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California Poverty Rate Highest In Nation Based On New Census Department Figures

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California has a poverty rate of 23.5 percent, the highest of any state in the country, according to figures released this week by the United States Census Bureau.

The only other geographic region with an equivalent poverty rate is the District of Columbia, with 23.2 percent. The second most poverty-stricken state was Florida, at 19.5 percent.

The recognition of California’s shockingly high poverty rate comes as a part of a shift in the way the Census Bureau measures its data. When the government began examining poverty back in the early 1960s, the line for determining who fell underneath the threshold was determined solely by looking at food costs.

In the decades since, there’s been increasing criticism this benchmark, as it doesn’t take into account tax rates and assistance programs such as food stamps, child care expenses and medical costs. In examining its most recent data, the Census Bureau considered these previously ignored factors, deemed the “supplemental poverty measure.”

These new metrics have yielded quite different results than in past years. Under the traditional definition of poverty, for example, California’s rate is 16.3 percent.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrats Gone Wild: Congressman & Challenger “Get Into Fight” During Debate (+video)

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By Sara Malm. A political debate turned physical in California yesterday as one of the two Democratic candidates for congress grabbed the other by the shoulder, challenging him to a fight.

Brad Sherman and Howard Berman were mid-debate when Mr Sherman suddenly grabbed his opponent and shouted: ‘You want to get into this?’

The heated moment came during a debate at a college in Woodland Hills, San Fernando Valley, as the pair stepped up their game in the competition for a Los Angeles seat.

A video of the tussle was released on Howard Berman’s YouTube account by his campaign manager, accompanied with a press release headlined ‘Has Brad Sherman lost his mind?’, which led to the opposing side accusing them of a smear campaign.

What the video does not show is that moments earlier, during a dispute on an immigration-related bill, Mr Berman, 71, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, had called Mr Sherman ‘delusional’ and ‘liar’. Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s a video of the candidates’ embarrassing scuffle:

Video: CNN’s Brooke Baldwin Battles Reparative Therapist Promoting Homosexuality Cure

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As Restoring Liberty reported yesterday, California’s governor signed into law this weekend a bill banning mental health intervention for children who have been molested and then say they’re gay, bi-Sexual, or transgendered.

A leading opponent of this new law, a reparative therapist who had gone through such therapy himself as a child after being molested, was then interviewed on CNN by a hostile Brooke Baldwin.

On Baldwin’s show, he announced a court challenge to the new law.

If you have any interest in this subject, you should watch the below exchange:

California Bans Mental Health Intervention for Children Who Say They’re Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgendered, etc.

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Photo credit: Guillaume Paumier

On Saturday, California became the first state in the nation to sign into law a prohibition on mental health intervention to address a child’s homosexual or bisexual proclivities. It also prohibits therapy to address “transgendered” children. It applies to all children under 18 years of age.

In a statement issued upon the signing of the new legislation, Governor Jerry Brown stated that “These practices have no basis in science or medicine, and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.”

Specifically, the law bans “any practices by mental health providers that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation. This includes efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.” If a practitioner violates the law, he or she will face adverse licensing action by the “licensing entity for that mental health provider.” In other words, the offending mental health professional will likely lose his or her license.

A number of groups opposed the new law including California’s Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays. Calling the bill unconstitutional, the group told legislators that, “As parents of gays and ex-gays, we are ashamed of your willingness to take action against parents, children, and the family in order to support gay activists…California is not a socialist state and our children do not belong to the government, subject to the ideology of the state over the objections of their parents.”

One conservative California group has pointed out that this “is what you get with Democrats in charge” and suggests the legislature should consider Isaiah 5:20: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness.”

California Legislature Authorizing Midwives, Other Non-Doctors, to Perform Abortions

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The California Senate passed a bill September 6 that would make it legal for non-physician medical professionals such as midwives to perform abortions under a statewide training program. The measure now awaits Democratic Governor Jerry Brown’s signature. (Gov. Brown pictured to the left of the state seal, Sen. Christine Kehoe to the right.)

According to LifeSiteNews.com, the bill (S.B. 623), introduced by Democratic State Senator Christine Kehoe, “extends a program run by the University of California at San Francisco [UCSF], in which nurse practitioners, midwives, and doctors’ assistants are trained to perform abortions without any further training in medicine. Kehoe argues the bill is necessary because there aren’t enough doctors performing abortions in California.”

The Sacramento Bee reported that the bill extends a UCSF program, begun in 2007, that “evaluates the safety and effectiveness of allowing certain non-doctor medical providers to provide abortions…. The goal is to increase access to the procedure in parts of the state where doctors are scarce.” Kehoe noted that the program is “an existing study that’s been extended several times, [and] this is an additional extension. Otherwise the study would cease at the end of this month and the practitioners participating in the city would no longer be able to perform this procedure.”

The Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF), a California-based pro-life group that has been pressuring the UCSF for its records on the controversial program, explained that the measure was hidden in an unrelated bill at the end of the state’s legislative session after previous attempts to pass it had failed. “This bill was originally created to regulate boat paint,” Dana Cody, LLDF’s executive director, said of the bill carrying the abortion measure. “Now it’s regulating and destroying human lives.”

The Bee noted that several Republican lawmakers criticized the bill, hidden in the boat paint measure, as a last-minute “gut and amend” bill. “I don’t understand the germaneness” of boat paint and training for abortions, confessed Republican State Senator Bob Dutton, one of the bill’s opponents. “I’m questioning whether this is even appropriate to be brought up.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Pastor Defies Border Patrol Checkpoint, Evades Arrest

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If you’ve driven to San Diego or Los Angeles, you’ve no doubt encountered Border Patrol checkpoints on the highways.

Most people just answer the agents’ questions and they’re on their way.

Not one valley man.  He openly defies them and refuses to answer their questions — and he’s caught the tense encounters on tape.

Steven Anderson is a Tempe preacher who also travels to California for his other business.  He says all but once, Border Patrol agents have let him through checkpoints, even though he refuses to comply with their requests.

Anderson sets up a camera in his car for when he travels between Arizona and California.  He presses record only when he comes to a Border Patrol checkpoint along Interstate 8 to capture what he calls an overreach of government.


Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit:  CBP Photography

Obama to close 9 Border Patrol Stations, alarming local law enforcement, Congress

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The Obama administration is moving to shut down nine Border Patrol stations across four states, triggering a backlash from local law enforcement, members of Congress and Border Patrol agents themselves.

Critics of the move warn the closures will undercut efforts to intercept drug and human traffickers in well-traveled corridors north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Though the affected stations are scattered throughout northern and central Texas, and three other states, the coverage areas still see plenty of illegal immigrant activity — one soon-to-be-shuttered station in Amarillo, Texas, is right in the middle of the I-40 corridor; another in Riverside, Calif., is outside Los Angeles.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it’s closing the stations in order to reassign agents to high-priority areas closer to the border.

“These deactivations are consistent with the strategic goal of securing America’s borders, and our objective of increasing and sustaining the certainty of arrest of those trying to enter our country illegally,” CBP spokesman Bill Brooks said in a statement. “By redeploying and reallocating resources at or near the border, CBP will maximize the effectiveness of its enforcement mandate and align our investments with our mission.”

But at least one Border Patrol supervisor in Texas has called on local officers to “voice your concerns” to elected officials, warning that the “deactivation” will remove agents from the Texas Panhandle, among other places. Several members of Congress have asked Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher to reconsider the plan. And local officials are getting worried about what will happen once the Border Patrol leaves town, since they rely on those federal officials to assist in making immigration arrests.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: USACEpublicaffairs

Calif. Lawmakers Want to Radically Change Legal Definition of “Parents”

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California lawmakers are considering an unusual bill that would legalize, in certain cases, more than two parents for a child.

The bill – SB 1476 – proposed by state Sen. Mark Leno, San Francisco Democrat, has passed the Senate but has not come up for a vote in the Assembly.

The bill would allow judges to recognize more than two individuals as parents when separation and custody battles arise in court.

Mr. Leno hopes to override a California appellate court ruling that limited parenthood to two individuals.

That case involved a lesbian couple and their child’s biological father. With one mother hospitalized and the other incarcerated, the biological father wished to gain custody to remove the child from California’s foster care system.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Great Deconstruction of big government and public union

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The economic downturn of 2008 – 2009 has been labeled “The Great Recession” for good reason. Eight million Americans lost their jobs compared to six million in the last four recessions combined dating back to 1980. The jobless recovery may trigger a double dip recession in 2011. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimates that homeowners’ equity has fallen by over 50 percent, or about six trillion dollars, during this period. Some 22 percent of all mortgages are now under water. And, economists predict that between eight and 13 million homes will have been foreclosed before the crisis ends.

The eight million jobs lost during the Great Recession were primarily in the private sector. While the private sector was ravaged, the public sector was protected and bolstered by the $800 billion Stimulus Bill (3) in 2008 that sent more than $200 billion to the states to keep public sector employees employed. The Stimulus money that California received allowed California to avoid the job cuts demanded by a state budget more that $20 billion out of whack.

Ironically, it will be the actions of the Tea Party, a movement that had no significant affect on California’s 2010 election, that will impact California’s future. While the Tea Party swept more than 60 Democrats out of the Congress in 2010 and replaced them with freshman conservative Republicans, there was no such sweep in California. Democrat Governor Brown easily won his election as did Barbara Boxer and literally every Democrat running for state-wide office.

The vote in the House of Representatives, led by the freshman Republicans, will reduce Federal spending by $2.1 trillion over ten years. The framework would immediately cap domestic and defense spending. These changes will find their way to California and signal the end to Sacramento’s budgetary fiction that the Federal government will bail out the wasteful spending of state politicians. California will be forced to solve its budgetary shortfalls the same way as their federal counterparts – with less money than before.

The period following The Great Recession will be known as “The Great Deconstruction” and will usher in draconian cuts in public sector jobs and a reduction in size of California’ s government. Deconstruction is defined as the wholesale elimination of entire programs, their permanent funding and the jobs involved.

Read More at CA Political Review Robert J. Christiano, California Political Review

Elder: Supreme Court to California – ‘Release the Hounds’

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“Today the court affirms what is perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.” So began Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s enraged dissent.

Release up to 46,000 convicted felons, the court recently ordered the state of California. In a 5-4 decision, the court gave California two years to reduce its prison “overcrowding” — or set tens of thousands free. The ACLU, which brought the suit, successfully argued that poor prison conditions violated the prisoners’ rights as a class, not individually, thus the threat of mass premature release.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his majority opinion, agreed with the lower court, which said that overcrowding and an undermanned medical staff mean “an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six to seven days.” California houses 143,000 inmates in 33 adult prisons designed for 80,000. The prison conditions, including under-treatment for the mentally ill, wrote Kennedy, “(fall) short of minimum constitutional requirements.”

Where to start with this outrageous decision?

First, elections matter. A Republican president would have seated neither Sonia Sotomayor nor Elena Kagan, who together comprised two-fifths of the majority. President Barack I-look-for-justices-with-empathy Obama filled two liberal vacancies with two liberal justices. Given that the major Republican presidential candidates promised to seat justices in the mold of Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Sam Alito, this decision would have gone 6-3 the other way.

Read More at GOPUSA