Tech Tycoon Spearheads Pot Legalization Bid in California

A State of Drugged out Potheads

• I mostly come down on the side of controlled legalization in order to end the insane drug "war".  But the idea of directly or indirectly encouraging people to turn their brains into quivering bowl of drugged out jello does make me pause. 

(ABC News)  -  The push to put California among the states where marijuana can be sold to and legally used by adults for recreation took a major step forward on Monday as ballot language backed by Napster co-founder Sean Parker, other wealthy entrepreneurs who support pot legalization and leading advocacy groups was filed with the state.

The proposed legalization initiative is one of more than a dozen that has been submitted in California for the November 2016 election. Because of the deep pockets, political connections and professional credibility of its supporters, however, observers think the so-called Adult Use of Marijuana Act is the vehicle with the greatest chance of success.

Sean Parker

"We believe this effort has the support and resources to mount a successful campaign for responsible adult-use," California Cannabis Industry Association Executive Director Nate Bradley, whose organization is endorsing the measure, said. "This is the one to watch. This is the one."

The measure would allow adults 21 and over to buy an ounce of marijuana and marijuana-infused products at licensed retail outlets and also to grow up to six pot plants for personal recreational use. Both the new recreational market and the state's existing medical marijuana industry would be regulated through the California Department of Consumer Affairs and authorize the state to impose the same 15 percent excise tax on both medical and recreational marijuana.

Four people who worked on the initiative independently told The Associated Press that the drafting process and early work to enlist sponsors and build a campaign team was spearheaded by Parker, the billionaire technology investor who upended the music business as a teenager by co-founding the file sharing site Napster and served as Facebook's first president.

Those people requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss Parker's involvement or to name the other wealthy entrepreneurs expected to fund the effort until an official campaign committee starts raising money and becomes subject to state disclosure laws.

But Parker himself issued a statement on Monday afternoon expressing optimism about the initiative without acknowledging his role in getting it drafted.

"I've been following this issue with great interest for some time. It's very encouraging to see a vibrant community of activists, many of whom have dedicated their lives to this issue, coming together around a sensible reform based measure," he said.

Other potential donors who have expressed interest in bankrolling the work to qualify the measure for the ballot and to mount a multi-million dollar election campaign include a political action committee founded by the family of the late Progressive Insurance executive Peter Lewis; some members of the Chicago family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain; and Justin Hartfield, chief executive of online marijuana directory WeedMaps, the sources said.

Lewis, who died almost two years ago, gave $218,505 in 2010 to support what became an unsuccessful attempt to legalize recreational marijuana in California. Parker gave $100,000.

The Parker-backed initiative also has lined up support from the Drug Policy Alliance and the Marijuana Policy Project, two leading marijuana reform advocacy groups that led the earlier campaigns to pass pot legalization measures in Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

"This is the most incredibly broad coalition that could have been brought together, everything from the drug policy reform movement to the environmental movement to the industry actors to the medical field, as well as the lineup of all of the most likely funders for something like this," said Lynne Lyman, California director for the Drug Policy Alliance.

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Sheriff's sue on L.A.’s high-capacity ammunition magazine ban

Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko

Stand up for Freedom

The Leftists cannot stop themselves from 

attacking your right to defend yourself.

(Los Angeles Daily News)  -  Gun owners and California law enforcement officers are suing the Democrat run city of Los Angeles, claiming its ban on high-capacity magazines violates state regulations.

The City Council voted in July to ban ownership of large-capacity magazines containing more than 10 rounds of ammunition. With gun owners facing a Nov. 18 deadline to give up the magazines, the suit seeks to block the law from going into effect.

Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko, one of 30 sheriffs across the state who filed the lawsuit Friday, questioned how law enforcement agents would drive through the city when other parts of the state allow high-capacity magazines.

“The ordinance creates a patchwork of laws that law-abiding citizens and law enforcement have to navigate through,” Bosenko said.

The California Rifle and Pistol Association, which is the state-affiliated group of the National Rifle Association, and the California Reserve Peace Officers Association also joined the lawsuit.

Since 2000, California has outlawed manufacturing or selling high-capacity magazines, but Los Angeles’ ordinance goes further, making it illegal to possess them.

Cities including Sunnyvale and San Francisco also ban possession of high-capacity magazines and have successfully fended off lawsuits from the NRA.

Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian led his council colleagues this summer in passing the ban. At a July news conference, he cited several local incidents in which semi-automatic weapons were used, including the 1999 Los Angeles Jewish Community Center and 2013 Santa Monica College shootings.

Violation of the new ordinance carries misdemeanor charges.

Krekorian called the lawsuit a “predictable and desperate attempt by NRA lawyers to strike down a common-sense policy that will keep our city and its people safe.”

Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer also criticized the lawsuit, stating the city’s law is constitutional.

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Los Angeles - All handguns must be locked

Leftist Democrats on the March

• Gangbangers roam the streets, murders are increasing, but Democrats are obsessed about reducing the ability of law abiding citizens to defend themselves.

(Breitbart News)  -  On October 27 the Democrat Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to require all handguns to locked or disabled inside the owner’s home.

The measure was pushed by Councilman Paul Krekorian–the same council member who recently pushed through an ordinance requiring all ammunition magazines with greater-than-10-round capacity to be surrendered to the police or otherwise disposed.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Krekorian used preschoolers to frame his argument for locking up guns. He said, “It’s unacceptable to live in a country where it’s more dangerous to be a preschooler than to be a police officer — and we can do something about that today.”

Enforcement of the gun storage requirement would be handled on the backend, when police visit a given home for another reason–a domestic disturbance, suspicious activity, etc—and discover a gun unlocked in what they deem an unsafe location. The punishment would be a misdemeanor charge.

Gun rights groups have already made it known that they will be suing the city if the gun lock requirement is put in place. But Councilman Mitch Englander stood with Krekorian and said, “This is less about gun control and simply more about controlling your gun. It’s really that simple.”

There are two interesting things to note there. Number one is that fire and water pose a far greater risk than guns not simply to preschoolers, but to all children under the age of 10. Breitbart News previously reported CDC stats that show children under the age of 10 are killed in accidental burn-related deaths seven times more often than in accidental shootings and are killed in accidental drowning deaths 16 times more often than in accidental shootings. Yet Krekorian is focused on firearms. 

The second interesting thing to note is that the exercise of the Second Amendment within the home is accepted as constitutionally protected even among many ardent anti-gunners. And the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) spoke to this in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and again in McDonald v Chicago (2010).

Moreover, in the majority opinion handed down with the McDonald ruling, Justice Sam Alito not only referred to self-defense as the “central component” of the Second Amendment but also pointed to handguns as the favored means of self-defense.

How can a single mother exercise self-defense and defend the life of her children if Councilmen Krekorian and Englander force her to disable her handgun?

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California's Bullet Train Will Take Even Longer To Go Nowhere

A
Pacific Electric had over 500 miles of inter urban track in Los Angeles in the early 1900's. The image shows the "Red Cars" stacked for sinking in Los Angeles Harbor - sunk ostensibly for "fish habitat", but really sunk for General Motors Corporation profit.

Stupidity, Corruption or Both?

• Almost no one will ride California's high speed rail, but it will line the pockets of the contractors who give millions in campaign money to the politicians.
• Special Note  -  I guess it is too much to ask that those billions of dollars be spend on light rail inside cities like the old Los Angeles Red car (above).

(Investors Business Daily)  -  California's high-speed rail project will never make its current 2022 arrival time, according to the Los Angeles Times. Doesn't this strike anyone in charge of this costly boondoggle as ironic?

The Los Angeles Times does a commendable job of providing a reality check to the increasingly out-of-touch project. After reviewing project documents and talking to various experts, the paper concluded, "The deadline and budget targets will almost certainly be missed," and state officials have "underestimated the challenges ahead."

Officials still haven't settled on a route, they're behind schedule in acquiring land, getting permits and financing, and the project faces several lawsuits.

A full-scale mock-up of a high-speed train is displayed at
the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2015. AP

Boring on the 36 miles of planned tunnels isn't likely to get started until 2019, the Times notes, and by any reasonable estimate it will take another 7 to 14 years to complete. Even that's probably optimistic, since several parts will traverse known fault lines, vastly increasing the complexity of the effort.

It could easily take another four years after the tunnels are finished to install all the track and equipment. That means that completion of just Phase 1 of the bullet train will be closer to 2030.

Costs, which have already more than doubled, are likely to be higher than the current $68 billion estimate, the Times notes. Project-management firm Parsons Brinckerhoff said in a secret 2013 report, which the Times obtained, that it saw cost overruns "in almost every phase of the project." The state hasn't figured out how to finance the current costs, much less the overruns.

Officials have already backpedaled on the lofty promises of travel time and ridership. To keep costs down to $68 billion, for example, the trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles won't be on high-speed rail at either end. And instead of 90 million a year, ridership is expected to be about 30 million.

Even if the train could make its goal of going from downtown to downtown in two hours and 40 minutes, which is highly dubious, that's still twice as long as it takes to fly between the two cities.

And that gets to the basic problem with this whole expensive mess. Why is California going through the trouble of tunneling and buying land and fighting lawsuits and digging itself into a massive financial hole when people can more cheaply fly over all those troubles today — and get to their destination in far less time?

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The Los Angeles Red Car Rail System Built in 1901.

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Government Insanity
#1)  First you build an extensive light rail system.
#2)  Then you tear down that extensive light rail system.
#3)  Now you raise taxes to build another rail system
to replace the rail system you just tore down.
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Yes, the Government is run by idiots.

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Democrats Adopt Special Visa for Illegal Alien Crime Victims

The People's Republic of California

A state of, by and for illegal aliens.

American citizens told to go fuck themselves.

(Associated Press) — Nubia Rodriguez was assaulted and kidnapped by an ex-boyfriend, crimes that made her eligible for a special visa for immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

To apply, she needed law enforcement officials that handled the case to sign paperwork documenting the crime and her assistance in the investigation. She contacted the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s office but never got an answer.

Her experience is not unusual and led California lawmakers to pass and Gov. Jerry Brown to sign legislation requiring local police or prosecutors to sign the form that immigrant crime victims need to apply for a so-called “U visa” so long as they are otherwise eligible.

The move makes California the first state to adopt such a measure and the legislature expects law enforcement agencies will comply, said Claire Conlon, a spokeswoman for bill author and state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D).

Messages left at the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s office were not returned.

The measure was one of a spate of bills enacted in California this year to help immigrants in the country illegally. Others include anti-discrimination measures and giving low-income children access to state-subsidized health care.

Immigrant advocates say thousands of immigrants will likely benefit from the crime victim law, including many victims of domestic violence who might otherwise be reluctant to report their assailants over fear authorities might refer them to federal agents for deportation.

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Democrats Adopt Sex Reassignment Surgery Policy for Prisoners

Your Tax Dollars at Work

• It looks like you need to be a transsexual criminal or an illegal alien to get government funds.  If you are an average American citizen Democrats just tell you to go to Hell.

(New York Times)  -  California has become the first state with a policy of providing sex reassignment surgery for some prison inmates, adopting a set of specific guidelines on what services it will provide to transgender prisoners, state officials and advocates for transgender people said.

The policy, which took effect this week, grew out of a pair of successful lawsuits filed by inmates. In one, a federal court in April ordered the state to provide surgery to a prisoner, which transgender advocates hailed as a landmark victory, but the inmate was paroled while that ruling was on appeal, making the point moot.

Then, after years of fighting such requests, the state settled the other case in August, agreeing to surgery for Shiloh Quine, a convicted murderer formerly known as Rodney J. Quine, who is serving a life sentence. California’s prisons already provided hormone therapy to transgender inmates, but experts said the Quine settlement was the first time any state had agreed to taxpayer-funded surgical reassignment for an inmate.

The new guidelines grew out of that settlement.

“California has set a model for the country,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center, a San Francisco-based group that represented the inmates in both cases. “This is care that, for too long, people have been denied simply because of who they are. It’s especially important because transgender people are incarcerated at six times the rate of the general population.”

Under the new policy, the state will cover mastectomies as well as operations to remove and reconstruct reproductive organs. But it will not cover services the state considers cosmetic, including breast implants or procedures or drugs for hair removal or hair growth.

Out of 125,000 inmates in the California system, 400 are being treated for gender dysphoria, the condition of not identifying as the sex indicated by bodily organs.

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Welcome to the People's Republic of California

Churches Sue Democrat California Over Forced Funding of Abortion

Leftist Dems Beat The Abortion Drum

To a Democrat the only good baby is 

an aborted or illegal baby.

LOS ANGELES, (ChurchMilitant.com)  -  A group of California churches are suing the state for mandating that churches pay for elective abortions as part of their health insurance coverage. 

The federal lawsuit — filed Friday against the California Department of Managed Healthcare (DMHC) — claims the mandate is an "unsupported and unnecessary requirement" that forces those with religious convictions to "violate their religious beliefs under threat of heavy fines and penalties" by actively participating in the destruction of "innocent human life."

The case, Foothill Church v. Rouillard, was brought by the Christian conservative law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in the name of three listed plaintiffs: the Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch, Los Angeles; Foothill Church in Glendora; and Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in Chino.  

"Churches should not be forced to pay for the killing of innocent human life," says ADF senior legal counsel Erik Stanley. "The government has no right to demand that church health insurance plans contain coverage for abortion — something that violates these churches' most sincerely held religious beliefs. California is violating the Constitution by strong-arming churches into having this coverage in their plans."

"Elective abortions are not part of 'basic health care,'" asserts ADF litigation staff counsel Jeremiah Galus. "They have no business being forced into the medical coverage provided by churches that do not wish to support terminating lives due to very real, sincere and well-known faith convictions. We hope the court will require California to follow the Constitution and respect these churches' fundamental freedoms."

The ADF had filed formal complaints with the federal government after the abortion mandate policy took effect in August 2014. ADF's senior legal counsel Casey Mattox maintained that states accepting federal funds — such as California — are prohibited from singling out health care plans that do not provide abortion coverage; he also asserted that ignoring the complaints of the churches would lead to a lawsuit.

"Because Obamacare requires health insurance coverage, and the California mandate requires abortion coverage in any health plan, these churches are truly left with no way to opt out of paying for abortions," says Galus. "What's absurd, though, is that the same government that rightfully does not require California churches to pay for contraceptive coverage requires them to pay for elective abortion coverage. Californians should not be forced to choose between following their deepest convictions and submitting to unlawful and unnecessary government mandates."

The senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, Jack Hibbs, stated in an interview last year that both his religious liberties and the Constitution were "under attack" and declared he would rather go to jail than be an accessory to abortions.

Speaking of the mandate, he claimed he felt "violated" and "forced." "I love America and I love American history, and I have a lot of invested interest in defending the unborn," he said.

According to ADF, the concern over pro-life organizations being mandated by the government to fund abortions has only increased following the authenticated exposé videos released by the Center for Medical Progress that show Planned Parenthood executives negotiating the sale of body parts obtained from aborted babies. 

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The Great Depression in San Francisco (Photos)

Homeless: The photo above shows two men sleeping on Howard Street
in San Francisco, California in February 1937.

A Distant Mirror

(London Daily Mail)  -  The Great Depression was one of America's darkest chapters in history to date, with millions of people suffering all over the country.

Thousands of lives were upended due to the 1929 stock market crash that caused bank investments to be cutoff. Many families who had stable lives became migrant workers as unemployment reached a peak of 25 percent.

Many workers were able to get jobs on projects with the federal Works Progress Administration or started farming with help from the Farm Security Administration (FSA). 

Between 1935 and 1944, the federal government sent some of the most influential photographers of the day across the country to document the success of their programs across the country.

Arthur Rothstein, Walker Evans, John Collier, Dorothea Lange and others captured thousands of haunting images portraying The Great Depression. 

In particular, Lange became well-known for her work documenting the effects of the Depression in San Francisco, California for the FSA.

The photos she took in the 1930s and 1940s provide a snapshot of how people were suffering during that time period, and also highlight how some conditions have not changed for some in San Francisco.

A Yale University project called Photogrammar has organized the collection of more than 170,000 photos that were curated by the Library of Congress.  

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The image above shows a mass meeting of Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers parading up Market Street in San Francisco, California in February 1939.

The photo above shows thousands of people listening to speeches at a mass meeting of Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers protesting the congressional cut of relief appropriations in San Francisco, California in February 1939.

Demonstration: The photo above from February 1939 shows the Worker's Alliance and the Works Progress Administration holding simultaneous demonstrations in front of city hall in San Francisco, California.

Unemployed: The photo above shows people standing on Howard Street in San Francisco, California. At the time, it was known as 'Skid Row,' the district of the unemployed in February 1937.

The photo above captured by Dorothea Lange in April 1939 shows a trio playing instruments in the Salvation Army area of San Francisco, California.

Dance the night away: The photo above captured by John Collier in December 1941 shows people dancing at the United Service Organizations (USO) servicemen's club in the Civic Center in San Francisco, California.

The photo above shows Italian fishermen gathered on Fisherman's Wharf, on December 8, 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Hungry: The photo above captured by Dorothea Lange shows a man who bummed breakfast from a restaurant to give to his friend in the neighborhood where the Salvation Army operated in April 1939 in San Francisco, California.

Corrupt San Francisco - Cop "transferred" after questioning Sheriff

(San Francisco Chronicle)  -  A sergeant under San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi who oversaw the department’s shooting range was transferred after he questioned whether the sheriff could take a marksmanship test in light of his domestic violence case, The Chronicle has learned.

Mirkarimi then took the test and failed it, preventing him from carrying a gun, department employees said.

Sheriff’s Department officials strongly denied Thursday night that the sergeant had been transferred because he potentially stood in the way of Mirkarimi’s being granted permission to carry a gun. They described his transfer as a budgetary move and said Mirkarimi had nothing to do with it.

For much of his term as sheriff, Mirkarimi was on criminal probation after pleading guilty in 2012 to a misdemeanor charge of false imprisonment stemming from an incident in which he bruised his wife’s arm during an argument.

In April, Mirkarimi had the conviction expunged after he completed his probation. Left unresolved was whether he could carry a gun on duty.

State law bars someone convicted of a domestic-violence-related offense from possessing a gun, even if the conviction is expunged. Nonetheless, soon after his case was expunged, Mirkarimi asked the Sheriff’s Department shooting-range master to schedule a marksmanship test, said Capt. Lisette Adams, head of the department association that represents supervisors and managers.

The range master, Sgt. Matt Haskell, asked the internal affairs division to consult with the state Department of Justice on whether Mirkarimi could take the test, Adams said. Haskell, however, “could never get a direct answer from internal affairs about whether the sheriff is qualified,” Adams said.

In August, the 18-year veteran sergeant was transferred from the shooting range to a jailhouse post. Adams said Haskell was told that the shift was due to a shortage of supervisors in the jail. Haskell declined to comment for this story.

“It is interesting that Haskell was attempting to determine the sheriff’s legal authority to carry a weapon shortly before he was transferred,” said Adams, whose group has endorsed Mirkarimi’s opponent in the Nov. 3 sheriff’s election, former Chief Deputy Sheriff Vicki Hennessy.

On Sept. 18, Mirkarimi went to the shooting range at San Francisco International Airport, took the marksmanship test and fell short of the 80 percent score needed to qualify to carry a gun, Adams said.

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Napolitano: Democrats give illegal aliens the vote

"Corruptus in Extremis"

• In the name of "reform" the Democrat Party once again sells out the citizens of the United States. . . . and the Sheeple voters bleat "We will obey you."

(Daily Caller)  -  Judge Andrew Napolitano says that “if you are an illegal alien in California, get a driver’s license, register to vote, you can vote in local, state, and federal elections in California and those votes count.”

On “Fox & Friends” Tuesday, host Steve Doocy explained, “The state of California has passed legislation that will automatically register eligible voters when they obtain or renew a driver’s license. Governor Jerry Brown says it’s a way to increase voter turnout, but critics warn the measure could add millions of illegal people to the rolls because the state allows undocumented aliens to get driver’s licenses.”

Judge Andrew Napolitano

Napolitano explained that in California, when one signs up for a driver’s license, one does not have to prove that they are in America legally. Napolitano explained that “other states… permit registration [to vote] at the time you get a driver’s license, have you go through another procedure in which you have to demonstrate citizenship.”

The new law in California would make the process “one procedure” according to Napolitano. “You may not even know that when you get your driver’s license you’re also being registered to vote. And there’s no requirement of proof of citizenship.” Napolitano argued, “All 50 states limit voting to citizens except when the state allows you to sort-of sneak in without proving your citizenship by getting a driver’s license instead.”

Napolitano explained that the argument about whether or not voting is a “fundamental right” comes down to whether or not voting “comes from our humanity like thought and speech and association and worship and self-defense? Or is it a privilege given by the government?”

Napolitano believes “the Supreme Court has wrongly said it’s a fundamental right. And once it said that, states like California decided to allow people to vote who aren’t qualified by law to vote because of the fundamental aspect.”

Napolitano argued that while it would be against the law for an illegal immigrant to vote in a federal election, “there’s really no way to monitor it. So if you are an illegal alien in California, get a driver’s license, register to vote, you can vote in local, state, and federal elections in California and those votes count.”

Napolitano emphasized, “It’s almost impossible to monitor this if the state is going to provide shelter for illegals to vote.”

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(Hope n change cartoons)