THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CALIFORNIA - This site is dedicated to exposing the continuing Marxist Revolution in California and the all around massive stupidity of Socialists, Luddites, Communists, Fellow Travelers and of Liberalism in all of its ugly forms.
"It was a splendid population - for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home - you never find that sort of people among pioneers - you cannot build pioneers out of that sort of material. It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day - and when she projects a new surprise the grave world smiles as usual and says, "Well, that is California all over."
The easiest way to tell whether you’re in California or New Hampshire is to walk into a coffee shop. If you don’t see a presidential candidate, you’re in California.
Our state’s presidential primary in June usually takes place in what the NBA calls “garbage time,” that final few minutes of play after the outcome is beyond any doubt.
But 2016 could be different.
On Wednesday, 15 Republican candidates for president were at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library for two televised debates. An astounding 23 million people watched the CNN telecast, making it the No. 10 cable TV show of all time, behind eight college football games on ESPN and the GOP debate last month on Fox.
CNN’s previous ratings record for a presidential debate was set on Jan. 31, 2008, when an average of 8.3 million viewers tuned in. On Wednesday, even the early debate for four low-polling candidates drew an audience of over 6 million people.
The reason for the skyscraping ratings, of course, is Donald Trump. “Will they send me flowers?” he tweeted on Thursday.
“Trump deserves a lot of credit” for drawing tens of millions of viewers to the debates, said Shawn Steel, who represents California on the Republican National Committee. “Some candidates would give up organs for coverage like that.”
“Trump has brought a whole new dynamic to the Republican brand,” Steel said, by attracting alienated voters, independents and Democrats.
“His poll numbers in the African-American community are better than any Republican’s in the past 50, maybe 70 years,” Steel said. “And in the Latino community, where you might expect that he’d be polling at 5 percent, he’s at 25 percent. That’s Gallup. It’s quite a shocker.”
Steel said it’s evidence of illegal immigration’s “impact on working folks,” including Latinos who are legal immigrants. “You can’t dismiss it,” he said.
California Republican Party chairman Jim Brulte said during a break between the debates Wednesday that the GOP candidates are “head and shoulders above what the Democrats have to offer.” RNC committeeman Shawn Steel called the field the “finest quality candidates in our lifetime.“
They’re getting a good long look from the voters, courtesy of Donald Trump. According to Nielsen data, millions of people who never watched a presidential debate before are watching now.
Could California’s political landscape be affected if new voters register in the Republican party to cast a vote for Trump, Rubio, Fiorina or another candidate in the GOP primary?
About the author, Susan Shelley is a San Fernando Valley author, a former television associate producer and twice a Republican candidate for the California Assembly. Reach the author at Susan@SusanShelley.com or follow Susan on Twitter: @Susan_Shelley.
The massively corrupt California election system could have two Leftist Democrats face off against each other in the 2016 general election.
The Dems & GOP have rigged the "elections" so all independent and small political party candidates are banned from general election ballots.
(Los Angeles Times) - State Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris is holding her lead in the race to succeed Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate, but strong support among Latinos has enabled Rep. Loretta Sanchez of Orange County to establish herself as a serious rival, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. The survey found Harris leading Sanchez, a fellow Democrat, 26% to 17% among registered voters, followed by former state Republican chairman Tom Del Beccaro, with 10%, and Assemblyman Rocky Chavez (R-Oceanside), with 9%.
Former state Republican Party leader George "Duf" Sundheim entered the race last week, too late for inclusion in the poll. The primary election is in June, and it is far from settled: More than a third of voters were undecided, and more candidates could still emerge. Regardless of party, the contestants who finish first and second will advance to a November 2016 runoff. "Unless the Republicans coalesce behind one single candidate, we will probably end up seeing a runoff between two Democrats," said poll director Dan Schnur, who leads USC's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics. Sundheim's arrival could further fracture the Republican vote and deepen the party's disadvantage in a state dominated by Democrats. Latino voters are a crucial foundation for Sanchez, the survey found: They favor her over Harris 34% to 18%. People who took the survey in Spanish are her strongest constituency; more than half of them support Sanchez, a daughter of Mexican immigrants.
Welcome to Authoritarianism It's Democrat vs. Democrat. In the 6th State Senate District the corrupt "top two" phony election system gives the voters a choice of only one political party. There is no Republican on the ballot and all small opposition parties and independent candidates are banned. The corrupt Elites have even made your write-in vote illegal.
In accepting this award, California would like to thank the open borders Democrat Party and their open borders allies the GOP.
What I find interesting is why Black and Hispanic American citizens support open borders that drives down wages.
(Newsmax) - California has the largest number of illegal immigrants in the United States, with an estimated 2.4 million unauthorized immigrants making up about 6.3 percent of the state’s total population, according to the Pew Research Center.
While the number of illegal immigrants in California continues to rise, the increase in other areas of the country is happening at a much faster rate. The nationwide average increase in illegal immigrant populations was about 250 percent from 1990 to 2007, the Pew study said. In California, the rise was 88 percent.
In the early 1990s, California had over 40 percent of the total illegal immigrant population in the country. That rate had fallen to just about 23 percent by 2007. California saw a decline in illegal immigration from 2009 to 2012. The Pew Research Center attributed the fall in the numbers of illegal immigrant populations in California to the fact that more immigrants are simply moving to other states. In 2012, while California had more numbers than any other state, the highest percentage of the overall population went to Nevada, where unauthorized immigrants accounted for 7.6 percent of the state’s population.
The Migration Policy Institute estimated the number of illegal immigrants living in California to be much higher than the Pew Research Center's estimate. The Migration Policy Institute estimated a little more than 3 million undocumented residents living in the state. Of those, 70 percent are from Mexico. About 412,000 come from Asian countries. Another 480,000 come from Central America and China.
Illegal immigration in California brings in high numbers of marginally educated immigrants. About 11 percent of the adults who are undocumented immigrants in California are believed to have a college level education, according to the Migration Policy Institute. About 32 percent have a high school diploma or some college. That leaves 57 percent with education below the level of a high school diploma or GED.
"Evil" Racists protesting in Murrieta, Calif. Remember, you are a vicious racist for thinking illegal aliens should obey the same laws that Americans have to follow.
Ranchers in Northern California shot a wild pig and ended up finding its meat surrounded by Smurf-blue fat.
A user on Imgur posted photos and a short explanation of the bizarre discovery at their in-laws' Morgan Hill ranch. The couple cut open the pig, drained most of the blood and were startled to see fluorescent blue fat peeking out of the incision.
User GlendilTEK said the ranchers are aware blue pigmentation could be caused by copper poisoning, but there are only old mercury mine shafts near the property. Other wild pigs that were shot by the couple did not have neon blue fat.
Samples of the fat were sent off to UC Davis for testing.
Let's bottom line this. So-called "educators" have no interest in education. Phony "tests" are devised to show how poorly students are doing so government bureaucrats can go to Sacramento and Washington and demand more money to save the children.
Remember that since the California Gold Rush countless generations of children somehow managed to graduate from school, and go on to live full lives, without exit exams or common core "tests".
(San Francisco Chronicle) - California schools posted standardized test scores Wednesday for the first time in two years, and the results were not stellar.
Just one-third of the state’s public-school students were tested as proficient for their grade level in math and only 44 percent in English, state education officials said. Under the old test in 2013, 51 percent of students were proficient in math and 56 percent in English.
The officials expressed some disappointment in the new numbers, but not surprise.
“We need to be patient,” said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson. “We've gone to higher, tougher standards.”
This was the first time students were tested on the new Common Core standards, which require a more in-depth understanding of content rather than a memorization of facts. It was also the first time students took the state tests on a computer, clicking and dragging and typing open-ended answers or essays rather than filling in bubbles on paper with a No. 2 pencil.
Across the state, 3.2 million students in grades three through eight and 11 took the English and math test.
The new test scores showed a widening of the achievement gap, with African American and Latino students lagging behind their white and Asian American peers. The gap also widened between low-income students and the rest of the test-taking population.
Seventy-two percent of Asian American students and 61 percent of white students met or exceeded state standards in English, compared with just 28 percent of black students and 32 percent of Latinos. In math, 69 percent of Asian students and 49 percent of white students were at grade level, compared wiht 16 percent of black students and 21 percent of Latino students.
And just 31 percent of low-income students were proficient on the on English test and 21 percent proficient in math, compared with 64 percent and 53 percent, respectively, for other students.
That achievement gap has long been present in state standardized testing, but it was about 10 points wider on the Common Core tests than under the old system.
What a waste of time. A "reform" where you can track the mountains of campaign cash buying California politicians.
What is the point of tracking money when voters have no meaningful choices on their general election ballots.
The U.S. is the only "democratic" nation on earth where the same two bought and paid for parties magically win 100% of all elections.
(Los Angeles Daily News) - The state of California has launched a new campaign finance disclosure search engine, allowing users to more easily track state-level political donations to elected officials.
Called Power Search, the site is an update to Cal-Access, the Secretary of State’s existing campaign finance portal.
Power Search allows users to filter campaign donations from a particular company or organization from 2001 to the present. Search results can also be filtered by date, amount, location and other criteria.
“Both the public and the press should have quick and easy access to campaign finance information,” Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a statement. “Power Search is the first step in modernizing and upgrading Cal-Access.”
The new capabilities weren’t available through Cal-Access, which launched in 2000. That web portal will remain up, despite the launch of Power Search, because Cal-Access offers information on lobbyists, which the new site doesn’t.
Secretary of State press secretary Sam Mahood said officials will consider adding more features to Power Search.
“We want to consistently evaluate how we can best improve transparency,” Mahood said.
Power Search was created in conjunction with MapLight, a Berkeley-based nonprofit research organization that tracks political donations, and funded with a $100,000 grant from the San Francisco-based James Irvine Foundation.
While Power Search doesn’t show donations to Los Angeles city ballot measures or local politicians, the portal links to the city’s web site that offers that information.
A The current California State Assembly with the same two corrupt parties "magically" winning 100% of all elections.
A Modest Reform - State Board of Equalization kk Shake up the corrupt power structure in Sacramento and add 40 new seats to the State Assembly with 10 new members coming from each of the four State Board of Equalization districts (above map). k Structure the elections so they are more open to the public and not financed by the Elites. k Proposal #1) The residents would elect their local district Assemblyman in the normal manner. But the resident would then have ten votes for their regional State Assemblymen. The top ten vote getters in the regional district would go to Sacramento. With a total of eleven votes available to them, voters would be able to elect independent candidates or even members of smaller opposition political parties like Green Party of California or the California Libertarian Party. k Proposal #2 Many nations use proportional representation for elections. If a party wins 20% of the vote they win 20% of the seats. That system could be applied in these regional districts. If voters knew that their vote was not "wasted" on a minor party you might 10 or 15 of these seats going to existing smaller parties or new ones that would be created. k In any case, the corrupt system needs a major shake up, and the voters have the right to real and meaningful ballot choices. l Free elections. What a concept.
Reuben Perez fills up a barrel of water at the public tank to bring to Juana Garcia's home. The water will be used to do laundry, take bucket showers, and flush the toilet. Gabrielle Lurie
Thanks to the drought, many people in East Porterville can't cook, shower, or flush the toilet at home.
Glance at a lawn in East Porterville, California, and you'll instantly know something about the people who live in the house attached to it.
If a lawn is green, the home has running water. If it's brown, or if the yard contains plastic water tanks or crates of bottled water, then the well has gone dry.
Residents of these homes rely on deliveries of bottled water, or perhaps a hose connected to a working well of a friendly neighbor. They take "showers" with water from a bucket, use paper plates to avoid washing dishes, eat sandwiches instead of spaghetti so there's no need to boil water, and collect water used for cooking and showers to pour in the toilet or on the trees outside.
East Porterville is in Tulare County, a region in the middle of California's agriculture-heavy Central Valley that's been especially hard hit by the state's historic drought. More than 7,000 people in the the county lack running water; three quarters of them live in East Porterville. The community doesn't have a public water system; instead, residents rely on private wells. But after years of drought, the nearby Tule River has diminished to a trickle and the underground water table has sunk as more and more farmers rely on groundwater. Last week, I spent a few days interviewing residents in the town, also known as "ground zero" of the drought.
Juana Garcia washes grapes with bottled water. She soaks dirty dishes in soapy water before rinsing them to minimize water use. Gabrielle Lurie
Among the first to report a dry well was Donna Johnson, a 72-year-old retired recreational therapist who lives in East Porterville with her husband, Howard, and a handful of rescue dogs. In the spring of 2014, she turned on the tap to find that it had reduced to a dribble—then no water at all. Howard tried to extend the pump further into the well, but where there should have been a splash of water, there was simply a "thud" of solid against solid. When Johnson called a well-driller and learned the company had a long waiting list, she started wondering just how many wells had gone dry. After a couple of weeks of knocking on the doors of strangers in her neighborhood, Johnson had a list of more than 100 homes.
Over the past 18 months, Johnson has become known as East Porterville's "water lady," as she spends her days collecting donations of water and paper goods and delivering them in a pickup truck to a list of homes with dry wells—a list that's expanded to hundreds of addresses. "There's always somebody calling, saying, 'I don't have water!'" she said.
East Porterville is in Tulare County
The county, in part prompted by Johnson's discovery, has also stepped in. Locals can now bathe in portable showers outside the Drought Resource Center (a trailer set up in a church parking lot) and sign up for bottled-water deliveries (half gallon per person per day). Tanks of nonpotable water sit outside the fire station; in the evenings, residents fill up barrels for things like laundry and bathing.
East Porterville residents without running water have fallen into a tedious routine. Juana Garcia, a 49-year-old mother of five, lost water two years ago—in some ways, her living conditions remind her of those she left behind in Mexico when she moved to East Porterville in 1988. The change has been particularly challenging because she suffers from Lupus and arthritis, making it difficult to haul water to her home or make the trek to the public showers.
Garcia doesn't speak much English, so her daughter, a talkative 11-year-old named Noemi, walked me through the daily routine. Dishes are washed in two buckets: one for soaking, the other for rinsing. Afterward, water is dumped into the toilet so it will flush. For showers, Garcia boils water that Johnson hauled in from the gas station (Garcia doesn't have a car), or she takes her kids to the portable shower in front of the church. Teeth are brushed with bottled water; clothes are hand washed and air-dried unless a friend has time to take the family to the laundromat.
The trees in the backyard used to yield pears, lemons, and pomegranates, but they're all dead now; any extra water is used to fuel the swamp cooler, which, Noemi explained, uses five gallons of water an hour—and it's a necessity as temperatures routinely top 100 degrees. For dinner, Garcia makes things that require minimal water and won't heat up the house—like microwave meals or sandwiches.
As an interim solution, the county is installing large plastic tanks of water connected to some dry homes. But progress has been slow. So far, 320 tanks have been installed; more than 1,300 still remain dry.
A map of East Porterville at the county's drought resource center shows homes without running water (green) and homes where large tanks have been installed as an interim solution (blue). Julia Lurie
Donna Johnson drops off water for Bill Dennis, whose well went dry last month. Gabrielle Lurie
An excellent Vice News video on farming, cities and the drought.
Sucking down water Central Valley almond trees reflected in flooded irrigation water.
Many farmers and businessmen sneer at "crazy" environmentalists who talk about sustainability. But water is truly a limited resource. There are only so many crops that can be grown in a desert.
(Grist.org) - To many people — particularly environmentalists and family-farm aficionados — the Westlands Water District, on the dusty west side of California’s San Joaquin Valley, conjures up an image of a sprawling empire of large-scale agribusiness. Roughly 600 farmers own land within the district, and grow a veritable cornucopia of tomatoes, almonds, pistachios, lettuce, cantaloupes, grapes, and other crops.
Many farms here are huge, to be sure: One family farms at least 25,000 acres. But there are plenty of smaller farmers like 42-year-old Shawn Coburn, who grows 1,200 acres of mostly almonds. And to him, Westlands is an American Eden.
“There’s a long list of haters,” says Coburn. But “we have the best dirt out there. It’s the best ground in the world.”
There’s only one problem. While the soil here may be good, there’s not much water. At least not since 2007, when a federal judge drastically cut back farmers’ water supplies to protect endangered fish in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river delta in the geographic heart of the state. A three-year drought began clobbering California that same year, making life even tougher for farmers like Coburn.
In 2009, farmers in Westlands had their annual water supply rationed to just 10 percent of what they’re entitled to under their contracts with the federal government. (More about that later.) Here and in neighboring irrigation districts, farmers were forced to idle, or “fallow,” about a quarter-million acres of cropland because of drought and pumping restrictions, which cost them somewhere around $350 million in losses.
Farms in Westlands make up a little less than one-tenth of the roughly 6.9 million acres of farmland in California, and other parts of the state are facing their own water crunch. But paradoxically, no one has been hit harder than the farmers here. Despite being widely viewed as one of the most powerful participants in California water politics, Westland’s contracts for water from the federal government are some of the most vulnerable to being shorted, thanks to the arcane hierarchy by which water is apportioned during dry times.
The water shortage is unquestionably taking its toll. “It’s changing the landscape,” says Coburn. What’s happening here is providing a sneak peek at the problems that farmers not only in California, but all over this drying world, will soon confront. Farmers are shifting to higher dollar-value crops that will cover the water price hikes — but, paradoxically, are more sensitive to drought. They’re pumping groundwater as an emergency supply of water — and burning through that safety net even as it saves them from the current dry spell. And some farmers here are beginning to think about an exit strategy from agriculture altogether.
Water shipment down
On a farm, nothing happens without water. And in California’s Central Valley, which includes the Sacramento Valley to the north and the San Joaquin Valley to the south, virtually all of the farmed acreage is irrigated. Irrigation districts like Westlands are local-government entities that hold long-term contracts for water supplied by two massive water projects: the Central Valley Project, which is operated by the federal government, and the State Water Project. The districts, in turn, sell water to individual farmers within their boundaries.
Yet as demand for water has grown throughout the state, as efforts to protect endangered species have increased, and as drought has darkened the water forecast — a problem that’s likely to become more frequent with climate change — irrigation districts, particularly those on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, have found themselves increasingly unable to supply farmers with water. Even though Westlands, for instance, holds water contracts with the federal government, it signed those contracts relatively late, compared with other districts. As a result, when water supplies are tight, the government “shorts” Westlands’ contract to ensure that other irrigation districts with better contracts get their water.
That water crunch is spurring farmers to make a wide array of adaptive responses. Water rights are generally tied to specific pieces of land, but water can be moved — bought, sold, and swapped, just like stocks — to areas of greatest demand, and diverted to those who can pay the most for water. In drought years like 2009, farmers make extensive use of transfers to cover water-supply reductions. But the less water is in supply, the dearer prices become.
Water shortages are also changing the menu of crops grown in California. Take the case of cotton, for instance. Cotton has long a favorite whipping boy of environmentalists and agricultural reformers because it is government subsidized and relatively thirsty. In 1979, California farmers grew about 1.6 million acres of the stuff. But over the past three decades, cotton has largely shuffled off the stage in California. In 2009, the state’s farmers grew only 191,000 acres.
Many farmers say that one of the primary factors behind that decline, in recent years especially, has been water scarcity, which has driven up prices for water. Cotton has never had spectacular margins, so farmers are always vulnerable to big increases in the price of the “inputs” it takes to grow the crop. And, in the face of the water cutoffs, Westlands farmers have had to pay as much as four times what they normally do for water.
“That’s what drove cotton out of the west side,” says Marvin Meyers, a longtime Westlands farmer who now grows mostly almonds and olives. Farmers who use the water to grow higher-value crops like almonds “can afford to pay more,” Meyers says, “because the almond returns are greater than you would have gotten for cotton.”
Attorney General Kamala Harris, righ, joined by Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck
"You are all Racists!"
The election for California U.S. Senator is coming and Democrat Kamala Harris whips out the Race Card implying that racism causes Blacks to be arrested more than whites.
It appears Harris wants affirmative action on crime. If the "quota" for arresting Blacks has been filled then I guess the police should stop arresting Blacks for the rest of the year so the percentages even out.
(Associated Press) — Just 6 percent of Californians are African American, yet they are involved in 17 percent of all arrests in the state and a quarter of in-custody deaths, according to what officials called a nationally unprecedented release of data Wednesday.
The data paints a clearer picture of the racial disparity in arrests and deaths across California and comes as a number of high-profile, police-involved deaths of young black men has ignited a national debate on police practices.
In addition to being arrested and dying in disproportionate numbers, black juvenile males who are arrested are booked into jail at a 25 percent higher rate than whites, according to the data, released by the California Department of Justice on a searchable, state-run website.
"It's very stark and we really have to have a dialogue about why so many African Americans are dying compared to the state population," said Justin Erlich, a special assistant attorney general who's overseeing the data collection and analysis.
Democrat California Attorney General Kamala Harris cited the deaths of young black men at the hands of police in California, Ferguson, Missouri, New York City, Texas and South Carolina.
Part of the conversation surrounding those deaths needs to be data, Harris said.
"What are the numbers?" she said. "What are the facts that we know that we can actually quantify, that can help influence public policy around how we can improve these numbers and improve the situation?"
The database is the culmination of months of work aimed at improving transparency and government accountability. More data will be released over time, including breakdowns by municipality.
The data released also includes the number of police officers who died in the line of duty: 345 between 1980 and 2014, or 10 annually. Of those, 187 were a direct result of a criminal act, while the rest were considered accidental.
If California elections had any meaning I would care more about the Legislature pandering yet again to the citizens of foreign nations.
As it stands, four of the six political parties in California are banned from the general election. The California Libertarian Party, the California Green Party, the Peace and Freedom Party and the American Independent Party are no longer on the November ballot for voters to choose from. Independent candidates are also banned and your write-in vote has been declared illegal and will not be counted. The system is rigged.
(Los Angeles Times) - Gov. Jerry Brown signed a trio of immigration-related measures Monday, including one removing the word “alien” from California’s labor code because it is seen as a disparaging term for those not born in the United States. Brown also signed into law legislation allowing noncitizens in high school to serve as election poll workers and protecting the rights of immigrant minors in civil lawsuits. Brown approved legislation allowing high school students who are legal permanent residents to serve as poll workers in California elections, in part to help with translation needs in an increasingly diverse voting population. Currently, students 16 and older may serve as poll workers, but they must be U.S. citizens. Adult poll workers only have to be lawful permanent residents.
