Tag: california

California’s Catastrophic Minimum-Wage Surge: A Recipe for Disaster Unfolds

The Golden State stubbornly disregards warning signs surrounding the wage hike policies advocated by progressive unions.

According to National Review, California recently rolled out a groundbreaking $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers. However, labor unions, and their radical activist allies, are now pushing hard to expand this wage rate into other industries.

In examining California’s wage policies, it becomes obvious that the likely outcomes have a predictable path. One notable case study highlights the consequences of a near-$20 minimum-wage model, which unfolded within the state’s purview.

In 2021, Unite Here Local 11, a prominent labor organization situated in Los Angeles, orchestrated a series of actions that resulted in a $17.64 minimum wage for hotel employees within West Hollywood. This wage floor represented the highest across the nation. 

Not content with this achievement, the union swiftly expanded its advocacy efforts towards larger targets. These efforts eventually resulted in the adoption of this wage standard across all sectors within the municipality.

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California Cops Locked an Innocent Man in a Sex Offender Unit for 3 Days

In 2021, Whittier, California, police arrested Victor Manuel Martinez Wario on an outstanding warrant related to a 2012 child molestation conviction. The only problem? Police had arrested the wrong person. However, despite Wario frequently telling police he didn’t have any warrants out for his arrest, they didn’t bother to check—leaving Wario imprisoned for five days. 

Now, Wario is suing, claiming that police negligence amounted to a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. The officer’s actions caused Wario to suffer “emotional and mental trauma,” according to the suit. “He also missed time at work, and was unable to provide care to his disabled fiancée.”

In March 2021, Wario was pulled over by several Whittier police officers for a minor traffic violation. During the stop, police mistakenly found that he had an active warrant out for his arrest. Even though Wario denied that he had any active warrants, he was still arrested and booked into a nearby jail.

According to the lawsuit, during the booking process, police told Wario that the warrant originated from Wario’s failure to register as a sex offender and “check in with the probation department” after a 2012 conviction for child molestation. Wario again “adamantly told them that they had the wrong person,” the complaint reads. But, again, no one decided to double-check that the police had arrested the correct person.

Two days later, Wario was transferred to another jail. This time, “he was assigned special housing for custodies with child molestation cases, given a specially colored jumpsuit indicating his status as a sex offender, and a wristband was placed on his wrist also showing that his case involved child molestation,” the suit reads. “Because of his perceived status as a convicted child molester, Mr. Wario was in serious jeopardy of being attacked by fellow inmates.”

That day, he was taken to be arraigned. During a brief discussion with his attorney, he again insisted that he was the wrong person. However, when the attorney relayed this to Judge Mary Lou Villar, she set a $30,000 bail and refused to release Wario.  

“She ordered a fingerprints expert to appear in court the following week to take his fingerprints and verify his identity,” the suit reads. 

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Race to the Bottom: The State Competing with California to be the ‘Left’s Progressive Utopia’

When hearing about the woes of blue states, names like California and New York immediately come to mind, but we may need to add a new name to the list of places Democratic officials are ruining: Illinois.

The Daily Caller reported on Thursday that new data indicates the state our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, once called home is in a downward spiral.

While California is still leading the nation with the worst unemployment rate in the country at 5.3 percent, Illionois is not far behind in fifth with 4.8 percent.

The comparisons don’t stop there. With the 8th highest tax burden and high crime rates, many Illinoisans are opting to simply leave the state for greener pastures — as Californians have been doing.

Bryce Hill, director of fiscal and economic research at the Illinois Policy Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “The Census Bureau has reported that residents are leaving the state en masse to the tune of hundreds of thousands every single year, so much so that the state’s population has actually been declining for the past 10 years.”

As of July 2023, Illinois population was 12,549,689. That number was down 32,826 from 2022. Census data showed this fall has been steady, as the population as of April 1, 2020, was 12,813,469.

Heartland Institute Senior Fellow S.T. Karnick cited a few reasons for this decline. “Opinion polls cite high taxes as the top reason people want to leave Illinois, with crime and safety second. Illinois has the fourth-most regulations among the 50 states, which raises prices and kills jobs.”

Violent crime in Chicago went up 18 percent in 2023 compared to ten years prior, with arrests dropping 33 percent over the same time.

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California’s Perpetual Drought Is Manmade And Intentional

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) last week released its next five-year plan for the State Water Project—Update 2023. After years of meetings, California’s premier water agency has decided to focus on “three intersecting themes: addressing climate urgency, strengthening watershed resilience, and achieving equity in water management.”

Water supplies for California’s 40 million people and the planet’s most productive agriculture have third- to fifth-level priority.

There is nothing new here, except to publicly admit to betraying the public trust. Really?

Over several decades, the public has been deceived into voting for water bonds that have little new water in them—phony promises to build new water storage and aqueducts. About 12 percent of bond funds are spent on new water storage. The rest of the bond funds have been squandered on scores of local and special-interest environmental projects, e.g., tearing down four Klamath-area dams—killing fish to save them—and opposing substantial new water projects, e.g., raising Shasta Dam and building Auburn Dam.

Further, by California law, water must be equitably distributed, pumped “equally”—half to human beings (if you count agriculture) and half to fish (the water-short Pacific Ocean, 187 quadrillion gallons). During the big rains of 2024, about 90 percent of the water was flushed to the Pacific through the gills of perhaps a half dozen delta smelt.

Farmers call it a manmade drought.

The politicos halted humans “taking” water, “diverting” it, from fish. Under the U.S. Constitution, the taking of private property requires just compensation—not mass confiscation. Water rights are a complex species of property.

“Our findings show that atmospheric river activity exceeds what has occurred since instrumental record keeping began,” said Clarke Knight, a U.S. Geological Survey research geographer.

Still, DWR scheduled 2024 meetings of the Drought Resilience Interagency & Partners (DRIP) Collaborative for April, July, and October.

The DRIP fantasy continues despite a deluge of 2024 water from two winters of giant “rivers in the sky” dumping excesses of water and creating massive floods and landslides.

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UCLA Med School Launches Review Of ‘Health Equity’ Course But Warns That Whistleblowers Could Be Disciplined

The University of California, Los Angeles medical school is launching a probe of its controversial “health equity” class—and warning whistleblowers they could be punished if any more information leaks about it.

The dean of the medical school, Steven Dubinett, announced Friday that his office had formed a task force to review all first-year courses, including “Structural Racism and Health Equity,” after the Washington Free Beacon published materials from the mandatory class. But the school isn’t happy about having its hand forced.

In an email to students and faculty, Dubinett implied that the leaks were an “attempt to intimidate” the medical school and hinted that future leakers could face discipline—especially if they record lectures. 

“Recording class sessions is not permitted without express consent from the instructor and class participants,” Dubinett wrote. That warning appears to be a reference to an earlier incident in which a guest lecturer, Lisa Gray Garcia, led the required course in chants of “Free, Free Palestine” as well as a prayer to “Mamma Earth,” part of which was caught on tape and thrust the course into the national spotlight.  

“Doxxing or publishing, posting or identifying private information of faculty, staff, trainees or students in any public forum, including social media, is contrary to UCLA policy and our core values of mutual respect and inclusion,” Dubinett continued. “Guidelines for overseeing invited guest speakers are being developed that will address adherence to our policies.”

The veiled threats come days after the full syllabus for the course went viral online and sparked outrage from prominent doctors—including former Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey Flier—who said it was filled with unscientific claptrap and called for an investigation. Leaked readings claimed that weight loss is a “hopeless endeavor,” described “anti-capitalist politics” as a tenet of “disability justice,” and advocated for abolishing the police. 

The syllabus was designed with input from Shamsher Samra, a professor of emergency medicine who has endorsed “Palestinians’ right to return” and published research on the “health of border abolition.” Though the course initially included an exercise that separated students by race, that lesson was canceled in January after it became the subject of a local civil rights complaint.

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California Senate Puts Selective Service Bill ‘In Suspense’

After hearings on its policy and fiscal implications, the California Senate has deferred action on a bill to automatically register draft-age applicants for driver’s licenses and state IDs with the Selective Service System (SSS) for a possible future military draft, by placing the bill on the Senate Appropriations Committee “suspense file”. This means that unless the Senate Appropriations Committee decides by May 17, 2024, to call up the bill and forward it to the state Senate floor, the bill will be dead.

The Acting Director of the Selective Service System (who had been on the West Coast to swear in a new Washington State Director of Selective Service) and the Deputy Associate SSS Director for Legislative Affairs spent several days in Sacramento lobbying state Senators in support of SB-1081. The Acting SSS Director was the lead witness in support of SB-1081 at the Senate Transportation Committee hearing on April 9th.

The Senate Transportation Committee voted 12-2 (with one Democratic and one Republican member in opposition, and another Democratic member not voting) to send SB-1081 on to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which held its own perfunctory hearing on April 22nd before placing SB-1081 on its “suspense file” by unanimous consent.

In California, bills that would result in significant costs to the state are placed on the “suspense file” to allow fiscal priorities for the state budget to be determined. Decisions as to which bills to call up for further action, and which to allow to die “in suspense”, are typically made behind closed doors by State senate leaders – especially the Senate President pro tem – and the Chair and members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

SB-1081 could be called up from the suspense file and sent to the state Senate floor at any time, but most likely it will be considered along with all the other bills in the suspense file at a “suspense hearing” shortly before the May 17th deadline.

The lobbying visit to Sacramento by the top national officials of the SSS reflects the existential importance of this bill to the attempt by the SSS to rescue the system from failure and save their agency and their own jobs from elimination. Especially since the repeal of laws that used to condition Federal and California financial aid for higher education on draft registration, the SSS depends primarily on state laws like SB-1081 to coerce or trick young men into signing up for a possible future draft when they think they are merely signing up for a driver’s license, without legal counsel and often without realizing what is happening or its potential life-or-death consequences.

California has rejected bills like this at least seven times since 2000, but the Selective Slavery System and supporters of military conscription won’t give up.

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Second California Senate Committee Approves Bill To Legalize Psychedelic Service Centers

A second California Senate committee has approved a bill to legalize psychedelic service centers where adults 21 and older could access psilocybin, MDMA, mescaline and DMT in a supervised environment with trained facilitators.

About a week after an initial panel cleared the legislation, the Senate Public Safety Committee passed the measure from Sen. Scott Wiener (D) in a 3-2 vote on Tuesday. It next heads to the Appropriations Committee.

The “Regulated Therapeutic Access to Psychedelics Act” has been drafted in a way that’s meant to be responsive to concerns voiced by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) last year when he vetoed a broader proposal that included provisions to legalize low-level possession of substances such as psilocybin.

Instead, the new bill that’s now being unveiled would provide regulated access to psychedelics in a facilitated setting, without removing criminal penalties for possession outside of that context. It does not lay out any specific qualifying medical conditions that a person must have in order to access the services.

The measure had already undergone a series of mostly technical amendments before reaching committee. Wiener also agreed to revise the legislation at last week’s hearing to make it so psychedelics facilitators would need to have an existing professional health license, such as those for psychiatrists, social workers, drug and alcohol counselors and nurse practitioners.

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California Bill Would Let State Colleges Hire Illegal Immigrant Students

California lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow state universities and colleges to hire students who are illegal immigrants to work on campus.

Assembly Bill 2586, introduced by Assemblyman David Alvarez, came after the University of California’s (UC) regent board decided to table a similar policy for the UC system in January, citing possible legal troubles.

Since then, several immigration law groups have advocated for a bill that allows state colleges and universities to hire illegal immigrant students.

The groups argue that state universities and colleges are exempt from the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which bans the hiring of illegal immigrants.

One of those groups is the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law.

“This bill will put an end to the separate-but-equal educational system that still operates in California’s university systems,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, center co-director, in a press release. “As [Assembly Bill] 2586 recognizes, the University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges have the legal authority to hire any of their students, regardless of immigration status.”

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California Fast Food Prices Skyrocket Following Imposition of $20 Minimum Wage

The price of fast food restaurants in California has surged after the state imposed a $20 minimum wage law.

According to an analysis from Kalinowski Equity Research, fast-food restaurants across the Golden State have hiked prices by around eight percent since the law went into effect at the beginning of this month.

The New York Post reports:

Wendy’s raised its menu prices by around 8% while Chipotle Mexican Grill hiked its prices by approximately 7.5%. Starbucks, the Seattle-based coffee chain, raised the prices of its menu items at its California locations by around 7%, while Taco Bell hiked its prices 3%, the report found.

…

It found that Burger King instituted an average price increase of 1.4% for its Whopper Meal and 2.1% for its BK Royal Crispy Chicken Meal at the 25 locations. The report’s authors did the same for Chipotle, which was found to have boosted the price of its Chicken Burrito by 8.3% and its Steak Burrito by 7% at 25 locations in California between Feb. 7 and April 2.

Wendy’s also instituted substantial price hikes on staple menu items such as Dave’s Combo and the Classic Chicken Sandwich Combo. In a comparison of prices from Feb. 12 and April 2 at 25 Wendy’s stores in California, the company raised the price of both items by an average of 8%. McDonald’s appears to be the only fast food chain that has largely held off on raising its menu item prices, according to the report.

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California lawmaker unveils ‘Genealogy Office’ to decide who’s REALLY descended from slaves and wins reparations payouts

A California lawmaker has unveiled plans for a ‘Genealogy Office’ to decide which residents are genuine descendants of slaves and could get life-changing benefits payouts.

Steven Bradford, a Democratic state Senator for LA County, proposed bill SB 1403 to create a controversial genealogy unit to ‘confirm reparations eligibility’ of applicants.

The state’s first-in-the-nation reparations task force last year decided that some residents should win $1.2 million payouts as compensation for injustices from the slavery era onwards.

But lawmakers have struggled to turn those plans into reality, and have advanced several bills to devise a working reparations scheme amid fears of spiralling costs in a cash-strapped state. 

Bradford’s bill, which was amended this month, aims to solve the problem of working out who is in line for a payout.

Its planned genealogy team would ‘support potential reparations claimants by providing access to expert genealogical research to confirm reparations eligibility,’ says the bill.

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