profit. After a group of homeless moms simply moved into a vacant three-bedroom house in Oakland owned by a
company that invests in local real estate, local progressives turned them into folk heroes. These women weren't
squatters who took something that wasn't theirs, but valiant protesters who were standing up for their communities
against — all together now — corporate speculators. As one of these Oakland moms said,
"Housing is a human right. I pay bills there. I pay water, PG&E, internet. We live there. We want to
purchase the home; it needs to belong back in the hands of the community. It was stolen through the foreclosure
crisis." That certainly puts a new spin on the term "property ownership."
The
Democrat Left is cruel and sadistic. Anyone who has driven the streets of downtown Los Angeles or walked the
streets of San Francisco should vote out every single person currently in office, for they have allowed the crisis to grow
without doing a thing but surrender their constituents to the terrible impact on their quality of life. Adam Schiff and
Nancy Pelosi are among the worst offenders. Neither of them cares about his own district; they care only about keeping
the power they have in D.C.
Decriminalization
of drugs fueling meth and homelessness in California. The same people who demand that Congress and state
governments spend even more money to "combat" the twin drug and homelessness crises never seem to connect the dots back to
their decriminalization policies or admit that they are causing a rise in crime. One journalist in California is not
scared to pin the tail on the donkey — in the case of the Golden State, the infamous Prop 47. Right around
2014-2015 is when the drug crisis exploded nationwide, including in California, roughly around the same time homelessness
soared, particularly in the Golden State, along with the rise in theft and other crimes. What else happened around the
same time? California passed Prop 47, which downgraded drug and theft crimes. The result was a logical
consequence to an illogical policy. Bill Lamb, VP and general manager of Fox 11 in Los Angeles, delivered a TV
commentary last week pinning the blame for the homeless and drug problems squarely on Prop 47.
Dr.
Drew Pinsky hits Adam Schiff on homeless crisis in his own district: 'He's asleep at the wheel'. Senate
impeachment trial manager Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is "asleep at the wheel" when it comes to his own district and is
ignoring issues that matter, like the state's homeless crisis, Dr. Drew. Pinsky said Thursday [1/30/2020].
Appearing on "Fox & Friends" with hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade, Pinsky said he started thinking
that maybe he should run against Schiff because, every day he doesn't do something, three more homeless people die in the
county of Los Angeles. While Pinsky said he is "categorically not running" for Schiff's seat, he couldn't ignore the
crisis unfolding in front of him.
Why
Are Liberal Cities Such a Mess? Many major U.S. cities run by liberal Democrats are in rough shape. They
are afflicted by the problems of homelessness, violent crime, gangs, and unemployment to a far greater degree than the
country as a whole. [...] San Francisco actually has maps so people can track where the worst incidences of human waste are
on the sidewalks. The homeless population now approaches 7000 and there is no law prohibiting sleeping on the streets,
sidewalks, or other public places. Discarded syringes are everywhere. San Francisco's property crime rate is the
highest in the nation and "smash and grab" thefts involving broken car windows are so commonplace that repair shops have
waiting lists. The DA's office no longer prosecutes "victimless" crimes like prostitution or drug possession, resulting
in a massive influx of drug dealers into the city.
As
California's homeless people camp out on railroad tracks, train-related deaths are rising. California's
railroad tracks are now lined with men and women sleeping in tents or under cardboard boxes, from the underpasses of Oakland
and L.A. to the farmlands of the Central Valley. As a result, train deaths have become the latest side effect of the
state's vast unmet need for affordable shelter, according to experts who have linked the homeless crisis to the steady uptick
in train deaths in California. The state annually leads the nation in pedestrian railroad fatalities, even when
accounting for its larger population.
San Francisco
homeless crisis is a sad and terrible thing to see: Maria Bartiromo. FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo
describes the homeless crisis as she witnessed it when visiting San Francisco, California and discusses the policy issues
that have created the problem. [Video clip]
18
Signs That The Social Decay In America Is Worse Than It Has Ever Been Before. [#15] Tucker Carlson says that
downtown San Francisco is now filthier than downtown Mumbai, India.
San
Francisco homeless crisis worries some attendees at JPMorgan summit: 'The Bill Clinton of cities'. JPMorgan is
holding its annual health care conference in San Francisco this week. But some attendees — when gazing out
the windows of their $2,000-a-night hotel rooms or past the doors of another champagne-infused party — have
reportedly noticed the city has lost ground in its fight against homelessness. "I feel unsafe walking around at night,
especially as a young woman," Selin Kurnaz, a co-founder of Massive Bio, told Bloomberg. Other executives at the
JPMorgan Healthcare Conference have gone on social media to voice their concerns about the city's decline and have posted
about watching city officials clean human excrement off the streets.
Homeless
Mom Calls Offer To Help Squatters Occupying Oakland House 'An Insult'. One of the homeless mothers who has been
living in a vacant West Oakland house since Nov. 18 scoffed Saturday night [1/11/2020] at an offer by the house's owner to
pay to move them out and shelter them for the next two months, calling the offer "an insult." Earlier Saturday, the
property owner planning to have two homeless mothers evicted next week from a West Oakland home offered on Saturday to pay to
shelter them for the next two months. Real estate investment firm Wedgewood Properties is offering to foot the bill for
their move and to pay a nonprofit to house the women for the next two months, a spokesman said.
California
waterways [are] polluted with alarming levels of dangerous fecal bacteria due to homelessness. California's
beaches, rivers, and streams have become contaminated with alarming levels of dangerous fecal bacteria thanks to the liberal
state's escalating homelessness crisis. President Trump recently spotlighted the terrifying epidemic on Tw