Tag: california

Supreme Court Rejects Fire Chief’s Religious Freedom Case

Ronald Hittle was fired as Stockton, California’s fire chief after facing misconduct allegations, including an anonymous letter that labeled him a “corrupt, racist, lying, religious fanatic.”

One factor behind his dismissal was his attendance, along with other managers, at a church-sponsored summit for Christian leaders during work hours.

Hittle attempted to sue, arguing that he was terminated because of his Christian faith, but lower courts ruled that his case wasn’t strong enough to proceed to trial. Hittle maintains that the Supreme Court’s standard for evaluating workplace discrimination claims—a test established over 50 years ago—warrants reexamination.

But on Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear his case, sidestepping a potential showdown over workplace religious discrimination at a time when the Court is also scrutinizing issues related to religion in schools and religion-based tax exemptions.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch indicated they would have accepted the appeal. Thomas noted that Hittle presented ample evidence of discriminatory intent, and that his case could have provided clear guidance on when workplace discrimination claims should proceed, the outlet reported.

Hittle was terminated in 2011 after a city investigation found that he lacked effectiveness and judgment, failed to report time off, engaged in favoritism, and attended a religious event with other managers while on the job, among other issues.

The event—a church-sponsored summit for Christian leaders—was something Hittle attended at the city’s direction for leadership training, USA Today noted.

Hittle contends that his attendance at the Global Leadership Summit was the main reason for his dismissal, alleging that the deputy city manager accused him of being part of a “Christian Coalition.”

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Climate Change Policies Driving California’s Golden Road to Decline

The first of two reported essays on the issues facing California. Read the second installment here.

“From the Beginning, California promised much. While yet barely a name on the map, it entered American awareness as a symbol of renewal. It was a final frontier: of geography and of expectation.”

— Kevin Starr, “Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915” 

California’s economic, academic, media, and political establishment still embraces the notion of the state’s inevitable supremacy. “The future depends on us,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at his first inauguration, “and we will seize this moment.” Others see California as deserving and capable of nationhood, a topic that has resurfaced with Trump’s presidency as it reflects, as a New York Times column put it, “the shared values of our increasingly tolerant and pluralistic society.”

Critics say this vision is at odds with the facts on the ground. Rather than the exemplar of a new “progressive capitalism” and a model for social justice, California both accommodates the highest number of billionaires and the highest cost-adjusted poverty rate. It has the third highest gap, behind just Washington, D.C., and Louisiana, between middle- and upper-middle-income earners of any state. Nearly one in five Californians – many working – lives in poverty (using a cost-of-living adjusted poverty rate); the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) estimates another one-fifth live in near-poverty – roughly 15 million people in total.

“California” is a model that no longer delivers. To be sure, California has a huge GDP, paced largely by high real estate prices and the stock value of a handful of huge tech firms. It retains the inertia from its glory days, particularly in technology and entertainment, but that edge is evaporating as tech firms flee the state and Hollywood productions are shot around the world. For all its strengths, California has the nation’s second-highest rate of unemployment with lagging job growth, particularly in comparison to its neighbors and chief rivals, notably Texas, Arizona, and Nevada.

The signs of failure are evident on the streets. Roughly half the nation’s homeless population lives in the Golden State, many concentrated in disease- and crime-ridden tent cities in Los Angeles or San Francisco. Barely one in three state residents – and only one in four younger voters – now considers California a good place to achieve the American dream. Increasingly, California is where this dream goes to die.

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California Lawmakers Reject Bills To Ban Males From Female Sports

California state lawmakers have rejected a change to state policies that would have required male student athletes identifying as transgender to compete on sports teams consistent with their sex.

On April 1, Democratic lawmakers on the state Assembly’s Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism rejected two bills introduced by Republican lawmakers—AB 89 and AB 844. Democrats hold a supermajority on the committee.

AB 89 would have required the California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports, to follow rules banning male students from playing on girls’ sports teams at school.

AB 844 would have effectively repealed the 2013 California School Success and Opportunity Act, which permits students to play in sex-segregated school programs, including on sports teams, as well as use bathrooms and other facilities based on their gender identity. The bill would have applied to K-12 and college students.

Democratic Assemblyman Chris Ward, the committee chair and leader of the legislative LGBTQ+ caucus, alleged the bills to be part of an attack on transgender youth.

“Let’s be clear—this isn’t about fairness,” he stated in a post on Instagram.

“It’s about fear and exclusion, and I won’t stand for it.”

“Targeting trans athletes doesn’t protect anyone—it harms all girls,” said Ward, who represents large parts of San Diego. 

“This must stop.”

Republican Assemblyman Bill Essayli, author of AB 844, said the measure would restore fairness to women’s sports.

“California will come into compliance with Title IX either through the legislative process or the court process,” Essayli said during the hearing on Tuesday. “Title IX was passed to protect sex-based sports, to protect girls so they could have their own teams, so they can compete and be champions.”

Essayli said that even one woman disenfranchised due to current state law is too many.

“You’re taking rights away from women,” Essayli said.

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Police Watch and Do Nothing as Masked Antifa Vandals Violently Attack TPUSA Students, Staff at UC Davis

Masked Antifa vandals violently attacked TPUSA staff at a tabling event at UC Davis on Thursday.

The far-left protestors completely destroyed TPUSA’s “Prove Me Wrong” tabling event with former police officer Brandon Tatum. They stole the tent, ripped down the TPUSA banners and tried to steal the TPUSA staffer’s iPad and electronics.

Police officers stood by and did nothing to stop the Antifa thugs as they destroyed the TPUSA canopy and assaulted students.

“Antifascista! A! Anti!” Antifa protestors chanted as they destroyed the TPUSA table.

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California’s Regulations, Not Price Gouging, Cause High Gas Prices, USC Study Finds

Gov. Gavin Newsom stands behind his claim that “Big Oil” is responsible for California’s higher gas prices and vowed on April 1 to continue his fight against the industry. The pledge comes after new research put the blame on state regulations and policies for the high prices at the pump.

California’s Democratic leaders have come out strongly against the oil industry in recent years, saying the companies’ gouging was causing record-high gas prices.

“Gov. Newsom has done more than any other governor in recent history to tackle the challenge of rising gas prices—despite what the oil industry and its allies say,” a spokesman for Newsom told The Epoch Times in an email Tuesday.

A new study published March 16 by Michael Mische from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California says the evidence contradicts Newsom. Mische’s research indicated California’s high gas prices were caused by the state’s regulations and policies.

“There is no economic data to support the allegation of price gouging,” Mische told The Epoch Times. “It just doesn’t exist.”

The professor also pushed back against Newsom’s claim that he was an industry ally.

“The data is the data,” Mische said.

Mische has been on the USC faculty since 1997, where he coordinates the business school’s management consulting undergraduate and graduate programs.

In March 2023, the governor signed a “windfall-profits penalty law” to target oil companies. The new law created a slew of regulations and extensive oversight for oil companies.

Newsom’s office said the governor saved Californians billions of dollars at the pump by signing the law.

The measure allows the governor’s appointed Energy Commission to fine and penalize oil companies if they earned profits beyond state-imposed limits.

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FBI Weaponizes Background Checks To Enforce California Gun Ban

When you go to a gun store to buy a new gun, you can expect a few things to happen.  First, some paperwork.  Second, you can expect to have to pass a background check before leaving with your gun.  And third, you can expect that the gun store will keep a record of your purchase for as long as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF”) requires.  After all, that is how the government traces crime guns back to their original purchasers.

But what you might not expect is an FBI agent receiving a ping that you – yes, you – just successfully bought a gun.  And you might be surprised to learn that this agent has been receiving notifications of your purchases for months – or years.

Of course, such a surveillance scheme would be flatly unconstitutional – not to mention a violation of several safeguards already codified in federal law.  Yet slowly but surely, the government has been building a record of the private collections of thousands of American citizens, even though federal law expressly prohibits that “any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions” be established.

Of course, even though they are being monitored, these victims remain law-abiding, meaning the government has no probable cause to justify seeking a warrant authorizing such a search in the first place.

Now, Gun Owners of America has discovered that the FBI has been using its Second Amendment surveillance program not only to enforce federal law, but also to help California target owners of newly banned “assault weapons.”

FBI’s NICS Monitoring Scheme

When news first broke of the FBI and ATF’s joint “NICS Monitoring” surveillance scheme, the public was shocked.  As journalist John Crump reported in April of 2021, “monitoring of NICS isn’t for prohibited people,” but rather those who are eligible to purchase firearms but who law enforcement agents nevertheless suspect might commit a crime.

GOA learned that targets of NICS Monitoring – which exploits records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (“NICS”) before they are deleted within 24 hours – never receive notice that their firearm transactions are being monitored.  Thus, there is no way to challenge the FBI’s surveillance.

In fact, in order to enroll a target for NICS Monitoring, an agent only needs to complete an internal request form. At no point does an agent seeking NICS Monitoring have to convince a judge (or anyone other than himself, really) that this surveillance comports with the Fourth Amendment.  Entirely usurpingly, then, the FBI’s abuse of NICS Monitoring is rampant.

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‘Please Sir, May I Have Another?’ California High Speed Rail Asks for $7 Billion More

Helen Kerstein, a representative from the California Legislative Analyst Office, had the unenviable task of appearing before California lawmakers and giving them the bad news about the high-speed rail system currently under construction somewhere north of Los Angeles.

Kerstein admitted to lawmakers that the project needs another $7 billion by June 2026 or work will grind to a halt.

She said there was “no specific plan to meet that roughly $7 billion gap” and added that there is “some risk that that gap could grow.”

“Some risk” = drop-dead certainty.

“This isn’t a way out in the future funding gap. This is a pretty immediate funding gap,” she said. 

Phase 1 of the project was originally estimated to cost $33 billion. Current estimates are north of $128 billion, and with this latest ask, projected costs are useless in any realistic sense.

The first phase will be from Merced to Bakersfield. That initial construction was chosen because it is the easiest to build topographically. It’s relatively flat, and some existing tracks can be used.

About $23 billion has been spent to date, with the total cost of the Merced-Bakersfield stretch to hit $35 billion and be completed in 2033. Since nothing relating to this project has ever come in on time or under budget, you have to wonder why they even bother guessing.

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Have California Democrats Finally Gone Too Far?

California has reached a new level of insanity. A proposed ballot initiative in the state is named after Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. But here’s the kicker: Democrats couldn’t even spell his name right.

The so-called “Luigi Mangioni Access to Health Care Act” aims to make it more difficult for insurance companies to deny medical treatment claims. 

That’s right — these people are trying to turn an accused killer into some kind of folk hero to push their radical agenda. You can’t make this stuff up.

The Luigi Mangione Access to Health Care Act submitted to the California Attorney General’s Office would make it illegal for an insurance company to “delay, deny or modify any medical procedure or medication” that is suggested by a licensed physician in the Golden State where there could be serious consequences such as “disability, death, amputation, permanent disfigurement, loss or reduction of any bodily function,” the document states. It was filed by Paul Eisner, a longtime Los Angeles-based attorney.

The terms “delay” and “deny” were made popular by the healthcare book “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About.” The words “delay, deny, and depose” were reportedly inscribed on the casings of the bullets that killed Brian Thompson on Dec. 4.

“What” Rob Pyers, research director for California Target Book, posted on X.

“A proposed ballot initiative has been filed in California entitled “The Luigi Mangioni (sic) Access to Health Care Act.” Actually,” Los Angeles-based conservative activist Elizabeth Barcohana said.

It’s sick the way Democrats celebrate evil people.

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Former Congresswoman Explains CCP’s Hidden Influence In California

As awareness grows of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence in the United States, a former congresswoman from California is shedding light on the regime’s reach in the state, across the country, and around the world.

Michelle Steel, who served in Congress from 2021 to 2025 and sat on several committees dealing with China-related issues, raised concerns about the CCP’s influence on the U.S. higher education system in a recent interview with EpochTV’s “California Insider.”

“Universities were the worst one. We have a prominent university in California called UC Berkeley … and they received $220 million from China,” Steel said.

Under the Higher Education Act of 1965, universities must report to the Department of Education every six months any foreign gifts or contracts—either individually or combined—valued at $250,000 or more in a calendar year.

Steel alleged the university never reported the money.

The allegations surfaced in 2023 when Education and Workforce Committee chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and then Select Committee on China chairman Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) stated in a letter to University of California–Berkeley officials that the university failed to report investments from the Chinese municipal government—$220 million of which was intended to fund a campus in Shenzhen, China—for the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, a joint research initiative.

Tsinghua University, one of China’s top institutions, is governed by the country’s Ministry of Education.

In exchange for the money it received, the university allegedly provided exclusive tours of advanced semiconductor research facilities to Chinese delegations, including senior Chinese regime officials, according to another letter to the National Science Foundation from House Science, Space, and Technology Committee chairman Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and Research and Technology Subcommittee chairman Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.).

“Allowing adversarial nations to access research facilities at the leading edge of semiconductor design is unacceptable, especially when that access is given by a U.S. research institution that receives over $700 million annually in funds from the Federal government,” the pair said in the letter.

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California and Its Collapsing Blue-State Democrat Model

While the media and the new Democrat Party grow hysterical over the Trump counter-revolution, they are missing some of the most revolutionary and insidious changes in American society of the last century.

Much has been written about the collapse of the old orthodox Democratic Party, along with the growing irrelevance and dysfunction of the legacy media, elite universities, and state and federal agencies. But their growing unattractiveness is all related and was not just the result of top-down development.

Rather, current Democrat Party radicalism, street theater, and violence were merely reflections of its own preexisting cultural antipathy toward the middle class. The party is now a pyramidal coalition of the very wealthy and professional classes comprising the capstone, resting atop a vast, expanding bottom of the subsidized and working poor, strapped pensioners and retirees, angry indebted students, 30s-something urban wannabees, impoverished immigrants—including perhaps 30 million here illegally—and, increasingly, trapped residents of a dystopian big-city America.

The collapse of the blue-state/blue-city model and those who work within and promote it reflects the radical environmentalism of the college-educated, as well as an array of high taxes, high crime, endless government regulations, housing shortages, massive homelessness, illegal immigration, critical-legal-theory prosecutors, ethnic and racial chauvinism, defund-the-police city councils, and, most importantly, chronic budget deficits and vast, unfunded pension liabilities and obligations.

In response to this progressive implosion that accounts for Democrat Party unpopularity, under the radar are historic demographic shifts. They reflect two insidious phenomena.

One, the blue-state, urban/professional/college-educated profile has become antithetical to fertility.

No one knows exactly the contributory relative roles to childlessness played by the progressive embrace of abortion on demand or secularism and atheism. Certainly, the fixations on higher education certification, massive student loan debt, years of student limbo, prohibitive housing prices, and a cultural value system that places status, titles, careers, and degrees over children all further promote a declining birthrate.

But in the end, the cause of asymmetrical fertility does not matter: red-state, traditional populations are simply growing, while blue-state fertility remains stagnant.

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