California | Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion - Part 116
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Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 01, 2016 15 Comments
I was a Russian Studies Major in college. It involved the study of Russian language, literature and culture, as well as the Soviet State. Among other things, I studied in Moscow. It was an academic endeavor, not political activism. That was old school "ethnic" studies. New school ethnic studies is social justice warfare. Student's at San Francisco State University's College of Ethnic Studies are upset that there might be some programming cuts as a result of overall budget problems. And true to their curriculum, they took up protest. Golden Gate Express reports on a meeting hosted by SFSU President Leslie E. Wong, Potential Cuts Loom for Ethnic Studies:
Within an hour, the courtyard in front of Ethnic Studies was flooded with students, faculty and other members of the community, many wearing black with red accessories in solidarity with the potential faculty strike in April. Peppered among the sea of black and red were white signs and banners with messages of unity....

Posted by Leslie Eastman on February 29, 2016 24 Comments
Last night, the organizers of the San Diego area's first "Tea Party" event gathered together for a Beer Caucus. During the lively discussion on the current status of the presidential primary season (which spanned the grief cycle of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), it was noted that it was the 7th anniversary of our first event. Looking back, it has been a long, strange, and interesting journey. The focus of the first rally was a celebration of the free market system and a desire to roll-back government spending. I lovingly crafted my first protest sign. LI #34 b San Diego Tea Party sign

Posted by Leslie Eastman on February 26, 2016 16 Comments
Less than a year ago, climate scientists were heralding the "Godzilla El Niño," which would generate historic rainfalls that could help alleviate California's mega-drought. Climate reality has failed to confirm climate theory, as the term "dud" is now being used to describe the weather pattern.
Is this El Niño a dud? Sacramento is in the peak of its rainy season, but there is no substantial rain in the forecast for the next two weeks. The Sierra snowpack has fallen below normal levels for this time of year. The state’s three largest reservoirs remain far below capacity.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on February 25, 2016 18 Comments
About 2 years ago, I featured a legal saga involving a California state senator from the Bay area who was a leading advocate for gun control. His alleged crime reeked of irony: Gun trafficking.
In exchange for campaign contributions, according to the affidavit, Yee would “facilitate a meeting with the arms dealer” so that the donor could buy a large number of weapons. The firearms would be imported through a port in Newark, N.J. At one meeting, the affidavit said, Yee and the prospective donor discussed “details of the specific types of weapons.”
The deals were facilitated by a Chinese gangland figure nicknamed "Shrimp Boy." The wheels of justice have been slow to grind, but grind they did. Leland Yee was charged and convicted of soliciting and accepting bribes in exchange for providing political favors and conspiring to import weapons and ammunition into the country. He has just received a 5-year sentence, after throwing himself on the mercy of the court.

Posted by Katy Grimes on February 18, 2016 12 Comments
California truck and business owners initiated a lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board because of exploding trucks and roadside fires, due to the CARB’s mandatory, faulty diesel particulate filters, they say. Ironically, the filters even fail at cleaning the air. The Alliance for California Business, a voluntary group whose purpose is to protect and promote business interests throughout California, says Diesel Particulate Filters have started more than 31 fires in the last two years, including several in areas of the state parched by the drought. The Diesel Particulate Filters are the result of environmental regulations created by the California Air Resources Board, and were based on a deeply flawed study led by a researcher accused of faking his Ph.D. credential. The CARB was aware of employee Hien Tran and his phony Ph.D. credentials and flawed research, yet instead, rushed head-on to meet its self-imposed schedule in creating the diesel regulations on truckers.

Trucking Companies Devastated

Bud Caldwell, Alliance for California Business president and owner of 11 trucks, says the truck fires are started below the truck’s engine compartment. The primary issue is whether properly maintained Diesel Particulate Filters can become clogged when the filter system fails to regenerate and burn larger diesel particulates into ultrafine particulate ash, Caldwell says.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on January 27, 2016 7 Comments
Early in December, the first news I had of the San Bernardino terror attack was Facebook inquiries as to whether I was alright. Today, Facebook friends were asking me about another attack that seemed to be occurring a mere mile from where I often work. Fortunately, it was a false alarm:
Reports of an active shooter at Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) Tuesday morning led to a lengthy lockdown of the military facility, but U.S. Navy officials confirmed no gunman was found and no injuries were reported. NMCSD was placed on lockdown just after 8 a.m. and people inside were ordered to shelter in place after an unidentifed Department of Defense employee reported hearing three shots fired in the basement of Building 26, which houses a gym and barracks, according to the Navy.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 08, 2016 4 Comments
Thursday night, news broke that federal authorities arrested two Iraqi immigrants. One in Sacramento, California, the other in Houston, Texas. Both individuals were arrested for allegedly lying to immigration officials about their connections with terrorist organizations. Early reports Thursday night provided conflicting information and left many questions unanswered. According to Houston local news, the Sacramento and Houston arrests were related. But CNN reported the arrests, "did not appear to to be directly related, but the cases had several similarities."

Posted by edgeofthesandbox on January 07, 2016 19 Comments
In late December last year East Bay Area regulated utility EBMUD released a list of "water guzzlers", a naming and shaming strategy the utility adopted in response to the drought that hit the state during the last couple of years. The local media had a ball with the release, publishing names of offenders and aerial pictures of their property.  Names of celebrity "water guzzlers" graced the headlines.  Although they obviously tried their best, Bay Area journos are yet to perfect the art of naming and shaming. In the Soviet Union such a list would be accompanied by an expose of how it was really the water criminal Kristi Yamaguchi, not as previously thought Tonya Harding, who plotted to break Nancy Kerrigan's leg.  Seriously, though, one must feel powerless to engage in this kind of behavior. A few days later I drove to Los Angeles and was relieved to see that somebody in California has a different approach to water crisis.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on January 02, 2016 11 Comments
One 2016 prediction is very easy to make: Obamacare will continue its trajectory of failure. For example, Covered California has been heralded as one of the greatest state exchange successes for the "Affordable Care Act". The reality is that one-third of California's residents are now using a system that was initially intended for the low income families.
The state's health plan for the poor, known as Medi-Cal, now covers 12.7 million people, 1 of every 3 Californians. If Medi-Cal were a state of its own, it would be the nation's seventh-biggest by population; its $91-billion budget would be the country's fourth-largest, trailing only those of California, New York and Texas. "When the final numbers started coming out, where a third of the population was on Medi-Cal, it went way past anyone's expectations," said state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), who chairs the Senate Health Committee.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 15, 2015 14 Comments
Last week, we reported that one of the San Bernardino killers, Syed Rizwan Farook, had pictures of educational institutions on his camera, indicating that high school and college campuses were potentially being targeted for future terror acts. Tuesday, the entire Los Angeles Unified School District has been shut down because of credible threats involving bombs and packages:
All Los Angeles Unified School District schools were closed Tuesday until further notice after LAUSD received a "credible threat," according to school district officials and police.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 11, 2015 17 Comments
Investigations are continuing into the terrorist couple, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who slaughtered 14 coworkers in San Bernardino and were planning to kill the first responders with explosives. The quest for clues has led to a local lake:
An FBI dive team was searching a lake Thursday near the site of the terror attack in San Bernardino, California -- a spot where investigators were told the shooters spent time. The FBI would not discuss the specific evidence it was looking for, but said it was seeking "anything that had to do" with the shooting. ....The investigators appear to be combing an area near the shallow edge of the lake. The water is so murky that divers cannot actually see through it, so they are largely feeling their way through.
Investigators had received indications through leads that at some point they came to this park, though they didn't specify exactly what was being sought when reporters queried them.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 09, 2015 7 Comments
After the San Bernardino terror attack, California Governor Jerry Brown stopped by the city on his way out the the UN Climate Conference that is continuing this week. Brown, a leading advocate of creating climate change policies that have chilled the economy of the Golden State, was invited to speak. The reception was...unexpected.
Gov. Jerry Brown, at the conclusion of a speech here Tuesday, was heckled by a group of protesters opposed to carbon offset programs they said could hurt indigenous people. Brown, accompanied by several South American governors at a 19th century mansion in Paris, had finished brief remarks urging further efforts to counteract climate change when protesters started yelling, “No REDD.” The acronym is used by The Governors’ Climate and Forest Task Force, of which California is a part, to describe programs to promote reduced emissions from deforestation and land use. California officials have considered ways to link the state’s cap-and-trade program, in which polluters pay to offset carbon emissions, to tropical rainforests in Chiapas, Mexico and Acre, Brazil. Outside the venue, Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network said that such a system could prevent indigenous people from working on their land.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 07, 2015 13 Comments
"This neighborhood should not be part of war zone. This neighborhood should not be a battle ground, so why is it?" asked Sen. Ben Sasse standing outside of the site where the San Bernardino terrorist attacks took place. "Because we're an open society. We're a free society and our enemies hate freedom." Sen. Sasse explained.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 05, 2015 8 Comments
A little over a week ago, President Obama was making the case that the most significant security threat was climate change and asserting that ISIS posed no credible threat to the US homeland. In the wake of the San Bernardino massacre of 14 Americans on the homeland, it is clear that the presidential fantasies and the national realities are quite different. The FBI has formally declared the incident is being investigated as an act of terrorism:
"The San Bernardino, California, mass shooting is now being investigated as "an act of terrorism," FBI official David Bowdich said Friday. Bowdich said the FBI "uncovered evidence ... of extreme planning."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 04, 2015 31 Comments
Chaos, pandemonium, terrorism, popsicles, Britney Spears -- this is the latest from San Bernardino where fourteen were murdered earlier this week. Today's developments in no certain order.

It was a terrorist attack.

The FBI confirmed Friday that the attacks are under federal terrorism investigation. Because we're officially in some bizarro world, even Chris Hayes seems to get it:

Even though the FBI is calling San Bernardino a terrorist attack, the White House keeps beating the gun control drum.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 04, 2015 25 Comments
As we are learning more about the radical Islamic terrorists responsible for 14 deaths in San Bernadino, California, the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats are wasting no time in pushing for more gun control. The media started clamoring for gun control before the buildings were even cleared, and Obama was quick to leap onto his soapbox and stammer on about the need for gun control. Watch:
Note the new language here: "gun safety laws."  We'll be hearing this again, I'm sure.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 23, 2015 6 Comments
This week California's State Treasurer Johnny Chiang announced that the Golden State's finances are completely tarnished:
State Treasurer John Chiang unveiled a new open data website today, providing important details about $1.5 trillion in debt issued by state and local government entities as part of his ongoing efforts to promote transparency in government. The site, debtwatch.treasurer.ca.gov, makes it easier for taxpayers to track proposed and issued debt, cost of issuance, and bond and tax election results. “The state and its local governments have borrowed more than $1.5 trillion from Wall Street over the past three decades to build roads, schools, and other critical public works,” said Chiang. “Bonds are not free money and, indeed, obligate the public to repay them through higher taxes and fees. DebtWatch aspires to empower Californians to hold government accountable for its borrowing decisions.”
Meanwhile, our state's Chief Executive seems to have added to that debt, after requesting a state deparment complete a gas and oil survey of his property at taxpayer expense.
Gov. Jerry Brown last year directed state oil and gas regulators to research, map and report back on any mining and oil drilling history and "potential for future oil and gas activity" at the Brown family's private land in Northern California, state records show.