AZ Lawmaker: ‘We Might Need To Build A Wall Between California And Arizona’

It sure doesn’t seem like Arizona approves of California’s sanctuary cities and one GOP Lawmaker hammered that point home. Marth McSally, in what was likely a tongue in cheek moment, proposed building a wall around California to protect the state of Arizona from their neighbor’s disastrous policies.

McSally announced her bid for Senate to replace Senator Jeff Flake (R) earlier this year. Flake is retiring at the end of this Congress. Other candidates in the primary include former Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former state Senator Kelli Ward (R).

When first hearing her quote, one could assume she wanted Arizona protected from those feeling the housing crisis and high taxation in California.  But  McSally, a congresswoman representing Arizona was referring to the “dangers of the southern border” and the sanctuary cities that California has allowed to infect the Golden State. Sanctuary cities are municipalities that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

“As we look in Arizona, we often look into the dangers of the southern border,” McSally said during a round-table discussion about “sanctuary cities” Tuesday at the White House. “But if these dangerous policies continue out of California, we might need to build a wall between California and Arizona as well to keep these dangerous criminals out of our state,” she said, smiling, and perhaps a little sarcastically.

She added that California can’t just “provide sanctuary for these criminals and think that it’s only impacting California dangerously.” McSally’s comments come on the heels of the announcement that the federal government is suing the state of California (state government) for failing to enforce their laws.

The Trump administration’s “America First” policy is a thorn in the side of many states that use illegal immigrants as votes to elect far-left Communists.

California’s governor, Jerry Brown (D), was upset that he has to follow others’ rules while making California almost unbearable with the number of rules, laws, and regulations he demands the residents of the Golden State adhere to, Brown became the offended hypocrite everyone knew he was in the wake of the federal lawsuit over sanctuary cities.  Try not to choke on California’s hypocrisy.  Never forget that the state (and Democrats in general) loves laws, just not the laws of others.

“You called this an act of war from the federal government,” a reporter began asking Brown. Brown immediately looked confused. “An act of war? That’s pretty strong. But I reciprocate that comment,” Brown responded.

California Governor To Trump DOJ: ‘This Is An Act Of WAR’

California Governor Jerry Brown said that the lawsuit filed against California by the Department of Justice (DOJ) over recently passed state laws was an “act of war.” During a press conference with the California attorney general on Wednesday, Brown looked every bit the easily offended liberal.

The DOJ filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Tuesday, which alleged three recently passed California laws deliberately interfered with federal immigration policies.

Upset that he has to follow others’ rules while making California almost unbearable with the number of rules, laws, and regulations he demands the residents of the Golden State adhere to, Brown became the offended hypocrite everyone knew he was.

“You called this an act of war from the federal government,” a reporter began asking Brown. Brown immediately looked confused. “An act of war? That’s pretty strong. But I reincorporate that comment,” Brown responded.

In the video below, you can hear Brown say that California and the federal government are now going to war with each other. With the states attorney general, Xavier Becerra by his side, Brown declares “this is basically going to war against the state of California.”

“No, we are state of laws,” Brown answered. “We want to observe the law now. The [U.S.] attorney general has basically thrown the gauntlet down and done it in a highly politicized way. Yeah, this is a very aggressive act on the part of the Trump administration, and it’s not right, and it won’t stand. And as I say, I’m sure this lawsuit will last has more longevity than the Trump administration itself,” Brown concluded.

Attorney General Becerra the gets a moment to speak as well, and with a straight face, says “here in California, we respect the law and the Constitution. We expect the federal government to do the same.”

Try not to choke on the hypocrisy.

Is California Already In Recession?

By Political Calculations

When it comes to the health of his state"s economy, California Governor Jerry Brown has been walking on eggshells this year.

Twice each year, once in January and again in May, Gov. Jerry Brown warns Californians that the economic prosperity their state has enjoyed in recent years won"t last forever.

 

Brown attaches his admonishments to the budgets he proposes to the Legislature – the initial one in January and a revised version four months later.

 

Brown"s latest, issued last May, cited uncertainty about turmoil in the national government, urged legislators to "plan for and save for tougher budget times ahead," and added:

 

"By the time the budget is enacted in June, the economy will have finished its eighth year of expansion – only two years shorter than the longest recovery since World War II. A recession at some point is inevitable."

 

It"s certain that Brown will renew his warning next month. Implicitly, he may hope that the inevitable recession he envisions will occur once his final term as governor ends in January, 2019, because it would, his own financial advisers believe, have a devastating effect on the state budget.

Unfortunately for Governor Brown, the recession he fears may already have arrived in California.

The following chart showing the trailing twelve month averages of California"s civilian labor force and number of employed is one that we"ve adapted from a different project to show that data in the context of the state"s higher-than-federal minimum wage increases and periods of negative GDP growth for the national economy. It shows that in 2017, the size of the state"s labor force has peaked and begun to decline in 2017, while the number of employed shows very slow to stagnant growth during the year.

The data for this chart is taken from the summary tables for the state"s monthly reports on the California Demographic Labor Force, which are produced by California"s Employment Development Department. These are therefore the same numbers that Governor Brown sees, and they have been signaling throughout 2017 that the state"s economy is going through a period of stagnation after having generally grown since bottoming in mid-2011 following the Great Recession.

The labor force and employment numbers aren"t telling the full story however, which becomes evident when we factor in the state"s growing population. The following chart shows the labor force and employment to population ratios for the state"s civilian work force.

In this chart, we find that California"s employment to population ratio peaked at 59.2% in December 2016, having slowly declined to 59.0% through October 2017. Meanwhile, California"s labor force to population ratio last peaked at 62.6% in October 2016, which has since dropped to 62.1% a year later.

Going by these measures, it would appear that recession has arrived in California, which is partially borne out by state level GDP data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis:

Last year was a very good one for the state’s economy. The 3.3 percent gain in economic output in 2016 was more than double that of the nation as a whole and one of the highest of any state.

 

However, California stumbled during the first half of 2017. California’s increase was an anemic six tenths of one percent in the first quarter compared to the same period of 2016, and 2.1 percent in the second quarter, well below the national rate and ranking 35th in the nation.

 

The report revealed that almost every one of California’s major sectors fell behind national trends in the second quarter, with the most conspicuous laggard being manufacturing.

On a final note, the charts we"ve featured above were adapted from our project tracking the impact of California"s minimum wage hikes on its teen labor force, where we"ve been that labor force and employment data since July 2003 (which hopefully helps explain why the trailing 12 month labor force and employment to population ratio chart starts showing data beginning in June 2004). As bad as the charts above are for California"s labor force, the employment situation for California"s teens is much worse, having itself peaked in October 2016.

California"s teens are best thought of as being the proverbial canaries in the coal mine.

 

 

Democrats Want To BAN Gas And Diesel Cars By 2040 To Make California More Like China

One California lawmaker is seeking to have the state ban all vehicles powered by fossil fuels by the year 2040.  Should the bill succeed in becoming a law, the state of California would not allow residents to register any vehicle that emits carbon dioxide.

According to Bloomberg, California Assemblymember Phil Ting, a Democrat who is chairman of the chamber’s budget committee, said he plans to introduce a bill that, starting in 2040, would allow the state’s motor vehicles department to register only “clean” vehicles that emit no carbon dioxide, such as battery-electric or hydrogen fuel-cell cars.

“Until you set a deadline, nothing gets done,” Ting, who represents much of San Francisco, said in a phone interview Tuesday. “It’s responsible for us to set a deadline 23 years in advance.” This is not the first time California has considered a ban on the internal combustion engine vehicle either. The topic has been discussed at the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the state’s overly powerful air quality regulator, after Governor Jerry Brown showed interest in similar moves by other countries, including communist China.

“I’ve gotten messages from the governor asking, ‘Why haven’t we done something already?’” CARB Chairman Mary Nichols said in September, referring to communist China’s planned phase-out of fossil-fuel vehicle sales. “The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California.” Perhaps because Chian is a communist country run by an all-powerful government.  By all means, the lawmakers now seek to make California more like China.

Using buzzwords like “climate change” the tyrants in the Golden State will be able to enact any law they see fit in an attempt to control those who live in the state.

Ting said he’ll introduce the bill when lawmakers return to Sacramento next month for the upcoming legislative session. If adopted, it would eliminate a huge chunk of carbon emissions from the transportation sector (now the top source of the” greenhouse gas” in the U.S.) as part of the state’s quest to slash emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.

California Issues $1.25BN In Bonds For 'Bullet Train' Despite Trump Threat To Withhold Federal Funds

For decades now the California bullet train has been the thorn in the sides of what few conservatives actually live in the liberal bastion of the West.  And with cost estimates starting at $65 billion, and ranging to well over $100 billion, or about $7,800 per California household, it"s no wonder that fiscally responsible folks would be a bit reluctant to spend so much money on a service few will ever use and could threaten the solvency of their state as a whole.

Be that as it may, seemingly no impediment, financial or otherwise, will stop Jerry Brown from wasting billions of California taxpayers" dollars in pursuit of his pet project.  Which is why it should come as little surprise that Brown has elected to proceed with a $1.25 billion general obligation bond sale today despite Trump"s threats to withhold federal funding for the project, a move which casts substantial doubts over the financial feasibility of the project as a whole. Per Bloomberg:

California isn’t letting litigation or Donald Trump stand in the way of one of the most expensive and controversial projects in the U.S.

The state on Thursday plans to sell $1.25 billion in taxable bonds to finance a $64 billion high-speed rail system, the first debt issue for construction since voters approved it nearly a decade ago. The offering marks a show of faith from officials that the project will proceed despite a lawsuit from a county and farmer opposed to it and roadblocks from the Trump administration, which has delayed a grant that would have benefited the bullet train running from San Francisco to the Los Angeles area.

The general-obligation debt, backed by California’s full faith and credit, isn’t dependent on the success of the project, the first publicly financed U.S. high-speed rail line. Lack of federal support would push more of the burden on California to finance the project, which Democratic Governor Jerry Brown says will transform the traffic-choked state by increasing access to affordable housing and boosting local economies.

Of course, according to Brown, California can "well afford" a $100 billion capital project...

"California can well afford it, and it will make our state a much better place.  I know we’re going up against a very red tide here of opposition. This thing is a long-term project, and one way or another we’re going to get it."

...which we guess is true if you ignore the state"s failing pension fund and various cities going bankrupt.

Meanwhile, California bondholders either don"t believe the bullet train will ever be completed, an eventuality that would undoubtedly push the state to the brink of bankruptcy, or simply don"t care.

Jerry Brown’s California Legacy is a Dam Failure

Tim Donnelly

The Oroville Dam — at 770 feet, America’s tallest — is on the verge of failing. And Sacramento, which has been fiddling for decades while Rome burns, is running for cover.

This isn’t just any dam; it’s the primary storage facility located on the Feather River for the State Water Project, the state-owned conveyance system that provides drinking water to more than two-thirds of California’s population.

If the dam were to fail, it could inundate not only the city of Oroville but numerous other communities downstream, including Yuba City, Marysville and even West Sacramento.

At the moment, the emergency spillway is being used for the first time since Governor Ronald Reagan approved its construction, and almost 200,000 people have been evacuated.

What’s Governor Jerry Brown doing?

The same thing he’s been doing for decades — obstructing progress.  California has been so busy defying President Donald Trump in order to protect illegal aliens from deportation that it forgot to do the things government is supposed to do, like maintain infrastructure. Governor Brown is now going hat-in-hand to beg the Trump administration for emergency funds.

According to Breitbart News sources, the Trump administration is already closely monitoring the situation, and has dispatched personnel and made contingency plans to aid California in the event of a catastrophic dam failure.

But it’s during the seven dry years — the extended drought — that the state should have fixed its water infrastructure, like dams and canals. Brown and his merry band of Democrats had different priorities, like high-speed rail, benefits for illegal aliens, and unsustainable pensions.

The reality is that Sacramento was warned over and over again.  Just a few years back, environmentalists raised concerns that an earthquake could degrade the massive earthen rockfill dam. Sacramento just chose to ignore those concerns — and to spend the money on other priorities.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, it was “(t)hree environmental groups — the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League — [who] filed a motion with the federal government on Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dam’s relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside.”

It’s ironic that the same environmentalists who have opposed every new dam project were the ones who raised the alarm.

Countless proposals have been floated over the past two decades to fund infrastructure out of the general fund, and prioritize critically needed upgrades to dams, roads and bridges. But Sacramento spends a pittance out of it’s $180 billion budget on infrastructure, and most of that is earmarked for the abysmal roads and a crumbling intrastate highway system.

(snip)

But there is one thing Gov. Brown has done in cooperation with federal officials regarding infrastructure. A little over a year ago, Brown signed off on an agreement to tear down dams on the Klamath River.

Yes, you can’t make this stuff up.

Brown did finally have his “rainy day” fund approved by voters in 2016. Yet California — the so-called sustainable state — has refused to maintain its infrastructure in order to sustain its way of life. Now the “rainy day” they’d hoped to avoid is here.

God be with all those in the pathway of potential destruction.

Tim Donnelly is a former California State Assemblyman.

Read more at BREITBART

Photo credit: Josh Edelson / Getty

Here’s Why Liberals Are Suddenly Embracing the 2nd Amendment

January 3, 2017   |   Shaun Bradley

(ANTIMEDIA) Bureaucrats in California are ringing in the new year by doubling down on their failed policies to stop gun violence. As of January 1st, six new bills are being phased in that close the so-called ‘bullet-button’ loophole and require background checks to buy ammunition. Another policy would have banned magazines that hold over ten rounds, but in a surprise move, the magazine restriction was repealed on December 29th, just ahead of the deadline. Although California has always been a poster child for the progressive agenda, support for these extreme measures seems to have faded — especially since the result of the presidential election.

These new standards were signed by Governor Jerry Brown in the wake of the San Bernardino attack last December, and in many ways, they mimic the registry created in Connecticut after Sandy Hook. Even though the changes solidify California’s status as the most draconian state when it comes to gun rights, public opinion may be at a turning point.

The reality of a Trump administration has shocked many Californians into a newfound appreciation for the 2nd Amendment. Since November, there has been a record number firearms sold in the Golden State — and many of those buying them are liberals. Hopefully, instead of being blinded by identity politics, this can be a moment for both parties to realize gun ownership is a necessary check on centralized power. The 2nd Amendment has long been a point of contention between the left and the right, but perhaps a year like 2016 is what was needed to find some common ground.

Regardless of one’s beliefs, when the president has far-reaching, violative power, concerns of authoritarianism will inevitably come from both sides of the political spectrum. An armed populace, though, has much less to fear from the whims of a dictator, whether they are a fascist or a socialist.

Yet if the original magazine ban hadn’t been repealed, thousands of innocent people would have been turned into felons overnight. Those who don’t comply with the numerous other new stipulations are still at risk.

For this reason, those who oppose the drug war should empathize with gun owners who find themselves in the crosshairs of the State. People who have experimented safely with marijuana or psychedelics understand that when used responsibly, they can be important tools in improving quality of life. That’s why it’s infuriating to see politicians who have never experienced the benefits of these substances make laws that put people in jail for simply possessing a plant.

But why isn’t there the same anger when politicians who have never been in a fight or shot a gun (yet are protected by armed bodyguards) create laws criminalizing individuals’ choices on how they defend themselves? The drug war uses law enforcement on non-violent people to enforce arbitrary victimless crimes, but it is just as immoral when law-abiding gun owners are targeted by the State at the behest of a fearful public.

This targeting amounts to the collectivization of millions of people, the vast majority of whom will never harm anyone. In the same way, the majority of cannabis or psychedelic users do not harm others — let alone themselves — proving blanket bans unreasonably violate the rights of non-violent individuals.

Further, instances where firearms are used in self-defense are almost never covered by the press —  but lives saved by guns should carry significant weight in the discussion. Taking away legal firearms only limits options for those who become victims when the police aren’t close enough to intervene. Obviously, not everyone has the desire to carry a firearm, just as there are many people who have no interest in using drugs, but entrusting government as the mediator of what is reasonable and ethical is a fatal mistake that has been highlighted throughout history.

The well-known tactics of doublespeak and problem-reaction-solution have been deployed on the public to link society’s perception of gun ownership to criminality. Terms like bullet-button, high-capacity, automatic rifle, and ghost gun are all manipulative words that have been used to confuse those who aren’t assimilated into American gun culture. With little personal experience on which to base their opinions, many liberals unquestionably accept the State’s assertions that guns are to blame — accusations that inevitably follow these tragic scenarios.

Unfortunately, the government has a poor track record of addressing the root cause of the issue and not just a symptom of the disease. There is no amount of laws that can be written to solve the underlying societal problems driving the violence, and like it or not, the weapons of millions of Americans are here to stay. When crucial information from the media is being intentionally omitted, the result can be just as deceptive as an outright lie.

Even the infamous false claim that there were 355 mass shootings in 2015 made its rounds and was regurgitated on major networks. But deliberate wording was used to skew the data and guide the public’s reaction. Out of those 355 incidents, only a handful resulted in any loss of life, even though the audience associated mass shootings with the few mass murders they had seen broadcast non-stop.

The source of the data is a site called Mass Shooting Tracker, and their calculations are vastly different than most would assume. The organization clearly states how they define mass shootings on their web page:

“The current FBI definition of mass murder, commonly accepted by the media as a proxy for ‘mass gun violence,’ is three or more people murdered in one event. We believe this does not capture the whole picture. Many people may survive a shooting based on luck alone…Our definition is this: a mass shooting is an incident where four or more people are shot in a single shooting spree. This may include the gunman himself, or police shootings of civilians around the gunman.”

The statistics echoed throughout the mainstream media to convince the public that we’re in the midst of a mass shooting epidemic — and that assault rifles are largely to blame — has been a spectacle. Even something as simple as the number of gun deaths is consistently inflated by the rate of suicides, which are often included in tallies. The gun control position would at least have some integrity if they went after the weapons that are used in 68% of all murders — handguns. But instead of standing on the values they preach, gun control advocates turn to emotional manipulation that undermines logic to target rifles, which account for only 3% of all murders. FBI reports have consistently shown an overall decrease in violent crime, but only cities that have instituted the strictest gun control, like Chicago, have fallen victim to unprecedented turmoil — turmoil that, if state gun laws worked, would be avoided.

The democratic nature of the United States is only valuable if it remains representative of all opinions without marginalizing the rights of the minority. The rise of the Calexit movement has created a unique opportunity to open up the debate on the issue of state rights, which until now has mostly been associated with right-wing parts of the country.

Hopefully, the perfect storm of political upheaval and government overreach can bring people together behind individual freedom. The new laws being implemented in California exemplify a failed solution to a complex problem. If 2016 did one thing, it highlighted the differences in values and vision that separate the ideologies of the nation. In the pursuit of diversity, the differences in ideas have been placed on the back burner, but if progress that is more than skin deep is going to be made, then all views — even the unpleasant ones — need to be heard.

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This article (Here’s Why Liberals Are Suddenly Embracing the 2nd Amendment) by Shaun Bradley is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Shaun Bradley and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.