Homelessness Is Ruining San Diego

“The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.”

 

― H.L. Mencken

 

In the Olden Days

Back in the olden days when men were free, it was your God given right to build the largest and best home that you could on your own land and provide shelter for your family.
.
Now endless government regulations at every level prevent the building of affordable housing resulting in homelessness for many.

ICAN-FUNDED LAWSUIT STRIKES DOWN COVID VAX MANDATE FOR SAN DIEGO SCHOOLS

 

Will The Sheeple scream out in 

horror that they are free?

• The Walking Dead Sheeple can be seen everywhere wearing their face diapers. They are frightened to death of freedom and want Big Brother to tell them what to do. 

An ICAN-funded lawsuit has struck down the Covid-19 vaccine mandate to attend school in San Diego, California. This is the first COVID-19 vaccine requirement in the country to be struck down in a final ruling.

ICAN’s lead attorney, Aaron Siri, and his team filed a lawsuit funded by ICAN on behalf of a parent whose child was going to be mandated to receive the Covid-19 vaccine to continue school. That ICAN lawsuit, S.V. on behalf of J.D. vs San Diego Unified School District, was consolidated with a lawsuit filed by Let Them Choose.

Follow The Highwire with Del Bigtree on the free speech video platform Bitchute.com

California’s top Republican won’t be running for governor

The Worthless Republican Party

• In 2014 the only candidate for Governor the GOP could put up was an Obama supporter.
• In 2016 the GOP refused to put an initiative on the ballot to defund the corrupt bullet train to nowhere.  With no platform to run on the GOP paid the price by giving Leftists a super majority in the state legislature.
• And in 2016 the GOP failed to even run a candidate for U.S. Senate allowing a Democrat vs Democrat general election.

(Sacramento Bee)  -  San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said Friday he will serve the remainder of his term, dashing the hopes of many Republicans who viewed him as their strongest contender in next year’s governor’s race.

“I’m honored that so many across our state are strongly encouraging me to run for governor,” he said in a statement ahead of the holiday weekend. “However, my first commitment is to San Diego.”

Faulconer had long maintained that he wouldn’t run for governor, despite popping up in polls as the leading Republican contender to advance beyond next June’s primary.

He faced increasingly vocal calls from fellow Republicans in recent weeks to formally shut the door on the prospect. During that time, supporters launched a full-court press to try to draw him into the race, using polling to argue that a divided Democratic field would help him to a November runoff against one of the Democrats. Many saw him as a moderate Republican who could appeal to the state electorate’s fiscal conservatism while not alienating Democrats on social issues and environmental polices.

His confirmation likely increases the chances that former Assemblyman David Hadley of Manhattan Beach enters the crowded governor’s race. Businessman John Cox of northern San Diego County and conservative Assemblyman Travis Allen of Huntington Beach previously announced their runs, raising fears among the GOP that they would scatter the GOP vote and allow two Democrats to slip into the runoff.

While the field remains unsettled, the front-runner in polls and fundraising is Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. Others include former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Treasurer John Chiang and ex-state schools chief Delaine Eastin.

Read More . . . .

Mayors protest California becoming a Sanctuary State

Democrats Abandon American Citizens

• Providing quality services for American citizens of all ethnic backgrounds means nothing to Democrats. 
• Protecting the citizens of other nations who break our laws is all that matters to them.
• The main reason Democrats exist today is to import as many illegal aliens as possible to drive down wages for the business interests who fund their campaigns.

(ABC 10 News)  -  California is one step closer to becoming a Sanctuary State. Today, eight mayors in San Diego County protested Senate Bill 54 moving forward. Meanwhile, lawmakers continue to work on a second bill to help protect immigrant rights. 

The proposal is to help immigrants in California fight against deportation. The bill would create a legal defense program regardless of the defendant's criminal background. Supporters say it would counter anti-immigrant rhetoric from the Trump administration. 

A separate bill kept immigrant advocates and local mayors divided at a meeting on Wednesday. Mayors from Poway, El Cajon, Coronado, Escondido, La mesa, San Marcos, Santee and Vista say it would put residents at a risk of danger.

If SB54 passes, they say state and local law enforcement would not be able to notify federal agencies of dangerous criminals being released from jail. 

Poway Mayor Steve Vaus says it prevents police officers from doing their jobs. 

"Fundamentally, SB54 would sever the lines of communication between local law enforcement and state and federal agencies. Agencies that are charged with keeping us safe and making sure people follow the law. That's bad news," said Vaus.

 

"If you take away a street cops' radio and they lose communication, its bad. If you take away their communication with other agencies. That's bad too."

 

Supporters of the bill say it further feeds into discrimination that tears families apart. 

 

SB54 needs two-thirds vote to pass. 

Read More . . . .

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.

Read More . . . .

San Francisco Bay Area

Hospital safety grade.org

Sacramento Area

Central Valley Area

\

Los Angeles Area

Inland Empire Area

Hospital safety grade.org

Orange County Area

San Diego Area

Republican lawmaker folds US Senate campaign in California

Assemblyman Rocky Chavez
R-Oceanside

California GOP nears extinction

--- The GOP is so pathetic that even with an open U.S. Senate seat they cannot attract a candidate.

(Fresno Bee)  -  Republicans are hoping for a surprise this year in California's U.S. Senate race.

It won't be coming from Rocky Chavez.

The Republican legislator and retired Marine Corps colonel abruptly ended his campaign Monday, after piling up nearly $43,000 in debt and displaying scant evidence he was gaining ground in the race.

Chavez was one of several little-known Republicans hoping to upend conventional political thinking this year. Democrats are favored to hold the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, in a state where the party holds every statewide office and controls both chambers of the Legislature.

However, Chavez's exit could bolster the chances of one of the remaining Republicans who face a difficult challenge: making it through a June primary in which only the top two vote-getters advance to the November ballot.

Democrats have two prominent candidates in the race: state Attorney General Kamala Harris and 10-term congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of Orange County.

Last year, the San Diego County lawmaker expressed confidence that he could win in a state that has sent Democrats to the Senate for a generation, and he contrasted his background in the military with the credentials of Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney.

But he struggled to find financial support and independent polls showed him stalled in the single digits.

He made the announcement at the start of a debate with other Republicans on KOGO-AM radio in San Diego. He says he's decided to seek re-election to the Assembly.

Republicans left in the race include two former state party chairmen, Silicon Valley attorney Duf Sundheim, who has positioned himself as a moderate, and Tom Del Beccaro, a lawyer aligned with the party's conservative base.

Read More . . . .

Curious Californians gather to view the rare
and nearly extinct Republican elephant.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/state/california/article59248033.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/state/california/article59248033.html#storylink=cpy

San Diego desalination plant goes online

Finally Water Flows

• The Carlsbad project endured 14 lawsuits and more than a decade of negotiations and red tape before Poseidon could break ground. Construction took three years.
• Meanwhile most of California ignores desalination and prays for rain as the solution.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article49638835.html#storylink=cpy

(Miami Herald)  -  The newest weapon in the war on drought in California has arrived, an engineering marvel that will harvest drinking water from the ocean on a scale never before seen in the Western Hemisphere.

A giant water desalination plant will open this week north of San Diego, tucked behind a power plant across the street from Tamarack State Beach. It will produce 50 million gallons of fresh water each day, meeting 7 percent to 10 percent of the San Diego County Water Authority’s demands and buffering the region against supply shortages for decades to come.

Oh, and it will be expensive – ridiculously so, in the minds of some critics. Built by privately owned Poseidon Water of Boston for $1 billion, the plant will deliver some of the priciest water found anywhere in California. It will cost twice as much as the water San Diego gets from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides the bulk of San Diego’s supplies.

Yet San Diego officials say the Carlsbad project, representing a comparatively small slice of its overall water supply, will add only a few dollars a month to customer bills. Besides, with Metropolitan’s prices relentlessly rising, San Diego officials say desalination eventually will become competitive with the region’s other water sources.

What’s happening in Carlsbad could have implications for statewide water policy. The first major desalination facility built in California and the largest in the Western Hemisphere, it could establish desalination as a potentially major tool in solving the state’s long-term water stress.

“I think we’ve blazed a trail,” said Sandy Kerl, deputy general manager of the San Diego water authority. “It’s being watched with a lot of interest.”

The public will get its first glimpse at the grand opening Monday. Commercial operations will start later this month, with the arrival of the first flows of desalinated water at the authority’s aqueduct 10 miles inland. It marks a pivotal moment in a journey that began 15 years ago, when the plant was initially proposed.

“If it’s successful, as I believe it will be, others will follow,” said Peter MacLaggan, the Poseidon vice president overseeing Carlsbad.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article49638835.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article49638835.html#storylink=cpy

Read More . . . .

California Assembly Speaker to fight for Senate seat

Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins talks with Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León

It's Democrat vs Democrat

• California elections are pathetic  -  Democrats, backed with corrupt Sacramento special interest cash, dominate a San Diego Senate District even though they have only 36% of the registered voters.
• Some 36% of the voters are independent or registered in smaller opposition political parties but they get zero representation in Sacramento.  The GOP virtually does not exist.
• But any calls for truly free and open elections are always blocked by the special interest funded oligarchy in Sacramento.

(Associated Press)  -  California Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins plans to fight a fellow Democrat for a state Senate seat when her tenure expires.

Atkins will fight Marty Block for his San Diego seat next year in a highly unusual challenge that could mean a bruising and potentially costly fight in an otherwise safe district, the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/1MiSp7l) reported Saturday.

"Absolutely it makes me uncomfortable," Atkins, D-San Diego, told the newspaper. "Will I be prepared to do it? Absolutely."

Atkins said she is the first speaker from San Diego and has made things happen for the community.

"I think I'm just a better return on investment long-term," she said.

The challenge would have not only regional implications for Democrats but between the Assembly and Senate, which have a simmering rivalry even though both are Democrat-controlled.

"The soon to be ex-speaker knows very well that when one house challenges another, it's a slap in the face of the leader of the challenged house," Block told the Times.

He called it "a direct assault" on Senate leader Kevin De Leon.

In a statement, De Leon declined to say whether he considered Atkins' challenge as an affront but said Block was "an extraordinary senator."

"He deserves to be re-elected and Senate Democrats are resolutely united behind him," De León said.

John Burton, chair of the California Democratic Party, declined to comment, as did an aide to Gov. Jerry Brown, the Times said.

Atkins became Assembly speaker in 2014 and was praised for helping craft a $7.5-billion water bond that voters approved last year. She has had trouble this year in advancing another priority: a bill to expand affordable housing.

Earlier this month, Anthony Rendon, D-Los Angeles, was chosen to succeed her as speaker next year.

Block represents the 39th District, which covers most of San Diego along with Coronado and Del Mar. Democrats hold a large edge in voter registration there.

Read More . . . .

39th State Senate district

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."

Read More . . . . .

San Francisco ranks #6 in the U.S.

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

Desalination for a Drought-Plagued California

San Diego County Carlsbad Desalination Project

Does anyone think in Sacramento?

• Democrats love to spend money but not on anything useful.  They are spending billions on a bullet train that few will ride and next to nothing on desalination plants for a thirsty state.
• Call me a "crazy" Blogger, but why can't we build desalination plants in the San Francisco Bay area and run pipes of fresh water right into the California aqueduct system?  You could even pump the fresh water under the sinking San Joaquin Valley to refill the drained aquifer.

By Peter Neill
Director, World Ocean Observatory
Huffington Post

The present drought in California is a highly visible realization of our lack of water awareness and its destructive undermining of the financial structure and social organization we have built in that most progressive state in that most successful global economy. If we fail in California, how can we succeed anywhere else?

At the most reductive level, the traditional water supply system in California has been overwhelmed by climate, industrial agriculture, and water-rich consumption that has been the envy of the world but can survive no longer without revolutionary change. If there is not enough water on the mountaintops to feed the watersheds, rivers, and reservoirs, then where will the requisite water come from?

In 2012, the San Diego County Water Authority signed an agreement to build the largest desalination plant in the United States. The process is not new; it is applied today in some 21,000 desalination plants in over 120 countries, including Italy, Australia, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Japan, China, India, United Arab Emirates, Malta, Cape Verde, and Cyprus, producing more than 3.5 billion gallons of potable water per day. Saudi Arabia leads the world, meeting 70% of the daily needs of its population.

The San Diego project is proposed to come on line in 2015 and to provide 7% of the Authority's demand by 2020. The plant is to be built and operated by Poseidon Water, a private investor-owned company that develops water and wastewater infrastructure. The contract is for 30 years, after which the Authority can purchase the plant for $1. The company is also building a 10-mile pipeline to deliver treated water inland to the Authority's aqueduct system where it can augment existing collected or natural supply to serve the needs of the 24 regional member water agencies serving 3.1 million people.

The Carlsbad Desalination Plant occupies 6 acres of the 388 acre ocean-front site of the Encina Power Station that for 50 years has run on oil and natural gas, releasing emissions, and requiring a large dredged lagoon to hold sea water for cooling and to receive plant effluent - a stagnant, stinking reminder of an old technology. The adjacent desalination plant will use a reverse osmosis process with its source water coming from the generating plant cooling supply, treated and pumped under pressure through membranes to remove salt and other microscopic impurities.

Delay After Delay
A desalination plant in Hunting Beach (Orange County) has been talked
about since 1998.  But even with the drought the proposed project
drags on and on and on never to be built.  (OC Register)

In the past, the primary objections to desalination have been salt residue, corrosion, habitat destruction, and cost. The Poseidon plant has undergone comprehensive review by the local, state, and federal agencies, each determined to protect its constituents and the environment. For every two gallons treated, one will be quality drinking water and the other diluted salt content for return to the ocean. The plant will run on Encina electricity to power high-speed pumps at market rates built into the contract. The approvals indicate that there will be no noise, no odor, and no environmental impact. Remarkably, the surrounding land has already been renewed by the prospect of the new plant and has been re-developed by the Authority to transform the embayment into a viable environment for marine life and community activities.

The San Diego region has been a center for the development of international desalination technology. The reverse osmosis process was born from a local company in the 1960s. There are some 35 related companies in the area employing 2,200 people and generating over $200 million in annual revenue. According to the Authority, the Poseidon Project "will have significant economic benefit for the region, including $350 million in spending during construction, 2,400 construction-related jobs, and $50 million in annual spending throughout the region once the desalination plant is operational. For the region, the facility will create jobs, generate tax revenue, improve water quality and enhance water reliability with a new drought-proof supply."

Drought-proof?

These hopeful numbers and language are the typical political arguments that have been used to justify new technology for a long time. The financial estimates may or may not be predicable or accurate, but the ultimate return is inevitable when there is suddenly no more water available, we need the salt water turned fresh, and the cost is priceless.