Tag: california

California Attorney General Calls For ‘Lowering Taxes’ On Marijuana To Combat The Illicit Market

California’s attorney general says the cost of doing business in the state’s legal marijuana marketplace is too steep, pointing to high taxes and compliance hurdles that can create incentives for entrepreneurs to remain in the illicit market.

“The barriers to entry are too high,” state Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said at an event in Fresno on Tuesday. “The costs to stay in operation are too high. And we should be lowering taxes at least temporarily.”

For operators trying to comply with state law, he continued, “We should make the regulatory burden less than what it is while we target the illicit market that is undercutting them.”

Bonta’s comments came as he announced a new program to aid cities and counties in addressing illegal marijuana activity through administrative enforcement and nuisance abatement. For too long, he said, fly-by-night operators in the state have gotten away with it.

“Some folks believe they can avoid the tax burden or regulatory burden and just operate and make a profit without being legal,” Bonta said at the event. “And they’ve been doing it. They haven’t been shut down. They haven’t had an administrative action taken against them. And that’s what is necessary, and that’s why this will be an important tool.”

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Parent Slams California School For Holding ‘No Whites Allowed’ Kids Playdate

A parent at a California elementary school has slammed officials for sanctioning a playdate for kids that essentially segregated them by race, and excluded white children.

A flyer for the event at Anthony Chabot Elementary School in Oakland, CA notes that it is “for black, brown and API families.”

“If your family identifies as Black, Brown, or API or are [sic] a parent/caregiver of a Black, Brown, or API student. Come hang out while we get a chance to know each other and build our community as we kick off this schoolyear [sic],” reads the invite to the event.

Ironically it was hosted by the school ‘equity & inclusion committee’.

Taking to social media, the parent noted “I dunno about others, but I’m genuinely upset about what ultimately boils down to a “No whites allowed” playdate.”

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Feds Demand Action on School Sexual Misconduct. Will California Heed the Call?

Across the nation, schools have repeatedly hidden instances of teacher misconduct that, in some cases, allow educators to inflict the same behaviors on more students. 

San Francisco’s public school district has entered into resignation agreements with 19 employees accused of sexual misconduct since 2017, The Standard previously revealed. One of those teachers had left another Bay Area school under separate sexual misconduct allegations 20 years prior, unbeknown to administrators. 

To prevent schools from unwittingly hiring teachers credibly accused of sexual misconduct, federal education officials want states to tighten regulations. Though criminal background checks are required for most school staff across the nation, the U.S. Education Department warned it creates a false sense of security. In a July 2022 report, the department called on states to enact more protections. 

California is one of many states that does not explicitly prohibit the suppression of information about employee misconduct. And, nearly one year after the federal report, state leaders have made little progress in assessing what needs to be done. Gaps also remain when it comes to tracking non-credentialed school staff accused of misconduct, and in tracking records of staff from out of state.

In response to questions regarding potential new practices, the California Department of Education said, it “has, by statute and regulations, a limited role in local matters with public schools. Any change to this oversight would require legislative action.”

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LAWSUIT: FIRE sues to stop California from forcing professors to teach DEI

Today, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a lawsuit on behalf of six California community college professors to halt new, systemwide regulations forcing professors to espouse and teach politicized conceptions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Each of the professors teach at one of three Fresno-area community colleges within the State Center Community College District. Under the new regulations, all of the more-than-54,000 professors who teach in the California Community Colleges system must incorporate “anti-racist” viewpoints into classroom teaching. 

The regulations explicitly require professors to pledge allegiance to contested ideological viewpoints. Professors must “acknowledge” that “cultural and social identities are diverse, fluid, and intersectional,” and they must develop “knowledge of the intersectionality of social identities and the multiple axes of oppression that people from different racial, ethnic, and other minoritized groups face.” Faculty performance and tenure will be evaluated based on professors’ commitment to and promotion of the government’s viewpoints. 

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FBI Arrests 10 Officers In ‘Wide Ranging’ Federal Corruption Case

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has filed charges against 10 present and former police officers from the California cities of Antioch and Pittsburg Thursday in a major federal corruption case.

“Today is a dark day in our city’s history, as people trusted to uphold the law, allegedly breached that trust and were arrested by the FBI,” Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe said in a statement.

The charges range from cheating on training courses to serious violations of civil rights, Mercury News reported. The focus of the allegations is mainly on Antioch Police Department (APD), which has reportedly faced complaints about excessive force and a scandal involving racist text messages.

Three officers, two currently serving and one former, are accused of committing civil rights violations, per Mercury News. The charges alleged they planned violence against specific people, kept “trophies” of their actions and lied in official reports to cover up their deeds.

Text messages exchanged between the officers reportedly reveal conversations discussing violent plans and sharing pictures of the people they targeted. In one instance, officers discussed a plan for violence, Mercury News noted.

APD Officer Devon Wenger wrote, “We need to get into something tonight bro!! Lets go 3 nights in a row dog bite.”

Later that day, APD Officer Morteza Amiri texted Wenger pictures of an injured person they allegedly pulled out of a car and threw to the ground, Mercury News reported. 

Federal officials also charged Wenger and former APD Officer Daniel Harris with possession of and conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids, according to Mercury News. Authorities charged former APD Officer Timothy Manly Williams with obstruction for allegedly interfering with an ongoing homicide and attempted murder investigation. 

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Chief psychologist of California children’s hospital claims kids can identify as ‘gender minotaurs’ as she celebrates ‘revolution’ by youth who ‘know more than we do’

A Chief psychologist at a California children’s hospital has claimed children can identify as ‘gender minotaurs’.

Dr. Diane Ehrensaft is the director of mental health and chief psychologist at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital gender development center. 

Her research focuses on the effects of puberty blockers and hormones on children. 

First reported by Fox News, Ehrensaft has made claims that children can identify as gender hybrids, which include  ‘gender minotaur’.

The Minotaur, in Greek mythology, was a creature which had the body of a man but the head of a bull. 

In a list of terms published by Ehrensaft, in a paper titled The Gender Affirmative Model, she refers to different ways in which children have described themselves. 

One of these included ‘gender minotaur’, which is described as being a descriptor for a child who sees themselves as one gender on top, and another on their bottom half.  

Other claims made by the psychologist include what she describes as a ‘gender prius’.

This label is said to have been explained to her by a child who looked like a boy at the front, but had a long braid tied in their hair with a pink bow. 

According to the paper, the child said: ‘You see – I’m a Prius, a boy in the front, a girl in the back. A hybrid.’ 

Other terms include a ‘gender smoothie’ which is described as a variation of being gender fluid. 

One teenager described it to Ehrensaft as: ‘You take everything about gender, throw it in the blender, press the button, and you’ve got me—a gender smoothie.’

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CA preschool teacher blasts ‘innocence,’ says toddlers should be taught ‘queerness,’ sexuality in classroom

A preschool teacher repeatedly attacked the idea of “childhood innocence” and claimed that topics considered “inappropriate” can be shared with children, according to his scrubbed social media accounts. 

The California teacher, William “Willy” Villalpando, has said the idea of “childhood innocence” is a “myth,” and claimed topics deemed “inappropriate” – such as “queerness” – can be suitable for the pre-K age group. The district has repeatedly ignored Fox News’ requests for comment. 

The Rialto Unified School District was asked months ago whether Villalpando was currently employed there and working with its schoolchildren. They did not respond. However, after receiving a tip from a concerned source – it can now be confirmed the teacher works at Trapp Preschool. 

“There is a common mythology that children live in this world of pure innocence, and that by introducing or exposing them to the real-world adults are somehow shattering this illusion for them. Therefore, there is a banning of topics and issues that children should not be exposed to, as if they are not experiencing them already,” he said. 

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Army vet Greg Gross, 65, wins $20M after Yuba City cop Joshua Jackson snapped his SPINE during traffic stop and paralyzed him

A 65 year-old Army vet has been awarded $20million after a cop snapped his spine during a traffic stop and left him paralyzed – with the appalling assault captured on camera. 

Greg Gross was left horrifically-disabled after the April 2020 ‘pain compliance’ restraint by Yuba City Police Officer Joshua Jackson, with video footage showing the bloodied brutality victim sobbing as he wailed: ‘I can’t feel my legs.’ 

The bed-bound former military man has been awarded the sum by a Sacramento jury after they were told he now requires 24 hour care from a team of nurses. 

Stomach-churning body camera footage captured the moment Gross was injured after being pulled over on suspicion of causing a slow-speed crash while drunk driving. 

Jackson made Gross sit on the ground, with his legs straight in front of him. He then repeatedly pushed the senior citizen’s torso forward, towards the ground, with a force that ultimately snapped Gross’s spinal column as fellow cops Scott Hansen and Nathan Livingston looked on.  

Officers did not believe the victim when he repeatedly said ‘I can’t feel my legs’ after his spine was crushed as he was pinned to the ground outside a hospital in Yuba City, California.

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Chinese-run biolab in California that was experimenting on deadly viruses was awarded over $500,000 in US TAXPAYER cash

A Chinese-backed biolab in California was awarded over half a million dollars in US taxpayer cash, records show.

The black market lab – which was raided earlier this year – was found to be making illegal Covid and pregnancy tests and storing disease-riddled mice and hundreds of samples of pathogens, blood, and other dubious chemicals.

Public records show that the company linked to the lab received nearly $150,000 from the US government under a Covid-era loan program, receiving two separate loans of $74,912 in April 2020 and February 2021.

Universal Meditech was also awarded a massive $360,000 tax credit in 2018 through California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s CalCompetes program – though UMI’s inability to meet program guidelines meant it never actually received those funds.

The company – which was based in Fresno, California, went bust in 2022 and was taken over by its main creditor, a company with Chinese owners who moved the operation into an unassuming warehouse in the sleepy town of Reedley.

UMI had been operating legally prior to its closure, with its Fresno facility properly licensed and permitted from the state to produce pregnancy, ovulation, and menopause diagnostic tests. 

While it had received the federal money as a legal company, a subsequent move by regulators to put

In December 2022, the Food and Drug Administration, which must issue pre-market approval for diagnostic tests, recalled approximately 56,000 of UMI’s Covid tests in California and Texas, citing the company’s lack of pre-market approval from the agency.

The recall did not mention the pregnancy tests.

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Strange and Mysterious Vanishings at Mount Shasta


Looming over the landscape of Siskiyou County, California is the imposing and majestic figure of Mount Shasta. Towering alone over 14,000 feet above its surroundings, it is a solitary, formidable presence that has since time unremembered been seen as a hallowed place by Native Americans, who believe it to be the home of various gods and spirits, and feature it in many of their creation myths. The mountain has also long been saturated with tales of all manner of mysterious phenomena, including lost cities populated by refugees from a lost continent, Bigfoot, ghosts, lizard people, portals to other dimensions and vortices, and it has long been a UFO hotspot. Among the many mysteries this towering behemoth holds are the many people who have come here to never return, and the mountain seems to be in a sense a hungry place with a habit of making people vanish off the face of the earth. 

By far one of the most famous tales of a vanishing at Mount Shasta revolves around a retired mining engineer by the name of J.C. Brown in the 1930s. At the time, there was much talk among occultists and Theosophists that the mountain was the home of an ancient race of enlightened, white-robed spiritual beings called the Lemurians, who were said to have escaped their sinking continent of Lemuria millions of years ago to take refuge at first at Atlantis, and then when that sank too in a lost city within the bowels of Mount Shasta. It was a popular notion for various New Agers at the time, and although it was dismissed out of hand by the scientific community and general public, there were many accounts of people encountering these enigmatic entities and even visiting their hidden city. It was against this backdrop of strangeness that one day in 1934 Brown pushed the lost city and the Lemurians onto headlines and into the public consciousness. 

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