Clinton and Sanders locked in virtual tie in California

What a Choice!

A Communist vs 

Bought off Wall Street whore

The people's party created by Andrew Jackson has 

morphed into Communism and corruption.

(New York Post)  -  Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are locked in a virtual tie in California, according to a new poll released Wednesday night, less than two weeks before voters in America’s biggest state cast primary ballots.

The Public Policy Institute of California survey showed Clinton leading Sanders, 46 percent to 44 percent, well within its margin for error of plus or minus 5.7 percentage points.

The 1,704 California respondents were interviewed between May 13 and Sunday. The California Democratic primary, on June 7, has 475 pledged delegates at stake.

Sanders is close in the Golden State thanks to the overwhelming support of voters between 18 and 44, who back him by a 66 percent rate compared to Clinton at 27 percent. Sanders also cleans up among voters who call themselves “very liberal,” 64 percent to 35 percent.

Clinton’s California base of support comes from Latinos, who back the former secretary of state by a margin of 52 percent to 43 percent over Sanders.

While Sanders faces a nearly insurmountable deficit in the delegate count, he claims to still have a narrow path to victory.

The Vermont senator hopes to significantly close the gap in pledged delegates and flip unbound superdelegates when the party meets in Philadelphia in late July.

Clinton leads Sanders in pledged delegates, an estimated 1,768 to 1,497, and among superdelegates by about 537 to 42.

Clinton’s total of 2,305 delegates has her at the doorstep of 2,382 — the magic number needed to clinch the party’s nomination.

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California sees huge gain in voter registration

(CBS News)  -  California has seen a dramatic jump in people registering to vote ahead of the state's June 7 primary.

Since the beginning of the year, 1.5 million people registered as new voters, according to California-based voting analytics firm Political Data Inc. The firm predicted that the number would grow to more than 2 million people new and re-registered voters by Monday's registration deadline.

Comparing the beginning of January to the beginning of May this year to the same period in 2012, the firm said there was a 218 percent increase in Democratic voter registrations in California. It also said there was also a 78 percent increase in people registering as Republicans and a 123 percent increase in Hispanic people registering to vote.

Through April 8, 44 percent of California's registered voters were Democrats, 28 percent were Republicans and 24 percent registered as no party preference, according to the California secretary of State's office.

A report in Politico noted that Democratic leaders and campaign officials have pointed to Donald Trump's comments about Mexicans as the reason for the increase in Democrats registering to vote.

California operates under a semi-closed primary system in which registered Democrats and Republicans will be able to participate in their party's respective primary. Independent voters will receive a non-partisan ballot, which will have no presidential candidates listed. However, they can also request a president ballot from the Democratic, Libertarian or American Independent Parties.

This comes after Clinton declined to participate in a Fox News debate in California against Sanders ahead of the state's primary. In California, 475 delegates are at stake in the Democratic race on June 7. According to CBS News' latest count, Clinton has 2,293 delegates and Sanders has 1,530 delegates.

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California’s Secretary of State Wages War on Term ‘Independent’

"Corruptus in Extremis"

• Both the Democrats and Republicans have rigged California's elections so the voters are allowed to only select from those two parties in November.
• Now the war against democracy goes on with attacks on the word "independent."

By Richard Winger;
Editor of Ballot Access News

California election laws and election officials seem determined to stamp out the word “independent.” The state seems eager to suppress that word, on voter registration forms, on ballots, and even in the Official Statewide Voter Guide.

1. Voter Registration Forms

California is one of the 30 states in which the voter registration form asks voters to choose a party, or to choose independent status. But the California form refuses to use the word “independent.” Instead, the form asks voters if they wish to choose a “political party preference.” 

The “NO” box says, “No, I do not want to choose a political party preference.” The form never affirmatively asks voters if they are independent voters.

2. Ballot

In most states, independent candidates who get on the ballot have the word “independent” or “independent candidate” next to their names on the ballot. California formerly was one of those states, and California still lets independent presidential candidates have the ballot label “independent” on the ballot. 

But when California adopted Proposition 14 (which implemented the top-two primary) in 2010, that law deprived the ability of independent candidates to be “independent” on the ballot. Instead, whether on the June primary ballot or the November ballot, their party label is “Party preference: none.” This is a very unappealing label.

Independent candidates have filed lawsuits to regain the use of the label “independent,” but have not won those cases.

3. Party Name on Ballot

After the independent candidates who wanted to use the word “independent” on the ballot lost on court on that issue, it occurred to them to create a party named the “Independent Party.” California ballots for Congress and partisan state office print party labels on the ballot for members of qualified parties. 

These labels do not include the word “party.” So, a registered Republican running for Congress or partisan state office in California has “Party preference: Republican” on the ballot, whether on the June ballot or the November ballot.

If there was a ballot-qualified Independent Party, then a member of that party could have “Party preference: Independent” on the ballot. In this way, if the Independent Party could have got on the ballot, then independent candidates could simply join the Independent Party and thus get their preferred label on the ballot next to their names. The plan was that the Independent Party would have no platform, except to say that the Independent Party was there to help independent candidates.

But the secretary of state said that no party is permitted to be named “Independent Party.” He said this even though eleven other states have ballot-qualified parties named “Independent Party,” either currently or in the recent past. There is no California law saying no party may be named “Independent Party.”

When the Independent Party sued to force the secretary of state to let the Independent Party try to qualify for the ballot, the judge ruled against the Independent Party and said there “might” be confusion. The state presented no evidence that the existence of an Independent Party would confuse voters, and the Independent Party presented evidence that in the states with an Independent Party, no harm is done. It is not known if the Independent Party will appeal.

4. Candidate Statements in the Statewide Voter Guide

California lets candidates for U.S. Senate and statewide offices write a statement about themselves, and then prints this in the government-distributed Voter Guide. The government charges $25 per word, so not all candidates take advantage of this opportunity to educate voters about themselves.

One candidate in the 2016 U.S. Senate race, Paul Merritt, did submit a statement for the Voter Guide. He described himself as “a registered independent voter.” This was true; Merritt is a registered independent voter. But the secretary of state censored out that sentence, without even telling Merritt. Merritt only learned that statement had been deleted when he saw the Voter Guide.

One can only conclude from this that the state legislators who write the laws, and the secretary of state, who administers the election laws, are terrified of independent candidates and the power of the word “independent.”

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Union & hospitals push more taxes on low income Californians

From each according to their ability

• Yet another alliance of a leftist labor union and businesses to raise taxes on even the poorest of people so they can suck down the cold, hard cash. 

(ABC News)  -  A well-financed campaign whose backers include billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, medical groups and organized labor has collected enough signatures for a ballot measure to raise California's cigarette tax by $2 per pack, officials said.

The Save Lives California coalition scheduled a news conference Monday at the San Diego County Registrar of Voters office to submit the first signatures in a campaign to nearly triple California's cigarette tax to $2.87 a pack. 

If enough signatures are verified, the measure would appear on an increasingly crowded Nov. 8 ballot alongside proposals to repeal a ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery stores and require actors to use condoms in adult films.

The announcement comes less than a month after Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation to make California the second state in the nation, after Hawaii, to raise the legal age to buy tobacco from 18 to 21. Beginning June 9, it will be a crime in California to sell or give tobacco to anyone except military personnel under age 21.

The proposed tax increase would also apply to electronic cigarettes and other products with tobacco or nicotine. The measure calls for money to be spent on services for California's version of Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal, anti-smoking campaigns and medical research.

The campaign told the California Secretary of State in February that it collected 25 percent of the required 585,407 signatures for a ballot measure to amend the state constitution. It reported this month that it spent $2.8 million during the first three months of the year and had more than $4 million cash on hand.

Major backers include the California Medical Association, California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems and the Service Employees International Union. Steyer, a former hedge fund manager who has spoken about his late mother's three-pack-a-day smoking habit, has contributed $1 million.

Seven measures have collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, and an eighth — placed by the Legislature — would repeal prohibitions on multilingual instruction in public schools. The tobacco tax joins three other measures, including a proposal to legalize recreational use of marijuana, that are pending signature verification.

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Latino driven from California GOP delegation

Naked Racism

Two items are going on here

• #1  -  Hispanic racists crawl out of the wood work to attack a Latino Republican going to the national convention. They said he betrayed his people. Talk about racism.  Pardon me. Are not his people the people of the United States and not Mexico?
• #2  -  The clueless Latino Republican in question had no idea he might have to vote for the GOP nominee Trump at the convention. Wow. Maybe he thought the convention was just a big party with balloons and free food.

(Sacramento Bee)  -  Mario Guerra knew he had a problem the moment the state released Donald Trump’s list of California delegates on Monday, his name on page 4.

Latino activists and other politicians began calling and writing “literally within minutes,” said Guerra, a former mayor of Downey, in southeast Los Angeles County.

One read: “I can’t believe you betrayed your people,” he said.

Another: “My heart stopped … Is this true?”

Guerra, a member of the California Republican Party’s board of directors and a 2014 candidate for state Senate, said he made a mistake. He said he did not know – despite his position with the party and Trump’s standing as the presumptive nominee – that becoming a delegate would mean pledging his support.

On Thursday, Guerra said he asked the campaign to take him off the list, citing “personal business reasons.”

California's Screwed Up System
Ted Cruz supporter Congressman Tom McClintock is appointed as
a Trump delegate. McClintock and other anti-Trump Republicans
were appointed as Trump delegates around the state. This only
makes sense if you are in a padded cell.

Guerra’s withdrawal follows that of former state Assemblyman Bob Pacheco, who said Wednesday that he filled out a questionnaire to become a Trump delegate but later changed his mind and was mistakenly included.

Trump’s difficulty assembling a steadfast list of delegates in California comes amid a slow warming of relations between the New York businessman and the party’s professional and political classes.

Trump met Thursday with House Speaker Paul Ryan, after Ryan said last week that he was not ready to endorse Trump.

In California, GOP Chairman Jim Brulte said it was at the Trump campaign’s behest that he invited Guerra and several other party officials to become delegates. Trump, he said, was seeking to include more California state officials at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July.

Brulte said he told Guerra that the request to become a delegate came from the Trump campaign.

Trump’s delegates now include more than a third of the state party’s board, including its vice chair, Harmeet Dhillon, and the chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, Mark Vafiades.

Among Central Valley Republicans, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, has said he will support Trump after previously endorsing Ted Cruz, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield is a delegate for Trump.

McCarthy said House leaders planned to ask Trump to meet with the entire GOP conference, according to The Hill newspaper.    (More at sacbee.com)

The Race
It is not the National Council of a Race, but the National Council of THE Race. La Raza is anything but multi-cultural.
.
Sounds just a bit racist to me. But I am just a crazy blogger. What do I know?

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article77293437.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article77293437.html#storylink=cpRead More . . . . 

Democrats give illegal aliens state professional licenses

American Citizens Are Shit Out of Luck

• Democrats pander to illegal alien law breakers while Republican businessmen are happy to flood the job market with millions of new legal and illegal workers in order to lower wages.

(Honolulu Star Advertiser)  -  More than 300 people have applied for professional licenses from the state under a special process outlined in the new law, which was written by Democratic state Sen. Ricardo Lara, whose parents were in the U.S. illegally before they became citizens.

“Where someone was born does not dictate their potential to contribute to our workforce and grow our economy,” Lara said. “We have the largest immigrant population in the country and we are the eighth-largest economy in the world. In California, we know that integration works.”

California has led the nation in adopting laws aimed at easing the assimilation of those in the U.S. illegally, previously allowing such people to get driver’s licenses, college financial aid and law licenses.

Advocates for strict immigration enforcement, including William Gheen, said the state cannot adopt measures that conflict with federal laws that make it illegal to hire someone who is not in the country legally — or even help them get a job.

“California lawmakers should be focused on helping the American citizens they have sworn to serve instead of illegal invaders that take U.S. jobs and taxpayer resources and corrupt our elections,” said Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee.

California’s workforce includes 1.85 million people in the U.S. illegally, according to an estimate by the Public Policy Institute of California.

Until Gov. Jerry Brown signed the law, professionals in California had to obtain licenses by submitting their Social Security numbers as proof of citizenship.

The law allows the state’s 40 licensing boards to accept a federal taxpayer identification number, which those working in the country illegally can obtain in lieu of a Social Security number.

The most sought-after licenses so far are for barbering and cosmetology, which had 151 applicants. Second was cemetery operator licenses, which saw 36 applicants, followed by security guard licenses, which drew 32 applications.

There were 24 applicants for automobile repair licenses, 15 for registered nurses, 14 for vocational nurses and seven for dental hygienists. Five people applied for dental licenses. No one has yet sought a license to work as a physician.

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California’s coal collapse

Super smog hits the north China city of Harbin - Los Angeles Times

Bye Bye Coal

• The politicians in the People's Republic do a few things right. With 40 million Californians generating smog we need to use solar and natural gas to avoid turning into ultra-polluted China.

(San Diego Union-Tribune)  -  When it comes to coal production and consumption, California is not exactly West Virginia.

But it is striking to see that California’s use of coal to generate electricity has dropped so dramatically — essentially going from small to almost microscopic.

Two recent reports from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, drive the point home.

First, California’s total megawatt hours attributed to coal has dropped from 1 percent in 2007 to just two-tenths of one percent in 2015.

And second, in an EIA report released last week, California saw a 96 percent decrease in electric power consumption by coal during the same time frame. That’s the steepest fall by percentage of any state.

“As a provider of power into the grid, (coal in California is) dead as a door nail,” said Bill Corcoran, the western regional director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.

Nationally, the consumption of steam coal used for electricity generation fell from more than a billion short tons in 2007 to 739 million short tons in 2015, a 29 percent drop.

California has pushed tax credits for solar panels to reduce smog
and the need to construct new power plants.

Coal’s collapse is largely due to two factors: Utilities switching from coal-fired to natural gas-fired power plants because of low natural gas prices and government regulations aimed at making the air cleaner and hastening the emergence of renewable energy.

For example, at the end of 2005, the 1,636-megawatt Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev., shut down. Southern California Edison had a 56 percent interest in the plant.

One of the state regulations that put a major crimp on coal was the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Performance Standard Act passed in Sacramento in 2006.

“What the bill basically said is, if you’re going to sell power in California, you have to be as clean as the power that we burn here in California,” said Dan Jacobson, legislative director for Environment California.

But the mining industry is quick to point out that electricity rates in California are among the highest in the country.

When it comes to the average retail price of electricity, California finishes eighth-highest in the country and sixth-highest for states in the continental U.S., at 15.15 cents per kilowatt hour.

“You in California are already paying a lot for electricity at least in part because you use so little coal, which is so cheap,” said Luke Popovich, vice president of external communications at the National Mining Association.

But while California’s rates are higher, the state consumes less electricity per household than most states. That’s partly due to mild weather along the coast but also to greater efficiency from household appliances.

Chinese smog is so thick and chewy that it may qualify as a food group.

As a result, the average monthly bill in 2014 in California was $23 less than the national average.

“Energy efficiency has been an important part of California’s energy policy in not only reducing pollution from dirty fuels like coal but helping consumers use less power to do more work,” Corcoran said.

As coal has dropped, natural gas has risen. It’s the largest single source of power generation in California. In 2005, natural gas made up 48.04 percent of in-state electric generation. In the most recent figures from the California Energy Commission, or CEC, the number has jumped to 61.3 percent.

“It’s great that we’re dropping coal but it’s bad that we’re picking it up with natural gas,” Jacobson said. “What we need to do is move away from fossil fuels and go towards clean, renewable energy.”

The transition highlights a larger debate that extends beyond California.

“Our electricity prices in this country have been historically low by any standards set in other countries,” Popovich said. “There’s no way those prices are going to stay low as long as we stay on this trend. It’s not going to happen.”

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Cash-flush California GOP allows chairman to seek third term

GOP delegates only represent the corrupt wealthy special interests

The California GOP

The party that represents no one

• The GOP delegates met in California for their convention. I mean really, who the Hell cares?
• Simply, no one elected even one of these "delegates" who pretend to represents GOP voters. They are all appointed by Oligarch insiders based in Sacramento and Washington. The actual Republican voter is, as usual, totally ignored.
• A Radical Thought  -  If the party cares about their voters (which they don't) they should hold 80 mini-conventions in each of the 80 state assembly districts. GOP grass roots voters could attend and elect delegates to the state party convention. But the paid off Oligarchs want nothing to do with the pitch fork carrying peasants.

BURLINGAME, Calif. (Reuters) - The Californian Republican Party voted on Sunday to extend its term limit to allow the former lawmaker who brought the party back from near-bankruptcy in an increasingly Democratic state to seek a third term as chairman.

Buoyed by a flush bank account and the prospect that members' votes will matter in a presidential primary for the first time in decades, GOP members at their annual convention near San Francisco voted for a change to longtime party bylaws to allow former state Senator Jim Brulte to run again next year to be the party's chairman.

"I think he's a great chairman and he's done a lot for the party," said Michael Escoto, 35, a delegate from Los Angeles.

Brulte's strong hand guiding normally fractious California Republicans was clear throughout the three-day convention, where newly energized members were courted by all three candidates vying for the national party's presidential nomination - Donald Trump, John Kasich and Ted Cruz - along with Carly Fiorina, who is joining Cruz' campaign as his potential running mate.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump supporter Luisa Aranda speaks with members of the press during the California Republican Party Convention on April 29, 2016 in Burlingame, California. Trump is preparing for the California Primary on June 7. (Photo by Ramin Talaie/Getty Images)

Since Brulte took the helm of the then-faltering party in 2013, the California GOP has gone from having less than $200,000 in the bank to its current cash on hand of $4.5 million, according to state campaign finance records.

Now, positions cut during layoffs a few years ago have been replaced, and the party's annual convention - previously a sleepy affair - was packed with delegates and guests.

The possibility that California's June primary will matter in the presidential race for the first time in decades if frontrunner Donald Trump does not secure enough delegates before then has energized members.

Still, Brulte will face a difficult road in a state where Democrats hold all statewide-elected offices and dominate both houses of the legislature.

The Californian Republic Party has become fractured, splitting among Tea Party conservatives, anti-immigration activists, libertarians and an increasingly alienated moderate old guard.

There were just under 4.8 million Republicans registered in the state as of Jan. 3, bringing the total down to 27.6 percent of the electorate from 30.4 percent in 2012.

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