Tuesday, June 25, 2019

IMAGES OF NANCY PELOSI'S STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN MELTDOWN





Bubonic Plague In Los Angeles? Is California On The Verge Of Becoming A Third-World State?



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Bubonic Plague In Los Angeles? Is California On The Verge Of Becoming A Third-World State?
Source: Jeff Lewis/AP Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation
A lot has happened. We’re still dealing with the border crisis, the Democratic debates are about to begin, and Iran is rattling the war sabers. The city of Los Angeles should be thankful there are so many distractions. The Democrat-run urban center has become a total disgrace. And that’s very common among the Left coast.
Tucker Carlson had historian Victor Davis Hanson on last week, where the latter said that California is on the verge of becoming the nation’s first Third World state. From trash being illegally dumped to city hall becoming a rat-infested den in the city of LA, it all points to the decay suffered when Democrats run things. Even police stations in the city are loaded with rats; one was fined $5,000 over its conditions that left one officer stricken with typhoid fever. It’s to the point where there is a possibility that bubonic plague—yes, the black death—may be present in the city. This isn’t new. Typhus outbreaks were being reported in February (via NBC Los Angeles):
The full scope of the flea and rodent problem inside City Hall is still unclear amid a downtown outbreak of flea-borne typhus…
Staff from the General Services Department, the Personnel Department and others gave updates to the council on actions taken … when the council approved a motion seeking options on combating the problem of rodents and fleas in the building, which may include removing all of the carpets.
Department representatives told the council a vendor is still in the process of inspecting every floor of City Hall and City Hall East as it prepares a full report to identify where the flea and rodent problems are. Staff also said cleanup efforts around the exterior of the building have increased and work is being done to identify rodent entry points and have them sealed.
[…]
Typhus is not transmitted person-to-person, and flea-borne typhus can spread to people from infected fleas and their feces. Typhus infection can be prevented through flea control measures on pets, using insect repellent to avoid flea bites, and clearing areas that can attract wild or stray animals like cats, rats and opossums, according to the Department of Public Health.
Symptoms of typhus include high fever, chills, headache, muscle aches and rash and can be treated with antibiotics.
Health officials in October announced there was a typhus outbreak in Los Angeles County, including in the downtown area of Skid Row, where an estimated 2,000 homeless people sleep.
And it goes without saying; these burgeoning homeless camps are not oases of hygiene. Dr. Drew Pinsky said this month that there has been a total and complete breakdown of services in the city that has placed the population at risk of infection and other health-related issues. The mayor’s office has sought to shift blame away from the homeless, citing the illegal dumping of trash, which only adds to the narrative that deep blue California and LA are just Democratic cesspools. I mean, how does this sound any better?
‘It’s not the homeless, it’s just all the trash that’s everywhere.’ You cannot make this up (via CBS News):
The city of Los Angeles is grappling with deteriorating sanitation problems, as an increase in homeless camps and illegally dumped trash have created conditions for rats and other vermin to infest L.A. City Hall. … the Los Angeles Times reported an assessment from a private pest control company placed the blame for the rodents in City Hall squarely on the city's homeless population living in the nearby Civic Center.
[…]
The Los Angeles Times obtained the assessment last month through a public records request. Los Angeles' City Hall building has been plagued by a rodent problem for most of the year. The Los Angeles Times reports there were pest complaints — rats, mice or fleas — made in 20 different locations within City Hall for a five-month period through February.
According to the newspaper, Elena Stern, spokeswoman for the city's Bureau of Sanitation, said cleanups of homeless camps currently take place every weekend in the Civic Center and include the disposal of hazardous materials, the removal and storage of items owned by homeless people, and the power washing of sidewalks. 
The rodent and homeless problems affecting City Hall and the Civic Center are part of a larger problem of trash and sanitation in the streets of the city, which has been profiled by an LA Times photographer. Last month, multiple LAPD police officers contracted typhoid fever, and others contracted hepatitis A and staff infections, while working at a police station in an area filled with hundreds of homeless encampments.
Oh, yeah, and bubonic plague could be roaming the streets (via Daily Wire):

“We have a complete breakdown of the basic needs of civilization in Los Angeles right now,” Pinsky told Fox New host Laura Ingraham. “We have the three prongs of airborne disease, tuberculosis is exploding, rodent-borne. We are one of the only cities in the country that doesn’t have a rodent control program, and sanitation has broken down.”
Pinsky said bubonic plague — also known as the “Black Death,” a pandemic that killed off millions in the 14th century — is “likely” already present in Los Angeles. The plague is spread by infected fleas and exposure to bodily fluids from a dead plague-infected animal, with the bacteria entering through the skin and traveling to lymph nodes.
[…]
“This is unbelievable. I can’t believe I live in a city where this is not Third World. This is medieval,” Pinsky said, according to Fox News. “Third World countries are insulted if they are accused of being like this. No city on Earth tolerates this. The entire population is at risk.”
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson noted how California was once a gem, an example of the American dream in action and how it has now become hollowed out with decay thanks to liberal policies. It’s a state that’s loaded with illegal aliens, has a population where 40 percent live in poverty, and apparently has its cities falling into a terrible state of disrepair. California is blue state trash. Period. So, could, or rather should, we classify the Golden State as a third-world state?





America’s First Third-World State

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A man who said he is homeless stands outside his makeshift home near a housing construction project in San Francisco, Calif., in 2015. (Robert Galbraith/Reuters)

Medieval diseases, gangs, corruption, crime, crumbling infrastructure, out-of-touch wealthy elites …
‘Third World” is now an anachronistic geographical term of the old Cold War. But after 1989, “Third World” was reinvented from a political noun into an adjective to mean more than just Asian, African, and Latin American nations nonaligned with either the West or the Soviet bloc.
Rather, the current modifier “Third World” has come to transcend geography, politics, and ethnicity. It simply denotes poor failed states all over the globe of all races and religions.
Third World symptomologies are predictably corrupt government, unequal or nonexistent applicability of the law, two rather than three classes, and the return of medieval diseases. Third World nations suffer from high taxes and poor social services, premodern infrastructure and utilities, poor transportation, tribalism, gangs, and lack of security.
Another chief characteristic of a Third World society is the official denial of all of the above, and a vindictive, almost hysterical state response to anyone who points out those obvious tragedies. Another is massive out-migration. Residents prefer almost any country other than their own. Think Somalia, Venezuela, Cuba, Libya, or Guatemala.
Does 21st-century California increasingly fit that definition — despite having the nation’s most amenable climate and most beautiful and diverse geography, with major natural ports facing the dynamic Asian economies, and being naturally rich in timber, agriculture, mining, and energy, and blessed with a prior century’s inheritance of effective local and state government?
The California Manor
By many criteria, 21st-century California is both the poorest and the richest state in the union. Almost a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line. Another fifth is categorized as near the poverty level — facts not true during the latter 20th century. A third of the nation’s welfare recipients now live in California. The state has the highest homeless population in the nation (135,000). About 22 percent of the nation’s total homeless population reside in the state — whose economy is the largest in the U.S., fueling the greatest numbers of American billionaires and high-income zip codes.
But by some indicators, the California middle class is shrinking — because of massive regulation, high taxation, green zoning, and accompanying high housing prices. Out-migration from the state remains largely a phenomenon of the middle and upper-middle classes. Millions have left California in the past 30 years, replaced by indigent and often illegal immigrants, often along with the young, affluent, and single.
If someone predicted half a century ago that a Los Angeles police station or indeed L.A. City Hall would be in danger of periodic, flea-borne infectious typhus outbreaks, he would have been considered unhinged. After all, the city that gave us the modern freeway system is not supposed to resemble Justinian’s sixth-century Constantinople. Yet typhus, along with outbreaks of infectious hepatitis A, are in the news on California streets. The sidewalks of the state’s major cities are homes to piles of used needles, feces, and refuse. Hygienists warn that permissive municipal governments are setting the stage — through spiking populations of history’s banes of fleas, lice, and rats — for possible dark-age outbreaks of plague or worse.
High tech does its part not to clean the streets but to create defecation apps that electronically warn tourists and hoi polloi how to avoid walking blindly into piles of sidewalk excrement. In Californian logic, public defecation butts up against progressive tolerance, so it is exempt from the law. Yet for a suburbanite to build a patio without a permit, for example, costs one dearly in fines. Indeed, a new patio without a permit can be deemed more dangerous to the public health than piles of excrement in the public workplace.
One out of three Californians who enters a hospital for any cause is now found to be suffering from either diabetes or pre-diabetes, an epidemic that hits the Hispanic community especially hard but for a variety of reasons has not led to effective public-health efforts and sufficient publicity. State-run dialysis clinics now dot the towns and communities of the Central Valley — a tragic symptom of dietary culture, massive illegal immigration, and poor public-health education.

Infrastructure Is for the Unwoke
California’s transportation system, to be honest, remains in near ruins. Despite the highest gas taxes in the nation, none of its major trans-state freeways — not the 99, not I-5, not the 101 — after 70 years off use, are yet completed with six lanes, resulting in dangerous bottlenecks and wrecks. Driving the 99 south of Visalia, or the 101 near Paso Robles, or the 5 north of Coalinga is right out of Road Warrior — but not as dangerous as the fossilized two-line feeder lines such as 152 into Gilroy, or the 41 west of Kettleman City. The unspoken transportation credo of Jerry Brown’s aggregate 16 years as governor apparently was “If you don’t build it, maybe they won’t need it.”
Meanwhile the concrete carcass of the recently cancelled multibillion-dollar high-speed rail system dots the skyline over Fresno. Bureaucrats now insist that more billions must be spent to ensure that a short segment of the least traveled route will be finished, though they obviously do not anticipate spurring a new tourist or commercial corridor between Merced and Bakersfield.
High-speed-rail gurus insist on salvaging something of the boondoggle not because they have an economic rationale justifying more dollars — they would be far better invested in improving freeways, airports, and rails — but largely out of pride and shame that demand some small token rescued from a very bad pipe dream.
In 1973, when I first visited and lived in Greece, the roads were medieval. The old Hellinikon Airport was dysfunctional, if not creepy. Highway rest stops were filthy. I have lived in or visited Greece in the ensuing 45 years since, including occasionally after the 2008 meltdown and European Union standoff. And yet today, the freeways, chief airport, and rest stops of relatively poor Greece are in far better shape than are California’s. LAX’s poor road access, traffic, uncleanness, crowds, and chaos seem premodern compared with the current Athenian airport.
It is an eerie experience to see America’s once premier state, currently at its supposed acme, now resemble Greece of the colonels a half-century ago, while 2019 Greece seems more like a functioning 1973 California. Athens and Thessaloniki are still dirty in a few places, and there are homeless and illegal immigrants. But one does not see needles and feces on the sidewalks, and it is safe to walk in the evening. Greek public restrooms, once notorious, are far more sanitary than those at rest stops in Fresno, San Francisco, or Los Angeles.
Power outrages are characteristic of Third World countries. Here in California we are advised to brace for lots of them, given that our antiquated grid apparently contributes to brush fires on hot days. As a native, I do not remember a single instance of our 20th-century state utilities shutting down service in the manner that they now routinely promise.

California for Others
Crime the last three years has increased. It is epidemic in local jails. San Francisco has the highest property-crime rate per capita of any major city. The California prison system is a mess, and sanctuary cities ensure that illegal aliens charged with crimes will not be deported. Pick up a McClatchy paper and you’ll see that the day’s fare of Central Valley criminality, even after sanitization and editorialization, is mind-boggling.
California’s cycles of wet boom years and dry bust years continue because the state refuses to build three or four additional large reservoirs that have been planned for more than a half-century, and that would store enough water to keep California functional through even the worst drought. The rationale is either that it is more sophisticated to allow millions of acre-feet of melted snow to run into the sea, or it is better to have a high-speed-rail line from Merced to Bakersfield than an additional 10 million acre-feet of water storage, or droughts ensure more state control through rationing and green social-policy remedies.
Twenty-seven percent of Californians were not born in the United States, a large minority of them residing in the United States illegally. Yet California’s universities and popular culture are at the forefront of salad-bowl and identity-politics policies that obstruct assimilation, integration, and intermarriage — the historical remedies for the natural tensions that arise within multiracial and multiethnic societies. In this perfect storm, at the very moment the world’s poorest citizens from Oaxaca and Central America flooded into America, de facto rejecting the protocols of their home, their hosts’ messaging to them was that they should lodge complaints about the social injustice of their new home and romanticize the culture that they had just forsaken for good cause.
California schools are usually in the bottom decile of national rankings. No one in polite conversation asks why that is so, given that the state’s K–12 schools used to be among the most competitive in the United States.
Yet, again in medieval fashion, the professional schools and science and technology departments of California’s premier research universities — Cal Tech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC — are among the highest-rated in the world. Imagine something like the scribal oases of Padua, Oxford, or Paris in an otherwise frightening 13th century. If one wishes to be schooled as an electrical engineer or cancer researcher, California is an attractive place; if one wishes to be a knowledgeable graduate of a public elementary and high school, it most certainly is not.
California’s Department of Motor Vehicles is perhaps the worst public-service entity in the United States. To enter any branch office is to venture into a Dante’s Inferno of huge lines, chaos, unkept rest rooms, and rude and often incompetent unionized employees. The only efficient DMV office in the state is the unmarked and secret branch in Sacramento reserved for state legislators and grandee insiders who oversee the DMV for the rest of the population. For a fee, concierge private auto clubs and firms often duplicate some DMV services, a de facto admission that the state needs something else besides itself to offer basic services. I once asked a DMV clerk, after a long wait in line, if it was right to be wearing a purple SEIU organizing T-shirt; she replied, “Do you still want to be served?”
The DMV scandals are multifarious: Thousands of motor-voter registrations sent to the wrong people, including illegal aliens supposedly ineligible to vote; corrupt employees who sell commercial truck driver’s licenses to the unqualified; and private corporations and occasionally individuals selling hard-to-obtain reservations and appointments.
California now has the nation’s highest basket of sales, gas, and income taxes. With a state surplus, and a slowing economy, one would think that the legislature and governor would pause before even considering raising more taxes. After all, new federal tax law limits write-offs of state and local taxes to $10,000 — radically spiking upper-bracket Californians’ federal tax liabilities.
Yet the rule in California is to punish the upper middle class while pandering to the rich and romanticizing the poor. Thus, the legislature is now considering a punitive new inheritance tax, and it just imposed an Internet sales tax.
Again, the message is that if Californians can survive a recent 13.3 percent top state-income-tax rate, and a vast increase in their federal tax liability, then certainly they can be easily squeezed further after death to pony up 40 percent of their already taxed estates that are over $3 million in value. Translated, that can mean that a tract house in Los Angeles or the Bay Area and a modest 401K are proof that you did not build your wealth on your own, so the state has a second shot at appropriating your postmortem capital, to ensure that your children will see no benefit from your parsimony and thrift.
California’s apocalyptic present has created an alternate universe, in good Third World style, of pay-for-play services. To avoid the emergency room (the last time I used one, two gangs squared off in the waiting room, to continue what their wounded members were under treatment for), progressive Californians often pay for concierge medicine and anything private to avoid at all costs using any state services.
The coastal corridor elite often put their kids in tony prep schools that have sprung up or vastly expanded, in the fashion of the 1960s white Southern academies that were designed to circumvent federal desegregation edicts. Elite progressives mimic old-style, 1960s segregationists but feel that their children’s green and multicultural curricula offer enough penance to assuage their guilt over abandoning the state’s much praised “diverse” schools.

Our Dreams, Your Nightmares
What caused this lunacy?
A polarity of importing massive poverty from south of the border while pandering to those who control unprecedented wealth in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the tourism industry, and the marquee universities. Massive green regulations and boutique zoning, soaring taxes, increasing crime, identity politics and tribalism, and radical one-party progressive government were force multipliers. It is common to blame California Republicans for their own demise. They have much to account for, but in some sense, the state simply deported conservative voters and imported their left-wing replacements.
In a reductionist sense, perhaps if former governor Jerry Brown knew that he would one day retire to Delano and drive the 99 daily, rather than to Grass Valley, with several state pensions in his bank account, or if Dianne Feinstein dwelled in an East Palo Alto or Redwood City residence rather than in Pacific Heights, or if all the Pelosi grandchildren had to attend state public schools, then the architects of 21st-century California might have had to live with the consequences of their own dreams and been less eager to inflict their nightmares on the other 40 million Californians.
But then again, such a radical divergence between a few insider elites and a massive underclass, with little in between, is perhaps what best defines “Third World.”

 

What else is new? Newsom’s budget calls for more spending, higher taxes

 

https://www.dailynews.com/2019/01/13/what-else-is-new-newsoms-budget-calls-for-more-spending-higher-taxes/

 

 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom presents his first state budget during a news conference Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

By JON COUPAL | |

To the surprise of absolutely no one, California’s new governor has proposed a state budget with billions in increased spending and lots of tax hikes. And, as an added bonus, he is proposing new mandates on businesses and local governments as well as depriving Californians of the right to vote on certain kinds of local debt. From the perspective of taxpayers, this is not a propitious start.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget envisions spending $144 billion of general fund dollars, a 4 percent increase over former Gov. Jerry Brown’s last budget, which clocked in at $138 billion. To put this in perspective, general fund spending was less than $100 billion just six years ago. In California, state government is the No. 1 growth industry.

No California spending plan would be complete without new “revenue enhancements.” And the biggest item on this list is the imposition of the “individual mandate” for health insurance. Recall that President Obama’s so-called Affordable Care Act (which was anything but affordable) imposed a burdensome tax on millions of Americans. (Indeed, it was only the fact that the ACA imposed a “tax” that saved it from a constitutional challenge).

The good news is that Congress repealed the tax at the federal level. The bad news is that Gov. Newsom wants to reimpose it at the state level in order to save Covered California from imploding. The cost to Californians for a state-imposed individual mandate with a penalty?: $700 per person, which is projected to raise $500 million in new revenue.

Other tax hikes include a monthly tax imposed on residential water use and a tax to shore up the state’s emergency 911 system. Both deal with public health and safety so one would think they would have first claim on existing general fund revenues — but, again, this is California, where budgeting makes no sense.

Another major concern for taxpayers is Newsom’s plan to deprive voters of the right to vote on local debt. Since statehood, California’s constitution has reflected the policy of allowing voters the right to approve long-term financial obligations. That policy has been eroded over the decades and Newsom is pushing it further by proposing that debt assumed by Enhanced Infrastructure Finance Districts (think “redevelopment”) would no longer need voter approval. Translation: Today’s politicians can put tomorrow’s taxpayers into debt without permission.

So, is there anything good for taxpayers in Newsom’s proposed budget? Yes. This includes Newsom’s desire to grow the rainy day fund — in order to prepare for the inevitable recession — and also paying down pension debt. He also appears cognizant of the OPEB threat. OPEB stands for Other Post-Employment Benefits, the largest of which is, of course, promises for lifetime healthcare benefits to public retirees.

Taxpayers hope that the governor will be able to resist even greater spending demands from state legislators who want $40 billion for new, more costly programs.  Nonetheless, our primary concern is that the majority party in California invariably reacts to any new problem — whether actual or imagined — with a tax increase rather than taking the more prudent course of prioritizing spending.

Finally, if there is a coda to this sad story, it is this: State Controller Betty Yee just announced that revenue is down almost $5 billion. Is this a precursor to a recession in the state that will blow up all the governor’s plans? Time will tell.




BLOG: THE MEXICAN TAX-FREE ECONOMY IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY IS ESTIMATED TO BE IN EXCESS OF $2 BILLION YEARLY. THIS SAME COUNTY HANDS ILLEGAL ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS MORE THAN $1 BILLION  IN WELFARE!

Eligibility would be determined by the same rules of Medicaid, based on annual income. As many young illegals are working off the books, for cash, they will have no official reported income regardless of how much they actually earn, insuring their eligibility for Medi-Cal.

 

 

California Says: ‘Go West, Young Illegals, Go West’

 

Doctors and hospitals are in the gunsights of many Democrats who want Medicare-for-all as a draconian price control scheme by government over all medical care in the US. Hospitals are told they charge too much and doctors are vilified for earning too much.
What a relief that a sugar daddy has appeared, a rich boyfriend, a benefactor with a fat wallet, ready to bestow his financial largess on financially strapped healthcare providers.
This sugar daddy is named Gavin, tall and handsome with good hair. I speak of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who finalized a deal with the California legislature, “to provide full health benefits to low-income illegal immigrants under the age of 26.”
California is the first state to provide such benefits to illegal or undocumented immigrants, depending on which term you prefer. Specifically, this group of adults, age 19 to 25 will have access to the state’s Medi-Cal program, California’s version of Medicaid.
California anticipates providing coverage to 100,000 people. I’m not sure how they arrived at this number since I’ve always heard that illegal immigrants “live in the shadows,” meaning we really don’t know how many there are. And when word gets out to the rest of the country, expect that 100,000 number to grow exponentially just as it would if California announced it was giving away cars to this same group of people.

BLOG: THE MEXICAN TAX-FREE ECONOMY IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY IS ESTIMATED TO BE IN EXCESS OF $2 BILLION YEARLY. THIS SAME COUNTY HANDS ILLEGAL ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS MORE THAN $1 BILLION  IN WELFARE!

Eligibility would be determined by the same rules of Medicaid, based on annual income. As many young illegals are working off the books, for cash, they will have no official reported income regardless of how much they actually earn, insuring their eligibility for Medi-Cal.
This scheme is to be funded by taxing those who do not have health insurance. Who might that be? Not the young illegals who how have free insurance. How about the small businessman who earns too much to qualify for Medicaid but can’t afford an Obamacare policy with massive premiums, copayments, and deductibles? Or the struggling wannabe actors and actresses in the same financial boat as the small businessman? Or the 60-year-old retiree, not yet eligible for Medicare but unable to afford private insurance given the higher premiums at her age?
How nice of California taxpayers, those American born or here legally, having their earnings confiscated to pay the medical bills of those not here legally. Who pays the medical bills of those Americans who can’t afford their medical care?
Interestingly undocumented elderly are not covered under this new plan. Sugar Daddy Newsom opposed this, preferring the young over the elderly, likely due to the much higher medical costs for those over age 65 compared to those under age 25.
This may have to do with voting preferences. It is unknown how many illegals vote, but younger voters tend to vote Democrat compared to older voters who lean Republican. Is this healthcare scheme a form of voter outreach?
Why are doctors and hospitals across America so grateful for their new sugar daddy?
Americans subsidize health care for illegal immigrants to the tune of $18.5 billion a year according to Forbes. Imagine being able to now offload some of this care to California?

Hospitals are required by law to render emergency care to everyone, regardless of a person’s ability to pay. A pregnant woman illegally enters the US, and when she goes into labor, the hospital is required to deliver the baby, caring for both baby and mother, at an average cost of $32,000.
What if the baby is born premature and needs a few weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit, or is born with a heart or bowel defect, requiring additional surgery? The costs quickly escalate into 6-figure sums.
Labor and delivery is certainly common in the 19-25 age group. So are injuries that may require non-emergency treatment, such as a retinal detachment or a ligament tear in the knee. For the doctor, these patients are considered self-pay. Despite promises to pay all of their medical bills, some patients, once reasonably stable after surgery are gone with the wind, with no way to contact them, and no payment made for rendered services.
What if doctors and hospitals, when discussing costs of medical treatment, can now give the patient a map? A few hundred years ago, newspaper editor and author Horace Greeley advised the 19 to 25-year-olds of the day to “Go west young man”. The same phrase may become popular again, particularly in states adjacent to or close to California.
When faced with patients with non-emergent medical problems, direct these patients to the nearest east-west interstate, I-40, I-70, or I-80, and drive toward the setting sun until seeing the “Welcome to California” sign. Go west and allow generous California taxpayers to pick up the tab.
Hospitals won’t be stuck with bad debt and physicians won’t be stiffed after offering their time and expertise without compensation.
Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman said this about an open-border immigration policy. "It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state." Which is exactly what California offers, providing free healthcare to living in the state against the law.
While at the same time, California has an out of control homelessness problem, many of those homeless being American veterans. They are living legally in their own country yet living on the streets, in squalor, with rats and other vermin bringing back historic diseases like typhus and typhoid fever. Where is their sugar daddy governor? Busy pandering to those here illegally.
Down on their luck Americans are told to pound sand while illegals are lavished with drivers licenses, welfare benefits, and now healthcare. California cannot care for its own residents, but is opening its doors to the world, promising goodies that will do nothing but attract more of the world, regardless of laws.
When does it end? I’ve suggested that the Trump administration send refugees and illegals to sanctuary cities, so those cities have the opportunity to live with the consequences of their virtue signaling. Now doctors and hospitals can do the same. If California wants to be an open borders welfare state, it’s the least the rest of the country can do to help out by sending young undocumented immigrants to the land of milk and honey.
Instead of “the doctor will see you now”, expect to hear, “go west young man.”
Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook,  LinkedIn and Twitter.

California could use a management change




Over Sunday lunch, a friend was saying that he just got back from Los Angeles.  He added that he had not seen that much filth in some of the third-world countries that he visits for business regularly.  He looked at me and asked: " How do the voters put up with that?"
My answer was that voters have been voting with their feet for years.  In other words, they leave the Golden State.
California is a mess indeed, as Jim Bredo wrote:  
It has the worst ranking for homelessness, 8th worst for roads, and worst for teacher-to-student ratio. Its prisons are so crowded that the Supreme Court determined them to constitute cruel and unusual punishment, and it suffered the worst budget crisis of all the states during the Great Recession.
But residents are so mesmerized by the amazing weather and beauty of the place that they tend to overlook the quality of the services. And as a result, management does not change. The state has been under the same Democratic Party management for years. Their monopoly on power is so safe that they now hold supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature despite California’s worsening condition. Management has no incentive to change when it keeps getting re-elected.
Californians may not be voting out Democrats at the ballot box, but they have been voting with their feet. While California’s population has grown from 29 million to 39 million over the past 30 years, in each year during that period the state has seen a net loss in migration to other states.
So will things change?  I don't see any change for now, although the article points out that Latinos get more conservative as they get more prosperous.  
California will continue until they hit a financial wall or when the last taxpayer leaves the state.  In the meantime, be careful when you walk the streets of LA, and I'm not talking about thieves.
P.S.  You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

 

 

California Lawmakers Plan to Give Health Benefits to Illegal Immigrants


HANNAH BLEAU

Democrat state lawmakers in progressive California have agreed to a plan that would extend health benefits to qualifying illegal immigrants residing in the state.

The legislature has a June 15 deadline and is expected to approve the deal in the coming days. It essentially extends eligibility to California’s Medicaid program to young low-income illegal immigrants between the ages of 19 and 25. The move is part of a broader budget plan, which clocks in around $213 billion.
Expanding California’s Medicaid program to low-income illegals would cost the state about $98 million per year. According to the Associated Press, roughly 90,000 will qualify.
“California believes that health is a fundamental right,” State Sen. Holly Mitchell (D) said, according to the news outlet.
A number of Democrat state lawmakers wanted to take it a step further, offering coverage for all illegals in the state, but Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected the proposal, citing rising costs.
The agreement also includes assistance for middle-income families. A family of four making $150,000 could qualify for a $100 a month subsidy from the government to help cover the cost of their insurance premium.
Democrats in the state plan to pay for the handouts, in part, by taxing those who do not have health insurance. This is, in essence, another version of Obamacare’s individual mandate penalty, which the Supreme Court upheld as a tax in a critical ruling in 2012. However, it has remained a point of contention in lower courts. Republicans in Congress worked with President Trump to scrap what they deemed to be the unconstitutional penalty in 2017.
California lawmakers say these moves are all part of the state’s wide-ranging effort to get everyone in the state – including those residing there unlawfully – covered. This comes at the time of a severe homelessness crisis in the state, particularly in Los Angeles County.
The number of homeless individuals on the streets of Los Angeles has skyrocketed during the last year.
As Breitbart News reported:
The newly released data revealed that nearly three-fourths of the homeless population, which includes 58,936 people, are sleeping in cars, tents, and other make-do shelters.
Released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to the Board of Supervisors, the data found that the majority of homeless people were residing in the city of Los Angeles, which saw an increase of 16 percent to 36,300.
About 3,800 are estimated to be veterans.
San Francisco’s homeless population has also experienced a spike, rising 17 percent in the last two years.

How do we deal with America's mental illness crisis?



Before Ronald Reagan became President Reagan in 1981, the old Soviet Union (dominated by today's Russia) imprisoned political opponents in psychiatric hospitals.  In later years, many of those former inmates recalled that the very fact of being confined among people who were truly mentally ill, was so stressful as to induce a degree of that illness in the sanest of people.  Being forcibly injected with psychotropic drugs increased that tendency. 
The communist Soviet leaders hoped that imprisoning people in that manner would provide their government with a plausible cover of compassion.  It enabled them to deny that they were punishing dissidents, rather claiming that they were "helping" them.  It also insinuated that only crazy people oppose communism.  The forced hospitalization policy did in fact work to suppress some political dissent, because everyone knew that it was an insidiously cruel punishment.
President Reagan, ardently anti-communist, successfully promoted the release of mentally ill patients in the U.S. by reducing funding for their care.  Thousands who had been involuntarily confined were turned out into the streets.  Most of them became homeless and hopeless.  Unemployable, all too many turned to drugs and crime.  Their death rate was high.
While Reagan is vilified for this policy, the fact is that after he left the presidency, no subsequent president, nor any Congress, reinstituted the pre-Reagan policy.  They could have but did not.  Today, involuntary confinement to mental institutions for prolonged periods is difficult to achieve. 
That is as it should be.  The danger of a Soviet-style policy by a future socialist-oriented U.S. government is by no means out of the question.  After all, it could be asked by leftists, what truly same person would actually wish to own a lethal weapon?  Who in his right mind could possibly support the Second Amendment?  At least that is what the radical left would ask, and you know what the answer would be.
California is no longer the paradise it was under Governor Reagan.  Radical leftism has taken root.  It is all but a separate country in many ways.  It has its own immigration policy, illegal under federal law.  At one point, its governor even floated the idea that the state should produce its own virtual currency in the form of accounting tricks, an action uncomfortably close to secession.
Radical leftist policies in California have put on public display the embarrassing appearance of a third-world hell-hole.  Swathes of the state, mostly in big cities, are heavily populated by semi-conscious (or even unconscious) drug addicts, and entire city blocks seem to be covered in garbage and human feces.  The problem is getting worse.  A harsh comedian suggested that conditions are so bad that illegal aliens might return to their native countries as refugees from America.
As a proposed solution, "Officials in San Francisco decided ... to back a plan allowing the city to force some people with serious mental illness and drug addiction issues into treatment."
Among progressives, this is a formula for internecine warfare.  Leftist philosophy is socially libertarian when it comes to drug abuse, but it is also authoritarian when it comes to political expedience.  These two do not mix.
The policy presently proposed by San Francisco is timid, so much so as to be ineffective.  It would involuntarily commit very few.  "Only about five people could be forced into treatment in San Francisco under the newly-passed plan. ... But Wiener's new bill could bump that up to 55, which is the number of people who now fit the definition for at least involuntary holds.  San Francisco's health department has identified an additional 48 people on the fringe who have been involuntarily detained six or seven times."
As you see, this is by no means a clean sweep of the streets, but only a symbolic gesture.  It is not the numbers; it is the principle that is of significance.  Its portents could be enormous.
Small government and personal accountability are vital principles of conservatism.  Involuntary commitment to mental institutions poses a threat to those principles — but so does illegal public disorder.  What policy, then, will solve the problem without endangering personal liberty?
President Reagan told us there are no easy solutions, but there are simple ones.  The simple solution is to enact constitutional laws and properly enforce them.  This cannot be done in isolation.  It cannot be done by local governments that flout federal immigration laws, nor by policies that regard public defecation as a human right.
The debauchment of California did not occur overnight, nor will the "simple" solution be "easy."  A policy directed only at cosmetic measures is not the answer.
I am not optimistic that those presently in power in California (and in other states with similar problems) will look inward and admit that their political and social(ist) philosophies caused the problems.  I admit to being entirely cynical in the matter.  Leftist politicians serve themselves, and no one else, at whatever cost to the public.
Neither am I optimistic that the general electorate in the affected regions will re-evaluate their political opinions.  As Sir Winston Churchill said, "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
The temptation to enact draconian anti-drug laws is powerful, and in some limited instances, such policies could be useful.  The specter of a police state should, however, moderate any authoritarian impulses we might entertain. 
Not all social ills are remediable by government.  Some might not be remediable at all.  To some extent, tough love, the abandonment of the incorrigible to their chosen fate, might be the best policy.  No delight can be taken in that, but reality can be unpleasant.
Subjecting the majority to the depredations of the intransigent will cause only further harm.

 

 

 

 

Democrats in California Oppose HUD Plan to Prioritize Americans over Illegals for Public Housing



PENNY STARR
 17 May 201949
5:07

A new proposed rule that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued earlier this week to enforce existing law requiring those who receive public housing to be U.S. citizens gained the ire of Democrats, including Barack Obama’s former Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

Solis, who is now on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, tweeted on Thursday support for 12 House members who sent a letter to HUD Secretary Ben Carson. The letter demands that the rule requiring everyone living in public houses to be in the country legally be revoked because some of those who could be affected are U.S. citizen children with illegal parents.
“Thank you @RepBarragan, @RepMaxineWaters, and other MoC for speaking out against @HUDgov’s proposal to evict families with an undocumented relative in the home. Yesterday, the #BOS approved my co-authored motion with @SheilaKuehl to send a letter against this unjust action,” Solis tweeted.


Thank you @RepBarragan, @RepMaxineWaters, and other MoC for speaking out against @HUDgov's proposal to evict families with an undocumented relative in the home. Yesterday, the #BOS approved my co-authored motion with @SheilaKuehl to send a letter against this unjust action.

“The proposed rule is an unconscionable ploy by the administration to carry out its anti-immigrant agenda at the expense of thousands of families,” said Rep Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-CA). “Instead of addressing the homelessness problem in Los Angeles and across the country, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is admittingly attempting to put thousands of families, many with children who are U.S. citizens, onto the streets. I’m proud to lead Members of the Los Angeles Congressional delegation in speaking out and fighting against this cruel proposal.”
The letter reveals how many illegal aliens are living in public housing in just the Los Angeles area.
“An estimated 22 percent of all HACLA [Housing Authority for the City of Los Angeles]-assisted households, and 31 percent of the total population in HACLA’s public housing programs, will be negatively impacted by the proposed rule,” the letter states. “Further, with nearly one in three public housing residents impacted by the rule, the economic consequences for HACLA will be immense.”
“Including public housing and Section 8 housing, this rule could displace 2,587 households, totaling an estimated 11,600 individuals,” the letter states.
But, as Breitbart News reported, critics are ignoring the law HUD wants to enforce, which Carson included in his remarks about the new rule on social media.
@HUDgov is proposing a rule to close a loophole and ensure we enforce what is already law,” Carson tweeted, adding the text of Section 214 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1980.


.@HUDgov is proposing a rule to close a loophole and ensure we enforce what is already law:

“There is an affordable housing crisis in this country, and we need to make certain our scarce public resources help those who are legally entitled to it,” Carson said. “Given the overwhelming demand for our programs, fairness requires that we devote ourselves to legal residents who have been waiting, some for many years, for access to affordable housing.”
The regulation, posted on the Federal Register, states, in part, about how the Act would be amended:
The proposed rule would require the verification of the eligible immigration status of all recipients of assistance under a covered program who are under the age of 62. As a result, the proposed rule would make prorated assistance a temporary condition pending verification of eligible status, as opposed to under the current regulation where it could continue indefinitely. 
The proposed rule would also specify that individuals who are not ineligible immigration status may not serve as the leaseholder, even as part of a mixed family whose assistance is prorated based on the percentage of members with eligible status. 
HUD believes the amendments will bring its regulations into greater alignment with the wording and purpose of Section 214.
HUD provided Breitbart News with some of the statistics on how many Americans in cities across the United States are in need of housing assistance, including 1.6 million waiting for public housing and 2.6 million who are in line for housing choice vouchers:
• Only 1 in 4 qualified households currently receive housing assistance in this country. That means, 3 out of 4 families who might otherwise qualify for our programs do not get any help to pay their rent whatsoever.
• If current recipients are representative of those waiting for HUD assistance, most are extremely poor seniors or persons living with a disability.
• In some states, public housing waitlists are closed, and local public housing agencies are not even accepting new applicants.
Hundreds of thousands of people are waiting in cities like Los Angeles and New York City, according to a HUD survey.
The other Democrats who signed the letter include Reps. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), Ted W. Lieu (D-CA), Linda T. Sánchez (D-CA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Katie Hill (D-CA), Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), Norma J. Torres (D-CA), Judy Chu (D-CA), and Alan Lowenthal (D-CA).
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter.

 

California Has Become America's Cannibal State

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2019/04/11/california-has-become-americas-cannibal-state-n2544573

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For over six years, California has had a top marginal income tax rate of 13.3 percent, the highest in the nation. About 150,000 households in a state of 40 million people now pay nearly half of the total annual state income tax.
The state legislature sold that confiscatory tax rate on the idea that it was a temporary fix and would eventually be phased out. No one believed that. California voters, about 40 percent of whom pay no state income taxes, naturally approved the extension of the high rate by an overwhelming margin.
California recently raised gas taxes by 40 percent and now has the second-highest gas taxes in the United States.
California has the ninth-highest combined state and local sales taxes in the country, but its state sales tax of 7.3 percent is America's highest. As of April 1, California is now applying that high state sales tax to goods that residents buy online from out-of-state sellers.
In late 2017, the federal government capped state and local tax deductions at $10,000. For high earners in California, the change effectively almost doubled their state and local taxes.
Such high taxes, often targeting a small percentage of the population, may have brought California a budget surplus of more than $20 million. Yet California is never satiated with high new tax rates that bring in additional revenue. It's always hungry for more.
Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator from San Francisco, has introduced a bill that would create a new California estate tax. Wiener outlined a death tax of 40 percent on estates worth more than $3.5 million for single Californians or more than $7 million for married couples.
Given the soaring valuations of California properties, a new estate tax could force children to sell homes or family farms they inherited just to pay the tax bills.
Soon, even more of the Californian taxpayers who chip in to pay half of the state income taxes will flee in droves for low-tax or no-tax states.
What really irks California taxpayers are the shoddy public services that they receive in exchange for such burdensome taxes. California can be found near the bottom of state rankings for schools and infrastructure.
San Francisco ranks first among America's largest cities in property crimes per capita. The massive concrete ruins of the state's quarter-built and now either canceled or postponed multibillion-dollar high-speed rail system are already collecting graffiti.
Roughly a quarter of the nation's homeless live in California. So do about one-third of all Americans on public assistance. Approximately one-fifth of the state's population lives below the poverty line. About one-third of Californians are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state's health care program for low-income residents.
California's social programs are magnets that draw in the indigent from all over the world, who arrive in search of generous health, education, legal, nutritional and housing subsidies. Some 27 percent of the state's residents were not born in the United States.
Last month alone, nearly 100,000 foreign nationals were stopped at the southern border, according to officials. Huge numbers of migrants are able to make it across without being caught, and many end up in California.
A lot of upper-middle-class taxpayers feel that not only does California fail to appreciate their contributions, but that the state often blames them for not paying even more -- as if paying about half of their incomes to local, state and federal governments somehow reveals their greed.
The hyper-wealthy liberal denizens of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the coastal enclaves often seem exempt from the consequences of the high taxes they so often advocate for others. The super-rich either have the clout to hire experts to help them avoid such taxes, or they simply have so much money that they are not much affected by even California's high taxes.
What is the ideology behind such destructive state policies?
Venezuela, which is driving out its middle class, is apparently California's model. Venezuelan leaders believed in providing vast subsidies for the poor. The country's super-rich are often crony capitalists who can avoid high taxes.
Similarly, California is waging an outright war on the upper-middle class, which lacks the numbers of the poor and the clout of the rich.
Those who administer California's plagued department of motor vehicles and high-speed rail authority may often be inept and dysfunctional, but the state's tax collectors are the most obsessive bureaucrats in the nation.
What is Sacramento's message to those who combine to pay half the state's income taxes and have not yet left California?
"Be gone or we will eat you!"

 

 

Watch the illegal immigrant 'conveyor belt' - in action


Want to see how the illegal immigrant 'conveyor belt' works?
Here in San Diego, a demonstration of it in action was posted by the San Diego office of the U.S. Border Patrol on Twitter, which was then all over the local news, and then picked up by the Daily Mail.






Video captured 3/14 shows an illegal crossing of Central American migrants. None of the 52 people surrendered to the #USBP agent on the beach. All 52 people were eventually arrested after a 2 hour foot chase with multiple agents. Once in custody, everyone claimed asylum. #CBP





Some 50-plus illegal immigrants traveling in family units slipped through one of the openings in the junk fences delineating the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, and then, in two groups, ran in procession to the U.S. Border Patrol vehicle waiting for them on the beach at Imperial Beach to promptly claim asylum.
KUSI has more details here:
A total of 52 people were arrested for crossing the border illegally and CBP said it did not appear anyone got away. This includes 23 males, ages 18 to 53, 12 females, ages 21 to 50, and 17 juveniles, ages 1 to 14.
Video captured at the scene, where the wall was cut and people got through, credited to “Mexican Andy.”
It was all so very orderly, actually. Border chaos? Not in the least. There's border order all right, but it's cartels who control the order. They already are the ones who take the fees (or promises of free labor or drug transport) from the illegal migrants and anyone who doesn't pay doesn't cross. Cartels not only sell access, they provide a package deal - with the legal instruction, Mexico-based bus service from Central America to the border, and the U.S. bus service to the U.S. workplaces, all for a tidy profit, made even more profitable as economies of scale kick in. As Rick Moran noted in his blog post yesterday, the conveyor belt has enabled the cartels to 'drastically lower their overhead costs while maximizing profit.'
Which is why the U.S. is on track to apprehend a million illegal immigrants - a figure which doesn't count those who get in without getting caught. Those conveyor-belt economies of scale produce numbers.




Facts:

If border crossings continue at the same record levels they were at in February, 916,000+ illegal aliens will flow into our country this year

This is unsustainable for any country. There is an undeniable crisis at our border

This is a emergency!

Build. The. Wall.






And the false identification business is being cranked to eleven. Where there is demand, there will be those who fill the demand, and to scale:




Wow:

An illegal alien in Oregon is charged with creating and distributing over 10,000 fake IDs, voter registration cards, & Social Security cards

How many illegal aliens were able to vote and exploit our welfare state because of his crimes?

How can Democrats support this?







The border crossing seen here, with all of the illegal migrants lining up for their phony asylum claims, appears to be a good representation of the dynamic described in the Washington Post's investigative piece about these 'conveyor belts' that ran two days ago.  
It shows how the U.S. has lost control, given that the Border Patrol is powerless to send these illegal crossers back.
Border Patrol agents are supposed to determine who gets into the U.S., but with this video, it's obvious they are just reduced to being handmaidens and enablers of the cartel and its conveyor belt, handing the lined up illegals their asylum claim papers. Cartels are the ones who school these migrants for entry into the U.S., teaching them how to immediately launch claims for asylum whether they merit it or not, and then board the bus waiting for them for the jobs awaiting them with those de facto if temporary legalization papers the asylum claim gives them. The Border Patrol has been reduced to being their instrument.
Democrats who claim to be against walls and borders show just how disingenuous their claims really are. Walls and borders will always be there, but the real question is whether they want cartels to control the access, as they are in this conveyor-belt video, or U.S. Border Patrol agents.
I'm no big fan of the big state but I sure as heck don't want vile money-grubbing Mexican cartels replacing it. The conveyor belt shows that it's actually an either-or proposition.

 

Exclusive–California Refused 5.6K Requests to Turn over Criminal Illegal Aliens to Federal Officials


 28 Feb 20192,401
4:06

The sanctuary state of California refused 5,600 requests by federal immigration officials over two years to turn over criminal illegal aliens, state data finds.

In an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Tonight, Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) Executive Director Dale Wilcox revealed that within a 27-month period, the state of California had failed to honor about 5,600 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers which are the holds ICE agents file to local jails and police to request that an illegal alien be turned over to them for arrest and deportation.
Of these 5,600 failed ICE detainers, more than 3,400 were lodged against an illegal alien who had been classified “level 1” and “level 2” offenders — meaning that these illegal aliens had been charged with crimes like homicide, kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, drugs, and fraud.
“The bottom line is, sanctuary cities are neither humane or compassionate,” Wilcox told Breitbart News Tonight. “They’re dangerous policies that cost Americans lives … what will it take for these anti-borders politicians to wake up and put the safety and security of their citizens, their legal residents before the interests of criminal aliens.”
About 250 of the ICE detainers not honored had been filed to Napa County and Sonoma County law enforcement officials. These two California counties had sanctuary city policies before the state’s statewide sanctuary policy.
The 5,600 failed requests by ICE to have criminal illegal aliens turned over to them came before California enacted their statewide sanctuary policy, where all local jails and counties are prohibited from cooperating with federal immigration officials.
IRLI researchers said records after the passage of California’s sanctuary state policy are likely to show an increased number of cases where local jails and law enforcement officials refused to turn criminal illegal aliens over to ICE.
In a specific case, most recently, Wilcox noted that Napa County, California deputy Riley Jarecki was nearly killed by three-time deported illegal alien Javier Hernandez-Morales during a traffic stop after local officials refused to turn him over to ICE agents for deportation.
“Its own deputy almost got killed as a result of its refusal to honor ICE detainer requests,” Wilcox said. “And this individual had been deported three times in the past … so they say there’s no need emergency or need for a wall, this criminal alien is just walking back into the country.”
ICE had requested four separate times that Hernandez-Morales be turned over to them to be arrested and deported back to Mexico. Three of the detainers were placed with the Napa Couty Sheriff’s Department and one was placed with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department. None of the ICE detainers were honored.
Wilcox said Americans’ lives are being put at risk in sanctuary cities and sanctuary states like California, all so that Democrats are able to import potential voters.
“With the Democrats, it’s about potential, future voters,” Wilcox said. “They have an interest in bringing in new voters so that they can win elections. That’s what that’s all about. I mean, 10 years ago, Democrats weren’t out preaching sanctuary cities and open borders, that just wasn’t their party platform. They’ve swallowed this belief that if you want to stay in power, if you want to win future elections, more voters and diverse voters is the way to go.”
“Sanctuary cities are dangerous. They’re not humane, they’re not compassionate,” Wilcox continued. “People are dying. It’s senseless and avoidable deaths. There’s no excuse for politicians to sell out their constituency for potential, future voters.”
Listen to Wilcox’s full interview here:

California's Rendezvous With Reality

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2019/02/28/californias-rendezvous-with-reality-n2542316

 

Californians brag that their state is the world's fifth-largest economy. They talk as reverentially of Silicon Valley companies Apple, Facebook and Google as the ancient Greeks did of their Olympian gods.
Hollywood and universities such as Caltech, Stanford and Berkeley are cited as permanent proof of the intellectual, aesthetic and technological dominance of West Coast culture.
Californians also see their progressive, one-party state as a neo-socialist model for a nation moving hard to the left.
But how long will they retain such confidence?
California's 40 million residents depend on less than one-percent of the state's taxpayers to pay nearly half of the state income tax, which for California's highest tier of earners tops out at the nation's highest rate of 13.3 percent.
In other words, California cannot afford to lose even a few thousand of its wealthiest individual taxpayers. But a new federal tax law now caps deductions for state and local taxes at $10,000 -- a radical change that promises to cost many high-earning taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.
If even a few thousand of the state's one-percent flee to nearby no-tax states such as Nevada or Texas, California could face a devastating shortfall in annual income.
During the 2011-16 California drought, politicians and experts claimed that global warming had permanently altered the climate, and that snow and rain would become increasingly rare in California. As a result, long-planned low-elevation reservoirs, designed to store water during exceptionally wet years, were considered all but useless and thus were never built.
Then, in 2016 and 2017, California received record snow and rainfall -- and the windfall of millions of acre-feet of runoff was mostly let out to sea. Nothing since has been learned.
California has again been experiencing rain and cold that could approach seasonal records. The state has been soaked by some 18 trillion gallons of rain in February alone. With still no effort to expand California's water-storage capacity, millions of acre-feet of runoff are once again cascading out to sea (and may be sorely missed next year).
The inability to build reservoirs is especially tragic given that the state's high-speed-rail project has gobbled up more than $5 billion in funds without a single foot of track laid. The total cost soared from an original $40 billion promise to a projected $77 billion. To his credit, newly elected Gov. Gavin Newsom, fearing a budget catastrophe, canceled the statewide project while allowing a few miles of the quarter-built Central Valley "track to nowhere" to be finished.
For years, high-speed rail has drained the state budget of transportation funds that might have easily updated nightmarish stretches of the Central Valley's Highway 99, or ensured that the nearby ossified Amtrak line became a modern two-track line.
California politicians vie with each other to prove their open-borders bona fides in an effort to appeal to the estimated 27 percent of Californians who were not born in the United States.
But the health, educational and legal costs associated with massive illegal immigration are squeezing the budget. About a third of the California budget goes to the state's Medicare program, Medi-Cal. Half the state's births are funded by Medi-Cal, and in nearly a third of those state-funded births, the mother is an undocumented immigrant.
California is facing a perfect storm of homelessness. Its labyrinth of zoning and building regulations discourages low-cost housing. Its generous welfare benefits, non-enforcement of vagrancy and public health laws, and moderate climate draw in the homeless. Nearly one-third of the nation's welfare recipients live in the state, and nearly one in five live below the poverty line.
The result is that tens of thousands of people live on the streets and sidewalks of the state's major cities, where primeval diseases such as typhus have reappeared.
California's progressive government seems clueless how to deal with these issues, given that solutions such as low-cost housing and strict enforcement of health codes are seen as either too expensive or politically incorrect.
In sum, California has no margin for error.
Spiraling entitlements, unwieldy pension costs, money wasted on high-speed rail, inadequate water storage and delivery, and lax immigration policies were formerly tolerable only because about 150,000 Californians paid huge but federally deductible state income taxes.
No more. Californians may have once derided the state's one-percent as selfish rich people. Now, they are praying that these heavily burdened taxpayers stay put and are willing to pay far more than what they had paid before.
That is the only way California can continue to spend money on projects that have not led to safe roads, plentiful water, good schools and safe streets.
A California reckoning is on the horizon, and it may not be pretty.


The Four States of the Apocalypse

https://townhall.com/columnists/stephenmoore/2019/02/26/the-four-states-of-the-apocalypse-n2542180

"This is the flip side (of) tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich. The rich leave, and now what do you do?" said New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo on Feb. 4.
After the Trump tax cut went into effect one year ago, we predicted that the Trump tax reform would supercharge the national economy but could cause big financial problems for the five highest-tax states: California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York.
The capping of the state and local tax deduction at $10,000 raised the highest effective state tax rates by about 66 percent (for example, in New York City and California, the rate on millionaires rose from about 8 percent to 13.3 percent). In New Jersey, the highest rate has risen from 7.5 percent to 12.75 percent. Now, we have Andrew Cuomo conceding that the trend of rich people moving out of New York has caused the loss of $2.3 billion of tax revenue in Albany's coffers. Cuomo called this tax change "diabolical." We think it was a matter of tax fairness. No longer do residents of low-tax states have to pay higher federal taxes to support the blob of excessive state/local spending and pensions in the blue states.
As we predicted, the wealthy are fleeing these five states. The new United Van Lines data were just released that are a good proxy for where Americans are moving to and from. Guess what four states had the highest percentage of leavers in 2018: 1) New Jersey, 2) Illinois, 3) Connecticut and 4) New York. Even California had more Americans pack up and leave than enter.
Ironically, liberals like Cuomo who argued for years that businesses don't make location decisions based on taxes in their states are now forced to admit that the cap on the state and local tax deduction (which primarily affects the richest 1 percent) is depleting their state coffers. The rich change their residence by moving for at least 183 days of the year to low taxers such as Arizona, Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.
We advised Cuomo and other blue state governors to immediately cut their tax rates if they wanted to remain even semi-competitive with low-tax states. They are doing the opposite. Connecticut, Illinois and New Jersey have led the nation in tax increases on the rich over the last three years, while "progressives" have cheered them on.
Last year, legislators in Trenton went on a taxing spree, raising the income tax on those making more than $5 million a year to 10.75 percent -- now the third-highest in the country -- and then enacting a health care individual mandate tax on workers, a corporate rate increase and an option for localities to impose a payroll tax on businesses. And they are still short of cash. Idiotically, these tax hikes were passed after the cap on state and local tax deductions was enacted, thus pouring gasoline on their fiscal fires.
How has this worked out for them?
In addition to New York's fiscal woes, the deficit in Illinois is pegged at $2.8 billion (with a $7.8 billion backlog of unpaid bills), and Connecticut faces a two-year $4 billion shortfall despite three tax increases in five years. New Jersey has a $500 million deficit this year (even after the biggest tax hike in the state's history) and Moody's predicts that gap will widen to $3 billion over the next five years. This is all happening at a time when most states have healthy and unexpected surplus revenues due to the Trump economic boom and the historic decline in unemployment.
A Pew study published late last year on which states are bleeding the most red ink ranked New Jersey worst, Illinois second worst and Connecticut seventh worst. New York was also in the bottom 10.
Let us state this loud and clear in the hopes that lawmakers in state capitals across the country are paying attention: The three states that have raised their taxes the most now have the worst fiscal outlook.
Worst of all, things don't look like they are going to get better in any of these states. Last fall, Connecticut, Illinois and New Jersey voters elected mega-rich Democratic Govs. Ned Lamont, J.B. Pritzker and Phil Murphy, who have promised to sock it to the rich -- the ones who haven't yet left. In Illinois, Pritzker would eliminate the state's constitutionally protected flat tax so that he can raise the income tax on the rich by as much as 50 percent. After raising income taxes three times in the last five years, Connecticut's legislature now wants to raise the sales tax rate. No one in any of these progressive states even dares utter the words tax cut. In just one decade, New York lost 1.3 million net residents; Illinois 717,000, New Jersey 516,000 and Connecticut 176,000. California has lost 929,000.
There is also a useful warning for the soak-the-rich crowd of progressives in Washington. If a rise in the state tax rate from 8 percent to 13 percent can have this big and immediate negative impact, think of the economic carnage from doubling of the federal tax rate from 37 percent to 70 percent as some want to do. The wealthy would relocate their wealth and income in low-tax havens like Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands and Ireland. That would do wonders for the middle class living in those countries.
We are sticking with our warnings from last year. If the four states of the Apocalypse -- Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York -- do not reverse their taxing ways and choose to keep making things worse, these once very rich and prosperous states will see thousands more rich taxpayers leave. The politicians in these four states just don't seem to understand math. A soak-the-rich tax rate of 8 percent, 10 percent or even 13 percent on income of zero yields zero income when the wealthy leave the state. Cuomo was right: The bleak outlook for the four states of apocalypse is "as serious as a heart attack."



city journal – california’s poverty

FROM THE MAGAZINE
poor in the Golden State?
California
Economy, finance, and budgets
California—not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia—has the highest poverty rate in the United States. According to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure—which accounts for the cost of housing, food, utilities, and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income—nearly one out of four Californians is poor. Given robust job growth in the state and the prosperity generated by several industries, especially the supercharged tech sector, the question arises as to why California has so many poor people, especially when the state’s per-capita GDP increased roughly twice as much as the U.S. average over the five years ending in 2016 (12.5 percent, compared with 6.27 percent).

It’s not as if California policymakers have neglected to wage war on poverty. Sacramento and local governments have spent massive amounts in the cause, for decades now. Myriad state and municipal benefit programs overlap with one another; in some cases, individuals with incomes 200 percent above the poverty line receive benefits, according to the California Policy Center. California state and local governments spent nearly $958 billion from 1992 through 2015 on public welfare programs, including cash-assistance payments, vendor payments, and “other public welfare,” according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Unfortunately, California, with 12 percent of the American population, is home today to roughly one in three of the nation’s welfare recipients. The generous spending, then, has not only failed to decrease poverty; it actually seems to have made it worse.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, some states—principally Wisconsin, Michigan, and Virginia—initiated welfare reform, as did the federal government under President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress. The common thread of the reformed welfare programs was strong work requirements placed on aid recipients. These overhauls were widely recognized as a big success, as welfare rolls plummeted and millions of former aid recipients entered the workforce. The state and local bureaucracies that implement California’s antipoverty programs, however, have resisted pro-work reforms. In fact, California recipients of state aid receive a disproportionately large share of it in no-strings-attached cash disbursements. It’s as if welfare reform passed California by, leaving a dependency trap in place. Immigrants are falling into it: 55 percent of immigrant families in the state get some kind of means-tested benefits, compared with just 30 percent of natives, according to City Journal contributing editor Kay S. Hymowitz.
Self-interest in the social-services community may be at work here. If California’s poverty rate should ever be substantially reduced by getting the typical welfare client back into the workforce, many bureaucrats could lose their jobs. As economist William A. Niskanen explained back in 1971, public agencies seek to maximize their budgets, through which they acquire increased power, status, comfort, and job security. In order to keep growing its budget, and hence its power, a welfare bureaucracy has an incentive to expand its “customer” base—to ensure that the welfare rolls remain full and, ideally, growing. With 883,000 full-time-equivalent state and local employees in 2014, according to Governing, California has an enormous bureaucracy—a unionized, public-sector workforce that exercises tremendous power through voting and lobbying. Many work in social services.
Further contributing to the poverty problem is California’s housing crisis. Californians spent more than one-third of their incomes on housing in 2014, the third-highest rate in the country. A shortage of housing has driven prices ever higher, far above income increases. And that shortage is a direct outgrowth of misguided policies. “Counties and local governments have imposed restrictive land-use regulations that drove up the price of land and dwellings,” explains analyst Wendell Cox. “Middle income households have been forced to accept lower standards of living while the less fortunate have been driven into poverty by the high cost of housing.” The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), passed in 1971, is one example; it can add $1 million to the cost of completing a housing development, says Todd Williams, an Oakland attorney who chairs the Wendel Rosen Black & Dean land-use group. CEQA costs have been known to shut down entire home-building projects. CEQA reform would help increase housing supply, but there’s no real movement to change the law.
Extensive environmental regulations aimed at reducing carbon-dioxide emissions make energy more expensive, also hurting the poor. On some estimates, California energy costs are as much as 50 percent higher than the national average. Jonathan A. Lesser of Continental Economics, author of a 2015 Manhattan Institute study, “Less Carbon, Higher Prices,” found that “in 2012, nearly 1 million California households faced ‘energy poverty’—defined as energy expenditures exceeding 10 percent of household income. In certain California counties, the rate of energy poverty was as high as 15 percent of all households.” A Pacific Research Institute study by Wayne Winegarden found that the rate could exceed 17 percent of median income in some areas. “The impacts on the poorest households are not only the largest,” states Winegarden. “They are clearly unaffordable.”
Looking to help poor and low-income residents, California lawmakers recently passed a measure raising the minimum wage from $10 an hour to $15 an hour by 2022—but a higher minimum wage will do nothing for the 60 percent of Californians who live in poverty and don’t have jobs, and studies suggest that it will likely cause many who do have jobs to lose them. A Harvard study found evidence that “higher minimum wages increase overall exit rates for restaurants” in the Bay Area, where more than a dozen cities and counties, including San Francisco, have changed their minimum-wage ordinances in the last five years. “Estimates suggest that a one-dollar increase in the minimum wage leads to a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of exit for a 3.5-star restaurant (which is the median rating),” the report says. These restaurants are a significant source of employment for low-skilled and entry-level workers.
Apparently content with futile poverty policies, Sacramento lawmakers can turn their attention to what historian Victor Davis Hanson aptly describes as a fixation on “remaking the world.” The political class wants to build a costly and needless high-speed rail system; talks of secession from a United States presided over by Donald Trump; hired former attorney general Eric Holder to “resist” Trump’s agenda; enacted the first state-level cap-and-trade regime; established California as a “sanctuary state” for illegal immigrants; banned plastic bags, threatening the jobs of thousands of workers involved in their manufacture; and is consumed by its dedication to “California values.” All this only reinforces the rest of America’s perception of an out-of-touch Left Coast, to the disservice of millions of Californians whose values are more traditional, including many of the state’s poor residents.
California’s de facto status as a one-party state lies at the heart of its poverty problem. With a permanent majority in the state senate and the assembly, a prolonged dominance in the executive branch, and a weak opposition, California Democrats have long been free to indulge blue-state ideology while paying little or no political price. The state’s poverty problem is unlikely to improve while policymakers remain unwilling to unleash the engines of economic prosperity that drove California to its golden years.
Kerry Jackson is the Pacific Research Institute’s fellow in California studie

 

 

ADD CHAIN MIGRATION WHEREBY THE ILLEGALS GET TO BRING UP THE REST OF THEIR FAMILY AND THEN DO THE MATH!

 

 

Ready for the next 5 million illegals getting ready to enter the U.S. in 2019?



Gallup put out a poll last week, finding that five million Latin Americans plan to cross into the U.S. this year alone. And the total number who plan to enter the U.S., either this year, or later, is 42 million.  The U.S. admits a million legal immigrants each year from all countries. This new survey shows that at least four million of that five million are planning to enter illegally, most likely by crossing the border. That's a human tide.
And the case for President Trump declaring an emergency and building a wall instead of bargaining with an unwilling Congress convinced there's no crisis has just gotten that much stronger.
This is what Gallup had to say about its findings:
Here's a good question about caravans: How many more are coming?
Gallup asked the whole population of Latin America. There are 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Roughly 450 million adults live in the region. Gallup asked them, "Would you like to move to another country permanently if you could?"
A whopping 27% said "yes."
So this means roughly 120 million would like to migrate somewhere.
The next question Gallup asked was, "Where would you like to move?"
Of those who want to leave their Latin American country permanently, 35% said they want to go to the United States.
The Gallup analytics estimate is that 42 million want to come to the U.S.

That is one hell of a big number, particularly since much of the data suggest that the U.S. already houses some 30 million illegal immigrants. Four or five million more will increase the illegal population by 12% to 17% in just one year, something that will make assimilation for migrants already here in migrant enclaves that much harder. Migrant enclaves already are at the top of the U.S. lists for bad places to live - 10 of the 50 worst places in America to live according to this list are in California, and all of them are famous for their illegal populations. The newcomers will need social services, given that most will not have the requisite language, education or skills to succeed here. Many will be unwed mothers, which ensures even here that they will be assimilating into the underclass. The cost to taxpayers to feed, house, educate, medically treat and jail the newcomers will run into billions.
And sure enough, the Border Patrol does say that illegal border crossings are up, way up, and hitting record numbers, according to the Washington Post. The human tide has started.
Gallup's CEO does ask an intelligent question in the wake of this new reality:
Most U.S. citizens like me just want to know the plan. What is the 10-year plan? How many, exactly whom and what skills will they bring? What do we want? Answer these questions, and the current discussion can be resolved.
Keep in mind that it's not only 330 million Americans who are wondering -- so are 42 million seekers from Latin America.
I can add that Latin America isn't the only place where people are contemplating entering the U.S. illegally. The African and Asian continents are also loaded with aspiring illegal immigrants.
Democrats, of course are never going to answer that question.
But it needs answering, because the human waves are coming. 
Gallup didn't ask Latin Americans why they might be planning to come now in such great numbers this year, but it's pretty obvious that one answer is that there is an ongoing border wall debate, and the talk just keeps going.
So long as the U.S. is enmired in Democrats' blockage of any funds for a border wall, yet the talk goes on of building, the message to illegal migrants is to move. Get in before the wall gets built while the Democrats are still arguing. This is the window. Don't wait for the border wall to get built. Get in under the wire.
That very dynamic is a good argument for why President Trump should just skip the shenanigans with the Democrats, declare an emergency, and build the wall. The longer this drags on the more the human waves are going to build. And as Gallup reports, we're looking at a tsunami.


CALIFORNIA'S POPULATION TO DOUBLE from ILLEGALS along with their CRIME RATES!
Times Staff Writers
July 10, 2007
Over the next half-century, California's population will explode by nearly 75%, and Riverside will surpass its bigger neighbors to become the second most populous county after Los Angeles, according to state Department of Finance projections released Monday. California will near the 60-million mark in 2050, the study found, raising questions about how the state will look and function and where all the people and their cars will go. Dueling visions pit the iconic California building block of ranch house, big yard and two-car garage against more dense, high-rise development. But whether sprawl or skyscrapers win the day, the Golden State will probably be a far different and more complex place than it is today, as people live longer and Latinos become the dominant ethnic group, eclipsing all others combined. Some critics forecast disaster if gridlock and environmental impacts are not averted. Others see a possible economic boon, particularly for retailers and service industries with an eye on the state as a burgeoning market. "It's opportunity with baggage," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., in "a country masquerading as a state. "Other demographers argue that the huge population increase the state predicts will occur only if officials complete major improvements to roads and other public infrastructure. Without that investment, they say, some Californians would flee the state. If the finance department's calculations hold, California's population will rise from 34.1 million in 2000 to 59.5 million at the mid-century point, about the same number of people as Italy has today. And its projected growth rate in those 50 years will outstrip the national rate — nearly 75% compared with less than 50% projected by the federal government. That could translate to increased political clout in Washington, D.C. Southern California's population is projected to grow at a rate of more than 60%, according to the new state figures, reaching 31.6 million by mid-century. That's an increase of 12.1 million over just seven counties. L.A. County alone will top 13 million by 2050, an increase of almost 3.5 million residents. And Riverside County — long among the fastest-growing in the state — will triple in population to 4.7 million by mid-century. Riverside County will add 3.1 million people, according to the new state figures, eclipsing Orange and San Diego to become the second most populous in the state. With less expensive housing than the coast, Riverside County has grown by more than 472,000 residents since 2000, according to state estimates. No matter how much local governments build in the way of public works and how many new jobs are attracted to the region — minimizing the need for long commutes — Housing figures that growth will still overwhelm the area's roads. USC Professor Genevieve Giuliano, an expert on land use and transportation, would probably agree. Such massive growth, if it occurs, she said, will require huge investment in the state's highways, schools, and energy and sewer systems at a "very formidable cost."If those things aren't built, Giuliano questioned whether the projected population increases will occur. "Sooner or later, the region will not be competitive and the growth is not going to happen," she said.If major problems like traffic congestion and housing costs aren't addressed, Giuliano warned, the middle class is going to exit California, leaving behind very high-income and very low-income residents. "It's a political question," said Martin Wachs, a transportation expert at the Rand Corp. in Santa Monica. "Do we have the will, the consensus, the willingness to pay? If we did, I think we could manage the growth. "The numbers released Monday underscore most demographers' view that the state's population is pushing east, from both Los Angeles and the Bay Area, to counties such as Riverside and San Bernardino as well as half a dozen or so smaller Central Valley counties. Sutter County, for example, is expected to be the fastest-growing on a percentage basis between 2000 and 2050, jumping 255% to a population of 282,894 , the state said. Kern County is expected to see its population more than triple to 2.1 million by mid-century. In Southern California, San Diego County is projected to grow by almost 1.7 million residents and Orange County by 1.1 million. Even Ventura County — where voters have imposed some limits on urban sprawl — will see its population jump 62% to more than 1.2 million if the projections hold. The Department of Finance releases long-term population projections every three years. Between the last two reports, number crunchers have taken a more detailed look at California's statistics and taken into account the likelihood that people will live longer, said chief demographer Mary Heim. The result? The latest numbers figure the state will be much more crowded than earlier estimates (by nearly 5 million) and that it will take a bit longer than previously thought for Latinos to become the majority of California's population: 2042, not 2038. The figures show that the majority

of California's growth will be in the Latino population, said

Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography

at USC, adding that "68% of the growth this decade will be

Latino, 75% next and 80% after that."That should be a wake-up call for voting Californians, Myers said, pointing out a critical disparity. Though the state's growth is young and Latino, the majority of voters will be older and white — at least for the next decade." The future of the state is Latino growth," Myers said. "We'd sure better invest in them and get them up to speed. Older white voters don't see it that way. They don't realize that someone has to replace them in the work force, pay for their benefits and buy their house."

 

California Wants to Secede? Let's Help Them!

California is a part of America. But it’s no longer American. It is a foreign state. It is a fugitive state. The U.S. Constitution and the rule of law no longer apply in California. Call it, “The People’s Socialist Republic of California.” It’s a state without a country. But it’s certainly no longer American in any way. 
Liberals in California want to secede. They are trying to put it on the ballot. They call it “Calexit.” I say, “Glory Hallelujah."  Let’s help make it happen. I propose 63 million Trump voters join the team. Let's work 24/7 to turn their dream into a reality!
Millions of illegal aliens live in California; drive in California with official state-issued drivers’ licenses; and of course, use those licenses to vote in California. Millions. That’s precisely how Hillary won California by over 4 million votes.
California supports illegal aliens over legal, law-abiding American citizens. They support illegals getting free college tuition, while children of native-born Americans pay full fare. They support illegals over police and ICE. Many liberals in California want to abolish ICE. They want no borders and no immigration law. 
The Attorney General of California has warned any business owner who cooperates with ICE will face prosecution by the state of CaliforniaYou heard correctly. California will put the business owner in prison, for cooperating with federal law, to protect the criminal breaking the law.
The Mayor of Oakland famously played Paul Revere to warn illegal felons “ICE is coming. ICE is coming.” The Feds report over 800 felons evaded arrest because of that stunt. How many legal, law-abiding, native-born Americans will be robbed, raped, or murdered in the coming weeks because of that act of sedition?
A California judge just sided with the ACLU and barred LA County from enforcing gang restrictions that dramatically lowered crime. California has once again sided with hoodlums and gang-bangers over the law-abiding taxpayers. 
In Oakland, a coffee shop prohibits employees from serving police, in order to create a “safe space” for their customers. Californians hate and distrust police more than illegal felons and thugs who speak no English and wear gang tattoos. Really.
All of this is sheer madness. But California has taken it to a whole new level. 
Just this week the California Senate appointed the first-ever illegal alien to an official statewide post. Lizbeth Mateo, a 33-year old illegal alien-turned-attorney, will serve on the official state committee that doles out money to illegals attending college. In California, illegals now decide how taxpayer money is spent.
President Trump loves to brand (see "Crooked Hillary"). Let’s brand California. It’s not a “Sanctuary State.” It’s a “Fugitive State.” It’s a place that chooses to let felons and fugitives run free. It’s a place where the rights of criminals are far more important than protecting legal, law-abiding American citizens who pay taxes. We are the second class citizens in California. 
Here’s the way to fix the problem. Liberal Californians want to secede. I'm joining the movement. How about you? 
Conservatives should beg California to secede. We should make it easy for them. We should help pay for it. Pass the hat. Every conservative should chip in $20. I’ll throw $1000 to get the ball rolling.
Just think of elections. Without California, Trump and all future Republican presidential candidates would win, without breaking a sweat. Without California, we’d easily win the popular vote. And we'd win the electoral vote by a landslide.
Next think of Congress. California has 53 House seats. Democrats lead 39-14, for a net gain of 25 seats. Send California packing and the GOP gains a 25 House seat lead. We would dominate the House for decades to come. 
And of course, the GOP would gain an automatic two seats in the Senate through the subtraction of California. As it stands now, those two U.S. Senate seats are deep blue Democrat forever. But if California secedes a 51-49 GOP lead instantly moves to 51-47. 
If 63 million Trump voters just gave an average of $20 each to the "Calexit movement" that’s over $1.2 billion dollars. That’s enough money to help California secede, with enough left over as a down payment on building a wall…
with California.

 

 

Gavin Newsom’s First Act as California Governor: More Healthcare for Illegal Aliens



Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press
8 Jan 20193,669
2:32

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s first act in office was to propose extending state healthcare benefits to more illegal aliens.

On Tuesday, shortly after being sworn in, Newsom — who ran on the proposal of providing healthcare to everyone in California, though he struggled to explain how he would pay for it — signed an executive order taking steps in that direction.
In his first executive order, Newsom directed the state to create a single government purchaser for prescription drugs to increase negotiating leverage with pharmaceutical companies. Alongside the order, Newsom proposed extending Medi-Cal — the state’s version of Medicaid — to illegal aliens up to the age of 26, rather than 19.
Breitbart TV
The governor’s forthcoming budget, his office said, “will make California the first state in the nation to cover young undocumented adults through a state Medicaid program.”
That would cover 138,000 “young people in the country illegally,” according to the Associated Press.
“Undocumented young adults should not have to worry about losing their health coverage when they turn 19,” the governor’s office added, saying that the budget proposals, to be presented later this week, would defend Obamacare from “recent federal attacks” and “bring the state closer toward the goal of health care for all.”
In his inaugural address, Newsom promised “sanctuary to all who seek it” — a reference to California’s status as a “sanctuary state” for illegal aliens that refuses to help enforce federal immigration law.
That policy continues to be a lightning rod for national criticism after the murder last month of Corporal Ronil Singh, a legal immigrant and police officer who was allegedly shot and killed by an illegal alien during a traffic stop.
In addition, Newsom’s new budget “proposes increasing the size of the subsidies for families who already receive it, and it would make California the first state to make subsidies available to middle income families,” his office said.
To pay for the expansion of those benefits, Newsom is proposing that California restore the individual mandate to purchase health insurance, which was canceled by President Donald Trump at the federal level.
Schumer also sent a letter to President Trump and to congressional leaders asking for legislative changes that he argues would make it easier for states, including California, to develop a single-payer healthcare system.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

 

HALF THE MURDERS IN MEXIFORNIA ARE NOW BY MEX GANGS   -  MORE THAN 90% OF THE MURDERS IN MEXICO’S SECOND LARGEST CITY ARE BY MEXICANS!

Sheriff David Clarke (Ret.)

Enabling Criminal Aliens

Source: AP Photo/Noah Berger
  
The murder of Newman California Police Corporal Ronil Singh allegedly by an illegal alien with a criminal past is the latest high-profile killing of an American citizen that contains nearly every element in our illegal immigration discourse.

Singh, 33, legally immigrated to the United States, became a U.S. citizen, and then became one of Newman’s finest citizens serving as a police officer for twelve years. Singh’s legal entry into the U.S. added value to our country. Sadly, this husband and father of a 5-month-old son was allegedly murdered by an illegal criminal alien gang member on Christmas Eve.
This tragedy was preventable. 
Singh’s suspected murderer had “prior criminal activity that should have been reported to ICE,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson had said. “Law enforcement was prohibited because of sanctuary laws and that led to the encounter with (Cpl.) Singh… the outcome could have been different if law enforcement wasn’t restricted or had their hands tied because of political interference.”
California is a state that provides a safe harbor for people illegally in the country. California boasts its status as a sanctuary state in violation of federal law and the supremacy clause in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. California cities have passed laws prohibiting local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with law enforcement officers from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with the apprehension of illegal immigrants even after they have committed a crime. Many of these illegal criminals continue on to murder, rape and rob U.S. citizens post-release from a local jail under the catch-and-release policies before notifying ICE officials.
Currently, the threshold for immediate deportation proceedings is set too low. Catch-and-release instead of being detained pending an immigration hearing is like unleashing a dangerous animal into a public space. Eventually, we’ll be dealing with an avoidable catastrophe.
Typically the definition to detain involves only crimes such as murder, rape, and armed robbery. That’s about it. Serious drug dealing or gun possessions are not considered crimes of violence under this strict definition. Neither does burglary or the severe crime of driving under the influence of alcohol. As we have seen over and over through the cost of American lives, many additional crimes pose equally great risks to our communities should these illegal criminal aliens be released without detaining for ICE.
Burglary is a felony and as far as I am concerned a crime of violence. It’s not merely a property crime that results in minor victimization. It involves forced entry. It is a category Part I crime by FBI statistics. Part I crimes are serious felonies. Anybody whose home has been broken into suffers a traumatic mental experience. I have seen it when investigating burglaries. People who once felt safe in their homes lose that sense of security after their home is burglarized. Their kids have nightmares; adults sleep with one eye open and every little noise in the house startles them. It takes a long time to heal. Burglary costs Americans an estimated 4 billion in property loss every year, but this does not include the psychological damage. The fact that many states allow residents to use deadly force to stop intruders means that a burglary could end violently for the intruder. It will if it happens at my home and I am there.
Another offense that is marginalized by sympathetic lawmakers is driving under the influence. It is not merely a traffic offense. Tens of thousands of people are killed and maimed by impaired drivers every year. I have arrived on the scene of crashes involving impaired drivers. Seeing lifeless and mutilated bodies is not pretty. This is why most states take it so seriously that a first offense is a crime punishable by imprisonment. Many make a second and third offense a felony. It’s worth mentioning that the illegal alien who allegedly murdered Cpl. Singh had two prior arrests for DUI and was being stopped by Cpl. Singh for suspected driving under the influence again.
A recent Pew Research study on crimes committed by illegal aliens indicates it’s time to take this seriously. The study shows that the bulk of those arrested in 2016 and 2017 had prior criminal convictions. It indicates that in 2017 illegal immigrants with past criminal convictions accounted for 74% of all arrests made by ICE which is a 30% increase from the year before. The study points out that those with no previous conviction increased by 146% compared to a 12% increase of those with a past criminal conviction. They have demonstrated a propensity to victimize. This conviction rate includes nearly 60,000 arrested for drunk driving and approximately 58,000 arrested for dangerous drug dealing (opioids). The other classification of convictions are as follows:
Assaults: 48,454
Larceny: 20,356
General Crimes: 17,325
Obstructing Police: 14,616
Burglary: 12,836
These numbers are not insignificant. Nobody takes the time to point out to the criminal alien apologists that the cost associated with these crimes include police and court costs, incarceration costs, property loss and damage, medical costs, psychological trauma, lost work time and increased insurance rates adding up to billions of dollars. Therefore, the policy on when to deport and for what reasons also needs to reflect these costs to the American people. The time to deport is before they go on to serious offenses, not after. 
Redefining what constitutes deporting a criminal alien is needed. By changing the definition from what is considered a ‘violent act’ to a ‘serious act’ would be more inclusive of the dangerous crimes I have highlighted in this article. Our laws need to reflect the protection of the American people not sympathy for criminal aliens.
Is it not asking too much for people in the country illegally to obey all of our laws, not just a select few? Neither you nor I would be granted this courtesy if we were even lawfully in a foreign country with a valid passport and committed a misdemeanor crime not involving violence. Deportation would be certain and swift with no release pending a deportation hearing.
It is time for U.S. policy to change. The American people should not have to accept such great risks when they don’t have to. They should not have to stand by idly before a criminal illegal alien victimizes another American citizen.
It is bad enough that our criminal justice system is soft on crime when it comes to people legally in the country but when that same leniency is granted to criminal aliens it’s a problem, and it’s time to recalculate our generosity.
The position of most politicians in Washington D.C., except for a few Democrats who are sympathetic to all illegal migrants, is that concerning deportations we should deal with the criminal aliens first. An overwhelming majority of Americans agree. Nobody wants to be victimized by a criminal, nonetheless, ones who should have been deported.
When we water down the standard for what is criminal behavior, we are heading toward a very dark place. Crime is crime. Period. This should be the standard for automatic deportation for criminal aliens.
Once we get the criminal illegals out, a wall is required to prevent these thugs from running back in and continuing to victimize Americans like Cpl. Singh who hours before his death stopped home to visit his family on Christmas Eve, kissing his wife and child for the last time. The picture of him with his family taken just hours before his death should serve as a grave reminder to all who want to hug a criminal illegal alien that at any moment they can lash out and kill an American, and that it could have been avoided if Congress had its priorities straight and put politics aside to do what’s right.

 

 

NY Times: ’40-Year’ Flood of Immigration Turns Orange County Blue



Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images
2 Jan 20191,184
4:50

The New York Times admits a “40-year rise in the number of immigrants” living in Orange County, California has transformed the region from a “fortress of conservative Republicanism” to a Democrat electoral sweep.

The Times notes in a piece titled “In Orange County, a Republican Fortress Turns Democratic” that the rapid demographic changes of the county — which now has a more than 30 percent foreign-born population — has swiftly handed the region over to Democrats. 
Breitbart News reported that Orange County’s booming foreign-born populations of mostly Asian immigrants and migrants from Central America coincided with Democrats sweeping the midterm elections in an area that gave birth to President Richard Nixon.

The Times now acknowledges the demographic changes are at least partially responsible for the diminishing Republican representation in Orange County:
There was a steady decrease in white voters in the seven congressional districts that are in and around Orange County between 1980 and 2017, according to census data. In 1980, whites made up 75 percent of the population in the district where Mr. Cisneros won. By 2017, that number dropped to 30 percent. [Emphasis added]
The county’s immigrant population grew five times as fast as the general population between 1980 and 2000, and while the pace of immigration has slowed, the Latino and Asian populations continues to increase, driven by the children of immigrant families born in the United States. [Emphasis added]
“You went from a solid Republican county to one in which Republicans were just barely the majority, and it fell pretty quickly in the past two years,” said Ms. Godwin. “You have had continued demographic changes. This is a county that went from majority-white to having a majority that are Latino and Asian-American. So that has gone hand-in-hand — particularly with the rising Asian-American population — to voting more Democratic.” [Emphasis added]
In a series of charts, Times reporters Robert Gebeloff and Jasmine C. Lee. reveal that while Orange County has become less and less Republican, the foreign-born population has grown significantly, the share of college graduates has peaked, and the white American population has fallen drastically.
(Screenshot via the New York Times)
Months ago, Breitbart News reported the district-by-district breakdown of Orange County’s enormous foreign-born populations, which have aided the Democrats’ electoral sweep in the region.
California’s 46th District, already a Democrat-held congressional seat, has a foreign-born population that is now reaching 40 percent with four-out-of-ten residents being born outside the United States.
The other Democrat-held congressional seat in Orange County, California’s 47th District, has a foreign-born population of nearly 30 percent.
Three of Orange County’s four Republican districts that have flipped to Democrat have foreign-born populations that make up 25 percent or more of the region. For example, California’s 39th District — where Democrat Gil Cisneros won over Republican Young Kim — has a 34.1 percent foreign-born population.
In the 45th District, where Rep. Mimi Walters (R-CA) has conceded to Democrat Katie Porter, the foreign-born population makes up nearly 30 percent of the district.
Similarly, in the state’s 48th District, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) — the former speechwriter to President Ronald Reagan — lost to Democrat Harley Rouda after serving in the seat since 2013. That district’s foreign-born population is now near 25 percent.
Even in the 49th District, where the foreign-born population remains below 20 percent, Democrat Mike Levin beat out Republican Diane Harkey. The district has anywhere between an 18 to 19 percent foreign-born population with about 55 percent of foreign-born residents arriving from Latin America and nearly 30 percent coming from Asia.
Democrats have increasingly swept congressional districts whose demographics have been quickly changed due to the country’s policy of mass legal and illegal immigration.
The process known as “chain migration,” for instance — whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. with them — has imported more than nine million foreign nationals since 2005.
As Breitbart News reported, if chain migration is not ended — as President Donald Trump has demanded — the U.S. electorate will forever be changed, with between seven to eight million new foreign-born individuals being eligible to vote because of chain migration, and overall, an additional 15 million new foreign-born voters.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. 


John Kelly: Catch-and-Release Laws Ensure Migration Crisis


3:16

Congress’s toleration of the nation’s catch-and-release rules is responsible for the migration crisis, outgoing Chief of Staff John Kelly told the Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper said:
He blamed immigrants and lawmakers, not the White House, for the tense situation at the border, where thousands of Central Americans are stranded in Mexico — and two Guatemalan children have died in Border Patrol custody in Texas and New Mexico this month.
“One of the reasons why it’s so difficult to keep people from coming — obviously it’d be preferable for them to stay in their own homeland but it’s difficult to do sometimes, where they live — is a crazy, oftentimes conflicting series of loopholes in the law in the United States that makes it extremely hard to turn people around and send them home,” Kelly said.
“If we don’t fix the laws, then they will keep coming,” he continued. “They have known, and they do know, that if they can get here, they can, generally speaking, stay.”
The L.A. Times report — like many other outlets — buried Kelly’s condemnation of the House and Senate leaders’ passive support for the many catch-and-release laws and rules which allow the cartels to profitably smuggle workers up to many eager employers in the United States.
The L.A. Times submerged Kelly’s judgment under 46 paragraphs and numerous slams on President Donald Trump, including the claim that Trump’s effort to enforce border law is a “harsh immigration” measure.
Kelly’s charge is being hidden even as Democrats and establishment media outlets praise him for using his power to muffle Trump’s pro-American policies, including his preference for a lower level of overseas military activity.
The newspaper also tried to smear Trump’s border defense push as a campaign scare while also admitting that migration is rising amid congressional passivity:
Asked if there is a security crisis at the Southern border, or whether Trump has drummed up fears of a migrant “invasion” for political reasons, Kelly did not answer directly, but said, “We do have an immigration problem.”
From the 1980s to the mid-2000s, apprehensions at the border — the most common measure of illegal immigration — routinely reached more than 1 millionmigrants a year.
Today, they are near historical lows. In the fiscal year that ended in September, border authorities apprehended 521,090 people.
Nationwide, the U.S. establishment’s economic policy of using legal migration to boost economic growth shifts wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market with cheap white collar and blue collar foreign labor. That flood of outside labor spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor of blue collar and white collar employees. 
The cheap labor policy widens wealth gaps, reduces high tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high tech careers, and sidelines at least five million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.
Immigration also steers investment and wealth away from towns in heartland states because coastal investors can more easily hire and supervise the large immigrant populations who prefer to live in coastal cities. In turn, that investment flow drives up coastal real-estate prices, pricing poor U.S. Latinos and blacks out of prosperous cities, such as Berkeley and Oakland.


Save the Children, Build a Wall 
The Democrats would rather see children die than build a wall. 
By Daniel Greenfield 
FrontPageMag.com

The dead children are not the victims of an overworked Border Patrol that has been deliberately starved of the resources to do its job, because its job would limit the ability of Democrats to steal elections. They are the victims of abusive parents or caretakers, who are willing to use the lives of their children as tickets to get inside the United States, not to escape persecution, but to double or triple their incomes. 

The migrants are not refugees fleeing totalitarian regimes that are persecuting them for their beliefs. They are economic migrants who are willing to kill their children to earn more and get more free stuff. And they are every bit as guilty as the parents who leave their children to die in hot cars while they play slot machines. Any sane society would treat their murderous abuse of their children the same way. 

Unfortunately we are not a sane society. 

The flow of illegal migrants manufactures Democrat votes, not just through illegal voting, but through the far more pervasive problem of fake districts, boosted by illegal aliens and other non-citizens. The political machine that turned California into a Democrat one-party state where democracy is an alien concept, that has ravaged Virginia and has its gimlet eye on Texas, depends on illegal migration. 
. . . 
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272368/save-children-build-wall-daniel-greenfield 



Illegals and the American Dream


When talking about immigration, Democrats like to conflate illegal and legal immigration, dropping the word “illegal” and spouting meaningless babble about no human being illegal. They like to preach  that illegal immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than American citizens, a factoid that has been exposed as a lie.
The murder of legal immigrant and Newman Police Corporal Ronil Singh on Christmas night by an illegal alien in the sanctuary state of California shows not only that the claims by Chuck Schumer and the “bride of Chucky” Nancy Pelosi that the Democrats support border security is a deadly and bald-faced lie. It highlights the difference between legal and illegal immigrants, between those who love America and want to be Americans and those who murder them.
Pelosi and Schumer like to talk about the “Dreamers.” Well, Ronil Singh had dreams, too:
Ronil Singh came to the U.S. from his native Fiji to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming an officer, joining a small-town police force in California and working to improve his English. The day after Christmas, he stopped another immigrant, this one in the country illegally, who shot and killed the corporal, authorities said Thursday…
"This suspect is in our country illegally. He doesn't belong here. He is a criminal," Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson, whose agency is leading the investigation, told reporters.
Newman Police Chief Randy Richardson fought back tears as he described Singh, a 33-year-old with a newborn son, as an "American patriot."
"He came to America with one purpose, and that was to serve this country," Richardson said…
"He was living the American dream," said Stanislaus County Sheriff's Deputy Royjinder Singh, who is not related to the slain officer but knew him. "He loved camping, loved hunting, loved fishing, loved his family."
And now he is dead. The blood of Kate Steinle, Mollie Tibbetts, and now Ronil Singh and others is on the hands of open border advocates and the sanctuary city loons who provide no sanctuary for the American citizen victims of illegal alien criminals.
Even if it were true that illegal aliens commit crimes, including murder, at rates lower than American citizens, that would be irrelevant. The murder rate for illegal aliens should be zero because none of them should be here and the indisputable fact is that Jamiel Shaw Jr., Kate Steinle, and Mollie Tibbetts would be alive today if the illegal aliens who slew them were still staring at the other side of a border wall liberals refuse to build.
Pelosi has said that a border wall would be “immoral, ineffective, and expensive” when it has been documented when it has been demonstrated that none of that is true. The fact is that walls are so effective they have been built in scores of countries around the world and in the U.S. places like San Diego and Yuma have demonstrated their effectiveness as Pelosi and Schumer worry more about Syria’s borders than our own:
According to Quebec University expert Elisabeth Vallet. there are65 completed or under construction border walls in the world today.
One-third of the world’s nations have border walls or barriers with their neighbors.
Pelosi believes this is immoral.
Tell that to Israel, Hungary, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, etc.
And Nancy Pelosi has a wall around the backyard at her home in San Francisco.

What is immoral is a policy endorsed by Pelosi and Schumer of sanctuary cities and even states that allows such criminal aliens in our country to murder Americans and a Democratic caucus that would abolish I.C.E. and those who risk their lives daily to provide some semblance of border security.  What is immoral is politicians such  as Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf  not only refusing to cooperate with I.C.E. butgiving illegal aliens a heads-up when I.C.E. raids are imminent.
In the wake of the Singh murder, Schaaf still insists that warning illegal aliens about I.C.E. raids was and is the right thing to do, the lives of American citizens she is sworn to protect be damned:
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf -- who once warned Northern California residents about an impending ICE raid -- said she has “no regrets” for her actions and said the federal immigration agency “has gone astray.”
“I have no regrets, none. The more time goes by, the more certain I feel that I did the right thing in standing up for our community and pointing out our values are not aligned with our laws,” Schaff toldBuzzFeed in an interview. “That’s hopefully the message that is sent out.”
The message Schaaf, Pelosi, and Schumer are sending out is one of callous disregard for the lives of American citizens. Democrats are endangering their lives and the lives of migrant children by enticing caravans to drag young children a thousand miles with lies about easy entry and waiting jobs:
The father of an 8-year-old Guatemalan boy who died in U.S. custody took his son to the border after hearing rumors that parents and their children would be allowed to migrate to the United States and escape the poverty in their homeland, the boy's stepsister told the Associated Press.
Felipe Gomez Alonzo died Monday at a New Mexico hospital after suffering coughing, vomiting and fever, authorities said. It was the second such death this month. Another Guatemalan child, 7-year-old Jakelin Caal, died in U.S. custody on Dec. 8.
The fact is that if we had a wall, or whatever the hair-splitters want to call it, both these children would be alive today. And it is American kids are dying too, killed and murdered by illegal aliens who have no right to be here. Just ask the parents of Justin Lee, 14, who was killed in a hit-and-run accident by an illegal alien:
An illegal immigrant has pleaded guilty to a hit and run that killed a Wixom teen in June.
Miguel Ibarra-Cerda, 22, entered his plea Thursday, the day his trial was set to begin before Judge Cheryl Matthews in Oakland County Circuit Court.
Ibarra-Cerda is charged with failing to stop at the scene of an accident when at fault, resulting in death, and reckless driving causing death for the collision which killed Justin Lee, 14. Ibarra-Cerda faces up to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for the first charge and 15 years in prison and a $2,500-$10,000 fine on the second charge. Matthews will sentence him Dec. 20.
Police in Connecticut have arrested an 18-year-old undocumented immigrant from Jamaica on murder charges related to the shooting death of an innocent 12-year-old boy a week before Christmas.
Bridgeport Police Chief Armando Perez on Monday announced the charges against Tajay Chambers stemming from the December 18 death of Clinton Howell outside his family's home on Willow Street.
Chambers has been charged with murder; murder with special circumstances; use of a firearm during the commission of a felony; illegal possession of a firearm without a permit; risk of injury to a child; reckless endangerment, and larceny….
CTpost.com reported, citing police sources, that earlier that evening, Chambers and his alleged co-conspirators were driving in a stolen car when they got into an argument with some people walking along Willow Street, among them Howell’s relative.
There have been many suggestions as to how to pay for the wall, such as Sen. Ted Cruz’s idea to apply drug asset forfeitures to wall construction or to tax the billions of dollars aliens return to their home countries.. Pelosi certainly found no problem locating $3 billion for the ineffective and absurd “Cash for Clunkers” program under Obama, didn’t she?
The wall would in fact pay for itself, if only in the reduced cost of crimes that would be eliminated, saving both dollars from overburdened social services and the cost of illegal alien crimes, particularly the cost in human lives such as that of Ronil Singh, who is survived by his wife and young son.
His death, the death of a legal immigrant pursuing the American dream, and countless other American citizens, including children, is on the hands of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Perhaps Pelosi can attend Singh’s funeral and explain how his death and the deaths of others in the absence of a wall is all President Trump’s fault and that not building the wall is the moral thing to do.
Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared inInvestor’s Business DailyHuman EventsReason Magazine and the ChicagoSun-Times among other publications.              

 

Caught Again: Dangerous Gang Member Deported 10 Times Since 1993 Arrested in Tucson



The United States Customs and Border Protection agency arrested a dangerous illegal alien and member of the notorious "18th Street Gang" in Arizona on Tuesday evening, according to a press release
Arizona CBP reports that "51-year-old Hector Gustavo Montoya, a member of the dangerous 18th Street gang in Los Angeles," was apprehended this week near Nogales while agents were patrolling the border. Montoya has been arrested by American authorities on numerous occasions, "most recently in 2016 when he was convicted for drug smuggling offenses. He served a 24-month prison sentence for that conviction and was removed from the country after confinement."
Montoya has an illustrious history with repeated illegal entry into the country. In what some politicians may describe as "an act of love," the 18th street gang member has been deported from America "more than 10 times for immigration violations dating back to 1993, as well as multiple arrests for crimes committed in California." Montoya hails from Honduras and will be held in custody by federal authorities. 
CBP has previously dealt with 18th Street gang members who use America's porous southern border as a means of gaining access into the country. During July 2018, CBP arrested a thug from this group who entered into the country separately while posing as a migrant seeking refuge with his child.  That same week of that arrest, agents also caught a Salvadoran national crossing the border who also belonged to the gang. 
Montoya's arrest comes as President Donald J. Trump and other Republicans continue to demand funding for a border wall to impede the flow of violent illegal aliens.
December 22, 2018

Bienvenidos a Mexico: California's ballot-harvesting, sure enough, is borrowed from Mexico


In an extraordinary investigative piece on how ballot-harvesting works by Steve Miller, published on Real Clear Investigations, we learn an amazing amount of information about how ballot-harvesting works and why it's so closely connected to election fraud, skewing elections in directions they normally wouldn't go. Themust-read piece is focused on how Texas is dealing with the seedy issue, enforcing the law, prosecuting more than twice as many cases of electoral fraud as California, even hampered as Texas is by weak penalties for violators. But a little detail stands out much deeper into the piece: Ballot-harvesting, which is at the root of considerable fraud of all kinds, is a practice specifically borrowed from Latin America, with a very impressive Latino analyst, K.B. Forbes, who has electoral experience in both countries, citing Mexico. Here's the passage:
The practice has its roots in Latin America, said K.B. Forbes, a political consultant and Hispanic activist who has served as an elections observer in Sonora, Mexico. “In the Latin culture, they have colonias, which is ‘little colony,’ literally,” he said. “In these, they sometimes have the equivalent of a precinct boss, and that’s how people move up. The [politiqueras] deliver the vote and when the candidate moves in, the theory is that they get a good post inside the government.”
That brings up California, where ballot-harvesting is perfectly legal, and normal voters have to wonder how the heck that happened. Ballot-harvesting has been a disaster for Republicans in California, with all conservatives now shut out from any representation in once-red Orange County. Most congressional elections there showed Republican candidates in the lead on election night in the last midterm, but all of them flipped to Democrats as the Democrat-led ballot-harvesting brought in votes and votes and votes from supposed precincts, harvested by their political operatives, until the result went the other way. (This by the way, didn't happen in districts where Democrats held a small lead, nothing flipped in their cases and ballots did not keep rolling in).
If ballot harvesting is a practice imported from Mexican politics, what does that say about California politics, whose legislators would embrace Mexican electoral practices over the U.S. standard? As I mentioned earlier, Mexico has been called "a perfect dicatorship" by none other than Nobel Prize-winning literary lion Mario Vargas Llosa, owing to the continuous power of the Mexican Partido Revolucionario Institucional (or P.R.I.), which up under a decade or two ago, had a hammerlock monopoly on Mexican politics, winning every single election in what was then a one-party state. That's a system so bad people emigrated illegally from that country to get away from it. Now, the cultural practice is right there waiting for them in California, albeit, virtually nowhere else.
And like the P.R.I.'s Mexican electoral practice of ballot-harvesting, it's noteworthy that the ruling Democrats of California also are famous for doling out the goodies to the loyal voters. They've promised amazing things to California's illegal immigrant population, with the latest thing free heath care. California's insurance commissioner, the respected non-partisan Steve Poizner, was, conveniently, ballot-harvested out of office after an election-night lead several days after midterm by utterly leftist Democrat Ricardo Lara who openly declared his support and big plans for free health care for illegals. He's tried it before in the legislator and now he's going to do it this time through the executive. California's incoming governor, of course, is all in for the goody-slinging. In Mexico, they used to pass out bags of beans for votes. In California, the prizes are considerably higher, and they go well beyond free health care.  I've already noted the weird similarities to how California is run, and P.R.I-style politics here.
Any wonder California is going way out of its way to welcome illegal immigrants? "You're all welcome here," as Gov. Jerry Brown famously said. California already hosts a quarter of the nation's illegals, and with middle class families now moving out due to high living costs and punitive taxation, the California P.R.I. likes new bodies coming in who have a lot of needs, which keeps the congressional seats numerous and the federal funds flowing.
It all makes a normal person wonder about the weird closeness of California officials and their Mexican counterparts, too. Newsom has already paid a visit to Mexico to discuss the caravan with the Mexican government in Mexico City (not Tijuana, where he would have gotten a earful from the generally conservative and more dissident-oriented Tijuana locals), and he has declared he plans to withdraw National Guard troops from the U.S. border. With his party now embracing the P.R.I's style of governance and having some unnaturally close ties to Mexican officials (I've seen it myself at Los Angeles functions as a guest of the Mexican government), it looks like a growing merger of Mexican and California politics.
Mexico knows how bad the system is, and its citizens did rebel against it with a Trump-like leftist president, Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador, who won on a vow to end corruption. One can safely take that as a sign that Mexicans are trying to move away from that kind of politics, which of course would include ballot harvesting. California, on the other hand, is moving toward it, embracing what Mexico is trying to reject. That speaks pretty poorly for the sorry state of affairs in California. It's only great for the rulers and those they patronize, until the money runs out.
 Until then, clarification about California's Mexico borrowings need to stand as an incentive to other states about what not to do.

 

CALIFORNIA ICE CAPADES

Crackdown on sheriffs, comfort for criminal illegals.

In California’s capital, sheriff Scott Jones has been under fire for allegedly resisting oversight. This week the Sacramento County sheriff revealed the real reason for the campaign against him.
“It’s no secret,” he told county supervisors, “I give ICE unfettered access to our jails and our databases.” That was a problem because county supervisors voted in July to cancel the sheriff’s contract with ICE, and it also raised issues of compliance with Senate Bill 54, the state’s sanctuary law.
“I’ve been portrayed horribly, like I split up families and like I’m a Trump guy, and we’re all buddies,” Jones told reporters last year. So he brought ICE director Thomas Homan to a Sacramento forum to explain “factual information” about federal policy. Jones had no problem with immigrants but explained, “it’s the people in the jail, the people that choose a career of crime, we have to get rid of those folks.”
In 2015, Jones told Fox News that “by ICE’s own numbers, 95 percent of the people they used to arrest, that they’ve already identified, that they want to take custody of, are getting out of jail before they can get to them. And that’s scary, because they’re criminals. They’ve demonstrated a propensity for criminal behavior.” The real back story to Jones’ concern came in October of 2014.
Repeat deportee Luis Bracamontes, gunned down Sacramento deputy Danny Oliver and detective Michael Davis. The murder of two police officers prompted no statement from California governor Jerry Brown or Kamala Harris, attorney general at the time. Both failed to lament the “gun violence” on display in the case.
In court, with relatives of the victims present, Bracamontes said “I wish I had killed more of the motherfuckers.” Also present was Anthony Holmes, whom Bracamontes had shot five times when he refused to give up his car. Bracamontes called Holmes a “nigger,” and yelled “black lives don’t matter!” at the jury. As it happens, Danny Oliver’s wife Susan is also African American.
Jones fulfilled a promise to her by making a video urging the president to secure the borders. That didn’t happen and Jones got no support from California’s political and judicial establishments. They showed more interested in protecting illegals, even violent, racist criminals like Bracamontes, who was not supposed to be in the United States in the first place.
Last year, California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Secretary John Kelly stating: “As Chief Justice of California responsible for the safe and fair delivery of justice in our state, I am deeply concerned about reports from some of our trial courts that immigration agents appear to be stalking undocumented immigrants in our courthouses to make arrests. Our courthouses serve as a vital forum for ensuring access to justice and protecting public safety. Courthouses should not be used as bait in the necessary enforcement of our country’s immigration laws.”
Sessions and Kelly replied that “stalking” has “specific legal meaning in American law,” and it was “criminal activity.” On the other hand, “the arrest of persons in a public place based on probable cause has long been upheld by the United States Supreme Court,” as U.S. v. Watson confirmed. Federal statutes authorize arrests where probable cause exists to believe that “such aliens are in violation of immigration laws.” Courthouses are not only public places, but visitors are screened for weapons, Sessions and Kelly wrote, therefore “the safety risks for the arresting officers are substantially decreased.” 
This was hardly the only lapse of judgment by California’s Chief Justice, a 2009 selection of Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cantil-Sakauye has now given up her Republican Party Registration in favor of “no party.” The reason, she explained last week, was Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Cantil-Sakauye wondered why Republicans would bring in female prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question Christine Blasey Ford. This was to determine if Blasey Ford’s charge that a drunken Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982 was true or false.
Tani Cantil-Sakauye doesn’t get that, so Californians have cause to wonder if she believes that accusation equals guilt and women are always to be believed, regardless of the facts. That is a strange position for any lawyer or judge, much less the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. On the other hand, this Chief Justice keeps quiet when criminal illegals murder police officers and denounces federal ICE agents as stalkers.
In California’s ICE Capades, sheriffs like Scott Jones get criticism and illegals get special treatment. As Newsweek reports, “the California city of Sacramento dedicated $300,000 last year to helping undocumented immigrants with everything from legal services to fight deportations to assistance in applying for citizenship and visas.”
The money “went toward helping 28 undocumented immigrants facing deportation receive legal aid in their bid to stay in the U.S., as well as helping residents in encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.” In addition, the city funds a response network “which includes a 24-hour hotline that people can call to report ICE activity within the Sacramento area.”

Least-Educated State: California No. 1 in Percentage of Residents 25 and Older Who Never Finished 9th Grade; No. 50 in High School Graduates



By Terence P. Jeffrey | December 19, 2018 | 12:49 PM EST

California Gov. Jerry Brown and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) outside the U.S. Capitol, March 22, 2017. (Getty Images/Alex Wong)
(CNSNews.com) - California ranks No. 1 among the 50 states for the percentage of its residents 25 and older who have never completed ninth grade and 50th for the percentage who have graduated from high school, according to new data from the Census Bureau.
Texas ranks No. 2 for the percentage of its residents 25 and older who have never completed ninth grade and 49th for the percentage who have graduated from high school.
9.7 percent of California residents 25 and older, the Census Bureau says, never completed ninth grade. Only 82.5 percent graduated from high school.

8.7 percent of Texas residents 25 and older never completed ninth grade, and only 82.8 percent graduated from high school.