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California Removes 'Husband' and 'Wife' from California Marriage Law

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Photo Credit: TownHall One word can make all the difference when it comes to definitions. Exhibit A: exchange the words “husband and wife” for a more inclusive term, and you have the phrase “I now pronounce you spouses.” In the state of California, they are paying special attention to keep their vernacular as progressive as possible.

Governor Jerry Brown (D) signed a bill Monday to formally make marriage gender-neutral to reflect the state’s allowance of same-sex unions. According to Senate Bill 1306:

Under existing law, a reference to “husband” and “wife,” “spouses,” or “married persons,” or a comparable term, includes persons who are lawfully married to each other and persons who were previously lawfully married to each other, as is appropriate under the circumstances of the particular case.

The bill would delete references to “husband” or “wife” in the Family Code and would instead refer to a “spouse,” and would make other related changes.

Read more from this story HERE.

California Declares Whooping Cough Epidemic

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Photo Credit: CNNCalifornia is being hit hard with a whooping cough epidemic, according to the state’s public health department, with 800 cases reported in the past two weeks alone.

The agency says that there were 3,458 whooping cough cases reported between January 1 and June 10, well ahead of the number of cases reported for all of 2013.

This is a problem of “epidemic proportions,” the department said. And the number of actual cases may be even higher, because past studies have shown that for every case of whooping cough that is reported, there are 10 more that are not officially counted.

Whooping cough, known to doctors as pertussis, is a highly contagious respiratory infection that is caused by a bacterium known as Bordetella pertussis.

The popular name for the disease comes from the whooping sound an infected person makes when gasping for breath after a coughing fit.

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Russian Bombers Fly Within 50 Miles of California Coast

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Photo Credit: APFour Russian strategic bombers triggered U.S. air defense systems while conducting practice bombing runs near Alaska this week, with two of the Tu-95 Bear H aircraft coming within 50 miles of the California coast, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) confirmed Wednesday.

“The last time we saw anything similar was two years ago on the Fourth of July,” Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Norad spokesman, told the Free Beacon.

Davis said the latest Bear H incursions began Monday around 4:30 p.m. Pacific time when radar detected the four turbo-prop powered bombers approaching the U.S. air defense zone near the far western Aleutian Islands.

Two U.S. Air Force F-22 jets were scrambled and intercepted the bombers over the Aleutians.

After tracking the bombers as they flew eastward, two of the four Bears turned around and headed west toward the Russian Far East. The bombers are believed to be based at the Russian strategic base near Anadyr, Russia.

Read more from this story HERE.

In California, Life With Parole Increasingly Leads To Freedom

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Photo Credit: Jeremy Raff / KQEDCalifornia has more than 26,000 inmates serving life sentences with the possibility of parole. Until recently, that possibility was a slim one; “lifers,” who are mostly murderers, rarely got out of prison.

But that’s changing. Since 2009, more than twice as many lifers have been paroled in California than in the previous two decades combined.

The shift in parole policy comes as California is under orders from the U.S. Supreme Court to relieve prison overcrowding. But state officials insist the rising number of lifers being paroled has nothing to do with that. Instead, they say, it’s the confluence of several other factors, including a 2008 state Supreme Court ruling that made it harder to deny parole to inmates who are no longer considered dangerous.

Since that ruling, parole boards have recommended release at a much higher rate than in previous years — and Gov. Jerry Brown is blocking fewer paroles than his predecessors.

Today, even for murderers, the possibility of parole is more than just a pipe dream. The change is being felt on both sides of the prison walls.

Read more from this story HERE.

7 Dead in Drive-By Shooting Near UC Santa Barbara

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Photo Credit: AP The Daily Nexus, Daniel SlovinskyBy Raquel Maria Dillon and Julie Watson.

A drive-by shooter went on a nighttime rampage near a Santa Barbara university campus that left seven people dead, including the attacker, and seven others wounded, authorities said Saturday.

The gunman got into two gun battles with deputies Friday night in the beachside community of Isla Vista before crashing his black BMW into a parked car, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.

Deputies found him dead with a gunshot wound to the head, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether he was killed by gunfire or if he committed suicide, he said.

A semi-automatic handgun was recovered from the scene near the University of California, Santa Barbara. Investigators know the gunman’s name, but Brown said he couldn’t release it pending notification of relatives.

“We’re analyzing both written and videotaped evidence that suggests that this atrocity was a premeditated mass murder,” Brown said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Facebook Santa Barbara Mass Shooting: Son of ‘Hunger Games’ Second Unit Director Is Suspected Gunman

By Erik Hayden.

A 22-year-old gunman killed six people in an Isla Vista rampage that began with a 140-page manifesto and an apartment stabbing and ended with a crashed BMW and an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“It all has to come to this,” Elliot Rodger stated during a nearly seven-minute “Retribution” video uploaded to YouTube on May 23. He later added: “After I’ve annihilated every single girl in the sorority house, I’ll take to the streets of Isla Vista and slay every single person I see there.”

Rodger, who died of a gunshot wound in the BMW, is the son of Hunger Games second unit director Peter Rodger. He had been a student who attended Santa Barbara City College classes sporadically since 2011.

The Santa Barbara sheriff’s office had made contact with Rodger three times prior to the mass shooting, including an April 30 incident where deputies followed up on a request from a family member who asked that police check on his welfare.

“The deputies contacted the suspect, at the time found him to be polite and courteous, he downplayed the concerns for his welfare and the deputies cleared the call,” stated Sheriff Bill Brown at a Saturday evening press conference carried live on local stations and cable broadcasters.

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Thousands Flee California ‘Fire in the Sky’

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Photo Credit: AFP / Bill Wechter

Photo Credit: AFP / Bill Wechter

Thousands of people fled raging wildfires in southern California which destroyed homes and triggered evacuations at a nuclear power plant, a military base and a Legoland amusement park.

The blazes, which also closed a major north-south highway, come amid record temperatures in the western US state, where the annual wildfire season typically starts much later in the year.

At least 15 buildings have been destroyed, including three homes, said Michael Davis, fire chief in the seaside resort of Carlsbad, north of San Diego.

“At times it looks like there’s fire in the sky with the wind whipping back and forth,” eyewitness Ryan Marble, waiting in a long line at a gas station to get fuel to evacuate, told The Los Angeles Times newspaper.

About a dozen non-essential staff at the San Onofre nuclear power plant were evacuated “as a precaution” due to a nearby brush fire, the plant said on its Twitter feed.

Read more from this story HERE.

California Leavin’: This State Is in a State of Denial

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Everyone knows how you diplomatically break up a romantic relationship that has come to an end. The problem, you say to the one you’re splitting from, isn’t you, it’s me.

That’s the latest line from Toyota executives explaining why the world’s largest car company is moving a major headquarters out of Torrance, Calif., to Texas.

This wasn’t about California being uncompetitive, Toyota’s North America CEO Jim Lentz announced. He added that it’s unrelated to all this “juicy” talk of a “confrontation between California and Texas.” Toyota moved, Lentz assured Californians, because “it doesn’t make sense to have oversight of manufacturing 2,000 miles away from where the cars were made… Geography is the reason not to have our headquarters in California.”

And the amazing thing is that the press and politicians have actually bought this story. The Los Angeles Times ran with it and assured its readers that “taxes, regulations and business climate appear to have had nothing to do with Toyota’s move.” They actually wrote that – in a front-page news piece.

Never mind that Texas has had four times the job growth of California over the last 20 years.

Never mind that the Texas unemployment is about 50 percent below California’s.

Never mind that nearly every business climate index has California in the bottom 10 and Texas in the top five.

Never mind that California has been losing net taxpayers to interstate migration over the last three years.
Never mind that incomes are growing at a faster pace in Texas than in California.

“For Californians to pretend that they are doing as well as Texas is a great delusion,” laments Arthur Laffer, a Reagan economist — and a transplant from California to Tennessee.

Joseph Vranich, an expert on corporate relocations, has counted more than 200 major companies with tens of thousands of employees that have left the Golden State over the last four years. I guess the Times would conclude: The problem is them, not California.

One wonders what it will take for politicians and the California media to figure out there is something wrong with the Golden State.

The first step in solving an addiction is to admit you have a problem. California can’t even admit it overspends and overtaxes. Meanwhile, people can move to Texas — where there is no state income tax — and save up to 13 percent more of their income.

Is California worth it? For more and more business owners, the answer is no. Most will want to keep selling things in California, so they will use the Toyota line. The problem is me, not you, California. But when the one who’s walking out the door says this, it’s always really about you.

Stephen Moore is chief economist at The Heritage Foundation and co-author of the New York Times bestseller “The Wealth of States.”

This article appeared at Heritage.com and is re-published in full with the Heritage Foundation’s permission.

Young Children Could Face Bullying Charges in City

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Photo Credit: Working Word / Flickr

Photo Credit: Working Word / Flickr

Children as young as kindergarten-age could face misdemeanor charges for bullying under a proposed law advancing in a Southern California city.

The Carson City Council gave preliminary approval this week to an ordinance that would target anyone from kindergarten to age 25 who makes another person feel “terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed or molested” with no legitimate purpose.

A final vote is set for May 20, according to the Daily Breeze (https://bit.ly/1g3JLNT ).

First-time offenders could be ticketed for an infraction and fined $100. A second infraction would cost $200, and a third-time offense could bring a criminal misdemeanor charge.

“If a child is bullying someone, and a parent has to pay a $100 fine as a result of that, a responsible parent will realize their child needs some help,” said Councilman Mike Gipson, who introduced the ordinance and is spearheading a campaign to make Carson bully-free.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sen. Introduces Bill To Test Out Taxing Motorists For Every Mile They Drive

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Photo Credit: David McNew / Getty

Photo Credit: David McNew / Getty

The California Legislature is looking at a voluntary program that would tax motorists for every mile they drive.

KCAL9’s Bobby Kaple reports that Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, introduced a bill to test out the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax because the state’s gas tax was no longer bringing in the revenue it used to due to people driving more fuel efficient vehicles.

The program is modeled after ones in Oregon and Washington.

“We want to do as Washington and Oregon have done in a much bigger state with much longer commutes…to make sure that we find out whether it would work, whether the public would like it or not,” DeSaulnier said.

It’s unknown how much the tax would be, but Oregon currently charges its volunteers 1.5 cents per mile.

Read more from this story HERE.

California Bill Would Force Schools to Lecture Children on the ‘Racial Significance’ of Obama’s Presidency

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Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

California’s children will receive only the best educational opportunities, including thorough indoctrination into the “racial significance” of Barack Obama’s presidency, if a new state bill passes.

From CBS Sacramento:

The bill by Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, asks state education officials to include Obama’s election in history and social studies standards laying out what students are expected to learn.

High school history students already learn about recent presidents. But Holden says lessons about Obama also should focus on what his election meant for racial equality and civil rights…

Of course, California can take this bold step because children are so well educated in California (43rd in the country in math, and 42nd in reading) that teachers have plenty of time to add racially charged lessons to their curriculum.

Read more from this story HERE.