Tag: california

Top California Democratic Party Official Resigns After FBI Arrest Becomes Public

On Sunday, Melahat Rafiei announced her resignation as Secretary of the California Democratic Party and State Representative to the Democratic National Committee.

The resignations come during an ongoing FBI investigation for corruption. 

In a lengthy tweet, Rafiei said the investigation had become a “hindrance” and “distraction from the important work of the party.”

Under a cloud of controversy, late last week Rafiei also resigned from her appointed roles on Anaheim’s Culture and Heritage Commission and the OC Fair and Event Center Board.

Rafiei lost the support of Democrat Party leadership after news surfaced that the FBI had arrested her on suspicion of bribing public officials in 2019.

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Gov. Newsom Proposes Eliminating One of California’s Many Marijuana Taxes

The latest California budget submitted by Gov. Gavin Newsom could go a long way in fixing the state’s ailing recreational marijuana industry by fully eliminating an oppressive cultivation tax.

Newsom’s May revisions to the 2022–23 fiscal year budget call for some significant statutory changes to the state’s cannabis tax system. The biggest change would be zeroing out the cultivation taxes beginning in July. The excise tax of 15 percent would remain intact.

When Californians voted to legalize recreational marijuana cultivation and sales back in 2016, the industry ended up saddled with state and local taxes that make it inordinately costly to attempt to sell or buy cannabis legally. As a result, the black market for marijuana still dominates sales in a state where it’s legal to buy it. Industry analysts estimate about $8 billion in black market marijuana sales annually in California—double the amount of marijuana purchased through licensed dispensaries.

The cultivation tax has been consistently eyed by industry analysts as a problem. This particular tax is unique among agricultural products in California, and due to the legislation passed in 2017 to establish tax authorities, it’s regularly adjusted for inflation. As a result, cultivation tax rates actually increased at the start of 2022 despite this big black market problem.

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San Diego County Passes Ordinance to Change Definition of ‘Woman’

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors has adopted a new definition of “woman” that would reportedly allow male-to-female transgender residents to demand inclusion as women in jails, homeless shelters, and domestic violence shelters.

The ordinance, passed by a 3-2 vote on April 26, and ratified on May 10 by the same margin, adopts the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), an international treaty adopted in 1979.

The treaty was signed by then-President Jimmy Carter in 1980, but it was never brought to the Senate for ratification.

But the ordinance goes further, expanding the definition of “woman” to include those who simply identify as women:

F. “Women and girls” shall mean those who identify as women and girls, including transgender women and gender non-conforming, and those assigned female at birth who include non-binary, transgender men and intersex communities.

G. “Gender” shall mean the characteristics of women, men, girls, and boys that are socially constructed. As a social construct, gender can vary among cultures and can change over time.

H. “Gender equity” shall mean the redress of discriminatory practices and ensuring equitable conditions that enable women and girls to achieve full, substantive equality with men, recognizing that needs of women and men may differ, resulting in fair and equitable outcomes for all. This includes the redress of discriminatory practices and ensuring equitable conditions for persons identifying as transgender, nonbinary, and/or gender non-conforming to achieve full equality and equity.

I. “Intersectional” shall mean the interconnected nature of social categorizations and individual characteristics that overlap as interdependent and compounded systems of discrimination. These categorizations and characteristics include, but are not limited to, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic status, education, language, and disability.

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California To Hire “Water Cops” As Residents Ignore Newsom’s Conservation Plea Amid Megadrought

California plans to hire “water cops” to monitor people and businesses wasting water as statewide usage soared in March despite Gov. Gavin Newsom declaring a drought emergency last July and parts of Southern California under water restrictions, according to The Mercury News. 

The Santa Clara Valley Water District, south of the San Francisco Bay Area, encompassing 15 cities and more than 2 million residents, is considering “water cops” to police neighborhoods and business districts for water wasters. People who are wasting water could be fined up to $500. 

Water cops may slap citations for people watering their yards for long periods of time and washing cars in the driveway. 

Aaron Baker, the COO of Valley Water, told CBS News that water cops are “needed because of the unprecedented times we’re in, and because we aren’t making enough progress on our water savings.” 

The threat of water cops snooping on people comes as California’s total water usage in March was the most since 2015 despite calls for conservation amid a megadrought. 

California Water Resources Control Board said water usage jumped 19% compared to March 2020. 

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Exorcism gone wrong… 3-year-old girl dies in San Jose, CA…

Faith leaders at a tiny church in San Jose where a three-year-old girl perished last fall have confirmed that they performed a ceremony on the child to “liberate her of her evil spirits” but say what happened was “the will of God,” not the consequence of an exorcism.

“If you read the Bible, you’ll see that Jesus casts away demons and made sick people healthy again,” said Rene Huezo, pastor of Iglesia Apostoles y Profetas and grandfather of the victim. “It’s not when I want to do it, it’s when God, in his will, wants to heal the person. The preacher is like an instrument of God; what we do is what God says.”

Arely Naomi Proctor’s death by asphyxiation has been ruled a homicide by the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner’s office.

Her mother, Claudia Hernandez, who authorities say withheld food from the girl and squeezed her neck during the exorcism, has been arrested and charged with assault on a child resulting in death.

But neither Huezo nor the victim’s uncle, both of whom allegedly held the girl down as the ceremony continued, have been charged in the incident at the church on the 1000 block of South Second Street in San Jose.

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Gavin Newsom 🖤 Oligarch Valley

How much of a hold does the oligarchy have on California’s political system? I guess there are a lot of ways to answer this question. But let me give you one that’s closest to my heart and my professional interests. Take this as a little postcard from liberal California.

About a week ago I got this press release from the Office of Governor — Gavin Newsom. In it, a governor of a major state with an economy bigger than most countries in the world and a reputation for being forward-thinking and at the cutting edge of liberal politics, announced that he’s gonna do an event at Caltech, a private university in Pasadena. What so big and important about this event that the governor feels the need to travel 400 miles south from his political lair in Sacramento?

Well, as his announcement’s subtext made very clear, Governor Gavin’s was going to Pasadena to spit shine some shoes. Yes, ma’am!

“Philanthropists” is an interesting way for the Governor of California to describe one of the most powerful forces in farming in the state — a billionaire family that owns something like 300 square miles of Oligarch Valley land, has its own toxic corporate farm worker town, and, from their ridiculous mansion in Beverly Hills, has been on a destructive quest to eviscerate the state’s river system and plunder its aquifers, helping fuel a mass extinction in the San Francisco Bay Delta…all so they can grow and export pistachios, a fringe snack food that people around here barely eat.

But then calling these rapacious oligarchs “philanthropists” is exactly the point. Governor Gavin was going out to Pasadena to do some public relations work: to lend his name and image and the respectably of his public office to Stewart and Lynda Resnick’s ongoing effort to rebrand themselves as do-gooders and environmentalists, rather than the industrial-scale destroyers of the environment that they are.

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Proposed California bill threatens to revoke doctors’ licenses for contradicting state messaging

In California, work is underway by lawmakers described by some as “Orwellian” to push two new Covid bills – one that would deal with “misinformation” around the epidemic and the virus coming from doctors, and another whose goal is to promote censorship by internet platforms.

Critics say that the motive behind the Senate Bill 1018 and Assembly Bill 2098, introduced by two Democrats, is to prevent doctors from speaking freely, whether about Covid treatment or on issues directly affecting their patients.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

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California Dem bill appears to allow illegal immigrants become police officers

A new California bill appears to allow illegal immigrants to become police officers in the state.

“Existing law, with certain exceptions, prohibits a person who is not a citizen of the United States from being appointed as a member of the California Highway Patrol. This bill would remove that prohibition, and would make conforming changes,” the bill states.

SB 960, proposed by Democrat Sen. Nancy Skinner, would remove the provision that an individual must be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States in order to become a police officer.

The bill was previously voted on at the end of March, with four ayes and one no. Democratic Sens. Steven Bradford, Sydney Kamlager and Scott Wiener, along with Skinner, all voted in favor of the bill. Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, also a Democrat, voted no.

The bill only allows for legal immigrants to become police officers, a source familiar with the bill told Fox News Digital. However, language in the bill itself does not specify that illegal immigrants are barred from doing so. The term “illegal immigrant” was unnecessary to include as other sections of federal law already barred illegal immigrants from becoming officers, the source continued.

The bill received its second reading on Tuesday and is now onto its third reading.

This comes on the heels of the Biden administration’s announcement to lift the Title 42 health policy despite migrant surge concerns.

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Mosquitoes With Synthetic DNA Scheduled For California Release

In the mosquito breeding rooms of British biotech company Oxitec, scientists line up fresh eggs, each the size of a grain of salt. Using microscopic needles, the white-coated researchers inject each egg with a dab of a proprietary synthetic DNA.

For four days, Oxitec technicians care for the eggs, watching for those that hatch into wriggling brown larvae. Those “injection survivors,” as the company calls them, face a battery of tests to ensure their genetic modification is successful.

Soon, millions of these engineered mosquitoes could be set loose in California in an experiment recently approved by the federal government.

Oxitec, a private company, says its genetically modified bugs could help save half the world’s population from the invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can spread diseases such as yellow fever, chikungunya and dengue to humans. Female offspring produced by these modified insects will die, according to Oxitec’s plan, causing the population to collapse.

“Precise. Environmentally sustainable. Non-toxic,” the company says on its website of its product trademarked as the “Friendly” mosquito.

Scientists independent from the company and critical of the proposal say not so fast. They say unleashing the experimental creatures into nature has risks that haven’t yet been fully studied, including possible harm to other species or unexpectedly making the local mosquito population harder to control.

Even scientists who see the potential of genetic engineering are uneasy about releasing the transgenic insects into neighborhoods because of how hard such trials are to control.

“There needs to be more transparency about why these experiments are being done,” said Natalie Kofler, a bioethicist at Harvard Medical Schoolwho has followed the company’s work. “How are we weighing the risks and benefits?”

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Biden Responds to Sacramento Mass Shooting by Pushing More Gun Laws

President Joe Biden said that more gun laws should be passed in Congress after a shooting in Sacramento left at least six people dead and more injured over the weekend.

In response to the shooting, Biden said that Congress needs to “ban ghost guns,” although there is no evidence that a “ghost gun”—an unserialized and untraceable firearm that can be assembled after purchasing components online—was used during the Sacramento incident.

“Require background checks for all gun sales. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” he also said, without elaborating on what he means by an assault weapon or high-capacity magazine.

Some elected officials have suggested a high-capacity magazine is one that holds 10 rounds or more, but others say it’s seven rounds or more.

Meanwhile, some firearms proponents have said the term assault weapon is intentionally misleading and vague, while others have said that a ban on “assault weapons” would entail banning nearly all semiautomatic rifles and pistols. Fully automatic firearms haven’t been available for purchase in the United States since 1986 when Congress passed the Firearm Owners Protection Act.

“Repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability. Pass my budget proposal, which would give cities more of the funding they need to fund the police and fund the crime prevention and intervention strategies that can make our cities safer. These are just a few of the steps Congress urgently needs to take to save lives,” Biden said.

The state of California, meanwhile, has among the strictest gun laws in the United States. The state already enacted a ban on ghost guns, it requires background checks for all gun sales, the state has also banned “assault” weapons—which applies to many semiautomatic firearms—for decades, and it has a ban on magazines that contain 10 or more rounds. A court in 2019 deemed California’s magazine ban unconstitutional, although that ruling was placed on hold while the case is being appealed.

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