The Menendez endorsement might be the story today, but in New Jersey and elsewhere, there’s an older, more telling story—about economic decline.
The proportion of households in New Jersey that cannot afford daily necessities reached 38.5 percent in 2016, according to a report published by the non-profit charity United Way. These necessities include food, housing, transportation, medical care, child care, and a smartphone. The percentage of these households falling into this category has increased by 15 percent since 2010, the year that the recovery from the recession of 2008 is alleged to have begun.
This proportion of struggling households includes 10.5 percent who lived in poverty in 2016, along with an additional 28 percent in a category that the report calls “Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed” (ALICE). ALICE households, sometimes called the working poor, earn more than the federal poverty level. This official figure is absurdly low, especially in a state with a cost of living as high as New Jersey’s. Although not classed as poor, members of these households find themselves skipping meals, sharing rooms with friends or relatives, and forgoing regular doctor’s appointments.
United Way has tracked households in poverty and ALICE households every two years since 2010. The percentage of households in poverty has remained relatively stable, at 10.5 percent. The proportion of ALICE households, however, has increased steadily from 23.8 percent in 2010 to 28 percent in 2016. Rather than sharing in the much-touted economic recovery, these families have seen their situations worsen.
People aged 65 and older account for much of the growth in the number of ALICE households. From 2010 to 2016, the growth rate in the number of senior households (15 percent) and that in the number of senior ALICE households (12 percent) have been almost identical. “Even with Social Security benefits, 46 percent of New Jersey seniors have income below the ALICE Threshold,” according to the report.
People between ages 45 and 64 also have contributed to the growth in ALICE households overall. Although the number of households in this age group did not change significantly between 2010 and 2016, the number that earned less than the ALICE Threshold increased by 22 percent. “For a group in their prime earning years, it is surprising to see one-third (33 percent) with income below the ALICE Threshold,” said the researchers.
The percentage of households below the ALICE threshold increased from 2010 to 2016 in nearly all of the 20 largest cities in New Jersey. Clifton and Passaic are the two exceptions. Some of the greatest increases occurred in two of the towns that suffered most during and after Superstorm Sandy. In Toms River, ALICE households increased by 66 percent. In Sayreville, the increase was 31 percent.
But the factor that unites ALICE households is not gender, race, age, or location. “The data on ALICE households show that hardship in New Jersey exists across boundaries of race, age, and geography,” said the researchers. Rather, ALICE status is a problem of every section of the working class. “Today, ALICE workers primarily hold jobs in occupations that build and repair our infrastructure and educate and care for the workforce,” in the words of the report.
The report provides a detailed picture of the situation that workers face in New Jersey, which in turn reflects national trends. Low-wage jobs are the rule, rather than the exception. Approximately 51 percent of jobs in the state pay less than $20 per hour. What is worse, more than two-thirds of such jobs pay less than $15 per hour. About 36 percent of jobs pay between $20 and $40 per hour, a wage that is itself insufficient, in a state with housing that is among the most expensive in the country—to say nothing of New Jersey’s notoriously high property taxes.
Since 2010, the unemployment rate has fallen. Although capitalist economists would predict that wages would therefore rise, they have stayed low for most workers. In addition, job stability has decreased following companies’ growing reliance on contract work and on-demand jobs. Under these conditions, it is no surprise that many households are unable to meet expenses. The idea of saving money to establish even a modest financial cushion is unimaginable.
While wages have stayed low, the prices of everyday necessities in New Jersey have increased. From 2010 to 2016, the monthly cost of housing increased by 9 percent for a family of two adults, one infant, and one preschooler. The cost of childcare increased by 14 percent, the cost of food by 10 percent, the cost of transportation by 25 percent, and the cost of health care by an enormous 99 percent.
The cost of the family budget overall rose by 28 percent from 2010 to 2016, and by 16 percent for a single adult. These increases have occurred despite low national inflation (9 percent). In 2016, basic household expenses in New Jersey cost $74,748 for a family of four and $26,640 for a single adult. In contrast, the federal poverty level is a derisory $24,300 for a family of four and $11,880 for a single adult.
The data in the United Way report lay bare the ruling class’s intensified post-recession efforts to suppress wages and increase the rate of exploitation to produce greater profits. Construction workers and public employees such as teachers have been among the main victims in New Jersey. As the researchers themselves note, companies have transferred ever more risk to their workers, keeping wages low and schedules irregular, and making it difficult for workers to arrange for child care, let alone pay their bills.
The report also singles out “the increasing importance of short-term productivity gains” as a reason for the increase in ALICE households. On this subject, it is worth quoting the report at length:
Instead of sharing gains in productivity with employees, companies have chosen to spend more on capital and, more recently, on profits and dividends to increase stock prices. Since most corporate leaders’ compensation is directly linked to stock prices, they have benefited hugely from this practice; the compensation of top US executives has doubled or tripled since the first half of the 1990s, while workers’ wages have remained flat.
The report thus documents the shift to an economy dominated by financial parasitism. This is not a simple matter of “choice” by companies opting for greed, however. It is part of the structure of global capitalism. Far from being unique to New Jersey, this shift can be observed throughout the country and the world.
San Francisco: Now so bad,
it'll make you cry
Twentieth-century San
Francisco, Herb Caen's beloved Baghdad by the Bay, has ceased to
exist. It has been replaced by a city where the sidewalks around
Market Street are, in places, caked in feces, urine, and vomit. The
stink as you emerge from the BART batters you like frozen sleet, shocking and
overwhelming. The hordes of homeless, sprawled in doorways and sleeping on the
sidewalks, are a bitterly eclectic mixture of the mentally deranged; burnt out
druggies; dead-eyed hippies; con artists; pickpockets; and hundreds of simply
lost, forgotten souls.
I had occasion to visit downtown
San Francisco this afternoon, the first time in over seven years, though I
reside only thirty miles away in the East Bay suburbs. During my
working life, I have commuted to San Francisco as a bushy-tailed junior
executive in the '70s, as a small business-owner in the early '80s, and as a
corporate executive in the '90s. Thankfully, "Old" San
Francisco really was a wonderful place to work, eat, and play.
As I walked the three blocks
back to the BART, I was panhandled four times, plus two clumsy pickpocket
attempts. I didn't see a single cop in a car or on
foot. What could they do?
What finally broke my heart
were the kids and women, also lying in the streets, drugged, shell-shocked,
begging for food. I found an ATM, took out some cash, and bought twenty
five-dollar "Arch Cards" from McDonald's and passed them
out. The salty tears flowed gently down my face and onto my
lips. My soul, my humanity was abused, sickened, and disgusted.
Today I observed a city that
carefully and deliberately schemed to become an open sewer. This is
far beyond simple incompetence. The magnitude and pervasiveness of
this horror remains indescribable. No rational, thinking person, or
board, or mayor could allow this societal abomination to continue unabated in a
first-world country.
Yet it does.
San Francisco willingly
hosts a malignant cancer that has metastasized and destroyed all aspects of a
civilized, compassionate society.
While skyscrapers still fill
the skyline, and tankers and giant container ships still prowl the bay, the
City-by-the-Bay soul has begun its death rattle.
The Hollowing-Out of the California Dream
For minorities in the Golden State, opportunity and upward
mobility are hard to come by.
July 26, 2018
California
Economy, finance, and budgets
Its political leaders and
a credulous national media present California as the “woke” state, creating an
economically just, post-racial reality. Yet in terms of opportunity, California
is evolving into something more like apartheid South Africa or the pre-civil
rights South. California simply does not measure up in delivering educational
attainment, income growth, homeownership, and social mobility for traditionally
disadvantaged minorities. All this bodes ill for a state already three-fifths
non-white and trending further in that direction in the years ahead. In the
past decade, the state has added 1.8 million Latinos, who will account by 2060
for almost half the state’s
population. The black population has plateaued, while the number of white
Californians is down some 700,000 over the past decade.
Minorities and immigrants
have brought much entrepreneurial energy and a powerful work ethic to
California. Yet, to a remarkable extent, their efforts have reaped only meager
returns during California’s recent boom. California, suggests gubernatorial
candidate and environmental activist Michael Shellenberger, is not “the most
progressive state” but “the most racist” one. Chapman University reports that 28
percent of California’s blacks are impoverished, compared with 22 percent
nationally. Fully one-third of California
Latinos—now the state’s largest ethnic group—live in poverty, compared with 21
percent outside the state. Half of Latino households earn under
$50,000 annually, which, in a high-cost state, means that they barely make
enough to make ends meet. Over two-thirds of non-citizen Latinos, the group
most loudly defended by the state’s progressive leadership, live at or below
the poverty line, according to a recent United Way study.
This stagnation reflects
the reality of the most recent California “miracle.” Historically, economic
growth extended throughout the state, and produced many high-paying blue-collar
jobs. In contrast, the post-2010 boom has been inordinately dependent on the
high valuations of a handful of tech firms and coastal real estate speculation.
Relatively few blacks or Latinos participate at the upper reaches of the tech
economy—and a recent study suggests that their
percentages in that sector are declining—and generally lack the family
resources to compete in the real estate market. Instead, many are stuck with
rents they can’t afford.
Even as incomes soared in
the Silicon Valley and San Francisco after 2010, wages for African-Americans
and Latinos in the Bay Area declined. The shift of employment from industrial to software industries, as well
as the extraordinary presence—as much as 40 percent—of noncitizens in the tech
industry, has meant fewer opportunities for assemblers and other blue-collar
workers. Many nonwhite Americans labor in the service sector as security guards or janitors, making
about $25,000 annually, working for contractors who offer no job security and
only limited benefits. In high-priced Silicon Valley, these are essentially
poverty wages. Some workers live in their cars, converted garages, or even on
the streets, largely ignored by California’s famously enlightened oligarchs.
CityLab has described the
Bay Area as “a region of segregated innovation.” TheGiving Code, which reports on
charitable trends among the ultra-rich, found that between 2006 and 2013, 93
percent of all private foundation-giving in Silicon Valley went to causes
outside of Silicon Valley. Better to be a whale, or a distressed child in
Africa or Central America, than a worker living in his car outside Google
headquarters.
For generations,
California’s racial minorities, like their Caucasian counterparts, embraced the
notion of an American Dream that included owning a house. Unlike kids from wealthy families—primarily white—who can
afford elite educations and can sometimes purchase houses with parental
help, Latinos and blacks, usually without much in the way of family resources,
are increasingly priced out of the market. In California, Hispanics and
blacks face housing prices that are approximately twice the national average,
relative to income. Unsurprisingly, African-American and Hispanic homeownership
rates have dropped considerably more than those of Asians and whites—four times
the rate in the rest of the country. California’s white homeownership rate
remains above 62 percent, but just 42 percent of all Latino households, and
only 33 percent of all black households, own their own homes.
In contrast,
African-Americans do far better, in terms of income and homeownership, in
places like Dallas-Fort Worth or greater Houston than in socially enlightened
locales such as Los Angeles or San Francisco. Houston and Dallas boast black
homeownership rates of 40 to 50 percent; in deep blue but much costlier Los
Angeles and New York, the rate is about 10 percentage points lower.
Rather than achieving
upward class mobility, many minorities in California have fallen down the class
ladder. This can be seen in California’s overcrowding rate, the nation’s
second-worst. Of the 331 zip codes making up the top 1 percent of overcrowded
zip codes in the U.S., 134 are found in Southern California, primarily in
greater Los Angeles and San Diego, mostly concentrated around heavily Latino
areas such as Pico-Union, East Los Angeles, and Santa Ana, in Orange County.
The lack of affordable
housing and the disappearance of upward mobility could create a toxic racial
environment for California. By the 2030s, large swaths of the state,
particularly along the coast, could evolve into a geriatric belt, with an
affluent, older boomer population served by a largely minority service-worker
class. As white and Asian boomers age, California increasingly will have
to depend on children from
mainly poorer families with fewer educational resources, living in crowded and
even unsanitary conditions, often far from their place of employment, to
work for low wages.
Historically, education
has been the lever that gives minorities and the poor access to opportunity.
But in California, a state that often identifies itself as “smart,” the
educational system is deeply flawed, especially for minority populations. Once
a model of educational success, California now ranks 36th in the country in
educational performance, according to a 2018 Education Weekreport. The state does
have a strong sector of “gold and silver” public schools, mostly located in
wealthy suburban locations such as Orange County, the interior East Bay, and
across the San Francisco Peninsula. But the performance of schools in heavily
minority, working-class areas is scandalously poor. The state’s powerful
teachers’ union and the Democratic legislature have added $31.2 billion since
2013 in new school funding, but California’s poor students ranked 49th on
National Assessment of Education Progress tests. In Silicon Valley, half of
local public school students, and barely one in five blacks or Latinos, are proficient in basic
math.
Clearly, California’s
progressive ideology and spending priorities are not serving minority students
well. High-poverty schools are so poorly run that disruptions from students and
administrative interruptions, according to a UCLA study, account for 30 minutes
a day of class time. Teachers in these schools often promote “progressive
values,” spending much of their time, according to one writer, “discussing community
problems and societal inequities.” Other priorities include transgender and
other gender-relatededucation, from which
parents, in some school districts, cannot opt out. This ideological instruction
is doing little for minority youngsters. San Francisco, which the nonprofit
journalism site Calmatters refers to as “a
progressive enclave and beacon for technological innovation,” also had “the
lowest black student achievement of any county in California,” as well as the
highest gap between black and white scores.
Ultimately, any reversal
of this pattern must come from minorities demanding a restoration of
opportunity. Some now see the linkage between state policy and impoverishment,
which has led some 200 civil rights leaders to sue the state Air Resources Board, the group that enforces
the Greenhouse Gas edicts of the state bureaucracy. But perhaps the ultimate
wakeup call will come from a slowing economy. After an extraordinary period of
growth post-recession, California’s economy is clearly weakening, as companies and
people move elsewhere. Texas and other states are now experiencing faster GDP growth than the
Golden State. Perhaps more telling, the latest BEA numbers suggest that
California—which created barely 800 jobs last month—is now experiencing far lower income growth than the national
average, and scarcely half that of Texas, Colorado, Michigan, Arizona, Missouri,
or Florida. Out-migration of skilled and
younger workers, reacting to long commutes and high prices, seems to be accelerating, both in Southern
California and the Bay Area.
One has to wonder what
will happen when the California economy, burdened by regulations, high costs,
and taxes, slows even more. Generous welfare benefits, made possible by taxing
the rich, could be threatened; conversely, the Left might get traction by
pushing to raise taxes even higher. The pain will be relatively minor in Palo
Alto, Malibu, or Marin County, the habitations of the ruling gentry rich—but
for those Californians who have already been left behind, and for a diminishing
middle class, it might be just beginning.
CALIFORNIA DMV GIVES ILLEGAL VOTERS A
SURGE
“New” and “underrepresented” voters could spell victory for leftist
Democrats in November.
September
12, 2018
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.
Under a 2015 voter registration law, the DMV automatically
registered to vote those who obtain or renew a California driver’s license.
As Padilla told the Los
Angeles Times, “We’ve
built the protocols and the firewalls to not register people that aren’t
eligible. We’re going to keep those firewalls in place.” The Democrats’
Secretary of State did not explain how the firewalls worked and if any
ineligibles had managed to vote.
After the 2016 election in which Donald Trump defeated Hillary
Clinton, Padilla refused to release any voter information to a federal probe
that he claimed “has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of
Californians voted illegally.” California’s participation, Padilla said in a statement, “would
only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter
fraud made by the president.”
Governor Jerry Brown, who three times ran for president, calls
Californians “the citizens of the fifth largest economy in the world,” and the sanctuary state law protects even violent criminal
illegals. The ruling Democrats protect illegals while promising them “free”
health care and other benefits. In return, the illegals vote for Democrats.
“Palestinian-Mexican American” candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar, is
the grandson of Black September terrorist Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, who
masterminded the murder and mutilation of 11 Israelis at the Munich Olympics in
1972. The Democrat, 29, is depending on “underrepresented voters,” to unseat Rep. Duncan Hunter in San Diego.
Legitimate voters have good reason to consider “underrepresented”
as code for “ineligible” or “illegal.” For their part, legal citizens and
immigrants might wonder how the Munichian candidate’s father managed to enter the United States and what the family was
doing in Gaza for several years. Ammar isn’t telling and establishment journalists
look the other way.
Senate boss Kevin de León, whose name on his birth certificate voter rolls is Kevin
Alexander Leon, claims
his father is a Chinese cook born in Guatemala. The author of the state’s
sanctuary law spent time on both sides of the border and “identifies strongly
with Mexican culture.” The story defies belief but as with Najjar the
establishment media mounted no investigation.
Back in 1996 in Orange County, 442 illegals voted for Loretta Sanchez, the Democrat who narrowly defeated Republican Robert Dornan.
He was the target of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional founder
Bert Corona, a violent Stalinist who opposed Dornan’s strong anti-Communist
stance.
Despite Democrat denials, voter fraud was going strong in
California long before the DMV registered more than one million
false-documented illegals. It’s a safe bet that most if not all those
ineligibles will be showing up at the polls in November.
The Once 'Golden State' Is Badly Tarnished
With crime soaring, rampant homelessness,
sanctuary state status attracting the highest illegal immigrant population in
the country and its “worst
state in the U.S. to do business” ranking for
more than a decade, California and its expansive, debt-ridden, progressive
government is devolving into a third-world country. In cities such as San
Francisco, public defecation is legal,
drug use is flagrant, and tent cities are designated biohazards. In once
pristine San
Diego, contractors have been
spraying down homeless encampments with household bleach to stave off a
hepatitis A epidemic. The so-called “Golden State,” which now has the
highest poverty
rate in the nation, is
tarnished beyond recognition with such serious problems that the sublime
climate and striking coastline may no longer be enough to sustain its
reputation and cachet. With laws that benefit criminals and illegals, big
government that endeavors to control every aspect of residents’ lives from
plastic bags to straws; sanctioned street, tent, and vehicle dwelling; and an
unaffordable overhyped bullet train boondoggle that will cost taxpayers
almost $100
billion, California is headed for
economic disaster.
Rising Crime
In the past few years, California has
instituted criminal justice reform legislation and initiatives, ostensibly to
reduce budget expenditures and prison overcrowding, which has led invariably to
the release of more criminals into the state’s population.
- Proposition
47, a referendum passed in 2014,
reclassified certain drug possession felonies to misdemeanors and required
misdemeanor sentencing for theft when the amount involved is $950 or less.
Drug possession for personal use is now considered a misdemeanor.
- Proposition
57, a statewide ballot proposition
passed in 2016, changed parole policies for those convicted of nonviolent
felonies. But the proposition failed to define “nonviolent crimes”. The
result was that those committing “nonviolent” crimes such as rape of an
unconscious or intoxicated person, assault of a police office, domestic
violence, hostage taking, drive-by shootings, and human trafficking of a
child became eligible for early parole based on a paper review in lieu of
a parole hearing.
- Assembly
Bill 1448 and Assembly
Bill 1308 allow for the early release of
prisoners who are 60 years or older who have served at least 25 years of
their sentence and prisoners who committed crimes at least 25 years or
younger who have served at least 15 years, respectively. Both were signed
into law by Governor Jerry Brown in 2017.
- In
June this year, Gov. Brown signed into law AB
1810, that gives defendants a chance to
have their charges dismissed and evidence of their arrest erased from the
record if they can convince a judge that they suffer from a treatable
mental disorder. Such defendants could be offered a pretrial diversion of
two years to undergo mental health treatment.
As may have been expected with lenient
policies, violent crime and property crime rates in the state increased and
will mostly likely soar in the aftermath of some of the newly implemented
measures. An FBI study of crime rates from 2014 to 2015 found that 48 California
cities saw overall increases with 24 experiencing increases in the double
digits for property crime, an increase directly attributable to Prop. 47,
according to Marc Debbaudt, past president of the Association of Los Angeles
Deputy District Attorneys.
Homelessness
As of 2017, California had a homeless population of over 134,000, or one
quarter of the nation’s homeless. UCLA researcherWilliam
Yu notedthat 26% of California’s
homeless are severely mentally ill, 18% are chronic drug abusers, 9% are
veterans and 24% are victims of domestic abuse. Orange County Supervisor, Tod
Spitzer attributes much of the problem
to legislation signed by Governor Jerry Brown over the past few years that
markedly decreased the penalties for drug use, possession, and petty crimes,
thereby reducing arrests and eliminating mandatory treatment for drug abuse and
mental health treatment.
Where other states have successfully
instituted welfare-to-work programs, California’s liberal government has resisted
pro-work reforms and retained
a system of cash disbursements with no strings attached. This has led to a
state bureaucracy that continues to grow and expand its budget, staffing, and
client base. Inordinately high housing prices, somewhat driven by restrictive
land use and environmental regulations, have exacerbated the problem.
Civil rights organizations such as the
ACLU have made the homelessness issue a difficult one to tackle. In 2003, the
ACLU filed
a lawsuit, Jones v. City of
Los Angeles, on behalf of homeless people who were ticketed and arrested
for sleeping on public sidewalks at night. In 2006, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled on the lawsuit by striking down the Los Angeles ordinance that
made it a crime for homeless people to sleep on the streets when no shelter is
available. Not only is it permissible to pitch a tent in many areas in the
state but also vehicle
dwelling is allowed in Los
Angeles residential areas from 6:00 a.m. to 9 p.m. and in business and
industrial areas from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.
Illegal Immigration
California, a sanctuary
state, is home to at least 4
million illegal immigrants and their children. National
Economics Editorial, a website that covers
economic issues, has estimated that those in the state illegally contribute
$3.5 billion in taxes while costing California approximately $30.3 billion
annually, or 17.7% of the state budget. According to the Migration
Policy Institute (MPI), more than
half are unskilled, uneducated, and lack English proficiency.
Services
to illegals include welfare, food
stamps, meal programs, free immunizations, low-cost housing and in-state
tuition rates. In addition, children of illegals make up 18% of the
public-school population, straining the already burdened school system by
increasing student-to-teacher ratios and by impeding the learning process with
supplemental, English-language instruction.
Unchecked illegal immigration comes with a
marked increase
in crime rates. Those who have broken the
law to come to the United States are overrepresented in murder charges, drug
trafficking, and gang violence. Increased policing, court, and incarceration
costs put additional strain on the justice syste. In 2014, the U.S.
Department of Justice and U.S. Sentencing Commission reported that illegal immigrants committed over 13% of all U.S.
crime, and a particularly high level of violent and drug-related crimes,
according to criminologist and law enforcement expert Ron Martinelli. A
substantial illegal immigrant population coupled with a policy signed by
Governor Jerry Brown in 2014 that protects criminal illegal immigrants by
reducing their sentences to fall below federal standards for deportation
further aggravates the problem. This, at a time when59%
of Californians want to
increase deportations of illegals.
In a measure that would add to costs and
incentivize illegal entry, California gubernatorial candidate, Gavin Newsom,
plans to issue an Executive Order to grant universal healthcare, if elected.
Former governor Pete
Wilson warns that a system that
removes all market-based competition could produce annual budget shortfalls of
$40 billion, add six million illegals to the healthcare rolls, encourage
medical tourism, and restrict the range of care and increase waiting times for
California citizens. The resulting elimination of competitive private sector
health care options would mean that more businesses and sources of tax revenue
will leave the state.
Poor Business Climate
In 2014, Chief Executive magazine quoted
CEO comments like “California
goes out of its way to be anti-business,” “California continues to lead in
disincentives for growth businesses to stay,” and “The regulatory, tax and
political environment are crushing.” California’s reputation as the worst state
to do business has a lot to do with its high tax rates. In addition to
having the highest
state income tax in the nation, it
has the highest
sales tax rate, the 9th highest corporate
income tax rate, one of the
highest property tax rates and the highest gasoline
tax rate. Yet, with a shortfall
of $612 billion when future
pensions, bond repayments and other debts are added to the budget shortfall,
the state is drowning in debt, more than twice as much debt as any other state.
In addition, the cost of living is 36% higher than the national rate, and, at 23.4%,
California has the highest poverty rate in the nation, according to former California Assemblyman Steve
Baldwin.
California, a world leader in technology,
entertainment, agriculture, and a past global trendsetter in culture and
innovation, has been dominated for decades by a government made up of far-left
ideologues. These so-called "progressives" have supported an
ever-growing and onerous regulatory climate that effectively redistributes
wealth by adding to an already burdensome rate of taxation and expanding
entitlement programs. Given the current business environment and policies on
crime, homelessness, and illegal entry that are likely to continue, the once
“Golden State” could become a failed state in short order if left
unchecked. In the words of Steve Baldwin, “A state cannot chase away the producers and attract the takers
year after year without economic consequences.”
No
Justice for Taxpaying Americans
By Howie Carr
The Boston Herald, August 08, 2018
But the real double standard kicks in when the
undocumented Democrat gets to the courtroom. A taxpaying American can only
dream of the kid-gloves treatment these Third World fiends get.
Here’s a 2016 headline: “If Springfield market
owner illegally cashing food stamps had been U.S. citizen punishment would have
been greater, judge says.”
This one involved a 56-year-old Dominican bodega
owner who was running an EBT-card scam for illegal immigrants in Springfield —
stop me if you’ve heard this one before. He stole $38,000 and didn’t do a day
in jail. As Judge Tina Page said, “Had he been a citizen of the U.S. he would
in all likelihood be serving a substantial sentence.”
But if he’d been imprisoned he’d have been
deported, and God knows we don’t want to deport Dominican welfare fraudsters —
or Dominican heroin dealers.
Freeing Dominican heroin dealers (and future cop
killers) is the specialty of Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley, who cut loose
a Dominican heroin dealer with no prison time, as the prosecutor put it, “to
help him avoid deportation.”
Are you starting to notice a pattern here?
Sometimes law-abiding taxpayers get murdered because of this double standard of
justice for welfare-collecting noncitizens.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/howie_carr/2018/08/carr_no_justice_for_taxpaying_americans
Get rid of 40 million looting Mexicans and we resolve our
housing and jobs crisis and end the $150 billion Mex welfare state in our open
borders!
Our government is too busy easing illegals over the borders!
THE NEW PRIVILEGED CLASS: Illegals!
This is why you work From Jan - May paying taxes to the government
....with the rest of the calendar year is money for you and your family.
Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children.
He takes a job for
$5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no
income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, with
his fake Social Security number, he gets an "earned income credit" of
up to $3,200..... free.
He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent.
He qualifies for food stamps.
He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health
care.
His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.
He requires bilingual teachers and books.
He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.
If they are or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for
SSI.
Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare. All of this
is at (our) taxpayer's expense.
He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or
homeowners insurance.
Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed
material.
He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour
in benefits.
Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after
Paying their bills and his.
The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and
trash clean-up.
Cheap labor? YEAH RIGHT! Wake up people!
July 27,
2018
The Blue-State Housing
Bubble
Another housing bubble is beginning to
burst. Its financial characteristics are different from the 2007-8
housing bubble but it shares one thing in common -- that it is caused by
government policies.
The 2007 bubble was caused by the Federal
government insisting on home loan qualification standards changes. Buyers
who were not qualified to obtain traditional home loans were encouraged and
even subsidized to get loans in states such as IL, CA, NJ, PA, and all other
areas. The details of these changes were documented by Pinto and Wallison.
The bubble burst because the easy money
home loan qualification changes created two prongs of financial instability: 1)
persons who were not qualified were allowed to obtain mortgages and 2) the easy
money policies rapidly escalated home prices and placed many mortgage holders
underwater when the artificially high housing prices crashed.
This bubble now being created in the biggest
Blue states, while being driven by government policy, has a completely
different financial dynamic. This dynamic is best understood by looking
at the financial condition of Illinois.
The financial insolvency of Illinois is
directly linked to its public-sector pension system. The unfunded public
pension liability of the state is $251
billion. But that one fact is
only part of the story. In addition to having this unfunded pension
liability, the state now dedicates one-fourth of its annual state budget to
pension costs. In order to finance the ongoing demands of the public pension
system (Illinois has 650 pension plans throughout the state) the state seizes
state grant money and state funds lawfully appropriated to pay for public
services throughout the state and puts those into the pension fund located
in the state capital, Springfield. Since there are 4.8 million households
in Illinois the average household owes $52,269 to the unfunded pension costs,
and these go up every hour. And in addition to that one-fourth of
the Illinois state budget goes to pensions.
The amount of money the state has seized
from public services can be seen by the fact that in 2016 the state owed
vendors $15.9 billion and another $2.8
billionwas seized from funds
allocated to pay for health care vendors. This means the state literally
seizes lawfully appropriated funds from state-mandated health care programs
such as nursing homes and medication and places them in its pension fund.
Illinois has two state
statutes that allow the state to
seize both state grant money passed by the General Assembly allocated for state
grants and another statute that allows the pension fund to seize state
funds.
In addition to these seized state funds,
the Illinois Policy Institute, a watchdog group in Illinois, audited all
110-plus cities of Illinois and found that in the ten biggest cities, including
Chicago, all the property taxes people pay go only to pay pensions, not to fund
public services such as water and sewer, police and fire protection, and other
essential services.
The core issue then is whether the demand
for property-tax revenue made by the public pension plans will have an effect
on housing values, and if this effect will be strong enough to create a housing
bubble.
The best illustration of the current
housing bubble can be seen with a specific example. I know a person on
the northwest side of Chicago, a middle-class neighborhood, who recently
received, in his July 2018 property tax bill, a raise of $10,000 on his annual
tax payment. This was not a raise in the assessed value of his house,
this was a raise in the tax that is due. The house is 2,200 square feet
and since the owner now wants to sell the house, it was recently assessed as
having a fair market value of $348,000. Before this $10K property tax
increase, the property tax bill of the house was already at $13,800. So
if anyone wants to buy a house worth $348,000 they have to pay $1,983 per month
in property taxes. The mortgage will be about $1,350. per month, so the
total payment will be $3,333 a month for a house worth $348K. And each
year the property tax will only go up.
What this means is that anyone who buys
this house will already be paying a 7% property tax rate on the market value of
the house. That monthly property tax bill normally is for a house worth
$1.2 million dollars at a 2% property tax rate. No matter how one looks
at this, it is foolish for a person to pay a property tax bill for a $348K
house when at a 2% tax rate they could have a house worth $1.2 million.
While this is a quick back-of-the-envelope financial analysis, the trend is
clear: Illinois has the highest tax burden of any state.
This is the bubble: homeowners are losing
most, if not all, of the equity they have in their homes. And once again
it is being done by government. This time it is not the federal
government that is changing home mortgage loan lending standards but the
Illinois state pension fund that is literally seizing home equity value to pay
their pension demands. And while this is happening, Illinois wastes over
one billion dollars on
interest needed to service what
they've borrowed.
To understand how great the demand for tax
revenue is in Illinois consider the fact that the largest pensions go to
retirees from SURS the State University Retirement System. The actual
facts from Taxpayers
United show that of the 200 top
pensions going to university retirees, the lowest is $199,000 per year and the highest is
$581,000 a year. This is not a projection, this is the information from 2017.
To finance these pensions, young people who take out student loans are also
seeing a drop in their long-term incomes. The Illinois Policy Institute
reported that in Illinois public universities, half of the tuition
goes to pensions. So when
students graduate from an Illinois public university, half their monthly student
loan payment will go to extravagant pensions, and the voters of Illinois have
no say in these pensions.
This means these graduates have less money
to purchase a home. As a result, the young people in Illinois are the
largest age group that is fleeing the state. They see the writing on the wall
and cannot imagine they could ever afford a home and family in Illinois. More
than 80%
of Illinois counties saw population
losses in 2017.
The bubble is bursting right now in
Illinois and in CA, PA, MA, CT, NJ, NY, and all other big Blue states.
California alone has a half-trillion-dollar unfunded pension
liability. The financial mechanics are the same and cannot be stopped.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.
U.S. Election Meddling: Nationwide Voter Fraud, Importation of 15M
Foreign-Born Voters
Shelby Lum, Richmond
Times-Dispatch via The Associated Press
19 Jul 2018Washington, D.C.
As
the establishment media, GOP, and Democrats fret over the influence foreign
countries have on U.S. elections, the leading threats to the American
electorate remain nationwide voter fraud and mass immigration.
Though President Trump’s administration sought to thoroughly investigate
voter fraud through the
Presidential Commission on Election Integrity, the board
was handed off to the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in order to bypass obstruction from
national Democrats who refused to turn over voter data.
Voter Fraud
The number of convictions against voter fraud continues to rise, with now
nearly 940 criminal convictions on the books across the U.S., according to the
latest data from the
Heritage Foundation.
Likewise, the
number of cases of voter fraud has risen. Heritage’s Voter Fraud Database now
features 1,071 cases of voter fraud that spans across 47 states.
In the most recent study by the
Government Accountability Institute (GAI) on voter fraud, the think tank
found 8,471 high likely cases of double voting. About 7,271 of those
cases were inter-state double voting, while the remaining 1,200 cases were
of intra-state double voting.
“The
probability of correctly matching two records with the same name, birthdate,
and social security number is close to 100 percent,” the GAI report noted.
Kansas Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate
Kris Kobach is fighting in his state to enforce voting laws that would mandate
voters prove their U.S. citizenship. This effort has currently been
halted by the left-wing ACLU organization and a circuit judge who recently
claimed that it was unconstitutional for a state to demand voters provide
their U.S. citizenship records. Years ago, proof of citizenship voting laws
were upheld as fully constitutional.
“Compare
[Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential campaigns] to the kind of foreign
influence in the actual election numbers in foreign nationals voting,” Kobach
told Breitbart News. “That’s real and much more consequential and it’s
happening all over the country.”
Kobach said
his expert witness in the suit with the ACLU over the proof of citizenship law
revealed that as many as 33,000 foreign nationals are on the voter rolls in
Kansas. For states like California, with the largest foreign-born population in
the country, the number of foreign nationals on the voter rolls is likely in
the hundreds of thousands or even the millions, Kobach says.
Mass Immigration
Similarly, mass legal and illegal immigration to the U.S. continues to be
the largest driver of population increases and demographic shifts in the
country. Every year, more than 1.5 million immigrants are admitted to the
country. The U.S. has imported more than ten million immigrants in the
last decade.
The vast
majority of foreign nationals arrive through the process known as “chain
migration,” where newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of
foreign relatives to the U.S. Every two new immigrants to the country bring an
additional seven foreign relatives with them.
As Breitbart News has extensively reported, the U.S. is
on track to import about 15 million foreign-born voters by the year 2038. That
is nearly quadruple the size of the annual number of U.S. births; about
four million American babies are born every year.
Through chain
migration alone, the U.S. will import about eight million foreign-born voters
in the next two decades.
The country’s
continued mass immigration policies are likely to hand over electoral dominance
to Democrats in statewide and national elections, Breitbart News has noted.
Analysis
conducted by Axios’s Chris Canipe and Andrew Witherspoon shows the overwhelming
trend of foreign-born populations voting Democrats into office over
Republicans.
The victory of
socialist Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York’s 14th District is the
latest case where a booming foreign-born voting population pushed the far-left
activist over the edge to beat out establishment, high ranking Democrat Rep.
Joe Crowley.
Ocasio-Cortez’s district is close to 50 percent foreign-born, a drastic
shift of an area that was once populated primarily by native-born Americans.
Ocasio-Cortez ran her congressional campaign on abolishing all
immigration enforcement across the U.S.
In California,
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is facing a challenge from State Senator
Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), and the California Democratic Party has
endorsed León. The far-left challenger was the key proponent of
California’s sanctuary state law that protects criminal illegal aliens from
being deported.
University of Maryland, College Park researcher James Gimpel
has found in
recent years that more immigrants to the U.S. inevitably means more Democrat
voters and thus, increasing electoral victories for the Democratic Party.
In 2014,
Gimpel’s research concluded with three major findings:
·
Immigrants, particularly Hispanics and Asians, have policy preferences
when it comes to the size and scope of government that are more closely aligned
with progressives than with conservatives. As a result, survey data show a
two-to-one party identification with Democrats over Republicans.
·
By increasing income inequality and adding to the low-income population
(e.g. immigrants and their minor children account for one-fourth of those in
poverty and one-third of the uninsured) immigration likely makes all voters
more supportive of redistributive policies championed by Democrats to support
disadvantaged populations.
·
There is evidence that immigration may cause more Republican-oriented
voters to move away from areas of high immigrant settlement leaving behind a
more lopsided Democrat majority.
Years ago,
only a handful of elected Democrats would mention how the demographic shift
spurred by mass immigration was a benefit to Democrats electorally. Today, it
is a widely used talking point of elected Democrats.
Take San
Antonio, Texas Mayor Julian Castro, for example. Months ago, Castro admitted
that immigration could potentially turn the state of Texas, Florida, and
Arizona into Democrat strongholds, like California.
“The Democrats
have now become very open about what they are doing and they state it very
clearly,” Kobach said of the Democrats’ use of immigration for shifting the
electorate.
“Now, multiple
Democrats are saying their plan is to import new voters to change elections,”
Kobach said.
In an analysis from Georgetown University, the
University of California, and Banque de France, researchers discovered
that immigration to the country continuously increases Democrats’ chances of
winning elections:
On average across election types,
immigration to the U.S. has a significant and negative impact on the Republican
vote share, consistent with the typical view of political analysts in the U.S.
[Emphasis added]
This average effect – which is driven by elections in the House – works
through two main channels. The impact of immigration on
Republican votes in the House is negative when the share of naturalized
migrants in the voting population increases. Yet, it can be
positive when the share of non-citizen migrants out of the population goes up
and the size of migration makes it a salient policy issue in voters’ minds.
[Emphasis added]
These results are consistent with
naturalized migrants being less likely to vote for the Republican Party than
native voters and with native voters’ political preferences moving towards the
Republican Party because of high immigration of non-citizens. This second
effect, however, is significant only for very high levels of immigrant
presence. [Emphasis added]
In 2016, the legal and illegal immigrant population reached a record high
of 44 million. By 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant
population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S.
population.
Mexico has the
largest group of legal and illegal foreign nationals in the U.S., with 1.1
million immigrants from the country arriving in the U.S. between 2010 and 2016.
Mexican nationals make up roughly one in eight new arrivals to the U.S. On
average, every one Mexican immigrant brings six foreign relatives with them to
the country through chain migration.
John Binder is a
reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
CRIMINALS WIN BIG IN CALIFORNIA
SANCTUARY RULING
Bush appointee
upholds protections for false-documented illegals.
July
9, 2018
U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez, an
appointee of George W. Bush, ruled that the state could not prevent private
employers from denying federal immigration authorities from worksites. Mendez
found that AB 450 “which imposes monetary penalties on an employer solely
because that employer voluntarily consents to federal immigration enforcement’s
entry into nonpublic areas of their place of business or access to their
employment records impermissibly discriminates against those who choose to deal
with the federal government.”
On the other hand, Mendez upheld the law’s
requirement that companies inform workers within 72 hours of any federal
request to examine employment records. So in the style of Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf, employers can still provide lookout services for
false-documented illegals.
Mendez denied the federal request against
SB 54, the state’s sanctuary law. As author Kevin de Leon told reporters,
“today, a federal judge made clear what I’ve known all along, that SB 54, the
California Values Act is constitutional and does not conflict with federal law.
California is under no obligation to assist Trump tear apart families. We cannot
stop his mean-spirited immigration policies, but we don’t have to help him, and
we won’t.”
As Mendez ruled, “refusing to help is not
the same as impeding.” The federal judge also upheld AB 103, allowing the state
attorney general to inspect detention facilities. Current attorney general
Xavier Becerra, once on Hillary Clinton’s short list as a running mate
and a key player in the Democrats’ IT scandal, proclaimed, “The Constitution gives the people of California,
not the Trump Administration, the power to decide how we will provide for our
public safety and general welfare.”
Californians had a right to wonder about
the “safety” part. In this 2-1 split decision the biggest winners are criminal
illegals.
Senate Bill 54, the Bee report
noted, “has eliminated much of the discretionary power that local law
enforcement previously had to privately share information with federal
immigration agents about people who have been arrested and put in county
jails.” So despite the protestations of hereditary, recurring governor Jerry
Brown, California is protecting criminal illegals. With that in mind,
legitimate citizens might look ahead to the November election.
Brown, a three-time presidential loser,
recently signed off on a budget that spends tens of millions of dollars to help
illegals fight efforts to deport them. This includes some $45 million in legal
services steered to state colleges, and $10 million to help younger illegals,
including “undocumented migrants.” This outlandish spending is hardly the
state’s only way to privilege false-document illegals.
A 2015 law, “streamlines” the process of
voter registration and kicks in when someone gets a driver’s license at the
DMV. As of March, 2018, more than one million illegals have received licenses.
Secretary of state Alex Padilla touts “firewall” protections against ineligible
voters. This is the same official who refused to cooperate with a federal
probe of voter fraud, so legal residents and taxpayers have good reason to
wonder what he is hiding.
Senate boss Kevin de Leon, author of SB
54, is on record that half his family would be eligible for deportation under
Trump’s executive order because they used false Social Security cards and other
bogus identification. In his own case, as Christopher Cadelago of the Sacramento Bee explains, “The name on his birth certificate isn’t Kevin de León.”
On his birth certificate and voter rolls,
“the 50-year-old politician is Kevin Alexander Leon,” born on December 10, 1966
at California Hospital on South Hope Street in Los Angeles. The birth
certificate “describes his father, Andres Leon, as a 40-year-old cook whose
race was Chinese and whose birthplace was Guatemala. De León’s mother, Carmen
Osorio, was also born in Guatemala, the document states.” As a child, “de León
spent time on both sides of the border,” but he “identifies strongly with
Mexican culture.”
California Gets ‘F’ Grade from ‘Truth in Accounting’
19 Jun 2018
Newport Beach, CA18
The non-partisan “Truth in Accounting” project,
which analyzes government financial reports, has awarded California an “F”
grade for claiming surpluses instead of a $269.9 billion deficit.
The Chicago-based organization
has been providing in-depth accounting reviews of the audited financial
statements for America’s fifty states, as well as most major counties and major
cities, in the United States since 2002.
The group’s mission is to educate
and empower citizens with understandable, reliable, and transparent government
financial information.
California received the lowest score
of “F” on Truth in Accounting’s grading scale because despite Gov.
Jerry Brown touting several years of surpluses, California actually faces a
$269.9 billion shortfall in terms of its overall obligations, which equates to
$22,000 burden for each of the 12.3 million taxpayers in the state.
California’s financial burden is
primarily associated with the rapidly deteriorating condition of the state’s
current $461.3 billion in promised public employee retirement benefits –which
are $102.5 billion under-funded by the pension plan — and $107 billion for
unfunded retiree health care benefits.
The State of California faced a near
financial death experience in Great Recession, when the average taxpayer burden
jumped from $15,000 to $23,500. Newly elected Gov. Brown, facing a $25 billion
deficit in 2011, passed an array of income and sales tax hikes, including a 29
percent increase for Californians with taxable income over $1 million.
Gov. Brown has touted the
“California Comeback.” But the data demonstrate that despite the gusher of tax
revenue the flooded into Sacramento from the economic recovery and the
substantially higher tax rates Gov. Brown passed, the state’s taxpayer burden
only fell modestly to $20,900 by 2015. The taxpayer burden rose to $21,600 in
2016 and hit $22,000 in 2017, the second-highest in the history of the state.
Truth in Accounting Founder Sheila
Weinberg warns that
California is a giant “Sinkhole Sate.” Ms. Weinberg is especially critical of
Gov. Brown claiming an $8.8 billion surplus this year, while avoiding the
fact that California has only $100.1 billion in available assets to pay $369.9
billion worth of bills.
Weinberg emphasized to Breitbart
News that California’s rising “taxpayer burden” is only for net state
liabilities. Her organization intends to begin publishing consolidated reports
this summer for all the states that will also capture the liabilities of
counties and cities. Ms. Weinberg expects that the combined taxpayer burden for
California to be a much higher number.
June 16, 2018
Skyrocketing crime rate in
California called 'good progress' after jails emptied
Here's a thought experiment: what happens if you release
criminals, a lot of them, from jail?
If you asked a liberal in California, he would tell you these
criminals were unjustly jailed in the first place (think racism on the part of
liberal inner-city judges, juries, and prosecutors) and that these unjustly
imprisoned would return to become productive parts of society.
Imagine their surprise to learn, then, that after reducing or
eliminating sentences for certain property crimes, the rate of property
crimes has
only increased!
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.
Larcenies increased about 9% by 2016, or about 135 more thefts per
100,000 residents than if tougher penalties had remained, according to results
of a study by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California released
Tuesday.
Thefts from motor vehicles accounted for about three-quarters of
the increase. San Francisco alone recorded more than 30,000 auto
burglaries last year, which authorities largely blamed on gangs.
Proposition 47 lowered criminal sentences for drug possession,
theft, shoplifting, identity theft, receiving stolen property, writing bad checks
and check forgery from felonies that can carry prison terms to misdemeanors
that often bring minimal jail sentences.
Do you think liberals have learned anything from
this? Think again:
California still has historically low crime rates despite recent changes
in the criminal justice system aimed at reducing mass incarceration and
increasing rehabilitation and treatment programs, said Lenore Anderson, the
executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice and a leader in the
drive to pass Proposition 47.
"This report shows we are making progress," she said in
a statement calling for less spending on prisons and more on programs to help
reduce the cycle of crime.
The ballot measure led to the lowest arrest rate in state history
in 2015 as experts said police frequently ignored crimes that brought minimal
punishment.
They say a conservative is a liberal who has been
mugged. If that's true, then it must also be true in California that
a liberal is a liberal who has had his car or home broken into. Indeed,
people in San Francisco have had their cars broken into so frequently that they
think this is the "new normal," and people talk laughingly to each
other about how often their cars have been broken into, as if it's a subject of
conversation as common as the doings of the local sports team.
Reality will never intrude on a liberal's ideology. An
illegal alien could shoot a woman dead on Fisherman's Wharf, and liberals would
still never see a problem with sanctuary cities. Homeless people can
roam the streets like swarms of giant rats, leaving fetid excrement and bloody
hypodermic needles in their wake, and people would accept it, because it is
part of their ideology.
That's how they can call this abomination "progress."
Cal 3: ‘Three Californias’ Referendum to Appear on November 2018
Ballot
“Cal 3,” a proposal to split California into three states will likely
appear on the November 2018 ballot after gathering far more than the minimum
number of signatures required, organizers announced Tuesday.
“Thanks to
Californians from every corner of the state, the Cal 3 initiative will be on
the statewide ballot this November for the first time ever,” read a statement
on the initiative’s website.
As Los
Angeles ABC News affiliate KABC-7 reported Tuesday evening, the campaign, led by
Silicon Valley billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper, turned in 600,000
signatures, nearly twice the 365,000 that were required.
The three new
states would consist of Northern California, extending from the San Francisco
Bay Area north to the Oregon border and east to the Nevada border; California,
including Los Angeles County and extending northwest along the Central Coast;
and Southern California, including San Diego and the rest of the southern part
of the state.
This is not
Draper’s first attempt to break up the Golden State. In 2016, he produced an
even more ambitious plan called “Six Californias.” However, it failed to gain enough signatures to qualify for
the ballot that year.
Draper
believes that California has become virtually ungovernable, with a state
government that is too remote from its citizens.
Similar
sentiments have fueled the “State of Jefferson” movement in the
conservative northeast portion of California. However, some conservatives fear
that the state has become so liberal that breaking it up into new states would
simply elect more Democrats to the U.S. Senate.
Regardless,
the “Three Californias” referendum could boost turnout — especially among
Republicans — in November, making the state more competitive.
Will
Californians Prevail Against the Little Picture of Hell?
The state of California has descended into
a modern-day version of Dante’s Inferno, where treachery of all kinds occupies
the bottom circle. Public sector unions are running (or rather ruining) the
state into bankruptcy, betraying the public trust while charging the taxpayers
for the perverse privilege. Republicans collude with the supermajority of
Democrats to raise taxes, fees, and unrelenting regulatory burdens.
The public schools indoctrinate their
young charges to hate this country and the rule of law. Illegal aliens continue overwhelming the state, draining California’s
already depleted public services while endangering our lives, the rule of law,
and public safety for all citizens. The federal government has filed
lawsuits against Sanctuary California, and ICE is rounding up illegals in their
homes and in workplaces. However, demonic pro-illegal forces still parade in
the streets and cross our borders, defying American sovereignty. Larger cities
have more homeless than homes for citizens.
The natural disasters are hitting crisis
level, too. The Bible depicts torturous flames with respite in hell without
respite, (Luke 16: 24). So too parched conditions have engulfed California.
Wildfires have become a year-round terror, yet the state’s leadership refuses
to prepare emergency water storage. This past week, two hundred firefighters
had to quell another massive conflagration in south Orange County, and summer
hasn’t even begun yet. To make matters legislation to make the current drastic
water rationing permanent!
Even wealthy coastal elites have found
that the cost of living in California is slowly exceeding its value. Money
can’t create water, and financial gain provided nothing for West Los Angeles
socialites when a few homeless transients set a blaze along the 405 Freeway
overpass along the Santa Monica mountains.
All of this is a testimony to the damage
wrought by progressive policies which have transformed California into a
picture of hell. That’s precisely what Evangelical preacher Franklin Graham
called California … or at least that’s what he called the sanctuary cities.
During an interview on the Todd Starnes Show, Graham
commented:
"People are leaving the state. The
tax base is eroding. They are turning their once beautiful cities into
sanctuary cities, which are just a little picture of Hell," Graham said.
"Just go to San Francisco and go to this once-beautiful city and see what
has happened to it."
But why did the son of the renowned
Reverend Billy Graham take time to comment on the harrowing horrors of
California? For his latest Gospel Crusade, he visited ten cities in the
once-Golden State. Starting on May 20 in Escondido (one of several cities to
challenge SB 54, aka the Sanctuary State law over the past three month), Graham
is bringing the message of the Good News to the dispirited wasteland along the
Left Coast.
Returning to Pastor Graham’s signature
statement from the Starnes interview, finally a pastor of stature and renown is
condemning sanctuary city policies, and a welcome response from the
all-too-quiet church leadership in California and across the country. Pastors
should be the first to denounce this misnamed, misleading agenda. The concept
of sanctuary comes from the Bible, better known as “cities of refuge” (cf.
Numbers 35:11-28), locations reserved for those who had accidentally killed
someone. To avoid retribution, they would flee to those cities.
In California, sanctuary policies bar
local and state law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration
officials to arrest and deport illegal aliens. These cities are not
safeguarding otherwise innocent people, but are protecting criminals who have
broken into the United States and reside illegally to this day. Pundits left
and right contend that these policies actually protect otherwise law-abiding
residents to seek help and report crimes. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
However, is it fair to tie the long list
of hellish outcomes from these left-wing enclaves to their refusal to enforce
federal immigration laws?
Yes.
What has happened to sanctuary city San
Francisco, for example? The progressivism that made God nothing and man’s
“ideas” everything created the s***-hole dystopia that resides there today.
It’s an overpriced progressive utopia, to put it charitably. For the
vast-majority of residents, even for those who can afford it, a salary of
$100,000 a year barely pays the rent. Roommates doubling up is the norm,
especially among the Big Tech interns who take the bus to Silicon Valley to
work all day on the latest app for the Google, Facebook, EBay overlords.
For the price they pay to live in the
city, San Franciscans aren’t getting their money’s worth. Intravenous drug
needles litter the streets everywhere. Homelessness is more common than
homeownership. “S***hole” better describes the streets of the city, where the
feces piles have so overwhelmed the streets, that visitors receive maps on how
best to navigate away from the crap and corruption. Street fights among
transients and the mentally ill have exploded, rampant moral decline has
overshadowed the once great city. Tourists find enough to see, then flee.
Freedom of speech and freedom of religion
have lost their place, even though Graham’s latest crusades have succeeded in
otherwise unfriendly territory, like Berkeley. Last year, the Patriot Prayer
movement, headed by Joey Gibson, attempted to throw two rallies for freedom of
speech and thought. The elected officials of San Francisco (including Nancy
Pelosi) and the now-deceased mayor Ed Lee, smeared the peaceful program as a
“White supremacy rally.” Gibson is half Japanese, by the way.
Where Gibson had tried and failed,
Graham’s message of hope accomplished peaceful gatherings with a call to action
to California’s Christians. And I say it’s about time. There have been flickers
of hope in spite of the deranged left-wing agenda ravaging my home state.
Californians in general, and Christians in particular, need to step up. They
are called to be light in a dark, hellish world, but nothing good will happen
if they don’t vote for their values, then educate the public how to fight
against the devilish lawlessness foisted upon us by our political leaders and
the cultural elites running—or rather ruining—the state.
June 5, 2018
The one topic Democrats
don't dare bring up in today's SoCal primary
The airwaves in Southern
California are flooded with Democratic candidate ads, with most openly touting
extremely loony far-left positions – promises of free health care for all, free
college for all, beefed up public funding for Planned Parenthood, full gun
control, pretty much the full Bernie Sanders plate of pie-in-the-sky
goodies. Democrats, whether in the House, Senate, governor, or
assembly races, are all openly offering all the free stuff on the far left's
wish list, not holding back at all. Fiscal discipline isn't in
fashion with this bunch. If I had to speculate, I'd say it's because
at the time these platforms were formulated, Democrats were convinced that a
blue wave was upon them. In a crowded field, and at primary time,
where only the most committed voters show up, extremism seems to be the way to
stand out and get ahead of the pack.
There's one topic among
these offerings that isn't being touched – not even in one campaign ad:
Illegal immigration.
As the sign says:
"Caution."
We all know that Democrats
favor open borders, given the potential for muscling mendicant votes in the
state's poorest cities from their well oiled political machines. Democrats
favor DACA, DAPA for the parents, amnesty, state benefits for illegals – from
driver's licenses to free health care – an end to deportations, and no border
wall, let alone National Guardsmen at the borders. You can find
vague admissions of these stances on candidates' websites, buried deep.
But somehow, this topic
isn't one they want to bring up in the heat of the primaries, at least not in
ads, where they have an overcrowded slate of candidates on the June ballot, and
face the real prospect of seeing no Democrats making it to the slate in
November.
Illegal immigration seems to
be the electric third rail.
That says a lot about the
sentiment of the voters in illegal alien-filled California, which houses one
quarter of the nation's illegals. Nobody's brought up the Democratic
plan for free health care for illegals, now wending its way through the
California statehouse. Nobody's asked Gavin Newsom, the frontrunner
for the Democratic nomination for governor, what he thinks of the state's
inundation of illegals, and he's certainly said nothing to the broad public
about it in his ads. The costs of illegal
immigration are being carefully
hidden by Democrats.
Meanwhile, city after city
and county after county in Southern California has joined the lawsuit against
the state for its "sanctuary state" laws, which require them to house
and feed illegals instead of turn them over to the feds for breaking the
law. It's probably significant that increasingly blue San
Diego and Orange Counties, the two areas Democrats have placed all
their hopes and cash on for winning the House back, have joined this movement.
It all suggests that this
topic is dry tinder among voters, the internal polls look bad for Democrats on
their free everything for illegals, and the Democratic Party line is far more
unpopular than anyone on the left is willing to admit.
President Trump should have
a field day enacting his orderly immigration agenda, even in California, when
crunch time comes at the November midterms.
It Pays to be Illegal in California
It
certainly is a good time to be an illegal alien in California. Democratic State
Sen. Ricardo Lara last week pitched a bill to permit illegal immigrants to
serve on all state and local boards and commissions. This week, lawmakers
unveiled a $1 billion health care plan that would include spending
$250 million to extend health care coverage to all illegal alien adults.
“Currently,
undocumented adults are explicitly and unjustly locked out of healthcare due to
their immigration status. In a matter of weeks, California legislators will
have a decisive opportunity to reverse that cruel and counterproductive fact,”
Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula said in Monday’s Sacramento Bee.
His
legislation, Assembly Bill 2965, would give as many as 114,000
uninsured illegal aliens access to Medi-Cal programs. A companion bill has been
sponsored by State Sen. Richard Lara.
But that
could just be a drop in the bucket. The Democrats’ plan covers more than
100,000 illegal aliens with annual incomes bless than $25,000, however an
estimated 1.3 million might be eligible based on their earnings.
In addition,
it is estimated that 20 percent of those living in California illegally are
uninsured – the $250 million covers just 11 percent.
So, will
politicians soon be asking California taxpayers once again to dip into their
pockets to pay for the remaining 9 percent?
Before
they ask for more, Democrats have to win the approval of Gov. Jerry Brown, who
cautioned against spending away the state’s surplus when he introduced his $190 billion budget
proposal in January.
Given
Brown’s openness to expanding Medi-Cal expansions in recent years, not to
mention his proclivity for blindly supporting any measure benefitting
lawbreaking immigrants, the latest fiscal irresponsibility may win approval.
And if he
takes a pass, the two Democrats most likely to succeed Brown – Lt. Gov. Gavin
Newsom and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa – favor excessive social spending and are actively courting
illegal immigrant support.
Look how the
liberal drug culture has destroyed Eureka, California
In
normal circumstances, Eureka, California, would be a paradise. It's
situated in northern California on the Pacific Coast and is simply beautiful,
sandwiched between rugged redwood forests and an implacable open
sea. The weather is perfect, constantly between 50 and 75 degrees
year round. It's isolated from other major cities, but some find
value in the quiet of a more secluded lifestyle.
Unfortunately,
Eureka, in Humboldt County, is in the center of a narco-state where marijuana
is grown industrial-scale and drug use is rampant. The situation has
gotten so bad that even tourists avoid it. Here's one telling
review from TripAdvisor. It's a little long but well worth the read:
Just back from 5 days in Eureka CA. Had not been
there for a few years so decided to visit north coast area, see some redwoods,
great coastal scenery and victorian homes along the way. We were quite
impressed that someone is trying to make Eureka a tourist destination (murals,
town gazebo, festival, arts and a wonderful visitors center),. At the same
time, we witnessed what appeared to be several dozen (at least!!) drunken
and/or drugged human beings lying on curbs, in doorways, against fences, behind
stores, camping out in parking lots, stumbling onto HWY 101 etc etc. Old motels
(The Serenity for one) were overflowing with people outside at all hours of the
day and night. A poor pit bull was chained to a fence next to highway all day
Saturday w/ cops driving back and forth. Drug deals appeared to be taking place
right out in the open within sight of traffic on 101. We stopped to take a
picture of a cute mural downtown and a wild-eyed woman came screaming out of
the shrubs-screaming at us for "taking her picture". She had
something in her raised hand and we got out of there fast. This was across the
street from the jail and near an area of lovely victorian homes on 3rd. Doesn't
really matter where in town it was because it was all over. Mixed in with great
businesses, lovely scenery, restaurants and historic places, we dodged crazies
screaming at the top of their lungs. Panhandlers followed people around from
store to store. We were in one cafe when a man sat down in filthy urine soaked
clothes and reeking of alcohol. He wasn't ordering anything but just came to
talk-however, most of the other customers had to get up and leave as the smell
was so overpowering. And although we felt bad that these people have such
problems...well...Eureka has a big problem too. A split-image.
Later, at [a bookrestore] in the Bayshore Mall,
we found several prominent displays on growing and/or manufacturing drugs.
Umm...from the looks of Eureka's streets, that information has already been put
to use. I hope that this once lovely town can come to grips with this problem.
The
above review is a few years old, but be assured that nothing has changed for
the better in Eureka, as The New York Times reports:
California's North Coast is known for its natural
beauty and magnificent redwoods, but Eureka, the Humboldt County seat, is
increasingly known for something else: the prevalence of dirty needles
littering parks and public areas, crude remains of a heroin scourge that is
afflicting the region.
Drug use in Humboldt County has many
layers. Meth has been a scourge in rural California for many years,
and because it is often shot intravenously, the transition to heroin has been
too easy for many. Eureka's large homeless population has been
especially vulnerable to addiction in recent years.
Discarded syringes have become a significant
concern for the town's residents, who worry that the needles pose a threat to children
and tourists.
OK, so why do so many people here use drugs?
Theories abound, with the most common explanations tending to involve the
marijuana industry and its associated culture of permissiveness and
experimentation. Michael Goldsby [an addiction studies instructor at College of
the Redwoods since 1987] thinks that theory makes sense.
"Risk factors for drug problems include
availability of drugs, positive peer attitudes towards drug use [and] community
norms that accept drug misuse," he explained. "Drug and alcohol use
is accepted and even encouraged in our community."
Legalized
drug use has destroyed some of the most beautiful places in California and is
now doing the same in Colorado and elsewhere, where "harmless"
marijuana, the gateway to even worse narcotics, has been
legalized. It's just a shame that immorality seems to go hand in hand
with some of the prettiest places in America.
"Particularly since the 2008
economic crisis,
the ruling class and its two
parties have slashed
social spending while cutting taxes
for
corporations and the rich."
"Between 2005 and 2015, the
total payroll cost for the top 10 percent of UC wages grew from 22 to 31
percent, while that of the bottom 50 percent dropped from 24 to 22
percent."
More than 50,000 UC workers on
strike
For a political movement of the entire working class against
inequality and capitalism!
By David Moore
9 May 2018
David Moore is
the Socialist Equality Party’s candidate for senate in the California June 5
mid-term elections. You can find out more and get involved in the campaign at socialequality.com/2018.
Tens of
thousands of service workers at the University of California (UC) are
concluding their three-day strike against deteriorating pay and conditions
today.
The
widespread support for the strike of services workers, including from nurses
and technical workers who have engaged in sympathy strikes, is part of a
growing wave of opposition from workers throughout the United States and
internationally. However, the unions involved have worked to limit and contain
the struggle and ensure its defeat.
In April,
the UC system unilaterally imposed a contract on service workers that increased
the retirement age by five years, included a paltry two percent wage increase,
and allowed the university to outsource more jobs as well as raise health care
premiums.
The UC
system is the state’s third largest employer, and the conditions there are
immediately familiar to workers across the country. Just in the past two months
there have been strikes of public school teachers and support staff in West
Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona.
In each of
these strikes, the role of the unions—the American Federation of Teachers and
the National Education Association—was to smother opposition and shut it
down. The strikes were not initiated by the unions, but by
rank-and-file teachers. The unions intervened to end the strikes and prevent
them from developing into a nationwide movement against the Democratic and
Republican parties and the capitalist system.
The teachers
unions were operating under the principle articulated by a lawyer for the
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in the
pending case of Janus vs. AFSCME on
union agency fees: “Union security is the tradeoff for no strikes.” The AFSMCE
lawyer was telling the high court justices: You need us, because without us
there will be “an untold specter of labor unrest throughout the country.”
The main
union involved in the UC strike is AFSCME, and it—along with the University
Professional and Technical Employees and California Nurses Association—is
putting this statement into practice. The three-day strike is intended to let
off steam, while doing nothing to resolve the conditions facing service and
other workers in the UC system.
AFSCME has a
long history of calling short-term strikes and making empty strike threats to
demoralize members and force through sellout contracts. In 2014, it cancelled
planned strikes of two different sections of workers and imposed contracts that
included increases in pension contributions from workers. In this strike,
AFSCME is seeking to block widespread opposition to the bipartisan attack on
public education and workers compensation by focusing almost entirely on racial
and gender pay discrepancies that they claim can be fixed at the university
level.
The unions
want to prevent any discussion of the political background to the conditions
facing UC workers. Particularly since the 2008 economic crisis, the
ruling class and its two parties have slashed social spending while cutting
taxes for corporations and the rich.
BLOG: CA
IS A STATE THAT HANDS OUT $30 BILLION FOR SOCIAL SERVICES AND WELFARE FOR
ILLEGALS BUT CUTS EVERYTHING HAVING TO DO WITH LEGALS!
Within
California, the UC system’s budget has been cut by Democratic Governor Jerry
Brown and the former Republican Governor Schwarzenegger.
In 2017
the state of California provided nearly two-thirds less in per pupil funding
than it did in 1990, from $19,100 down to $7,160, after inflation. State
funding now only accounts for roughly 10 percent of the UC budget. More than
three times that amount comes from UC-run medical centers.
Those cuts
have increasingly shaped every aspect of work and study in the UC system.
Custodians, groundskeepers and office staff workers are overworked, and their
departments are understaffed. University lecturers find
themselves on food stamps with no prospect of advancement. Students have seen
their tuition and debts soar.
As part of
the UC’s transformation from being funded by the state to making profits from
medical and research businesses, well-heeled administrators were brought
in. Between 2005 and 2015, the total payroll cost for the top 10
percent of UC wages grew from 22 to 31 percent, while that of the bottom 50
percent dropped from 24 to 22 percent.
UC workers
in the medical centers are doubly squeezed by the attacks on health care that
were carried out under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare. Hailed by
the unions and Democrats as a great reform, the ACA has provided record profits
to insurance companies while forcing low-income workers to ration their care in
overpriced plans with prohibitively high deductibles and co-pays.
Within the
medical centers and hospitals, health care workers have been subjected to
particularly sharp understaffing and speedup.
These
attacks on the working class have been combined with tax breaks, bailouts and
giveaways to the ultra-rich. Nationwide, the three richest billionaires have as
much wealth as the poorest half of Americans combined. This immense social gulf
grew precipitously under the Obama administration and continues to accelerate
with the Trump tax cuts.
BLOG: THE
ENTIRE REASON FOR OPEN BORDERS IS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED. THERE IS NO
BILLIONAIRE THAT DOES NOT PUSH FOR WIDER OPEN BORDERS, AMNESTY and NO E-VERIFY!
Both parties
of big business have worked closely to funnel money from the working class to
the rich. While being run by Democrats from top to bottom, California has
grown to be the fourth most unequal state in the US, with the largest number of
billionaires and the largest homeless population. When the
cost of living is taken into account, California has the highest poverty rate
in the country, at just over 20 percent.
The unions
promote the lie that Democrats are allies of workers. Yet the Democrats voted
for a record $700 billion military budget, found room in the budget for Trump’s
border wall and bailed out the banks in 2008, but claim there is no money for
education, health care and retirement.
The three-day
strike will resolve nothing. I call on UC workers to form rank-and-file
committees, independent of the unions, to unite their fight for wages and
benefits with the struggles of the entire working class against inequality and
war. The conditions facing striking workers are the same as those facing
teachers, auto workers, Amazon workers, telecommunication workers, and all
sections of the working class—in the United States and internationally.
The building
of rank-and-file factory and workplace committees must be connected to a
political counteroffensive against the two big-business parties and the entire
capitalist system. The resources exist to ensure everyone the right to a
high-paying job, quality health care and a secure retirement. The problem is
capitalism, a social and economic system based on the exploitation of the
working class to secure the profits of the ruling class.
TWEET
Economists Arthur
Laffer (the guy with the famous curve) and Stephen Moore, a leading
libertarian voice for mass immigration, predict that some 800,000 people will pack up and
leave California and New York over the next three years. The
reason they cite for the exodus in their Wall Street Journal op-ed is that the new federal
tax law, which eliminates deductions for state income taxes, will be the straw
that breaks the camel’s back.
Implicit in their
assignment of blame to the federal tax overhaul is that the people who will be
leaving are the ones who pay taxes – the sort of folks that state and local
governments rely to provide a revenue stream. As such, one would think that
these would be the people whose concerns would get a lot of interest in
Sacramento and Albany. But clearly that is not the case.
For the privilege
of living in places like the Bay Area, Los Angeles, or New York City, you must
bear some of the most ridiculous housing costs in the nation, along with crushing state and local taxes. In California, be prepared to
turn over as much as 13.3 percent of your income to the state. High-earning New
Yorkers fork over a more modest 8.82 percent, but if you live in the five
boroughs you can tack on an additional 3.87 percent in city income
taxes. California and New York also have some of the highest sales tax rates in the country at 8.54
percent and 8.49 percent respectively (and higher in many cities). And now, as
Laffer and Moore point out, you can’t even deduct those costs on your federal
taxes.
One might also think
that for all these state and local taxes, residents could expect the most
modern infrastructure, efficient public transportation, world class public
schools, affordable housing, and other amenities. Ha. No, in Sacramento and
Albany they prioritize an ever-growing list of public benefits and services to
immigration law violators; subsidies and grants to go to college, and legal aid
for illegal aliens in deportation proceedings. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo
is even threatening to sue the federal
government (with taxpayer money, of course) for even trying to
enforce immigration laws.
Cutting back on
benefits and protections for illegal aliens would not solve all of these
states’ problems, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. In the meantime, every U-Haul
packing up a middle or upper-middle class family headed out of California and
New York represents a loss of vital revenue necessary to address myriad needs
of both citizens and legal immigrants.
Steinle’s
murderer, Jose Zarate and been deported 5xs!
By Mark
Krikorian
National Review Online, April 26, 2018
How the
Golden State defies immigration law
‘I will
hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct,
upon the first tree I can reach.” That was President Andrew Jackson’s response
to South Carolina’s intention to prevent enforcement of a federal law within
the state. Despite his admiration for Jackson, President Trump hasn’t yet
threatened to start hanging California politicians. But that state’s
“sanctuary” policies protecting illegal immigrants and obstructing enforcement
of federal immigration law echo the long-ago fight over nullification and
states’ rights.
The
passage of three sanctuary bills last year by the state legislature in
Sacramento is now the subject of a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of
Justice. It was the culmination of a decades-long process, as mass immigration
transformed California’s politics from reddish purple to deep blue.
The
first measure that could be described as a sanctuary provision was the Los
Angeles Police Department’s Special Order 40, enacted in 1979, which prohibited
officers from arresting a person for the federal crime of illegal entry and,
unless he was arrested for another crime, from even inquiring as to legal
status. But that order merely instructed police to abstain from involving
themselves in immigration enforcement. In the 1980s, a more proactive
conception of illegal-alien sanctuary spread, as Central Americans fleeing war
in their homelands snuck into the U.S. but did not qualify for asylum.
At
first, only some pro-Sandinista churches postured as sanctuaries for these
illegal aliens. But in late 1985, Mayor (now Senator) Dianne Feinstein signed
a resolution declaring San Francisco a “city of refuge” for illegals. She ordered that
“City Departments shall not discriminate against Salvadorans and Guatemalan
refugees because of their immigration status, and shall not jeopardize the
safety and welfare of law-abiding refugees by acting in a way that may cause
their deportation.” The declaration was followed four years later by a city law
formally prohibiting city employees from assisting federal immigration
authorities.
Even
measures such as this, which were adopted by other big cities over the years,
were of largely local interest until a new system, developed at the end of the
Bush administration and completed in 2013, went online. The fingerprints of
every person booked by police throughout the country have long been sent to the
FBI. But under the new system, dubbed Secure Communities, those fingerprints
now also go to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). So while in the past
the feds didn’t necessarily know whether cops in San Francisco arrested an
illegal alien for, say, a drug offense, now they do. Every time.
There
will still be some illegal aliens who elude detection if ICE has no record of
them because they’ve never interacted with the immigration authorities. But if
police arrest anyone who’s in the Department of Homeland Security database —
who was deported previously, got turned down for asylum, was picked up by the
Border Patrol, overstayed a visa, or appeared before an immigration judge — ICE
learns about it.
There
are only so many hours in the day, so not every arrested illegal alien can be
taken into custody. But if ICE wants the alien because, for instance, he has
previously been deported or is a fugitive from a deportation order, it notifies
the local authorities to hold him, as they would for any other state or federal
law-enforcement agency, up to 48 hours after they would otherwise have released
him, so that agents can collect and deport him.
With
this new fingerprint-matching system in place, instead of receiving the
occasional hold notice, or “detainer,” cities and counties with large numbers
of immigrants started hearing from ICE constantly. In some states where
large-scale immigration was a recent development, the political culture had not
yet shifted to the left to such a degree that this new level of cooperation
with ICE met objections. But immigration, legal and illegal, has transformed
California’s population and political culture so profoundly that the pushback
there was inevitable.
Of
California’s 40 million people, about 15 million are in immigrant households
(immigrants and their children under 18), accounting for more than 37 percent
of the state’s population. Not only is that by far the highest percentage in
any state, but the increase in people in immigrant households in California
from 1970 to today — just the increase — is nearly twice as large as
today’s total population in immigrant households in Texas, the state
in second place.
Survey
after survey shows that immigrants are disproportionately big-government
liberals. As one overview of the data concluded, “solid and persistent
majorities of Hispanic and Asian immigrants and their children share the policy
preferences of the modern American Left.” As a result, as University of
Maryland political scientist James Gimpel has demonstrated, in the nation’s
largest counties (which are where immigrants tend to settle), “Republicans have
lost 0.58 percentage points in presidential elections for every one
percentage-point increase in the size of the local immigrant population.”
The
results in California are plain to see. There hasn’t been a Republican in
statewide or federal office since Arnold Schwarzenegger (and he was only nominally
Republican). Only 13 of 40 state senators and 25 of 80 state assemblymen are
Republicans. This has enabled leftist maximalism on a wide range of issues,
including immigration.
Even in
this environment, the effects of Secure Communities in identifying deportable
aliens were blunted for a time by the Obama administration’s lax policies.
Despite the anti-borders Left and its kabuki protests that Obama was the
deporter in chief, his administration effectively exempted most of the resident
illegal population from immigration law. Even though ICE continued to be
notified of arrested illegals, administration policy was to ignore all but the
worst cases. In the words of John Sandweg, who headed ICE during part of
Obama’s term, “If you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds
of getting deported are close to zero — it’s just highly unlikely to
happen.”
Then
came Donald Trump.
It
wasn’t just that Trump pledged tough immigration enforcement in his raw and
often coarse manner. It wasn’t just that Hillary Clinton, who said publicly that
she would not deport anyone who hadn’t first been convicted of a violent felony,
won California by 30 points. It was the whiplash from Obama to Trump that supercharged
the sanctuary push in the state legislature. Democratic politicians, their
activist allies, and illegal aliens themselves had gotten used to Obama’s
arrangements and had come to think that was the way things were going to be
from now on. Trump’s reversal of Obama’s laxity fell on them like a bucket of
ice water.
The
state took a variety of steps in response to the return of immigration
enforcement. Lawmakers appropriated $45 million for a fund to help illegals
fight deportation. And the state senate appointed an illegal alien to a state
education commission.
But most
consequential were three laws designed to limit the federal government’s
ability to enforce immigration law. The best known is Senate Bill 54, the
California Values Act, the most sweeping measure of its kind in the nation,
making the entire state a sanctuary for illegal aliens. It prohibits state and
local law enforcement from complying with ICE detainers in most cases. It
prohibits notification to ICE about an alien unless in the past 15 years he’s
been convicted of one of a list of the most serious crimes. It prohibits state
and local authorities from allowing ICE to use space in their jails and from
providing ICE any non-public information on suspects. It restricts state and
local participation in any multi-agency task force that includes ICE.
The
second of the three measures attempts to impose state oversight on any facility
ICE uses to detain deportable aliens. And the final law seeks to shield
illegal-alien workers from detection by, among other things, prohibiting
private employers from voluntarily allowing ICE agents into any non-public area
of their business.
The
Trump administration has pushed back. The first step was to threaten to cut off
certain Justice Department grants to sanctuary jurisdictions nationwide;
longstanding doctrine limiting the withholding of federal funds to coerce
states makes a broader cutoff unlikely. A few jurisdictions outside California
have changed their sanctuary policies in response to the funding threat, but
the administration’s initiative is tied up in litigation and, in any case, is
unlikely to hurt sufficiently to persuade hard cases such as California to mend
their ways.
That’s
why in March the Justice Department filed suit against California to strike
down all or parts of the three sanctuary laws, claiming that they were
preempted by federal law and that they violate the supremacy clause of the
Constitution. (Interestingly, the complaint cites, among other things, the
Supreme Court ruling overturning parts of Arizona’s SB 1070, which was intended
to assist in enforcement of federal immigration laws, on the same
grounds of federal preemption.) But it will be a long time before the case
reaches the Supreme Court; the defendants no doubt hope to drag things out long
enough that President Maxine Waters or Dennis Kucinich can reverse the
policy.
But
change may come sooner than that. The legislature’s overreach has sparked a
rebellion of communities seeking sanctuary from the sanctuary law. The small
Orange County city of Los Alamitos got things rolling by voting to opt out of
SB 54 and join the federal lawsuit. A growing list of other cities has joined
the suit as well, as have Orange and San Diego counties. More cities and
counties are likely to join them.
In an
attempt to harness this political energy, two people whose children were killed
by illegal aliens have launched a ballot initiative to repeal the sanctuary
laws. Don Rosenberg, one of the parents, told the Washington Times , “This will be David
versus Goliath. We’re clearly David on this side. But there are millions of
Davids here.”
While
the steady stream of preventable crimes by illegal immigrants protected by
sanctuary policies keeps the issue before the public, the very extremism of the
Left may supply the five smooth stones this army of Davids will need to slay
the sanctuary Goliath. In February, for example, Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf
warned illegals that an ICE raid was planned for the Bay Area. Such brazen acts
delegitimize sanctuary policies in the eyes even of moderate voters.
South
Carolina eventually repealed its Ordinance of Nullification. The state’s
subsequent acts of resistance against legitimate federal authority also failed.
It’s too early to tell whether California will succeed where South Carolina did
not.
Coming soon: Mass exodus from NY, CA due to high taxes
Arthur Laffer and Steven
Moore have penned an interesting article in the Wall
Street Journal that gauges the impact of the cap on state tax deductions in
high tax states.
Their conclusions should
frighten high-tax, big-spending liberals in blue states across the country.
In
the years to come, millions of people, thousands of businesses, and tens of
billions of dollars of net income will flee high-tax blue states for low-tax
red states. This migration has been happening for
years. But the Trump tax bill's cap on the deduction for state and
local taxes, or SALT, will accelerate the pace. The losers will be
most of the Northeast, along with California. The winners are likely
to be states like Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.
For
years blue states have exported a third or more of their tax burden to
residents of other states. In places like California, where the top
income-tax rate exceeds 13%, that tax could be deducted on a federal
return. Now that deduction for state and local taxes will be capped
at $10,000 per family.
Consider
what this means if you're a high-income earner in Silicon Valley or
Hollywood. The top tax rate that you actually pay just jumped from
about 8.5% to 13%. Similar figures hold if you live in Manhattan,
once New York City's income tax is factored in. If you earn $10
million or more, your taxes might increase a whopping 50%.
About
90% of taxpayers are unaffected by the change. But high earners in
places with hefty income taxes – not just California and New York, but also
Minnesota and New Jersey – will bear more of the true cost of their state
government. Also in big trouble are Connecticut and Illinois, where
the overall state and local tax burden (especially property taxes) is so
onerous that high-income residents will feel the burn now that they can't
deduct these costs on their federal returns. On the other side are
nine states – including Florida, Nevada, Texas and Washington – that impose no
tax at all on earned income.
The authors put their finger
on the real meaning of SALT: it prevents the rest of us from subsidizing the
blue state model. By making rich taxpayers in blue states bear the
true cost of all those goodies given out by their state governments, those
living in low-tax red states will no longer subsidize the irresponsible
spending habits in blue states.
Now
that the SALT subsidy is gone, how bad will it get for high-tax blue
states? Very bad. We estimate, based on the historical
relationship between tax rates and migration patterns, that both California and
New York will lose on net about 800,000 residents over the next three years –
roughly twice the number that left from 2014-16. Our calculations
suggest that Connecticut, New Jersey and Minnesota combined will hemorrhage
another roughly 500,000 people in the same period.
Red
states ought to brace themselves: The Yankees are coming, and they are bringing
their money with them. Meanwhile, the exodus could puncture large
and unexpected holes in blue-state budgets. Lawmakers in Hartford
and Trenton have gotten a small taste of this in recent years as billionaire
financiers have flown the coop and relocated to Florida. As the
migration speeds up, it will raise real-estate values in low-tax states and
hurt them in high-tax states.
We are the most mobile
society in the history of industrialized civilization. The fact that we
are a federal republic with fifty individual state governments makes choosing a
place to live more than just a preference for climate or
scenery. High taxes generally bring with them a higher cost of
living, urban decay, crime, and a lack of economic opportunity.
So Americans are voting with
their feet. And in this competition, it's no contest.
California’s Rich May Leave to Avoid $12 Billion in SALT Tax Hit
President Donald Trump’s new tax cut, which limiting state and local
tax deductions, will cost rich Californians $12 billion more in federal taxes,
with $9 billion coming from those making $1 million or more.
Recently,
the California Department of Finance reported good news for Sacramento
politicians: thanks largely to having the top state income tax bracket in the
nation at 13.3 percent, California collected about $3.3 billion more in state
taxes than forecast in the first three months of 2018, with 67 percent coming
from higher than expected personal income taxes.
But
the California Franchise Tax Board also warned that the Trump tax cut, which limits state and
local tax (SALT) deductions to a maximum of $10,000, will cost same high income
earners $12 billion a year more in federal tax.
The
bigger tax bite could also be strong motivation for California’s highest income
earners to vote with their feet and leave California to save big bucks in a low
tax state.
Maine
is second to California with a top income tax rate of 10.15 percent, followed
by Oregon’s 9.9 percent. But Nevada, Washington, Texas and Florida have no
state income tax.
Only
about 61,000 households, or 0.4 percent, of the 16 million households in
California reported an income of more than $1 million in 2014. But the
CalMatters blog commented that of the 40
million residents in California, the top 150,000 that are in the top 1
percent of income earners pay about half of all state income taxes.
California
taxpayers may already be voting with their feet, according to an analysis by CNBC. The business
news team found that from 2016 to 2017, California saw a net 138,000 people
leave the state, while Texas grew by 79,000 people, Arizona added 63,000
residents, and Nevada saw a 38,000 gain.
The
Republican Governors’ Association was quick to observe: “California Democrats
imposing massive tax hikes on middle-class families, driving up their state’s
cost of living, residents are packing their bags and leaving for states run by
GOP governors like Arizona, Nevada, and Texas with lower tax burdens and
friendlier business climates.”
Adios, Sanctuary
La Raza Welfare State of California
A fifth-generation Californian laments his state’s ongoing
economic collapse.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving
the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens,
now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration
Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for
illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice
system costs.
BLOG: MANY DISPUTE CALIFORNIA’S
EXPENDITURES FOR THE LA RAZA WELFARE STATE IN MEXIFORNIA JUST AS THEY DISPUTE
THE NUMBER OF ILLEGALS. APPROXIMATELY HALF THE POPULATION OF CA IS NOW MEXICAN
AND BREEDING ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE LIKE BUNNIES. THE $22 BILLION IS STATE
EXPENDITURE ONLY. COUNTIES PAY OUT MORE WITH LOS ANGELES COUNTY LEADING AT OVER
A BILLION DOLLARS PAID OUT YEARLY TO MEXICO’S ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS. NOW
MULTIPLY THAT BY THE NUMBER OF COUNTIES IN CA AND YOU START TO GET AN IDEA OF
THE STAGGERING WELFARE STATE MEXICO AND THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HAVE ERECTED SANS
ANY LEGALS VOTES. ADD TO THIS THE FREE ENTERPRISE HOSPITAL AND CLINIC COST FOR
LA RAZA’S “FREE” MEDICAL WHICH IS ESTIMATED TO BE ABOUT $1.5 BILLION PER YEAR.
Liberals claim they more than make that up
with taxes paid, but that’s simply not true. It’s not even close. FAIR
estimates illegal aliens in California contribute only $1.21 billion in tax
revenue, which means they cost California $20.6 billion, or at least $1,800 per
household.
Nonetheless, open
border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit
to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center
for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor,
uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens
and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit
California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any
meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be
booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens
has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who
entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan
Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of
all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in
2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that
in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were
illegal aliens. Granted,
those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement
officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the
Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien
crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself
a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the
border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
"If the racist
"Sensenbrenner Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no doubt
that a massive civil disobedience movement will emerge. Eventually labor union
power can merge with the immigrant civil rights and "Immigrant
Sanctuary" movements to enable us to either form a new political
party or to do heavy duty reforming of the existing Democratic Party. The next
and final steps would follow and that is to elect our own governors of all the
states within Aztlan."
Indeed, California goes out of its way to
attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that
cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor
Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With
over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt
compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the
DMV. And
just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it
will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on
stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border
crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my
taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
If
Immigration Creates Wealth, Why Is California America's Poverty Capital?
California used to be home to America's largest and most
affluent middle class. Today, it is America's poverty
capital. What went wrong? In a word: immigration.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's Official Poverty Measure, California's poverty rate hovers
around 15 percent. But this figure is misleading: the Census Bureau
measures poverty relative to a uniform national standard, which doesn't account
for differences in living costs between states – the cost of taxes, housing,
and health care are higher in California than in Oklahoma, for
example. Accounting for these differences reveals that California's real poverty rate is 20.6 percent – the highest in America, and nearly twice the national
average of 12.7 percent.
Likewise, income inequality in California is the second-highest in America, behind only New York. In fact, if California were an
independent country, it would be the 17th most unequal country on Earth,
nestled comfortably between Honduras and Guatemala. Mexico is
slightly more egalitarian. California is far more unequal than the
"social democracies" it emulates: Canada is the 111th most
unequal nation, while Norway is far down the list at number 153 (out of 176
countries). In terms of income inequality, California has more in
common with banana republics than other "social democracies."
More Government, More Poverty
High taxes, excessive regulations, and a lavish welfare state – these are
the standard explanations for California's poverty epidemic. They
have some merit. For example, California has both the highest
personal income tax rate and the highest sales tax in America, according
to Politifact.
Not only are California's taxes high, but successive
"progressive" governments have swamped the state in a sea of red
tape. Onerous regulations cripple small businesses and retard
economic growth. Kerry Jackson, a fellow with the Pacific Research
Institute, gives a few specific examples of how excessive government regulation
hurts California's poor. He writes in a recent op-ed for the Los Angeles Times:
Extensive environmental regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide
emissions make energy more expensive, also hurting the poor. By some
estimates, California energy costs are as much as 50% higher than the national
average. Jonathan A. Lesser of Continental Economics ... found that
"in 2012, nearly 1 million California households faced ... energy
expenditures exceeding 10% of household income."
Some government regulation is necessary and desirable, but most of
California's is not. There is virtue in governing with a "light
touch."
Finally, California's welfare state is, perhaps paradoxically, a source
of poverty in the state. The Orange Country Register reports that California's
social safety net is comparable in scale to those found in Europe:
In California a mother with two children under the age of 5
who participates in these major welfare programs – Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps),
housing assistance, home energy assistance, Special Supplemental Nutrition
Program for Women, Infants and Children – would receive a benefits package
worth $30,828 per year.
... [Similar] benefits in Europe ranged from $38,588 per
year in Denmark to just $1,112 in Romania. The California benefits
package is higher than in well-known welfare states as France ($17,324),
Germany ($23,257) and even Sweden ($22,111).
Although welfare states ideally help
the poor, reality is messy. There are three main problems with the
welfare state. First, it incentivizes poverty by rewardingthe poor with government
handouts that are often far more valuable than a job. This can be
ameliorated to some degree by imposing work requirements on welfare recipients,
but in practice, such requirements are rarely imposed. Second,
welfare states are expensive. This means
higher taxes and therefore slower economic growth and fewer job opportunities
for everyone – including the poor.
Finally, welfare states are magnets for the poor. Whether
through domestic migration or foreign immigration, poor people flock to places
with generous welfare states. This is logical from the immigrant's
perspective, but it makes little sense from the taxpayer's. This
fact is why socialism and open borders arefundamentally incompatible.
Why Big Government?
Since 1960, California's population
exploded from 15.9 to 39 million people. The growth
was almost entirely due to immigration – many people came from other states,
but the majority came from abroad. The Public Policy
Institute of California estimates that 10 million immigrants currently
reside in California. This works out to 26 percent of the state's
population.
This figure includes 2.4 million illegal aliens, although
a recent study from Yale University suggests that the true number of aliens is at least
double that. Modifying the initial
figure implies that nearly one in three Californians is an
immigrant. This is not to disparage California's
immigrant population, but it is madness to deny that such a large influx of
people has changed California's society and economy.
Importantly, immigrants vote
Democrat by a ratio higher than 2:1, according to a report from the Center
for Immigration Studies. In California, immigration has
increased the pool of likely Democrat voters by nearly 5 million people,
compared to just 2.4 million additional likely Republican
voters. Not only does this almost guarantee Democratic victories,
but it also shifts California's political midpoint to the left. This
means that to remain competitive in elections, the Republicans must abandon or soften many
conservative positions so as to cater to the center.
California became a
Democratic stronghold not because Californians became socialists, but because
millions of socialists moved there. Immigration turned California
blue, and immigration is ultimately to blame for California's high poverty
level.
REALITIES OF A STATE IN
MELTDOWN:
THE INVISIBLE CALIFORNIA
De facto apartheid world in the Golden State.
In 1973, as I was going through customs in
New York, the customs agent rifling my bag looked at my passport and said, with
a Bronx sneer, “Bruce Thornton, huh. Must be one of them Hollywood names.”
Hearing that astonishing statement, I
realized for the first time that California is as much an idea as a place.
There were few regions in America more distant from Hollywood than the rural,
mostly poor, multiethnic San Joaquin Valley where my family lived and ranched.
Yet to this New Yorker, the Valley was invisible.
BLOG: FEINSTEIN & BOXER THREE TIMES
ATTEMPTED TO INSERT IN VARIOUS BILLS AN AMNESTY FOR FARM WORKERS TO REPAY THEIR
BIG AG BIG DONORS.
ONE-THIRD OF ALL FARM WORKERS END UP ON
WELFARE AS SOON AS THE ANCHOR BABIES START COMING
Coastal Californians are sometimes just as
blind to the world on the other side of the Coast Range, even though its farms,
orchards, vineyards, dairies, and ranches comprise more than half the
state’s $46
billion agriculture industry, which grows over 400 commodities, including over a third of the
country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts.
Granted, Silicon Valley is an economic
colossus compared to the ag industry, but agriculture’s importance can’t be
measured just in dollars and cents. Tech, movies, and every other industry
tends to forget that their lives and businesses, indeed civilization itself,
all rest on the shoulders of those who produce the food. You can live without
your iPhone or your Mac or the latest Marvel Studios blockbuster. But you can’t live without the food grown by the one out of a
100 people who work to feed the other 99.
A Politically Invisible Valley
Living in the most conservative counties
in the
deepest-blue state, Valley residents
constantly see
their concerns, beliefs, and needs
seldom taken
into account at the state or federal
level.
Registered Democrats in California
outnumber registered Republicans by over 19%, and the State Legislature seats about twice as many Democrats as
Republicans (California’s one of only eight states nationwide with a trifecta of a Democratic and two Democratic
controlled legislative bodies).
California’s Congressional delegation is
even more unbalanced: in the House of Representatives, currently there are
fourteen Republicans compared to thirty-nine House Democrats (at least half of
those GOP districts are in danger of turning blue this fall); half the Republicans represent Central Valley districts, none
bordering the Pacific Ocean. The last elected Republican US Senator left office
in 1991. The last Republican governor was the politically light-pink
action-movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose second term ended in 2011.
This progressive dominance of the state
has led to policies and priorities that has damaged its agricultural economy
and seriously degraded the quality of life in the Valley.
Despite a long drought that has diminished
the run-off of snow from the Sierra Nevada, projects for dams and reservoirs
are on hold, seriously impacting the ag industry that relies on the snowmelt
for most of its water. Worse yet, since 2008, a period including the height of
the drought, 1.4 trillion gallons of water have been dumped into the Pacific
Ocean to protect the endangered Delta Smelt, a two-inch bait-fish. Thousands of agricultural jobs have been
lost and farmland left uncultivated, all to satisfy the sensibilities of
affluent urban environmentalists. And even after a few years of abundant rain,
Valley farmers this year are receiving just 20% of their South-of-the-Delta water allocation.
Or take California’s high-speed rail
project, currently moribund and $10 billion over budget just for construction of the easiest section, through the
flat center of the Valley. Meanwhile, State Highway 99, which bisects the
Valley from north to south for 500 miles, is pot-holed, inefficient, and
crammed with 18-wheel semis. It is the bloodiest highway in the country, in
dire need of widening and repair. Yet to
gratify our Democratic governor’s
high-tech green obsession, billions of
dollars are
being squandered to create an
unnecessary link
between the Bay Area and Los
Angeles. That’s $10 billion that could have been
spent building more reservoirs instead of dumping water into the ocean because
there’s no place to store it.
The common thread of these two examples
of
mismanagement and waste is the
romantic
environmentalism of the well-heeled
coastal left.
They serially support government
projects and
regulations that impact the poor and the
aged, who
are left to bear their costs.
The same idealized nature-love has led to
regulations and taxes on energy that have made California home of the
third-worst energy poverty in the country. In sweltering San Joaquin Valley
counties like Madera and Tulare, energy poverty rates are 15% compared to 3–4% in cool, deep-blue coastal enclaves.
Impoverished Kings County averages over $500 a month in electric bills, while
tony Marin Country, with an average income twice that of Kings County, averages
$200. Again, it’s the poor, aged, and working class who bear the brunt of these
costs, especially in the Valley where temperatures regularly reach triple
digits in the summer; unlike the coast, where the clement climate makes
expensive air-conditioning unnecessary.
Deteriorating Quality of Life
It’s no wonder then that Fresno, in the
heart of the
Valley, is the second most impoverished
city in the
poorest region of a state that has the
highest
poverty levels in the country and one of
the
highest rates of income inequality. Over
one-fifth
of its residents live below the poverty
line, and it
The greatest impact on the Valley’s
deteriorating quality of life, however,
has been
the influx of illegal aliens. Some are attracted by
plentiful agriculture and construction
work, and
others by California’s generous welfare
transfers
— California is home to one in three of
the
country’s welfare recipients— all
facilitated by
California’s status as a “sanctuary
state” that
regularly releases felons rather than
cooperate
with Immigration and Customs
Enforcement
(ICE). As a result, one-quarter of the
country’s
from underdeveloped regions of Mexico
and Latin
America that have different social and cultural
mores and attitudes to the law and
civic
responsibility.
The consequences of these feckless
policies are
found throughout the state. But they
are
especially noticeable in rural California.
There
high levels of crime and daily
disorder—from
murders, assaults, and drug trafficking,
to
driving without insurance, DUIs,
hit-and-runs,
and ignoring building and sanitation
codes—
have degraded or, in some cases, destroyed
the
once-orderly farming towns that used to
be
populated by earlier immigrants,
including
many legal immigrants from Mexico, who
over
a few generations of sometimes rocky
coexistence assimilated to American
culture
and society.
Marginalized Cultural Minorities
More broadly, the dominant cultures and
mores of the dot.com north and the Hollywood south are inimical to those of the
Valley. Whether it is gun-ownership, hunting, church-going, or military
service, many people in the San Joaquin Valley of all races are quickly
becoming cultural minorities marginalized by the increasingly radical positions
on issues such as abortion, guns, and religion.
Despite the liberal assumption that all
Hispanics favor progressive policies, many Latino immigrants and their children
find more in common with Valley farmers and natives with whom they live and
work than they do with distant urban elites.
Indeed, as a vocal conservative professor
in the local university (Fresno State), I have survived mainly because my
students, now more than half Latino and Mexican immigrants or children of immigrants,
are traditional and practical in a way that makes them impatient with the
patronizing victim-politics of more affluent professors. They have more
experience with physical labor, they are more religious and, like me, they are
often the first in their families to graduate from college. As I did with the
rural Mexican Americans I grew up with, I usually have more in common with my
students than I do with many of my colleagues.
And this is the great irony of the
invisibility of the “other” California: the blue-coast policies that suit the
prejudices and sensibilities of the affluent have damaged the prospects of the
“others of color” they claim they want to help. Over-
represented on the poverty and welfare
rolls, many
migrants both legal and illegal have seen
water
policies that destroy agricultural jobs,
building
restrictions that drive up the cost of
housing,
energy policies that increase their cost
of living, “sanctuary city” policies that put back on the
streets thugs and criminals who prey mainly
on
their ethnic fellows, and economic
policies that
favor the redistribution rather than the
creation of wealth and jobs.
Meanwhile, the coastal liberals who tout a
cosmetic diversity live in a de facto apartheid world, surrounded by those of
similar income, taste, and politics. Many look down on the people whom they
view as racists and xenophobes at worst, and intellectually challenged rubes at
best. This disdain has been evident in the way the media regularly sneer that
House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes is a “former dairy-farmer” from
Tulare County, an origin that makes “the match between his backstory and his
prominence” seem “wholly incongruous,” per Roll Call's David Hawkings.
Finally, those of us who grew up and live
in the rural Valley did so among a genuine diversity, one that reflected the
more complex identities beyond the crude categories of “white” or “black” or
“Hispanic.”
Italians, Basques, Portuguese, Armenians,
Swedes, Mexicans, Filipinos, Southern blacks, Chinese, Japanese, Volga Germans,
Scotch-Irish Dust Bowl migrants—all migrated to the Valley to work the fields
and better their lives. Their children and grandchildren went to the same
schools, danced together and drank together, helped round up each other’s
animals when they got loose, were best friends or deadly enemies, dated and
intermarried, got drafted into the Army or joined the Marines—all of them
Americans who managed to honor their diverse heritages and faiths, but still be
a community. Their most important distinctions were not so much between races
and ethnicities, though those of course often collided, but between the
respectable people––those who obeyed the law, went to church, and raised their
kids right–– and those we all called “no damned good.” Skin-color or accents
couldn’t sort one from the other.
What most of us learned from living in
real diversity in the Valley is that being an American means taking people one
at a time.
That world still exists, but it is slowly
fading away—in part because of the policies and politics of those to our west,
who can see nothing on the other side of the Coast Range.
Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism
Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover
Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State
University. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical
culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most recent book, Democracy's Dangers and Discontents (Hoover Institution Press), is now available for purchase.
March 23, 2018
Is California Governor
Jerry Brown Mentally Ill?
Leftists are relentlessly
selling their bogus narrative that Trump is insane. Here are samples
of leftists' headlines: "Lawmakers Met With Psychiatrist About Trump's
Mental Health," "President Trump's Mental State An 'Enormous Present
Danger,'" "The Awkward Debate Around Trump's Mental Fitness,"
"The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists Assess."
So what has Trump done to
convince leftists that he must be crazy? Unlike Republicans, Trump
fearlessly confronts fake news media, calling them out when they
lie. Unlike Obama's punish-evil-America-first presidency, Trump has
America's best interest at heart. Unlike leftists seeking to
dissolve our borders, Trump plans to build a wall to protect our people and our
economy. Insanely, leftists cheered when Obama allowed Ebola into America, claiming it was racist
and unfair for Americans not to be subjected to the disease. Unlike
Obama, Hillary, Democrats, and fake news media's war on Christianity (forcing a
100-year-old order of Catholic nuns to
fund contraception and forcing Christian businesses to service same-sex
ceremonies), Trump vows to defend religious liberty.
So I guess, according to
leftists' perverse way of thinking, that Trump must be crazy, along with the 63
million Americans who voted for him.
Meanwhile,
leftists are ignoring glaring reasons to question the sanity of California's
governor, Jerry Brown. 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. In essence, Brown gave federal law,
President Trump, and legal California residents his middle
finger. 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. Isn't it reasonable to question
Brown's sanity?
Get this, folks: Americans are spending almost a billion
dollars a year on auto insurance for illegals. Brown is gifting
illegals billions in welfare and housing while his constituents cannot find a
place to live.
Ten years ago, a buddy of
mine excitedly moved his family from Maryland to California to accept the
highest-paying job of his career. Despite his lucrative salary, he
was forced to move back east due to the outrageously high cost of
living. My buddy said if he were an illegal, practically everything
would be free. His story inspired me to write and record a Beach
Boys-style song titled "Can't
Afford the Sunshine."
Once again, I ask you,
folks: would a rational governor do what Brown is doing to his
constituents? Is Governor Jerry Brown mentally ill?
Laura Ingraham: ‘California Is Almost Acting Like It’s a Separate Country’
Earlier this
week on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle,” host Laura Ingraham slammed
California and its leaders for its sanctuary city policies and its open
defiance of the federal government seeking to uphold existing immigration law.
Transcript as follows:
INGRAHAM: The radical takeover of California, that’s the focus
of tonight’s ANGLE.
I still remember the first time I traveled to Southern
California, it was the summer of 1984 and Los Angeles is hosting the Olympics.
Reagan was president and Republican George (inaudible) was the state’s
governor. Now, he was a moderate conservative, a law and order kind of guy.
The whole place, to me at least, felt like a Beach Boy song, the
weather, the people, the lifestyle was all, you know, beautiful stuff. But
today, the sunshine not with understanding, California is a very different
place. It’s now a place where state officials actively thwart federal
authorities trying to stop violent criminal offenders.