More and more headlines look as if they are from the Babylon Bee. Let’s discuss the latest idiocrasy from la-la land. 
Background
In California, police don’t arrest criminals because prosecutors will just turn them loose. People and businesses are tired of the crime. The result is a campaign to roll back Soros-backed proposition 47 that made theft of less than $950 in goods a misdemeanor.
Stores are at the mercy of shoplifters and many merchants have decided to close up shop. Downtown San Francisco looks like a ghost town.
California Voter Revolt
The proposition 47 reversal has gathered enough signatures that it will be on the ballot.
However, the Progressive nut cases running the state propose an alternate measure with a laughable poison pill aimed at stopping the rollback.
The Wall Street Journal comments A Voter Revolt Grows in California.
The George Soros-backed initiative cut the state prison count, but Californians are paying a high price. Organized criminals exploit the law’s lax penalties. District attorneys say Prop. 47 prevents them from leveraging the penalty of jail time to induce addicts into treatment. Police often don’t arrest thieves or drug users because the crimes go unpunished. Retail theft, vagrancy and open-air drug use have spiked.
Thus the citizen initiative, which would toughen penalties for shoplifters and drug dealers. Someone with two prior convictions for theft could be charged with a felony on the third offense no matter the amount. The value of stolen property from multiple thefts could be combined for a felony charge.
The initiative would also make possessing fentanyl while carrying a loaded firearm a felony. Dealers could be charged with homicide if their clients overdose.
Democrats Alternative Solution
Democrats are advancing a package of bills to assuage public anger about surging crime. One would let courts issue restraining orders against thieves, as if this would stop them. Another would toughen penalties for organized criminals who steal more than $50,000 in goods.
Wow. Not even $50,000 currently gets much attention in California. People don’t bother reporting crimes because the police and prosecutors will not do a damn thing about anything.
Poison Pill
In a bizarre twist, Democrats last week threatened to blow up their own legislation by inserting language in the bills that would render them void if voters pass the Prop. 47 reform.
Let’s discuss how the Democrats bill would work.
Someone commits a 200 shoplifting crimes of which 25 get reported and 3 investigated. The three are immediately released because the amounts are under $950.
Ta Da!
The court issues a restraining order telling these shoplifters “Don’t do it again, or else”.
Or else what?
There is no or else what. Every criminal in California will be openly laughing how stupid this is.
Newsom’s Real Concern
Newsom’s real concern is not crime. He is living in a six-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot mansion in Fair Oaks.
Crime does not concern the governor.
What does concern Newsom is a huge budget deficit. If Prop 47 is reversed more people will be put in prison.
Thanks to union graft with Newsom in bed with union leaders, a need for more prison guards would further bust Newsom’s budget.
Annual Prison Guard Salaries
Image from ZipRecruiter, salaries as of June 10, 2024.
Newsom cant afford more prison guards, more teachers, more union anything because of outrageous base pay and then benefits on top of it.
On October 20, 2023 the Sacramento Bee reported In ‘major policy change,’ these state workers will get state-funded 401(k)s, plus pensions.
Lovely.
And please note correctional officers do not contribute to social security.
Other Benefits
Vision: An eye exam and one pair of glasses once every calendar year. The State pays 100% of the premium; employees pay a $10 (eye exam) and $25 (materials) deductible.
Paid Holidays: Each employee is entitled to receive pay for 13 State holidays observed throughout the year. Additionally, one personal holiday credit is earned each fiscal year.
Paid Leave: Employees receive leave credits for each qualifying pay period. Employees can be paid for accumulated annual leave and vacation credits upon permanent separation from State service.
Transit Subsidy: Employees may be eligible to receive a 75% discount on monthly transit passes and/or rideshare programs, up to $65 per month
Other benefits from California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Reparations Committee
In Oakland, The Reparations Committee Wants $5 Million in Tax Dollars – Just to Come Up With a Plan
A California Bay Area committee appointed to design racism reparations for black residents wants two years and $5 million just to write a plan.
The funding request comes months after California’s most ambitious reparations plans have crashed and burned amid state and local budget woes. San Francisco abandoned its effort, citing the city’s deficits, after reparations committee members called for $5 million cash payments for every eligible black resident. Instead, local lawmakers settled for an apology.
The California legislature has ignored the idea of direct cash payments altogether, opting instead for ideas like subsidized property taxes and expedited business licenses for black citizens that critics warn may be unconstitutional. Like San Francisco, California is facing massive deficits after Governor Gavin Newsom (D.) rapidly increased spending even as the tax base shrank and the state’s economy lagged.
Local Oakland activist Seneca Scott, who supports reparations, said, “$5 million and two years to research [reparations] is stupid and a grift.” He added that reparations supporters by now should know what they should look like.
Alameda County has its own budget woes, with deficits predicted to reach as high as $100 million. Oakland by itself reported a $117 million shortfall this fiscal year and a likely $175 million shortfall for the next.
The Alameda County lawmaker who created the reparations committee noted the county’s woeful finances and that $5 million “is a hefty amount of funding,” particularly in light of the budget shortfall.
Idiocy in California is Apparently Unlimited
January 10, 2024: The Hotel California Wealth Tax Advances, You Cannot Leave to Escape It
February 4, 2024: Cost of Running a McDonalds Jumps $250,000 in CA Due to Minimum Wage Hikes
March 26, 2024: Proposition 103 Backfires, State Farm to Cancel 72,000 California Policies
March 26: California Restaurants Cut Jobs as Fast-Food Wages Set to Rise
March 30, 2024: California’s Deficit Is $222 Billion and the State is $1.6 Trillion in Debt
May 20, 2024: California Governor Escalates the War on Gasoline Impacting Neighboring States
Voting With Their Feet
Anyone with the means and an ounce of common sense is leaving these Progressive hell holes.
I offer Congratulations to NY, IL, LA, and CA for Losing the Most Population.
On a percentage basis, New York, Illinois, Louisiana, and California lost the most population between 2020 and 2023.
On an absolute basis the top of the list is New York, California, and Illinois.
Texas gained 1,357,842 and Florida gained 1,072,510. Georgia was third with a gain of 315,456.
Twenty Percent of California Lives in Poverty, What’s Going On?
On a cost-adjusted basis, California leads the nation in percentage living in poverty. Blame the Progressive oligarchs like Governor Newsom.
For discussion, please see Twenty Percent of California Lives in Poverty, What’s Going On?
“Today one in five Californians – many working – lives in poverty (using a cost-of-living adjusted poverty rate). The Public Policy Institute of California estimates another fifth live in near-poverty – roughly 15million people in total. With the exception of Asians, the state’s racial minorities do far worse – in education, incomes and homeownership – than they do virtually anywhere else in the country.”
“Even without adjusting for costs, no Californian metro area ranks in the US top 10 in terms of well-paying, blue-collar jobs. But four – Ventura, Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego – sit among the bottom 10.”
Congratulations Overdue
Apologies offered. I failed to congratulate California when it passed Washington D.C. to take the highest unemployment rate in the nation.
Anyone stupid enough to vote for these Progressive fools deserves what they get.
Unfortunately, the Progressives are taking everyone down with them. The only escape is to leave, as millions have done.
Ah, the late great state of now rampant crime and gun control for millions of illegal alien fruit pickers, picnicers, and 70 genders of homeless dick……where even a DEI hired Secret Service agent is robbed, shoots, and fails to hit the happy robber due to poor gun control. But apparently it’s the American paradigm state for President Party Pooper and Madam Nancy, the Italian mare into Napa Valley wine and Che T-shirts. .
The only thing that can “fix” California at this point is “The Big One”.
And only if it’s a VERY “Big One”.
Stop the ‘move out of ca talk’. Before long the clown that runs that sh**hole might be our president. No where to run then.
lol, nope. Newsom only appeals to the most dim of voter in SF and LA. No way does that nonsense play nationally. A few images of homeless and crime in those cities will convince most people he’s not worth the time.
For long time California homeowners, a major disincentive to moving either out of state or elsewhere in the state is large the capital gains tax (Federal and State) that would be triggered by the move.
What if you move out of state and then sell 2 or 3 years later when you’re no longer a a CA resident? Would you still have to pay CA tax on gains? You get the advantage of 250K/500K off if the house was your primary residence for 2 out of the last 5 years.
Almost certainly you still would.
Remember, California charges income tax on performers (athletes, musicians etc) who don’t reside there but merely play there 1-2 times a year. So someone like Taylor Swift has to pay California taxes on money she made on concerts she did in California even if she doesn’t live there.
That is true of every state.
Good observation. One workaround would be to rent out the home to a trusted family member and borrow against the equity. The property owner could then depreciate the value of the rental.
Biden/Harris 2024!
This poverty and crime thing is so stupid.
California must make it illegal for anyone to be unhappy.
The third arrest for unhappiness should be a felony.
Happy people won’t complain about crime and poverty.
Similarly, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
Meanwhile … https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chinas-new-home-prices-plunge-most-october-2014
Awesome Freudian slip there – police should be arresting prosecutors because they’re aiding and abetting crime!
Police itself exists far and away mainly to aid and abet crime.
Even in California, most people are not criminal. If you took the police entirely out of the equation, those “most people” could perfectly well keep their shops secure from shoplifters, their homes secure from burglars etc.
The means by which such distributed securing is achieved, may appear a bit more chaotic than the children’s-fairytale version of the mythical “good and just” police state that the Indoctrinati has been sold; but it does work. Meaning: It is a strict improvement on any alternative which does not work. Such as the current one which, in practice, amounts to little more than “police” being shorthand for a bunch of jackboots running interference for criminals.
I’m not saying it is impossible to conceive of a system of somewhat centralized criminal laws, courts and enforcement which; cost/benefit; improves on everyone individually defending themselves and their stuff as they best see fit. But it is certainly not the case than ANY centralized system achieves such an improvement; which seems to be what the uncritical Indocrinati has been told to mindlessly believe and regurgitate. Instead, building and maintaining a system which does, requires some minimal level of competence. Absent that, all you effectively end up doing is; net; aiding and abetting criminals. Hence making crime LESS risky, hence MORE prevalent. Even versus doing literally nothing, and leaving individuals unfettered freedom to iterate to an equilibrium on their own.
Since we now live in the #DumbAge; with everyone in any position of wealth and power being significantly less intelligent and competent than most people’s housepets: It is not at all unlikely that the competence required to beat the baseline of absolute anarchy, is beyond the capabilities of the current ruling rabble. Doubly so in California, which has long served as the ultimate spearpoint for all bleeding edge experiments in ever more advanced exercises in applied #DumbAgeism.
Get out of that state nobody is holding you hostage.
1860 event possible? Yes.
In the recent movie “Civil War”, California and Texas are on the same side.
The restraining order idea was inspired by gun control laws.
Typo in line 1: “…arrest prosecutors…”. Those salaries plus benefits and the grift they commit is outright fraud and theft on taxpayers.
Total collapse is imminent… can you feel the water starting to boil?
Oh but Trump will fix it – right?
hahahahaha He’ll be just another puppet in a long line of puppets…and you’ll vote and get played again…
Isn’t it obvious????
“He is living in a six-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot mansion in Fair Oaks”
It’s not the West Wing but it’ll have to do for now.
He won’t be able to win a single swing state
When these Soros laws were passed 10 years ago, Amazon was selling for $16 a share – now around 185 – George S must have bought a sh#tload of Amazon. He knew these laws would shut down local retail. Everyone I know has just about everything delivered, because so many stores have shut down. It is really bad in LA and SF – at least in San Diego we have the Navy Exchange to shop at – on machine gun guarded bases like MCRD (Marine Core Recruitment Depot)! Not much smash and grab there.
How about the c02 insanity ? https://youtu.be/CdI1nFVxnAg
Somehow it seems like Californians are still rich. People in Beverly Hills and San Francisco certainly are.
Report: San Mateo County has country’s highest low-income threshold
With nation’s highest low-income threshold, county residents struggle to qualify for benefits
By Alyse DiNapoli, Daily Journal staff
Jun 17, 2024
Making nearly $150,000 per year is a substantial household income in most of the country, but in San Mateo County, it means you’re struggling to make ends meet, according to a recent MarketWatch report.
The data shows the county has one of the highest salaries that are still considered low income, tied with Marin County and San Francisco. The list underscores how living in an economically vibrant region allows for upward mobility, while also making it more difficult to qualify for state and federally-funded benefits, which gauge a household’s need based on much lower incomes.
…
https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/report-san-mateo-county-has-countrys-highest-low-income-threshold/article_5f2d6aea-2c8d-11ef-a22a-cf4d16977ef1.html
There is a lot of old and new money here. And a lot of it isn’t taxable because of specific loopholes at the federal and state level.
There are still a lot of high paying hi tech jobs in ” Silicon Valley” which is mostly San Mateo County and Santa Clara County.
CA policy is to appeal to the least common denominator on a social level while forcing everyone to pay for it. Destruction is the only logical outcome. Watch their actions and tune out their words.
The threshold for felony theft in Utah is $1,500. Just saying.
Don’t see too many Smash and grabs and Street takeovers coming out of Provo.. so they must actually prosecute misdemeanor crime?.. pretty sure they’re not bending over backwards to reduce felonies to misdemeanors like all the big city district attorneys in California do..
Provo probably doesn’t have many colored people.
Only 9 states have felony theft thresholds less than $950. What a hoot.
“The George Soros-backed initiative cut the state prison count…”
But has brought harm to Soros loving Hollywood. Daily Wire: “‘L.A. Is Terrible’: Goldie Hawn Says Her Home Was Burglarized Twice In 4 Months” The second time, she was home alone when someone tried to break into the house in Malibu. Also, actor Johnny Wactor was shot and killed when a crew tried to steal the catalytic converter out of his car. A march was held in his honor, to bring attention to the crime problem. Hopefully, Soros D.A. Gascon will be on his way out the door in November.
California population increased in 2023.
https://www.capradio.org/articles/2024/04/30/californias-population-grew-in-2023-halting-3-years-of-decline/
Good story, though.
Just buy your stuff online or from stores far from mass transit. And don’t go to the druggy parts of the cities.
Unless you are the mayor of SF or a police union representative, who cares whether the drug addicts are on the streets or in prisons? Getting them care would be amazing, but that’s not on the menu.
Moved out of California 4 years ago because I expected it to get worse. Newsome and the Democrats in the legislature have exceeded my expectations in both the depth and width of their destruction.
California is beyond fixable.
The problem isn’t the really the salaries, the problem is that CA hasn’t opened a new state prison since 1996 and has no room for more criminals. Almost every state prison is over capacity.
It is this overcrowding that caused the SCOTUS in 2011 to mandate the release of a certain amount of prisoners due to violations of the 8th Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
With no place to put new criminals, Newsom would have to arrange to ship them out-of-state, which would be very expensive and not a good look for someone who has presidential aspirations.
Although perhaps Rwanda would take them? Or maybe the NK or Chinese, if they were allowed to harvest their organs.
I called the mall security office and asked what days were white only because I don’t want to risk my life.
You could have done your shopping online instead.
And what did the mall security office tell you?
The Dow [1M] might flop this month for Trump/Biden CNN debate, or in July. The Dow 30 components : UNH, MSFT… AAPL and AMZN are all the way in the back.
This kind of crap is why they can’t replace Biden with Newsom. Whitmer makes more sense, since she could carry Michigan (and maybe help in Wisconsin and PA). Hopefully Jill Biden won’t let Joe step down.
I like Whitmer. The problem is that many will row against any woman candidate for President.
Especially other women
Wow, a Whitmer fan. Can you provide 2-3 examples of her most effective actions taken as the executive of Michigan?
She looks pretty!
She looks like Caitlyn Jenner.
My fave was when the stupid bitch shut down Michigan’s nurseries, including the plant departments at Home Depot, Walmart, and Lowes, during the garden planting season. Democrats Against Vegetable Gardens. What a fucking moron she is.
Whitmer.. Dear God.. not that fascist.. during covid she was a power-hungry totalitarian who steamrolled those who dared to question and challenge the effectiveness of vaccines and masks.. all the while-being completely wrong.. screw her we shall never forget
Same as Newsom and probably any other Dem candidate. I haven’t followed the subject in quite a while. Have any offered mea culpas for their follies?
I agree, Sean. Whitmer’s behavior was tyrannical. I just think she’s a stronger candidate than Gavin Vampire from the Land of Fruits and Nuts. I hope Biden remains the candidate and loses to Trump.
Perhaps there is an issue with the labels??
Progressive = Socialism does it not?
Reparations = Paying people for having no marketable skills for any work with the welfare system, why bother working. Stop paying for being lazy and stupid would mean taking the punch bowl away and losing voters?
Will the end arrive when the cities and the state can no longer find buyers for their debt, even at higher rates for the coupon?
“The problem with socialism is when you run out of other peoples money to fund the give away.”
I demand equal reprisals against the idiots demanding reparations.
Just wait until the criminals unionize.
They have. Organized crime has been around for a long time.
North California in a few years will be like South Californa. People will pay protection to cartel bosses, the real power, while politician clowns prattle about colonialism.
“People will pay protection to cartel bosses, the real power,..”
And, worse yet: Compared to where CA is today, that’s not even a bad thing.
If I remember correctly, prop 47’s main focus was legalization of marijuana with the $940 limit for theft thrown in for good measure. I was warning people about the results we would see but the provision was not reported in the press.
Quite true Sir on the $940 limit, which the crooks that initially went into to do the theft with hand held calculators, quickly found out that no one was around to check the tally as they were going out the door.
Most billionaires out of any state in the country, more than FL and TX combined. Newsom caters to them, if you want to poop on the sidewalk or rob a CVS have at it. Those billionaires aren’t out on the sidewalks or shopping at CVS. As for everyone else well, get out while you can unless you’re a prison guard or other civil servant sucking up coin.
CA depends heavily on the states wealthy for a significant portion of tax revenues, which is why he kowtows to them.
So you pay more taxes and you get more favors? Hmmm. Interesting.
I read somewhere a couple of years ago that the top 1069 earners in Commiefornia were paying 60+% of the stat income taxes. Just wait until they leave.
Sigh. When you are making very big bucks, a few hundred thousand extra in taxes doesn’t make any difference alongside all the positives CA offers (and yes, there are numerous negatives also).
I know a guy that used to live in the Bay area. Made big bucks…$6 million+ per year.
Bay area was too liberal. Moved down south to Orange County for a while. Finally got fed up with all of the CA taxes and bull-crap. Moved to Palm Beach, FL.
And now he has flooded streets. Wait til hurricane season kicks in
Are you saying that Californians are pussies and can’t take a bit of wind and rain while Floridians do not mind hurricanes?
Every once in a while they still get embarrassed enough to clean it up .. Xi Jinping comes to town for the Asian conference.. despite their best efforts many of the attendees were astonished by the decline of the city.. we are projecting such weakness
It’s always about the voters being rubes. Until voters in the state do what the 1st generation immigrants did in SF to the SF school board, this will keep happening.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/san-francisco-votes-recall-citys-scandal-plagued-school-board-rcna16394
Def something in the liberals’ water out there to concoct this piece of legislation.
California is 95%+ the same as the rest of the undifferentiated manurehole it is part of.
California is pure garbage, because America is pure garbage. If things were truly, meaningfully, different; in AZ or anywhere; CA would not be sustainable. The reason CA can get away with being CA, is specifically that there aren’t any simple-to-relocate-to places which differs much.
Sure, halfdead geezers can get a cheaper golf house in some retirement boondock; and three or four Fed welfare Queens can save enough to pay some tax advisor by moving some “Headquarter” to some “only 98% as effed up” state somewhere. But the delta between CA and the “least CA” state, is < 10% of the delta between this “least CA” state and even Hong Kong. Which is the “most CA” “state” in China. Anyone who has anything useful going on, and suffers due to being in CA; leaves for China. Not some “95% of CA” dump in a “98% of CA country”, where the main difference is worse weather.
Problem is: China is a major pain to relocate to. Language, culture, the works…. Hence, the relocation is slow and piecemeal. And is largely restricted by Kuhn-like inertia: Actual people and organizations are not physically moving. But instead, CA people and organizations die and/or wither away, to be replaced by Chinese ones. It’s very evident in the so-called “tech” field: More and more of what used to be developed, made and sold by traditionally CA people and organizations, are now mainly Chinese products. The headline brand names may be retained for marketing reasons, but that’s increasingly also about it.
Ditto people: Cutting edge science is now more likely to come out of Chinese labs, than CA ones. And cutting edge engineers, are at least as likely to be located in Beijing as in San Jose. Not because all that many Californians are physically migrating, but rather because the roles they used to play, have geographically moved on to pastures greener than Camp Fed and Newsom.