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Even After Boy Scouts Allow In Homosexuals, California Votes to Strip BSA of Nonprofit Status

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Photo Credit: Rich Pedroncelli

The California Senate on Wednesday passed a bill that would revoke the Boy Scouts’ nonprofit status because the group does not allow openly gay adults to join.

The Boy Scouts of America voted last week to allow gay youths to join the organization, but it reaffirmed its ban on gay adults serving as Scout leaders.

“They are out of line with the values of California and should be ineligible for a tax benefit paid for by all Californians,” state Sen. Ricardo Lara, a Democrat, said as he introduced his bill, The Sacramento Bee reports. “SB 323 brings our laws into line with our values.”

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California Bill Would Give Driver’s Licenses to Illegal Immigrants

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Photo Credit: Ken Lund

More immigrants living in the U.S. illegally would be able to obtain a California driver’s license under a bill that is moving through the state Legislature.

A measure from Democratic Assemblyman Luis Alejo, of Watsonville, would allow people without a Social Security number to apply for a license. They must show several alternative forms of identification, including a birth certificate and proof of residency.

Unauthorized immigrants seeking a license also must pass a driving test like other applicants.

The legislation, which passed the state Assembly on Wednesday, follows a law approved last year that allowed driver’s licenses to be issued to unauthorized immigrants who are eligible for work permits under a revised federal policy.

Alejo said his bill, AB60, would increase safety on California roads. A recent study by the state Department of Motor Vehicles showed that unlicensed drivers are nearly three times as likely to cause a crash, he said.

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California Oil Boom: 15 Billion Barrels but the Dem’s are Trying to Stop It (+video)

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Photo Credit: Richard Masoner / CycleliciousCalifornia is on the verge of a new gold rush. Expanded hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” — at the Monterey Shale formation is sparking estimates that 15 billion barrels of oil could be accessed, along with millions of jobs and huge contributions to the domestic energy supply.

Even the state’s green-friendly Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, says “the potential is extraordinary.”

But standing in the way is a flurry of anti-fracking bills. At last count, 10 were on the table, all introduced by Democrats seeking tighter controls over the controversial technology.

Some of the measures take aim at how crude is extracted from rock layers beyond the reach of conventional drilling.

Others call for full disclosure of what chemicals are used in the high-pressure process, how they’re removed, and where they’re stored.

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A Farmers’ Rebellion Lifts the California GOP

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Photo Credit: Bill Mahon Democrats were writing obituaries for California’s GOP after winning a supermajority in the state legislature last November, thus gaining veto-proof power to raise taxes. But their legislative lock may have slipped after this week’s special election in which Republican farmer Andy Vidak appears to have defeated a Democrat—in a heavily Democratic senate district—who had championed high-speed rail and a higher minimum wage.

If Mr. Vidak wins an outright majority—late Friday, he led with 49.8% of the vote and provisional ballots were still being counted—his victory would put Republicans two senate seats short of reclaiming their veto on tax hikes. But more important, the election has exposed the Democrats’ soft underbelly in California’s Central Valley—a no man’s land in state politics—and given Republicans a rallying point.

“This is the shot in the arm that shows that we are doing some things right,” California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House GOP whip, says.

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California Cops Break Into House Without a Warrant, Tase Man Who Complains About Police State and It’s All on Video

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Photo Credit: West Midlands PoliceIn this video, a group of officers arrive at a home and, through a closed screen door, demand that the occupants come outside.

The unidentified man inside, along with his female companion, demand that the officers produce a warrant, but they don’t.

When the police continue to demand that they come outside, and order that both occupants raise their hands, the man responds that he doesn’t live in a police state with martial law. He also warns the police that he is video-recording everything.

Eventually, the police breakthrough a side door and tase the man with the video camera. It sounds as if his female companion may have been tased as well.

Father Dies After Begging For Life While Cops Struck Him With Batons; Cellphone Videos Seized

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Photo Credit: KERO-TVA California father of four died after being beaten by police outside of a Bakersfield hospital, while witnesses say he begged for his life. A couple witnesses filmed the gruesome scene, but say they were later forced to give their cellphones to authorities and have yet to receive their devices back.

The Bakersfield Californian reported 33-year-old David Sal Silva died early Wednesday morning in the hospital after he was struck an unknown amount of times by nine authorities seeking to subdue him. Silva was considered possibly intoxicated and an autopsy is expected to reveal if he was killed by injuries sustained in the beating or other complications.

Police and county sheriffs were responding to a call regarding a possibly intoxicated man outside Kern Medical Center Tuesday night and say Silva resisted them.

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State Ordering Girls’ Locker Rooms Open to Boys

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Photo Credit: WNDThe California State Assembly passed a bill Thursday mandating schools permit boys to play on girls’ athletic teams and utilize the ladies’ locker room if they gender identify as girls – or vice-versa for girls identifying as boys.

The bill’s author, openly homosexual San Francisco Democrat Tom Ammiano, has been an activist for lesbian, “gay,” bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, issues for decades and reportedly became in 1975 the first San Francisco public school teacher to make his homosexuality public. Ammiano later co-founded an LGBT organization with Harvey Milk, the homosexual activist about whom Hollywood made a recent feature film and California schools celebrate an annual day of remembrance.

Ammiano told the Los Angeles Times some parents may be uncomfortable with their children sharing bathrooms with students of a different sex, but he said, “It’s also important to protect our children from prejudice.”

“There’s no trampling of other people’s rights,” he said. “There’s a recognition that other people have the same rights that you do.”

Ammiano cited the case of Eli Erlick, a high school student in Mendocino County who was born male but identifies as female. Ammiano said Erlick was prohibited from participating in girls’ gym classes while in middle school and noted that Erlick’s parents testified in favor of the bill.

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In Los Angeles, 1 in 10 Residents is an Illegal Immigrant, Study Says

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Photo Credit: David McNewA report released Tuesday suggests that one quarter of the illegal immigrant workforce in the United States lives in California, and it offers a detailed look at who they are and how they live, using the Golden State as a microcosm to explore how current immigration reform efforts in Washington could impact America.

The study by the University of Southern California’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration estimates that about 7 percent of California residents – or more than 2.6 million people – are in the country illegally. In Los Angeles County – the nation’s most populous – 1 in 10 residents is illegal. Sixty-three percent of those undocumented residents in Los Angeles are Mexican, 22 percent are from Central America and 8 percent are from the Philippines, China, or Korea.

Statewide, immigrants are concentrated in seasonal or low-wage industries such as farm work and retail trade, according to the report. But nearly half have lived in the US for 10 years or more, meaning they are more often than not permanent residents rather than seasonal migrants. Moreover, they generate more than $31 billion in personal income, even though they endure high levels of poverty.

For policymakers in Washington, that suggests that the challenges facing the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants are unlikely to go away if immigration reform efforts fail.

Read more from this story HERE.

Setback for Medical Marijuana as California Court Upholds Local Ban (+video)

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Photo Credit: Jeff ChiuCalifornia’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that individual cities and towns can ban the medical marijuana dispensaries that have sprouted around the state, dealing a blow to advocates of broader legal access to the drug and invigorating calls for the Legislature to speed measures regulating the business.

Because of the scores of jurisdictions across the state that have already banned the dispensaries, the ruling by the seven justices essentially leaves in place large contiguous tracts of territory where patients with a doctor’s prescription cannot purchase the drug legally.

Some medical marijuana advocates said the ruling made it likely that more cities and towns, angry that the regulatory burden falls on them and not the state, also would enact bans.

In the case before the court, a ban on such dispensaries was imposed by the city of Riverside in 2010. The plaintiff, the Inland Empire Patient’s Health and Wellness Center, which was objecting to being shut down, sued the city on the grounds that the ban contravened the state law’s objective of “ensuring access to marijuana for the seriously ill who need it in a uniform manner throughout the State.”

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New California Law Forces Gun Owners to Fund Gun Seizure Program

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Photo Credit: APGov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed legislation aimed at taking handguns and assault rifles away from 20,000 Californians who acquired them legally but have since been disqualified from ownership because of a criminal conviction or serious mental illness.

The measure, the first of several gun-related bills to reach the governor, allocates $24 million in surplus funds to hire dozens of additional special agents to tackle a backlog of 40,000 weapons in the hands of people not allowed to possess firearms.

“This bipartisan bill makes our communities safer by giving law enforcement the resources they need to get guns out of the hands of potentially dangerous individuals,” said Evan Westrup, a spokesman for the governor.

The state operates a database that cross-references a list of gun owners with those disqualified later from owning guns. But, budget cuts have prevented the state Department of Justice from keeping up with the growing number of people on the list.

State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced SB 140, which takes the money from fees paid when people buy guns and allocates it to a three-year campaign to take guns from those ineligible to have them.

Read more from this story HERE.