Republican
businessman John Cox has been projected as the second-place finisher in the
California primary for governor, securing a slot at the top of the ticket on
the November ballot and lifting GOP hopes to retain Congress.
JUST
IN: Republican John Cox will face Democrat Gavin Newsom in California
Governor's race in November #CaliforniaPrimary2018
The major news networks made the call with just a small
percentage of the vote counted, thanks to a surprisingly strong result from
Cox, who far out-performed his poll numbers.
With just 17.2% of precincts
partially reporting as of 10:04 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, Cox had 26.0% of
the vote, behind Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 35.1% and far ahead of former Los
Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s 11.1%, as well as conservative Assemblyman
Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach), who had 10.9%.
The final RealClearPolitics
average of polls had Cox at just 17.5%.
Cox appears to have benefited
from an endorsement from President Donald Trump. He also spent heavily in the
early months of the race, boosting his name recognition and convincing
observers he was the GOP’s only hope. Newsroom’s campaign also boosted Cox,
fearing an expensive battle against Villaraigosa in the general election.
The gubernatorial race was once
thought to be a guaranteed all-Democrat fight between Newsom and Villaraigosa.
Under California’s “top two” or “jungle” primary system, the top vote-winners
in the primary advance, regardless of party. The conventional wisdom was that
Villaraigosa would turn out the Latino vote and surpass any GOP rivals. Special
interests began placing multimillion-dollar bets on that outcome, using the
Newsom-Villaraigosa race as a proxy for a battle over school reform, for
example. Democrats hoped that race would boost downticket candidates.
But Republicans, led by Allen
and others, began organizing a statewide effort to put a repeal of California’s
new gas tax on the November ballot. Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived
in Sacramento in early March, armed with a federal lawsuit against California’s
new “sanctuary state” laws. That inspired conservative activists to mount a
revolt against those laws in local governments throughout Southern California.
Cox and Allen saw their polls rise.
With a Republican now competing
in the most important statewide election, the GOP believes it can turn out its
vote in November and protect vulnerable members of Congress in districts that
voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. That, in turn, will make it much more
difficult for Democrats to pick up the 23 seats they need nationwide to win
back control of the U.S. House of Representatives and to put former Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) back in power.
Villaraigosa struggled to gain traction in the polls. He was
also hurt by errors in the voter rolls in L.A. County, which accidentally
excluded nearly 120,000 people, many of whom had to cast provisional ballots,
and some of whom may not have been able to vote at all. Villaraigosa called on officials to extend voting through
Friday.
Republicans appeared to qualify
for the general election in several other statewide races, but not for
insurance commissioner, where former Republican Steve Poizner won the primary
as a “no party preference” candidate. The race for second in the primary for
U.S. Senate was neck-and-neck between Republican James Bradley and State Sen.
Kevin de Léon (D-Los Angeles); incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) came in
first place easily.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior
Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50
“most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution,
which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
The major news networks made the call with just a small
percentage of the vote counted, thanks to a surprisingly strong result from
Cox, who far out-performed his poll numbers.
With just 17.2% of precincts
partially reporting as of 10:04 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, Cox had 26.0% of
the vote, behind Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 35.1% and far ahead of former Los
Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s 11.1%, as well as conservative Assemblyman
Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach), who had 10.9%.
The final RealClearPolitics
average of polls had Cox at just 17.5%.
Cox appears to have benefited
from an endorsement from President Donald Trump. He also spent heavily in the
early months of the race, boosting his name recognition and convincing
observers he was the GOP’s only hope. Newsroom’s campaign also boosted Cox,
fearing an expensive battle against Villaraigosa in the general election.
The gubernatorial race was once
thought to be a guaranteed all-Democrat fight between Newsom and Villaraigosa.
Under California’s “top two” or “jungle” primary system, the top vote-winners
in the primary advance, regardless of party. The conventional wisdom was that
Villaraigosa would turn out the Latino vote and surpass any GOP rivals. Special
interests began placing multimillion-dollar bets on that outcome, using the
Newsom-Villaraigosa race as a proxy for a battle over school reform, for
example. Democrats hoped that race would boost downticket candidates.
But Republicans, led by Allen
and others, began organizing a statewide effort to put a repeal of California’s
new gas tax on the November ballot. Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived
in Sacramento in early March, armed with a federal lawsuit against California’s
new “sanctuary state” laws. That inspired conservative activists to mount a
revolt against those laws in local governments throughout Southern California.
Cox and Allen saw their polls rise.
With a Republican now competing
in the most important statewide election, the GOP believes it can turn out its
vote in November and protect vulnerable members of Congress in districts that
voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. That, in turn, will make it much more
difficult for Democrats to pick up the 23 seats they need nationwide to win
back control of the U.S. House of Representatives and to put former Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) back in power.
Villaraigosa struggled to gain traction in the polls. He was
also hurt by errors in the voter rolls in L.A. County, which accidentally
excluded nearly 120,000 people, many of whom had to cast provisional ballots,
and some of whom may not have been able to vote at all. Villaraigosa called on officials to extend voting through
Friday.
Republicans appeared to qualify
for the general election in several other statewide races, but not for
insurance commissioner, where former Republican Steve Poizner won the primary
as a “no party preference” candidate. The race for second in the primary for
U.S. Senate was neck-and-neck between Republican James Bradley and State Sen.
Kevin de Léon (D-Los Angeles); incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) came in
first place easily.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior
Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50
“most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution,
which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Will
Californians Prevail Against the Little Picture of Hell?
https://townhall.com/columnists/arthurschaper/2018/06/05/draft-n2487359
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 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.
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.
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'...: The Golden State is peddling fool's gold lately.
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.
BLOG: COME TO
MEXIFORNIA! HALF OF LOS ANGELES 15 MILLION ARE ILLEGALS!
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'...: The Golden State is peddling fool's gold lately.
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.
BLOG: COME TO
MEXIFORNIA! HALF OF LOS ANGELES 15 MILLION ARE ILLEGALS!
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.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270265/invisible-california-bruce-thornton
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.
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.
ABOUT BRUCE THORNTON
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.
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.
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