Tag: california

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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California Immigration Judge Sues Trump DOJ; Claims She Was Fired for Being a Registered Democrat Woman Over 40

A California immigration judge has filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Justice, alleging she was terminated because she is a registered Democrat, a woman over 40, fluent in Spanish, and had ties to immigrant-rights groups.

Kyra Lilien had been in the San Francisco Immigration Court since 2023, before transferring to the Concord Immigration Court in 2024.

Last July, Lilien was notified that her two-year probationary period would not be converted to a permanent appointment.

The 14-page lawsuit, filed this week, names the DOJ and Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche as defendants.

Lilien claims she met or exceeded all performance standards and received the highest possible ratings in her probationary reports for fiscal years 2024 and 2025.

According to TRAC Immigration data, she denied just 34% of asylum claims brought before her.

Despite this, she alleges her removal violated her civil and First Amendment rights.

Lilien’s attorney, Kevin Owen of Gilbert Employment Law in Maryland, told local station KTVU that Lilien “didn’t fit their mold” and that the actions taken against her were “impermissible and unlawful.”

“She didn’t fit their mold,” Owen said. “And what they did to her was impermissible and unlawful.”

The suit claims that immigration judges who were terminated or not retained around the same time were overwhelmingly female and points to internal memos issued by then-acting EOIR Director Sirce Owen in early 2025.

Those memos criticized “extremist leftist organizations” involved in illegal alien advocacy and Biden-era hiring practices that promoted illegal immigration and DEI hires.

Lilien, KTVU reports, “used to be program director for Jewish Family and Community Services, which largely helps Afghan refugees settle in the United States, and was the immigration program director for Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland.”

The complaint also names nearly 30 other immigration judges from across the country who were similarly fired or not converted from probationary status, including 14 from the Concord and San Francisco courts.

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Cost of California’s High-Speed Rail Goes Up Again

It was also supposed to be carrying 65.5 million to 96.5 million intercity riders a year by 2030. Yet now 2040 is the date for “full service to start.” Skeptics don’t believe we’ll ever see the train run with paying customers aboard.

“In my judgment, the Draft 2026 Business Plan describes a project that has reached a dead end,” says Louis S. Thompson, a 15-year member of the California High Speed Rail Peer Review Group that was established by legislation.

In a letter to lawmakers, Thompson, who was also on the team that created Amtrak, said that after so many changes in the project—cost, design revisions, longer estimated trip times—it’s “not, not even remotely, the system the voters approved in Proposition 1A” in 2008.

Early last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom, that “Steel Driving Man,” promised there soon would be some visible manifestation of the train’s “progress.” A few months later, HSRA CEO Ian Choudri promised, “We are going to be laying high speed tracks next year.”

The HSRA “expects to achieve several other procurement milestones in 2026,” but not track laying and there is no hard deadline for it to begin to be found in the plan. There is only a three-and-a-half-year timeline, which starts in July for the “Track & Systems Design & Construction” of the first section in the Central Valley.

In other words, the HSRA has provided itself cover should it fall short of its 2026 promise.

California’s perpetually unfolding mess has caught the attention of the editorial board of a newspaper one state over after a recent “60 Minutes” report “shined the spotlight on what has become the most embarrassing and costly government infrastructure boondoggle in US history.”

“Has there ever been a greater fraud perpetrated on the taxpayers than California’s high-speed rail travesty?” asked the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Where are the folks at ‘American Greed’ when you need them?”

That is, of course, a reference to the CNBC documentary series “American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals.” It won’t happen, but it would be fitting, if the HSRA borrowed the program’s name for the subtitle of its 2027 business plan, which this year is shamelessly being called “Transforming California’s Future.”

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Disney cruise ship staffers among 28 arrested in massive child porn operation

Families hoping to make memories on a cruise were unknowingly surrounded by alleged child predators working aboard the ships, according to law enforcement officials.

US Customs and Border Protection boarded five cruise ships, including a Disney cruise docked in San Diego, between April 23 and 25 as part of ongoing child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) enforcement operations, a CBP spokesperson told The California Post.

“After boarding the vessels and interviewing 26 suspected crew members from the Philippines, one suspected crew member from Portugal, and one from Indonesia, officers confirmed all subjects were involved in either the receipt, possession, transportation, distribution, or viewing of CSEM or child pornography,” the CBP spokesperson said.

“CBP cancelled their visas and these criminals are being removed from our country,” the spokesperson continued.

“We have a zero-tolerance policy for this type of behavior and fully cooperated with law enforcement. While the majority of these individuals were not from our cruise line, those who were are no longer with the company,” a Disney spokesperson told The California Post.

It’s unclear which other ships the additional crew members may have worked on outside of Disney.

Passengers aboard a Disney cruise ship docking in San Diego were stunned as they documented multiple employees getting arrested last month.

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HERE IT IS: Democrat Katie Porter Says the Quiet Part Out Loud About Illegal Aliens During California Governor Primary Debate 

California Democrat gubernatorial candidate and former Democrat Rep. Katie Porter said the quiet part out loud during Tuesday night’s primary debate.

Katie Porter admitted that illegal aliens are taking over California and she said that she supports healthcare for illegals.

This woman is dangerous – literally (just ask her ex-husband and staffers).

“Illegal aliens are one of the only ways California has been growing in recent years,” Katie Porter said.

Katie Porter routinely abuses her staffers.

Politico previously released a shocking video of Katie Porter berating one of her staffers during a call with the Biden Administration.

The abusive outburst happened in July 2021 while then-Democrat Rep. Katie Porter spoke with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in an online exchange.

Porter lashed out at a masked staffer who could be seen in the background.

“Get out of my f*cking shot!” Porter shouted as the staffer tried to correct something she said about electric vehicles.

“You also were in my shot before that. Stay out of my shot,” Porter said as she pounded her fists on a table.

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Man Accused of Starting Palisades Fire Had Become Obsessed With Leftist Ideas According to Prosecutors

New court filings show that the alleged arsonist who started the January 2025 Pacific Palisades fire in California is a deranged leftist who hated capitalism, resented the rich, and was angry at the world.

As a reminder, these are the hallmarks of today’s unhinged, anti-American, anti-social left.

These findings were presented in a memorandum filed last week in the case United States vs. Jonathan Rinderknecht, ahead of his June 8 trial.

Rinderknecht has been charged with three federal felony counts for starting the Palisades Fire, which killed 12 people, destroyed 7,000 homes and businesses, and caused $150 billion in damages.

In the weeks preceding the arson, Rinderknecht’s online searches included phrases such as “lets kill all the billionaires,” “let’s take down all the billionaires,” and “free Luigi Mangione,” according to WESH-TV.

Mangione is currently in jail awaiting trial for the December 2024 assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Mangione’s personal journal entries suggested he targeted the insurance executive because of his intense hatred for the American for-profit health insurance industry, which he called a “greed-fueled cartel.”

According to the memo in Rinderknecht’s case, the leftist lunatic — who worked as an Uber driver in the weeks preceding the Palisades fire — ranted against capitalism and whined about Mangione’s arrest.

“Many of defendant’s Uber passengers on December 31, 2024 and January 1, 2025, described defendant as angry, intense, driving erratically, and ranting about being ‘pissed off at the world’ and Luigi Mangione, capitalism, and vigilantism,” prosecutors wrote, per the New York Post.

“When asked why someone would ultimately set the blaze, Rinderknecht allegedly responded that it ‘would be out of resentment of the rich enjoying their money as ‘we’re basically being enslaved by them,’ and compared such an act of ‘desperation’ to the murder for which Mangione was charged,” according to the pretrial memo.

In a nutshell, Rinderknecht is the poster boy for today’s deranged left, whose primary characteristics are emotional incontinence, violence, and fetishization of criminality.

It’s not surprising that Rinderknecht romanticized accused assassin Luigi Mangione, since liberals constantly lionize criminals while undermining the safety of law-abiding Americans.

In the months preceding the Palisades fire, Democrats and their media puppets beclowned themselves by falsely blaming “climate change” for the massive blaze that, in reality, seems to have been caused by a left-wing arsonist.

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A detransitioner confronted a California lawmaker on the harms of gender transition. Here’s why he spoke out

A young man who went viral for confronting California lawmakers about harms he says he faced from childhood medical transition is speaking out against a bill he believes could make it harder for vulnerable minors to get proper counseling.

Jonni Skinner, a detransitioner and ambassador for Genspect, testified at a California Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week against SB 934, a bill sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener that would let victims of “conversion therapy” seek damages through malpractice lawsuits, even years after the counseling occurred. Wiener’s office defines conversion therapy to include “sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts.”

Critics, including the California Family Council, say SB 934 is so broadly written that it could expose therapists to lawsuits for talk therapy on sexuality and gender identity.

Skinner says he grew up in a small town in Michigan in a religious family and was diagnosed with high-functioning autism at a young age. He said he struggled with feeling different from other boys and was bullied for having stereotypical feminine interests. As he reached puberty, he became increasingly uncomfortable with his body and carried shame that he might grow up to be gay or an effeminate man. After seeing online influencers he admired undergo gender transitions, he said he found the idea appealing.

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Billionaire California Dem Gubernatorial Candidate Gets DRAGGED Online After Sharing Footage of Himself Posing in a VERY IRONIC T-Shirt With Marxist Protesters

A billionaire California Democrat gubernatorial candidate is getting blown up online after posing in a very ironic t-shirt with his fellow socialists.

On Saturday, Tom Steyer uploaded a video on his X page showing him at a “May Day” protest where he attempts to portray himself as a traitor to his class and a ‘champion’ of ordinary Californians. He even poses in a “Workers Over Billionaires” shirt.

Does he not realize that these people want to see folks like him eliminated?

“Today is May Day…Today is the day where we celebrate the working people of California, the people who make California run,” Steyer says in the video. “And their rights are being trampled on!”

A woman then asks if he’s planning on redistributing his wealth, to which Steyer replies, “Yes, I am!”

Steyer goes on to say that his campaign is about standing up for working Californians against “corporate special interests,” before cutting to him taking photo-ops with Marxist protesters while still wearing the stupid shirt.

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