Tag: california

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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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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