Democrats: "No profit allowed for medicinal marijuana"

Socialism

Democrat bill says "Thou shalt not make a profit on pot."

The pansy picking loon Communist state legislature attacks those "evil"

businessmen who dare to open a business and make a profit.

The People's Republic of California would take steps to regulate the sale of medical marijuana under a bill approved Monday by the state Senate, restricting cannabis dispensaries that Comrade Obama's Federal prosecutors say have grown out of control.

California voters first supported legalizing marijuana to treat illness in 1996, but Comrade Obama's Federal prosecutors recently cracked down and attacking the private property of the landlords of pot stores.

 

The industry has dared to grow enormously profitable by providing a service that people willingly want and need..

The Senate sent the bill to the Assembly on a 22-12 vote and without any Republican support.

 

The legislation makes it clear that dispensaries cannot operate at a profit, but that the owners can receive reasonable compensation and reimbursement for expenses reports The Signal - Associated Press.

"This bill is not about the legalization of marijuana," said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. "It does seek to assure that patients who need medical cannabis have access to it. It is intended to assure that drug cartels and other criminals do not benefit from the lack of regulation."

 

100% Bullshit.  If you did not make the business illegal then cartels would not be involved.  Alcohol cartels vanished the day prohibition ended in the 1930s.

He said his SB439, along with pending legislation by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, is "intended to come to some sort of an understanding with the federal government."

The bill's language is still being negotiated with law enforcement groups and is likely to be amended in the Assembly, Steinberg said.

It would not affect local regulations or prohibitions on dispensaries, authority that the state Supreme Court upheld earlier this month.

The bill would adopt guidelines issued by Gov. Jerry Brown when he was the state's attorney general in 2008, making it clear that the dispensaries cannot operate at a profit. Those operating within the guidelines could not face state prosecution.

Under Brown's 2008 guidelines, cooperatives registered under the state's Food and Agricultural Code or organized as less formal "collectives" (Communist) are legal under California law, while for-profit dispensaries are not.

But there is lingering confusion over what is permitted in California, as indicated by the three competing medicinal marijuana measures that Los Angeles voters will consider on Tuesday's municipal ballot. The measures would either limit the number of dispensaries or allow new ones to open.

Some 200 cities have outlawed or restricted dispensaries.

 

 

 

Students are raped by fees while administrators live the high life

"I feel your pain."
While students are screwed with endless fees, the new San Diego State President Elliot Hirshman was approved for a $400,000 compensation package.  This is $100,000 more than his predecessor for doing the same job.

Hidden Taxes  -  Cal State students are forced to pay a fee just to graduate

• The "adults" in administration and the unions rape the system to line their own pockets while the students are saddled with a massive debt that they cannot even declare bankruptcy on.

In the olden days I worked my way through Cal State at a minimum wage job and graduated with zero college debt.  But those were the old days. 

Since then California education has gone to shit with insane fees for college students, over paid administrators and a high school system with a huge drop-out rate that graduates near illiterates. 

Now graduating students at more than a dozen California public universities will have to hand over money before they are handed their diplomas, a newspaper reported.

Across the state, 15 of Cal State's 23 campuses have graduation fees, the Oakland Tribune reported.

Cal State East Bay charges $45 to graduate. At San Francisco State, the fee is $100 - $60 more than it was two years ago.


"There is a fee for everything," said Natalia Aldana, a Cal State East Bay communications major and journalist who will graduate in June. "I think it's really unfortunate that they have to charge students for everything they do, including graduation."

The fees are not new, but students are noticing them at a time when they have experienced tuition fee hikes nearly every year they were on campus, the Tribune reported.

At San Jose State, some students recently learned they'd have to pay $75 to participate in their department's celebration.

"You've worked so hard," said Rebecca Krueger, who started a blog about the fees. "It's this time of honor and celebration, and you're hit with this fee just to participate. You feel nickel-and-dimed."

Cal State spokesman Mike Uhlenkamp said because tuition money can only be used for instruction costs, campuses must look elsewhere to pay for graduations. The state's Master Plan for Higher Education has created a complicated set of fees, the Tribune reported.

UC Berkeley graduates don't pay a separate fee to get their diplomas, but commencement tickets cost $10 a head - even for graduates themselves.

Some San Jose State officials say the university could help departments control their ceremony costs by coordinating their planning.

At one event last year, Dorothy Poole, the head of the commencement committee, said she watched rental companies set up chairs for one department's event, take them down and put them up again for a different department a day later.

While students go deep into debt, the administrators get huge salaries.


The average annual base salary for a CSU president is about $298,000. As for the perks, presidents receive a $1,000 monthly auto allowance and a free house provided by the campus, or a $50,000 to $60,000 annual housing stipend.

CSU Board of Trustees approved a $400,000 compensation package for newly named San Diego State President Elliot Hirshman, while in the same meeting trustees also approved a 12 percent tuition increase. Hirshman earns about $100,000 more than his predecessor.

Six presidents now receive annual supplements ranging from $29,000 to $50,000 reports the Los Angeles Daily News.

A nationwide survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education of 190 public research institutions found that the average compensation for a university president in 2011 was $421,395. The highest paid leader in 2011 was University of Ohio President E. Gordon Gee, who earned $1.9 million. In California, the top earner was University of California President Mark G. Yudoff, who earned $581,232.

Major Threats to Proposition 13 and Homeowners

Nothing has changed since 1978.
The Marxist Democrats answer to everything is to steal more and more money from the producers of society and then re-distribute that money to those with "needs" and votes to sell.

Leftist Bills that threaten homeowners and small businesses are starting to move the the legislature

• The Socialists are coming to steal everything not nailed down in order to fund the vote buying welfare state.

The new Socialist Democrat California Legislature is dominated by pro-tax politicians, and bills, that undermine the taxpayer protections in Proposition 13, have been introduced and are starting to be heard in committee. If approved, these bills could cost every property owner thousands of dollars.

There are seven bills pertaining to Proposition 13 that are up in the Senate Governance and Finance Committee next Wednesday morning, May 15th, at 9:30 in Room 112. Six of these bills directly undercut various provisions of Proposition 13 (SCA 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 and 11). Another bill, Senate Constitutional Resolution 25 (State Senator Mark Wyland, R—Escondido) is also up in the committee that day and honors Proposition 13 on its upcoming 35th anniversary.

An additional two bills, Assembly Constitutional Amendments 3 and 8, also diminish Proposition 13's protections. These have not been set for a hearing yet.
.

THE FOLLOWING BILLS PUT A BULL'S-EYE ON PROPOSITION 13 AND TAXPAYERS:

Senate Constitutional Amendment 3 (SCA 3), Mark Leno (D—San Francisco): Lowers the threshold for school district per-parcel property taxes from two-thirds to 55%. This is a direct assault on Proposition 13 because it makes it easier to increase property taxes above Proposition 13's one percent cap.

Senate Constitutional Amendment 4 (SCA 4), Carol Liu (D—La Canada) and Senate Constitutional Amendment 8 (SCA 8), Ellen Corbett (D—San Leandro): Lowers the threshold for the imposition, extension or increase of local transportation special taxes from the Proposition 13-mandated two-thirds vote to 55%. Most transportation special tax increases consist of very regressive sales tax hikes. These add to the burden of California taxpayers who already pay the highest state sales tax in the nation.

Senate Constitutional Amendment 7 (SCA 7), Lois Wolk (D—Davis): Lowers the threshold from two-thirds to 55% in order to approve a bond to fund public library facilities. Lowering the threshold for school facilities to 55% has already resulted in billions of dollars of additional property tax payments that otherwise would not have been approved by voters.

Senate Constitutional Amendment 9 (SCA 9), Ellen Corbett (D—San Leandro): Lowers the threshold from two-thirds to 55% to increase special taxes to fund community and economic development projects.

Senate Constitutional Amendment 11 (SCA 11), Loni Hancock (D—Berkeley): Lowers the threshold to 55% to allow for voters representing ANY local government entity to approve a special tax for ANY purpose. This is far and away the broadest application, and thus the most egregious, of these constitutional amendments.

Assembly Constitutional Amendment 3 (ACA 3), Nora Campos (D—San Jose): Lowers the threshold to 55% for voters within cities, counties and special districts to approve EITHER a local bond measure or a special tax in order to fund emergency service facilities projects including police and fire services.

Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8 (ACA 8), Bob Blumenfield (D—Woodland Hills): Lowers the threshold to 55% for city and county voters to approve a local bond measure in order to fund emergency service facilities projects.

Tell your representatives that you oppose these bills that attack your Proposition 13 protections.


(Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.org)

Obama acts to seize private property in California drug war

Marxist Obama attacks Berkeley medical marijuana dispensary

• Obama and Democrats at the Federal level try to steal the private property of legal businesses in California in the insane "war" on drugs.

BERKELEY -- Comrade Obama's Federal government filed a lawsuit targeting the city's largest medical marijuana outlet and is aiming to seize the property from its landlord.

The suit, filed May 2 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, says Nahla Droubi of Moraga, who is the landlord for Berkeley Patients Group, is breaking federal drug laws by allowing the sale of marijuana and therefore is subject to seizure of her property.

The suit comes after Berkeley Patients Group was forced to close its previous location down the street on San Pablo Avenue last May when the landlord there received a letter threatening seizure for the same reason. The letter also cited the fact that it was too close to two nearby schools reports the Contra Costa Times.

It then moved down the street and reopened in December.

Sean Luse, chief operations officer for Berkeley Patients Group, which has been doing business in the city since 1999, said he was surprised at the suit because he did everything asked of him when he was forced to leave the last location.

"We moved our previous location and moved 1,000 feet from any school, so we're very surprised," Luse said.

The lawsuit against the Berkeley Patients Group landlord, in addition to citing federal drug laws, also mentions the proximity of two preschools in the neighborhood near the new location.


The War on Drugs with John Stossel 

Luse said Berkeley Patients Group will join the lawsuit as a defendant and stay in business as the saga unfolds.

"We look forward to our day in court," he said.

Last August, Droubi said she was not worried about having her property seized when Berkeley Patients Group announced it would become her new tenant.

"Our property is not close to any school," she said at the time. "The previous landlord had a very good experience with this group. He said they were very organized and most important thing is they had no violations and great security."

Droubi did not respond to calls seeking comment Tuesday afternoon, nor did a spokesman for the U. S. attorney in San Francisco.

The lawsuit is similar to one filed last year against Harborside Health Center in Oakland, the nation's largest medical marijuana dispensary. That lawsuit has not yet been resolved.

Kris Hermes, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access which advocates for medical marijuana with 50,000 members nationwide, said there have been about 20 dispensaries targeted in a similar fashion across California in the last couple of years, but he did not know how many of the suits have been successful.

He said the U.S. attorney's office has sent hundreds of letters to landlords threatening forfeiture "and hundreds have shut down as a result."

More recently he said a new round of threatening letters has recently gone to landlords of dispensaries in San Francisco and San Jose.

"The Obama Administration has so far gotten away with claiming that they are only targeting those in violation of state law," Hermes said. "Berkeley Patients Group stands in direct contrast to that contention. It's patently false."

“No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent.”
John Jay
Founding Father of the United States

“Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.”
Samuel Adams

Ex-GOP Assemblyman becomes a Democrat



"If I only had a brain."

Ex-GOP Assemblyman is "inspired" to become a Democrat by listening to Bill Clinton - a disbarred attorney, proven liar, impeached President and noted philanderer.

Former GOP Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher announced today that he has become a Democrat . . . perhaps looking to follow in the classy footsteps of his new hero Bill Clinton.

For some strange reason this clown, who does not what the Hell he believes in, was considered one of the Republican Party's likeliest future contenders for statewide office before abandoning the party to become an independent last year.

Fletcher, 36, abandoned the Republican Party in his failed campaign for San Diego mayor. It is unclear what ambition he may have within the Democratic Party reports the Sacramento Bee.

The declining GOP voter registration in San Diego just might have "encouraged" Fletcher to see the light of Marxism, Socialism and Big Government.

Fletcher announced his change of registration on his Facebook page this morning, in a message he said he also sent donors and supporters.

"I was reluctant to make this move," Fletcher wrote. "It wasn't due to any doubt about where I belong. It was simple dread over the criticism I would face."

Fletcher said he does not know if he will run for office again but has no current plan to. He went to work for one of his district's largest employers, Qualcomm, when he left the Assembly in December.

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/05/nathan-fletcher-switches-again---now-a-democrat.html#storylink=cpy

Fletcher said in his Facebook post that the Democratic Party "reflects my values and beliefs." He said he watched President Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention last year three times "trying to find something I disagreed with."

"I couldn't," Fletcher wrote. "It was clear - at least to me - that I was a Democrat." 

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/05/nathan-fletcher-switches-again---now-a-democrat.html#storylink=cpy

 

Racist Casino Bill Passes State Assembly

Racist government policies of Democrats say Californians like Jessica Alba are not allowed to own a casino because she is Hispanic.  She belongs to the wrong race. Neither could anyone of Egyptian, Thai, Chinese or French heritage. Only the American Indian racial group is allowed by the government to run this type of business.  In Nevada any citizen of any race can own a casino.

Another Racist Bill Passes

North Fork tribe's Madera casino plan clears Assembly

 

 

The North Fork Rancheria Band of Mono Indians moved closer to building a swanky casino resort along Highway 99 north of Madera after the state Assembly narrowly ratified a gambling compact with the tribe Thursday.

The floor vote came months after Leftist Comrade Gov. Jerry Brown affirmed the federal government's determination that the North Fork tribe could acquire property and build a casino on non-ancestral lands.

The unconventional process spurred intense lobbying by opponents who say it contradicts the principle of American Indians building on existing tribal lands reports the Fresno Bee.

After the vote, a leader of a rival Madera County tribe said the Assembly was setting a dangerous precedent. "How long till we see more applications for more off-reservation casinos?" said Nancy Ayala, chairwoman of one faction of the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians, which operates a casino near Coarsegold -- and not far from the North Fork tribe's ancestral land.

Ayala said that if the North Fork tribe is allowed to build along a major state artery, it would have an advantage over other area tribes and risk the jobs of employees at the Chukchansi Gold Resort & Casino near Coarsegold.

"It's very unfortunate that the Assembly, acting on inaccurate information, decided to give momentum to an off-reservation casino that flies in the face of what California's voters have approved," she said.

Assemblyman Isadore Hall (D-Compton) who carried Assembly Bill 277, cast the bill as a sorely needed economic boost for the North Fork tribe, who he said merely want "the same right granted to every other sovereign tribe in the state of California."

"This compact would put Californians back to work," Hall said in a speech on the Assembly floor, adding that tribal gaming has replaced welfare with work. "Tribal gaming has replaced despair with hope and dependency with self-reliance," Hall said.

Assemblyman Frank Bigelow (R-O'Neals) whose district enfolds the tribe and the proposed casino site, said the bill would reinvigorate what has become "a shell of a community" beset by economic malaise.

Cheryl Schmit, director of Stand Up For California!, which opposes the proposed casino, said opponents were not given the chance to speak at the Assembly hearing.

Racist Democrat legislators say because Ving Rhames is black
he is not allowed to own a casino in California.

Corrupt Indian Casino Money

The tribes get what they want from the Democrat legislature

Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, Temecula, CATribal government with gaming interests 1,182 donations: 1,054 to candidates, 47 to ballot measures and 81 to parties

$52,597,794

Morongo Band of Mission Indians, Cabazon, CATribal government with gaming interests 413 donations: 314 to candidates, 23 to ballot measures and 76 to parties

$50,428,228

Democrats want taxpayers to fund infertility problems

 

Democrat Hidden Taxes

From each according to their ability, to each according to their endless list of

selfish, self-centered "wants" and "needs".

A bill in the state Legislature would make the People's Republic of California the first state in the nation to force insurance companies to raise your health care premiums so voters can make babies. 

This "extra" magic money will be taken from your bank account and used to cover fertility treatments for patients battling cancer and other serious diseases that often require treatments that can jeopardize their ability to have children.

The fact that you might like to keep your money and spend it on things like food, clothing and shelter never enters into the minds of Socialists.  The "needs" of the Marxist Collective are far more important than your needs.


A hearing on the bill was underway Tuesday before the Assembly Health Committee, which was expected to vote later in the day.

The legislation by Leftist nutcase Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton, would force insurance providers to cover the fertility services driving up everyone's insurance costs.

Treatments covered under AB912 would include extracting eggs and freezing sperm reports CBS News.

“Even though cancer is scary, the idea of not getting to be a biological mother is even scarier,” Crisci, who is now pregnant, said at a news conference Tuesday.

Some insurance plans include coverage for fertility treatment. But Crisci and other supporters of AB912 say cancer patients may be deemed ineligible by their insurers because they are not infertile before receiving radiation or other treatments, which is when eggs or sperm would need to be collected.

The California Association of Health Plans is among those opposing the bill. In a letter to the Assembly Health Committee, the association wrote that the requirement would lead to higher insurance premiums and additional state costs.

California GOP tells Hispanics to get lost

GOP Ontario Mayor Paul Leon

The Republican Party is run by idiots

The state GOP claims they want Hispanics, but totally ignores the Hispanic Republican

Mayor of Ontario in a State Senate special election.

Is it racism? or are Republicans just fucking morons? 

Pick one or both as the GOP refuses to back the elected Hispanic Republican Mayor of Ontario.

This is a chance to pick up a vacant State Senate seat and demonstrate that the California Republican Party and their allies are serious about backing Latino candidates.   It is a golden opportunity for the state's GOP, but after all the hot air about wanting Republican Hispanics the party is ignoring their own candidate.

Ontario Mayor Paul Leon, the Republican Party's candidate in the special election to succeed Democrat Gloria Negrete-McLeod, has yet to benefit from the same kind of support his Democratic opponent, Assemblywoman Norma Torres, has received. Campaign finance records show Torres is enjoying financial support from Democratic lawmakers up and down the state, combined with support from several business and labor interests.

Leon, by comparison, has generally drawn support from Republicans holding office in the Inland Empire and local business figures reports the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

Torres has collected nearly $548,000 worth of contributions, compared with the nearly $245,000 that Leon has raised.


Paul Leon for CA State Senate
Paul Leon is currently the Mayor of Ontario, CA. He is also a staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment. We MUST get this man elected to the State Senate to prevent a super-majority of those who desire to trample on the Constitutional rights of all Californian's...and beyond. 

Leon also has no financial support from the independent expenditure committee that are becoming an increasingly important - if not universally beloved - part of American politics.

Torres, by contrast, has been the beneficiary of $395,500 in outside spending support for the primary and general election campaigns.

Leon said he has received welcome support from new state GOP Chairman Jim Brulte as well as state Sen. Bob Huff, R-Walnut, and Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills. Leon acknowledged, however, his frustration that his support from Republican interests up and down the state does not match the support Democrats have given to Torres.

To many, the Republican Party's poor showing in last year's elections has demonstrated an imperative to motivate Latino and Asian-American candidates and voters. Leon said Republicans have talked about changing the face of their party, but have yet to match those words with action.

"I think it explains itself. There's no proof in the pudding," Leon said.

Leon is a moderate Republican who may be best known in the Inland Empire for his advocacy for local control of L.A./Ontario International Airport, currently managed by a Los Angeles city agency, rather than any positions that can easily be described as "liberal" or "conservative." He said the fundraising situation in the campaign does not change his support for the Republican platform.

"I'm not bitter about any of this. I came into this race with my eyes wide open, that this was a high probability that I would taking this on alone," Leon said. "It has been me and my friends that believe in me. "

A district map from the primary.

Bullet train bidder has history of cost overruns

By Christopher Cadelago
U-T San Diego


The lowest-bidding partnership for the first segment of California’s high-speed rail line includes a firm with a history of cost overruns and costly lawsuits.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority on Friday announced that the American joint venture of Tutor Perini/Zachry/Parsons was the “best apparent value” with a low bid of $985 million – below the $1.09 billion bid by the next-lowest bidder.

On construction projects in California, the lowest bidder has a strong advantage in the eventual selection process. Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for the authority, declined to comment on bidders as the matter is finding its way to the authority’s board of directors.

“Five world-class teams competed for this opportunity, and the process is ongoing,” Wilcox said.

The first segment of the estimated $68 billion system is proposed to run 28 miles from Madera to Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley.

According to an August report by The Bay Citizen, sister site of California Watch, 11 major projects in the San Francisco Bay Area completed by Tutor in the last dozen years cost local governments $765 million more than they expected, or 40 percent above the initial bids.

A company spokesman did not return a message seeking comment. CEO Ron Tutor said in the August report that attacks against him were unfounded and overruns were caused by contracting agencies changing the projects in midstream.

At San Francisco International Airport, the city alleged in a 2002 lawsuit that the company purposely bid low to win a $626 million expansion contract, then charged $980 million for the job. Tutor said there wasn’t “a single fact” justifying the city’s position but eventually agreed to pay $19 million to settle.

The company’s list of projects includes an extension of Bay Area Rapid Transit to the San Francisco airport, the Alameda Corridor rail line and the San Diego Convention Center.

In 1993, the Port of San Diego paid the company $17 million to settle a $53 million lawsuit over the convention center project. In the lawsuit, the company blamed port-hired construction managers for delays that cost the company money.

Kevin Williams, a former San Francisco contracting officer who has testified in court against Tutor, said his experience with the company goes back decades.

“Tom Bradley, the late mayor of Los Angeles, said it best: Ron Tutor was the change-order artist, the king, and he’s proven himself to be just that,” Williams told U-T San Diego on Monday.

Williams said Tutor “is going to make up the difference somehow by lowballing. That is as old as history itself in the construction industry.”

Kevin Dayton, president and chief executive of Labor Issues Solutions and a critic of the bullet train project, said the rail authority is going to have to monitor change-order requests very closely.

“People are always accusing each other in the construction industry of pulling the change-order racket: winning the low bid and then piling up costs afterward,” said Dayton, a former lobbyist for Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. “Sometimes, it is a matter of architectural errors, but everyone always blames everybody else for it, saying, ‘The drawings were bad; the engineering was bad, et cetera.’ ”

Dayton also questioned whether the four losing teams – who are eligible to be paid a $2 million stipend to cover their costs for seeking the contract – might now be required to sign statements agreeing not to publicly challenge the process.

The next-lowest bidder was Dragados/Samsung/Pulice. Officials there could not be reached for comment.

In a statement posted on its website before the announcement, the team said with a combined value of $8 billion in executed design-build projects in the last five years, it offers the authority and building communities “a proven successful record of compliance, execution and on time delivery of complex infrastructure projects all over the world.”

Five teams submitted proposals to design and build the first segment. The proposals were evaluated and ranked based 70 percent on cost and the remainder for technical merit. Officials said factors such as an understanding of the project, schedule capability, approach and safety were part of the technical scoring.

The lowest-bidding partnership – Tutor Perini Corp. of Sylmar, Zachry Construction Corp. of Texas and Parsons Corp. of Pasadena – received the highest overall score of 90.55 out of 100.

The trio received a perfect 70 percent for its price proposal and received the lowest score – 20.55 – for its technical proposal.

Rail officials say they expect to present a contract to their board of directors in the coming weeks. The agency’s cost estimate for the first segment was $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion.

If they are unable to award the contract to the best-value bidder, they may proceed with the next most highly ranked, officials said.


This story resulted from a partnership among California news organizations following the state's high-speed rail program, including The Fresno Bee, The Sacramento Bee, California Watch, The Bakersfield Californian, The Orange County Register, the San Francisco Chronicle, The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise, U-T San Diego, KQED, the Merced Sun-Star, The Tribune of San Luis Obispo and The Modesto Bee.

(From California Watch.org)

In an empty agricultural Central Valley the corrupt Bullet Train plows through the most expensive and heavily populated areas.