GUNS: Why was the homeowner put in handcuffs?

https://nypost.com/2023/12/04/news/la-homeowner-fatally-shoots-suspect-during-attempted-burglary/

 LA homeowner fatally shoots suspect during attempted burglary as horrified child, grandma watch
By Social Links for Isabel Keane
Published Dec. 4, 2023, 8:33 a.m. ET

*** begin quote ***

A Los Angeles homeowner shot and killed a suspected burglar over the weekend after a group of men wearing dark hoodies and masks broke into his home — where a child and grandmother were left rattled by the brazen attempted burglary.

Police responded to the Granada Hills home around 5 a.m. Saturday morning after receiving radio calls of shots fired inside the residence.

The homeowner told police he was inside his home when three or four unknown men wearing “dark clothing, hoodies and masks” broke in, the Los Angeles Police Department wrote on X.

“A suspect pointed a weapon at the victim and while the suspects were inside the residence, the victim produced a firearm and a shooting occurred,” the department wrote. 

*** and ***

The homeowner, who was photographed outside the residence seemingly in handcuffs, was taken to the Devonshire Community Police Station to be interviewed, though they were later released. 

*** end quote ***

Give you some insight into the Pepuls Republik of Kaliforkneeah’s attitude towards guns?

“No law ever written has stopped any robber, rapist or killer, like cold blue steel in the hands of their last intended victim.” —W. Emerson Wright

—30—

GOVEROTRAGEOUS: How come SF “homeless” can be “cleaned up” for Xi but not for thee

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/11/13/nolte-democrats-will-clean-san-francisco-for-dictators-but-not-voters/

Nolte: Democrats Will Clean San Francisco for Dictators but Not Voters
John Nolte — 13 Nov 2023

*** begin quote ***

It took a Chinese dictator to get the city of San Francisco, California, cleaned up after five years of deterioration.

The Democrats who run San Francisco and California finally, Finally, FINALLY cleaned up that city’s filthy streets and removed the dystopian homeless encampments. At long last, San Francisco has been beautified in a dozen ways.

Yes, after some five years of increasingly dangerous streets littered with dirty needles, feces, trash, and filthy tents, not to mention aggressive vagrants, drug dealers, the deranged and addicted, the city took action.

*** end quote ***

So I guess it’s not about “rights” or anything else than politics.

Argh!

—30—

NEWJERSEY: Where are all these new EVs going to plug in and what will it cost?

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/10/24/mega-jolt_the_costs_and_logistics_of_plugging_in_evs_are_about_to_become_supercharged_987493.html?mc_cid=9b20a86fa6#/find/nearest?country=US

Mega-Jolt: The Costs and Logistics of Plugging In EVs Are About to Become Supercharged
By John Murawski, RealClearInvestigations
October 24, 2023

*** begin quote ***

To curb greenhouse gas emissions, California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, and other states have outlawed the sale of new gasoline cars starting in 2035, and similar EV mandates have been adopted by nearly 60 countries. The Biden administration is spending $7.5 billion on 500,000 EV charging ports as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to boost EV sales targets to 50% of all new vehicle purchases by 2030.

*** end quote ***

I expect that used cars are going to become the new “cars” in 2035.

We’ll probably begin to look like Cuba where cars ended in the 1950’s when the USA embargoed Castro.

Pity to poor and the renters, who won’t have access to a home charger.  And, pity the poor homeowner who needs to retrofit their electrical service.  That’s assuming that the local utility can provide such service.

BTW where is all this power generation capacity going to magically appear from.

In case you forgot, the extra taxes on gas pay for the roads.

DNF that EVs are hard on tires.

Argh!  

—30—

 

DISCOURAGING: This is some “state of the union” summary

 

*** begin quote ***

The Left is waging a full-fledged cultural revolution against traditional America. And the Maoist results are often as absurd as they are terrifying.

*** and ***

  • Special counsel John Durham just issued his final report on wrongdoing within the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Justice.
  • IRS just conceded whistleblowers were correct
  • California is facing a crushing $32 billion deficit.
  • The NAACP just issued a “travel alert” advising blacks not to visit Florida.
  • Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis—all outside Florida—have the highest black murder rates in the nation.
  • Black Lives Matter has just announced it lost millions of dollars in investments and ran up huge deficits
  • In New York, a threatening subway career criminal with 42 prior arrests was subdued by a bystander and died
  • In almost every American city and town, biological males, with enormous advantages in size and musculoskeletal mass, routinely win women’s sporting competitions.
  • Corporate America has joined this cultural revolution hysteria.
  • Los Angeles Dodgers reinvited the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” to celebrate Pride night at Dodger Stadium.
  • Catholics and Christians had objected to the invitation  —  never dare extend its street-theater blasphemy to other religious groups such as Muslims or Hindus.
  • Anheuser-Busch has nearly destroyed its best-selling Bud Light brand
  • Disney has rebranded it films, amusement parks, and television offerings to reflect radical transgender, gay, and race advocacies.
  • A woke CNN has all but destroyed its once-global audience

*** and ***

All these implosions are not just shocking but surreal. Why are our government, corporations, and popular culture colluding in mass suicide—to the delight of our enemies like communist China?

*** end quote ***

How does the USA stop this “cultural revolution”?

Refuse to buy from “woke” companies.  Challenge the Left on their perversions.  AND, not be silent about the change.

Ultimately, the USA must dissolve like the USSR,

Culture can be change in small battles.

—30—

DISCOURAGING: The roads would be a disgrace in Mogadishu.

FROM FACEBOOK

Bill Whittle

*** begin quote ***

Crime levels are soaring. The roads would be a disgrace in Mogadishu. Drug overdoses are killing thousands. The tax base is fleeing the state in record numbers. But thank God, California has managed to address the one really critical issue plaguing the state; namely, can you own your own gas heater in Berkeley? Scott Ott goes where no man had gone before. 

Help keep speech free while you still can by becoming a Citizen Producer right here: billwhittle.com/register/

*** end quote ***

Yes, the roads are a mess and the taxes keep going up.  I saw that Arnold was filling potholes.  What happened to Dominos fixing roads?

Sigh!

—30—

GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Surprise there is a a shortage of … … some thing the Gooferment “manages”!

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/10/californias_water_supply_falls_victim_to_crt.html

americanthinker.com
California’s Water Supply Falls Victim to CRT
By Don A. Wright

*** begin quote ***

When did the board’s mandate change from a bureaucracy administering water rights to an arbitrator and avenger of perceived injustices? At exactly the same moment the people of California stopped holding their government accountable because they thought someone else would do it for them. It gets serious when your family’s food supply can be negatively impacted.

*** end quote ***

William Rusher, the editor of the conservative National Review, quoted economist Milton Friedman as saying that “if the government were to take over the Sahara Desert, there would be a shortage of sand in five years.”

Here we have a Gooferment taking over water and now there is a shortage?

Like anything else, the invisible hand of the fee market would do  much better job of allocating a scarce resource.  If folks paid for water and the price went up, the usual behavior would be conservation and alternatives.

Anyone in the Pepuls Republik of Kaliforkneeah considering desalinization?  I hear is works well in Israel.

Argh!

—30—

GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Gooferment, two weeks;YouTube divers, 1 day

https://nypost.com/2022/08/22/meet-the-youtuber-divers-claiming-to-have-found-kiely-rodni/

These YouTube divers did in one day what cops couldn’t do in two weeks in Kiely Rodni search
By Lee Brown
August 22, 2022 10:49am Updated

*** begin quote ***

They’re the deep-diving YouTubers who claim to have found missing California teen Kiely Rodni in less than a full day of looking — even after authorities spent nearly 20,000 man-hours failing to find her.

Adventures With Purpose started searching Prosser Creek Reservoir on Sunday — and within hours found what they believe is the 16-year-old’s 2013 Honda CRV with a body inside.

“WE JUST FOUND KIELY RODNI,” the volunteer group claimed on Facebook, ahead of local authorities confirming that the body was indeed the teen who went missing after a nearby graduation party on Aug. 6.

*** end quote ***

The various agencies of Gooferment bragged about how much effort they put into the search.  Only to “eat crow” when private citizens found her in less than a day.

I guess it all depends upon your motivation, tools, and training.

Like Uvalde, “who would build the roads” argument, but in this case it’s “who will find the bodies”!

—30—

GUNS: A shotgun may well have saved this man’s life

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11072609/Dramatic-moment-California-liquor-store-owner-blasts-rifle-toting-robber-shotgun.html

‘He shot my arm off!’ Robber armed with AR-15 flees California liquor store after 80-year-old owner blasts him with SHOTGUN

  • An 80-year-old business owner Craig Cope defended his store with a shotgun
  • Cope had a heart attack because of the shock, but saw off his attackers 
  • The would-be robbers approached Norco Market & Liquor in Norco, California, planning to rob the store while wearing a facial covering

By Tom Brown For Mailonline

Published: 07:15 EDT, 2 August 2022 | Updated: 12:43 EDT, 2 August 2022

*** begin quote ***

This is the incredible moment a robber armed with an AR-15 fled screaming from a California liquor store after the 80-year-old owner blasted him with his shotgun.

Craig Cope opened fire after the 23-year-old armed intruder entered his shop in Norco in the early hours of Sunday.

Four suspects armed with guns were waiting outside, planning to rob the store while wearing facial coverings, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

But security camera footage shows Cope reaching for his shotgun and firing at the first robber as he burst in.

The man screamed out after being hit in the shoulder and ran from the store.

‘He shot my arm off! He shot my arm off!’ the man can be heard shouting as he runs back to a black BMW SUV.

*** end quote ***

Well, I can’t say I have any sympathy for the robbers.  The guy was lucky he wasn’t killed.

—30—

GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Make poor children pay for their own misery?

https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/07/foster-care-youth-california/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

California Divide
California counties siphon Social Security benefits from some foster kids
by Jeanne Kuang July 22, 2022

*** begin quote ***

California counties regularly take the Social Security benefits of foster youth who are disabled or whose parents have died. Advocates say it amounts to children paying for their own foster care.

*** and ***

Tanner said Butte County, as her guardian, took her survivor benefits of about $1,200 a month until she graduated high school and was no longer eligible for them. The money likely totaled tens of thousands of dollars over her time in state custody.

*** end quote ***

Ribbing the dead and little defenseless children is what the Gooferment politicians and bureaucrats do best.

This is the Pepuls Republik of Kaliforkneeah, but I bet it happens everywhere.

Vile thieves.

—30—

SECESSION: Time to enforce “truth in labeling” of Catholic Universities

On Nov 26, 2021 at 11:48:07 AM, Luddite wrote:

Catholic University Features Paintings of George Floyd as Jesus Christ

Catholic University – change name?

# – # – # – # – #

IMHO most, if not all, sadly including my alma mater, have left the straight and narrow a long long time ago.  

Guess they should change their name if for no other reason than truth in labeling.

One has to fault the Catholic Church hierarchy for not discipling those who mislabel themselves as “catholic”.  

Maybe, just maybe, I am old and cynical, but I can understand the French Revolution where the Jacobites killed royalty, celebrities, bishops, priests, bankers, and scientists as an “unproductive strata of society”.  

Unfortunately, instead of removing statues, we should be removing: politicians and bureaucrats, what Michael Malice calls the “cathedral”  (i.e., liberal schools), and the corporate press.  

I see a bloody future in the next civil war UNLESS everyone is allowed to go their own way peacefully.  The Pepuls Republik of Kaliforkneeah should be removed from “These United States of America” just as the South was kicked out of the Union.

—30—

 

 

RANT: This was a crime!

https://nypost.com/2021/11/10/basketball-cheap-shot-leaves-teen-girl-concussed/

Teen girl concussed after brutal basketball attack
By Ryan Glasspiegel
November 10, 2021 6:02pm  Updated

*** begin quote *** 
 
A disturbing cheap shot during a California basketball game left a teen girl concussed and her mother “in shock.”

At an event in Southern California, 15-year-old Lauryn Ham was sucker-punched by one of her opponents. According to her mother, she’s still recovering from the brutal punch over the weekend.

“Of course I was in total shock,” the victim’s mother, Alice Ham, told ABC7. “Just couldn’t believe that could happen to my child.”

Ham said her daughter was disoriented when she came home after the game.

“The person in question went down the court and shot a 3-pointer, landed, fell backwards into my daughter,” Ham said. “As they got up and turned and were walking back down to the other side of the court, her mom says to her, ‘You need to hit her for that.’ And the child in question sucker-punched my daughter.”

*** end quote ***

It was a vicious assault.

I agree with the victim’s Mom it was criminal.

At the very least, there should be public outrage.

What are we as a society coming to?

—30—

FOLLOW UP:

https://nypost.com/2021/11/12/ex-nbaer-corey-benjamin-apologizes-for-daughters-sucker-punch/

[JR: New mother told her to hit the girl? Sounds like the mom needs to go to jail too.  What are they teaching children these days?]

—30—

SECESSION: Let the Pepuls Republik of Kaliforkneeah goes it own way to the hell they want

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10080515/PIERS-MORGAN-hail-Emperor-Newsom-woke-dictator-fiddling-one-pointless-PC-policies.html

PIERS MORGAN: All hail Emperor Newsom, the woke dictator fiddling with one pointless PC policy at a time while crime-ravaged California burns
By PIERS MORGAN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 10:32 EDT, 11 October 2021 | UPDATED: 10:44 EDT, 11 October 2021

*** begin quote ***

Empowered by his recent recall election win, Newsom fired off a raft of laws that included making it illegal to use gas-powered ‘off-road engine engines’ including leaf-blowers, lawn mowers and golf carts, ordered schools to teach all students ‘ethnic studies’, and large toy stores to have gender-neutral sections.

The first will cause huge financial pain to millions of Californians, especially to the 50,000 small businesses it directly effects, for minimal benefit to the environment.

The second has sparked fears of critical race theory now becoming a mandated subject in schools, something that many think will increase racial tension and division rather than heal it.

*** end quote ***

Once again, I am forced to agree with Pier Morgan again about Emperor Newsom.

California should be allowed to go its own way and not drag the rest of us along by Pelosi, Boxer, et al.

Much better for all involved.

—30—

INNOVATION: Tiny homes see to solve homelessness?

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-12/los-angeles-tiny-homes-homeless?fbclid=IwAR1jiIIS3DL4O_rPz2IM9JLmfdTkSv7RYsa01MAwfhxfkuxOfgWUraN2dhQ

$130,000 for an 8-foot-by-8-foot shed? That’s what L.A. is paying in a bid to house the homeless
By DOUG SMITH, SENIOR WRITER 
DEC. 12, 2020

*** begin quote ***

Combining public and private funds, the nonprofit now manages 550 tiny homes in villages on public property, private property and church property around the Seattle area. It costs from $300,000 to $500,000 to set up 40 or 50 homes, depending on the sewer connection, Lee said. Portable toilets initially used have been replaced by permanent bathrooms and showers.

The villages function as communities, with residents all performing chores and, at some, taking part in self-governance.

Seattle’s citizen-driven model never got traction in Los Angeles.

When a self-styled homeless activist started delivering hand-made tiny homes to people living on the streets, the city ruled the structures illegal and quickly stamped out the movement.

*** end quote ***

Too bad the Gooferment squashes any private attempt to solve the problem that the Gooferment created!

—30—

POLITICAL: Progressive Hell, by Sean Gangol

The local governments in both LA and San Francisco have experienced an increase in homeless people using their sidewalks as their campgrounds. This has led to an increase of sidewalks and streets being contaminated with human feces and used syringes. So, what is the solution offered by their noble leaders? To do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Source: Progressive Hell, by Sean Gangol

# – # – # – # – #

If the D’s “run” the country like they do “their” cities, then why would anyone EVER vote for a D?

Not that the R’s are that much better, but in the dimension of “city management” they have credentials.

Argh!

— 30 —

GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Better that the homeless and needy starve?

2019-Feb-05

https://www.theadvocates.org/2019/02/california-charity-becomes-casualty-city-regulators/

A California Charity Becomes a Casualty of City Regulators
Remso Martinez•February 3, 2019

*** begin quote ***

Charity is a beautiful thing that everyone tends to support, regardless of creed or partisan slant. However, there is a strange concept of “forced” charity that both Republicans and Democrats try to enforce in their own various ways. Whether it is through entitlements, bailouts, or pork spending, some in government think that their involvement makes everything better, but in reality, those good intentions more often than not have adverse consequences.

*** and ***

The primary change for Deliverance is the requirement that no food may be prepared in a volunteer’s home, which has been our primary method of food preparation. The Board of Directors discussed options for utilizing an existing food prep facility, but due to the distributed nature of the organization, this option would prove to be cumbersome and perhaps only a short term solution to the problem. As a result, Deliverance, San Diego can no longer prepare hot meals for distribution to the homeless population of downtown San Diego without incurring significant logistical and financial costs.

*** and ***

If the government can create laws that restrict free people from providing a home cooked meal to the homeless, what is there to stop them from crafting a law that prohibits me from giving a pan of brownies to a neighbor? Or an office potluck where everyone brings a meal? This example might sound exaggerative but this whole situation creates a slippery slope for more state intervention in consensual and voluntary exchanges.

While the intentions of the regulators might be good, the homeless and needy probably would prefer a free meal instead of going hungry.

*** end quote ***

Remember this “homelessness” crisis was caused, at least in part, by the Gooferment closing mental institutions while promising community support, high property taxes, rental regulations, and the “(pseudo) War on (some) Drugs”.

So naturally we can’t have any solution other than a Gooferment one!

Argh!

# – # – # – # – #

POLITICAL: Nullification is Constitutional and effective; as is Secession if we’re will to fight

http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2017/12/03/surprise-the-mainstream-media-is-wrong-again-yes-nullification-does-work/

Surprise, the Mainstream Media is Wrong Again: Yes, Nullification Does Work

*** begin quote ***

You don’t have to dig into a history book to prove nullification works. I can prove it does with one word.

Weed.

In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act, authorizing the possession, cultivation, and use of cannabis (marijuana) for limited medical use.

The federal government claims the power to strictly enforce a total prohibition of marijuana. It makes no exception for medical purposes. Despite federal law, states have advanced the issue each year. This has happened in spite of a 2005 Supreme Court opinion supporting federal prohibition, and a relentless year-to-year increase in spending and enforcement efforts by the federal government.

Today, despite ongoing attempts to enforce federal prohibition, 21 states and Washington D.C. have legalized marijuana for medical use, and 14 states and D.C. have decriminalized marijuana possession. Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon and Washington State have all legalized marijuana for recreational use. Each year, new state laws and regulations help expand the market, and each expansion further nullifies the unconstitutional federal ban in effect.

No matter what the mainstream tells you, nullification works. History proves this. The present proves this. And we will continue to prove it in the future.

*** end quote ***

Marijuana was outlawed to protect Hearst’s paper factories from competition. Fueled by that racist and untrue “Reeffer Madness”, “We, The Sheeple” were stampeded into another attempt at “Prohibition”.

Any prohibition doesn’t work. It merely raises the cost to the consumer and allows politicians and bureaucrats to exert more un-Constitutional control over “We, The Sheeple”.

Argh!

# – # – # – # – # 

[Disclosure: I am a financial supporter of the Tenth Amendment Center. https://shop.tenthamendmentcenter.com/product/donate/]

# – # – # – # – # 

POLITICAL: I thought “all powers not enumerated were reserved to the States or the People”?

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/05/04/despite-secession-talk-breaking-up-is-hard-to-do

Despite Secession Talk, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
May 04, 2017 By Mindy Fetterman

*** begin quote ***

Recently, these efforts have ranged from fairly large, ongoing campaigns in Texas and California to smaller pushes in Oklahoma, Maine, Utah, West Virginia and New York’s Long Island, among others.  

Just last month, a longshot effort to allow Californians to vote on seceding fell apart after one of the founders dropped out amid criticism of his ties to Russia. But a new group pushing secession has vowed to collect the nearly 600,000 signatures required by July to put the measure on the November 2018 ballot.

Last May, the Texas Nationalist Movement came within two votes of adding Texas independence language to the state’s Republican platform. And in Oklahoma, Republican state Sen. Joseph Silk in January introduced a bill to remove the word “inseparable” from the sentence in the state constitution describing Oklahoma as “an inseparable part of the Federal Union.”

The move for independence, whether it’s from the right of the political spectrum as in Texas, or the left as in California, reflects the political division felt across the country, said Edward Meisse, a supporter of the Yes California secession group that just disbanded. “We have two diametrically opposed philosophies in our country, and we’re just not getting anywhere,” he said. “I think we should allow states to secede so California can be California and Texas can be Texas.”

*** end quote ***

Yeah, right! Unfortunately, once the Gooferment gets power, it will never relinquish it voluntarily. People can NOT be held against their will. If an individual did it, then it’d be called “kidnapping”. But when the Gooferment does it, it’s call “jurisdiction”. Of course, once people start to refuse their cooperation to the Gooferment, it’ll collapse. It happened to the old Soviet Union; it’ll happen here too.

With all the out of control spending, unfunded and underfunded pensions, soaring “entitlement” costs, the collapse is inevitable. The only question is “who takes the ‘haircut’?”

Argh!

Secession is the only LOGICAL solution.

# – # – # – # – # 

POLITICAL: Peaceful “Secession” — an idea who’s time has come

http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2017/02/13/california-secession/

California Secession? How it Could Happen in Practice

*** begin quote ***

The following article was written by James R. Rogers and originally published on the Library of Law and Liberty website.

Rumblings of secession talk in California, as in Texas a few years back, raises the question of how, if ever, a state might secede from the Union without war.
The legal issue surrounding secession in the Civil War era concerned whether states might unilaterally secede from the Union under the Constitution. The answer, underscored by force of arms and the U.S. Supreme Court, was a definitive “no.”

That states may not unilaterally secede from the Union, however, does not mean there is no route by which a state might secede peacefully, and even legally. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has said there is, albeit, saying it in dictum. In holding in Texas v. White (1869) that Texas did not truly secede from the Union, Chief Justice Chase, writing for the majority, nonetheless identified two routes by which U.S. states could peacefully secede: “There was no place for reconsideration or revocation [of Texas’s entry in the Union], except through revolution or through consent of the States.”

*** and ***

Much of the commentary related to California’s budding secession movement suggests that a constitutional amendment would be necessary for the peaceful, lawful secession of a state from the union. I don’t think so. Chase’s dictum regarding the “consent of the states” does not suggest the need for constitutional amendment to authorize a state’s secession.

Rather, to implement this route for the legal secession of a state, Congress would need only to adopt enabling legislation spelling out the process by which consent of the states would be obtained. Congress could stipulate the states’ consent would be provided by some proportion of state legislatures – half of them, or two-thirds – adopting a “secession consent” resolution or something. Or Congress could authorize states to consent to a state’s request to secede through special state-level conventions or by direct vote in state-level referenda. Or perhaps Congress could provide state consent through a vote of the Senate, or a vote of the Senate and the House, or some combination of the above.

Whatever process Congress might adopt for secession need not be as onerous as the process required to adopt constitutional amendments: Adoption of enabling legislation need not require a supermajority vote in Congress (as constitutional amendments require). And, at congressional determination, the proportion of states sufficient to provide the “consent of the states” could be fewer than the three-fourths majority required to ratify constitutional amendments.

*** end quote ***

Very interesting.

Now that the Liberal Left in California has learned what “executive power” in the “wrong hands” means, they have become interested in secession.

I’m reminded of a quote: “Would you tell me please, Mr. Howard, why should I trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away? An elected legislature can trample a man’s rights as easily as a king can.” Mel Gibson as the character Benjamin Martin in the movie The Patriot http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0187393/quotes

We’ve seen that the Congress has become corrupt and doesn’t faithfully execute its duties by creating the new Fourth Branch of Gooferment — the REGULATORS!

So perhaps, like the old Soviet Union it’s time to dissolve the Union and let partisans go their own way in peace. If the “blue states” want reform around welfare for all — fine. If the “red states” want to reform around “traditional values”— fine. California should be allowed to go its own way in peace.

Hopefully, it would NOT be like what happened in India and Pakistan initially, but things seem peaceful now. 

So too, can the RED USA and the BLUE USA live in peace together … …  finally.

Dona Nobis Pacem

# – # – # – # – # 

TINFOILHAT: Did the Alcatraz escapees make it?

http://nypost.com/2015/10/10/relatives-have-proof-alcatraz-escapees-are-still-alive/

Relatives have ‘proof’ Alcatraz escapees are still alive
By Tim Donnelly
October 10, 2015 | 9:45am

*** begin quote ***

Alcatraz officials have long stated that the men drowned, maintaining the prison’s bragging rights of no escapees. But now, more than 50 years later, new leads are being presented by the Anglin family, who are cooperating with authorities for the first time.

They claim that not only did the brothers survive the escape, they were alive and well up through at least the mid-1970s — and may still be alive today.

The evidence is offered up by the Anglins’ nephews David, 48, and Ken Widner, 54, who are featured in “Alcatraz: Search for the Truth,” a History Channel special airing Monday. The evidence has pumped life into the cold case, and has investigators lining up new interviews and planning to search South America for signs of America’s most notorious escapees.

*** end quote ***

And, why would we believe the “Alcatraz officials”?

Like with murder cases, it’s very hard to convict without a body.

And, from time to time, we hear of folks who have disappeared completely.

Personally, without proof, all we have is assertions and presumptions.

# – # – # – # – # 

INSPIRATIONAL: California Legalizes Self Driving Cars

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/09/26/1621200/california-legalizes-self-driving-cars

California Legalizes Self Driving Cars
Posted by Unknown Lamer on Wednesday September 26, @12:36PM
from the third-place-leaders-of-the-free-world dept.

*** begin quote ***

Hugh Pickens writes writes “The Seattle PI reports that California has become the third state to explicitly legalize driverless vehicles, setting the stage for computers to take the wheel along the state’s highways and roads … ‘Today we’re looking at science fiction becoming tomorrow’s reality,’ said Gov. Brown. ‘This self-driving car is another step forward in this long, march of California pioneering the future and leading not just the country, but the whole world.’ The law immediately allows for testing of the vehicles on public roadways, so long as properly licensed drivers are seated at the wheel and able to take over. It also lays out a roadmap for manufacturers to seek permits from the DMV to build and sell driverless cars to consumers. Bryant Walker Smith, a fellow at Stanford’s Center for Automotive Research points to a statistical basis for safety that the DMV might consider as it begins to develop standards: ‘Google’s cars would need to drive themselves (by themselves) more than 725,000 representative miles without incident for us to say with 99 percent confidence that they crash less frequently than conventional cars. If we look only at fatal crashes, this minimum skyrockets to 300 million miles. To my knowledge, Google has yet to reach these milestones.'”

*** end quote ***

I’d buy one of those if they are available for sale here!

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POLITICAL: California may cap future retirement checks

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-28/california-lawmakers-set-vote-to-limit-retiree-pensions.html

California Lawmakers Set Vote to Limit Retiree Pensions
By Michael B. Marois – Aug 28, 2012 2:32 PM ET

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New state employees in California would face a cap on the size of their retirement checks, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said yesterday. They would also have to put in more time on the job than current workers before they collect, he said.

Brown, 74, wants to cut pension benefits and curb abuses before he asks voters in November to raise income and sales taxes. A weak recovery from the longest recession since the 1930s, reducing job prospects and retirement benefits for most nongovernment workers, has churned up a backlash against the pay and benefits of public employees nationwide.

“If voters think that legislators have made a serious policy change, then the chances for the tax increase improve,” said Jack Pitney, who teaches politics at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. “But if they think it is nothing but window dressing, then chances get a lot worse.”

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He also wanted to raise the retirement age to 67 from 55 for most new state employees.

Rising retiree obligations are straining the budgets of states such as California and cities across the U.S. still grappling with income- and sales-tax revenue slammed by the recession.

California’s state pensions in 2010 had about 81 percent of what they needed to cover the benefits they promised, down from 87 percent in the preceding year, according to an annual study by Bloomberg Rankings. The median for all states was 75 percent, the data show.

Steinberg said the pension changes would save the state “tens of billions of dollars” over the next 20 to 30 years, though he later added that an analysis of the cost savings had yet to be done.

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Sorry, but Gooferment pensions are a vestige of “golden watch” thinking.

No pensions for ordinary people; why should the political class get them.

It a terrible abuse of the taxpayer.

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