Tag: california

Republicans Accuse California’s Democrat Attorney General Rob Bonta of “Rigging” Election After Sneaky Change Made to Voter ID Ballot Initiative

Republicans are accusing California’s Democrat Attorney General Rob Bonta of “rigging” the 2026 election voter ID ballot initiative after he made a sneaky change to the measure’s wording.

Proposition 39 made its way to California’s 2026 ballot, which would require voters to prove citizenship when registering to vote.

When grassroots organizers were gathering signatures last year, Rob Bonta issued a title and bullet points to describe the initiative.

However, with just months to go until the November election, Bonta made radical changes to the ballot initiative’s title and wording in an effort to destroy the measure.

Republican California Assemblyman and chairman of Reform California, Carl DeMaio, said the title change could sway voters.

“The ballot title is being manipulated to try to encourage people to vote no, to scare voters away. They’re trying to falsely claim that citizens would be prohibited from voting,” Carl DeMaio said on Wednesday.

“It is so illegitimate. It is so corrupt. It is so dishonest what this attorney general has decided to do, because he does not support this initiative,” DeMaio said.

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CMS Stopped Medicare Payments to California, and This Is How Gavin Newsom Responded

Yesterday, the Trump administration announced it was pausing more than $1 billion in federal Medicaid payments to Minnesota and California because of the suspected rampant fraud and noncompliance in both states. In a press conference with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) head Dr. Oz and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, it was announced that California will not receive $867 million until it can prove Medicaid and Medicare payments are legitimate.

Dr. Oz pointed out that California spending on in-home care went up 24 percent in the last two years, double the country’s average. “California increased spending at twice the rate of the average of the rest of the entire nation,” he said. “That doesn’t make sense.” Doubly so when you consider that California has had a net population loss over the last several years.

We all knew Gov. Gavin Newsom would respond to this pausing of payments, and he tried to blame President Trump for it. But it did not go well for Newsom, at all.

“They’re withholding it. But we knew this weeks ago because we’ve been working with them, but they decided again to make it a thing,” Newsom said.

Really? Newsom knew this weeks ago and didn’t say a word about it until today? We don’t buy that for a second.

“We’re trying to be collaborative,” he continued, “understand, it’s ready, fire, aim for them. They’re suggesting something but they haven’t even gotten the response from the state. And now they’re suggesting it very publicly in order to make. This is politics and you know it’s politics. To the extent it’s substantive, bring it on. We want to work with them.”

CMS said it was withholding payments for noncompliance, after requesting information and a plan to address Medicare/Medicaid from California months ago. Has the Newsom administration sent that plan to CMS? Is Newsom really working with the Trump administration he routinely bashes?

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LAUGHABLE: Gavin Newsom Claims That When it Comes to Fire Management, California is a ‘Model for the Globe’

Sometimes, you may forget how utterly shameless Gavivin Newsom is and then he says something like this and it all comes rushing back.

The governor recently bragged, with a straight face, that California is a model for the globe on fire management and that people from all over the world look at what California is doing and try to imitate it.

During the wildfires at the end of 2024, there wasn’t even any water in the reservoirs to fight the flames. And yet, he’s bragging. It’s just amazing.

Townhall reports:

You have to admit that what Gavin Newsom lacks in brains and sound policy he makes up for in sheer hubris. That’s the only reason that Newsom could say with a straight face that his state is a global model for fire management. Perhaps that’s true in a sense; Canada was burning so much that people as far south as Virginia were seeing, smelling, and feeling the impacts.

That’s because Canada, like California, refuses to do basic fire management like clearing brush and old growth. This is nothing to brag about, of course.

But brag Newsom did.

“I can say this with absolute conviction. We don’t imitate; we’re a model for others,” Newsom said. “We have people coming from all over the United States and around the globe to look at what California is doing in orbit, in the air, and on the ground.”

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Newly Appointed California City Manager Arrested for Luxury Yacht Burglary Just THREE WEEKS After Taking $275K Top Job

The brand-new city manager of upscale Sausalito, California was arrested on felony burglary charges after allegedly breaking into multiple yachts at the Sausalito Yacht Harbor, a mere three weeks into her high-paying gig.

Elaine Forbes, 53, who just started as Sausalito’s city manager on July 1 with a whopping $275,000 taxpayer-funded annual salary, was hauled off by Marin County sheriff’s deputies around 6:50 a.m. on Saturday after responding to a noise complaint, KRON4 reported.

Deputies reportedly found her aboard a vessel she didn’t own, trying to start the boat, leaving behind messes with empty alcohol bottles, sounding the yacht’s loud horns, and even wearing the owner’s clothing. She initially claimed it was her boat and told officers she was having “a bad morning.”

ABC News reported:

Forbes, 53, was taken into custody after Captain Bill Aubrey discovered her aboard the Lisa Marie and called 911.

“She had the horn going, the windshield wipers going, the spotlight going,” Aubrey recalled.

According to Aubrey, Forbes appeared calm when confronted.

“I told her to get off the boat,” he said. “She looked at me and said, ‘Good morning.’ She was very friendly.”

[…]

Boat owner Andy Cunningham said she was shocked by what he found after being contacted by police.

“I came down here, police met me at the boat, and we discovered unbelievable chaos on my boat,” Cunningham said.

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Inside California’s Battle With The Marijuana Black Market

A convoy of sheriff’s deputies heads into a vast network of illegal marijuana grow operations in the foothills of Mount Shasta in California’s Siskiyou County.

They drive into a dusty encampment strewn with garbage and piles of empty plastic fertilizer containers, a blight on the otherwise scenic landscape.

The morning raid is nothing new for Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue.

Thousands of makeshift greenhouses known as “hoop houses” – each one containing hundreds of illegally grown cannabis plants – are operating in the county at any given time, LaRue told The Epoch Times, as his deputies scoured the Mount Shasta Vista subdivision, a 20-minute drive northeast of Weed, Calif.

The sheriff’s office has counted 2,732 hoop houses using satellite and aerial imagery in the subdivision alone.

By the time he arrived at the scene on June 4, all the occupants had fled.

Spotters at these illegal grow sites – sometimes armed with AK-47s and rifles, according to nearby residents – alert laborers to leave the camp when they see sheriff’s deputies approaching.

Except for a few roosters, an older German shepherd, and a couple of curious pups, the site was abandoned. The occupants had already cleared out when an advance team of investigators approached the camp earlier that morning.

They know the drill.

About 430 flowering marijuana plants were found in each of two 30-by-100 foot hoop houses. Agents from the regional North State Marijuana Investigation Team weighed about 900 pounds of freshly cut marijuana plants that were hanging to dry in another slightly larger greenhouse.

All the marijuana was destroyed. No one was arrested, according to the sheriff’s office.

The team had served a search warrant on the same property last August and arrested the property owner, Haizhou Wang, then 56, who was on-site at the time.

Cannabis industry experts estimate that more than 30 million pounds of illicit marijuana are grown in the United States annually.

Siskiyou County alone produces about 17.8 million pounds of illegal marijuana every year, with a “low-end” estimated local street value of about $3.6 billion based on sales at $200 a pound, according to the sheriff’s office.

A typical pound of processed black-market marijuana may sell for a couple hundred dollars in California, but can sell for $1,500 in Midwest and East Coast markets and much more in other countries, according to both the sheriff’s office and the California Department of Cannabis Control.

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‘Unusual Cluster’ of Rare Child Cancer Cases Triggers Calls for Investigation

Families in Ladera Ranch, California, have experienced a nightmare that they believe could involve toxic chemicals from pesticides.

Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, wants the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate the matter and determine whether environmental factors explain why so many children in that community have developed rare forms of cancer.

“There has been an unusual cluster of pediatric cancers in the Ladera Ranch community,” Essayli wrote Thursday on the social media platform X.

Essayli asked that the EPA “conduct an appropriate investigation into whether there are any environmental causes, and whether any federal environmental laws are implicated.”

A letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin accompanied the post.

“My office has been made aware of recent reports of multiple pediatric Ewing sarcoma cases within the Ladera Ranch community,” Essayli wrote.

“Residents are raising concerns about a potential cancer cluster and whether environmental factors may warrant further evaluation. At least six children have been diagnosed with this rare bone and soft-tissue cancer, with one 17-year-old, Brody Matteson, dying after complications during treatment.”

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California Grocery Stores Use Facial Recognition Technology To Combat Theft

Faced with a shoplifting epidemic that has battered California retailers for years, Grocery Outlet is fighting back with technology.

Customers are not thrilled about it.

The Emeryville-based discount grocery chain has begun installing facial recognition software called SAFR at a handful of Bay Area stores, including its Pleasant Hill “Bargain Market” location, CBS News San Francisco reported.

Customers walking through the doors will find signs warning them the system is in use, a disclosure the company says is meant to keep shoppers informed.

The rollout comes as California tries to combat a shoplifting problem that has spiraled out of control.

FBI data cited by CBS shows theft in the state has jumped 50 percent since the COVID-19 pandemic, a surge that has forced retailers from big-box chains to neighborhood grocers to spend millions on security measures, or in some cases, shutter stores altogether.

For June Guerrero, who spent years managing a retail store, the new technology is a welcome and overdue response to a problem she saw firsthand.

“I worked for years as a manager of a store and the theft was just unbelievable,” Guerrero told CBS News. “I agree with it.”

Not every customer sees it that way. Barbara Jackson told the outlet she’s uneasy about having her face scanned every time she shops for groceries.

“I do understand, but invading my privacy with my picture, I don’t agree on that,” Jackson said. “You gotta find a better way.”

Shopper Steve Burdette raised a different concern: the risk of the system misidentifying innocent customers as thieves.

“It could lead to a lot of problems, I think for companies and businesses and people,” he said.

SAFR president Charisse Jacques pushed back on the notion that the technology amounts to mass surveillance. She said the company does not maintain a database of every customer who walks through the door, retains information on suspected shoplifters only for a limited window, and does not share data with outside agencies — including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the New York Post.

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Calif.: Bass faces mockery after arguing L.A.’s homeless population uses illicit drugs ‘to stay awake for protection’

Los Angeles Democrat Mayor Karen Bass is facing public backlash following controversial remarks regarding methamphetamine (meth) and drug use among the city’s homeless population.

Critics have quickly labeled the comments as an avoidance of the severe substance abuse epidemic fueling the local homelessness crisis. In a recent public discussion regarding the ongoing street crisis, Bass (D-Calif.) bizarrely argued that individuals sleeping on the L.A. streets do not initially use substances out of pure addiction, but rather, turn to illegal stimulants out of “fear” for their personal safety.

During the remarks, Mayor Bass claimed further that a large portion of street-level drug use stems from a survival mechanism rather than standard recreational abuse. Speaking on the city’s encampments, Bass declared that homeless individuals often “use drugs to stay awake for protection” on the city’s streets.

According to Bass’s representatives, who have since come out in support of her message, the mayor’s statement was meant to “highlight the high rates of violence and victimization” experienced by people living in outdoor encampments.

Nonetheless, the framing immediately prompted sharp rebukes from political opponents, community groups and local business owners who argue that the Democrat administration is heavily downplaying the destructive grip of heavy narcotics like fentanyl and methamphetamine.

The political fallout also comes amid a highly contentious mayoral race, where candidates are clashing over the visible reality of open-air drug markets and encampments across “the City of Angels.” Opponents have seized on the mayor’s rhetoric, pointing out that such explanations clearly ignore the criminal infrastructure behind the city’s meth epidemic.

During a recent primary debate, then-mayoral challenger Spencer Pratt directly challenged the city’s current approach to street outreach and voluntary services. Expressing deep skepticism over the concept that those living on streets are simply seeking safety, Pratt asserted, “These people do not want a bed. They want fentanyl or supermeth.”

While the mayor’s administration frequently champions initiatives like Inside Safe — which focuses on moving individuals from street encampments into temporary hotel rooms — many residents argue that the underlying crises of mental illness and severe drug addiction remain largely unaddressed on the ground.

As the city continues to navigate record expenditures, Bass’s comments have amplified demands for a major policy shift that prioritizes strict law enforcement alongside medical detoxification rather than a permissive view of illicit drug consumption.

Meanwhile, many volunteers and outreach workers on the ground argue that a substantial segment of the street population has abandoned traditional societal expectations entirely.

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American Farmers Shouldn’t Need Permission from the US Army to Grow Crops

For nearly a decade, California farmer Jack LaPant was the target of an investigation and prosecution by the United States Army, who alleged that LaPant violated the Clean Water Act by growing a wheat crop to feed his cattle. Earlier this year, LaPant was able to settle the case to get the Army out of his hair, but the settlement required him to give the Army more than $1 million in money and land value. This, despite the fact that the government never proved a single allegation in court.

Most of us today take for granted that we’ll be able to get the food we want when we go to the grocery store or our favorite restaurant. But the reality is that a safe, plentiful, and affordable food supply depends on people like Jack LaPant—a fact we should never forget.

Fewer Americans make their living in agriculture these days, which means more workers can devote their time and energy to other productive pursuits.

Modern farming produces substantial food surplus, which is an essential condition for an economy to diversify and grow. Less than 2 percent of the American population is now engaged in producing the food that nourishes the rest of us, thanks in large part to mechanization, technological advances, improved land and crop management practices, and other welcome innovations.

But let’s be clear: despite those advances, farming is still demanding, difficult work, and we should be thankful for those who make it their mission to feed the rest of us. Further, it is no coincidence that free economies produce the greatest food surplus. Centrally planned economies tend to produce famine. It is necessary that those few who do farm have their property and economic rights protected. If they aren’t safeguarded, we will all pay the price alongside them.

Jack LaPant decided 45 years ago to leave his steady power company job and take up farming. Since LaPant had no personal or family background in agriculture, this was an unusual career move, to say the least.

He moved his family from Oakland to a remote valley in the Sierras and learned to work the land. Over the decades, he built a living for himself and his children, while contributing to the food supply that sustains the rest of us. Then he found himself at odds with the US government.

The concern in LaPant’s case goes beyond the effects on the farm operations themselves. Heavy-handed and ruinous regulation at the hands of our nation’s military is a threat to the food surplus that we depend upon as part of the foundation of our modern life.

Remember that more than 98 percent of us have the freedom to do whatever our talents and opportunities allow because of the less than 2 percent of Americans who produce the food that the rest of us need. That imbalance marks a radical difference from the rest of the world—globally, about 60 percent of the population is dedicated to farming. In many less-developed countries, that’s not because farming is the path people choose—it’s because they have no choice at all if they don’t want to starve.

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US Government Approves Satellite That Turns Night Into Day

A California startup has received FCC approval for a mirrored satellite that will reflect the sun’s rays onto Earth’s dark side, providing light on demand across an area roughly three miles wide. The company, Reflect Orbital, paints a picture of a futuristic utopia, promising enhanced safety for search and rescue operations, extended hours for agricultural and solar panel productivity, and a world where the shadows of night are banished at the flip of a switch.

However, the project has sparked a firestorm of controversy, drawing the scrutiny of both regulators and the scientific community. These critics warn that the intense, concentrated beams could pose serious hazards to drivers, potentially causing flash-blindness, and wreak havoc on sensitive astronomical observations. The reaction online has been equally sharp, with one Reddit user sarcastically quipping, “Yay!!! More wildfires!!!”

For now, the FCC’s decision covers only a single demonstration satellite, not the company’s much larger long-term vision of 50,000 similar devices. Nevertheless, the debate illuminates a bigger question: if we can engineer artificial daylight, should we?

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