Democrats May Allow Inmate Firefighters With Violent Pasts

Liberalism is a Mental Disorder

(NBC News)  -  California officials are considering allowing inmates with violent backgrounds to work outside prison walls fighting wildfires, and the idea is generating concerns about public safety.

The state has the nation's largest and oldest inmate firefighting unit, with about 3,800 members who provide critical assistance to professional firefighters. That's down from about 4,400 in previous years, however, and so prison officials are looking for ways to add inmates.

Now, only minimum-security inmates with no history of violent crimes can participate. Starting next year, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is proposing adding inmates convicted of violent offenses such as assaults and robberies, if their security classification level has been reduced after years of good behavior.

The changes are pending final approval within the Corrections Department.

The proposal comes at a time when the overall prison population is smaller and drought has created the potential for explosive wildfires like the ones that recently roared through the Sierra foothills and communities north of Napa, in northern California.

Mike Lopez, president of the union representing state firefighters who oversee inmates at fire scenes, supports a robust inmate program but worries about what the proposed changes could bring.

"Any acceptance of criminals with a violent background calls into question the security of our membership," he said, adding, "at what risk is CalFire willing to go to get those inmates?"

Read More . . . .

Calif. exit exam abolished, diplomas to be awarded

Preparing students to take phony exit "exams" is a
monster multi-billion dollar industry.

Phony "Exit" Exams Attacked

• From 1850 on somehow California students managed to graduate high school without Big Brother "exit" exams and went on to live normal lives. 
• Democrats do Something Right  -  Giving diplomas to those unfairly fucked over the this corrupt Big Government system is a start. But all exit exams should be abolished.
• GOP is fucked up as usual  -  It is interesting that the so-called "small government" GOP naturally opposes any cracks in this increasingly federalized education system.

(San Jose Mercury News)  -  Upending a hallmark of California school reform, Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed a bill that will award diplomas to thousands of young people who failed the California High School Exit Exam in the past decade.

The new law, which takes effect in January, will allow former high school students who failed the test as far back as 2004 to now graduate, as long as they passed all of their required high school classes. The new law effectively undoes the decade-old requirement, imposed after a hard and bitter fight, that students pass a standardized exam in order to earn a high school diploma in California.

SB 172 by Sen. Carol Liu, D-La Cañada Flintridge, also suspends the exam as a graduation requirement for current freshmen, sophomores and juniors. It passed the Legislature on a partisan vote, with Republicans objecting.

Follow the Money
Test taking is all about getting more government tax dollars, not education.
A school district can scream "our scores are 3.6% below the average,
We need more cash."
But it is a phony bullshit system. By the very nature of statistics 49% of
those taking any test will always fall below the "average".

The exam "never had the coherence we need in a state accountability system," said Chris Funk, superintendent of the East Side Union High School District in San Jose. "I'm happy that it was dropped."

But the bill was divisive.

"I'm very sorry and disappointed to hear the governor signed it," said Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-San Ramon. "Removing the exit exam not only impairs our ability to ensure we have taught our kids, but impairs our ability to hold our education system accountable for that responsibility."

But some of those who pushed hard for establishing a statewide exit exam weren't sorry to see it go. "It may make sense," said Ryan Smith, executive of the Oakland-based Education Trust-West, which backed the legislation embedding the exit exam as a graduation requirement. He noted that students who've failed the exam can't retake it now, because it doesn't exist. The state Department of Education ceased offering the exit exam last spring.

It is uncertain exactly how many young people the bill will make eligible for a high school diploma. The California Department of Education does not keep records of those passing the exit exam after they finish high school -- students may keep trying to pass while in community college or adult school. But from the Class of 2006 through the Class of 2014, the CDE records show, 32,000 failed to pass the exam while in high school. Some of those passed later.

For the rest, school districts now will be required to award a diploma to those who completed 12th grade in 2004 or later, and who met all other graduation requirements.

Even years after leaving high school, a diploma matters. It's required to attend four-year universities, receive financial aid, enlist in the military or join apprenticeship programs.

Read More . . . .

GOP Big Government Socialism
The so-called "Conservative" George Bush Administration, backed by a "Conservative" GOP Congress, worked to unconstitutionally Federalize local education and violate the 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
.
Since taking control of Congress in 1995 the GOP controlled Congress has consistently voted to grow the size and scope of the Federal government with no thought at all about the Constitution. 

POLICE STATE - Homeland Security seized Stockton Mayor's electronics at airport

Airport security in America

4th Amendment Be Damned

• In violation of the Bill of Rights the Feds seized the electronics of the Mayor of Stockton, California without a warrant. 

(Infowars News)  -  Anthony Silva, the mayor of Stockton, California, recently went to China for a mayor’s conference. On his return to San Francisco airport he was detained by Homeland Security, and then had his two laptops and his mobile phone confiscated. 

They refused to show him any sort of warrant (of course) and then refused to let him leave until he agreed to hand over his password:

“A few minutes later, DHS agents confiscated all my electronic devices including my personal cell phone. Unfortunately, they were not willing or able to produce a search warrant or any court documents suggesting they had a legal right to take my property. In addition, they were persistent about requiring my passwords for all devices,” Silva said.

Silva was not allowed to leave the airport until he gave his passwords to the agents, which the mayor’s personal attorney, Mark Reichel, claimed is illegal.

The mayor said the agents told him confiscating property from travelers at the airport was “in fact routine and not unusual,” and promised to return the items within a few days.

To some extent what the DHS told him is true. It’s not that unusual, but it’s not that common either. But forcing him to turn over the passwords is unusual, and not standard practice. Besides, courts have been growing increasingly less impressed with Homeland Security’s willingness to ignore the Constitution at the border.

The feds, of course, refuse to say anything, saying they cannot confirm or deny anything. Silva first claimed that he’s “happy to cooperate and comply with these inspection procedures if they are in fact routine and legal,” but pretty quickly notes how ridiculous all of this is:

“I think the American people should be extremely concerned about their personal rights and privacy,” he said. “As I was being searched at the airport, there was a Latino couple to my left, and an Asian couple to my right also being aggressively searched. I briefly had to remind myself that this was not North Korea or Nazi Germany. This is the land of the Free.”

So they keep telling us.

Read More . . . .

Stockton Mayor Anthony Silva

Santa Monica - The Drunkest City in California

Santa Monica Ranks #1 for Drunkenness 

(From Road Snacks)  -  Is there anything wrong with being called the drunkest city in your state?

Especially in California, which is right in the middle in the nation in terms of the amount of beer and spirits every year. So someone has to pick up the slack, right? And boy do these cities below.

How do you decide how much a place drinks? By the number of available places to buy booze, and by how often people are talking about drinking, that’s how.

Plus, we thought why not add in a stereotype? Studies have indicated that when one or both partners in a marriage are alcoholics, that couple is three times more likely to divorce.

So, hold our beers and watch this. After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, we came up with this list as The Drunkest Cities in California:

1. Santa Monica
2. Santa Barbara
3. Napa
4. Pasadena
5. Sacramento
6. Newport Beach
7. Oakland
8. Livermore
9. San Mateo
10. El Cajon

To Alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems.

What drunken criteria did we use?

• Number of bars and pubs per capita
• Number of wineries per capita
• Number of liquor stores per capita
• Each city’s drunk related tweets within the last week
• Each city’s divorce rate

For geo-located tweets, we measured the following raw number of tweets that came from within a city’s general area: #Drunk, #Party, #Beer, #Wine and #Cocktails

Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a city’s border, as well as within a short driving distance.

Population: 90,008
Divorce rate: 12.6%
Bars per capita: 1st in CA
Liquor stores per capita: 4th

Wow, Santa Monica, you are tore up from the floor up! Based on the data and number of raw tweets coming from your location, per capita, it sounds like the people there are all having a really, really good time.

There are more bars per capita in Santa Monica than anywhere else in the state. And the divorce rate is the 7th highest in California, too. That’s a sign that lots and lots of people here are drinking quite often.

And, there are tons of liquor stores in the area, too. If you’ve ever spent some time at the Santa Monica pier, you’d know that there are lots of drunk, homeless people everywhere. So it’s not just the ‘residents’ of Santa Monica who are drinking lots and lots every night.

It wasn’t even close. It was Santa Monica by a landslide and then everyone else below.

Read More . . . .

Calif. Indian Tribe Backs School's ‘Redskins’ Mascot

More Phony, Made-up, "Racism"

• The Leftist Democrats in the legislature will never rest until all the joy is sucked out of life and students are forced to memorize politically correct slogans.

(Breitbart News)  -  An Indian tribe in California supports a local school’s use of the “Redskins” mascot that California legislators want to ban.

The Tule River Tribal Council, located in the heart of California’s Central Valley, wrote a letter to California Gov. Jerry Brown urging him to allow Tulare Union High School to continue using the “Redskins” mascot.

Brown is considering signing a new bill, AB 30, the California Racial Mascots Act, which was recently passed by the state legislature in the wake of media debate surrounding the name of the Washington Redskins NFL football team.

The tribe’s letter to the governor argues that while “the history surrounding the name ‘Redskin’ is negative…it is time to mend these feelings and move on.” The tribal council supports the school’s use of the mascot to express “tremendous pride and honor” felt by “students and alumni.” The letter adds: “Although we will never forget what has happened to us in the past, we do not wish to dwell on it either.” 

The school district has also written to the governor to oppose the bill. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill in 2004.

Read More . . . .

Student Connie Prado, the 2015 Tulare Union Indian princess,
wears mascot regalia on game day.(Fresno Bee) 

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/education/article37157016.html#storylink=cpy

Pansy Liberals and "Racism"
To frighten mouth-breather voters that everyone is a "racist" and out to get
them, liberals have to created phony issues that do not exist.
.
Sports teams naturally choose strong names for the players:  Rams,
Mustangs, Vikings or Redskins.  The names are a form of praise
and honor, not racism.

"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.”

Read More . . . .

Calif. gives 500,000 illegals driver's licenses

Go ahead, break the laws

• The leftist Sanctuary State of the People's Republic encourages the breaking of immigration and other laws.
• But the real fools are the mouth-breathing voters who keep paying the taxes and re-electing the open borders Democrats and Republicans.

(Associated Press)  -  California has issued more than half a million driver's licenses to immigrants in the country illegally under a program that began nine months ago.

Armando Botello, a spokesman for the state's Department of Motor Vehicles, said Friday that the milestone was reached last week.

"For us, the DMV, it is a source of great pride to have reached half a million this soon. We thought we would issue half a million applications per year and we did it in 9 months. This means the DMV work is paying off and that all drivers will be safer now," said Botello.

The state started providing special permits in January, when a law took effect allowing unauthorized immigrants to obtain it with an identification document, proof of residence, and after passing a written and a driving exam.

Because the agency does not ask about race or ethnicity, it is not known how many of the five hundred thousand applicants are Latino. However, Botello said most are Hispanic.

The record number of licenses issued came as a surprise to the agency, which expected to reach the half a million mark by the end of the year, said Botello. According to DMV estimates, there is a total of 1.4 million potential applicants in the state of California.

"We thought we would issue half a million in one year and we did it in nine months. I think it will be difficult that we reach one million in the next nine months because there are fewer people coming to the office," the spokesman said.

The new licenses initially generated huge interest, with long lines at DMV offices in January and February.

Read More . . . .

Fucking American Citizens
If you are a law abiding American citizen of any ethnic background you are being fucked over by both open borders political parties.  Countless billions of tax dollars are sucked down to give benefits to the citizens of foreign nations.

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.

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39th State Senate district

California GOP says it's ‘pro-immigrant'

Republicans Become Democrats

• The open borders GOP Congress has done jack shit about immigration since the party took over in 1995.  Now the California Republican Party is just making open borders official.
• The GOP and the Dems have banned independent candidates and small opposition political parties from all general election ballots.  My protest in the 2014 election was REFUSING TO VOTE for either open borders party for any statewide office.  I left all offices from Governor on down blank and only voted for propositions.

(The Press Enterprise)  -  Not wanting to appear anti-immigrant, the California Republican Party on Sunday softened its platform plank on immigration.

Meeting during their semiannual convention in Anaheim, state Republicans voted on a new immigration stance that states the party is “pro-immigrant” and wants to fix a system that “does not work for California or America.” Under its new platform, the state GOP supports worker visa programs but is against providing amnesty.

Gone is language about “illegal aliens” or cross-deputizing state and county law enforcement to help immediately deport those who have committed crimes.

“We took a common-sense approach. We wanted to make sure the wording doesn’t come across offensively,” said Marcelino Valdez, the Central Valley regional vice chairman who authored the updated immigration plank.

“We’re painted in a light that’s anti-immigrant. We’re far from that,” Valdez said after the convention.

Robin Hvidston, an associate delegate at the Republican convention who voted against the platform changes Sunday, said the Republicans who voted for it do not speak for her or members of her Claremont-based anti-illegal immigration group, We the People Rising.

“The California GOP should have taken a stand that supports legal immigration: enter the U.S.A. legally and then reside legally in the U.S.A. Period,” Hvidston wrote in an email. “I preferred the concrete and specific language in the former California GOP platform. We are a great nation because we are a nation of laws and the California GOP should not be afraid to (uphold) federal law.”

Jorge-Mario Cabrera, spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said he welcomed the shift in language and tone of the new platform.

“It’s a smart move on their part to attract new voters,” Cabrera said.

Valdez said: “We’re absolutely trying to reach the Latino vote.”

The new California Republican platform includes support for stronger border control, higher penalties for overstaying visas and denying federal funding to sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with immigration officials.

Read More . . . .

The Calif. GOP which represents no one will meet less often

GOP - A Meaningless Political Party

• Wow, the corrupt California GOP, which does not represent any voters at all, will now meet less often.
• The so-called "delegates" to the California GOP convention are appointed by political insiders.  The average Republican voter has no say in any way, shape or form about the direction of his own political party.

(Sacramento Bee)  -  The California Republican Party will gather to pour drinks and talk politics a little less frequently from now on.

Party activists on Sunday approved reducing the number of state party conventions to two annually in odd-numbered years and one annually in even-numbered years, eliminating its convention closest to the general election.

The party has historically held two conventions every year.

Party Chairman Jim Brulte has long argued for a lighter convention schedule.

He said in an email to party leaders last year that conventions are costly and can be unhelpful late in the election cycle, when “the press come looking to write the narrative that Republicans are fighting.”

Many staffers and politicians are busy campaigning during conventions close to elections. But conventions remain popular with the party’s rank-and-file activists, and the vote to reduce the convention schedule was divided.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article35897541.html#storylink=cpy

Read More . . . .

California's Counties
k
Building a Real Political Party
k
If the Republican leadership has any interest at all in building a grass roots party, which they don't, they would totally scrap the corrupt state party system that serves only insiders and big money special interest groups.
k
One obvious reform would be to hold mini GOP conventions in each of California's 58 counties.  Registered Republicans could gather to openly debate the issues of the day and elect delegates to represent their county at the state convention.  These conventions could be held all over the state on the same day to generate maximum publicity with TV news and newspapers.
,
Transparent conventions would show a Republican Party open to all voters, and that is why this reform will never happen.  The corrupt Elites have no interest in their own voters.