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California Tag

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.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 10, 2015 42 Comments
There is not a single campus where the failure to ban lawfully-possessed concealed guns caused a mass shooting. In fact, almost all places where mass shootings have taken place are "gun-free zones." The results are predictable, as I explained in my viral column at USA Today, Time to talk about gun free zones:
In almost all mass shooting situations, particularly at schools, the common theme is a gun-free zone, with the shooter being the only one armed person in the building for minutes or longer. And in each case, the shooter couldn’t care less about the gun-free nature of the building, and if anything, was drawn to such a location. Gun-free zones presume the good intentions of those entering the zone. And the overwhelming majority have such good intentions. But for those who have bad intentions, gun-free zones turn schools and other locations into shooting galleries. The good people are unarmed, the evil person is armed.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 06, 2015 20 Comments
I have followed the progress of California's "assisted suicide" legislation since it began to wind its way through the legislature. Yesterday, the bill landed on Governor Jerry Brown's desk, and he signed the controversial measure with the type of pontificating we have come to expect from our state's chief executive:
Caught between conflicting moral arguments, Gov. Jerry Brown, a former Jesuit seminary student, on Monday signed a measure allowing physicians to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients who want to hasten their deaths. Approving the bill, whose opponents included the Catholic Church, appeared to be a gut-wrenching decision for the 77-year-old governor, who as a young man studied to enter the priesthood. “In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” Brown added. “I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn’t deny that right to others."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 30, 2015 11 Comments
The closure of the largest of the nonprofit Obamacare cooperatives is another sign that the Affordable Care Act is the single best oxymoron ever created by politicians. I should be experiencing some amount of schadenfreude, as the fight against Obamacare was one of the major action items of my local Tea Party group in its original year. That it has been a galactic scale fiscal disaster comes as no surprise to any of us who took the time to review the law and think seriously about its implications. But there is no joy in the Golden State for me. As my husband, Ben, is now enjoying another round of FUNemployment under the "robust" Obama economy, we have been forced to find to new healthcare insurance. Covered California has been hailed as the most successful of the state exchanges. So, with great optimism, Ben completed the online application.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 17, 2015 6 Comments
Congressman McClintock represents California's fourth district. Wednesday, he announced he was resigning from the House Freedom Caucus. Formed earlier this year, the HFC hoped to pull the House Republican Caucus further to the right. There principles were simple. "First, rank-and-file Republicans must pressure leadership to enact a more conservative agenda. And second, this pressure should never involve frantic scurrying on the House floor," wrote NRO's Joel Gehrke in January.
As a caucus devoted to moving leadership’s agenda to the right, the group has a chance to take over the traditional role of the Republican Study Committee, which many lawmakers believe has strayed from its founding mission as an organization designed to pressure moderate GOP leaders to adopt more conservative positions. National Journal first reported that such a group was forming.
Less than a year after it began, the HFC has already lost one of its 30 members. Rep. McClintock's resignation was brutal. "I believe the tactics the HFC has employed have repeatedly undermined the House’s ability to advance them," he wrote.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 12, 2015 6 Comments
Two pieces of green-energy legislation have been derailed by the California legislature, much to Governor Jerry Brown's consternation. Senate Bill 350, which would have given one of the most draconian state agencies in the nation epic powers to cut fuel consumption, and a gas tax supposedly for road repair, have gone down to defeat...at least temporarily.
In a major setback for Gov. Jerry Brown’s climate agenda, the governor and legislative leaders on Wednesday abandoned an effort to require a 50 percent reduction in petroleum use in motor vehicles by 2030. The announcement followed weeks of lobbying by oil companies and resistance not only from Republicans, but moderate Democrats in the Assembly.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 09, 2015 5 Comments
California is now seeing a significant outbreak of potentially deadly Legionnaire's Disease:
The number of inmates being observed for possible infection with Legionnaires' disease at San Quentin State Prison near San Francisco has jumped from 71 to 85, but the number of confirmed diagnoses held steady at six, authorities said Tuesday. Prison authorities said they have begun restoring some freedom of movement, as well as access to the law library and hot meals to inmates at the California prison who were put on lockdown to avoid infection when the outbreak began last week. The disease, a sometimes deadly form of pneumonia caused by a bacterium found in water systems, is transmitted when people breathe it in via steam, mist and moisture in the air. For that reason, prison officials initially shut down the plumbing in the prison, which houses 3,700 inmates and has 1,800 employees.
While an outbreak of such an illness in a prison wouldn't necessarily be newsworthy, the state now joins Illinois and New York in reporting significant numbers of new cases of this disease. New York City has reported 100 cases in recent months with 12 dead, but Mayor Bill DeBlasio indicates the rate of infection seems to be decreasing.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 06, 2015 17 Comments
California Governor Jerry Brown has hit a bit of a rough patch. The first bump: A tense visit from groups who usually have the support of progressives like Brown.
Occupiers from Black Lives Matter and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) descended upon California’s capitol Wednesday by the hundreds, demanding state legislators pass a new bill on racial profiling, and calling on Governor Jerry Brown to sign it. Senate Floor Analysis notes that the bill, AB 952, would require peace officers conducting “stops” to begin reporting the “perceived race or ethnicity, gender, and approximate age of the person stopped.”
One of the chants used by the activists even drew a comparison to ancient Egyptian tyrants: “This is what a Pharaoh looks like!” The second bump occurred while promoting his newest proposal for road repair. After contending with the latest flavor of progressive nuttiness, Brown was poised to market a plan featuring the implementation of new taxes:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 01, 2015 4 Comments
You have to love the ingenuity of San Diegans, who are attempting to roll back the tide of liberalism that has has swept over the entire state of California. First, we organized one of the biggest and most effective tea party groups in the state. Now, a local businessman has organized one of the most creative protests I've ever seen, right on the steps of our capitol.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 18, 2015 34 Comments
While California awaits the arrival of a "Godzilla" El Niño, a storm has already broken out in the city of Huntington Park. We reported that two Mexican migrant leaders, both quite undocumented, have been appointed to city commissions. And video of the city council meeting in which those appointments were approved shows only a few citizens on hand to protest the measure. That wasn't the case for the Monday night meeting, in which approximately 200 local residents flooded the council chambers to voice their anger over the action. The following video from that meeting offers a glimpse into city action, which follows a recap of events that lead to the citizen response:
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