Tag: california

Air Force officer breaks silence on ‘red, glowing UFO the size of a football field’ hovering at low altitude over US space launch base in California – in event witnessed by over half a dozen military personnel: ‘People were screaming and scared’

Twenty years ago this October, military contractors working for Boeing reported ‘a gigantic floating red square’ UFO — over 100 yards long — hovering in the morning air over a launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The eerie 2003 event first exploded into public view this July, in sworn testimony before Congress, but now an ex-US Air Force security officer has come forward to detail his official, rapid-response investigation into the UFO on the day it occurred.

‘This is not a joke,’ ex-USAF senior patrolman, Jeff Nuccetelli, told the Merged podcast Tuesday. ‘These are contractors with top secret clearances.’ 

Nuccetelli also revealed a second reported encounter with the ‘red square,’ in which two of his fellow USAF police patrol officers ‘got buzzed by the UFO.’

‘When I showed up, it’s just mayhem,’ as Nuccetelli recalled it. ‘Everybody’s excited. They’re scared. Everyone’s freaked out.’ 

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Gov. Newsom says California to track residents from ‘cradle to career’ after China trip

After a trip to China, which uses a social credit score system, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced the next phase of the state’s “Cradle to Career” system that uses more than one billion data points.

“By leveraging billions of data points, California’s Cradle-to-Career data system will be a game-changer for improving the quality of life for millions of Californians and highlighting ways to improve opportunity in the classroom and access to the workforce.”

The system is designed to “illuminate gaps and identify opportunities throughout students’ education experiences so they can ultimately reach their goals for life and careers” through data that includes “race, gender, ability, and geography to illuminate and address areas of strength and needed growth, and any inequities.”

“This milestone represents a significant step forward in our mission to establish a robust, comprehensive data system that provides a nuanced understanding of Californians’ educational and professional journeys,” said Mary Ann Bates, Executive Director of the California Cradle-to-Career Data System. “I want to thank our data partners for their unwavering commitment to ensuring that Californians will have validated, reliable data available to inform decisions. This collective effort will equip our state with the data and tools necessary to ensure that every Californian has the opportunity to succeed.”

The system is designed to be used by students, families, politicians, researchers, and policymakers, providing insights from a granular, individual level to the state as a whole.

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Masks required in certain settings again in California

Beginning on Wednesday, lots of people heading into doctor’s offices or hospitals across the Bay Area will be required to mask up.

In some parts of California, masks will be required in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities in an effort to limit the spread of RSV, the flu and COVID. The mandate will last until the end of flu season in March.

Marin County and Santa Clara counties require everyone who enters medical facilities to mask up.  Alameda, San Mateo, Contra Costa, and Sonoma counties will require health care workers to mask up in patient care areas. 

In California, COVID positivity rates were on the rise starting in July, and peaked in late August. According to the Mercury News, wastewater data shows medium levels of COVID in all of Santa Clara County’s sewer sheds at the end of October, down from high transmission range over the last two months.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong told KTVU medical professional don’t know what is going to happen during this flu season, so they’re opting to take a precautious approach. 

Though, not everyone in the health care industry agrees. 

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Advocates File California Ballot Initiative To Legalize Psychedelics For Medical, Therapeutic And Spiritual Use In 2024

Advocates in California filed a ballot initiative with state officials on Friday that would create a right “to obtain and use psychedelics for medical, therapeutic and spiritual purposes” with the recommendation of a doctor. It would also allow adults to possess and use the substances in their home as well as cultivate entheogenic plants and fungi on private property.

Known as the Psychedelic Wellness and Healing Initiative of 2024, the measure is the third psychedelics-related prospective citizen-led measure attempting to qualify for next year’s ballot. Another would legalize psilocybin for adult and therapeutic use, while a third would commit $5 billion to create a state agency focused on advancing research and development of psychedelic therapies.

Dave Hodges, an initiative organizer and the founder of the Church of Ambrosia, in Oakland, acknowledged in an interview earlier this month that the campaign behind the newest proposal is filing its paperwork later than initially hoped. Advocates won’t be able to start gathering signatures until the state attorney general’s office issues the proposal an official ballot title and summary, which can take more than a month.

Hodges said the goal of the proposal is to ensure broad access to psychedelics while ensuring a base level of safety.

“We aren’t just saying, ‘Everybody gets psychedelics!’” Hodges said. “We’re saying you gotta go talk to a doctor first, and if the doctor recommends that you try them, then you can come get them.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) recent veto of an adult-use psilocybin bill passed by the legislature this session was a disappointment, he added, “but at the same time, I completely agree with it.” The governor said in his veto statement that he couldn’t support allowing access to psilocybin without first establishing therapeutic standards.

“My church now has over 100,000 members,” Hodges said. “If each of them could have gone and talked to a doctor before having access to psychedelics, I would have considered that a great thing.”

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Test Scores Are Plummeting Despite California Spending Wildly on Education

I’ve recently been investing in some long-deferred maintenance at my home and it should be no surprise to anyone that I’ve sought to receive as much quality work done for as little money as possible. When people spend their own hard-earned money on such projects, they measure success by results, such as a sparkling new kitchen. They don’t brag about how much they spent, but how much they got in return.

By contrast, state officials seem to delight in how much money they “invest” in different priorities, without worrying too much about outcomes. Sure, they sometimes pay lip service to results—but they don’t care enough about them to actually change the way they provide public services. (They’re not about to annoy the public-sector unions, which represent the people paid to provide those services.)

I’m not the only one to have noticed. State Sen. Steve Glazer (D–Orinda), in a July column about the $310-billion budget, complained that “we’ve already spent billions of dollars on the same problems—with very little to show for it.” He called on his fellow Democrats to ensure that the spending “actually improving the lives of the people we say we are committed to helping.” What a novel idea.

This dynamic is most pronounced in public education, which consumes more than 40 percent of the state’s general fund budget—plus local bond measures. Although lawmakers slowed education funding increases to close a $32-billion budget deficit this year, as of last year—during an unprecedented $97.5-billion budget surplus—they lavished public schools with money.

“The revised budget directs a total of $128.3 billion to education, lifts up the most critical needs including historic funding for school mental health, recruitment and retention of teachers,” boasted Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, following last year’s budget deal.

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Eureka, CA Decriminalizes Psychedelic Plant Medicines

Eureka, CA, has passed a resolution decriminalizing entheogens and psychedelic plant medicines, making it the sixth California city to do so and the second such city in Humboldt County.

The Eureka City Council unanimously approved an initiative last week to decriminalize plant medicines such as psilocybin mushrooms within city limits. The announcement came less than two weeks after CA Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed an initiative which would have decriminalized psychedelics statewide. The City of Arcata, just a few miles to the north, voted to decriminalize in 2021 thanks to efforts by a group who also provided the language used in the Eureka resolution, Decriminalize Nature Humboldt.

According to an article in the Lost Coast Outpost, the resolution was passed without much trouble from the council, though a particular phrase was removed from the language of the bill. The council voted to remove language which seemed to endorse entheogenic plants’ ability to “catalyze profound experiences of personal and spiritual growth.” Not for nothing, but one of recently deceased Johns Hopkins professor Roland Griffiths’ first studies on psilocybin in 2006 was on psilocybin’s ability to induce mystical and spiritual experiences in the user. Much of Griffiths’ later work at Johns Hopkins has been referenced in similar legislative discussions surrounding the legality of psychedelics.

Other than the removal of the aforementioned phrase, the resolution was passed without much protest from the rest of the council members.There were some concerns voiced by local law enforcement representatives, mirroring Gov. Newsom’s concerns about potentially unforeseen consequences to the resolution. City Manager Miles Slattery, however, pointed out that he had consulted with the Arcata Police Department who reported no serious issues to him after just over two years of psychedelic decriminalization. He also pointed out that the City of Eureka only saw five cases of arrests related to entheogens in the previous year and almost every case was related to something more serious such as domestic violence. 

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Second Amendment Win: California’s ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Has Been Thrown Out

Second Amendment supporters may want to remember the saying, “As California Goes, so Goes the Nation,” after a federal judge overturned the Golden State’s three-decade-old ban on so-called “assault weapons” on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, of San Diego, found no equivalent in early American history and ruled that the ban was therefore unconstitutional.

The judge further ruled that the semiautomatic rifle – known in the industry as “modern sporting rifles” – such as the AR-15 are common household items used for self-defense by millions of law-abiding citizens, who should not have their Second Amendment rights abridged by a state – even as the firearms have been misused by others in crimes including mass shootings.

“Guns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants and terrorists are dangerous; guns in the hands of law-abiding responsible citizens are necessary,” Benitez wrote in his ruling. “To give full life to the core right of self-defense, every law-abiding responsible individual citizen has a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear firearms commonly owned and kept for lawful purposes.”

Benitez, who previously overturned the ban, added, “The State of California posits that its ‘assault weapon’ ban, the law challenged here, promotes an important public interest of disarming some mass shooters even though it makes criminals of law-abiding residents who insist on acquiring these firearms for self-defense. Nevertheless, more than that is required to uphold a ban.”

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Seventh So Cal Antifa member convicted in violent conspiracy and rioting case

A So Cal Antifa member pleaded guilty to being part of a violent, organized Antifa riot almost three years ago at Pacific Beach, San Diego.;

Faraz Martin Talab, now 29 years old, of Atwater Village, Los Angeles, was captured on evidence video on Jan. 9, 2021 at a riot where roving mobs of black-clad Antifa members attacked supporters of Donald Trump and people walking on the beach boardwalk. He is now the seventh person to plead guilty in the ongoing felony conspiracy case.

In San Diego County Superior Court on Oct. 13, Talab pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy to riot with his ten Antifa co-defendants, plus he admitted to assaulting a person with force likely to produce great bodily injury. As part of his plea deal, Talab admitted to joining in the Antifa attack with co-conspirators Joseph Austin Gaskins, 23, and Christian Martinez, 25. Gaskins was convicted in a plea deal in November 2022.

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California’s $20 Minimum Wage Will Hurt the Fast Food Workers It’s Meant to Help

Last month, Gavin Newsom signed into law a California bill that will raise the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 an hour starting in 2024. While the law has been hailed as a victory for low-wage Californians, the reality is much more complicated. 

When states force industries to massively increase wages, the result isn’t that the same number of employees start making more money. Instead, enacting a climbing minimum wage often results in higher unemployment and higher prices.

The law, originally Assembly Bill 1228 was passed as a compromise measure. Last September, Newsom signed the Fast Food Accountability and Standards (FAST) Recovery Act, which would have increased the minimum wage for fast workers to up to $22 an hour. In response, a campaign to get a measure to repeal the law on the 2024 ballot quickly sprang up. Ultimately, restaurant groups gathered enough signatures for the referendum. 

Rather than face a ballot referendum over the law, Assembly Bill 1228 was crafted to repeal the FAST Act and replace it with a less extreme alternative following negotiations with restaurant and labor groups. The new law applies to employees working for fast food restaurants with more than 60 locations nationally, with an exception for businesses that bake their own bread.

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California Adds New Excise Tax on Gun and Ammo Sales

Retail sales of guns and ammunition will soon be subject to a new state excise tax in California. Under Assembly Bill 28, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law on September 26, 2023,  an 11% tax will apply to gross receipts from retail sales of ammunition, firearms, and firearm precursor parts starting July 1, 2024. Revenue generated by the tax will be deposited in a new Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Fund.

California’s new gun tax is similar to the federal firearms and ammunition excise tax (FAET), which was first implemented in 1919 and is administered by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). The FAET is 10% of the manufacturer’s price for pistols and revolvers, and 11% of the manufacturer’s price of other portable weapons, shells, and cartridges. It applies to firearms and ammunition for domestic use barring certain exemptions, for example, businesses producing fewer than 50 guns per year are exempt from the FAET.

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