Tag: california

California’s Gavin Newsom is quietly giving rich residents secret cell phones to call him whenever they want

Governor Gavin Newsom has sent major California business owners secret cell phones with his direct number programmed on them.

Approximately 100 leaders of state-headquartered companies received packages containing the phones and personal notes from the Democrat governor in recent months.

‘If you ever need anything, I’m a phone call away,’ said one note received by an unnamed tech CEO obtained by Politico.

Newsom’s office confirmed they sent out the phones, but did not specify who has received them.

‘This was the governor’s idea to connect more directly with business leaders in the state. The feedback has been positive, and it’s led to valuable interactions,’ Izzy Gardon, the governor’s communications director, told KCRA.

Gardon claimed the gift is meant to show Newsom’s support of the California business community, maintaining the state’s global economic dominance, creating jobs and expanding industries. 

The California State Protocol Foundation, a non-profit organization that has helped cover costs for the governor’s ceremonial events, paid for the phones.

The Golden State has been hemorrhaging its prized millionaires amid soaring living costs, unrelenting wildfires and a bitter political climate.

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Police Chief Defends Use Of Lies And Torture To Obtain False Confession

A police chief in California has taken to social media to defend detectives who forced a man on medication for stress, depression and high blood pressure to confess to his own father’s murder — which never actually happened — through the use of what a federal judge called “psychological torture.”

“Were we perfect in how we handled the situation? Nobody ever is,” wrote Fontana Police Chief Michael Dorsey in a Nov. 7 statement posted to the department’s X account. “In situations like these, it is acceptable and perfectly legal to use different tactics and techniques, such as ruses, to elicit information from people suspected of potential criminal activity. That was done in this case in order to gain resolution.”

The problem: detectives were looking to gain resolution for a homicide that didn’t exist.

Thomas Perez Jr. was interrogated for 17 hours by the Fontana Police Department over the disappearance of his 71-year-old father in 2018, according to a civil rights lawsuit that he settled earlier this year with the city and an interview with CNN. He reported him missing on Aug. 8 of that year and was questioned that evening and the following day.

Detectives David Janusz and Kyle Guthrie claimed in a 2023 deposition for the civil case filed by Perez against the City of Fontana that their lieutenant had told them “something to the fact that they believed Thomas — or Mr. Perez — had killed his father.” The detectives both admitted that they had “a feeling” that Perez murdered his father but couldn’t prove it.

The pair allegedly took Perez to a coffee shop and drove him around town for hours while “berating” him about his dad’s disappearance and looking for places where he might have dumped a body, his suit said. They also allegedly denied requests by Perez to let him take medication he is prescribed for his stress, depression, high blood pressure and asthma.

At one point, the detectives even claimed to have recovered his dad’s remains, saying, “He has a toe tag on him,” according to the suit. Interrogation footage also shows them saying, “You know you killed him. You did.” A third cop, Detective Robert Miller, was also said to have been involved.

The City of Fontana wound up settling with Perez — paying him nearly $900,000 — after a federal judge in California’s Central District ruled in favor of letting his case move forward following a review of police footage from the interrogation.

“Perez’s mental state, among other factors, made him a vulnerable individual,” wrote Judge Dolly Gee, referring to the detectives’ interrogation tactics as “unconstitutional psychological torture” in her ruling.

“He was sleep deprived, mentally ill, and, significantly, undergoing symptoms of withdrawal from his psychiatric medications,” Gee said. “He was berated, worn down, and pressured into a false confession after 17 hours of questioning. (The officers) did this with full awareness of his compromised mental and physical state and need for his medications.”

In his X statement, Chief Dorsey explained that while the City of Fontana was ready to end its beef with Perez and put his case to rest after half a decade, he was not.

“Our police department recently settled a lawsuit that generated misleading, one-sided headlines, telling the story from the point-of-view of the plaintiff’s attorney,” Dorsey said.

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Court blocks California law on children’s online safety

A federal judge said California cannot enforce a state law meant to shield children from online content that could harm them mentally or physically.

U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman ruled on Thursday that the trade group NetChoice deserved a preliminary injunction because it was likely to show the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act violated its members’ free speech rights under the Constitution’s First Amendment.

NetChoice said the law would turn its 39 members including Amazon.com (AMZN.O), Google (GOOGL.O), Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms (META.O), Netflix (NFLX.O) and Elon Musk’s X into state-deputized censors, and “censor the internet under the guise of privacy.”

The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta, which defended the law, did not immediately respond on Friday to requests for comment.

Ambika Kumar, a lawyer for NetChoice, called the law “a breathtaking act of unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, content-based censorship. We are pleased to see it enjoined.”

Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in September 2022, California’s law required businesses to create reports addressing whether their online platforms could harm children, and take steps before launch to reduce the risks.

It also required businesses to estimate ages of child users and configure privacy settings for them, or provide high settings for everyone. Civil fines could reach $2,500 per child for negligence and $7,500 per child for intentional violations.

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California Democrats Push Privacy Bills to Help Migrants Hide from ICE

California Democrats are drafting bills that would hinder federal immigration officials from using commercial data to locate illegal aliens for deportation.

Records show that federal authorities have contracts with several data analytics firms including LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters, according to Politico, and state Democrats are floating bills to tighten up what information such services can sell and how they do it with an eye toward precenting ICE from using the info to the greatest extent they can.

Without stating any direct proof, Democrats in the state are worried that federal authorities are using personal location data to aid in tracking migrants.

The worry was summed up by Shiu-Ming Cheer, deputy director of immigrant and racial justice at the far-left California Immigrant Policy Center, who told Politico, “It really does seem like looking at technology and the use of information has been this sort of second frontier in terms of immigration enforcement.”

The fear is spurring a new avenue for blue state Trump resistance.

Extreme, left-wing California Attorney General Rob Bonta, for instance, recently insisted that data needs to be protected from Trump’s administration.

“This location data is deeply personal,” Bonta said in a statement. “Given the federal assaults on immigrant communities, as well as gender-affirming healthcare and abortion, businesses must take the responsibility to protect location data seriously.”

Democrat state Sen. Josh Becker exclaimed that Trump is “establishing a vast surveillance network” and he is introducing a bill that would force data brokers to publicly disclose whether they collect and sell user data, including immigration status, sexual orientation, union membership, and government ID numbers.

He claims his bill is “especially necessary now as we see the reality of mass deportations of immigrants and the targeting of the transgender community.”

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California Runs Scam To Fund Medical Care For Illegals And Still Falls $3.4 Billion Short

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is seeking a $3.4 billion loan from the general fund to help a shortfall in the state’s Medi-Cal healthcare program.  The shortfall problem comes only a year after Newsom expanded Medi-Cal coverage to include millions of illegal immigrants.  California’s continuing deficits and mounting debts have some officials concerned that the additional subsidies to illegals will cause a fiscal emergency in the near future. 

There are at least 2.6 million illegal immigrants in the state according to recent estimates.  However, California has operated on sanctuary laws since 2013 and does not track the migrant status of its citizens.  Because of this, there is no way for officials to estimate potential costs associated with welfare programs and medical programs which illegals commonly tap into.  Around 60% of all illegal migrants exploit welfare programs upon arrival to the US and access is generally dependent on which state they settle in. 

In 2024, California expanded the state’s Medicaid program (also known as Medi-Cal) in two major ways. First, the state opened up Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants between the ages of 26 and 49.  While the state had previously granted Medicaid eligibility to illegal immigrants in other age groups, the 26 to 49 age bracket is by far the largest in California (and nationally), comprising about 75% of individuals who are in the country illegally. 

The state’s general fund is, technically, separate from the ample federal funding that California receives, and federal dollars are not legally allowed to go towards migrants.  But the way in which the government cycles those dollars through its programs is deceptive and California is far more dependent on federal money than it claims.

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Report: California’s Gavin Newsom Refuses to Release Texts, Emails About L.A. Fires

Governor Gavin Newsom is reportedly refusing to release text messages and emails to and from Los Angeles city and county officials regarding the recent wildfires, claiming that they are “exempt” from publication.

As Breitbart News noted earlier this week, Los Angeles Karen Bass has deleted her text messages about the Palisades fire. Bass told local Fox affiliate KTTV-11  in a news conference: “My phone did automatic delete after thirty days.”

The outlet also asked Newsom for his text messages with the mayor and with Los Angeles county, and was denied.

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Newsom Accused of Secretly Funding His Own Tribute in City Hall: Report

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) allegedly orchestrated the funding of a bronze bust of himself inside San Francisco City Hall while serving as mayor, using money from companies he controlled, according to a newly released book.

The book claims that while Newsom played a key role in securing funds, he later distanced himself from the process, portraying himself as unaware of who had financed the monument.

In “Fool’s Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, and Traitors Who Killed the California Dream and Now Threaten Us All,” authors Susan Crabtree and Jedd McFatter detail how Newsom allegedly used a system of “behested payments” to channel money toward the project. In California politics, behested payments allow elected officials to request private donations for causes, but they have drawn criticism when the contributions appear to benefit the official making the request, according to Breitbart.

A review of Newsom’s behested payments shows that between late 2015 and early 2016, three private entities donated money to the nonprofit Community Initiatives, designating the funds for the “Mayoral Bust at San Francisco City Hall.” Two of these entities—Balboa Cafe Partners and PlumpJack Management Group—were owned by Newsom, with each contributing $5,000 to the project.

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California LGBTQ Caucus ‘Sickened and Disgusted’ After Newsom Turns on Trans Athletes

California’s LGBTQ Caucus is “sickened and disgusted” by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) comments calling transgender-identifying male participation on female sports teams “deeply unfair.” 

“We were certainly caught off guard and woke up incredibly sickened and disgusted about seeing somebody who’s been an ally of our community use this language,” Democrat Assemblymember and chair of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus Chris Ward told CapRadio. 

Ward added that while he appreciates Newsom’s past leadership on LGBTQ+ issues, his remarks about transgender athletes are confusing. 

“Transgender kids just like any other student – although a very, very small part of the population – deserve a chance to benefit from what sports have to offer,” Ward said.

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Trans high school track star sparks fury after winning girls’ triple jump by staggering 8 feet

A transgender high school track star in California recently obliterated her competition by winning a girls’ triple jump event by a staggering eight feet.

AB Hernandez, a junior at Jurupa Valley High School, secured the win with a more than 40-foot jump at the Ontario Relays invitational meet back on Feb. 22, records show.

The runner-up managed to jump just over 32 feet in the category.

Hernandez also took first place at the meet in the high jump (4 feet, 10 inches) and long jump (17 feet, 6 inches) events.

She continued her winning streak this past Saturday when she took home first place in both the triple jump and long jump events at the Roosevelt Invitational, according to records.

The teen finished nearly three feet ahead of the triple jump runner-up and two feet ahead of her second-place long jump competitor, the results show.

“Hopefully, I hit a 41 [footer] this year if it’s possible. Preferably at state so that I can possibly win,” Hernandez said late last month after her 40-foot triple jump.

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California college axes women’s locker rooms to boost transgender inclusivity

A California university is doing away with traditional men’s and women’s locker rooms in an effort to support transgender students – even as the state’s governor condemns transgender athletes in women’s sports. 

The University of California, Davis announced plans last month to renovate the locker rooms at its Activities and Recreation Center, citing student feedback as the motivation for the $5 million project.

‘We value inclusive, accessible environments that accommodate the diverse needs of our community,’ schools officials said at the time, according to Fox News. 

‘We are pleased to announce that we will be remodeling the current locker room facilities to implement universal locker rooms.

‘All campus and recreation members can use our universal locker rooms, regardless of who they are and how they identify,’ they continued, noting the space will be ‘inclusive of members with disabilities and all gender identities.’

But after some students expressed concerns about the safety of the ‘universal’ locker rooms, which were seized upon by critics of the transgender movement, the university revised its statement, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.  

It now says, ‘All Campus Recreation members will be able to use our new locker rooms. These spaces include ADA-accessible facilities for members with disabilities.’

Under the plans for the new locker room, the university would offer a handful of private cabanas, changing rooms and toilet rooms with floor-to-ceiling walls and doors.

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