Tag Archives: California

News

Republican governors Bobby Jindal and Tim Pawlenty cut off ACORN funds

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Two candidates for the Presidency in 2012 make their case.

Bobby Jindal: (H/T Michelle Malkin)

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal today cut off state funding for the community activist group ACORN.

Jindal has also blocked any state agency for entering into contracts with the organization.

The executive order also cuts off any future state funding of ACORN, on the heels of a series of embarrassing incidents for the organization.

The governor’s action follows a subpoena of documents from the group’s national headquarter office in New Orleans.

According to Jindal’s executive order, “ACORN’s actions make clear that financial involvement with ACORN is contrary to the public policy of the State of Louisiana and the best interests of its citizens.”

Tim Pawlenty:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R.) sent a letter Wednesday afternoon to the director of the Minnesota Commission of Management and Budget ordering him to stop all state funding to ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).

Meanwhile, the Republican governor of California launches an investigation of ACORN operations. (H/T Hot Air)

And what about the lovely Michele Bachmann?

Well, naturally I am concerned more my favorite politician Michele Bachmann, who is also willing to running for the Presidency in 2012. And I think it may be a good time now to remind you all that she was attacking ACORN before attacking ACORN was cool. You can send her a donation, if you like!

She was fighting to cut off ACORN funding in JUNE of 2009.

And she’s much prettier than those other candidates, too!

News

Is illegal immigration helping to drive California bankrupt?

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Story from the extremely left-wing LA Times. (H/T  commenter ECM)

Excerpt:

The largest costs to California’s budget from its illegal residents are in three areas:

* Education: The state has no official count of how many students are in the country illegally because school districts do not ask. But the state legislative analyst estimated, based on data from the Pew Hispanic Center, that the state’s 6.3 million public school students include about 300,000 illegal residents. At an annual cost of about $7,626 each, the total comes to nearly $2.3 billion.

* Prisons: In fiscal year 2009-10, California expects to spend about $834 million to incarcerate 19,000 illegal immigrants in the state’s prisons. In Los Angeles County, illegal immigrants add between $370 million and $550 million annually to criminal justice costs, including prosecution, defense, probation and jails, according to Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

* Healthcare: The expected state tab for healthcare in fiscal 2009-10 is $703 million for as many as 780,000 illegal immigrants. Of that, $486 million goes to emergency services. But low-income illegal residents are also eligible for some nonemergency health services, including prenatal and postpartum care, abortions, breast and cervical cancer treatment and certain types of long-term care, such as stays in nursing homes. Most of the nonemergency care for illegal immigrants was authorized by the Legislature in the 1980s.

The story was linked by Fausta’s blog and Fausta noted this:

In addition, the article states that 48,000 children in families headed by illegal immigrants receive a monthly average of $472.

Compassion sounds so wonderful until you have to pay for it during a recession. I am in favor of increased legal immigration and work permits. Anyone who can find a job, learn English and American civics, obey the law, and pay for their own education and health care for 5 years should get a green card. But there should be no pathway to a green card ever for anyone who entered the country illegally at any time.

News

California Democrat leader says free speech is terrorism

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Speaking out against tax increases is terrorism!
Speaking out against my tax increases is terrorism! Give me your money, and shut up!

Stop the ACLU links to this LA Times interview with California Speaker of the House Karen Bass. As you know, California is in the worst financial crisis in all 50 states. Karen is very angry that Republicans are pressured by voters to vote against tax increases. She thinks that Republicans should vote like Democrats, regardless of what their constituents want.

Excerpt:

How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature’s work?

The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: “You vote for revenue and your career is over.” I don’t know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it’s about free speech, but it’s extremely unfair.

See, California is running a 24.3 BILLION dollar deficit, which is half the deficit that Canada is running this year. It’s so bad that they are issuing IOUs to contractors. And the Democrats think that tax hikes are the answer. By the way, her background is “community organizing” as well.

Hot Air has more here:

There’s a lot of stupidity and tyranny locked into those few words.  The First Amendment guarantees the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, even apart from the “free speech” issues Bass casually discards.  Elected politicians are accountable to the people who elect them in a free society.  Politicians do not acquire lordly status when they go to the Assembly, or anywhere else.

Usually, politicians are smart enough to at least pay lip service to getting feedback from their constituents.  Instead, Bass calls them “terrorists” for … what?  Calling their representatives and telling them not to raise taxes even higher, in the state with the sixth-highest per capita tax burden in the nation?  Expressing their opinions?  Telling politicians they won’t get their support if they vote for a tax hike?  That’s democracy, not terrorism, although I’m hardly surprised that Bass can’t tell the difference.

…Beware the politicians who consider dissent terrorism.  They’re either idiotic beyond belief, or tyrants waiting for an opportunity.  Bass might just be both.

Remember when dissent was the highest form of patriotism? Yeah, now dissent makes you a terrorist. This is what secularism and socialism amounts to: disagree with me and you’re the worst person in the world and anything I do to you is morally justified.

There is no difference between communists in North Korea and communists is the United States. They believe the same things. They are just on different stages of the same road to serfdom.