Joe this may shock you and as you know I am a capitalist through and through. I think most corporate top executives are way overpaid. Not to say I agree with this particular piece of legislation but the more I think about it what are the alternatives. Most corporations evade taxation at every turn and the bigger ones can fight audits to exhaustion. Same goes for those top wage earners, they have loop holes galore. All the more reason for a flat tax and I wonder why that did not come up as an alternative. Just redo the whole tax system. Also some things that are write offs at the federal level should not necessarily be treated the same by a given state. California dug their own whole but the whole concept of not funding retirement plans in full at the end of every fiscal year has always eluded me, on both a corporate level and on the government level especially with cities, counties, and states. They not only spend money they don't have, they credit retirement funds with money they don't have. I don't get it. All this type of legislation does it attempt to correct a hopeless situation created by liberal politicians. California does not get it and they never will.
More from the Land of Fruit and Nuts.
One of the most liberal Representatives in Congress wants California to raise its minimum wage to $26 an hour.
Appearing on Crossfire on Friday, co-host Newt Gingrich asked Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) whether it was a good idea for the mayor of Seattle to propose a minimum wage of $15 an hour. Lee said, "good for him."
"In California, more than likely from what I remembered, a living wage where people could live and take care of their families and move toward achieving the American dream was about $25, $26 an hour," Lee said.
When pressed further, Lee said she would "absolutely" support it for California and claimed it would not cause more unemployment.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) said he would also support California raising its minimum wage that high so companies would leave California and bring jobs to other states. Harris said "maybe even Maryland can get more jobs because they will leave California.
They just did. Toyota left for Texas."
One of the most liberal Representatives in Congress wants California to raise its minimum wage to $26 an hour.
Appearing on Crossfire on Friday, co-host Newt Gingrich asked Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) whether it was a good idea for the mayor of Seattle to propose a minimum wage of $15 an hour. Lee said, "good for him."
"In California, more than likely from what I remembered, a living wage where people could live and take care of their families and move toward achieving the American dream was about $25, $26 an hour," Lee said.
When pressed further, Lee said she would "absolutely" support it for California and claimed it would not cause more unemployment.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) said he would also support California raising its minimum wage that high so companies would leave California and bring jobs to other states. Harris said "maybe even Maryland can get more jobs because they will leave California.
They just did. Toyota left for Texas."
More from the failed state that is California:
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.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014...t-taxing-motorists-for-every-mile-they-drive/
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.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014...t-taxing-motorists-for-every-mile-they-drive/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...ks-moving-headquarters-to-vancouver-1.2659431
Sony Pictures Imageworks moving headquarters to Vancouver
One of Hollywood's biggest visual effects studios Sony Pictures Imageworks is moving its headquarters from California to Vancouver, the company has confirmed.
The Oscar-winning animation division of Sony recently produced some of the effects on the Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller Edge of Tomorrow and The Amazing Spider Man 2.
The company says 700 employees will be moving into a new 74,000-square-foot studio at the Pacific Centre, making it the city's largest visual effects and digital character animation studio by floor space.
“It offers an attractive lifestyle for artists in a robust business climate. Expanding our headquarters in Vancouver will allow us to deliver visual effects of the highest calibre and value to our clients.” “Vancouver has developed into a world-class centre for visual effects and animation production,” said Randy Lake, executive vice president and general manager at Sony Pictures Digital Productions, in a statement issued on Friday morning.
- - - -
Translation: Toyota has shown us the way. To hell with this stupid state, their braindead socialist leaders and their idiotic tax laws.
Sony Pictures Imageworks moving headquarters to Vancouver
One of Hollywood's biggest visual effects studios Sony Pictures Imageworks is moving its headquarters from California to Vancouver, the company has confirmed.
The Oscar-winning animation division of Sony recently produced some of the effects on the Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller Edge of Tomorrow and The Amazing Spider Man 2.
The company says 700 employees will be moving into a new 74,000-square-foot studio at the Pacific Centre, making it the city's largest visual effects and digital character animation studio by floor space.
“It offers an attractive lifestyle for artists in a robust business climate. Expanding our headquarters in Vancouver will allow us to deliver visual effects of the highest calibre and value to our clients.” “Vancouver has developed into a world-class centre for visual effects and animation production,” said Randy Lake, executive vice president and general manager at Sony Pictures Digital Productions, in a statement issued on Friday morning.
- - - -
Translation: Toyota has shown us the way. To hell with this stupid state, their braindead socialist leaders and their idiotic tax laws.
[ 53% of voters would kick California out of the union, with it's flaming liberals and fruity freaks. ]
[h=1]Fox News Poll: Voters reveal which state they want kicked out of the union[/h]
By Dana Blanton
Published October 02, 2014FoxNews.com
Facebook739 Twitter273 livefyre1667 Email Print
Jan. 6, 2006: The U.S. Capitol Building is seen from a U.S. military helicopter in Washington. (Reuters)
There’s lots of talk about it. Last month, Scotland voted against it. In 2013, some residents in California, Colorado and Maryland signed petitions to do it. And Texas has toyed with the idea off and on for years. What is “it”?
Secession!
But it’s a lot more talk than anything else, according to a Fox News national poll that asked voters if they would support their state splitting off from the United States. Just nine percent said they would.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
The poll also gave people another option: What if you could boot other states out of the union?
Nearly twice as many -- 17 percent -- liked that idea.
Which state would be the first voted out? California. Of the voters willing to ditch a state or two, 53 percent pick the Golden State.
Next out the door is New York (25 percent), followed by Texas (20 percent) and Florida (11 percent). Respondents were allowed to name multiple states they wanted out of the union.
Democratic pollster Chris Anderson says voters who want to kick out a state appear to have presidential politics in mind.
“The top four states targeted for expulsion,” he observed, “are also the four most electorally rich states in the country.” Anderson conducts the Fox News poll with Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who for his part approvingly noted the first two states on the chopping block are solid blue.
One reason more Democratic states end up on the chopping block is Republicans (21 percent) are more likely than Democrats (13 percent) to want to vote a state out of the union.
In addition, Republicans (12 percent) and independents (13 percent) are three times as likely as Democrats (4 percent) to want their state to secede. Nearly one in four voters who are part of the Tea Party movement would vote for their state to split off (23 percent).
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,049 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from September 28-30, 2014. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
[h=1]Fox News Poll: Voters reveal which state they want kicked out of the union[/h]
By Dana Blanton
Published October 02, 2014FoxNews.com
Facebook739 Twitter273 livefyre1667 Email Print
There’s lots of talk about it. Last month, Scotland voted against it. In 2013, some residents in California, Colorado and Maryland signed petitions to do it. And Texas has toyed with the idea off and on for years. What is “it”?
Secession!
But it’s a lot more talk than anything else, according to a Fox News national poll that asked voters if they would support their state splitting off from the United States. Just nine percent said they would.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
The poll also gave people another option: What if you could boot other states out of the union?
Nearly twice as many -- 17 percent -- liked that idea.
Which state would be the first voted out? California. Of the voters willing to ditch a state or two, 53 percent pick the Golden State.
Next out the door is New York (25 percent), followed by Texas (20 percent) and Florida (11 percent). Respondents were allowed to name multiple states they wanted out of the union.
Democratic pollster Chris Anderson says voters who want to kick out a state appear to have presidential politics in mind.
“The top four states targeted for expulsion,” he observed, “are also the four most electorally rich states in the country.” Anderson conducts the Fox News poll with Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who for his part approvingly noted the first two states on the chopping block are solid blue.
One reason more Democratic states end up on the chopping block is Republicans (21 percent) are more likely than Democrats (13 percent) to want to vote a state out of the union.
In addition, Republicans (12 percent) and independents (13 percent) are three times as likely as Democrats (4 percent) to want their state to secede. Nearly one in four voters who are part of the Tea Party movement would vote for their state to split off (23 percent).
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,049 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from September 28-30, 2014. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
[h=1]
California city passes nation’s first soda tax[/h]By Leonard Greene
November 5, 2014 | 8:18pm
Modal Trigger
Photo: EPA
Now he’s California’s nanny.
In return for the $20 million Mike Bloomberg shelled out for causes and candidates in Tuesday’s election, the former mayor finally got to claim victory on one of his premier social change initiatives that flopped in New York — a soda tax.
With the help of Bloomberg dollars, voters in Berkeley passed a first-in-the-nation, penny-an-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, including sodas, energy drinks and pre-sweetened teas, a measure aimed at curbing obesity.
Bloomberg wisely avoided a similar ballot initiative in San Francisco, where voters defeated a measure to add a 2-cent sweet-beverage tax.
Bloomberg also supported a measure in Washington state that enacted tougher background checks on gun purchases.
And the ex-mayor spread the wealth among a dozen winning candidates across the country, on both sides of the political aisle, who share his centrist values.
“No other individual spent as much money in support of both Republican and Democratic candidates, and no one had as much success at the state level in backing successful candidates from both parties,” boasted Bloomberg aide Howard Wolfson.
Among the gubernatorial candidates helped by Bloomberg’s big bucks were Charlie Baker, a Republican in Massachusetts, John Hickenlooper, a Democrat in Colorado, Dan Malloy, a Democrat in Connecticut, Gina Raimondo, a Democrat in Rhode Island and Rick Snyder, a Republican in Michigan.
In the Senate, Bloomberg backed winners Ed Markey, a Democrat, in Massachusetts and Lindsay Graham, a Republican, in South Carolina.
“Mike Bloomberg is putting his money where his mouth is,” said Doug Muzzio, a political consultant who teaches at Baruch College. “If you look at the scorecard, they did well and they did it in a diverse, non-partisan way.”
Muzzio said Bloomberg might be more effective on the sidelines than he was when he was in office.
“The bottom line is he can have all the great ideas in the world, but it won’t mean a damn thing unless he puts his money behind it. The guy remains an active political player. The reality is that it’s a money game, and bemoaning the impact of money doesn’t get you very far.”
Bloomberg’s money didn’t win every race. There were also a few losers, such as State Sen Mark Grisanti, a Buffalo lawmaker, who backed gay marriage.
California city passes nation’s first soda tax[/h]By Leonard Greene
November 5, 2014 | 8:18pm
Modal Trigger
Now he’s California’s nanny.
In return for the $20 million Mike Bloomberg shelled out for causes and candidates in Tuesday’s election, the former mayor finally got to claim victory on one of his premier social change initiatives that flopped in New York — a soda tax.
With the help of Bloomberg dollars, voters in Berkeley passed a first-in-the-nation, penny-an-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, including sodas, energy drinks and pre-sweetened teas, a measure aimed at curbing obesity.
Bloomberg wisely avoided a similar ballot initiative in San Francisco, where voters defeated a measure to add a 2-cent sweet-beverage tax.
Bloomberg also supported a measure in Washington state that enacted tougher background checks on gun purchases.
And the ex-mayor spread the wealth among a dozen winning candidates across the country, on both sides of the political aisle, who share his centrist values.
“No other individual spent as much money in support of both Republican and Democratic candidates, and no one had as much success at the state level in backing successful candidates from both parties,” boasted Bloomberg aide Howard Wolfson.
Among the gubernatorial candidates helped by Bloomberg’s big bucks were Charlie Baker, a Republican in Massachusetts, John Hickenlooper, a Democrat in Colorado, Dan Malloy, a Democrat in Connecticut, Gina Raimondo, a Democrat in Rhode Island and Rick Snyder, a Republican in Michigan.
In the Senate, Bloomberg backed winners Ed Markey, a Democrat, in Massachusetts and Lindsay Graham, a Republican, in South Carolina.
“Mike Bloomberg is putting his money where his mouth is,” said Doug Muzzio, a political consultant who teaches at Baruch College. “If you look at the scorecard, they did well and they did it in a diverse, non-partisan way.”
Muzzio said Bloomberg might be more effective on the sidelines than he was when he was in office.
“The bottom line is he can have all the great ideas in the world, but it won’t mean a damn thing unless he puts his money behind it. The guy remains an active political player. The reality is that it’s a money game, and bemoaning the impact of money doesn’t get you very far.”
Bloomberg’s money didn’t win every race. There were also a few losers, such as State Sen Mark Grisanti, a Buffalo lawmaker, who backed gay marriage.
More news on this failed state:
SAN JOSE, Calif.—Living in "The Jungle" means learning to live in fear. Especially after dark, when some people get violent. The 68-acre homeless camp in South San Jose is considered the largest in the United States. It's a lawless place.
"When something goes wrong, you have to have some kind of backup," says Troy Feid, pulling out a machete that he carries up his sleeve at night. "Just having it says 'Don't mess with me.' "
Feid, an unemployed union carpenter, lives in a fortress of netting and plastic tarp with a cat named Baby. He's one of the 278 people who've claimed a spot in the thicket of cottonwood trees along Coyote Creek. He first moved here four years ago when he ran out of work.
...
"You need to work five minimum-wage jobs to afford to live here," said Jennifer Loving, executive director of Destination: Home, the public-private partnership to end homelessness in Santa Clara County. "No one can do that. That right there creates a huge income disparity."
This year, San Jose and the surrounding county surpassed Los Angeles as having the country's highest rate of homeless people living on the streets, according to the annual homelessness assessment report from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department. Three-quarters of the area's 7,567 homeless residents are from Santa Clara County. Most of them live in one of San Jose's 247 tent cities, just miles from the sprawling headquarters of Google and Apple.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/next...ated-america-s-largest-homeless-camp-20141125
SAN JOSE, Calif.—Living in "The Jungle" means learning to live in fear. Especially after dark, when some people get violent. The 68-acre homeless camp in South San Jose is considered the largest in the United States. It's a lawless place.
"When something goes wrong, you have to have some kind of backup," says Troy Feid, pulling out a machete that he carries up his sleeve at night. "Just having it says 'Don't mess with me.' "
Feid, an unemployed union carpenter, lives in a fortress of netting and plastic tarp with a cat named Baby. He's one of the 278 people who've claimed a spot in the thicket of cottonwood trees along Coyote Creek. He first moved here four years ago when he ran out of work.
...
"You need to work five minimum-wage jobs to afford to live here," said Jennifer Loving, executive director of Destination: Home, the public-private partnership to end homelessness in Santa Clara County. "No one can do that. That right there creates a huge income disparity."
This year, San Jose and the surrounding county surpassed Los Angeles as having the country's highest rate of homeless people living on the streets, according to the annual homelessness assessment report from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department. Three-quarters of the area's 7,567 homeless residents are from Santa Clara County. Most of them live in one of San Jose's 247 tent cities, just miles from the sprawling headquarters of Google and Apple.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/next...ated-america-s-largest-homeless-camp-20141125
CALIFORNIA TEACHERS' PENSION STILL INSOLVENT
by CHRISS W. STREET 29 Oct 2014 37POST A COMMENT
California public employees now enjoy the highest benefits of any state in the nation. To pretend to fund this largess, California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) is an “outlier” among public pension plans in using creative accounting to blur its grossly underfunded status. This has allowed its school district clients and unionized employees to short-check their annual payment for the nation’s most lucrative teachers' pension benefits. But pressure from Moody’s credit rating agency is causing CalSTRS clients and unionized teachers to make big increases in pension and benefit funding.
The latest “hokey-pokey” drama is the California State Teachers’ Retirement System deciding if 7% or 7.5% is a good estimate of future investment performance. Private pension plans that are subject to federal oversight buy a mix of stocks and bonds, with a conservative expectation of earning about 5% annual returns. But public pension plans that are not subject to federal law use accounting tricks and a speculatively high expected investment return so they can minimize the amount state and local government and union employees must contribute each year to keep the pensions from running out of money.
The credit rating service, Moody’s, has never accepted CalSTRS or any of California’s public pension and healthcare liability calculations. They calculate pension underfunding by using a 5% earning expectation. The lower Moody’s rate would mean that CalSTRS current underfunding would skyrocket to $300 billion.
Moody’s has advised its institutional clients that invest in municipal bonds on September 25, 2014, that despite double-digit investment returns over the last decade, “between 2004 and 2012, unfunded liabilities for these [public pension] systems as calculated by Moody’s tripled to just under $2 trillion.” According to Moody’s, government used accounting tricks to allow “deferral of contributions for budgetary reasons, but the back-loading of costs through asset smoothing and 30 year amortization.”
Before 1987, public pension plans in California invested only in bonds. The pensions were adequately funded because everyone knew that the bonds earned interest and eventually would mature. The life-time pension benefit required both the union employees and the government entity to fund about 50% of the lifetime pensions. The other 50% was expected to be paid from bond interest.
But after 1987, public pensions were allowed to invest in stocks. Since stock returns were difficult to predict, the public pension plans would hire “experts” to estimate future earnings. But the pension plans were motivated to hire experts who would predict highly inflated returns so government and union employees could minimize contributions.
The state’s “experts” currently predict all the state benefit plans are wildly underfunded, despite incredibly dubious assumptions that 1) investments will always yield 7.5% per year without a loss, 2) no employees will get big raises in their last years of employment, 3) all employees will work for 30 years before retiring; and 4) all employees who retire early will die early.
Based on these unrealistic assumptions:
CalSTRS Pension - $80.4 billion underfunded
State Retiree Health Care - $63.8 billion underfunded
State Employees’ Pension - $48.6 billion underfunded
UC Healthcare Pension - $25.0 billion underfunded
This underfunding was supposed to change in 2012 with the Proposition 30 tax increase. It provided $3 billion a year to schools for funding CalSTRS “catch-up” funding payments. Although this was a start, union teachers were not required to make sufficient payroll contributions to keep the fund solvent.
But with Moody’s threatening to downgrade the state’s debt over pension shortfalls, the California Legislature passed a law this summer to increase CalSTRS funding by $5 billion. The school districts’ contribution rate will ratchet up from 8.25% of employees’ pay to 19.1% by July 2020, teachers’ contribution will rise from 8% to 10.25% of pay, and the state’ contribution for two CalSTRS funds will increase from 5.5% to 8.8%.
Although this is a good start toward becoming solvent, cutting CalSTRS's 7.5% expected rate of return on investments to 7% will result over thirty years of compounding with 25% less return. CalSTRS surveyed eight consultants and five asset managers they hand-picked to estimate future compound earnings. But the experts agreed that “consensus assumptions likely lead to expected compound long-term returns of 7 percent or less for typical institutional portfolio over a 10-year period,” according to its spokesman.
To adequately fund CalSTRS pension promises with a 5% investment return expectation advocated by Moody’s would require the unionized teachers’ contribution to more than double to 25% of their pay. CalSTRS will remain substantially insolvent because it would be political suicide for members of the legislature to demand that unionized teachers actually pay for the pension and healthcare benefits they receive.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-California/2014/10/29/Cal-Teachers-Pension-Still-Insolvent
by CHRISS W. STREET 29 Oct 2014 37POST A COMMENT
California public employees now enjoy the highest benefits of any state in the nation. To pretend to fund this largess, California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) is an “outlier” among public pension plans in using creative accounting to blur its grossly underfunded status. This has allowed its school district clients and unionized employees to short-check their annual payment for the nation’s most lucrative teachers' pension benefits. But pressure from Moody’s credit rating agency is causing CalSTRS clients and unionized teachers to make big increases in pension and benefit funding.
The latest “hokey-pokey” drama is the California State Teachers’ Retirement System deciding if 7% or 7.5% is a good estimate of future investment performance. Private pension plans that are subject to federal oversight buy a mix of stocks and bonds, with a conservative expectation of earning about 5% annual returns. But public pension plans that are not subject to federal law use accounting tricks and a speculatively high expected investment return so they can minimize the amount state and local government and union employees must contribute each year to keep the pensions from running out of money.
The credit rating service, Moody’s, has never accepted CalSTRS or any of California’s public pension and healthcare liability calculations. They calculate pension underfunding by using a 5% earning expectation. The lower Moody’s rate would mean that CalSTRS current underfunding would skyrocket to $300 billion.
Moody’s has advised its institutional clients that invest in municipal bonds on September 25, 2014, that despite double-digit investment returns over the last decade, “between 2004 and 2012, unfunded liabilities for these [public pension] systems as calculated by Moody’s tripled to just under $2 trillion.” According to Moody’s, government used accounting tricks to allow “deferral of contributions for budgetary reasons, but the back-loading of costs through asset smoothing and 30 year amortization.”
Before 1987, public pension plans in California invested only in bonds. The pensions were adequately funded because everyone knew that the bonds earned interest and eventually would mature. The life-time pension benefit required both the union employees and the government entity to fund about 50% of the lifetime pensions. The other 50% was expected to be paid from bond interest.
But after 1987, public pensions were allowed to invest in stocks. Since stock returns were difficult to predict, the public pension plans would hire “experts” to estimate future earnings. But the pension plans were motivated to hire experts who would predict highly inflated returns so government and union employees could minimize contributions.
The state’s “experts” currently predict all the state benefit plans are wildly underfunded, despite incredibly dubious assumptions that 1) investments will always yield 7.5% per year without a loss, 2) no employees will get big raises in their last years of employment, 3) all employees will work for 30 years before retiring; and 4) all employees who retire early will die early.
Based on these unrealistic assumptions:
CalSTRS Pension - $80.4 billion underfunded
State Retiree Health Care - $63.8 billion underfunded
State Employees’ Pension - $48.6 billion underfunded
UC Healthcare Pension - $25.0 billion underfunded
This underfunding was supposed to change in 2012 with the Proposition 30 tax increase. It provided $3 billion a year to schools for funding CalSTRS “catch-up” funding payments. Although this was a start, union teachers were not required to make sufficient payroll contributions to keep the fund solvent.
But with Moody’s threatening to downgrade the state’s debt over pension shortfalls, the California Legislature passed a law this summer to increase CalSTRS funding by $5 billion. The school districts’ contribution rate will ratchet up from 8.25% of employees’ pay to 19.1% by July 2020, teachers’ contribution will rise from 8% to 10.25% of pay, and the state’ contribution for two CalSTRS funds will increase from 5.5% to 8.8%.
Although this is a good start toward becoming solvent, cutting CalSTRS's 7.5% expected rate of return on investments to 7% will result over thirty years of compounding with 25% less return. CalSTRS surveyed eight consultants and five asset managers they hand-picked to estimate future compound earnings. But the experts agreed that “consensus assumptions likely lead to expected compound long-term returns of 7 percent or less for typical institutional portfolio over a 10-year period,” according to its spokesman.
To adequately fund CalSTRS pension promises with a 5% investment return expectation advocated by Moody’s would require the unionized teachers’ contribution to more than double to 25% of their pay. CalSTRS will remain substantially insolvent because it would be political suicide for members of the legislature to demand that unionized teachers actually pay for the pension and healthcare benefits they receive.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-California/2014/10/29/Cal-Teachers-Pension-Still-Insolvent
This amazes people who weren't aware of this. And you're reading that correctly...California teachers don't pay a damn penny of their own money for their pension or health care. No doctor co-pays, no dental fees for anyone in their family...basically no medical bills. Yet they still continue to bitch and demand more in every negotiation cycle. It's one thing for private industry to offer that kind of insanely generous benefit package...but fuck, when you're living large off the backs of working taxayers, that's my definition of greedy.
A year or so ago, there was a firefighter near here in Barstow who retired and it made the news. Why? Well, Barstow is a small city off the freeway on the way from LA to Vegas. The guy had something like 3,000 vacation hours and another 3,000 sick day hours banked, because those benefits never expire under the current CBA. By state law, that all gets paid out upon retirement or termination. When he retired, that bill alone came out to something like $500k that the state had to fork over...and that doesn't even include the pension he's going to receive. There are many, many more firemen, cops, and other state employees in a similar situation. What are the chances that California will be able to actually honor and pay out all these benefits? Roughly the same as the 130-lb placekick holder getting any non-paid pussy in his life.
California has been controlled and run by dimocraps for decades. Even when the Governator was here, he turned into a candy-assed RINO. If you want to see the Stuttering Clusterfuck's wet dream for what America should become, just take a long look at CA.
Brown orders California's first mandatory water restrictions: 'It's a different world'
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-snowpack-20150331-story.html#page=1
--Require golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscaped spaces to reduce water consumption.
--Replace 50 million square feet of lawn statewide with drought-tolerant landscaping as part of a partnership with local governments.
--Create a statewide rebate program to replace old appliances with more water- and energy-efficient ones.
--Require new homes to have water-efficient drip irrigation if developers want to use potable water for landscaping.
--Ban the watering of ornamental grass on public street medians.
--Call on water agencies to implement new pricing models that discourage excessive water use.
--Require agricultural to report more water usage information to the state so that regulators can better find waste and improper activities.
--Create a mechanism to enforce requirements that water districts report usage numbers to the state.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-snowpack-20150331-story.html#page=1
--Require golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscaped spaces to reduce water consumption.
--Replace 50 million square feet of lawn statewide with drought-tolerant landscaping as part of a partnership with local governments.
--Create a statewide rebate program to replace old appliances with more water- and energy-efficient ones.
--Require new homes to have water-efficient drip irrigation if developers want to use potable water for landscaping.
--Ban the watering of ornamental grass on public street medians.
--Call on water agencies to implement new pricing models that discourage excessive water use.
--Require agricultural to report more water usage information to the state so that regulators can better find waste and improper activities.
--Create a mechanism to enforce requirements that water districts report usage numbers to the state.
[ If you need a $100,000 surgery in a bankrupt state, just kill someone, and then get it for free! ]
[h=1]California prison ordered to grant inmate’s sex change surgery[/h]
By Lindsey Bever April 3
Michelle-Lael Norsworthy was granted an injunction April 2, 2015, from a federal judge ordering California’s corrections department to provide the transsexual inmate with sex change surgery, the first time such an operation has been ordered in the state. (AP Photo/California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.)
In a rare move, a Northern California district court judge has directed the state to grant a transgender inmate’s sex reassignment surgery — marking a first in the state’s history. The judge said the procedure is the “only adequate” treatment for her condition.
Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, 51, was born as Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy. In the 1990s, she started living as a woman in state prison and was later diagnosed with severe gender dysphoria, a condition in which people identify with a different gender from the one they were born with, according to court documents. California corrections officials have said she has been given proper medical care over the years, including counseling and hormone therapy, the Associated Press reported.
However, U.S. District Court Judge Jon S. Tigar in San Francisco said on Thursday that the department denied her request for sex reassignment surgery, or SRS, likely because it has a policy against approving it as a treatment for transgender inmates. He granted a preliminary injunction, telling the prison system to let her have the operation “as promptly as possible.”
“The weight of the evidence demonstrates that for Norsworthy, the only adequate medical treatment for her gender dysphoria is SRS, that the decision not to address her persistent symptoms was medically unacceptable under the circumstances, and that [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] denied her the necessary treatment for reasons unrelated to her medical need,” Tigar wrote in his ruling. Denying her the surgery, he said, would violate her constitutional rights.
The injunction ordering the state prison system to grant the surgery is a novel ruling. It’s reportedly the first time such a decision has been made in California, and it has been seen only one other time in the country, Ilona Turner, legal director at the Transgender Law Center, told the AP.
In 2012, a federal judge ordered the Massachusetts Department of Corrections to provide the procedure for a transgender inmate. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling late last year and, last month, the inmate’s attorneys took it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1987, Norsworthy was convicted of murder and sentenced to life behind bars. She is now being held at an all-male prison called Mule Creek State Prison, some 40 miles from Sacramento. Officials have argued that if she has the surgery, keeping her in that facility — or any men’s prison — could put her at risk for sexual assault. Moving her to a women’s prison, they said, could put her or other inmates at risk because she has a history of domestic violence, the AP reported.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said it is considering whether to appeal Tigar’s order. If the department complies, Norsworthy reportedly will be the first transgender inmate in California to undergo the operation. The procedure could cost the state as much as $100,000, Joyce Hayhoe, a spokeswoman for California Corrections Health Care Services told the Los Angeles Times.
The Transgender Law Center said that price is a “gross exaggeration.”
“This decision confirms that it is unlawful to deny essential treatment to transgender people” in or out of prison, Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center, told the AP. “The bottom line is no one should be denied the medical care they need.”
[h=1]California prison ordered to grant inmate’s sex change surgery[/h]
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By Lindsey Bever April 3
In a rare move, a Northern California district court judge has directed the state to grant a transgender inmate’s sex reassignment surgery — marking a first in the state’s history. The judge said the procedure is the “only adequate” treatment for her condition.
Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, 51, was born as Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy. In the 1990s, she started living as a woman in state prison and was later diagnosed with severe gender dysphoria, a condition in which people identify with a different gender from the one they were born with, according to court documents. California corrections officials have said she has been given proper medical care over the years, including counseling and hormone therapy, the Associated Press reported.
However, U.S. District Court Judge Jon S. Tigar in San Francisco said on Thursday that the department denied her request for sex reassignment surgery, or SRS, likely because it has a policy against approving it as a treatment for transgender inmates. He granted a preliminary injunction, telling the prison system to let her have the operation “as promptly as possible.”
“The weight of the evidence demonstrates that for Norsworthy, the only adequate medical treatment for her gender dysphoria is SRS, that the decision not to address her persistent symptoms was medically unacceptable under the circumstances, and that [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] denied her the necessary treatment for reasons unrelated to her medical need,” Tigar wrote in his ruling. Denying her the surgery, he said, would violate her constitutional rights.
The injunction ordering the state prison system to grant the surgery is a novel ruling. It’s reportedly the first time such a decision has been made in California, and it has been seen only one other time in the country, Ilona Turner, legal director at the Transgender Law Center, told the AP.
In 2012, a federal judge ordered the Massachusetts Department of Corrections to provide the procedure for a transgender inmate. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling late last year and, last month, the inmate’s attorneys took it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1987, Norsworthy was convicted of murder and sentenced to life behind bars. She is now being held at an all-male prison called Mule Creek State Prison, some 40 miles from Sacramento. Officials have argued that if she has the surgery, keeping her in that facility — or any men’s prison — could put her at risk for sexual assault. Moving her to a women’s prison, they said, could put her or other inmates at risk because she has a history of domestic violence, the AP reported.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said it is considering whether to appeal Tigar’s order. If the department complies, Norsworthy reportedly will be the first transgender inmate in California to undergo the operation. The procedure could cost the state as much as $100,000, Joyce Hayhoe, a spokeswoman for California Corrections Health Care Services told the Los Angeles Times.
The Transgender Law Center said that price is a “gross exaggeration.”
“This decision confirms that it is unlawful to deny essential treatment to transgender people” in or out of prison, Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center, told the AP. “The bottom line is no one should be denied the medical care they need.”
