Posts

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

/0 Comments/in , /by

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)

/0 Comments/in , /by

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.”

Read more from this story HERE.

New California Law Forces Gun Owners to Fund Gun Seizure Program

/0 Comments/in , /by

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.

US to Subsidize Chinese Car Maker in California

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: APA Chinese car maker is setting up shop in the U.S., with small ambitions but a clear goal: Get the federal government to subsidize the sales of the company’s American-made electric buses.

BYD Co., 002594.SZ +3.06% an electric-car and battery maker that counts Warren Buffett among its investors, will open an electric-bus assembly facility in Lancaster, Calif., on Wednesday.

The company’s U.S. expansion won’t create many jobs yet. The new plant will employ a few dozen people at the outset, according to Stella Li, BYD senior vice president. “We are starting small,” she said.

But the benefits of BYD’s move will be immediate, allowing it to sell its buses to local transit companies at a huge discount—with the federal government picking up the rest of the tab.

BYD spokesman Micheal Austin said the company’s U.S. production facility meets “Buy America” procurement guidelines, enabling its customers to tap federal subsidies that cover up to 80% of the cost of the electric buses they buy. The availability of government aid was one of the main motivations behind BYD’s move to the U.S., he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

CPS Takes Baby by Force After Parents Seek Second Medical Opinion (+video)

/28 Comments/in , /by

A Sacramento couple is without their 5 month old baby after Child Protective Services sent in the police to forcibly remove the child from their care.

A hearing is scheduled for Monday, April 29, 2013 on the incident which was triggered when Anna Nikolayev and her husband Alex took baby Sammy out of Sutter Memorial Hospital and sought a second opinion at Kaiser Permanente, a rival hospital, for Sammy’s flu-like symptoms.

Anna and Alex were concerned about the quality of care baby Sammy was receiving at Sutter where he was admitted nearly two weeks ago. At one point, Anna questioned the antibiotics Sammy was being given and was alarmed that the nurse administering the treatment didn’t know why the child was receiving them. Anna claims that a doctor later said that Sammy should not have been receiving the medication.

When doctors began discussing the possibility of heart surgery, the parents decided to leave without a proper discharge in order to have the child examined elsewhere.

“If we got the one mistake after another, I don’t want to have my baby have surgery in the hospital where I don’t feel safe,” Anna said.

Watch video here:

Read more from this story HERE.

911 Calls: California Planned Parenthood Injures Three Women in Abortions (+audio)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: YouTubeOperation Rescue has obtained recordings and Computer Aided Dispatch Transcripts for four 911 calls placed from a single Planned Parenthood in Orange, California, three of which were made on the same day seeking emergency transport for patients suffering complications from an abortion and one employee experiencing from chest pain.

The records raise additional questions concerning patient safety of Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics across the nation. Operation Rescue has documented 22 medical emergencies occurring at abortion clinics nationwide since January 1, 2013. This includes five medical emergencies at a Planned Parenthood in Wilmington, Delaware, which later fired its abortionist and closed down for “cleaning” after public outcry erupted.

“There simply is no such thing as a ‘safe and legal’ abortion clinic,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation. “Women are injured or killed, and babies die as a matter of course in our nation’s abortion clinics and we have yet to find one that obeys the law on all points. Health and safety violations are rampant at abortion clinics, and Planned Parenthood is certainly no exception.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Calif. Bill Would Let Non-Citizens Serve on Juries

/11 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: zzpzaThe California Assembly passed a bill on Thursday that would make the state the first in the nation to allow non-citizens who are in the country legally to serve on jury duty.

Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, said his bill, AB1401, would help California widen the pool of prospective jurors and help integrate immigrants into the community.

It does not change other criteria for being eligible to serve on a jury, such as being at least 18, living in the county that is making the summons, and being proficient in English.

The bill passed 45-25 largely on a party-line vote in the Democratic-controlled Assembly and will move on to the Senate. One Democrat – Assemblyman Adam Gray, of Merced – voted no, while some other Democrats did not vote.

Democratic lawmakers who voted for the bill said there is no correlation between being a citizen and a juror, and they noted that there is no citizenship requirement to be an attorney or a judge. Republican lawmakers who opposed Wieckowski’s bill called it misguided and premature.

Read more from this story HERE.

Persecution: California Moves to Strip Non-Profit Status from Boy Scouts, Other Groups that Ban Homosexuals, Transgendered or Athiests

/14 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

A bill aimed at pressuring the Boy Scouts of America to lift its ban on gay members by making the organization ineligible for nonprofit tax breaks cleared its first vote on Wednesday in the California Legislature.

The Senate Governance and Finance Committee voted 5 to 2 to move the first-of-its-kind bill to the Senate Appropriations Committee for review.

The Youth Equality Act, sponsored by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Long Beach, would deny tax-exempt status to youth groups that discriminate on the basis of gender identity, race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion or religious affiliation.

That means those groups would have to pay corporate taxes on donations, membership dues, camp fees and other sources of income, as well as sales taxes on food, beverages and homemade items sold at fundraisers.

Former Boy Scouts of America president Rick Cronk appeared before the committee on Wednesday, telling members that Scouting has had a positive impact on the state and that being taxed on fundraising sales would hurt local troops.

Read more from this story HERE.

CA Proposes Law to Force Insurance to Cover Homosexual 'Infertility'

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Breitbart

The state of California is reportedly considering legislation that would force group insurance policies to provide infertility treatment for gay and lesbian couples.

Two men who have sex with each other for a year and do not produce a baby would be considered “infertile” under the proposed legislation. So would two women having sex. Since biology does not allow those without a uterus to conceive or those without a penis to impregnate, every year-long gay couple in California would potentially be covered by this new provision of California law.

Read more from this story HERE.

Governor Jerry Brown Heads to China to Beg for California Bail-Out

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Washington Times

California Gov. Jerry Brown has designs on building some of the most expensive public works projects in the nation and wants to keep the state moving forward in its slow recovery from the recession.

Where better to go searching for the money to further those interests than the world’s second largest economy and a country that has piles of cash to invest around the globe?

The governor of the most populous U.S. state heads to China next week to begin a weeklong trade mission that he hopes will produce investments on both sides of the Pacific. Brown will lead a delegation of business leaders in search of what he calls “plenty of billions.”

“They’ve got $400 billion or $500 billion they’re going to invest abroad, so California’s got to get a piece of that,” Brown said in an interview last week ahead of his seven-day trip to China.

The governor and business leaders accompanying him are trying to rebuild the state’s official relationship with China after the state closed its two trade offices and others around the world a decade ago in a cost-cutting move. California finds itself playing catch-up to other states that have had a vigorous presence in China for years.

Read more from this story HERE.