Tag: california

Arcadia mayor Eileen Wang admits acting as Chinese spy, running fake news website with ex-lover in shocking plea deal

The former mayor of Arcadia resigned after admitting to acting as an illegal foreign agent of China in a federal plea deal unsealed on Monday.

Eileen Wang agreed with prosecutors that she worked with the People’s Republic of China to boost propaganda with a fake news website on US soil between 2020 and 2022. She was elected to Arcadia City Council in November 2022 — the city is within LA County.

Wang worked with her then fiancé, Yaoning “Mike” Sun, on a web site called “U.S. News Center,” which claimed to be news source for Chinese Americans, according to court documents.

But in reality the pair were carrying out Beijing’s orders through the site.

Wang and Sun “executed directives” from the Chinese government, posting propaganda designed to boost China, all while reporting back to their masters with screenshots showing how many people viewed the stories, according to the plea agreement.

In one case, Wang’s spymaster ordered her to post a PRC-authored essay denying the existence of genocide and forced labor in the Xinjiang region, the plea deal states.

“There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumor is to defame China, destroy Xinjiang’s safety and stability,” wrote Wang’s master, according to the plea agreement.

Wang complied and her handler wrote back, “So fast, thank you everyone.”

In another case, Wang’s PRC boss commended her on page views received by a certain piece of propaganda. Wang wrote back, “Thank you leader”.

Wang pled guilty to the federal charge at her arraignment in downtown Los Angeles on Monday afternoon. She faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.

LA’s top federal prosecutor, Bill Essayli, said this is not the first time China has been caught trying to exert its influence in the United States.

“Ms. Wang is just the latest to act as an agent for the PRC and it should terrify Americans that she was able to rise to the highest levels of local office in her city,” Essayli said.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Wang admitted that that she acted under the control of Chinese officials to promote propaganda in the U.S.

Prosecutors in 2024 charged Sun with conspiracy and acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government.

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Caught On Tape: California Billionaire Tax Architect Admits Wealth Confiscation Could Go Even Further

One of the co-authors of California’s controversial ‘one-time’ tax on billionaires appeared to suggest that the levy could extend beyond a single imposition.

Marxist economics professor Emmanuel Saez, who hails from France, made the comment during a Tuesday debate against economist Arthur Laffer at the University of California, Berkeley.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a one-time tax. Because you can’t surprise billionaires more than once,” Saez said. “Even then, maybe some of them were expecting something like this. So, it’s going to be a debate about this time, you know, a permanent wealth tax at a low rate that’s going to last for a number of years.”

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California County Discovers 596 Unopened Ballots Hidden in Locked Drop Box Months After Special Election Allowing Democrats to Redistrict

Officials in Humboldt County, California, have discovered 596 unopened ballots from last November’s special election still sealed at the bottom of a locked voting drop box.

The discovery came months after the election was certified and the ballots were legally supposed to have been destroyed.

The ballots were cast in the November statewide special election focused on Proposition 50, the redistricting measure heavily promoted by Governor Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders.

Prop 50 was designed to create even more Democratic advantages in the state’s congressional and legislative maps by giving the party-controlled legislature more power over redistricting.

The measure passed by more than three million votes statewide, so these uncounted ballots alone would not have altered the final result. However, the discovery raises serious questions about how many other votes may have been overlooked in California’s mail-in and drop-box-dominated system.

According to the Humboldt County Office of Elections, the ballots were left behind because of a basic but inexcusable staff error.

An election worker failed to properly empty the drop box after polls closed, and the box was then locked with the ballots still inside.

The mistake was only discovered during a routine inventory check earlier this month, long after the election had been certified on December 5.

Humboldt County Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters Juan Pablo Cervantes gave a statement to the Los Angeles Times, taking full responsibility.

“That outcome is unacceptable and runs counter to the core of what this office stands for,” Cervantes said. “While the mistake occurred after an election worker did not follow proper procedures, the responsibility for what happened ultimately sits with me.”

County officials said the sealed ballots showed no signs of tampering. They have now contacted the California Secretary of State’s office to determine the proper legal steps for handling the late-discovered ballots, even though state law required them to be destroyed six months after certification.

In response to the situation, Humboldt County has already rolled out new safety measures, including a “lock out, tag out” protocol that requires every drop box to be physically verified as empty before final results are certified.

“I promise you that we are taking this seriously,” Cervantes added. “We will strengthen our processes and continue pushing toward the standard our community expects and deserves.”

President Donald Trump and Republican leaders have repeatedly highlighted the state’s universal mail-in voting, widespread drop boxes, and loose chain-of-custody rules as “ripe for fraud.”

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Female Athletes Slam Gavin Newsom Over California Trans Athlete Controversy

As the girls’ high school track and field championships approach, a trans athlete is set to compete in this year’s girls’ tournament.

The main controversy centers on AB Hernandez, a biological male high school student at Jurupa Valley High School in Riverside County. Hernandez qualified for and competed in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Track & Field Championships in Clovis in the girls’ long jump, high jump, and triple jump.

Hernandez is seeded first in the upcoming tournament.

Last year, Hernandez won 1st place in high jump and triple jump and took 2nd place in the long jump.

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Transgender athlete AB Hernandez dominates three jumping events at California postseason track meet

A California postseason track meet on Saturday opened with a “Save Girls’ Sports” rally outside the gates and ended in familiar fashion, as one athlete again separated from the field in the jumping events, highlighting growing concerns over competitive fairness in girls’ sports.

Saturday’s CIF Southern Section Division 3 preliminaries in Yorba Linda drew attention before competition began, with demonstrators protesting California’s policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports.

Inside, the focus turned to the jumping events, where biological male AB Hernandez, a senior from Jurupa Valley, competed against women and finished first across all three competitions with dominant performances.

Hernandez, a trans multi-sport athlete (previously involved in girls’ volleyball), won the Long Jump Division 3 Prelim and Triple Jump Division 3 Prelim by wide margins and tied for first in the High Jump Division 3 Prelim with Reese Hogan, an athlete with past ties to Hernandez.

The long jump result separated the field. Hernandez posted 20 feet, 4 1/4 inches. The next closest finishers reached 19 feet, 1 1/2 inches and 18 feet, 7 inches.

More than a foot separated first from second.

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Gavin Newsom Launches ‘Free Diapers’ Program That Has a Curious Connection to His Wife’s Pet Project

California Governor Gavin Newsom is launching a new project in his state that will give new parents hundreds of free diapers. Sounds great, doesn’t it? New parents need diapers. Lots of them. Win win, right?

ABC 7 reports:

California families welcoming newborns will soon receive hundreds of free diapers before leaving the hospital under a first-in-the-nation program announced Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

During the program’s first year, it will be offered at about 65 to 75 hospitals that handle about a quarter of births in the state and largely serve low-income patients, Newsom’s office said. The initiative will expand to more hospitals statewide, though the governor’s office did not say how many. The state has partnered with nonprofit Baby2Baby to manufacture the diapers under the label “Golden State Start.”…

The state set aside $7.4 million in last year’s budget to roll out the initiative, and this year’s budget proposal includes an additional $12.5 million to implement the program for the upcoming fiscal year ending in June 2027.

Do you like this idea? Well, like all things Democrats offer for free, there is a catch.

As Kevin Dalton pointed out on Twitter/X, this program has a direct connection to Newsom’s wife and a charity she runs:

Gavin Newsom just announced a shiny new taxpayer funded program giving free diapers to newborns leaving California hospitals and his administration is partnering with Baby2Baby with almost $20 MILLION in state funds to manufacture them.

I’m sure it’s a total coincidence that one of Baby2Baby’s Co-CEOs, Norah Weinstein, sits on the board of Gavin Newsom’s wife’s California Partners Project.

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Obama Slammed for ‘Disgusting’ Decision to Speak at Event Organized by Man with Troubling Past

Former President Barack Obama is under fire for his decision to speak at an upcoming event in Napa Valley, California.

According to Politico, the former president will deliver remarks to an audience of CEOs brought together by Declan Kelly, former chairman and chief executive of the consulting firm Teneo, who resigned from that position after reportedly getting drunk and groping a number of women at a high-powered charity event in 2021.

“It’s disgusting to have a president who has championed women speak at an event hosted by someone with this type of track record of treating women,” a female former employee said, speaking on condition of anonymity, according to Politico.

Another anonymous former Teneo employee agreed.

“President Obama should not be in the business of rehabbing the reputation and accepting money from someone accused of groping multiple people at a charity event. Some red lines are not meant to be crossed,” the second former employee said, according to Politico.

According to a report at the time from the New York Post’s Page Six, the 2021 charity event was the VIP party that followed the Vax Live concert organized by the organization Global Citizen.

Vax Live billed itself as “a global broadcast special celebrating COVID-19 vaccines.” It was chaired by Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, and featured messages from the now-deceased Pope Francis and then-President Joe Biden.

“One source told Page Six that Kelly was extremely drunk and acted inappropriately with as many as six women at the party in front of other guests,” the column reported.

Kelly resigned from Teneo less than two months later, according to a CNBC report.

“Since the event two months ago Mr. Kelly immediately committed to sobriety, is undertaking ongoing counselling from healthcare professionals, and has temporarily reduced his work responsibilities,” a representative of Kelly told The Wall Street Journal at the time.

Meanwhile, Kelly’s connections to powerful figures in the Democratic Party go beyond Obama.

From 2009 through 2011, Kelly served as special economic envoy to Northern Ireland under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Likewise, a co-founder of Teneo, the company Kelly led, was Doug Band, a one-time counselor to former President Bill Clinton who was credited in a 2020 Vanity Fair as having “virtually invented Clinton’s postpresidential life.”

Now, Kelly serves as founder, chairman, and CEO of the investment company Consello. Senior management at the company includes former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

Consello organized the event where Obama will speak.

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California Screamin’: Media Begins Taking Notice of Dem Disaster

A funny thing happened on the way to the (Kia) Forum. The media has begun to take notice of the results emerging from decades of Democrat rule in the Golden State. And suddenly, California dreaming looks a lot more like California screaming – and even the lockstep media can’t ignore it. 

Democrats have only themselves to blame, not just for the disaster they have made of the state but also in providing the catalyst for the national spotlight on it. In the gubernatorial race, a flood of high-profile Democrats jumped into the jungle primary – also a Democrat innovation – while Republicans had more discipline and kept it to two main candidates, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco. The possibility and near-probability of a vote split on the Left made the potential for a Hilton-Bianco runoff so novel and interesting that the national media couldn’t resist it. And with that spotlight on California comes scrutiny over just how badly Gavin Newsom and two generations of Democrat-only leadership have ruined the state.

Today, Axios takes particular notice of what it calls “the ultimate paradox of Democratic rule,” which the rest of us would call the utterly predictable results. Axios also links the high-profile mayoral race in Los Angeles, with the context of failures in every aspect of governance:

The two most consequential races in California have devolved into twin spectacles, with years of visible dysfunction hollowing out Democrats’ case for competent leadership.

Why it matters: California is the ultimate paradox of Democratic rule. A state of immense wealth, innovation and cultural power is increasingly unable to deliver the basics of housing, public safety and disaster response.

The big picture: Those failures have been building for years.

  • But COVID and last year’s catastrophic fires have transformed long-simmering frustration with California governance into a visceral public indictment of the people running the state — one now playing out in the races for governor and Los Angeles mayor.

These failures have indeed been building for years, but the national media has never given it much notice until now. The Protection Racket Media has given Gavin Newsom in particular a pass for it despite his antics as an absentee governor. The media loves to feature him as a Temu Trump and a podcaster while almost literally playing Nero while Los Angeles burned last year. Newsom’s COVID policies turned out to be disastrous, too, so bad in fact that he got caught several times violating them for his own personal desires. 

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California’s ‘Billionaire Tax’ Could Reach Far Beyond Billionaires

Last week, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced it had gathered more than 1.5 million signatures — nearly double what it needed — to put a sweeping new wealth tax on California’s November ballot. The initiative is called the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act.

The name is designed to make you stop reading. Don’t.

SEIU has spent months positioning itself as the champion of nurses, teachers and caregivers. What it has actually done is run a $24 million campaign to put a measure on the ballot that could eventually be used to tax virtually any Californian who owns assets — with no return trip to the ballot box required.

The measure would impose a 5 percent tax on the total net worth of California residents worth more than $1 billion as of Jan. 1, 2026. Buried in the fine print is a provision allowing the California legislature to expand the tax — lowering the threshold, adding asset categories — by simple majority vote, without voter approval.

The Tax Foundation has warned that the measure’s design could push the effective rate on some taxpayers well above the advertised 5 percent.

SEIU leaders will tell you pensions and retirement accounts are excluded. That’s true … for now. What the union won’t tell you is what happens to those pension funds when California’s investment climate deteriorates.

CalPERS — the pension system for California public employees — manages roughly $556 billion in assets and is already facing more than $179 billion in unfunded liabilities.

CalSTRS, the pension fund for California’s teachers, manages a portfolio of more than $400 billion. Both depend on a functioning private economy and stable financial markets.

When founders and investors are forced to sell equity stakes to pay a tax bill, and when the state’s wealthiest residents continue to leave, the damage doesn’t stop with them.

It reaches the pension checks of the workers the SEIU claims to speak for.

The Hoover Institution estimates the permanent loss of income tax revenue from departing residents will leave California worse off — not better off — by $25 billion.

Nearly 30 percent of the billionaire tax base had already left the state before the initiative even qualified for the ballot. Six billionaires departed publicly before the Jan. 1 residency deadline, including Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

More have reportedly followed without any fanfare.

Every departure costs the state years of income tax revenue, capital gains and related economic activity California can’t afford to lose.

SEIU and its enablers call this a healthcare funding measure — a response to federal Medicaid reforms. It isn’t.

California already has the highest income tax rates in the nation. Its budget problems aren’t a revenue problem. They’re a spending problem that’s outpaced even California’s substantial tax base for years.

SEIU claims to speak for hundreds of thousands of workers whose retirement security runs through CalPERS, CalSTRS and a California economy that keeps generating jobs and investment.

A measure that accelerates capital flight and weakens pension fund returns, then hands Sacramento the tools to expand asset taxation without a vote is not a benefit to those workers.

California voters should read past the name of this initiative before they decide whether to support it. The SEIU is counting on them not to.

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Multiple Biden officials bash former Cabinet official, gobsmacked by their rise CA governor race

Former Biden officials are anonymously taking aim at one of their own, ex-HHS Sec. Xavier Becerra, as he appears to ascend in the California gubernatorial race.

Becerra has emerged as a leading Democratic candidate in California’s jungle primary for governor after Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell’s dramatic exit from the race last month.

His rise, however, is mystifying his former Biden administration colleagues, according to a report from Politico.

“Six former Biden administration officials, all of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly about a former colleague, acknowledged the subject of Becerra’s unlikely rise has come to dominate their group chats and conversations,” Politico reported Thursday.

“‘It gets the biggest laugh every time we send around a poll,’ the first former official said, describing the perception across the administration that the former HHS secretary was ineffective on the COVID response, a migrant health crisis at the border and other matters,” Politico continued. “‘He ran one of the most consequential agencies in government at the height of the pandemic. But he took a backseat to Dr. Fauci and his team, didn’t visibly lead on implementation and had to go through layers to get to POTUS even as a Cabinet member.'”

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