Transparency: California Dems Halt Effort to Make Unions Disclose How Money Is Spent

(Hat tip: KimR) - California union workers will continue to be in the dark about how their dues are spent after a bill that would’ve forced unions to post this information online was killed along a party-line vote. Read more at Townhall.com Read More......

It begins: In wake of California $15 minimum wage, garment firms moving out of Los Angeles

(Hat tip: KimR) - To the surprise of nobody but leftists, Governor Brown and the California State Legislature Democrats, jobs are beginning to evaporate visibly in the wake of California legislating a phased-in $15 an hour minimum wage. Even the Los Angeles Times can’t help but notice:  Last week American Apparel, the biggest clothing maker in Los Angeles, said it might outsource the making of some garments to another manufacturer in the U.S., and wiped out about 500 local jobs. Read more at American Thinker Read More......

Some Farmers Oppose Referendum on High-Speed Rail

(Hat tip: KimR) - California’s 76,400 farms and ranches produce over an eighth of all U.S. agricultural production. The state yields a third of America’s vegetables and 70 percent of its rice. Despite the 5-year drought that caused 560,000 acres to lie fallow last year, the state’s “ag” economy still had $54 billion in sales and exported $21.59 billion of meat, fruit, vegetables and grain in 2014. Read more at Breitbart.com Read More......

As Another Company Moves Away

(Hat tip: KimR) - After the 2008 death of the founder of Carl’s Jr. — the ubiquitous California fast-food restaurant chain — the Orange County Register published an obituary that captured the one-time spirit of the state: “Carl Karcher, the Ohio farm boy with an eighth-grade education who turned his $326 investment in a hot dog stand into a multimillion-dollar fast food empire, died Friday afternoon. He was 90.” For decades, this was a place where anyone could earn a fortune. Read more at the American Spectator Read More......

California issued 605,000 new driver's licenses for immigrants in the U.S. illegally last year

Judith Benitez had gone most of her adult life without knowing how to drive. The 35-year-old woman from Mexico who is in the U.S. illegally would ask family members for rides to pick up her children from school. Trips to the grocery store or the doctor's office were complicated. That changed last year when Assembly Bill 60 was implemented, granting people in the country illegally the right to obtain driver's licenses in California.

Read more at the Los Angeles Times
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Cow Palace gun show draws a crowd in wake of Obama's executive actions

A long line of gun fanciers waiting to buy tickets snaked across the Cow Palace parking lot early Saturday morning despite a cold drizzle, as the Crossroads of the West gun show kicked off a two-day run at the famed exhibition hall. Judging by the size of the morning crowd, show owner Bob Templeton predicted total weekend attendance of about 7,000 -- double the usual 3,500 at the show he's been holding at the Cow Palace for three decades.

Read more at the San Jose Mercury News
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

In California, 27 Iraqi Christian Refugees Refused Asylum

While the US government has approved the entry of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees fleeing war in their country, 27 Iraqi Chaldean Catholics, seeking to escape violence and anti-Christian persecution in their homeland, were denied entry into the United States last month. The Chaldeans were held at the Otay Detention Center near San Diego, California, and the majority had family in the area willing to take them in and provide for their needs.

Read more at Catholic World Report
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California governor ordered state workers to research oil drilling on family land

Gov. Jerry Brown last year directed state oil and gas regulators to research, map and report back on any mining and oil drilling potential and history at the Brown family's private land in Northern California. --After a phone call from the governor and follow-up requests from his aides, senior staffers in the state's oil and gas regulatory agency over at least two days produced a 51-page historical report and geological assessment, plus a personalized satellite-imaged geological and oil and gas drilling map for the area around Brown's family ranchland near the town of Williams.

Read more at Fox News
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California’s Hidden Coal Use

California’s politicians would like you to believe that their electricity comes from non-coal sources. However, while there are very few coal plants in California, making up only 0.4 percent of the state’s generation in 2014[i], California imports electricity from neighboring states and as much as half of Southern California’s electric generation comes from coal-fired generating plants in Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.[ii] Although California is pushing electric vehicles, wanting 1.5 million on the road by 2025,[iii] the greenhouse gas savings from their use will be minuscule if electricity continues to be generated mainly from imports of coal-fired generation and natural gas that supplies the state with 60 percent of its electricity.

Read more at Institute for Energy Research
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California opens to the door to more voter fraud with new motor voter law

California’s Governor had a busy weekend, breaking out his pen and signing nearly two dozen bills into law. Most of them centered on the voting process in the Golden State, but while liberals are taking a victory lap there are hints that these maneuvers are going to signal trouble down the line. The big ticket item in the legislative package was the “New Motor Voter Law.” This brainstorm will make voter registration automatic for any person receiving a new driver’s license or renewing an existing one.

Read more at Hotair.com
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California Conservatives: Doing Something About Illegal Immigration

“What’s an angry conservative to do?” Kurt Schlicter lamented in his latest Townhall.com piece. I hardly blame the guy. We need fighters, not flighters, men and women of principle who will stand up to Big Everything, and not back down. The Old Guard of the GOP seems content to barely get by, and give in every time funding for an officious institution comes up for reauthorization. US Senator Ted Cruz blasted the leadership in both chambers, outlining how they give up the fight before the conflict begins. So, what’s an angry conservative to do? Stop waiting for someone else, for starters. Then Do something!

Read more at Townhall.com
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Green dreams of jobs bonanza dashed in California

Want a definition of a green boondoggle? This incredible report by the Associated Press tracking the three year program to tax corporations and give the money to schools for green energy projects - a ballot measure that promosed tens of thousands of new jobs - shows the total, abject failure of another green energy project. --Three years after California voters passed a ballot measure to raise taxes on corporations and generate clean energy jobs by funding energy-efficiency projects in schools, barely one-tenth of the promised jobs have been created, and the state has no comprehensive list to show how much work has been done or how much energy has been saved.

Read more at American Thinker
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SB 350 — proposes 50-percent fuel cuts for Californians!

Take notice if you drive to and from work each day in California. SB 350, known as the California Gas Restriction Act of 2015, (de León) requires a 50% reduction in petroleum, 50% increase in renewables for electricity generation, and a 50% increase in the energy efficiency of buildings by 2030. SB 350 will also grant the Air Resources Board significant authority to adopt regulations that will result in a 50% reduction in petroleum use in cars and trucks by 2030. --In short, unelected regulators will be able to limit how far you can drive, ration gas, increase costs, and penalize drivers for using too much gas.

Read more at the Contra Costa Bee
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

California: Most new driver's licenses go to illegal immigrants

After a new law went into effect in January, more than half of all new driver's licenses issued in California this year have gone to people who are in the country illegally, the state said Friday. --The California Department of Motor Vehicles reported it has issued roughly 397,000 licenses to people who live in the country illegally. A total of 759,000 licenses were issued in the first six months of the year.

Read more at the San Jose Mercury News
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

California State Senate OKs health coverage for many immigrants here illegally

The state Senate on Tuesday approved a hotly debated measure that would allow many immigrants in the state illegally to sign up for special healthcare programs that would offer the same benefits as Medi-Cal. --The action comes just days after lawmakers significantly scaled back the plan, which originally would have offered state-subsidized Medi-Cal to people in the country without authorization.

Read more at the Los Angeles Times
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The Big Idea: California Is So Over

California has met the future, and it really doesn’t work. As the mounting panic surrounding the drought suggests, the Golden State, once renowned for meeting human and geographic challenges, is losing its ability to cope with crises. As a result, the great American land of opportunity is devolving into something that resembles feudalism, a society dominated by rich and poor, with little opportunity for upward mobility for the state’s middle- and working classes.

Read more at the Daily Beast
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Oregon's Sad Focus on 'Happiness'

By Joel Kotkin
Oregon is a beautiful place, and, for many of the state's well-heeled residents, including many refugees from equally beautiful but overpriced California, economic growth not only is unimportant but is even a negative. Rather than create opportunity, the real issue, according to Gov. John Kitzhaber, is making sure the state ranks high on “the happiness index.” Forget sweating the hard stuff, and cozy up with a hot soy latte. ✧ There's a problem with this. Oregon's unemployment rate remains above the national average and underemployment – the measure of people working part-time or well below their skill level – stands at nearly 17 percent, behind only Nevada and California. Since 2007, the state has lost over 3.4 percent of its jobs, a performance much worse than the national average and even California. ✧ “You have to wonder about the rhetoric of happiness,” suggests economist Bill Watkins, who predicts the state won't be back to 2007 employment levels till next year. “You need jobs for people to be happy, you would think.”

Read more at New Geography Read More......

Obama: CA Central Valley drought due to climate change

Snip…
Actually, the problem for Central Valley farmers is that their water got taken from them by a federal judge, who put a baitfish ahead of human beings. Central Valley’s water-management system was designed to deal with droughts that last as long as five years, but the reservoirs that held its lifeblood got emptied into the ocean to rescue the Delta smelt. It began five years ago, and as Investors Business Daily reports, the locals remember it better than Obama does:

Read more at Hot Air Read More......

California students sue over teacher tenure

Nine California public school students are suing the state over its laws on teacher tenure, seniority and other protections that the plaintiffs say keep bad educators in classrooms.

Read more at The Press Democrat
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Berkeley and the Tea Party – Together?

SUSTAINABLE FREEDOM LAB
Can the American left and right unite in 2014? Can they find a common cause without whipping up a cat 5 hurricane? That may be happening. ✧ Berkeley California is a liberal community with a strong and vocal conservative contingent. But California’s Plan Bay Area may be the flash point that welds the two seemingly disparate groups. ✧ In 2008 the California legislature approved SB375, which mandates the states’ 18 metropolitan regions develop Sustainable Community Strategies and reduce greenhouse gases. ✧ In compliance with SB375, Plan Bay Area combines 9 counties in the San Francisco area to form one of the nation’s most aggressive sustainable communities planning regions. Berkeley is in the Plan Bay Area region. ✧ While Plan Bay Area’s goals of increased sustainability and reduced greenhouse gases sound noble, the plan contains serious drawbacks that are catapulting fury across the local political spectrum. Read more at Sustainable Freedom Lab.org... Read More......