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California Tag

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 04, 2016 33 Comments
Aleister blogged about James O'Keefe's video exposing a Chicago activist, who visited the White House 45 times since President Obama took office, and his description of how voters are bused into key precincts to influence results. Mary Chastain noted that Indiana officials are investigating possible voter fraud after people noticed their voter registration cards had incorrect information.

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 26, 2016 16 Comments
The Pentagon received a lot of heat this week when The Los Angeles Times reported officials demanded California National Guard soldiers repay bonuses the government enticed them with to reenlist and go to war. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced he will suspend this program:
"Today, in keeping with that obligation, I am ordering a series of steps to ensure fair treatment for thousands of California National Guard soldiers who may have received incentive bonuses and tuition assistance improperly as a result of errors and in some cases criminal behavior by members of the California National Guard.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 25, 2016 16 Comments
On Sunday, Leslie reported that the Pentagon has started to collect overpayments officials made to 10,000 National Guard soldiers in California to reenlist for war. Now House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has joined forces with California GOP members to ask the Pentagon to stop these collections:
“These brave Californians were willing to give everything to serve our country, and they earned every penny and benefit given to them," Pelosi said Monday in a brief statement.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 23, 2016 36 Comments
About one-year ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the state's assisted-suicide bill into law. It fully went into effect this June, with the opening of the first clinic. While there is no data on the number of California assisted-suicides, Oregon recorded over 130 last year as part of their legalized physician-assisted death program. Now, one young mother says her insurance company denied her coverage for chemotherapy treatment after originally agreeing to provide the fiscal support for it, but indicated it would be willing to pay for assisted suicide instead.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 23, 2016 40 Comments
The members of the California National Guard are awesome. These soldiers are on the frontlines of the huge wildfires this state frequently experiences. They have been called upon to deal with the riots and civil unrest that sometimes plague our cities. They have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan during our "War on Terror". Now, the Pentagon is asking the men and women to repay enlistment bonuses they received.
Short of troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, the California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or more to reenlist and go to war. Now the Pentagon is demanding the money back.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 06, 2016 1 Comment
While tensions related to the fatal shooting of a a black man by El Cajon police have subsided, it appears the Los Angeles Police Department has also became a center of #BlackLivesMatters demonstrations. The triggering incidents seem similar to the one in the San Diego, in which Alfred Olango took a shooting stance with an e-cigarette. However, both of these situations involved either a gun or an object that more closely resembled an actual weapons.
The Los Angeles police chief on Monday defended the use of deadly force against two men in separate fatal shootings over the weekend, saying one turned toward officers with a gun and the other pointed what looked like a real gun at police.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 03, 2016 8 Comments
State approaches to disenfranchising felons vary widely. For example, in Maine and Vermont, felons never lose their right to vote, even while they are incarcerated. California automatically restores voting rights once the sentence has been completed. However, Governor Jerry Brown has taken felon voting rights for some inmates to a whole, new level.
Gov. Jerry Brown has agreed to restore the voting rights of convicted felons serving time in county jails. The bill that Brown announced signing Wednesday also reinstates the voting eligibility of felons on probation or under community supervision beginning next year. It does not affect those in state or federal prisons. AB2466 stems from California’s criminal justice realignment, which led to some people convicted of low-level felonies serving time in county jails.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 30, 2016 23 Comments
I have been following the developments related to the police shooting of Alfred Olango, after he took a shooting a stance and failed to comply with responding officers' orders following a disturbance he created. Perhaps inspired by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's innovative outreach to the black community, one plucky supporter donned his "Make America Great Again" attire and headed to the scene of protests that have ensued since the incident. Feras Jabro, 21, a San Diego State student videotaped his experience on Periscope. Shockingly, the social justice crowd decided to give him some mob justice instead.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 29, 2016 20 Comments
As if the election season isn't scary enough, the start of October a few days away and Halloween-themed everything can be seen everywhere. In Southern California, Knotts Berry Farm pulls out all the stops in making its amusement park the scariest place on earth. However, according to some mental health advocates, the newest attraction was too much.
A popular Halloween attraction at Knott's Berry Farm and California's Great America was shutting down, officials announced Wednesday, after some took to social media calling the display "offensive" to those suffering from mental illness.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 29, 2016 38 Comments
Now that the demonstrations have subsided in Charlotte, North Carolina, a San Diego neighborhood is facing potential unrest in the wake of a police shooting involving a black man.
A black man was shot in an encounter with El Cajon Police Tuesday, multiple witnesses said, while a woman wailed nearby, demanding to know why police shot her brother. Hours later, police officers told NBC 7 San Diego the man, now identified as Alfred Olango, was acting erratically and failed to comply, although they did not release details on the specific threat he presented to officers. Dozens of officers swarmed a public shopping center in the heart of El Cajon at 1 p.m. The community is approximately 30 miles east of downtown San Diego.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 16, 2016 9 Comments
The Associated Press, Gannett Co., and Vice Media LLC have filed a suit against the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to gather details how agents hacked into the phone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. The Justice Department fought with Apple for over a month, trying to convince the company to allow the government into Syed Farook's iPhone after he and his wife Tashfeen Malik, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, killed 14 people in San Bernardino, CA, in December 2015. The FBI took Farrok's phone as evidence, but couldn't open it due to a passcode. Apple refused to help, saying it would risk privacy of other customers. Then somehow, call it a miracle, the FBI managed to crack into the iPhone all by themselves!

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 27, 2016 7 Comments
My last report on California mentioned that Governor Jerry Brown was planning to introduce a ballot measure to extend AB-32, the state's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Despite the fact that the bottom has fallen out of the Cap & Trade permit market, the Assembly granted the rules an extension beyond the initial 2020 end date.
The Assembly approved sweeping climate-change legislation Tuesday that extends the state’s targets for reducing greenhouse gases from 2020 to 2030 in a controversial bill that saw White House officials and Gov. Jerry Brown privately urging lawmakers for support. Under SB32, the state would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. The bill would piggyback on AB32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which calls for California to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 18, 2016 17 Comments
While Louisiana is drying out from its epic flooding, California firefighters are valiantly battling massive wildfires that have erupted throughout the state over the past week.
Here are some of the fires now raging in California:
  • Blue Cut fire: 30,000 acres near the 15 Freeway in Cajon Pass; began Tuesday. 0% contained.
  • Clayton fire: 4,000 acres and 175 structures burned near Clear Lake; 40% contained (as of Wednesday morning); began Saturday.
  • Chimney fire: 7,300 acres and 40 structures destroyed in San Luis Obispo County; 25% contained (as of Wednesday morning); began Saturday.
This is in addition to Soberanes Fire near Big Sur that has closed lanes on a portion of state Highway 1 in Monterey County, blackened over 76,000 acres, damaged or destroyed over 30 homes, and is weeks from full containment. Now, reports are just coming in about another blaze that has forced evacuations about 20 minutes from where I live in San Diego.
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