Skip to main content

Home/ Socialism and the End of the American Dream/ Group items tagged california

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Gary Edwards

Five pieces of evidence suggesting that California drought may be a HAARP-manufactured ... - 0 views

  • For years, many of those who've been paying attention have wondered what the purpose is of these clearly artificial chemtrails. Well, based on the extensive research findings by The HAARP Report, it seems as though these fake sprayings are helping to redirect and alter weather patterns -- in this case, to steer rain away from California."Chemtrails create a hot air layer at 30,000 feet, capping inversion," explains the report. "They [the powers that be] want that to overrun this low pressure area and prevent this low pressure from forming," as low pressure is what produces precipitation, explains the report.
  • Fukushima: a cover for HAARP and chemtrail-induced atmospheric damage killing our planet
  • A HAARP Report video posted to YouTube on April 19, 2015, lists the following five pieces of evidence suggesting that California's drought is a man-made attack on Californians:1) Low pressure areas out in the Pacific Ocean that would normally move in a counterclockwise direction have been detected moving in an anomalous clockwise direction. The HAARP Report, highlighting exclusive imagery captured on April 10, 2015, shows a "burst" of clockwise, high pressure cloud movement that would never occur naturally, and that clearly suggests weather manipulation activity meant to break up cloud formation and prevent precipitation.More on how this is accomplished through ionospheric heating is explained in the video report:YouTube.com.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • 2) After breaking up the areas of low pressure that would have produced rain for California, HAARP's weather weaponry and associated chemtrails generate areas of very dry air that, under normal circumstances, would be humid. Satellite imagery captured in the days following April 10 show this dry air sitting stagnant rather than rotating, breaking up the potential formation of thunderstorms.3) As it turns out, HAARP's weather manipulation machines can only operate when the D layer in the ionosphere has formed, which occurs after the sun has been up for three or four hours and ends in the evening. In the video, The HAARP Report shows how a storm that starts to pop up during this window of time is literally pushed to the right and destroyed. Dry air is pressed down, and once again the center is not moving in a counterclockwise direction as it should.
  • 4) Looking again at a massive area of dry air brought about by HAARP and chemtrails, the report points out how satellite imagery of a ring of rising air and a central column of falling air captured at 10 a.m. in California on April 9 proves that a HAARP downburst sent high pressure descending air into the jet stream, once again preventing rain.5) As this air descends, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger in the satellite imagery. And as it begins to reform, another HAARP downburst is observed on the north side of the front, with a signature clockwise flow around a high pressure area as it's sent downward. Put simply, the developing storm was basically broken up by HAARP, where it later reformed around Mexico and sent rain over New Mexico and Texas rather than California."Don't think for a minute that this drought in California is natural. They're using a variety of techniques to maintain this drought," warns The HAARP Report."The oceans are dying because of increasing ultraviolet-B. The modern HAARP transmitters punch holes in the ozone layer, since they must drive a plasmoid from 30 miles high down to the jet stream... mixing the chemtrails vertically, which breaks down the protective ozone layer.""The Pacific is dying because the base of the food chain, phyto-plankton, are being killed by the high UV-B, created by ionospheric heaters. Radiation from Fukushima is killing the Pacific, but not as fast as the lack of plankton, which can't survive the high UV-B. Fukushima is being used as a 'cover' for the excess UV-B caused by HAARP and chemtrails. That would explain the complete lack of action to stop the radiation from leaking into the Pacific."
  • Be sure to watch the full HAARP Report video here:
  •  
    Excellent article with video demonstration explaining the drought in California, and how chemtrails are used to break up a low pressure zone. Amazing stuff. Using chemtrails, the counter clockwise spinning rotation of a low pressure zone is neutralized and even reversed, with the low pressure zone breaking up and dispersing. After watching this video, I noticed that three low pressure zones off the mid and southern coast of California were broken up with the clouds dispersing as they passed over California, Arizona and New Mexico. And guess what? The clouds came together in a new giant low pressure zone over Texas - where four days of thunderstorms and tornadados wrecked havoc. The farm land in California is being laid waste, and farm land in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Iowa is getting more water than the land can handle. "California is embroiled in a crisis of epic proportions as it continues to struggle through one of the worst droughts in state history. But emerging evidence suggests that the Golden State's water woes aren't a natural occurrence at all, and that a covert military operation involving "chemtrails" and other weather modification weaponry may be to blame. A recent episode of The HAARP Report, which tracks the activities of the U.S. military's so-called "High Frequency Auroral Research Program" (which the federal government falsely claims has been shut down), provides five pieces of compelling evidence from recently captured satellite imagery that points to deliberate weather modification as the cause of California's drought. You may have heard of "chemtrails" before -- those unnatural-looking cloud trails occasionally produced by airplanes that don't dissipate normally, and that end up blanketing the skies with a hazy muck. They differ entirely from water vapor contrails produced when water vapor condenses and freezes around small aerosol particles released from aircraft exhaust. The following image shows a sky filled with chemtrails:"
Gary Edwards

California NDAA Nullification Bill Passes Assembly Committee Unanimously - Tenth Amendm... - 1 views

  •  
    Absolutely stunning news!!!!  Tea Party Patriots and liberal progressive democrats have combined their efforts and passed the single most significant NDAA nullification Act yet.  AB351 now heads for debate and vote of the general California Assembly. "Today, the California Public Safety Committee voted unanimously in favor of Assembly Bill 351 (AB351), the California Liberty Preservation Act. Introduced by Republican Assemblymember Tim Donnelly, AB351 is a strong stand against "indefinite detention" as supposedly authorized by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012.  It declares such federal power to be unconstitutional and also requires the entire state to refuse to enforce or assist its implementation.  A broad coalition officially supported the legislation and moved the normally partisan, and strongly democratic committee to support the republican-introduced legislation. AB351 was supported by the ACLU, Tenth Amendment Center, San Francisco 99% coalition, San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the Libertarian Party of California - and many others. AB351 establishes the proper constitutional role by first citing the 10th Amendment as limiting the power of the federal government as to that which has been delegated to it and nothing more. The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution authorizes the United States federal government to exercise only those powers specifically delegated to it in the United States Constitution. It then declares the indefinite detention powers under NDAA to be unconstitutional: Sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA) codifies indefinite military detention without charge or trial of civilians captured far from any battlefield, violating the United States Constitution and corroding our nation's commitment to the rule of law Most importantly, the bill requires the entire state apparatus, including all local governments, to refuse to implement the fede
Paul Merrell

Yes California Independence Campaign - 0 views

  • In the Spring of 2019, Californians will go to the polls in a historic vote to decide by referendum if California should exit the Union, a #Calexit vote. You will have this historic opportunity because the Yes California Independence Campaign will qualify a citizen’s initiative for the 2018 ballot that if passed would call for a special election for Californians to vote for or against the independence of California from the United States. This is a very important question. It is the responsibility of this campaign to explain what a yes vote will mean for you, your family, your community, our state, our country, and our world. We have designed this website to answer many of these questions and look to you to ask more. "As the sixth largest economy in the world, California is more economically powerful than France and has a population larger than Poland. Point by point, California compares and competes with countries, not just the 49 other states.” In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidizing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children. Although charity is part of our culture, when you consider that California’s infrastructure is falling apart, our public schools are ranked among the worst in the entire country, we have the highest number of homeless persons living without shelter and other basic necessities, poverty rates remain high, income inequality continues to expand, and we must often borrow money from the future to provide services for today, now is not the time for charity. However, this independence referendum is about more than California subsidizing other states of this country. It is about the right to self-determination and the concept of voluntary association, both of which are supported by constitutional and international law. It is about California taking its place in the world, standing as an equal among nations. We believe in two fundamental truths: (1) California exerts a positive influence on the rest of the world, and (2) California could do more good as an independent country than it is able to do as just a U.S. state. In 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the international community with their “Brexit” vote. Our “Calexit” referendum is about California joining the international community. You have a big decision to make.
  • THE CASE FOR INDEPENDENCE IN 9 SIMPLE POINTS Being a U.S. state is no longer serving California’s best interests. On issues ranging from peace and security to natural resources and the environment, it has become increasingly true that California would be better off as an independent country. Here’s a summary of why we think so.
Gary Edwards

California Government Hides Billions From Taxpayers « REALITY BLOG - 0 views

  •  
    This must read post from Clint Richardson is a Bay Area Patriots catch.  Stunning stuff.  Clint walks us through the CAFR - Comprehensive Annual Rinancial Report - for the State of California.  Governor Moonbeam is claiming that the State has a $16 Trillion dollar debt, and he's threatening to shut down public education unless California citizens agree to massive tax hikes.  Clint rips through the entire annual report discovering that Gov Moonbeam is not only lying, but that there is an official "debt increase" methodology in place to deceive citizens into voting for government seizure of their property and prosperity.  Note also that this local-state-federal "debt bomb" methodology involves conversion of tax dollars into hard assets.  Like property and productive assets.  Awful, reprehensible stuff.  Brace yourselves. excerpt: the Government is lying to you.  It promotes debt and hides assets. This should not be construed as the only hidden wealth in the California State government… just the wealth we have uncovered today. And you must understand that this is only the State government's CAFR. Each County, city, district, and other local governments and pension funds have their own CAFR's with their own funds and hidden wealth - hidden in plain sight. Totals for Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other counties and municipalities in California will, when combined together, dwarf the investment wealth of the State government alone. They will tell you that some of these investments are restricted and not able to be used for taxpayer services. And as a taxpayer, that should really piss you off! They will also tell you that laws are in place that don't allow these funds to be transferred for other purposes other than what they are designated for. And yet Obama and State legislators continuously speak of raiding the pension funds for their own benefit. In their opinion, it's government's money after all, not the employees or the taxpayers. But of
Paul Merrell

California Tells Court It Can't Release Inmates Early Because It Would Lose Cheap Priso... - 0 views

  • Out of California’s years-long litigation over reducing the population of prisons deemed unconstitutionally overcrowded by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010, another obstacle to addressing the U.S. epidemic of mass incarceration has emerged: The utility of cheap prison labor. In recent filings, lawyers for the state have resisted court orders that they expand parole programs, reasoning not that releasing inmates early is logistically impossible or would threaten public safety, but instead that prisons won’t have enough minimum security inmates left to perform inmate jobs. The dispute culminated Friday, when a three-judge federal panel ordered California to expand an early parole program. California now has no choice but to broaden a program known as 2-for-1 credits that gives inmates who meet certain milestones the opportunity to have their sentences reduced. But California’s objections raise troubling questions about whether prison labor creates perverse incentives to keep inmates in prison even when they don’t need to be there.
  • As has been California’s practice in this litigation, California didn’t initially take the order that seriously. It continued to work toward reducing its prison population. In fact, the ballot initiative passed by voters in November to reclassify several nonviolent felonies as misdemeanors will go a long way toward achieving that goal. But it insisted that it didn’t have to do it the way the court wanted it to, because doing so could deplete the state’s source of inmate firefighters. The incentives of this wildfire and other labor programs are seemingly in conflict with the goal of reducing U.S. reliance on mass incarceration. But the federal judges overseeing this litigation were nonetheless sensitive to the state’s need for inmate firefighters. That’s why they ordered the state to offer 2-for-1 credits only to those many inmates who weren’t eligible for the wildfire program. This way, inmates who were eligible would still be incentivized to choose fighting wildfires, while those that weren’t could choose other rehabilitative work programs to reduce their sentence.
  • The debate centers around an expansive state program to have inmates fight wildfires. California is one of several states that employs prison labor to fight wildfires. And it has the largest such program, as the state’s wildfire problem rapidly expands arguably because of climate change. By employing prison inmates who are paid less than $2 per day, the state saves some $1 billion, according to a recent BuzzFeed feature of the practice. California relies upon that labor source, and only certain classes of nonviolent inmates charged with lower level offenses are eligible for the selective program. They must then meet physical and other criteria. In exchange, they get the opportunity for early release, by earning twice as many credits toward early release as inmates in other programs would otherwise earn, known as 2-for-1 credits. In February, the federal court overseeing California’s prison litigation ordered the state to expand this 2-for-1 program to some other rehabilitation programs so that other inmates who exhibit good behavior and perform certain work successfully would also be eligible for even earlier release.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The Department of Corrections didn’t like this idea, either. It argued that offering 2-for-1 credits to any inmates who perform other prison labor would mean more minimum security inmates would be released earlier, and they wouldn’t have as large of a labor pool. They would still need to fill those jobs by drawing candidates who could otherwise work fighting wildfires, and would be “forced to draw down its fire camp population to fill these vital MSF [Minimum Support Facility] positions.” In other words, they didn’t want to have to hire full-time employees to perform any of the work that inmates are now performing. The plaintiffs had this to say in response: “Defendants baldly assert that if the labor pool for their garage, garbage, and city park crews is reduced, then ‘CDCR would be forced to draw-down its fire camp population to fill these vital MSF positions.’ That is a red herring; Defendants would not be ‘forced’ to do anything. They could hire public employees to perform tasks like garbage collection, garage work and recycling … ”
  • California Attorney General Kamala Harris told BuzzFeed News she was “shocked” to learn that the lawyers in her department had argued against parole credits because they wanted to retain their labor force. “I will be very candid with you, because I saw that article this morning, and I was shocked, and I’m looking into it to see if the way it was characterized in the paper is actually how it occurred in court,” Harris said in an interview with BuzzFeed published late Tuesday. “I was very troubled by what I read. I just need to find out what did we actually say in court.” Harris was referring to the Los Angeles Times’ report on the three-judge panel’s ruling, which included a line referencing that argument. While ThinkProgress does not know what lawyers for the state said in court, the written motions submitted in the litigation make very clear that the state did indeed argue against expanding the early release program on the basis that it would deplete the labor force.
  •  
    In the land of the free and the home of the brave ...j California has been in deep judicial doo-doo because of massive prison overcrowding and years of ignoring federal court orders to drastically reduce its prison population, leading to a Supreme Court decision that basically said, "no more stalling." 
Gary Edwards

Swimming with the Sharks: Goldman Sachs, School Districts, and Capital Appreciation Bon... - 0 views

  • In 2008, after collecting millions of dollars in fees to help California sell its bonds, Goldman urged its bigger clients to place investment bets against those bonds, in order to profit from a financial crisis that was sparked in the first place by irresponsible Wall Street speculation. Alarmed California officials warned that these short sales would jeopardize the state’s bond rating and drive up interest rates. But that result also served Goldman, which had sold credit default swaps on the bonds, since the price of the swaps rose along with the risk of default.
  • In 2009, the lenders’ lobbying group than proposed and promoted AB1388, a California bill eliminating the debt ceiling requirement on long-term debt for school districts. After it passed, bankers traveled all over the state pushing something called “capital appreciation bonds” (CABs) as a tool to vault over legal debt limits. (Think Greece again.) Also called payday loans for school districts, CABs have now been issued by more than 400 California districts, some with repayment obligations of up to 20 times the principal advanced (or 2000%).
  • The controversial bonds came under increased scrutiny in August 2012, following a report that San Diego County’s Poway Unified would have to pay $982 million for a $105 million CAB it issued. Goldman Sachs made $1.6 million on a single capital appreciation deal with the San Diego Unified School District.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • . . . AB1388, signed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009, [gave] banks the green light to lure California school boards into issuing bonds to raise quick money to build schools. Unlike conventional bonds that have to be paid off on a regular basis, the bonds approved in AB1388 relaxed regulatory safeguards and allowed them to be paid back 25 to 40 years in the future. The problem is that from the time the bonds are issued until payment is due, interest accrues and compounds at exorbitant rates, requiring a balloon payment in the millions of dollars. . . . Wall Street exploited the school boards’ lack of business acumen and proposed the bonds as blank checks written against taxpayers’ pocketbooks. One school administrator described a Wall Street meeting to discuss the system as like “swimming with the big sharks.” Wall Street has preyed on these school boards because of the millions of dollars in commissions. Banks, financial advisers and credit rating firms have billed California public entities almost $400 million since 2007. [State Treasurer] Lockyer described this as “part of the ‘new’ Wall Street,” which “has done this kind of thing on the private investor side for years, then the housing market and now its public entities.”
  • The Federal Reserve could have made virtually-interest-free loans available to local governments, as it did for banks. But the Fed (whose twelve branches are 100% owned by private banks) declined. As noted by Cate Long on Reuters:
  • The Fed has said that it will not buy muni bonds or lend directly to states or municipal issuers. But be sure if yields rise high enough Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan will be standing ready to “save” these issuers. There is no “lender of last resort” for muniland.
  • Among the hundreds of California school districts signing up for CABs were fifteen in Orange County. The Anaheim-based Savanna School District took on the costliest of these bonds, issuing $239,721 in CABs in 2009 for which it will have to repay $3.6 million by the final maturity date in 2034. That works out to $15 for every $1 borrowed. Santa Ana Unified issued $34.8 million in CABs in 2011. It will have to repay $305.5 million by the maturity date in 2047, or $9.76 for every dollar borrowed. Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified issued $22.1 million in capital appreciation bonds in 2011. It will have to repay $281 million by the maturity date in 2049, or $12.73 for every dollar borrowed.
  • In 2013, California finally passed a law limiting debt service on CABs to four times principal, and limiting their maturity to a maximum of 25 years. But the bill is not retroactive. In several decades, the 400 cities that have been drawn into these shark-infested waters could be facing municipal bankruptcy – for capital “improvements” that will by then be obsolete and need to be replaced.
  • Then-State Treasurer Bill Lockyer called the bonds “debt for the next generation.” But some economists argue that it is a transfer of wealth, not between generations, but between classes – from the poor to the rich. Capital investments were once funded with property taxes, particularly those paid by wealthy homeowners and corporations. But California’s property tax receipts were slashed by Proposition 13 and the housing crisis, forcing school costs to be borne by middle-class households and the students themselves.
  • According to Demos, per-student funding has been slashed since 2008 in every state but one – the indomitable North Dakota. What is so different about that state? Some commentators credit the oil boom, but other states with oil have not fared so well. And the boom did not actually hit in North Dakota until 2010. The budget of every state but North Dakota had already slipped into the red by the spring of 2009.
  • One thing that does single the state out is that North Dakota alone has its own depository bank.
  • The state-owned Bank of North Dakota (BND) was making 1% loans to school districts even in December 2014, when global oil prices had dropped by half. That month, the BND granted a $10 million construction loan to McKenzie County Public School No. 1, at an interest rate of 1% payable over 20 years. Over the life of the loan, that works out to $.20 in simple interest or $.22 in compound interest for every $1 borrowed. Compare that to the $15 owed for every dollar borrowed by Anaheim’s Savanna School District or the $10 owed for every dollar borrowed by Santa Ana Unified.
  • How can the BND afford to make these very low interest loans and still turn a profit? The answer is that its costs are very low. It has no exorbitantly-paid executives; pays no bonuses, fees, or commissions; pays no dividends to private shareholders; and has low borrowing costs. It does not need to advertise for depositors (it has a captive deposit base in the state itself) or for borrowers (it is a wholesale bank that partners with local banks, which find the borrowers). The BND also has no losses from derivative trades gone wrong. It engages in old-fashioned conservative banking and does not speculate in derivatives. Unlike the vampire squids of Wall Street, it is not motivated to maximize its bottom line in a predatory way. Its mandate is simply to serve the public interest.
  •  
    " Remember when Goldman Sachs - dubbed by Matt Taibbi the Vampire Squid - sold derivatives to Greece so the government could conceal its debt, then bet against that debt, driving it up? It seems that the ubiquitous investment bank has also put the squeeze on California and its school districts. Not that Goldman was alone in this; but the unscrupulous practices of the bank once called the undisputed king of the municipal bond business epitomize the culture of greed that has ensnared students and future generations in unrepayable debt."
Paul Merrell

Amid F-Bomb and Uproar, Dems Face Demands to Get Behind Single Payer | Common Dreams - 0 views

  • California Democrats on Friday kicked off their three-day convention with a "raucous start" in Sacramento, where a wave of single-payer advocates demanded the party work towards a system that makes healthcare a human right. The gathering comes amid growing momentum nationwide for a single-payer, or Medicare-for-All, healthcare system, and as the Republican's widely scorned American Healthcare Act (AHCA) is days away from receiving its potentially problematic Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assessment. In a evening rally and march that went from the capitol to the Sacramento Convention Center, a crowd of nurses and other healthcare activists urged support for SB562—the advancing Healthy California Act—which would create a universal health system for Californians, and could "send a message" and "be a catalyst for the nation."
  • Their message, however, was not warmly received by California Democratic Party chairman John Burton. In fact, he "had nothing but F-bombs and sarcasm for the protesters who disrupted the welcome reception of the California Democratic Convention Friday, calling for universal healthcare and chanting 'Hey hey, ho ho, corporate Dems have got to go,'" Bay Area News Group reported. Video captured and posted to Twitter by Politico reporter David Siders shows Burton telling them to "shut the fuck up or go outside."
Gary Edwards

The Beholden State by Steven Malanga, City Journal Spring 2010 - 1 views

  •  
    The video, "The Beholden State", has become a sensation among California taxpayer groups for its vivid depiction of the audacious power that public-sector unions wield in their state. 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. How public employees became members of the elite class in a declining California offers a cautionary tale to the rest of the country, where the same process is happening in slower motion. The story starts half a century ago, when California public workers won bargaining rights and quickly learned how to elect their own bosses-that is, sympathetic politicians who would grant them outsize pay and benefits in exchange for their support. Over time, the unions have turned the state's politics completely in their favor. The result: unaffordable benefits for civil servants; fiscal chaos in Sacramento and in cities and towns across the state; and angry taxpayers finally confronting the unionized masters of California's unsustainable government.
Gary Edwards

California: Urgent Last-Minute Action to Stop NDAA "Indefinite Detention" - Tenth Amend... - 1 views

  •  
    From the Tenth Amendment Center:   "On Tuesday, April 9th, the California Assembly Public Safety Committee will hold a hearing and do-or-die vote on AB351.   Passage of this bill would be a serious setback to those advancing the power of "indefinite detention" in the United States. AB351 NEEDS YOUR HELP RIGHT NOW TO PASS. 1. CALL all the members of the Public Safety Committee.  Call in the evenings or on the weekend as well.  We want them to have a flood of messages in support by the time they have the hearing on Tuesday.  Be VERY respectful, but be strong. Urge each of them to vote YES on AB351. Tom Ammiano, chair (916) 319-2017 Melissa Melendez, vice-chair (916) 319-2067 Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr. (916) 319-2059 Holly J. Mitchell (916) 319-2054 Bill Quirk (916) 319-2020 Nancy Skinner (916) 319-2015 Marie Waldron (916) 319-2075 "
Paul Merrell

New Law Introduced Into California Legislature Would Punish Companies That Boycott Israel - 0 views

  • A Republican California assemblyman introduced a bill into the state legislature on Monday that would forbid the state – whose campuses have been a focal point of BDS activity – from doing business with companies boycotting, sanctioning or divesting from Israel. Travis Allen, of Huntington Beach in southern California’s Orange County, introduced the bill – called the California- Israel Protection Act – to “require the State of California to divest from companies that boycott Israel.”
  • Any company that is intentionally inflicting economic harm upon California’s trading partners weaken our ability to conduct business and harm the vital economic interests of our state. Further, boycotts of countries often derive from ethnic, religious, racial, or nationality discrimination, which directly contradicts the values of California citizens.” The bill would also penalize companies boycotting products made in the settlements, east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights, since it would prohibit California from investing in any company that is “engaging in actions that are politically motivated and are intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or otherwise limit commercial relations with the State of Israel or companies based in the State of Israel or in territories controlled by the State of Israel.”
  •  
    Dear Mr. Allen:  We have this thing called the First Amendment. It protects, among other things, the right of speech including to boycott. Government actions that punish speech are unconstitutional. Get it?
Paul Merrell

Clinton's Imperious Brush-off of Email Rules - Consortiumnews - 0 views

  • The State Department’s Inspector General issued a blunt report criticizing Hillary Clinton’s imperious refusal to follow email rules as Secretary of State, adding to Clinton’s credibility problem, notes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
  •  
    Meanwhile, the latest poll out of California shows Clinton support continuing to drop while Sanders support continues to rise. Once behind in California by 50 points, Sanders has closed the gap to 2 points. If Sanders takes delegate-rich California, the Democratic nominating convention will be a wide-open brawl. 
Paul Merrell

NSA data-gathering may run into California roadblock | Reuters - 0 views

  • (Reuters) - The federal government would need a warrant from a judge if it wants the cooperation of California officials in searching residents' cellphone and computer records, under a bill making its way through the state legislature. The bill, which passed the state Senate with just one opposing vote on Monday, was introduced in the wake of information leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden showing massive internal surveillance of U.S. citizens by the NSA.
  • The California bill is the farthest along of several such measures that have been introduced in eight states, according to Lieu's spokesman Jeff Gozzo, including Alaska, Arizona and Oklahoma.It comes as Congress wrestles with a similar bill at the national level.A federal judge ruled last year that the National Security Agency's practice of gathering so-called meta-data on U.S. residents was likely unconstitutional, but the ruling is being appealed by the Obama administration.The California bill would not allow law enforcement and other officials in the most populous U.S. state to assist federal agencies looking for records of phone calls, Internet use or other electronic activity by residents unless a warrant has been issued by a judge.It was opposed by the California District Attorneys Association, which said the bill was too vague.
Paul Merrell

California Senate approves measure banning warrantless drone surveillance | Reuters - 0 views

  • (Reuters) - The California State Senate passed legislation on Tuesday imposing strict regulations on how law enforcement and other government agencies can use drones, a move supporters said will protect privacy and prevent warrantless surveillance. The bill attracted bipartisan support in the Senate, passing 25-8 during the evening vote in Sacramento.The legislation would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before using an unmanned aircraft, or drone, except in emergencies such as a fire or a hostage-taking.
  • Other public agencies would be able to use drones, or contract for their use, to achieve their "core mission," so long as that mission is not to gather criminal intelligence."The potential for abuse of drones is high and we need to be vigilant to ensure our Constitutional rights are protected," said the bill's co-author, Democratic Senator Ted Lieu.Idaho and Virginia have also passed laws restricting uses of pilotless aircraft because of privacy concerns.
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti supported the new regulations but the measure faced opposition from law enforcement groups, including the California Police Chiefs Association and the California State Sheriffs' Association.The legislation "is an inappropriate attempt to impose search and seizure requirements on California law enforcement agencies beyond what is required by the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution," the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office said in their opposition to the bill.
  •  
    Gotta love that quote from the L.A. County District Attorney's Office. As though either the 4th Amendment or California's own constitution prohibits the legislature from granting citizens more liberties than the 4th Amendment sets as the irreducible minimum. By that logic, the federal Civil Rights Act would be unconstitutional because the 4th Amendment does not grant citizens the right to sue misbehaving cops in a civil action.  
Gary Edwards

Hillary's Popular Vote Win Came Entirely From California - Tea Party News - 0 views

  •  
    "Republicans in state had nobody to vote for in November (Investor's Business Daily) - Democrats who are having trouble getting out of the first stage of grief - denial - aren't being helped by the fact that, now that all the votes are counted, Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote has topped 2.8 million, giving her a 48% share of the vote compared with Trumps 46%. To those unschooled in how the United States selects presidents, this seems totally unfair. But look more closely at the numbers and you see that Clinton's advantage all but disappears. As we noted in this space earlier, while Clinton's overall margin looks large and impressive, it is due to Clinton's huge margin of victory in one state - California - where she got a whopping 4.3 million more votes than Trump. California is the only state, in fact, where Clinton's margin of victory was bigger than President Obama's in 2012 - 61.5% vs. Obama's 60%."
Gary Edwards

ObamaCare suckers needed, inquire within | RedState - 0 views

  • The exchanges need roughly 2.7 million healthy 18-t0-35-year-olds to sign up to be solvent.
  • The majority of that group is nonwhite and male, according to Simas’ data, and a third are located in just three states: California, Texas and Florida.
  • If too few choose to enroll because they don’t know about the law, don’t like it, or feel they don’t need insurance, the exchanges will fail. And so will the law.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • In other words, ObamaCare needs an army of young dupes to pay through the nose, in order to make this ridiculous program appear solvent while it showers other people with benefits.  
  • It’s a wonder young folks are lining up around the block to pay those 50 to 150 percent increases in their health insurance premiums.
  • he latest Government Accountability Office report says ObamaCare implementation remains months behind schedule, even though the insurance exchanges are supposed to go live in just four months.
  • Under Obamacare, insurance companies can no longer turn away people with preexisting conditions.
  • And so a crucial aspect of implementation is getting enough young, healthy people to enroll to offset the cost of insuring older, less-healthy enrollees.
  • The Congressional Budget Office expects some 7 million people to sign up when the exchanges open on Oct. 1, eventually reaching 22 million.
  •  The embarrassing degeneration of ObamaCare into a wealth transfer program that feeds off healthy people is a perfect inversion of the insurance concept.
  • Normally, the young and hearty folks would pay a low fee for health insurance, because providers would make the reasonable actuarial gamble that most of those customers would not be filing expensive claims.
  • The notion of selling “insurance” to someone with an pre-existing condition, guaranteed to make big claims, would be absurd.  
  •  Older people with higher risks pay more.
  • Instead, we’ve got another corrupt, inefficient redistribution system powered by the liquefied assets of chumps.
  • It’s starting to visibly panic over not being able to pump enough chumps to fill its gas tank.
  • And I do mean corrupt, because it’s not as if most of this money is going to doctors or medical supplies.
  •  Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York, describes the billion dollars flowing into the California health insurance exchange as tax money laundered into Democratic party-building funds:
  • The Obama administration granted a whopping $910 million to California to set up its insurance exchange. That money is not for bandages, surgery, nurses and doctors to care for the sick. Nor is it for insurance plans, though $910 million could buy generous coverage for at least 113,000 people!
  • Shockingly, the $910 million is slated for bureaucracy, including rich compensation packages for exchange employees ($360,000 a year for the executive director) and contracts for computer equipment, public relations and “outreach. “
  • Outreach is the largest expenditure and where the real monkey business occurs.
  • Amazingly, California legislators passed a law that the exchange could keep secret for a year who received the contracts and indefinitely how much they were paid. California’s open-records laws would otherwise prohibit such secrecy.
  • McCaughey describes six- and seven-figure grants to the California NAACP, the Service Employees International Union, the AFL-CIO, and Community Health Councils, “a California organization with a long history of political activism against fracking, for-profit hospitals, state budget cuts and oil exploration.”
  • I can’t imagine why young people are reluctant to plow their money into a racket like this!
  •  
    Excellent summary of where ObamaCare sits today.  Obama has to convince millions of young, healthy "chumps" to pay massive amounts of their income into ObamaCare Exchanges if the greatest socialist redistribution plan ever conceived is to continue. "At the White House, health care implementation has become an obsession. Chief of Staff Denis McDonough spends two hours a day on Obamacare implementation, staffers said, and senior aides like Simas and Tara McGuinness, who joined the White House in April as a senior communications adviser, work on the issue nearly full-time. Hardly a week goes by without Obama finding some way to plug the effort as well. The reason: the law is increasingly unpopular. According to an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll released earlier this month, 49% of Americans now believe the law is a bad idea, the highest percentage recorded, with only 37% saying it is a good thing. Many states have already opted out of key provisions to expand Medicaid. In Washington, Republicans continue to lay siege to the law; they have voted to repeal it 37 times in the U.S. House."
Gary Edwards

California and Bust - by Michael Lewis | Vanity Fair - 0 views

  •  
    Incredibly well written article.  Simply awesome and totally engaging piece of well researched writing and story telling.  But wow what a sad story.  Still, if you want to understand California, and perhaps America, this is the living truth.  Sadly. intro excerpt: The smart money says the U.S. economy will splinter, with some states thriving, some states not, and all eyes are on California as the nightmare scenario. After a hair-raising visit with former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who explains why the Golden State has cratered, Michael Lewis goes where the buck literally stops-the local level, where the likes of San Jose mayor Chuck Reed and Vallejo fire chief Paige Meyer are trying to avert even worse catastrophes and rethink what it means to be a society.
Paul Merrell

Trump administration sues California over sanctuary laws | The Sacramento Bee - 0 views

  • The Trump administration on Tuesday sued California over its sanctuary policies for undocumented immigrants, setting off a chorus of near-unanimous defiance from California lawmakers.
  • The lawsuit, filed Tuesday evening in the U.S. Eastern District of California, marks a turning point in the ongoing battle between the Trump administration and state and local jurisdictions over how far cities and states can go to block their officers from enforcing federal immigration law. The suit targets three California laws – Senate Bill 54, Assembly bill 450 and Assembly bill 103 – that the federal government say violate the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution and interfere with the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
  • “The Trump administration is now going on the offense and is going to use any tools in its tool box to enforce immigration laws,” said a U.S. source who has spoken about the plans with senior administration officials. “They have no expectation in winning in District Court or the 9th Circuit. This is a case that is intended to be ultimately successful in the Supreme Court.”
Joe La Fleur

Destroying the California Dream - 0 views

  •  
    ONE PARTY ALONE HAS SPENT CALIFORNIA INTO BANKRUPTCY WONDER WHO?
Paul Merrell

Palestinian Civil Society Salutes California Dockworkers and Endorses their "Block-the-... - 0 views

  • Occupied Palestine, 7 October 2014 – The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society that leads the global BDS movement for Palestinian rights, warmly salutes the Oakland, California dockworkers and community activists for their inspiring new victory against the Israeli container ship Zim on 27 September 2014. As widely reported, community and trade union activists demonstrating against the recent Israeli massacre in Gaza have launched a 200-strong fresh picket at the Port of Oakland in California, preventing the Zim Shanghai from unloading its cargo. Heeding Palestinian civil society’s call from Gaza for intensifying BDS actions against Israel and its complicit companies and institutions, the “Block the Boat” campaign activists gathered at the port to prevent the Zim from offloading. Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU-Local 10) refused to unload the ship, citing “safety fears.” The 5 September Call from Gaza, issued by the BNC and the main trade and professional unions, women’s associations and mass movements in Gaza, called for: “Building effective direct action against Israel and Israeli companies, such as the inspiring Block the Boat actions that prevented Israeli ships from unloading in California and Seattle … .” Abdulrahman Abu Nahel, BNC coordinator in Gaza, commented on this fresh victory saying, “This success will further boost the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s ability to hold Israel to account for its siege of Gaza and other crimes committed against the Palestinian people.” “The dockworkers of ILWU-Local 10 and Oakland community activists are showing what effective, principled solidarity looks like. We deeply appreciate their ongoing support for our struggle for freedom, justice and equality,” added Abu Nahel.
  •  
    Note carefully that theBDS demonstrators blocking the Israeli ship from unloading included the Longshoreman and Warehouse Union. Same in Los Angeles a couple of days ago. The significance: During the South African apartied BDS movement, the involvement of the same union was the straw that broke South Africa's back and caused the U.S. government, the last nation still supporting South Africa, to drop its support. Very quickly, South Africa had a new government with Nelson Mandela as President. This may not be that critical added straw this time around, but BDS is getting very near critical mass.  
Paul Merrell

In groundbreaking resolution, California Democratic Party decries US support for Israel... - 0 views

  • News reports from the state party convention in Sacramento over the weekend were dominated by the likely (pending a painstaking review) close victory of machine guy Eric Bauman over insurgent Kimberly Ellis for state party chair. Overshadowed by those fireworks, though, Palestinian rights supporters steered to passage a groundbreaking resolution that puts California Democrats far ahead of the national and other state parties. The resolution starts by decrying the fact that despite occasional criticism of Israel’s ongoing occupation, successive U.S. administrations have failed to take “actual steps to change the status quo and bring about a real peace process.” It warns about inflammatory moves by the Trump administration and notes that they are encouraging even more illegal settlement building and anti-democratic measures by Israel’s government. Notably, the resolution does not pay lip service to the “two-state solution” mantra. Nor does it set a tone of symmetry in the existing relationship between Israel and Palestine, or prescribe better behavior by both sides equally.
  • nstead, it puts California Democrats on record as favoring “a U.S. policy that would work through the United Nations and other international bodies as well as with Israel and the representatives of the Palestinian people for a just peace based on full equality and security for Israeli Jews and Palestinians alike, human rights and international law.” And it quotes from Bernie Sanders’ 2016 message to AIPAC: “Peace also means security for every Palestinian. It means achieving self-determination, civil rights and economic well-being for the Palestinian people.” Finally, the resolution tackles the spate of campus crackdowns on Palestine rights advocates and federal and state legislative measures aimed at stigmatizing and suppressing criticism of Israel, especially through demonization of boycott and divestment campaigns: The party now “rejects any effort to restrict or discourage open public discourse on issues surrounding Israel and Palestine; disavows conflation of criticism of a country’s policies with hatred of its people; but also opposes anti-Semitic or Islamophobic language brought into the debate and opposes any attempt to restrict or penalize those who exercise their right to express their views through nonviolent action to effect change.”
1 - 20 of 183 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page