California Negative Example of State Government

If you want to learn how to govern a state, look no further than California.  Then do everything they don't. They say California is really a beautiful place.  I wouldn't know.  I've never been there and have no desire to visit.  But apparently the state richly deserves the derisive nickname of "the land of fruits and nuts."  So many terrible ideas have had their origins in California, and these ill-advised anti-capitalist ideas have a tendency to spread to the other 49 states. If you're going to successfully manage a state, you'd be better off using Texas as an example.  The state of Texas must be doing something right, because that's where people are going as they leave California. Years ago, I started a page about The California Energy Crunch of 2000, which was an energy crisis resulting entirely from rabid environmentalism, poor planning, price controls, and various other effects of leftist politics.  Californians oppose the development of every practical source of energy, but then, when there's not enough electricity to go around, they whimper when the lights go out. Decades of leftist politics: Electric Cars: Doubling Down On Dumb.  Once again, the regulators in California have decided to lead the nation in terms of vehicle emission standards, proposing to require that 15.4 percent of all vehicles sold by 2025 must be electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars, or (currently non-existent) fuel cell cars.  In case you're wondering why this all sounds familiar, it's because California is re-running the same delusional program that it ran in 1990... California Issues Clown Car Mandate.  Golden State regulators have passed sweeping emission standards requiring one in seven new cars sold in the state in 2025 be an electric or other zero-emission vehicle. ... [I]f we've learned anything in recent years, it's that industrial policy and telling consumers what they need and must have vs. what they want and find useful doesn't work.  Only the marketplace can accurately pick winners and losers.  The government, having no competition, usually picks losers.  We have also learned that climate change is an overhyped fantasy based on ideology rather than science. America's worst regulatory agency outdoes itself.  California continues its leading role as the national laughingstock of regulatory absurdity.  This week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), forged another link in its unbroken chain of disastrous environmental policies. Getting Nowhere, Very Fast.  California has a huge state debt and Washington has a huge national debt.  But that does not discourage either Governor Jerry Brown or President Barack Obama from wanting to launch a very costly high-speed rail system.  Most of us might be a little skittish about spending money if we were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.  But the beauty of politics is that it is all other people's money, including among those other people generations yet unborn. The governor can strong-arm companies with the state's new Thermageddon Law. California To Pay For High Speed Rail With Extortion.  The governor told ABC 7's "Eyewitness Newsmakers" program that environmental impact fees paid by industries that emit large amounts of greenhouse gas will help fund the big train project. Every Year Boondoggles Pile Up in California.  The left-wing idea that it's good for government to always wildly increase spending is dying a quick death these days.  But this good sense has not made it to every state in the union yet -- two disastrous states in particular; California and Illinois.  These two states have not learned the lesson about the ruinous government spending that is causing the country to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy.  Apparently, Illinois and California are vying for worst-state status.  Moody's Investment service, for instance, has rated Illinois the worst, but Standard & Poor's says it's California. What Conservatives and the GOP Dare Not Say about Immigration.  The fact is that upon being naturalized, our modern-day immigrants generally vote Democrat by wide margins — irrespective of whether upon arrival they were labeled legal or illegal.  Massive legal and illegal immigration has already so changed the California electorate that no Republican can be elected statewide anymore. Nation's largest welfare state makes deep cuts.  Advocates of welfare reform in California often cite one, eye-popping statistic as they have pressed for cuts and changes to the program in recent years:  The state has one-eighth of the nation's population but one-third of all welfare recipients. The Great Golden State Business Exodus.  One would think that given the serious nature of [California's] problems, the legislature would focus on solutions at the exclusion of all else.  Instead, lawmakers — what would we ever do without them? — found the time in 2011 to trespass even deeper into Californians' personal lives.  Topping off Sacramento's monument to foolishness is a law requiring children younger than 8, except for those taller than 4 feet 9 inches, to sit in booster seats in cars.  Previous law let kids leave their boosters at 6.  Now children who had moved out of cars seats are being forced back into them.  Actually, the law is more authoritarian — and offensive and infuriating — than it is silly. The Editor says... This is another example of incremental changes in restictive laws, and once again, the changes only move in one direction. Will the Last Job Creator to Leave California Please Turn Off the Lights?  I've written before about whether California is the Greece of America, in part because of crazy policies such as overpaid bureaucrats and expensive forms of political correctness, And we all know that California has one of the nation's greediest governments, imposing confiscatory tax rates on a shrinking pool of productive citizens.  So it is hardly surprising that the Golden State is falling behind, losing jobs and investment to more sensible states such as Texas. Businesses Exit California and Illinois.  Businesses have tad it with poor business conditions in two of the most dysfunctional states in the union, California and Illinois. ... California and Illinois have many things in common:   •   Harsh business environments   •   High tax rates   •   Both states are among the most pro-union states   •   Both states lack right-to-work laws That California and Illinois suffer from business flight and high unemployment should not be surprising. It's California business as usual as debt, taxes grow.  [Scroll down]  This sorry state of affairs is indicative of business as usual in California and provides a basis from which to examine the state's irresponsible budget practices as a whole.  California's current budget process relies heavily on the use of budget gimmicks, especially number shifting and projection altering that can create the illusion of a balanced budget. This Is the Nightmare of an Obama Second Term.  If you were wondering what living in Obama's second term would be like, wonder no longer.  We in California are living there now.  California is a one-party state dominated by a virulent Democratic Left enabled by a complicit media where every agency of local, county, and state government is run by and for the public employee unions.  The unemployment rate is 12%.  California has more folks on food stamps than any other state, has added so many benefits and higher rates to Medicaid that we call it "Medi-Cal."  Our K-12 schools have more administrators than teachers, and smaller classes but lower test scores and higher dropout rates with twice the per-student budget of 15 years ago. Business Exodus from California Accelerates.  California's infrastructure is crowded and crumbling.  The school system is in a death spiral.  The universities are overpriced and bloated with unions and bureaucrats.  The tax base is narrow and focused on the rich, many of whom are leaving.  The state's environmental laws have crippled a can-do culture with can-never-do paralysis.  An estimated 5 million residents are illegally in the state.  The official unemployment rate is 12.5%.  Counting those who have given up searching for a job and those who are working reduced hours or part time, the rate is closer to 20%.  In parts of Los Angeles, and in the water-starved Central Valley, unemployment ranges from 20% to 40%.  More than 3 million California residents receive food stamps, up 47% since 2007. SF Becomes First US City to Top $10 Minimum Wage.  The city's hourly wage for its lowest-paid workers will hit $10.24 [on 1/1/2012], more than $2 above the California minimum wage and nearly $3 more than the working wage set by the federal government. Choking on Obamacare.  Time was, American businesses could surmount such regulatory officiousness.  But government's metabolic urge to boss people around has grown exponentially and today CKE's California restaurants are governed by 57 categories of regulations.  One compels employees and even managers to take breaks during the busiest hours, lest one of California's 200,000 lawyers comes trolling for business at the expense of business. Only the connected have gun rights in California.  California's gun laws are considered by some people to be unconstitutional restrictions on self-protection.  Its concealed weapons permit law gives government officials power to capriciously mete out civil liberties — and they are.  According to the San Jose Mercury News, only 113 of the 1,781,642 residents of Santa Clara County have concealed weapons permits — and 64 of them are government officials:  judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officers. California — toxic for business.  Last year, the medical technology firm Numira Biosciences packed its bags and left Irvine for Salt Lake City.  When asked about the firm's departure, its chief executive praised Utah's quality of life but also blamed California's business environment for the move.  "The tipping point was when someone from the Orange County tax [assessor] wanted to see our facility to tax every piece of equipment I had," Michael Beeuwsaert told the Orange County Register. California's jobs engine broke down well before the financial crisis.  Everybody knows that California's economy has struggled mightily since the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession.  The state's current unemployment rate, 12.1 percent, is a full 3 percentage points above the national rate. ... But a study commissioned by City Journal using the National Establishment Time Series database, which has tracked job creation and migration from 1992 through 2008 (so far) in a way that government statistics can't, reveals the disturbing truth. California's Economic Suicide.  The 262 pages of regulations implementing California's 2006 global warming legislation, Assembly Bill 32, approved by CARB last Thursday [10/20/2011], will probably reduce employment more than it reduces emissions.  The only thing it will cap is economic growth by bleeding a patient that is already hemorrhaging red ink. California Employment at Record Low 55.4 Percent.  The percentage of working-age Californians with jobs has fallen to a record low, and employment may not return to pre-recession levels until the second half of the decade, according to a research group.  Just 55.4 percent of working-age Californians, defined as those 16 or older, had a job in July... California unemployment rises in July to 12%.  California's unemployment rate climbs two-tenths of a percentage point in July, the U.S. Department of Labor says, to 12%.  The state has the second-highest jobless rate in the nation, exceeded only by Nevada at 12.9%. San Francisco goldfish ban exposes America's liberal nutjobs.  [Scroll down]  The proposal will probably be kicked into the long-grass, as was the commission's proposed ban on the sale of kittens and puppies last year.  Other things the city has considered outlawing are MacDonald's Happy Meals, supersizing in fast food chains and circumcision.  Obviously, smoking in public places was stopped years ago.  The goldfish ban might seem like a silly story, but it does expose several liberal pathologies. The Epicenter of Progressive Contempt for the Rule of Law.  Of the many serious flaws that attach themselves to progressive ideology, perhaps the worst is the reality that the rule of law means nothing if it conflicts with the progressive worldview. ... San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey told the San Francisco Examiner he will begin thumbing his nose at federal law enforcement officials on June 1st — to comply with San Francisco's sanctuary city ordinance. California's Book Ban.  The California state legislature has passed a book-banning law.  Nobody is calling the book ban a book ban because the books the book ban bans offend homosexuals.  If the legislature had extended legislative protection to the hurt feelings of, say, Mormons or evangelical Christians, then everyone would have agreed that it's a book ban.  But it doesn't, so don't call the book ban a book ban.  You just might get banned, too. California: The Sanctuary State.  Americans are familiar with sanctuary cities and counties but now California appears to be heading toward becoming the first sanctuary state.  While Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona have passed legislation taking a tougher stand on illegal immigration, California is heading in the opposite direction with bills such as AB 540, AB 1081, AB 130, and AB 131. One law for us, another for you.  The California state Senate voted 28-8 Wednesday [6/1/2011] to exempt itself from the pointless gun-control laws that apply to the rest of the populace.  Legislators apparently think they alone are worthy to pack heat on the streets for personal protection, and the masses ought to wait until the police arrive. Chief executives say California worst place in the nation to do business.  For the seventh year in a row, a survey of chief executives has ranked California as the nation's worst state in which to do business.  More than 500 U.S. CEOs polled by Greenwich, Conn.-based Chief Executive magazine based their opinions on numerous factors, including regulations, tax policies, work force quality, education resources, quality of living and infrastructure. California Balks at Public Display of American Flag.  In the small town of Orcutt, California, a private association has raised donations to erect a flagpole and monument between a highway exit and a park-and-ride lot, at the entrance to the community's Old Town section.  The pole would hang the American flag, encircled by five pillars, one each for the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard.  The California Department of Transportation (CalTrans), however, has stymied the effort, calling it an impermissible act of "public expression." California Democrats rally around unions.  Framing the union battles taking place across the nation as a fundamental attack on working Americans, Democratic leaders on Saturday accused Republicans of scapegoating public employees for political gain.  "They are intent on dismantling the very economic ladder that lifted our middle class and made California the richest and greatest state in the greatest nation in the world," Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris told thousands of delegates and supporters gathered at the Democrats' annual convention in Sacramento. The Editor says... When you look at the state's net worth, California is not the richest state in the country, by any means.  California is broke, and nearly all the blame should be assigned to left-wing tax-and-spend Democrats. Second Amendment Takes Double Shot in California.  A double-whammy came down today against gun rights advocates in California.  First, the California Assembly voted to prohibit the open carry of unloaded handguns.  Current law had allowed unloaded weapons to be carried openly in public.  "You are disarming our citizens" while doing little to disarm criminals, said Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber.  "It is not just the right to keep, it is the right to bear arms," said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks. Guns for us, not for you.  Some of the most far-out anti-gun laws are found on the left coast, but that could change — for privileged politicians.  A California state Senate committee will consider a bill next week that grants legislators permission to carry concealed firearms.  The measure highlights the growing rift between the bureaucratic class and taxpayers who don't have the luxury of exempting themselves from bad laws. America's Most Miserable Cities.  California's troubles helped it land eight of the 20 spots on [Forbes Magazine's] annual list of America's Most Miserable Cities, with Stockton ranking first for the second time in three years. Voting with Their Feet.  The latest published data from the 2010 census show how people are moving from place to place within the United States.  In general, people are voting with their feet against places where the liberal, welfare-state policies favored by the intelligentsia are most deeply entrenched.  When you break it down by race and ethnicity, it is all too painfully clear what is happening.  Both whites and blacks are leaving California, the poster state for the liberal, welfare-state and nanny-state philosophy. California's Problem Is In Its Head.  California Gov. Jerry Brown must rapidly close a $25 billion budgetary shortfall.  But right now it seems almost a hopeless task since the state's disastrous budget is a symptom, not the cause, of California's much larger nightmare.  Take unemployment.  It currently runs 12.6% in California, the nation's second-highest rate.  Take livability.  A recent Forbes magazine survey listing the most miserable 20 cities in the nation ranked four California municipalities among the index's five worst places to live. Go Bankrupt, California, Please.  We're now 25 billion dollars in the red in California.  The governor along with his Democrat controlled legislature will never do the right thing.  They're the same folks who brought you this mess.  When Governor Brown was previously the governor he signed the Dills Act in 1978 that gave civil servants the right to collective bargaining.  He did this on his very first day in office as governor.  This revolutionary enactment was the beginning of the end or our state. Bootleg Lightbulbs Coming to California.  Old reliable, the 100-watt light bulb — safe, cheap, and bright enough to read, write, cook, shave, and put on your makeup by, will be gone January 1.  The California Energy Commission in September 2010 published its 226-page Appliance Efficiency Regulations, whereby the 100-watt incandescent light bulb will be outlawed at midnight on December 31, 2010.  Californians with self-imposed rationing, running out of both energy and common sense, have declared that consuming electrical power is a social vice.  Electric power must be curbed, along with banning Dr. Pepper and Happy Meals.  And it's not just light bulbs.  These appliance standards will regulate and ban hundreds of products including... CARB's Carbon Capers.  In a nearly unanimous vote, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) just approved a statewide cap-and-trade scheme to limit emissions of CO2 from six hundred major industrial plants, starting in 2012.  Proposition 23 on the California ballot, defeated in November, was an attempt to at least delay the state's Cap-and-Trade law, AB-32, until California's record unemployment eased.  However, the slanted description appearing on both the official Voter Guide and the ballot, written by then-State Attorney General Jerry Brown and his office, the well-funded "No-on-23" campaign, and some very heavy media bias, had Californians believing that Prop. 23 would thwart efforts to curb air pollution — i.e., smog.  So Prop 23 went down in flames, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs, and perhaps a million. Off-the-Books America.  Last week, Victor Davis Hanson wrote about the hollowed-out society in the Central Valley around his native Fresno, California. ... The elementary school that he attended as a child is now 94 percent Hispanic and well below standards in English and math.  The rural roads are "fast turning into rubble."  The irrigation cutoffs have idled tens of thousands of acres, and unemployment is 15 to 20 percent.  There are many rural "trailer-house compounds" filled with junked cars, lean-tos, and trash, but for some reason, the regulatory state does not reach out and regulate them. Missing the California of My Youth.  In what seems like a lifetime ago, Barack Obama promised to fundamentally transform the nation.  California is what a truly progressive government transformation looks like.  Thus, in a sensible America, the decline of California would be the canary call in a coal mine for the nation. Mascot Politics.  Dr. Victor Davis Hanson's quietly chilling article, "Two Californias," in National Review Online, ought to be read by every American who is concerned about where this country is headed.  California is leading the way, but what is happening in California is happening elsewhere — and is a slow poison that is being largely ignored. California sings the Blue State Blues.  Over 20 years have passed since a Republican presidential candidate carried California.  Democrats have essentially run the state since the early 1990s.  How has that worked out for Californians?  By virtually any measure, not very well.  First, though, let's get one thing straight.  Much the way frozen food manufacturers call their processed sludge nuggets "chicken," Schwarzenegger calls himself a "Republican."  His election was an aberration, more, without question, thanks to his fame than his party affiliation. Time to allow states to go bankrupt.  The idea that taxpayers in more sensible states like Indiana and Texas should have to bail out wealthy Democratic strongholds unable to operate responsibly is explosive.  Mark Steyn has even warned that secession talk could get serious in the face of such looting of the prudent. California, the neocolonial state.  California imports more cheap labor from a third world country than any other state.  California exports her prisoners.  The state of California essentially outsources a substantial amount of its energy production, importing more of its electricity than any other state.  If California were a country, the liberals in academia would be outraged at this neocolonial behavior.  Ironically it has been liberal policies that have lead to California becoming a neocolonial state. Could California Sink The Obama Presidency?  California — the most populous state in our nation — is bankrupt.  Just as is the case in Washington, D.C., nobody in The Golden State dares to say the word "bankrupt" to describe the state government right now, but it is still nonetheless true.  However, since Californians collectively defied the national trend of abandoning the bankrupting Obama-styled economic policies in the recent election, and instead voted for more of the same, the 31st state in our union is now on the fast-track for economic collapse. California's Assorted Rocks and Hard Places.  News came out on Thursday [11/11/2010] that the California budget deficit is actually closer to $25 billion, twice what we are told.  This follows from last year's $42 billion shortfall, which was closed by all sorts of one-time tax increases and gimmicks.  Here is our general dilemma in a nutshell. How Do California and the Titanic Differ?  OK, riddle fans, here's a toughie:  What's the difference between California voters and the passengers on the Titanic?  The passengers on the Titanic didn't vote to hit the iceberg.  Most Americans understand that California is sinking.  What is almost incredible is that it has voted to sink. California Wins Dumbest State Award in Landslide.  In the coming years, the unions, who have been bilking Californians in a protection-racket type scheme, will be taking to the streets in massive, destructive temper tantrums just like those out-in-the-cold workers in other failed socialist states across the big pond.  It won't be pretty.  All the while Californians have been lining the greedy pockets of union masters, they've also saddled their economy with the greenest of the green anti-pollution laws, which they've just voted overwhelmingly to keep in place. San Francisco Defends Helpless Citizens From The Scourge of Happy Meals.  CNN is reporting the San Francisco board of supervisors will formally approve a ban on most McDonald's Happy Meals today, thus addressing the most serious issue facing the otherwise untroubled city.  The board isn't just tepidly endorsing this measure — they're expected to produce enough votes to over-ride a promised veto from Mayor Gavin Newsom.  The ordinance is intended to control the distribution of toys with unhealthy food, which has become known as the "food justice movement." California: The Lindsay Lohan of States.  Listen up, California.  The other 48 states — your cousin New York excluded — are sick of your bratty arrogance. ... You've racked up nearly $70 billion in general obligation debt, and that doesn't include your $500 billion unfunded pension liability.  Your own analysts predict you'll face a hole of at least $80 billion over the next four years.  Your government's run by a brothel of environmentalists, lawyers, public-sector unions and legislative bums.  When they're not taxing or spending, they're creating regulations and commissions like the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology and the California Blueberry Commission.  Many businesses would leave if it weren't for your sunny climate. Coasting to the Left.  If this week's election returns demonstrate that the vast majority of the country is moving to the right, why do the West Coast and the Northeast continue to embrace liberalism, especially when it has led to economic disaster?  Both California and New York are on the verge of bankruptcy and, according to Forbes magazine, are hostile to business by way of high taxation and strict regulation of commerce.  California currently owes $158 billion, and New York is holding $60 billion in debt. California Dreamin'.  In a blast from the past, California voters bucked the national voting trend and returned Democrat Jerry Brown to the Governor's office he occupied in the 1970s.  While the Attorney General votes are still being counted, all other statewide offices went to Democrats.  Voters also removed the two-thirds vote requirement to pass the state budget, handing the heavily Democrat state legislature a blank check.  California is now a one-party state.  The voters want it that way. California Dreamin'.  I would like to feel elated about the elections last Tuesday, but alas, I live in California.  As the rest of the nation lurches back toward common sense, California defiantly stands as a testament to the power of delusion. ... The fact that voters keep returning to failed policies and politicians speaks to the power of propaganda, disseminated through the schools and the media.  However, it is also a dismal lesson in human nature, epitomized by Jesus' observation about a dog returning to its own vomit. The 'Golden State' Still Doesn't Get It.  The midterm elections turned into a sweeping repudiation of the Democrats' failed status quo — except, that is, in California.  There, not only did the Democrats not lose, they gained clout. The Brown Wall.  [Scroll down]  But the accomplishments stopped in the 1970s with the election of Governor Jerry Brown.  Mr. Brown expropriated the budget money that had been allocated for infrastructure — much of it raised by motor fuel taxes — and diverted it to his own leftist causes.  Aqueducts and freeways were canceled, including some that already were under construction.  Brown also blocked private construction of power plants.  His anti-American Dream was this:  If you don't build it; they won't come.  But they came anyway, and now Californians waste millions of gallons of fuel in traffic jams. The Inexplicables.  California may still have 1 billion recoverable, but untapped, barrels of oil, over a half-million acres of productive farmland taken out of production to help the three-inch delta smelt, and a great deal of natural mineral wealth and timber, but we deem ourselves wealthy enough not to need any of that, so smart are our professors, politicians, journalists, and community organizers in figuring out ways to redistribute the ill-gotten gains of agriculture, Silicon Valley, the Napa wine industry, and what manufacturing is left in California. California Circles the Drain.  The government of the once Golden State is a lead-pipe cinch to lurch into insolvency any month now.  The California State government is an estimated $19 billion in the hole.  No exact figure is possible since no budget (constitutionally required on July 1) has yet been adopted by the state legislature.  Revenues are down and spending is up.  The state continues to hire during a "hiring freeze."  To solve the crisis, the Democratic majority in the legislature demands higher taxes on top of already high taxes which are driving jobs and businesses out of the state. California's Green Nightmare.  California is the nation's laboratory in green job initiatives of the type that so many politicians in Washington, D.C., and the states see as America's economic passport to the future.  The Golden State was first in the nation in renewable energy standards, it is the home of the most stringent cap and trade legislation (called AB 32) to reduce carbon emissions, and it has poured hundreds of millions of state tax dollars into renewable energy research.  So where are all the green jobs?  A new 2010 study by the University of California-Berkeley comes to the sobering conclusion that "the green economy accounts for just 1 percent of California's jobs." Crashing and Burning, California Style .  Part of what is slowly destroying California is its move from a land of plenty to a land of locusts.  The state taxes and regulates resident companies to such an extreme extent it has driven many of them, and many tax-paying citizens, to other states.  For decades California was a place to migrate to.  Now it's suffering an exodus.  The fault lies in a political shift from being a conservative, low-tax state to a statist, high-tax nanny state. Wanted:  Grown-up governance.  At some point, the grown-ups are going to have to take over.  We're being governed by a gang of perpetual adolescents from the most liberal enclaves in America. ... The city [of San Francisco], which has thrown the Boy Scouts out of public facilities, has issued tips on how to bake "safe" marijuana-laced goodies.  It's not clear how this will contribute to the general welfare, except to create more voters with the functioning brains of 11-year-olds who keep getting hungry.  This should make it easier to recruit for one of the political parties. Progressive Paradise.  Under [Mayor Gavin] Newsom's reign, noted for imposing costly health care and "green" mandates, the city has experienced a serious business exodus that commenced long before the onset of the recession.  City nannies hadn't done much since banning plastic shopping bags a few years ago.  But nannyism gets pent-up too, so last month it released a gusher.  First target:  cell phones, whose sellers were required to calibrate the amount of radiation emitted and post it at the point of sale. Full speed ahead on health care for all.  I thought maybe this was a joke, but I researched it and found it to be utterly, jaw-droppingly, stupefyingly true:  The California Senate voted 22-14 on Jan. 28 to create what one group is calling a "Medicare for all" health-care system that would cost "about" $200 billion a year. ... Isn't this the same California that has close to a $20 billion budget deficit and is currently asking for a handout of $6.9 billion from the federal government to tide them over? Imagine No God in Our Nation's Classrooms.  All high school math teacher Bradley Johnson wanted to do was honor our nation's history and religious heritage the same way he always had.  For twenty five years, a red, white and blue-striped banner adorned his classroom walls with national maxims such as "In God We Trust," "One Nation Under God," "God Bless America," and "God Shed his Grace On Thee."  A second banner accompanied it, containing an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, "All Men are Created Equal and They Are Endowed by Their Creator."  But displaying a portion of the Declaration of Independence and other national mottos was just too offensive to the Poway Unified School District in San Diego. De Facto Shariah Law in America.  In the State of California, 7th-grade students at Excelsior Middle School in Discovery Bay, California adopted Muslim names, prayed on prayer rugs, and celebrated Ramadan under a state-mandated curriculum that requires instruction about various religions.  In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court again declined to hear legal challenges by concerned Excelsior parents, who complained that the instruction was actually religious indoctrination and that Christianity and Judaism were not given equal time and exposure. Not one nickel for California.  There isn't a single compelling reason to provide the girly-man of American gubernatorial fiscal responsibility, Arnold Schwarzenegger, with a nickel from our federal coffers.  His failing California remains the poster-child for liberal fiscal insanity and it's time for the free-range chickens to come home to roost. Let California drown, voters say.  Most Americans oppose a bailout for California, according to a Rasmussen survey.  Just 27 percent of voters believe the state should receive federal bailout money while 55 percent think the state should go bankrupt.  (For the record, states cannot declare bankruptcy.) The Editor says... Okay, so states can't declare bankruptcy.  So what?  You don't have to declare bankruptcy to be bankrupt. The Long March From California to Copenhagen.  On the one, are those who believe personal freedom and liberty trump egalitarianism and fraternity. ... On the other side are those who wish a large government to ensure an equality of result.  Their notion is that personal responsibility, talent, behavior, luck, fate, etc. do not so much determine why one is well off and another not so. California:  Running a failed state can sure be expensive.  Among the many problems California faces now:  The near-junk rating on its bonds means the state pays more in interest.  In 2020, Reuters reports, the state will pay more than $10 billion on interest alone. California is Liberalism's "Canary in the Coal Mine".  If residents of the other 49 states haven't focused on California's plight yet, they should.  In a real sense, California has become liberalism's "canary in the coal mine."  It is an instructive — and frightening — warning of the toll exacted by the kind of leftism now in vogue in Washington, D.C..  Put simply, California is in desperate fiscal straits because it has become a place where government works for only two constituencies:  Those who need public assistance, and unions.  Sacramento is so busy responding to the needs of the one and the demands of the other that the legitimate expectations of regular, taxpaying citizens have been completely ignored. Public Sector Unions Tarnish the Golden State.  It's an ugly fact of life in California.  Public sector unions are slowly, painfully and inexorably choking the life out of the (once) Golden State.  Fully 54% of state government workers — that's almost 1.8 million people — are unionized.  And the unions' primary reason for existence is maintaining the privileges that state employees enjoy, at any cost to the rest of the state. The sad story of how public employee unions have all but ruined California.  City Journal's Steve Malanga offers the most detailed and succinct history yet on how public sector unions grew from being toothless employee associations to having a virtually lock on all of the key power levers in California and how they've used that power to enrich themselves while all but ruining a once-goldern state.  As Malanga explains, what has already happened in California is well underway across the rest of the nation and in Washington, D.C. The Beholden State:  How public-sector unions broke California.  The unions' political triumphs have molded a California in which government workers thrive at the expense of a struggling private sector.  The state's public school teachers are the highest-paid in the nation.  Its prison guards can easily earn six-figure salaries.  State workers routinely retire at 55 with pensions higher than their base pay for most of their working life.  Meanwhile, what was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation's and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations.  This toxic combination — high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes — has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state. Accounting for California's Suicide.  [Scroll down]  Californians count on the wealth of farming but would prefer their rivers to remain wild rather than tapped.  They like tasteful redwood decks but demand someone else fell their trees for the wood.  Californians drive imported SUVs but would rather that you drill for oil off your shores rather than they off theirs.  They pride themselves on their liberal welfare programs, but drive out with confiscatory taxes the few left to pay for them.  Californians expect cheap imported labor to tend their lawns and clean their houses, but are incensed at sky-high welfare and entitlement costs that accompany illegal immigration.  Lock 'em up, they say — but the state is bankrupted by new prisons, constant inmate lawsuits, and unionized employees.  In short, after Californians sue, restrict, mandate, obstruct, and lecture, they also get angry that there is suddenly not enough food, fuel, water, and money to act like the gods that they think they have become. Drill, Arnold, Drill!  California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is begging for a bailout to close an $11 billion budget gap.  He should be pressing for an oil revenue-sharing deal instead. Controlling Pests or Controlling Competition?  The Pacific Legal Foundation challenges a California licensing law that would require a 30-year business veteran to become an apprentice. California Makes Cars Less Affordable:  California today became the first state in the nation to restrict automobile emissions of carbon dioxide, the same gas humans exhale.  The auto industry pointed out, to no avail, that the measure would make cars even more expensive and pressure people to buy death traps they don't feel safe driving. California:  An Obituary.  Only raw and unrestrained liberalism could have destroyed the world's 8th-largest economy.  Boasting unparalleled assets in agriculture, high technology, entertainment, and tourism, and blessed with ample energy resources, deep-water ports and ideal weather, California has nonetheless managed to turn itself into a perfect dystopia. California Democrat proposes mandatory gun registration.  A California Democrat is proposing a new law requiring residents to register their shotguns and rifles or go to jail, CBSNews.com has learned. California Teacher Union Rallies Around Bad Ideas.  The California Teachers Association (CTA), the state's largest teachers union and National Education Association affiliate, organized a statewide rally of teachers and students on March 4 to protest education spending cuts.  The CTA's "solution" indicates it is out of touch with economic and educational reality. California Dems Won't Honor Boy Scouts?  Thousands of Boy Scouts across California will be gathering this weekend to celebrate the 100th anniversary of scouting in the Golden State — but they won't have the blessing of Democrats in the California Legislature. 84 companies added to 'leaving California' list.  A list of companies moving out of or expanding outside California has grown by 84 since the start of the year, says Joe Vranich, Irvine consultant who specializes in relocating companies. Oakland allows industrial-scale marijuana farms.  Oakland's City Council late Tuesday adopted regulations permitting industrial-scale marijuana farms, a plan that some small farmers argued would squeeze them out of the industry they helped to build.  To address concerns from smaller farmers, the council pledged to create regulations on regulating small- and medium-size marijuana farms this year. Cracking California's Egg Rules.  About 150,000 hens at egg producer J.S. West Inc. appear to have scored an upgrade.  They cluck and cackle in an air-conditioned henhouse that got a $3.2 million renovation this year. ... California's egg farmers are struggling to comply with Proposition 2, the state's new guidelines on how egg-laying chickens can be kept. California:  New Is Not Necessarily Improved.  Meg Whitman would like to build a new California.  Not me.  If I had to choose, I'd opt not to build a new California, but rather to restore the "old California."  That is, I'd revive the California Republic of Old, when men married women, when murderous thugs were given the noose rather than probation, and when babies in utero were kept safe from abortion practitioners.  The regenerate California I have in mind is a place where a man's handshake is as binding as a written contract, where chastity is given a place of honor, and where citizens look to God and to their neighbors in times of trouble rather than to the Welfare State. There's No Budget, but California Is All Over the Foreign-Cow Issue.  On the brink of insolvency, California may have to pay its bills with IOUs soon.  A budget was due three months ago, and the legislature hasn't passed one.  The lawmakers can, however, point to a list of other achievements this year.  Awaiting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature, for example, is a bill that would bar the state from filming cows in New Zealand.  It's the fruit of five committee votes and eight legislative analyses.  California lawmakers also voted to form a lobster commission.  They created "Motorcycle Awareness Month," not to mention a "Cuss Free Week." Red Herring Politics.  [Scroll down]  One appointment by Governor Jerry Brown ought to tell us a lot about his ideology.  His most famous — or infamous — appointment was making Rose Bird chief justice of the California supreme court.  She over-ruled 64 consecutive death penalty verdicts and upheld none.  Apparently no judge or jury could ever give a murderer a trial perfect enough to suit Rose Bird.  To hear Rose Bird and her supporters tell it, she was just "upholding the law."  But, fortunately, the California voters saw right through that pretense, and realized that she was doing just the opposite — imposing her own personal opposition to the death penalty in the guise of interpreting the law. Sherman's March.  A California congressman wants to eliminate right-to-work laws in 22 states where workers don't have to join unions.  If even-higher unemployment is his goal, he has the right idea. You can put a tuxedo on a pig, but it's still a pig. Food stamp program gets a new name: CalFresh.  California's food stamp program has a new name, which officials hope will encourage more people to apply for the nutrition benefit:  CalFresh.  The new name and logo — an abstract representation of the diverse produce available in California — was launched Saturday [10/23/2010] at an event in Long Beach sponsored by first lady Maria Shriver to provide free medical, financial and educational services to low-income women. California judge:  handgun ammo laws unconstitutional.  A judge has ruled that key sections of a California law restricting the sale of handgun ammunition cannot be enforced because they are unconstitutional. San Francisco to Stop Detaining Arrested Immigrants for Deportation.  San Francisco, one of the first sanctuary cities in the nation, plans to end its cooperation with federal immigration officials and start releasing illegal immigrants arrested for minor offenses before they can be picked up for deportation. OC Couple Threatened With $500-Per-Meeting Fines For Home Bible Study.  An Orange County couple has been ordered to stop holding a Bible study in their home on the grounds that the meeting violates a city ordinance as a "church" and not as a private gathering.  Homeowners Chuck and Stephanie Fromm, of San Juan Capistrano, were fined $300 earlier this month for holding what city officials called "a regular gathering of more than three people".  That type of meeting would require a conditional use permit as defined by the city, according to Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), the couple's legal representation. California bans use of tanning beds by minors.  Minors in the state of California will no longer be allowed to use tanning beds after Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill on Sunday prohibiting anyone under the age of 18 from using ultraviolet tanning devices. You can get an abortion but not a tan, kid.  California continues to be an embarrassment to the other 49 states.  The state government now bans people from using tanning beds until they are 18.  But minors will continue to be able to have abortions without the permission — or even knowledge — of their parents.  So much for my body, my choice. California Bans Tanning Bed Use By Minors... But Abortions Are OK.  California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill today [10/9/2011] that bans tanning bed use by minors. ... In 1997 a California court overturned a state law that required girls get the approval of a parent or judge before having an abortion. Criminalizing business:  part II.  A recent column in the San Francisco Chronicle vividly illustrates the anti-business mindset of many Californians.  It dealt with the fact that Wal-Mart lost a referendum to allow the retailer to put a store in Inglewood, California.  According to the Chronicle columnist, Wal-Mart was "trying to bully its way into another targeted community."  Putting an issue to a vote is called "bullying" when business does it, and the community where it wants to locate is called a "target." California compared to Texas: The Editor is somewhat biased, having living in Texas all his life, and never having been to California.  Even so, it isn't necessary to make the trip to California to make this comparison. Texas Employment Update.  The Texas economy continues to expand.  Texas added 7,100 jobs overall in October.  Private job growth in October was robust with 15,900 new jobs added, offset by a loss of 8,900 government jobs.  Year-to-date, the state has gained 186,000 total jobs and 241,700 private jobs. California taxes away jobs while Texas adds them.  In 2008, 70 percent of all the jobs in the country were created in Texas.  In 2009, all of America's top five job-creating cities were in Texas.  More recently, "Texas created 129,000 new jobs in the last year — over one-half of all the new jobs in the U.S.  In contrast, California lost 112,000 jobs during the same period," according to ... a new report by the Texas Public Policy Foundation released in October. Houston, We Have a Solution.  The policies that Houston and Texas have followed are proof of concept for the conservative vision of government, which is, essentially, to keep the government off the people's backs and let a free society find its own way to prosperity. A Governor Who Prays or Preys?  Conservative commentator Bill Bennett says that anyone looking for democracy, good government, business and job growth, the best medical care, a lower cost of living and taxes should look to Texas as the model and to Rick Perry as the model governor.  Then there's California, left with a $26 billion budget deficit courtesy of its disgraced former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who fathered a "love child" with the family maid. What Texas can teach us:  If you want to see a place where the private sector in America has been booming and generating jobs, you should look at Texas.  That's my take from these absolutely fascinating numbers compiled from Bureau of Labor Statistics figures by The Business Journals, tracking the increase or decrease in private sector jobs in the ten years between April 2001 and April 2011. Texas economy called better than most states'.  Standard & Poor's gave Texas government bonds an AA+ rating on Thursday [5/5/2011] and said the state's economy will likely recover quicker than most other states. California Dreamin' — of Jobs in Texas.  It wasn't your usual legislative hearing.  A group of largely Republican California lawmakers and Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom traveled here last week to hear from businesses that have left their state to set up shop in Texas.  "We came to learn why they would pick up their roots and move in order to grow their businesses," says GOP Assemblyman Dan Logue, who organized the trip.  "Why does Chief Executive magazine rate California the worst state for job and business growth and Texas the best state?"  The contrast is undeniable. If you move to Texas, leave your Democrat politics behind. Importing Disaster: Demographic Changes Mean Democrat Future.  At a gathering some years ago, I had a political conversation with a man who had recently arrived here from Denmark.  He was advocating his home country's socialist system, which, of course, led to profound disagreement. ... When asked if he wanted to return home, his answer was no.  This is a common phenomenon.  We see it, for instance, in liberal northerners who move to the South for the lower taxes and cost of living and greater freedom, but then continue to vote for the kind of politicians who made the Northeast a nice place to leave. Texas Has Had The Best Idea, New Census Data Make Clear.  The Census Bureau released county and city populations for the last of the 50 states from the 2010 census last week, ahead of schedule.  Behind the columns of numbers are many vivid stories of how our nation has been changing — and some lessons for public policy as well. California unions stand in the way of a Texas-sized success.  In the first half of 2010, Texas saw more small business growth than any other state in the country.  During that period, it also added 178,000 jobs — twice as many as any other state.  Texas was also one of only five states to add manufacturing jobs.  California, on the other hand, lost more than 113,000 jobs from August 2009 to August 2010.  And while Texas has seen steady job growth in recent years, California was losing jobs well before the economic downturn began in 2008.  Since 2005, California has lost just under 1.3 million jobs. Texas booms while California busts.  Among the states, it has become clear there are two competing visions of political economy in America, embodied by California and Texas.  One vision involves the economic devastation that comes of an overregulated economy.  The other reveals the prosperity unleashed by smaller government. Census: Fast Growth in States With No Income Tax.  The great engine of growth in America is not the Northeast Megalopolis, which was growing faster than average in the mid-20th century, or California, which grew lustily in the succeeding half-century.  It is Texas.  Its population grew 21 percent in the last decade, from nearly 21 million to more than 25 million.  That was more rapid growth than in any states except for four much smaller ones (Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Idaho).  Texas' diversified economy, business-friendly regulations and low taxes have attracted not only immigrants but substantial inflow from the other 49 states. Texans Won't Be Driven to California's CO2 Craziness:  SUV-driving California legislators passed a bill on July 1 [2002] to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from new vehicles.  How is California going to meet these requirements?  Well, the politicians there don't really care; the automobile industry will have to figure it out and consumers will have to pay for it. California Should Copy Texas.  Last Wednesday [12/2/2009], Gov. Schwarzenegger released a new report based on research compiled by the California Energy Commission claiming that by 2100 San Francisco Bay would be more bay than San Francisco, with Fisherman's Wharf and Treasure Island under the rising waters of climate change.  His show-and-tell, which included a new Google Earth application the commission spent $150,000 to help develop, goes a long way toward explaining the once-Golden State's slide into an economic and budgetary abyss. America as Texas vs. California.  Texans on average believe in laissez-faire markets with an emphasis on individual responsibility.  Since the '80s, California's policy-makers have favored central planning solutions and a reliance on a government social safety net.  This unrelenting commitment to big government has led to a huge tax burden and triggered a mass exodus of jobs. ... Second, Californians have largely treated environmentalism as a "religious sacrament" rather than as one component among many in maximizing people's quality of life. Texas population booms amid lean times.  While bubbles burst around the nation, Texas booms.  U.S. Census estimates released Wednesday [12/23/2009] show that Texas added more residents than any other state in the year ending July 1.  The Lone Star State has 478,000 more people than it did a year ago — roughly the equivalent of packing up all of Fresno, Calif., and moving it here.  Why the growth?  Try looking for work in Fresno, where the unemployment rate is nearly 16 percent. California is overregulated, overtaxed, and just plain over.  Unemployment is higher than 12.2 percent as of September.  Business costs are almost 23 percent higher than other states on average.  Migration out of the state is at an all time high.  A map by United Van Lines shows a strong demand for moving trucks as residents leave California for other destinations, particularly Texas.  More Californians would leave if they could sell their houses, but the Golden State's real estate market has tanked as well.  It has the fourth-highest foreclosure rate of any state. Texas Shows Its Swagger in New Population Estimates.  [Scroll down]  Texas over the decades has had low taxes (and no state income tax), low public spending and regulations that encourage job growth.  It didn't have much of a housing bubble or a housing price bust.  Under Govs. George W. Bush and Rick Perry, it has placed tight limits on tort lawsuits, and has seen an influx of both corporate headquarters and medical doctors. Low-tax Texas beats big-government California.  [Over the last ten years,] Texas has been teaching some lessons to which the rest of the nation should pay heed.  They are lessons that are particularly vivid when you contrast Texas, the nation's second most populous state, with the most populous, California.  Both were once Mexican territory, secured for the United States in the 1840s.  Both have grown prodigiously over the past half-century.  Both have populations that today are about one-third Hispanic.  But they differ vividly in public policy and in their economic progress — or lack of it — over the last decade. Global Warming on Trial.  In the past few years, there have been many court cases concerning the actions of governments to the alleged threat of global warming.  The latest has been filed by Texas against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with respect to the Endangerment Finding of Carbon Dioxide (CO2).  Texas has filed two petitions in federal court.  The first is a request for review of the endangerment finding, which is intended to examine the science behind global warming. How Texas Escaped the Housing Crisis.  It's one of the great mysteries of the mortgage crisis:  Why did Texas — Texas, of all places! — escape the real estate bust?  Only a dozen states have lower mortgage foreclosure and default rates, and all of them are rural places like Montana and South Dakota, where they couldn't have a real estate boom if they tried. Obama's Quiet War on Red States.  President Obama is quietly but gleefully sticking it to red states, which by virtue of less government, lower taxes, fewer regulations, and open shops are typically better off than blue states of the Northeastern, Midwestern, and Californian phyla. ... For years, states like New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and California have all marched lockstep in accord with liberal orthodoxies — with similar disastrous results. Dallas:  Fastest growing U.S. city.  The booming Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area added more residents during the past decade than any other city in the United States. ... Dallas's attractions include a very favorable business climate, according to Mayor Tom Leppert.  There's no corporate income tax, building costs are relatively reasonable and regulations are minimal.  "It's a great place to do business," he said, "especially attractive for companies from high-tax states." The EPA's Anti-Prosperity Agenda.  On Labor Day, President Obama pledged to "keep fighting every single day, every single hour, every single minute to turn this economy around and put people back to work."  If job creation is such an overarching priority, the president might take a closer look at the recent barrage of job-suffocating actions from his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  The president might also look at Texas, where job creation and environmental improvement have occurred simultaneously and at a pace far above the national average. California sings the Blue State Blues.  Indeed, by virtually every business measure conceivable Texas is better than California.  Texas has a lower unemployment rate (8.1 to California's 12.4), it exports more than any other state in the union (a record previously held by California), and it has a lower home foreclosure rate (California is fourth highest in the nation compared to Texas's ranking of 29th).  Texas also imposes fewer regulations on its businesses than does California.  Apparently, being friendly to business rather than hostile to it has its advantages. California Fleeing.  Just when you thought things couldn't get worse on the left coast, along comes more bad news for the Golden State.  Across the country, Republican state legislatures and governors are adopting a new economic development strategy:  Raid California for its jobs and businesses.  At least three Republican governors have said as much in interviews.  The idea is to offer lower taxes, a more business-friendly atmosphere and the right to be left alone from overzealous regulators. The Texas Jobs Panic.  The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported this summer that Texas created 37% of all net new American jobs since the recovery began in June 2009.  Texas by far outpaced every other state, including those with large populations like New York and California and those with faster-growing economies, like North Dakota.  Other states have lower unemployment rates than Texas's 8.2%, though that is below the national average and the state is also adding jobs faster than any other. The nanny state knows best: New 2010 laws:  Cooking to texting.  From same-sex marriage in New Hampshire to payday loans in Kentucky, new state laws taking effect on New Year's Day will change the way people live.  California becomes the first state to bar restaurants from cooking with trans fat — partially hydrogenated oils that have been linked to strokes and heart disease. The tyranny of visions:  part II.  California has long had more than its fair share of busybodies with a vision of the world in which it is necessary for them to force other people to do Good Things.  One of the latest examples is a recent ruling by one of the many busybody commissions in California that people who build houses, or just remodel their homes, will in the future have to have more fluorescent lights and even install motion sensors to control lights – all in the name of saving energy. Totally Committed:  What would we do without the California Legislature?  How could we survive without the guidance of environmentalists?  Oh how our lives would be meaningless without the Legislature taking care of our every need.  Who else can protect us from ourselves? It's Official — Belmont Bans Smoking In Some Homes.  Thought to be the first of its kind in California, the ordinance declares secondhand smoke a public nuisance and extends the city's current smoking ban to include multi-unit, multi-story residences.  Though Belmont and some other California cities already restrict smoking in multi-unit common areas, Belmont is the first city to extend secondhand smoke regulation to the inside of individual apartment units. Anti-smoking Efforts Go Too Far.  How far has the anti-smoking movement come in just the past four years?  Much further than many of its most ardent activists would have dreamed of in the 1970s, when the notion of smoking bans first surfaced and was met largely with derision. … Of course, as with most limitations on personal freedom, California leads the way. California City Says Secondhand Smoke is a Nuisance.  Smokers, beware:  This bedroom community near San Francisco may soon put you in the same category as rodents, junk cars and weeds. Officials in California Town Say Smoking Ban Is Working.  Ten weeks after they enacted the most draconian smoking ban in the nation, city officials in Calabasas, Calif., say the rules are having the desired impact — reducing exposure to the secondhand smoke that can accumulate when smokers congregate outdoors and near building entrances. Private property issues: The left's vision:  Santa Monica, California, has decreed a fine of $2,500 a day for not cutting your hedges!  Has someone discovered some terrible health hazard or other danger from hedges that are too high?  Not at all.  The politicians who run Santa Monica have simply decided that people should not be able to build a high wall of hedges around themselves. Barbara Boxer's World of Development Restriction and "Affordable Housing":  "Liberal" Senators — and many others — have repeatedly wrung their hands over a lack of "affordable housing" in California.  Meanwhile, they are doing all they can to prevent any housing from being built on ever more vast areas of land. How Californians are being escheated.  Escheat is a feudal concept that arose from the despotism of the Dark Ages.  It stemmed from the principle that property rights depend upon the sufferance of the sovereign, and when a person dies or disappears without heirs, his property reverts to the feudal lord.  California revived this medieval doctrine in 1959 and began seizing personal assets on the smarmy pretext that after a few years of account or safe-deposit box inactivity, property is obviously "lost," and the state needs to "protect" it by selling it off and depositing the proceeds into the general fund.  Today in California, no one's property is safe. Tyranny lite: Public service or self-service?  In a free market, as Forbes magazine says, your reward is a function of how much you contribute to the economy, but in a regulated market it's how much you contribute to politicians.  Sound familiar?  It should, especially to Californians.  In New York, it is the reason a taxi cab license is worth $600,000 (because of fares rigged by paid-off politicians).  In California, the cost of a vast range of services gets skewed by high pay and benefits for public employees. Speeding, Parking Tickets on Rise as Government Revenue Source.  Drivers across the country, beware — a heftier fine could be coming to a dashboard near you.  Faced with rising deficits and dwindling revenues, many states and local municipalities are turning to increased traffic and parking fines to fill their coffers.  In California, the cost of a "fix-it ticket" nearly tripled on Jan. 1, meaning that drivers in the Golden State can pay up to $100 for having a broken headlight — an infraction that didn't even garner a citation years ago. California: No Gun Photos Allowed.  A nine-year-old is almost suspended from a Los Angeles Unified School District school because a substitute teacher discovered photographs of him and his brother shooting firearms.  The photos were taken when their aunt, a police firearms instructor, took them for some safety training. California city shuts down girl's lemonade stand.  Eight-year-old Daniela Earnest has made lemonade out of lemons in more ways than one this week.  Hoping to raise money for a family trip to Disneyland, the Tulare girl opened a lemonade stand Monday [8/3/2009].  But because Daniela didn't have a business license, the city of Tulare shut it down the same day. What ever happened to respecting our elders?  An 82-year-old California woman says an officer cited her for taking too long to cross an intersection.  Mayvis Coyle insists when she entered the crosswalk the signal was green, but it turned red before she reached the other side where an officer was waiting with a $114 ticket.  "He treated me like a six year old, like I don't know what I'm doing," Coyle said. California police state:  The totalitarians are fully in control of America's largest state.  The California Supreme Court ruled 4-3 last Thursday [1/24/2002] that police in the state may search cars if a driver fails to produce a license or registration, regardless of whether the officer has a warrant. California Assembly Expunges Santa Barbara Drilling Vote.  The California State Assembly is refusing to provide the names of assemblymen who voted to ban oil recovery off the coast of Santa Barbara.  Twenty-eight members supported the ban, but their votes cannot be found in the official state database.  Assembly leaders expunged the votes in order to spare lawmakers running for re-election an official record of their controversial decision. The Editor says... How can we have a representative government if the legislators conduct secret ballots? Brown calls 1996 anti-affirmative action law unconstitutional.  Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown has told the California Supreme Court that Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action measure passed by voters in 1996, violates the U.S. Constitution.  The state attorney general's stance marks the second time in six months that he has determined that ballot measures approved by California voters were unconstitutional. Tyranny In the Name of Progress: California court bans religious objections to same-sex pregnancies.  Once again, judges in California have taken sides in the culture wars.  On Monday [8/18/2008], in North Coast Women's Care v. Benitez, the Golden State's highest court ruled that doctors may not rely on their religious principles to refuse in-vitro fertilization for same-sex couples.  The decision runs roughshod over the First Amendment's free-exercise clause, seeking to supplant Judeo-Christian principles with the state-imposed religion of secularism.  This is a false choice under the federal Constitution, which makes room for both. California's bumbler in a black robe.  After reading Walker's decision, Ed Whelan, a constitutional law authority and president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, concluded that Walker was "intoxicated by his own bias."  Yet, this latest decision marks the third time Walker has been rebuked by appellate courts since he was appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan. California golden for legal shakedowns.  California has earned another dubious distinction, this one laid at the doorstep of a "predatory" legal community.  The state, particularly Los Angeles and Humboldt counties, was declared the nation's second-worst "judicial hellhole" by the American Tort Reform Association. Wasted money: Bullet train's $98-billion cost could be its biggest obstacle.  The ambitious plan to connect Anaheim and San Francisco with high-speed trains has encountered plenty of obstacles, including intensifying resistance from wealthy and poor communities lying in the track's path. Bullet train cost estimates rise to $98.5 billion.  California's bullet train will cost an estimated $98.5 billion to build over the next 22 years, a price nearly double any previous projection and one likely to trigger political sticker shock, according to a business plan scheduled to be unveiled Tuesday [11/1/2011].  In a key change, the state has decided to stretch out the construction schedule by 13 years, completing the Southern California-to-Bay Area high speed rail in 2033 rather than 2020. A State of Total Insanity.  It turns out that the chief psychologist for the state's prison system earned $838,706 — last year alone!  To be precise, the shrink earned somewhere between $261,408 and $308,640 in salary, with the remainder coming from bonuses or cashing in unused sick leave.  This is not an anomalous case.  Of the ten highest-paid California state employees (all earning more than a half-million bucks a year), seven worked for California's grotesquely dysfunctional prison system.  Of those, four were prison doctors or dentists. California pays prisons guards for attending Las Vegas convention.  The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has set aside about $350,000 to pay several hundred corrections officers while they attend their union's annual convention later this month in Las Vegas.  The arrangement with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association is unique among the state's collective bargaining agreements. The Boondoggle Express.  The largest construction boondoggle in recorded human history continues to unfold in the Central Valley of California.  The initial segment of Obama's pet project, a high-speed rail line from Merced to Bakersfield, just had its first announced cost overrun.  With costs jumping from $7.1 billion to a staggering $13.9 billion, the project now has doubled in price even before a single shovelful of earth is turned.  Now that is the seat-of-the-pants, lets just make up a number, government contracting that the Democrats and the unions so dearly love. Hi-speed train to financial ruin in California.  Federal spending for high-speed rail is coming under close Congressional scrutiny.  Both political parties have begun to recognize the enormous capital costs required for another Solyndra style payoff; in this case the billions of Federal dollars needed to fund a lucrative union-only jobs program. California, The "Failed State".  Do a web search with the words "failed state" and names like Somalia, Haiti, and Sudan will appear on your computer screen.  Unfortunately, the 31st state in our union — California — is looking more and more like a "failed state" as well. California makes huge payouts for some workers' unused time off.  Contracts cap unused vacation balances at 80 days but allow exemptions for those who are needed in emergencies or who perform 'critical' work.  Some have retired with six-figure compensation checks. California High-Speed Rail Still on Track to Nowhere.  The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) in California has released a devastating report on the California High-Speed Rail project.  The report highlights the follies of the project managers and the crippling fiscal impact the project will continue to have on state and federal-level coffers.  The California High-Speed Rail Act, which is now in its 15th year since being passed in 1996, established the California High-Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) and detailed a plan to establish high-speed rail in California by 2020.  The project has been bogged down by numerous delays and constant calls for additional funding. More about high-speed rail boondoggles. California's triple whammy.  California triple whammy required spendaholics at government's helm running up perpetual double-digit, billion-dollar annual budget deficits papered over in the current year, to be fretted over in the next.  Following close behind was an addictive need to issue billions in government bonds, which are nothing more than drawing cash on a promise to pay it back. "Hi, I'm California, And I'm Addicted to Spending.  With less than 2 months in office, Governor Brown has already hinted that California's famous "Proposition 13" might need to be undone.  In case you've forgotten, this was a landmark ballot proposition that drew a record number of voters to the precincts in 1978.  It passed in a landslide, and imposed a statewide limit on the rate at which local counties and cities could levy property taxes. California Declares Fiscal Emergency.  Jerry Brown, California's governor, declared a state of fiscal emergency on Thursday [1/20/2011] for the government of the most populous US state to press lawmakers to tackle its $25.4 billion budget gap.  Democrat Brown's declaration follows a similar one made last month by his predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor. $69 million in California welfare money drawn out of state.  More than $69 million in California welfare money, meant to help the needy pay their rent and clothe their children, has been spent or withdrawn outside the state in recent years, including millions in Las Vegas, hundreds of thousands in Hawaii and thousands on cruise ships sailing from Miami. Creating Poverty Through 'Social Justice'.  In the story about social justice not working in San Francisco, we witness the creation of special interest groups, via legislation and regulation, which are literally inserted into the free market process to create wealth for entities that would otherwise not be needed in the free market Capitalist economic system.  By virtue of San Francisco's social justice legislation and regulation, wealth has been extracted from the taxpayers, unnecessarily, via the process of government procurement, to reward the unproductive.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is Progressive, Socialist, Marxist, wealth redistribution fashioned for the Capitalist economic system.  It's here and it is happening... right now. Why California Is Bankrupt.  By now, the entire world has heard that California can no longer pay its bills.  The amount of money going out exceeds the amount coming in. ... To the outsider, California's dilemma is paradoxical.  After all, this is home to Silicon Valley and high technology.  Geniuses are everywhere, and the state is renowned for being on the cutting edge on all issues from sex to science.  Brilliance abounds, EXCEPT in state government because California is cursed with a gaggle of extreme tax and spend liberals in the State Assembly. California School Spending Soared ... On Administrators.  California schools, like the rest of state and local government, have pleaded poverty as the recession and housing bust abruptly ended the tax-revenue boom.  But a study of 52 California school districts by Pepperdine University showed that K-12 spending rose 21.9% from fiscal 2003-2004 to 2008-2009, outpacing state income growth and inflation.  On a per-student basis, spending jumped 25.8%, because attendance declined 3.1%. Giving Failure a Pass.  The Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest in California, spends $10 million a year to "house," with full pay and benefits, about 160 teachers deemed unsuitable for the classroom, according to "Failure Gets a Pass," a recent series in the Los Angeles Times.  "If I had my way, I would fire [all of them], and they would not get another d----- penny," LAUSD superintendent Ramon C. Cortines told the Times.  "They're milking the system." California School Spends $10G a Year to Teach AP Spanish to Kids Who Speak Spanish.  A middle school in Southern California is spending $10,000 a year to teach Advanced Placement Spanish to 35 of its 650 students — and all but one of them are already fluent in Spanish.  Thirty-four of the kids in the AP class are from Mexico or are the children of Mexican immigrants.  They all grew up speaking Spanish at home. California Supreme Court OKs In-State Tuition for Illegal Immigrants.  Illegal immigrants can get in-state tuition at California colleges if they graduated from a high school in the state, the California Supreme Court ruled.  "The ruling is the first of its kind in the nation," the Los Angeles Times' Maura Dolan and Larry Gordon report, and though just ten other states offer such benefits, this ruling makes challenges to those laws less likely. Financial Aid for Illegal Students OK'd.  The Assembly Higher Education Committee approved two bills on Tuesday [3/15/2011] allowing college students who are in the state illegally to receive financial aid.  Dubbed the California Dream Act, AB130 allows illegal immigrants to receive privately funded college scholarships, and AB131 allows them to receive taxpayer-funded financial aid such as Cal Grants.  Currently, illegal students who spend at least three years in California high schools pay only the in-state tuition rate — a significant cost savings over legal citizens from other states who are attending California colleges.  That benefit was provided by AB540, which passed in 2001. Taxpayers Oppose the "Billion-Dollar Fish Fry" Project.  Special interests are pushing S. 27 as a way to "settle" their two-decade-old lawsuit against the federal government (specifically, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) to restore the salmon population to the historical outlines of San Joaquin River.  Even though the targeted segment of riverbed has been dry for 75 years (thanks in part to a dam California voters approved in 1933), these same activists are prepared to spend considerable taxpayer resources in an attempt to bring back a minimum of 500 salmon to the area. California bill would give newborns $500.  Happy birthday, baby, here's $500, courtesy of California taxpayers.  The state's Legislature is considering a plan for taxpayers to provide a tax-free, long-term investment account to every baby born in California, regardless of his or her parents' financial or immigration status. $1-Billion Affordable Housing Bond Measure May Go to Voters in L.A..  A $1-billion bond measure that would help provide housing for thousands of low-income residents and enable others to become first-time homeowners is likely to appear on the Los Angeles ballot in November. Why Buying Government Bonds is a Bad Investment for Yourself, and Our Future:  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spends 80% of its budget on administrative overhead, while private charities are prosecuted for fraud if more than 20-30% of donations goes for staff.  In California, there are an average of 132 administrators for every 100 teachers in the public schools, while there are only 18 per 100 teachers in the parochial schools.  Average cost per high-school student:  $5200 public vs. $2200 private. What Should We Expect from Smaller Classes?  In a thoughtful review of studies of class size and academic performance in last November's Scientific American, Ronald G. Ehrenberg and colleagues point out class-size reduction has one obvious drawback:  "It costs plenty."  They note the state of California alone has spent more than $1.5 billion annually over the past several years to reduce class sizes to 20 or fewer in kindergarten through third grade …with only a "tiny effect." California At The Breaking Point.  A new Stanford study says California's public-employee retirement funds are $500 billion in the hole.  It's news that unions and their candidate, Jerry Brown, don't want to hear. Public-sector employees are the new fat cats.  In California, 9,111 retired government workers have pensions of more than $100,000.  One retiree draws an annual pension of $509,664.  Among retired teachers, 3,065 receive more than $100,000.  One gets $285,460.  Pensions for retired state workers and teachers will rise 2 percent this year, though Social Security recipients aren't getting any cost-of-living increase.  The increase in California isn't tied to inflation. Pension Tsunami:  That approaching wave of pension debt is a lot bigger than it looks.  The purpose of this site is to provide an overview of the multiple pension crises that are about to drown America's taxpayers.  Our primary focus is on California, but we also track other states, corporate pensions, social security and international trends. In a Welfare State, How Much Is 'Enough'?  California is imploding.  Public-sector unions there, and across the country, are swallowing budgets.  In California alone, pension costs have gone up 2,000 percent in a decade.  At the national level, Obamacare has done little to fix — and much to hurt — America's long-term entitlement mess.  Already, America's structural deficit has tripled since 2007.  Economist Price Fishback has just published a paper finding that America spends more on social welfare than socialist Sweden (though we spend it differently). Trickle-Down Misery in L.A..  The city is chin-deep in California's trickle-down misery, and last week Richard Riordan, who was L.A. mayor from 1993 to 2001, coauthored with Alexander Rubalcava — an investment adviser — a Wall Street Journal column declaring the city's fiscal crisis "terminal." Schwarzenegger budget would eliminate welfare.  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked lawmakers Friday to eliminate the state's welfare program starting in October and dramatically scale back in-home care for the elderly and disabled as part of his May budget revision to close a $19.1 billion deficit. Bye Bye, CalWORKs.  In the early 1990s, Bill Clinton campaigned on a promise to "end welfare as we know it."  Republicans in Congress called his bluff, and the result — the landmark 1996 welfare-reform bill — ushered in a decade of plummeting welfare rolls and declining poverty.  Now California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, no one's idea of a staunch conservative, has done Clinton one better:  He has called for the end of cash welfare in California, period. Credit card caper is L.A. County's next bombshell.  Some Probation Department employees apparently have been ripping off taxpayers, buying personal items such as TVs, video games and barbecue grills on county-issued credit cards. Derelict Legislature.  As states start to rein in pension costs, California's legislature remains lost in space, nixing even a modest reform to save itself $110 billion over 30 years.  Are there any signs of intelligent life out there? The Next Big Crisis:  State Bankruptcies.  Many say that the situation in Greece is a harbinger of what is coming to the United States.  They are right.  But first it will come to states like New York, California and Michigan, which are stretched way beyond their means and deeply in debt. The Editor says... Please note that New York, California and Michigan are three of the so-called "blue states".  Wherever Democrats predominate, prosperity cannot endure, because liberals abhor capitalism. California judge denies Schwarzenegger's minimum wage order.  Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette today [7/16/2010] denied Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's request to immediately compel State Controller John Chiang to pay state employees minimum wage. 800k Salary For California City Manager; 100k For Part Time Employees.  Bell is one of the poorest cities in Los Angeles County, and it pays its city manager about $800,000. ... His salary is double what city managers make in surrounding areas, as is the $457,000 salary that Bell city pays it chief of police. For Whom Bell, California Tolls.  It tolls, of course, for public employees and for Democrats, the party almost exclusively linked to big labor, big government, and big labor in big government.  Bell, California, a small municipality in Los Angeles County with a population of 40,000, has come to symbolize public employee rot.  Bell's average resident earns under $30,000 per year, and its unemployment rate hovers around 16%, even higher than the high statewide rate for California (over 12%).  Yet we learned from the Los Angeles Times that Bell was run by Chief Administration Officer Robert Rizzo (D), bringing down a salary of $800,000, and by Police Chief Randy Adams, earning $457,000.  There must certainly be a lot of streets being swept and drunk drivers being ticketed in this clean and orderly piece of America. Prosecutors detail steps Bell leaders allegedly took to hide high salaries.  Court documents accuse former City Administrator Robert Rizzo of ordering an employee to draft false contracts and other records to conceal how much he and council members made. This Bell Is the Chime of Freedom.  The saying goes, you get what you pay for.  To the working class citizens of Bell city, California, their hard-earned cash got them a sleazy, overpaid and corrupt government run by Democrats.  The government officials got rich.  Today [9/21/2010], thankfully, eight of them — every single one a Democrat — also got arrested. Media white-washes Bell, California jail-birds' party status.  They're gone, wearing jumpsuits, all eight former officials of Bell, the modest California city whose citizens, for 25 years, were plundered by shamelessly corrupt Democrats. Corruption As Usual.  In addition to Bell and Irwindale, two other Los Angeles suburbs have recently been disgraced by public corruption.  The former mayor of Temple City recently pleaded no contest to bribery and other charges and will do 16 months.  In Vernon, a tiny town of 100 residents, city managers were making salaries of $1.6 million and enjoying perks like first-class air travel and $800-per-night hotel rooms. Californina town that fired all employees and outsourced all services is thriving.  It's not exactly a mystery why California is in such trouble.  From the local governments to the statehouse, it's one of the worst governed states in America. Change Club Med Environment at Club Fed.  Unleashing criminals from American jails onto American streets is determinately criminal.  But still, the debate on American incarceration continues to flare up due to tough economic times and because our country spends roughly $50 billion annually to incarcerate public nuisances and dangerous thugs.  Shockingly, the annual cost per prisoner in California is $50,000.  No wonder there has been a violent push for the privatization of prisons and the revamping of the American legal system. New K-12 school in Los Angeles costs taxpayers $578 million.  There's been an ongoing budget crisis in Los Angeles this year.  Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was at one point threatening to shut city services down two days a week to make ends meet.  Despite this, it does not appear that the city has been cutting back. L.A.'s 'Taj Mahal' School's Real Cost.  For anyone who ever doubted bureaucrats' ability to spend, one need look only at Los Angeles' newest public school, the most expensive ever built.  If only the education inside was as rich.  With a price tag of $578 million, the new Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools is an impressive building — perhaps indicative of what some call the Los Angeles Unified School District's edifice complex. How does a $578 million school get built amid cuts, layoffs in L.A.?  A football-field-sized lawn — lined with walks and trees — stretches from the street to a five-story, glass-front building in this otherwise scruffy neighborhood just west of downtown skyscrapers. Let states go bankrupt.  After two years of bailouts, "stimulus" spending, TARP and earmarks, the country took a deep breath and is now beginning a discussion about the unsustainable trajectory of federal expenditures and the reforms necessary to right the country's fiscal ship.  This is all good and healthy.  However, Washington is not the only place with an overspending problem. Taxes: A "Third Income Tax" To Fund Public Education?  California, with an average statewide unemployment rate of over 12% (in some regions the rate is over 20%) and a budget deficit of somewhere between $10 and $15 billion, is considering the imposition of a third income tax.  The additional income tax rate would vary, according to which region of the state one lives in, and would be imposed directly by school districts and county governments.  Many of California's public school districts (there are over 1000 of them) are themselves broke, just like the state government. Texas Shines Big in the 2010 Census.  The Census Bureau last week released county and city populations for the last of the 50 states from the 2010 Census last week, ahead of schedule. Behind the columns of numbers are many vivid stories of how our nation has been changing — and some lessons for public policy, as well. ... The lesson is that high taxes and strong public employee unions tend to stifle growth and produce a two-tier society like coastal California's.  The eight states with no state income tax grew 18 percent in the last decade.  The other states (including the District of Columbia) grew just 8 percent. Will California Tax Itself to Prosperity?  [Scroll down]  Ideology still trumps reality in California, even in this new, "post Arnold" era.  And so it was that, less than twenty-four hours after his inauguration, Governor Jerry Brown began laying the groundwork for raising taxes in California, rather than cutting government spending.  The problem with the state budget, so the Governor reasoned, was not that politicians had spent too much or that government agencies are wasteful.  No, no, Californians aren't taxed enough — they've been given an "unfair" break on their property taxes via the state's famous, 32-year-old "Proposition 13," and if that could be undone, then the state budget would be fixed. California Stealin'.  Desperation grabs for revenue are nothing new in politics, but California is once again leading the way in creative financing.  To help close yet another gaping budget deficit, now estimated to be $7 billion this year and reach as high as $20 billion next, Sacramento lawmakers have authorized a 10% increase in the amount of taxes withheld from worker paychecks starting November 1 and through 2010. Tax Increases, Coming To A Theater Near You.  In only 100 days and change, President Barack Obama has committed $6.5 trillion to waste, fraud and abuse.  That's $6,500,000,000,000.00, which is more than all the costs of World War I and World War II combined.  And you think it can't get worse?  Believe me, IT CAN.  Things have gotten so bad that, even in my home state of California, a Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is urging support for a massive $16 billion tax hike which is deceptively masquerading as a measure to put a lid on out-of-control government spending.  You read that right:  A massive tax-hike — Proposition 1A — is being peddled to the people as a measure to control spending. RINO alert! California governor wants to tax golf, auto repairs.  In California, Schwarzenegger wants to help close a nearly $42 billion budget deficit by taxing rounds of golf, auto repairs, veterinary care, amusement park and sporting event admissions and appliance and furniture repairs.  Democratic Gov. David Paterson in New York has proposed levies on MP3 downloads, taxi rides, movies, concerts, sporting events, and personal services such as haircuts, manicures and massages.  Schwarzenegger's fellow Republican in Utah, Gov. Jon Huntsman, has shelved a proposal to tax attorney and accounting services but promises to bring it back next year. The Editor says... Why not tax illegitimate children, illegal immigrants, and those hubcaps that rotate backwards? Sides square off in fight to hike tax on tobacco.  Come November, Californians will be asked to impose the biggest tax increase ever on tobacco products, a change that healthcare advocates believe will reduce cigarette consumption, but some officials think will increase cigarette smuggling. Benedict Arnold.  Just over five years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger swept into power in California, vowing to crush the "spending addicts" responsible for the state's crushing budget deficit and to thwart Sacramento Democrats who saw taxpayers as ATMs.  "The people of California have been punished enough.  From the time they get up in the morning and flush the toilet, they are taxed.  Then they go and get a coffee, they are taxed.  They get into their car, they are taxed.  They go to the gas station, they are taxed. ..." Lawmakers consider $1.50-per-pack cigarette tax hike.  For years tobacco companies have successfully fought off attempts by California lawmakers and health groups to increase the cigarette tax.  But next month, as the state grapples with the worst financial crisis in recent history, that may change.  Lawmakers will consider a proposal to hike cigarette taxes by $1.50 per pack and raise $1.2 billion annually.  During the last decade, cigarette makers have spent tens of millions of dollars to kill 14 straight attempts to make smokers pay more. Smokers face a hit as tobacco taxes spike.  However they satisfy their nicotine cravings, tobacco users are facing a big hit as the single largest federal tobacco tax increase ever takes effect Wednesday [4/1/2009].  Tobacco companies and public health advocates, longtime foes in the nicotine battles, are trying to turn the situation to their advantage.  The major cigarette makers raised prices a couple of weeks ago, partly to offset any drop in profits once the per-pack tax climbs from 39 cents to $1.01. Lawyers: Target sued:  website not accessible to the blind.  The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), represented by Berkeley's Disability Rights Advocates as well as two law firms, has sued discounter Target, alleging that it violates California disabled-rights law because its website is not operable by blind computer users. ADA Lawsuit Abuse:  Businesses of all sizes and types … have been targeted by what they call "ADA frequent filers" who file look-alike lawsuits where a single plaintiff and his/her lawyers file lawsuits alleging the same violation against numerous small businesses in a particular area. … For example, one plaintiff specializes in alleging toilet paper dispenser heights don't meet the ADA-required 40 inches, causing him emotional pain, humiliation and physical injuries.  He has filed more than 700 ADA lawsuits in California and collected millions from California small businesses in settlements.  Another plaintiff has filed more than 1,300 ADA access lawsuits since 1998; many against small, family-owned Northern California wineries.  Another plaintiff targeted more than 300 businesses in San Diego, using the same attorney to file all the cases. Why Lawsuit Abuse Continues in California:  California's business climate suffered another blow [in May 2005] when the Senate judiciary committee killed SB 855, a measure that would have closed another loophole for unscrupulous attorneys who shake down California's small businesses. Frivolous Lawsuits in California:  A rapidly emerging source of frivolous, shakedown lawsuits is the Americans with Disabilities Act, more specifically the California version of that federal law.  Restaurants, hotels, and businesses of all types have become targets of lawsuits for ADA violations.  The major problems include an inability of businesses to get certification that their business complies with the law, a lack of protection from future lawsuits when the violation is settled, and no time to fix a violation before a plaintiff sues.  These problems discourage compliance with ADA because a plaintiff can sue anyway. Radical environmentalism and restrictive environmental laws: California imposes energy standards on chargers for mobile devices.  California's cellphones, tablet computers, power tools and hundreds of other portable electronic devices will be required to have energy-stingy battery chargers beginning next year.  The California Energy Commission, by a 3-0 vote Thursday [1/12/2012], approved first-in-the-nation efficiency standards designed to drive stakes through the hearts of about 170 million so-called vampire charging systems that waste as much as 60% of the electricity they suck from outlets. The Editor says... How can anyone say with any certainty that any power has been "wasted"?  The "wasted" power resulting from less than 100% efficiency is dissipated as heat.  That is only "wasted" energy in places where air conditioning is in use.  In all other cases, that heat contributes to the warmth of the house (or other building), supplementing the heating system.  In any event, the power "wasted" amounts to only a few watts.  The transformer outside your house "wastes" more power than that, even if you turn off all your lights and appliances.  It is an undeniable and unavoidable fact that all electric appliances and all power-generating systems are less than 100% efficient.  Conservation is not an energy source.  If California is desperate enough for electric power to go to this extreme, the solution is increased energy production. California Global Warming Law Choking Food Processors.  As California's unemployment rate hovers above 12 percent, even the state's Democratic leaders — notorious for regulating, taxing and complaining about California's business community — are talking about jobs.  They are championing the occasional job expansion in Silicon Valley (i.e., a new Dell research and development center) and proposing their jobs plans, even if such plans ignore the reasons businesses aren't growing here. California's Green Power Crisis.  Among the many difficulties that the state of California has been facing, one in particular is looming larger and larger:  the power problem.  The state is slowly coming to grips with the fact that its preferred sources of electric power — wind and solar — are neither cheap nor reliable.  Yet, California is committed by law to increasing the use of wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy.  The economics don't come close to supporting this model. California Adopts 'Cap-and-Trade' Plan.  California formally adopted the nation's most comprehensive so-called "cap-and-trade" system Thursday [11/20/2011], an experiment by the world's eighth-largest economy that is designed to provide financial incentives for polluters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Delta Water Rules Smelt of Extremism.  If you want to understand the fundamental things wrong with our nation and California, in particular, you ought to peruse the 140-page opinion recently issued by Judge Oliver Wanger in the "Consolidated Delta Smelt Cases."  It describes many of the most frustrating elements in our society — abuses of federal authority, bureaucratic micromanagement of our lives and political zealotry masquerading as science.  The case also shows the indifference to the insanity by most Americans, who wouldn't know a Delta smelt from a cod fillet. California's Green Jihad.  Ideas matter, particularly when colored by religious fanaticism, wreaking havoc even in the most favored of places.  Take, for instance, Iran, a country blessed with a rich heritage and enormous physical and human resources, but which, thanks to its theocratic regime, is largely an economic basket case and rogue state.  Then there's California, rich in everything from oil and food to international trade and technology, but still skimming along the bottom of the national economy. California may ban takeout food in foam containers.  Getting takeout food in foam containers would be a thing of the past under a bill approved by the state Senate. Crazifornia: Delta smelt refuse to die in pumps.  In Tracy, California, where the massive California Water Project pumps stand ready to move up to 15,450 cubic feet of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water southward every single second, it's been a busy spring.  The pumps have been a mere shadow of their old selves ever since U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger began ratcheting them down in 2007 in response to environmentalist lawsuits brought under the auspices of the Delta smelt. The California Greenout: Creating artificial demand for the politically connected.  Impatient with the lagging pace of California's economic collapse, Governor Jerry Brown decided to speed things up today [4/12/2011].  The Associated Press reports Brown "signed legislation requiring California utilities to get one-third of their power from renewable sources, giving the state the most aggressive alternative energy mandate in the U.S."  This is an increase from current laws that require California utilities to get 20 percent of their power from renewable sources. Light-bulb banning begins.  The cost of illuminating your home is about to go up significantly.  Most Americans take for granted that when they flip a switch, darkness immediately gives way to a warm, natural light.  That's no longer possible in California, where a regulation that took effect Jan. 1 only allows the sale of harsh, cold compact fluorescents above a certain wattage. California's environmental regulations cause economic blackout.  The origin of the modern environmental movement and the creation of Earth Day are often said to have their origins in the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill.  "Californians have largely treated environmentalism as a 'religious sacrament' rather than as one component among many in maximizing people's quality of life," note the editors of Trends magazine, commenting on California's decline.  Nowhere is this more evident than the state's hostility to energy production. Saving California Almost Half a Billion a Year — Easy.  [The California Energy Commission issues] regulations — lots and lots of regulations.  They tell you what to use to light your home, how thick your insulation must be, what type of washer/dryer you can buy, how big your pool pump can be, how big your windows can be, whether you can leave your porch lights on at night — 176 pages for buildings alone.  While a few could be justified for safety reasons or for hidden features for subsequent occupants/owners, most are intrusive and no business of government.  The underlying premise is that the collective interests, as determined by the people at the CEC, overrule any rational consideration of cost and benefit by a free citizen or inhabitant of the state of California.  Or maybe it is just because they think we're stupid? CALGreen: Regulatory Nirvana.  Average Californians want a thriving economy, accountable schools, reliable police and fire services, a functioning penal system, and fiscal responsibility from the state.  Sacramento is giving them instead a new set of regulations — for a dormant industry — which will employ hundreds of public servants to keep the CALGreen promise of reducing global GHG emissions .0096 percent by 2020.  Meanwhile, the public is invited to rejoice that more of the cost of green regulation will be borne by the taxpayer.  I'm not sure the art of regulation for regulation's sake can be perfected much more than this. California banning 100-watt incandescent light bulbs.  The state of liberal bastion, California, will start phasing out the 100-watt incandescent light bulb on Jan. 1, 2011.  By the beginning of the year 2012, it will be gone from sale in stores.  Specialty lights that use less than 40 watts and more than 150 watts, and three-way bulbs are exempt, but will later be required to use less energy. Orange officials sue couple who removed their lawn.  Some Southern California cities fine residents for watering their lawns too much during droughts.  But in Orange, officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for removing their lawn in an attempt to save water. Environmental red tape hurts families in California Fish Don't Vote.  The Republican Party has long been fishing for an issue that will reach out to Hispanic and other minority voters.  Now, a three-inch fish may be the key to establishing common ground between that voting bloc and the GOP. California adopts first regulation to limit greenhouse gas emissions from fuel.  California took aim today at the oil industry and its effect on global warming, adopting the world's first regulation to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the fuel that runs cars and trucks.  The state Air Resources Board voted 9-1 in favor of the complex new rule, which is expected to slash the state's gasoline consumption by a quarter in the next decade. California May Ban Black Cars.  The California legislature is considering regulating the color of cars and reflectivity of paint to reduce the energy requirements to cool them. ... The problem isn't the color per se, but the reflectivity of the paint overall.  And dark colors just don't reflect well, so they are likely out.  "Jet black remains an issue," says the report. Update: California Car Paint Proposal Parked For Now.  California has backed down from a proposal on new cars' paint coatings.  The state said it's looking for ways to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions by improving cars' efficiency.  One way to do that is by making cars more reflective so that their air-condition systems don't have to work as hard. California appears poised to be first to ban power-guzzling big-screen TVs.  The influential lobby group Consumer Electronics Assn. is fighting what appears to be a losing battle to dissuade California regulators from passing the nation's first ban on energy-hungry big-screen televisions. California considering banning giant TVs.  Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state's governor, has supported controversial proposals by the California's energy commission to impose strict energy consumption limits on TVs with screens that are more than 40 inches wide.  The commission claims that California's estimated 35 million televisions and related gadgets account for about 10 percent of household energy consumption in the state. California To Ban TV:  But Not For a Good Reason.  Why is the California Energy Commission (CEC), a Gov. Jerry Brown creation, wanting to ban television sets?  Well, it seems that a honking 48-inch plasma screen, that bright symbol of the bygone days of conspicuous consumption and purveyor of drooling vacuity, uses too much electricity, and electricity production makes too much greenhouse gas emissions (at least in America, where half of our electricity comes from coal — in France, a plasma screen would emit nary a CO2 molecule as the TVs there are nuclear powered). California Gas Stations Shut Under Expensive Mandate.  Nearly 100 California gas stations are being forced out of business by a statewide mandate requiring them to implement expensive new equipment to reduce vapor emissions at the pump.  The mandate, issued by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), is known as Phase II of the state's Enhanced Vapor Recovery program.  It requires gas station owners to purchase and install devices to prevent vapors from escaping when customers fill their cars. California's 'Green Jobs' Experiment Isn't Going Well.  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was all smiles in 2006 when he signed into law the toughest anti-global-warming regulations of any state.  Mr. Schwarzenegger and his green supporters boasted that the regulations would steer California into a prosperous era of green jobs, renewable energy, and technological leadership.  Instead, since 2007 — in anticipation of the new mandates — California has led the nation in job losses. California threat to sue US govt over ship, aircraft emissions.  California said Thursday [8/31/2008] it planned to sue the US government for failing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from ships, aircraft, construction and agricultural equipment.  In the latest legal threat from the state against the Environmental Protection Agency, California's Attorney General Jerry Brown said the body was "wantonly ignoring" its duty to set pollution standards. California's Potemkin Environmentalism:  [Governor] Schwarzenegger's reputation as an environmental trailblazer is in keeping with California's recent history and self-perception. … In truth, however, the Golden State's energy leadership is a mirage.  California's environmental policies have made it heavily dependent on other states for power; generated some of the highest, business-crippling energy costs in the country; and left it vulnerable to periodic electricity shortages.  Its economic growth has occurred not because of, but despite, those policies, which would be disastrous if extended to the rest of the country. Who Will Control Your Thermostat?  In California, we have 236 pages of state-mandated standards for building energy efficiency, known as Title 24. … What should be controversial in the proposed revisions to Title 24 is the requirement for what is called a "programmable communicating thermostat" or PCT.  Every new home and every change to existing homes' central heating and air conditioning systems will required to be fitted with a PCT beginning next year following the issuance of the revision.  Each PCT will be fitted with a "non-removable " FM receiver that will allow the power authorities to increase your air conditioning temperature setpoint or decrease your heater temperature setpoint to any value they chose.  During "price events" those changes are limited to ±4°F. and you would be able to manually override the changes.  During "emergency events" the new setpoints can be whatever the power authority desires and you would not be able to alter them.  In other words, the temperature of your home will no longer be yours to control. The Editor says... I can think of a couple of ways to defeat that FM receiver without touching it.  And I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before some hacker figures out how to shut off (or turn on) every air conditioner in town. California Seeks Thermostat Control.  Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages. The Editor continues... Scroll down to the end of the article to see a quote from Nicole Tam, a spokeswoman for PG&E, who claims that the thermostat control signals are hacker-proof because they "are encrypted and encoded".  What a relief!  We all know that no encryption scheme has ever been cracked by hackers. California Proposes Taking Control of Thermostats.  The California Energy Commission has proposed requiring thermostats that allow the government to control the temperature of homes and businesses in case of high energy prices or shortages, a measure that some critics are calling "draconian." California Hotels Go Green With Low-Flow Toilets, Solar Lights.  Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa won't find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer.  Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of "An Inconvenient Truth," former Vice President Al Gore's book about global warming. How Elite Environmentalists Impoverish Blue-Collar Americans:  The great Central Valley of California has never been an easy place.  Dry and almost uninhabitable by nature, the state's engineering marvels brought water down from the north and the high Sierra, turning semi-desert into some of the richest farmland in the world. ... The depression conditions in the great valley reflect more than a mere water shortage.  They are the direct result of conscious actions by environmental activists to usher in a new era of scarcity. Al Gore visits Berkeley, charges up Prop. 87 rally.  Former Vice President Al Gore appeared in Berkeley on Monday [10/23/2006] to lend his celebrity and reputation as a crusader against global warming to a measure on California's Nov. 7 ballot that would tax oil companies to raise $4 billion for green energy projects. Kit Bond goes into battle on a lawn mower.  Environmental groups heralded California's move three years ago to adopt new pollution standards for small engines.  The standards could require use of catalytic converters, which have cleaned up cars and trucks, to be added to lawn mowers as well. California's Man-Made Drought.  California has a new endangered species on its hands in the San Joaquin Valley -- farmers.  Thanks to environmental regulations designed to protect the likes of the three-inch long delta smelt, one of America's premier agricultural regions is suffering in a drought made worse by federal regulations. Obama's Failure to Help May Spring from Racism.  Why are the communities of Fresno County suffering so deeply?  Because in December 2008, the federal government decided that Fresno County, a farming-rich area which provides half of America's vegetables, no longer needed water.  The farmers whose ancestors built the canals to irrigate the Central Valley have been totally cut off from their water supply, even though they're still paying bills for it.  Hundreds of acres of prime farming land lie fallow, crops withered and dead.  All because the federal government thinks that smelt — tiny 5- to 7-centimeter fish — are more important than human beings. It's farmers vs. fish for California water.  Supporters of California agriculture called on the Obama administration and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday to lift water restrictions that were imposed to protect the endangered delta smelt, saying the fish is putting farmers out of business. Editor's note: Many more examples of ridiculous environmental laws can be found here. Top Ten Green Auto Headlines of 2009.  California proposed a "Cool Cars Standard" that effectively banned black cars so that they would reflect 20 percent of "impinging solar energy" and reduce emissions via less AC use.  Public outrage led to the rule's withdrawal. On the other hand... Will Californians Repeal Cap-And-Trade?  A California legislator pushes a November ballot initiative to free the state from the job-killing shackles of a 2006 law designed to fight climate change.  The other choice is freezing in the unemployment line.  At last report, California's unemployment rate was 12.3%, with 2.25 million residents looking for work. Effort underway to suspend California's global-warming law.  Republican politicians and conservative activists are launching a ballot campaign to suspend California's landmark global-warming law, in what they hope will serve as a showcase for a national backlash against climate regulations.  Supporters say they have "solid commitments" of nearly $600,000 to pay signature gatherers for a November initiative aimed at delaying curbs on the greenhouse gas emissions of power plants and factories until the state's unemployment rate drops. California's Toxic Air Scare Machine:  James Enstrom, southern California native, earned a Ph.D. in elementary particle nuclear physics at Stanford, then received postdoctoral training in epidemiology and a Masters in Public Health from UCLA. ... In 2005, Enstrom published his results of a robust and current (50,000 people, 1973-2002) study on the effects of small particle air pollution in California.  He found no premature death effect in California from small particle air pollution.  California's air pollution of the '50s and '60s has declined for thirty years, and Enstrom was also familiar with the improvement in air quality and the conundrum of increasing rates of asthma that was being misrepresented by CARB. Grape Growing Collides With Fish Protection in California.  Grape growers in Northern California's cool, fertile Sonoma County wine region are stomping mad at a new plan to limit the amount of water vineyards can pump from local rivers and streams to protect crops from frost — a proposed regulation meant to safeguard coho salmon, a species on the brink of local extinction. Backing off on environmental perfection.  It will go down as a landmark decision.  U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wagner ruled this week that people have rights.  That may sound a bit daffy but in the wacky world of California water politics people take second class citizen status behind fish and even vegetation. Water Sanity For Central California.  A federal judge has struck a blow for California's water-deprived Central Valley, ruling that draconian federal water cutbacks violate human rights because — surprise! — people also belong in the ecosystem. A Not-So-Golden State.  As California's pumped-up governator prepares to push a costly cap-and-trade law on the state's manufacturers, CEOs are sending a not-so-subtle message to him:  Your state stinks. California approves extensive carbon-trading scheme.  California has approved an extensive carbon-trading plan aimed at cutting greenhouse emissions.  State regulators passed a "cap-and-trade" framework to let companies buy and sell permits, giving them an incentive to emit fewer gases.  The aim is to create the second-largest market in the field, after Europe's. California government hits rock bottom - keeps digging.  California's Air Resources Board passed a cap and trade regulation for the state's top 600 industrial facilities that will almost certainly bring economic activity in the state to a near standstill. Cap-And-Trade Tosses An Anchor To Drowning California Economy.  On Friday [12/17/2010], the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the bureaucracy charged with implementing AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, adopted a cap-and-trade scheme to reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions by about 15% by 2020.  CARB's regulations go into effect in 2012.  The unelected officials at CARB intend to reorder California's use of energy.  In so doing they blandly declaim that their rules will create jobs while admitting to higher energy costs and a slowing economy.  Somehow, this formula is transmogrified by CARB analysts into net job creation.  Given the immutable laws of math, one is forced to calculate that CARB's actions will "create" low-paying jobs at the expense of good jobs. Manmade famine in America.  It seems inconceivable, but people in America are going hungry en masse due to a famine caused by political authorities.  Fresno, California is not yet a sister city of Kiev, Ukraine, but the two cities, capitals of rich agricultural regions, share a history of mass hunger caused by central governments indifferent to the suffering of their people, in the pursuit of ideological goals. Fresno, Zimbabwe.  Fresno, California, stands as the de facto capital of California's mighty Central Valley, the breadbasket of America. ... Yet far from being a paradise, Fresno is starting to resemble Zimbabwe or 1930s Ukraine, a victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made, not by red communists this time, but by greens.  State and federal officials, driven by the agenda of environmental extremists, have made it extremely difficult for the valley's farms, introducing costly environmental regulations and cutting off critical water supplies to save the Delta smelt, a bait fish.  It's all driving the economy to collapse. Did someone mention Zimbabwe? Dumbed-down schools: California Dumbs Down Tests.  When it comes to education trends, as California goes, so goes the nation.  Which is all the more reason to be concerned about the latest effort in California to dumb down standards.  The University of California's Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) has launched another salvo in its long-running war against the SAT, the test used by many colleges and universities to assess academic achievement among high school seniors.  This is only the latest in a series of moves by BOARS against the SAT, but this one may be a stalking horse to eliminate standardized tests in general, especially if they conflict with the goal of promoting racial and ethnic diversity. The Return of the Fuzzies?  In the 1990s, the Math Wars pitted two philosophies against each other.  One side argued for content-based standards — that elementary school students must memorize multiplication tables by third grade.  The other side argued for students to discover math, unfettered by "drill and kill" exercises.  When the new 1994 California Learning Assessment Test trained test graders to award a higher score to a child with a wrong answer (but good essay) than to a student who successfully solved a math problem, but without a cute explanation, the battle was on. Dumbed Down and Out in High School:  Some San Jose area teachers are dumping the D as a passing grade.  They say students who are doing the minimum to get by will just have to work a little harder.  California's public universities won't accept anything below C- on an academic transcript. Math Instruction Doesn't Add Up.  California's standards call for students to learn algebra in eighth grade.  Yet the graduation exam was postponed because so many students were flunking the math portion of the test, which required only a 55 percent [score].  Only the hardest questions required high school math skills. Book review:  The Language Police —  How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn.  Before Anton Chekhov and Mark Twain can be used in school readers and exams, they must be vetted by a bias and sensitivity committee.  The New York State Education Department omitted mentioning Jews in an Isaac Bashevis Singer story about prewar Poland, or blacks in Annie Dillard's memoir of growing up in a racially mixed town.  California rejected a reading book because The Little Engine That Could was male.  Diane Ravitch maintains that America's students are compelled to read insipid texts that have been censored and bowdlerized, issued by publishers who willingly cut controversial material from their books — a case of the bland leading the bland. California math scores among nation's worst.  About 30 percent of fourth-graders and 23 percent of eight-graders in California tested proficient math tests from the National Assessment of Education Progress, ranking the state near the bottom nationally. ... Nationwide, 38 percent of fourth-graders and 33 percent of eighth-graders performed at proficient levels. School grant program wastes billions.  Just how much improvement of low-accomplishing public schools have Californians purchased with the $1.25 billion in their taxes spent on No Child Left Behind special programs?  The disturbing answer, apparently:  "little if any academic improvement." Schools used as leftist indoctrination centers: Get Global Warming Out of Our Schools.  Because of the recent revelations of "Climategate" (see source materials below) and my experience raising two children in private and public schools in California, I believe we need to start a nationwide campaign to get "global warming" immediately removed from the curriculum of our schools.  We cannot wait for politicians or activists to do any more damage to our future generation.  "Global warming" is not just an objectionable and discredited scientific theory.  Teachers are grafting the loony climate-change premise onto lifestyle, religion, and politics in "science" classrooms.  It cannot stand. California Offers Textbook Case of Political Correctness:  A textbook review process in California has changed or eliminated references to everything from the Founding Fathers to hot dogs, leaving many to charge the state with distorting history in the name of political correctness. Save The Children (From Global Warming Propaganda).  Green schooling was surreptitiously introduced years ago when teachers began espousing benign environmental distractions like "Earth Day."  But trendy nontoxic slogans like "reduce, reuse, recycle" eventually opened the door to the destructive propaganda of teaching Al Gore's scientifically-challenged movie in science classes.  Which soon facilitated a California Law mandating unbalanced Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theories be included in public school curricula.  And that paved the way for today's second installment of a malignant little program cleverly crafted to indoctrinate our impressionable youth on a chillingly massive scale. California State Senate Approves New Global Warming Curriculum.  The bill was controversial in the Senate because it simply requires "climate change" to be taught, without requiring balance between the positions of alarmists and skeptics.  "I find it disturbing that this mandate to teach this theory is not accompanied by a requirement that the discussion be science-based and include a critical analysis of all sides of the subject," state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), said during the Senate debate, according to the San Jose Mercury News. Letters from Sixth Grade Students Reveal Global Warming Indoctrination.  If you doubt some teachers are trying to brainwash schoolchildren with global warming alarmism, take a look inside the sixth grade classroom of teacher Michael Steria at David A. Brown Middle School in Wildomar, California.  Twenty-five sixth graders teamed up to write eight letters to The Heartland Institute describing what they had been taught about global warming.  Steria sent the letters to the institute in March. Bill would require California's science curriculum to cover climate change.  Reading, writing and … global warming?  A Silicon Valley lawmaker is gaining momentum with a bill that would require "climate change" to be among the science topics that all California public school students are taught.  The measure, by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would mandate that future science textbooks approved for California public schools include climate change. Fairy Tales Don't Come True.  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled recently that parents had no right to know about a very graphic sex survey given out to elementary school students in California.  In fact, the court said that parents have no right to claim sole responsibility for their children's sex education. ... Schools often give information without parental notice about multiple access points to enter such behavior through "gay" community groups, homosexual school clubs, local health clinics, Internet chat rooms, and politically correct youth organizations and clubs. Gay Curriculum Proposal Riles Elementary School Parents.  A group of parents in a California school district say they are being bullied by school administrators into accepting a new curriculum that addresses bullying, respect and acceptance — and that includes compulsory lessons about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community that will be taught to children as young as 5 years old. California Elementary School Parents Blindsided by Homosexual "Coming Out Day".  Parents of students attending an elementary school in Hayward, California, are in a frenzy after learning the school allegedly made no effort to inform them their children were to participate in today's homosexual "Coming Out Day" school event, reports the Pacific Justice Institute ... . The California homosexual activists' assault on schoolchildren:  On May 11, the California State Senate passed Senate Bill 1437.  The bill demands "no teacher shall give instruction nor shall a school district sponsor any activity that reflects adversely upon persons because of their … gender … [or] sexual orientation." ... If a boy decides to come to school in a dress, teachers may not even request that he change clothes. Pinch Me If I Am Paranoid.  A bill is close to passing in California that would make all government (public) schools mandate a "positive" portrayal of homosexuality in their textbooks and literature.  However, many of these same schools will not allow the mention of the word Christmas or Easter for fear that it will in some way "indoctrinate" the kids into Christianity. Under the radar:  Gay-rights groups are quietly but aggressively advancing their agenda.  While the news media focused on immigration last week, California Democrats focused on completing the transmutation of public-school social science curricula into a punctuated series of pro-homosexuality tracts. Bill Would Force Schools to Support Homosexuality.  Gender-neutral bathrooms in public schools?  Girls running for prom king?  Those are just a few of the possibilities which could result if the California Legislature passes SB 1437 which would force schools to adopt an exclusively pro-homosexual message. "There Will Be No Apology".  Those are the words of the mother of Matt Dariano, one of the five kids at Live Oak High School in the San Francisco Bay Area who were sent home for having the temerity to wear American flag tee shirts on the "Mexican heritage day" of Cinco de Mayo.  "There will not be an apology," Mrs. Dariano told the camera crew outside the school. California Students Sent Home for Wearing U.S. Flags on Cinco de Mayo.  Administrators at a California high school sent five students home on Wednesday [5/5/2010] after they refused to remove their American flag T-shirts and bandannas — garments the school officials deemed "incendiary" on Cinco de Mayo. Calif. School Bans American Flag Clothing For Non-Existent Mexican Holiday?  For the Gilroy Dispatch Lindsay Bryant reports that five young students of Live Oak High School in Gillroy, California were kicked out of school on Cinco de Mayo because they dared to wear the venerable American colors while all the Mexican students were wearing the Green, White and Red colors of the Mexican flag.  According to Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez these evil American children were "starting a fight." Other bad ideas: Popular California Flag Mural Deemed Graffiti, Painted Over.  California residents are up in arms that a flag mural — paying homage to victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — was painted over after the state ruled it was graffiti. What politicians can't take from you — your right to carry a gun.  Homicides in Oakland are up 27 percent so far this year.  In preparation for a mayoral run, a state senator and FBI suspect is resurrecting his worn arguments favoring gun control.  California and the Bay Area have tinkered with gun control for decades, and yet Oakland falls further into chaos.  Despite politicians' efforts to eliminate private firearm ownership, homicide is nearly a daily event in Oaktown. Organic Failure.  Henry Waxman is at it again.  The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade-climate change bill, which has been called the largest tax bill in history because it would levy a national tax on energy use, narrowly passed the House in late June and is still pending in the Senate, but the California Democrat has already moved on to his next bad idea:  trying to save the nation's populace by making farmlands sterile, so that only organic foods can be grown. Obama has little to show for '09.  California, as every Californian will tell you, is the origin of the fads and fancies that inevitably spread across the continent; San Francisco is where the Pied Piper of Southside Chicago might have led the cult to a suitable jumping-off place.  This is where the true believers of the left exude the most noxious fumes. California prison case goes to Supreme Court.  Agreeing to hear an appeal from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday [6/14/2010] it will decide whether the state can be forced to release 46,000 inmates — more than one-fourth of its prison population — to relieve overcrowding.  The justices said they would hear the case in the fall and rule early next year. Where does California put 33,000 released inmates?  Hasn't California suffered enough?  Apparently not, according to the U.S. Supreme Court.  In the name of reducing prison overcrowding and preserving a "standard of decency," the high court this week handed down a decision that could set the stage for something indecent:  the release of tens of thousands of prisoners back into society. The Factory of Selective Moral Outrage.  Democrats in Congress recently went all-out to try to pass the Dream Act, an amnesty for illegal-alien students willing to enroll — and stay — in college.  Most of those who opposed it were derided as heartless at best, racist at worse.  An insolvent California — still struggling with its $15 billion budget shortfall — is trying to advance its own version of the bill that would contravene federal immigration law and cost millions of dollars.  At around the same time, the state has announced plans to release about 40,000 prison inmates due to a shortage of funds needed to address overcrowding.  Highly taxed Californians can borrow money to send illegal aliens to school, but not to keep felons in prison. California License Plates May Go Digital.  California drivers may soon come bumper to bumper with the latest product of the digital age:  ad-blaring license plates.  State lawmakers are considering a bill allowing the state to begin researching the use of electronic license plates for vehicles.  The device would mimic a standard license plate when the vehicle is moving but would switch to digital messages when it is stopped for more than four seconds in traffic or at a red light. The Editor says... Isn't California where all those "urban blight" activists live, who hate to see advertising all over the landscape?  The people who hate to see others stoop to the level of "anything for a buck"?  Apparently it's okay for big government to be so mercenary.  It sounds as if the advertising is going to be on every license plate, and the products or services thus promoted will be chosen by the state.  What if the state decides to advertise something the driver finds repugnant?  How will the driver know? Suffer These Crimes in Oakland?  Don't Call the Cops  Oakland's police chief is making some dire claims about what his force will and will not respond to if layoffs go as planned.  Chief Anthony Batts listed exactly 44 situations that his officers will no longer respond to and they include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism.  He says if you live and Oakland and one of the above happens to you, you need to let police know on-line. But What If They Take My Computer?  Facing a budget shortfall, the city of Oakland is about to lay off 80 police officers.  This is hardly a wallop they can shrug off in a city where the murder rate is more than three times the national average.  So, in the event that last-minute negotiations fail to avert these layoffs, citizens in Oakland are being informed that if they should suffer any of the misfortunes on a list of 44 situations that once brought a police response, no officer will come to their door to take a report, much less try to do something about it.  Reports about incidents on the list will have to be made online, police say.  Given that burglary and theft are on the list, one must wonder what options will be available to a man whose computer is stolen. Other commentary on California's decline: California, There It Went.  Flying over Los Angeles on an annual summer visit, I peer through smog so thick that the coastline is hard to see.  It is only three in the afternoon, but the cars are backed up for miles on the freeways, which remain largely in the same state of disrepair that greeted me last year.  The state is literally deteriorating before my eyes. Waving California goodbye.  More people are moving out of the state than are moving in.  It's the economy, of course, especially housing costs. Back to the Home page

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