Tag: california

California Gov. Newsom calls on cities to ban homeless encampments on public property

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday pushed cities to ban homeless encampments or sleeping rough on the streets — and is using state funds to force the issue.

Escalating his push to eradicate scores of encampments across the Golden State, the Democrat called on cities and towns to effectively prohibit tents from being erected on sidewalks, parks, bike paths and other public properties.

People will also be prohibited from sleeping on the streets with a sleeping bag, blankets or any other materials for more than three days in a row, according to the state-issued guidance.

“There’s nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets. Local leaders asked for resources — we delivered the largest state investment in history. They asked for legal clarity — the courts delivered,” Newsom said in a statement.

“Now, we’re giving them a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care. The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses.”

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Highest Tax State of California Bracing for Budget Shortfall of Ten Billion or More

The state of California is currently looking down the barrel of a possible budget shortfall of ten billion dollars, or possibly more than that.

This news comes just weeks after it was reported that their state-run healthcare plan, which covers illegal aliens, is over budget by billions. The state is also dealing with a massive recovery effort after wildfires ravaged a huge area in the southern part of the state earlier this year.

It’s incredible that some Democrats and people in media think Governor Gavin Newsom would be a good candidate to run for president in 2028. What has he done besides drive his state into poverty and population loss?

Breitbart News reports:

Gavin Newsom, California Face Another Budget Shortfall; $10-$20 Billion

California Governor Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers are bracing for a $10 billion budget shortfall — even before federal spending cuts undertaken by the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Newsom and the Democrats took a near-$100 billion surplus in 2022– partly fueled by federal coronavirus funds under the Biden administration — to a near-$50 billion deficit in 2024.

Earlier this year, the state was forced to borrow $6.2 billion to fund Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, which Newsom and his party expanded to cover illegal aliens.

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Gas prices could top $8 in California by 2026 due to refinery closures, report warns

According to a new report, gas prices in California could increase up to 75% by the end of 2026 as the state prepares to lose nearly one-fifth of its oil refining capacity.

The scheduled closure of the Phillips 66 refinery in Los Angeles, along with Valero’s planned shutdown of its facility in Northern California, represents a potential 21% reduction in California’s refining output over three years, according to a report by Michael A. Mische of USC’s Marshall School of Business.

“The estimated average consumer price of regular gasoline could potentially increase by as much as 75% from the April 23, 2025, price of $4.816 to $7.348 to $8.435 a gallon by calendar year end 2026. We can expect retail prices to be even higher in counties such as Mono and Humboldt,” Mische wrote.

California currently consumes more than 13.1 million gallons of gasoline daily. With the state producing just under 24% of its crude needs, the loss of refining capacity could create a deficit of 6.6 million to 13.1 million gallons per day.

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New CEO of California High-Speed Rail Project Hopes it Might be Finished by… 2045

California’s high-speed rail project is a lesson in the inefficiency of big government. The project was started nearly twenty years ago and they have not even started laying down tracks.

One of the reasons it’s in the news right now is because it has gone way over budget and the people in charge are looking for alternate forms of funding.

The current CEO, who came on board last summer, is now claiming that the project might be finished in twenty years. That would be the year 2045.

The Associated Press reports:

California high-speed rail leader pushes state to support private investment

A long-delayed project promising nonstop rail service between San Francisco and Los Angeles in under three hours may be able to secure the private funding it desperately needs if California agrees to pay the investors back, its chief executive told The Associated Press.

Ian Choudri, who was appointed CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority in August, is tasked with reinvigorating the nation’s largest infrastructure project amid skyrocketing costs and new fears that the Trump administration could pull $4 billion in federal funding.

“We started this one, and we are not succeeding,” Choudri said, describing what drew him to the job after work on high-speed systems in Europe…

California’s construction is far from completion. Of the 119 miles (192 kilometers) of construction underway in the Central Valley, only a 22-mile (35-kilometer) stretch is ready for the track-laying phase, which isn’t set to start until next year.

Finishing the line in the Valley is just the first step. Next, the train has to extend north toward the San Francisco Bay Area and south toward Los Angeles. Choudri’s goal within the next 20 years is to build to Gilroy, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco.

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California Penal Reform And The Violent Criminals It Let Loose

Smiley Martin should have been behind bars. 

A career criminal with a long rap sheet involving firearms, he was given a 10 year sentence in 2018 for punching, dragging and severely beating his girlfriend with a belt. In prison, Martin was found guilty of beating another inmate and engaging in other criminal activity. Nevertheless, he was freed just four years later, thanks to a plea deal that categorized him as a “nonviolent offender” and a California ballot measure that sharply reduced sentences for “good behavior.”

Just two months after his release, Martin and several accomplices, including his brother, were arrested for carrying out the worst mass shooting in Sacramento’s history – leaving six dead and 12 others injured on April 3, 2022. Martin was charged with three counts of murder and illegal possession of a firearm, including a machine gun. He will not stand trial on those charges, since the 29-year-old died in jail of a drug overdose last September.

Martin’s life and death have brought attention to the criminal justice reform that helped put him back on the streets: Proposition 57. The ballot measure was sold to the public in 2016 as a way to relieve the state’s chronically overcrowded prisons by rewarding “nonviolent” offenders for good behavior by shortening their sentences. It was supposed to be a humanitarian answer to what social justice activists described as an epidemic of “mass incarceration.” It has instead put tens of thousands of violent offenders such as Martin back on the streets.

Many of them have been rearrested. The latest Recidivism Report from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows that nearly two thirds (64.2%) of the 34,215 inmates granted early release between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020 had been rearrested as of April 2, 2025.

Breaking down the recidivism rate for prisoners within three years of their release, it reported that “22.1% of the release cohort (7,567 individuals) were convicted of a felony offense, and 17.0% (5,828 individuals) were convicted of a misdemeanor offense.” The Department of Corrections also reports almost half the inmates granted early release had not earned any credits for good behavior.

Prop 57 critics are not surprised. In the run-up to the 2016 ballot measure – which was approved with the support of 65% of voters – the measure’s opponents warned that violent criminals like Martin would likely benefit from the initiative.

But they were denounced as scaremongers. When Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert warned that Prop 57 would free perpetrators of domestic violence, then-Gov. Jerry Brown, who was the top proponent for the ballot measure, shot back; “That’s a complete red herring, and it’s very disingenuous of these highly politicized prosecutors to make that claim.” Brown assured voters that each inmate’s crime and behavior in prison would be considered before release was granted. 

While supporters of Prop 57 described it as a humane response to a court order, critics say its proponents misrepresented the bill to secure its passage. At a time when President Trump is putting progressive criminal justice organizations in his crosshairs, the troubled history of Prop 57 highlights the challenges of rehabilitating inmates while also reducing prison overcrowding without building more prisons.

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UC Berkeley Received Six-Figure Donations From CCP Officials, Records Show

The University of California, Berkeley, received donations from a blacklisted Chinese research university, Chinese Communist Party officials, and a Beijing state-owned chemical company, according to records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The news comes days after the Trump administration launched an investigation into UC Berkeley for allegedly failing to disclose funding from China, including a $220 million government investment in Berkeley’s joint research institution with Tsinghua University.

Donor records obtained through a California public information request provide new details on Berkeley’s financial relationship with China and foreign government-linked donors.

Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires that American universities disclose the names and locations of foreign donors to the federal government. For four years, the Biden administration failed to strictly enforce the law and withheld donor names from the American public. As the Free Beacon reported, President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month requiring more thorough disclosures.

The Berkeley records demonstrate that the administration’s more aggressive approach to foreign higher education donations appears likely to reveal unsavory financial backers.

One of the university’s donors is the University of Science and Technology of China, which gave Berkeley $60,000 for its chemistry program in 2023. A year after the donation, the U.S. Department of Commerce added USTC to its sanctions list for “acquiring and attempting to acquire U.S.-origin items in support of advancing China’s quantum technology capabilities, which has serious ramifications for U.S. national security given the military applications of quantum technologies.”

Berkeley also received $336,000 for its “research units” in 2023 from Vincent Cheung Sai Sing, a longtime member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference for Shanghai City, an advisory body to the Chinese Communist Party.

The GS Charity Foundation Limited, the charitable arm of the Glorious Sun Group, gave $160,000 to Berkeley for international studies research in 2023. The Glorious Sun Group’s chairman, Charles Yeung, was also a member of the CCP national people’s committee.

Duane Ziping Kuang, the founding managing partner of China-based venture capital firm Qiming Venture Partners, gave $75,000 to Berkeley’s business school. His firm was an early investor in ByteDance.

Several universities have listed gifts from China-linked donors as coming from other countries, as the Free Beacon has previously reported. Berkeley reported numerous donations from PRC-associated individuals as originating elsewhere.

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Sick: The Child Prostitution Fight That’s Tearing California Democrats Apart

There’s a mind-blowing battle playing out in Sacramento among the Democrats who dominate California politics.  We told you this week about how these same Democrats quietly killed a bipartisan bill, without debate, that would have implemented the successful reading instruction program that has allowed Mississippi students to overtake California kids in early literacy.  They did so at the furious behest of California’s anti-education, anti-child teachers unions, who are among the deep-pocketed left-wing special interest groups who rule the party that rules the state.  This maneuver even offended the leftist editors of the leftist San Francisco Chronicle, but it’s business as usual in the leftist state.  If that weren’t bad enough, Democrats have chosen to double down on cartoonish evil — and I don’t use that word lightly — by debating over whether purchasing children for sex should be a felony.

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Report: Brazilian National in CA Was Arrested for Domestic Violence, Became a Cop, Now Accused of Rape

California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law in 2022 removing a requirement for police, highway patrol, and corrections officers in the state to be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. 

Now, a foreign national Felipe Gomes, who was hired by the Belmont Police Department after the law went into effect in 2023, was arrested last week on suspicion of rape, The Blaze reported. The Brazilian national was reportedly hired despite a previous arrest in 2017 for domestic violence. 

Redwood City Police arrested Gomes at the Belmont Police Department headquarters on April 22, RCPD Sgt. Victor Figueroa said. Gomes is accused of violating penal code 261 (a)(1), which is “knowingly having sexual intercourse with an individual incapable of giving consent because of a mental disorder or developmental or physical disability,” according to the report. 

Gomes was subsequently booked into the San Mateo County Office Main Jail and released on $100,000 bond. Belmont Police Lt. Pete Lotti said Gomes was terminated the day after his arrest, the report states. 

Gomes was sworn in on Dec. 10 at a Belmont City Council ceremony. At the ceremony, Belmont Police Chief Ken Stenquist said Gomes was in the Brazilian Air Force and worked as air force police.

“He was a full-time police soldier and left that position when he moved to the United States. He enjoys practicing jiu jitsu and attending church when he’s not working,” Stenquist added.

The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office and the East Palo Alto Police Department allegedly warned Chief Stenquist about Gomes before he was hired. Both law enforcement agencies said they had rejected his application due to a 2017 domestic violence arrest, KGO-TV reported. 

“The charging affidavit reviewed by KGO alleged that one year into his marriage, Gomes — who is not an American citizen but apparently has a U.S. work permit — brutally beat his wife, striking her repeatedly in the face and stomach. Gomes had allegedly done so after seeing text messages on his wife’s phone from her ex-boyfriend,” according to the report. 

An officer at the time said he saw a “large bruise that covered most of (his wife’s) left cheek and scratches to her right cheek.”

“The state attorney reportedly factored in Gomes’ claims that his wife hit and scratched him first, charged both husband and wife with battery/domestic violence, and ultimately dropped the charges,” the report details. 

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HHS to reexamine massive $89 billion contract awarded to California nonprofit: Report

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is reportedly reconsidering a massive contract the National Cancer Institute awarded to a California nonprofit in January to operate a cancer research lab in Maryland.

The $89 billion award was given to the Alliance for Advancing Biomedical Research on January 17, just three days before former President Joe Biden left office. The nonprofit is also considered untested because it has not received or spent a penny since its inception in 2022, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Wednesday.

The HHS notified the Government Accountability Office earlier this month that it is reevaluating all the original bids for the contract, which means it could give the money to another company.

The organization is also tied to the University of California system, which Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has accused of using 40% of its federal funding for administrative purposes, and criticized for allegedly being vulnerable to China.

“It’s outrageous Biden’s NIH shoved a nearly $90 billion contract out the door just days before President Trump returned to office,” Grassley told the Free Beacon. “Even worse, the money would have flowed to an organization that can’t clearly protect itself from adversaries like China. 

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California Democrats Block Bill to Make Sex Trafficking of Minors a Felony — Again

California Democrats in the State Assembly are once again blocking a bill that would make the sex trafficking of minors a felony — this time for victims age 16 and 17 — preferring instead to give prosecutors discretion.

Notably, some of those prosecutors would be George Soros-backed prosecutors who have avoided enforcing the law in the name of “criminal justice reform,” and whom voters have begun to oust across the state.

The blocking effort is the latest chapter in a saga that began in 2023. As Breitbart News reported at the time, Republican State Senator Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) had introduced a bill to make sex trafficking of minors a “serious felony.” It passed unanimously in the State Senate, but Democrats on the State Assembly’s Public Safety Committee blocked the bill, since they did not want to increase criminal penalties generally.

Faced with public embarrassment, Democrats struck a deal in 2024 with Grove, under which the bill would advance but only if it was limited to victims under the age of 16. Now, a Democrat, State Assemblymember Maggy Krell (D-Sacramento), is trying to make trafficking minors aged 16 and 17 a felony, too — and fellow Democrats are refusing to allow the bill to advance.

Sacramento-area NBC affiliate KCRA reported Monday:

California lawmakers in the Assembly Public Safety Committee are blocking a proposal that would make it a felony to purchase 16 and 17-year-old children for sex.

Assemblyman Nick Shultz, the Democratic chairman of the committee, confirmed AB 379, a bill to crack down on the consumers of the child sex trafficking industry, will move forward on Tuesday, but without the proposed felony charge.

…

“My perspective as chair, there was a carefully crafted deal last year,” Shultz said. “We’re not saying no, but what we’re saying is if we’re going to be thoughtful policy makers, we really need to dive deep into this issue.”

The proposed bill, even without the provisions that Democrats on the Public Safety Committee are blocking, will roll back some of a bill that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed in 2022 that prevented police from arresting prostitutes for loitering — a bill that led to an explosion of street prostitution, including child sex trafficking.

The bill recalls efforts by State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) to decriminalize various sex crimes involving minors in their late teens, arguing that these penalize the LGBTQ community disproportionately.

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