Is your hospital trying to kill you?

Using an "A" to "F" grading system Hospital safety grade.org
publishes the safety scores for hospitals in California.

14 Hospitals penalized by California Department of Public Health

(Los Angeles Daily News)  -  More than a dozen California hospitals, including two in the San Fernando Valley, were fined nearly $1 million in penalties by the state’s health department for everything from failing to prevent patient deaths to causing serious injury during surgery.

Pacifica Hospital of the Valley, in Sun Valley, faces a $75,000 penalty because the facility failed to maintain exit alarms that could have prevented a patient from leaving his room and jumping from the roof to his death in 2013, according to an inspection report conducted by the California Department of Public Health. The fine was the hospital’s second “immediate jeopardy” administrative penalty.

State health inspectors said in their report a patient who was agitated was able to leave his room. He then “entered the stairwell and gained access to the roof top through the unlocked door (door alarm was not functioning), dropped from the roof top landing onto the patio concrete below causing his death.”

Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys was penalized $50,000 by state officials because a patient sustained burns on her right earlobe, right lower neck and right chest wall during a surgery in which a laser was used in a highly oxygenated room.

Requests for statements from officials at Valley Presbyterian and Pacifica Hospital went unanswered Friday.

Meanwhile, Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park also faces a $50,000 fine for “failing to ensure the health and safety of a patient when it did not follow procedures for safe distribution and administration of medication,” according to a statement issued by the department.

The penalty comes as a result of an incident at the hospital in November 2012 in which a nurse administered the incorrect medication to a pregnant mother. As a result, the baby’s heartbeat slowed abnormally, and the mother was forced to deliver via an emergency cesarean-section procedure.

The mistake put the unborn baby at risk for bleeding in the eye, irregular heartbeat, seizures and slow heartbeat, according to a department report.

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San Francisco Bay Area

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Orange County Area

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Democrat "Super-Majorities" in the People's Republic of California

Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang (R-Diamond Bar)

A Leftist Dictatorship is One Seat Away

• The votes are still being counted. GOP Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang is ahead by only a handful of votes for a State Senate race. A Democrat win creates a Leftist super-majority in the legislature.
• The GOP is a nearly worthless group that lives on the campaign bribes of wealthy special interest groups. But a Democrat Leftist super-dictatorship is scary.

(Los Angeles Times)  -  The Senate race between Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang (R-Diamond Bar) and Democrat Josh Newman has narrowed significantly, making the Democrats' chances of securing a supermajority in both houses of the Legislature suddenly much more likely.

As of Friday afternoon, as outstanding votes continued to be counted, Chang's lead over Newman had been cut to just 187 votes in the 29th Senate District, which includes parts of Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

The day after the election, Chang enjoyed a nearly 3,900-vote advantage, but that lead shrank dramatically as mail and provisional ballots were tallied this week.

Democrats already have secured a supermajority in the Assembly, but doing the same in the state Senate, where they needed to flip only one seat, seemed unlikely until Friday's vote totals were reported.

With a supermajority, a political party can raise taxes, place measures on the statewide ballot, enact laws immediately with an “urgency” clause and override a governor’s veto.

It could be more than a week before the final tally is made available: Orange County, which accounts for the biggest bloc of voters in the district, says it has about 13,000 ballots left to count in the race. San Bernardino County needs to count about 2,000 ballots, according to officials.

"I don't think all the votes will be counted before Thanksgiving Day," said Jim Nygren, a consultant for Chang. "We'll just keep watching the votes."

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Senate District 29 is comprised of portions of Los Angeles County,
Orange County and San Bernardino County. 

GOP registration collapsing in Orange County

The GOP is dead and the 

corpse is just left to rot

• The so-called "Conservative" Republican Party could have put the repeal of the corrupt high speed rail program on the November ballot as a rallying point for voters. But as usual the GOP chickened out no doubt under pressure from special interests sucking cash from the bullet train teat. No wonder voters are leaving the GOP.
• The GOP stands for nothing and cannot even field a U.S. Senate candidate. So under the corrupt election rules voters will have the "choice" between which open borders leftist U.S. Senate candidate to support.  I might as well live in Cuba.

(Orange County Register)  -  A surge in Democratic voter registration has cut Republicans’ advantage in Orange County to less than 6 percentage points and has doubled the number of Democratic cities over the past year.

The Republican margin has been shrinking since 1990, when the GOP edge was 22 points. But in the past six months, the pace of change has been four times as fast as the 26-year average – due in part to the GOP’s controversial presidential nominee. That could hurt the local Republicans in November’s down-ticket races.

Registration efforts have gotten a boost from other quarters. In addition to the county Democratic Party, at least four left-leaning groups – including MoveOn.org – have been registering voters in Orange County. County GOP Chairman Fred Whitaker said his party has gotten virtually no outside help.

Additionally, Sen. Bernie Sanders attracted young adults who might have otherwise not participated. And the competitive Democratic presidential primary in June boosted turnout, while the Republican contest was already decided.

If the GOP actually stood for something
it might even attract voters.

As a result, more Democrats than Republicans cast ballots in the county. And it was the first time in 48 years that more county ballots were cast for Democratic than Republican presidential candidates.

There are two close state legislative races where turnout could play a decisive roll: The state Senate race to replace termed-out Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, in the tri-county district where GOP Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang is facing Democratic activist Josh Newman; and Democrat Sharon Quirk Silva’s challenge of incumbent Assemblywoman Young Kim, R-Fullerton.

It could also help Democrat Michele Martinez’s challenge of incumbent Republican county Supervisor Andrew Do. And Democrat Doug Applegate, who finished less than 7 points behind Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, in the primary, is drawing attention from donors who see a chance for an upset of the incumbent, a Trump supporter.

Two wild card issues that could also affect turnout are whether ballot measures spur partisan turnout and whether backers of Bernie Sanders will bother voting, Balma said.

Voter Registration History

Orange County was long touted as the nation’s most Republican county. The modern-era high point was 1990, when the GOP’s 56 percent share of the electorate translated to a 22-point advantage over Democrats. (In 1928, Republicans were at 73 percent.)

That edge has slowly dropped, to 17 percentage points in 2000 and to 11 points in 2010.

Republicans are now 39.7 percent of county voters, an all-time low. Democrats are at 34 percent, their highest since 1992. Voters with no party preference account for 22.6 percent, down from the all-time high of 23.6 percent last year.

That means Republicans’ 8-percentage point edge in February has shrunk to 5.7 points.

The long-term trend is largely due to shifting demographics. Latinos, who favor the Democratic Party over the GOP by more than 2-1, are 18 percent of the electorate and growing. And voters ages 18-34, who heavily favored Republicans in 2002, are now more likely to register as Democrats.

Republicans still prevail among voters in 24 of the county’s 34 cities, although the three biggest – Anaheim, Santa Ana and Irvine – are Democratic. In July, Tustin became the 10th city in the county to turn Democrat. That’s twice the total of a year ago. Fullerton is poised to follow suit, with the shrinking Republican advantage there down to 144 voters.

The other Democratic cities are Buena Park, Garden Grove, La Habra, La Palma, Laguna Beach and Stanton.

Balma anticipates the Democratic surge of the past six months will slow to closer to the 26-year average. At that rate, county Democrats would surpass Republicans in 10 years. Vandermeir also expects it to slow, but not until after the November election. He expects Democrats to be the county’s dominant party in three or four years.

Balma said Republicans have their work cut out for them.

“The Republicans really need to attract young people, and they need young people to run for office,” she said. “And it’s incumbent on Republicans to go after the culturally conservative and not assume they’re going to register Republican.”

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"Racism" - Garden Grove settles lawsuit, will move to district elections

Garden Grove Mayor Bao Nguyen
Hispanic Leftists say the "wrong" race won office.

Phony Cries of "Racism"

• Racist Hispanic leftist groups take cities to court because the voters dared to elected councilmen of the wrong race to office.
• The same nonsense happened in Palmdale where the "evil" racist voters dared to elect an African American Councilman instead of a Hispanic.

GARDEN GROVE (Orange County Register)  –  The City Council upended how residents will select its members Friday night, doing away with an independently elected mayor and opting to create five voting districts.

The changes will go into effect in November 2016.

The City Council approved district elections as part of a settlement agreement with Rick Montoya, a former council candidate who argued the at-large system – where the entire city votes for each council seat – violates the California Voting Rights Act and essentially disenfranchises Latino voters.

The city also has to pay $290,000 to Montoya for lawyer’s fees and other litigation costs.

District elections, which are becoming increasingly common throughout California, are viewed by many as a way to give Latinos a more prominent – and, some say, fairer – role in local government.

Garden Grove, which became an incorporated city in 1956, is about one-third white, Latino and Asian, but there is no record of a Latino ever being elected to the council. The current council is a majority Vietnamese-American.

“I believe by-district elections will lead to better representation in our government,” said Montoya, who sued the city in July about a month after several Latino-rights organizations threatened to do the same. “And it will lead to more voices being heard.”

Councilman Chris Phan, however, said he is no fan of district elections and it is still too early to know whether district elections will help Latinos get on the City Council.

Councilman Chris Phan
Hispanic Leftists complain because voters
elected the "wrong" race.

“This basically lowers the bar for council candidates,” he said. “No amount of districting can cure an apathetic voting bloc.”

In past elections, residents voted mayors to two-year terms and council members to four-year terms.

Under the settlement, the city will have five districts with each geographic area voting for one council seat. All five seats will have four-year terms.

The City Council will vote among itself to decide who will be mayor.

In 2016, the seats of Mayor Bao Nguyen, Phan and termed-out Councilman Steve Jones will be open.

But first, the city must undertake a months-long process of hiring a demographer to analyze the city’s ethnic, financial, age and geographic fault lines to create the five districts.

Garden Grove will have a series of community meetings before the council votes on the new maps, said City Attorney Omar Sandoval.

“The electoral record of Latinos has been abysmal in Garden Grove,” said Zeke Hernandez, the president of the Santa Ana chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, which also threatened to sue. “I applaud the City Council for taking this momentous step. I think the city will be better for it.”

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Ventura, Calif. - The Best Place in America to Live

California has the top ten counties in the United States to live

• Ventura County, Humboldt, Santa Barbara, Mendocino and Del Norte are the top five counties in the United States.  Followed by 6 to 10:  San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Monterey and Orange Counties.
• These studies are always subjective.  For example, beautiful San Luis Obispo County only ranks #21 while super, overpopulated Los Angeles ranks #7.  Still just about any California county rightly ranks higher than most of the rest of the U.S.

By Christopher Ingraham

(Washington Post)  -  Ventura County, Calif., is the absolute most desirable place to live in America.

I know this because in the late 1990s the federal government devised a measure of the best and worst places to live in America, from the standpoint of scenery and climate. The "natural amenities index" is intended as "a measure of the physical characteristics of a county area that enhance the location as a place to live."

The index combines "six measures of climate, topography, and water area that reflect environmental qualities most people prefer." Those qualities, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, include mild, sunny winters, temperate summers, low humidity, topographic variation, and access to a body of water.

These "natural aspects of attractiveness," as the USDA describes them, are intended to be constant and relatively immutable. They're not expected to change much over time, so the USDA hasn't updated its data beyond the initial 1999 scoring. "Natural amenities pertain to the physical rather than the social or economic environment," the USDA writes. Things like plants, animals or the human environment are excluded by definition. "We can measure the basic ingredients, not how these ingredients have been shaped by nature and man." I stumbled on these numbers after reading about a recent study linking natural amenities to religiosity. (U.S. counties with nicer weather and surroundings tend to have less religious residents.)

I've mapped all the counties above according to where they rank on the natural amenities index -- mouse over to check out how desirable (or not) your own county is. You'll see that Sun Belt counties fare pretty well -- especially ones in California and Colorado. In fact, every single one of the 10 highest-ranked counties is located in California. After Ventura County, Humboldt, Santa Barbara, Mendocino and Del Norte counties round out the top five.

Ranking of counties in America based on the quality of life.
High quality is in blue.

By contrast, the Great Lakes region fares poorly, with most of the lowest rankings clustered around the Minnesota/North Dakota border region -- hey there, Fargo! The absolute worst place to live in America is (drumroll please) ... Red Lake County, Minn. (claim to fame: "It is the only landlocked county in the United States that is surrounded by just two neighboring counties," according to the county Web site).

Now, if you spend even a few minutes with the map above you can probably find a few things to quibble with in the methodology. If you hate summer, like me, it may seem that there's an inordinate emphasis on warm weather and ample sunshine. How else to explain that Inyo County, Calif. -- home to Death Valley, a place so inhospitable to human life that it literally has death in its name -- ranks so much higher than, say, the bucolic rolling hillsides of New England?

Or that Maricopa County, Ariz. -- home to Phoenix, a place that feels like the inside of a hot car for half the year -- ranks higher than Iowa's stunningly beautiful and criminally underappreciated Loess Hills region? Or that Washington D.C. -- home of sweltering summers, miserable winters, swampy humidity and little natural beauty to speak of -- ranks higher than any place at all?

On the other hand, it turns out that this index correlates well with a lot of human behaviors that researchers and politicians are constantly trying to understand better. For instance, the USDA's original report on the natural amenities index found that these measures "drive rural population change." The USDA found that rural areas with a lot of natural amenities saw the greatest population change between 1970 and 1996.

"The relationship is quite strong," the study found. "Counties with extremely low scores on the scale tended to lose population over the 1970-96 period, while counties with extremely high scores tended to double their populations over the period."

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San Francisco ranks #6 in the U.S.

San Diego ranks at #8 in the U.S.