Say Anything Blog

Hike on the wrong state park trail in Northern California, and you might find yourself stepping on a Punji stake or a small improvised-explosive-device made from a shotgun shell. If you somehow miss the booby trap and make it further onto the trail, you might likely find yourself looking down the barrel of a gun. Why? Because large swaths of California’s state parks have been colonized by the very drug cartels that have turned Mexican cities like Tijuana into war zones.

In the wake of recent devastating wildfires, faires almost certainly caused by illegal immigrants growing marijuana on California public lands, Time Magazine has noticed the problem.

The damage they do to society is well-known, but drug traffickers, it turns out, also aren’t the most environmentally-minded campers. Law enforcement officials say that a wildfire now raging in Santa Barbara’s Los Padres National park, burning more than 136 square miles, was sparked by a cooking fire started by the hirelings of a Mexican drug cartel which was growing thousands of marijuana plants in the remote canyons.

Far from an isolated incident, the Los Padres fire, according to law enforcement agents, highlights an alarming trend: the invasion of California wilderness and parklands by armed Mexican drug cartels.

The Time writers lament the fact that drug cartels are corrupting the once mellow and ethical Cali-canibus industry and trashing the envoromment.

Of course, because California politicans have spent the state into financial ruin there’s no money to hire rangers to keep forests safe. We have money to hire deadbeats as home healthcare workers but we don’t have money for park rangers.

(more...)

While Honda, Toyota and GM (Government Motors) have enjoyed the increased sales created by the “cash for clunkers” program, some small businessmen may be closing their doors as a result of the government give-away. Our local newspaper recently ran a story on how taking working automobiles off the road permanantly is killing used car dealers.

While the Clunkers program helped push sales of new cars in July to the highest level in nearly a year, sales of used cars have taken a beating.

“We’re struggling and a lot of us small guys are going out of business,” said James Dameron, sales and finance manager at Chase Motors in suburban Richmond, where sales are down about 30 percent.

About 40 million used vehicles are sold a year, four times the number of new cars, said Keith Whann, an industry expert and chief executive of Columbus Fair Auto Auction in Columbus, Ohio. About a third of the used sales come from independent dealers

While the very people who pushed “cash for clunkers” like to claim that they’re all for the little guy, many of the used car dealerships being put out of business are the epitomy of small business.

Mom and Pop dealers typically sell just 20 to 25 vehicles a month and keep 40 to 45 vehicles on their lots, a fraction of the inventory for bigger dealerships, Whann said. So when the owner of a 1995 Ford Explorer opts for a new car, and the old SUV goes away forever, the repercussions are felt quickly. Especially for a majority of these dealers who have fewer than six employees.

As the supply of used cars dwindles, it means higher prices.

“The guy looking for a cheap used car is having a helluva hard time now,” said Greg Signore, 50, co-owner of Elm Auto Sales in Kearny, N.J. “This program is absolutely increasing the cost of the clunkers left on the market.”

He says he’s not getting as many customers with modest income looking for basic transportation.

“What about all these people who need the $3,500 cars? Are they going to ride the bus for the rest of their life?” said Mike Salarze, manager of Majestic Motors in Baltimore.

From The Hill:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is eyeing treasure in a massive Pentagon bill that could benefit her district greatly.

Pelosi is among dozens of House lawmakers pressing for a little-known provision in the defense policy bill that would speed up the transfer of military bases to private developers.

It’s amazing that Democrats are all about cutting through red tape when it means handing over federal govenrment land to politically connected developers.

Pelosi has personally fought and negotiated with the Navy over the land transfer, but those negotiations broke down.

Now, under the provision in the House bill, lawmakers could force the Navy to wave a white flag and accept a sweetheart deal for the city that involves no immediate payment for the land.

Instead of negotiating the value and paying the Pentagon upfront, the military services would transfer the land at no cost to local authorities for economic development. Cities and other local authorities can put off paying for that land until it is developed and the value will be determined at that point.

 

So the Pentagon is supposed to hand over ownership of a potentially $ 1/4 Billion piece of real estate and trust the city of San Francisco to come up with a fair price. That sounds fair.

Imagine that you’re a lawyer with a client who was kicked by a police officer at the end of a televised high speed pursuit. You’d like to sue the LAPD for $5 Million, but there’s just one problem.

Your client is covered in gang tattoos. He’s got a gang tattoo on his neck, and the name of his gang tattooed on his upper lip.

What do you do? How about an extreme make-over to make your client look like a respectable member of society.

the attorney said his heavily tattooed client will be getting an extreme makeover in time for a trial, complete with a thick Tom Selleck mustache—think “Magnum P.I.”—to cover the name of his street gang, which is inked on his upper lip. Richard Rodriguez will also grow hair to cover the tattoos on his shaved head. And he’ll wear a nice, conservative suit.


To make his point, Pacheco used Photoshop to show the difference.

In the booking photo, Rodriguez’s head is shaved, and the name of his gang hangs over his lip. Tattoos climb his neck. In the “after” rendition, he’s wearing a black suit with a metallic gray tie, neatly combed hair and a lush mustache.

“People get past looks when you put on a suit and your hair is grown,” Pacheco said.

Check out the before and after pictures at the LA Times.

P.S. The lawyer who wants to make the city of Los Angeles hand over $5 Million to a violent thug just happens to be a former city councilman. (more...)

President Obama hasn’t bothered to read the “healthcare” bill he wants passed. Your congressman probably hasn’t read it either. But someone at EconomicPolicyJournal.com has and found some very interesting provisions.


Privacy Issues:

Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!

Pg 58HC Bill - Govt will have real-time access 2 individs finances & a National ID Healthcard will b issued!

Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access 2 ur banks accts 4 elect. funds transfer

Pg 195 HC Bill -officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access 2 ALL Americans finan/pers recs

Pg 317 L 13-20 OMG!! PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Govt tells Drs. what/how much they can own.

Pg 317 L 13-20 OMG!! PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Govt tells Drs. what/how much they can own.

Loss of Choice:

Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benes u get

Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose UR HC Benefits 4 you. U have no choice!

Pg 145 Line 15-17 An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into pub opt plan. NO CHOICE

Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesnt have acceptable HC accrdng 2 Govt will be taxed 2.5% of inc

Pg335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339 - Govt mandates estab. of outcome based measures. HC the way they want. Rationing

PG 430 Lines 11-15 The Govt will decide what level of treatment u will have at end of life

Cash for Community Organizers:

PG 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan 4 retirees and their families in Unions & community orgs (ACORN).

Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The Govt will use groups i.e., ACORN & Americorps 2 sign up indiv. for Govt HC plan

Pg 469 - Community Based Home Medical Services=Non profit orgs. Hello, ACORN Medical Svcs here!!?

Page 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORG. 1 monthly payment 2 a community-based org. Like ACORN?

 

Illegal Aliens:

PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided 2 ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise

PG 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill - Govt mandates linguistic approp svcs. Example - Translation 4 illegal aliens

Pg 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from indiv. taxes. (Americans will pay)

I for one am enthusiastic. My employer will probably drop private insurance if this goes through, which means I’ll be forced into the public (government) option. The federal government will then have real-time access to all my financial and medical records.

In the meantime, groups like ACORN will get a huge cash influx for various “services rendered” to the federal government.

BTW…there are numerous provisions for rationing. Look at the full list here.

This lawsuit seems pretty outrageous to me. According to AOL News, Martin Memorial Medical Center spent $1.5 Million to care for Luis Jiminez after an accident that left Jiminez paraplegic and brain damaged. The hospital saved the illegal immigrant’s life, and provided him with not only medical attention, but around the clock care for three years, only to be sued for returning Jiminez to his own country. Advocates for Jiminez are suing because the hospital refused to keep Jiminez indefinitely.

Jimenez was a Mayan Indian who was sending money home to his wife and young sons when in 2000, a drunken driver plowed into a van he was riding in, leaving him a paraplegic with the mental capability of a fourth grader. Because of his brain injury, his cousin Montejo Gaspar was made his legal guardian.

Jimenez spent nearly three years at Martin Memorial before the hospital, backed by a letter from the Guatemalan government, got a Florida judge to OK the transfer to a facility in that country. Gaspar appealed.

But without telling Jimenez’s family — and the day after Gaspar filed an emergency request to stop the hospital’s plan — Martin Memorial put Jimenez on a $30,000 charter flight home early on July 10, 2003.

Weeks later, Jimenez was released from the Guatemalan hospital and soon wound up in his aging mother’s one-room home in a remote mountain village

 

Jiminez’s relatives in America were perfectly happy to have an American hospital provide neverending expensive hospital care to Jiminez. After all, it wasn’t costing them anything. Hospital care is expensive, and o hospital can afford to keep someone indefinitely.

Mr. Jiminez’s immigration status put the hospital in the position of having to foot the bill (about $ 1 1/2 Million) to care for the seriously injured man because the federal government doesn’t reimburse states for services used by illegal aliens.

...under federal law, Martin Memorial was required to care for Jimenez until someone else would take him. Because of his immigration status, no one else would. But hospitals that receive Medicare reimbursements are required to provide emergency care to all patients and must provide an acceptable discharge plan once the patient is stabilized.

What happened to Mr. Jiminez is truly a tragedy, but should it entitle the illegal immigrant to expensive medical care, in America, for the rest of his life? According to some the answer is yes…after all, it’s free.

Did Professor Henry Luis Gates receive special treatment from the Cambridge Massachusetts Police Department? That’s the claim being made by police officers from across Massachusetts.  According to ABC News,and numerous law-enforcement sources, the officer who showed up at Professor Gate’s home went by the book, and the incident would been over in minutes if the eminent scholar had simply showed his ID and resisted the urge to yell at the responding police officer.

The incident began when Cambridge Police Sgt. Joseph Crowley had responded to a call about someone apparently trying to break into Gates’ Cambridge, Mass., home. Crowley said Gates called him a “racist cop” after he arrived at the house and asked the Harvard professor for identification.

Gates refused after saying: “No I will not.” Gates then, according to Crowley, said he was being harassed because he is a “black man in America.” As the confrontation escalated, Crowley was then joined by a Hispanic Cambridge police officer and a black sergeant, according to two high-ranking law enforcement officials who have been briefed on the case and Cambridge police reports.

So the officer responds to call about a possible break in and the eminent scholar refused to show his ID to the officer. Should the police officer have taken the word of a beligerant man claiming to be a Harvard professor and simply left?

 

“The actions of the Cambridge Police Department, and in particular, Sergeant Joseph Crowley, were one-hundred-percent correct,’’ said Hugh Cameron, president of the Massachusetts Coalition of Police. “He was responding to a report of two men breaking into a home. The police cannot just drive by the house and say, ‘looks like everything is ok.’

“Sergeant Crowley was carrying out his duty as a law enforcement officer protecting the property of Professor Gates and he was accused of being a racist,” Cameron added. “The situation would have been over in five minutes if Professor Gates cooperated with the officer. Unfortunately, the situation we are in now is the environment police work in now.”

The important point that law enforcement officials are making is that if Professor Gates had simply cooperated, the incident would have been over in minutes. 

Massachusetts cops of all races are offended by how this incident has been used by the eminent professor and others.

 

Jim Carnell, a union representative for the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, said cops are “furious at the way Crowley is being vilified.”

“The officer’s mindset when is going in there is ‘why was he breaking down the door?’ Maybe there is a restraining order in place. Maybe Harvard University, who owns the house, changed the locks for some reason. The officer’s job is to make sure everything is on the up-and-up,’’ Carnell said. “Mr. Gates should be grateful that the police responded and explained himself with some civil discourse. It would have ended there. Instead, his arrogant, combative behavior gave the cops cause to wonder that something else going on.”

Others in law enforcement are upset that Professor Gates got special treatment because of his status as an eminent Harvard professor.

A high-ranking Cambridge police official, who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity because the department is under orders “from the Mayor … not to talk,” said that Crowley followed standard operating procedure for a call of a burglary in progress.

“Let’s face it this case has nothing to do with race. This is a man who has made some phone calls and the case went away. They treated him with kid gloves. Harvard University executives rushed to the police station to monitor the entire situation,” the official said. “They let him off the hook. The mayor threw the department under the bus. She might as well open the city’s checkbook.

 

According to a former Massachusetts prosecutor, there were irregularities in the way the charges against Professor Gates were dropped.

 

But there are questions about the way the case was handled. David Frank, former prosecutor and a writer for Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, said it was “unusual” for a case to be “nul-processed” [charges dropped] without a court appearance.

[…]

Frank said. “He never even stepped into a courtroom and the charges were dropped. The fact that Gates is as well-known and as prominent as he is makes this case unusual.”

The part of the narrative left out of most news reports, and also left out of President Obama’s explanation of the case in his news conference, is the ract that the incident was specifically escalated by the eminant professor following the police officers out to their vehicles screaming.

Though Gates eventually identified himself, he was arrested after he allegedly came out of the house and continued yelling at police, even after he was warned that he “was becoming disorderly,” according to the police report.

 

A reasonable person would not prolong contact with law enforcement by yelling and insulting officers. You would think a professor who spent his career writing and teaching that America is unfair to minorities would be doubly cautious.

Is it possible that Professor Gates wanted to make himself into some king of race martyr, or was he simply using race to bully a police officer who was just doing his job?

One of the great injustices in higher education is how colleges jack up tuition costs, then give generous financial aid packages to students that the university finds desirable. I’m not talking academic scholarships. If some kid earns a 3.9+ and scores in the top 1 percent on the SAT, I’ve got no problem giving that kid a free ride. But I do have a problem when universities inflate tuition forcing the ripped off parents and students to subsidize someone the university wants.

A friend of mine will be sending his son to an elite liberal arts college this year. Tuition, housing, etc will run about $40,000 per year. The school offers no athletic scholarships but will give him a generous financial aid package because he plays football and comes from a different region of the country. With the “financial aid” my friend will be paying reasonable tuition. But someone else is going to be paying the inflated $40,000/year cost. The inflated tuition allows administrators to pick students for special treatment based on very subjective criterea.

I though about this when I read about CSU tuition increases in the Desert Sun newspaper. CSU is raising tuition, but in some CSU schools, very few students will feel the increases because their education is so highly subsidized.

Top officials at the local CSU San Bernardino Palm Desert Campus said they expect the financial impact on students there to be minimal since so many qualify for grants, waivers and federal tax credits.

Additionally, the school has awarded $176,100 to 75 students for the next academic year, according to Palm Desert Campus spokesman Mike Singer.

[...]

CSU students from families making $75,000 or less would avoid next year’s fee increases, Karnig said. However, that would not apply to students who are legally independent of their parents or guardians, he added.

The CSUSB Palm Desert campus is largely a teacher training institution. Students can earn bachelors degrees in English or Liberal arts. With a credential, that will qualify you to teach English or Elementary education. Local districts are laying off English and elemenrary school teachers as they still struggle to find Math and Science teachers. But you can’t earn a Math or Science degree at CSUSB Palm Desert.

So the CSU is raising tuition except for subsidized students being trained for teaching jobs that already have a massive surplus of qualified candidates.

Self described as the “Lion of the Left,” KGO radio talk show host Bernie Ward was arguably the most successful liberal radio host in America. The champion of progressivism is now sitting behind bars for sending out kiddie porn and pornographic stories about his own children.

A federal judge decreed a prison term of more than seven years Thursday for Bernie Ward, whose 15-year career as a leading liberal voice on Bay Area talk radio disintegrated when he admitted downloading graphic images of child sex and distributing them on the Internet.

Ward’s case is a “personal tragedy,” and a prison term may not be the best way to help him or the children exploited by pornography, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said as he imposed the sentence in a San Francisco courtroom. But he noted that federal law requires at least a five-year sentence, and said some aspects of the case were disturbing.

Walker said Ward, a former Roman Catholic priest whose KGO broadcasts included the Sunday morning “God Talk” program, “had an opportunity to think long, hard and deeply about the problems of child abuse” in the Catholic Church. Why, the judge asked, “when he encountered his own predilection (for child pornography), didn’t he seek treatment, seek help?”

Ward pleaded guilty in May to distributing child pornography and admitted sending between 15 and 150 pornographic images by e-mail, which he said were part of research for a book. At Thursday’s hearing, attended by his wife and four children, he spoke briefly, telling the judge, “I regret my actions, the harm they caused my family, my friends and this community.” He said he takes full responsibility for his conduct.

The “Lion of the Left” got busted with kiddie porn after an online dominatrix was sickened by a conversation with Ward.

Ward was investigated after a woman in Oakdale (Stanislaus County) contacted police in 2005 and said a former priest, later identified as Ward, had been having sex chats with her by e-mail and had sent her a photo showing child pornography.

Police got a search warrant for the online account and found about 100 images showing minors, some as young as 2 or 3, engaged in sexually explicit conduct, prosecutors said. They said Ward exchanged the pictures with a group of 10 people for about a year.

The Bay Area’s most successful on-air liberal claimed that he was online asking the dominatrix to humiliate him as research for a book on hypocricy. The police found no evidence of such a book on Ward’s computer. (If Bernie wanted to be humiliated so badly, why didn’t he just go to work for Air America?) The dominatrix (who one assumes to be open minded) contacted police after the “Lion of the Left” sent her pornographic images and incest stories about his own children. (more...)

My aunt Maria came to this country in the early 1970s and soon after had a child. She was on public assistance from the Nixon administration to the middle of the Clinton Administration, raising three children (only one of whom holds steady employment). For most of those years she lived with the father of two of her children, but refused to get married because of how that would negatively impact her welfare case. During the Clinton Administration, with her children all over 18, she was moved off the welafare rolls onto the civil service payroll. The first real job she had in the US was working for FEMA.

Lately my aunt has gotten another government job, this time as a home healthcare worker…earning a government paycheck for taking care of her own mother. My aunt, like thousands others in the Golden State, are at the nexus of the state’s budget debate. On one side is the SEIU which wants to squeeze as much money out of the taxpayers as possible, and on the other side is Arnie. The RINO governor has sided with the tax-and-spend crowd for most of his tenure, but even Arnie saw that the home healthcare system was an invitation to fraud and abuse.

My aunt is hardly alone in seeing a sick or elderly relative as a free paycheck. According to the Riverside Press Enterprise, 440,000 people have a government provided healthcare provider.

The In-Home Supportive Services program covers more than 36,000 residents in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, nearly double from earlier in the decade. Statewide, about 440,000 people receive help, a number predicted to climb to 660,000 by 2014.

But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has demanded changes. Contending that the program is riddled with fraud, such as participants turning in false time cards, the governor has promised to veto any budget fix that doesn’t require fingerprinting for caregivers and recipients and other changes to the program.

 

This program, like most California public programs, has doubled in size over the last decade.

Home supportive services is one of the fastest-growing programs in California government.

The state’s share of the program has grown from $858 million in 2000 to an estimated $1.8 billion during the fiscal year that ended last month, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Increases in the number of people using the services, more hours of service, and higher provider wages are behind the growth, the office said. The program relies on an honor system, with providers turning in paper time cards signed by recipients to collect pay.

Riverside County prosecutor Elaina Bentley, the chief deputy district attorney in the special prosecutions unit, said she thinks home-care fraud is more prevalent than the number of cases referred to prosecutors suggests.

The state Department of Health Care Services, which investigates fraud complaints in most counties, is overwhelmed, Bentley said. “They lack the manpower,” she said.

The grownth in the program has not been driven by the needs of the sick, blind and elderly, but by the demands of the ultra-militant Service Employees International Union.

Underlying the debate is the politically active home-care work force.

Recipients hire and fire helpers, about two-thirds of whom are relatives. But under a 1999 state law, caregivers bargain union contracts with the counties where they work.

The arrangement has raised salaries statewide. In Riverside County, home-care workers made $10.85 an hour in wages and benefits as of January 2009. San Bernardino County workers made $9.63 an hour.

“I think it’s a good thing for providers. It gives them a sense of self-worth,” said Anna Martinez, executive director for Riverside County’s IHSS public authority.

Democrats are close allies of public-sector unions. Republican Assemblyman Paul Cook, though, is carrying a bill backed by United Domestic Workers, the union that represents Riverside County’s almost 16,000 home-care providers. The measure would create new training standards.

My aunt, who spent most of her adult life collecting welfare checks, now collects a paycheck from the State of California for watching daytime TV with her elderly mother. I wonder how many SEIU members there are who see the home healthcare as another scam that keeps them from having to get real jobs. (more...)

Here’s another case where the judge (and probably the prosecutor) ought be removed for allowing a hardened thug to escape with a slap on the wrist.

According to the NY Daily News, Cheyanne Cherry and a friend burglarized a former room mate’s appartment, breaking furniture, CDs, etc. Then the two got bright idea to turn on the oven and toss a kitten inside.

Tiger Lily was left to die inside the blistering oven after Cherry and a 14-year-old friend trashed the apartment of Valerie Hernandez, destroying furniture before stealing DVDs and food.

After her arrest, Cherry told police the cat killing was “just a joke.”

[...]

The pair fled the apartment because they didn’t want to hear the dying cat’s cries or desperate scratching at the oven door, authorities said.

It makes you wonder why the room mate didn't want to continue sharing an apparement with Ms. Cherry. There were anti-cruelty-to-animal activists protesting outside the courtroom. In three words Cheyanne’s expressed her feelings about the pet she tortured to death.

“It’s dead, bitch!”

This little monster was given a plea deal that will likely have her out of jail inside a year. Someone like this represents a danger to the community and ought to be put away as long as possible. Any cop will tell you that someone who tortures animals will likely hurt human beings. Well this little monster has a history of violence and a history of cruelty to animals.

Cherry is not new to animal crimes.

She was busted last year for using a BB gun to dog-nap a teacup Yorkie with her boyfriend. She was also arrested for robbing a man of his iPod at gunpoint.

The court also barred her from owning a pet for three years. I think we can all rest easier knowing that Michael Vick may yet find his soul mate. (more...)

I’ll be spending part of this afternoon giving a practice test to a laid off teacher who’s working on a science credential. The young man I’m tutoring, like thousands others, has been laid off by his district. Thousands of other teachers are facing pay and benifit cuts.

While the average teacher will be seeing his income reduced, the CTA (our union) has given itself a raise.

California has more than 300,000 teachers on its payroll. However, when September rolls around, this number could be diminished by thousands and many of the still-employed will face a decrease in salary or cuts in benefits. In such a rocky economic climate you might think that CTA would accordingly not raise, or might even lower, its dues. But no, it (the CTA) is has decided to raise dues. The dollar amount has not yet been announced, but several sources have it at $22 for 2009-2010. (CTA uses a rather arcane formula to ascertain members’ dues; it is tied to the state’s average teachers’ salaries and since teachers’ salaries almost always rise, so do the dues.)

The NEA has already announced a $4-a-year increase for its 3.4 million members. Hence, in California, a non-right-to-work state (payment of union dues is a condition of employment), teachers will be forced to pay their unions an additional $26 a year. While that amount might not break anyone, isn’t the nearly $1,000 a year that a teacher already pays to the unions enough?

 

You can’t be a teacher in California without coughing up a serious chunk of your income to the CTA/NEA.

When a teacher enters the field, he or she joins three unions — a local, state and national, which divvy up the dues pie. CTA gets the bulk, over $600, with the rest distributed between the NEA and the local union. CTA will tell you that it needs this money to function at an optimal level to fight for its members. Hogwash.

While CTA will not divulge the amount it pays its employees, its income tax form lets us know what its officers make. David Sanchez, CTA’s president, makes close to $200,000 a year, or about three times what the average teacher in California makes — yes, his salary is based on another union formula. And the other union officers make very close to that amount; these salaries are ascertained by yet another formula.

[...]

Neither is the NEA a shining example of fairness in action. Its former president, Reg Weaver, made well over $500,000 in 2008 and Vice President Dennis Van Roekel made more than $300,000. And then there is a staff of thousands, including an army of lobbyists who make hefty six-figure salaries.

So while many teachers are facing smaller pay checks and loss of employment, the CTA/NEA is raising our dues to ensure the generous paychecks for CTA/NEA bigwigs. Worse yet, much of what happens with our dues has nothing to do with education.

Perhaps more important than what CTA pays in salaries is what else it spends its members’ dues money on. Many millions go to candidates and causes that have nothing to do with teachers or education. And the only thing a teacher can do to protest this spending is to “resign” from the union. In that case, a teacher gets a $300 rebate — the part of union dues that is not used for collective bargaining, such as union political expenditures — but is still forced to pay about $700 a year to the union even after they resign from it.Teachers almost caught a break last month when, at a CTA state council meeting, a new business item came up for a vote. The proposal stipulated that a teacher could opt out of the “initiative fund” (every teacher pays $36 into this fund every year; it is part of the $300 not used for collective bargaining) without having to resign from the union. After a rather contentious debate, the item was voted down. Hence, whether or not teachers approve, the CTA will continue to spend millions of their dollars trying to approve such contentious measures as the recently doomed Proposition 1A or quash the controversial but successful Proposition 8 this past November.

[...]

And as with CTA, these high-paid political operatives frequently are involved with issues and causes unrelated to education. For example, NEA has recently given thousands to MALDEF, ACORN, the Democratic Leadership Council and many other left-leaning organizations — this in spite of the fact that teachers are equally represented across the political spectrum. Other areas of interest and largesse for the NEA include universal health care, statehood for Washington, D.C., and Planned Parenthood.

So to be a public school teacher in America in general, and California in particular, you have to give a significant chunk of your income to an organization that funnels part of your money into political campaigns and radical left-wing organizations.

What’s most interesting is that even though I’m a union member, and my wife used to be a union official (she eventually resigned in disgust), we only learned that our dues would be jacked up when we read about it in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The LA Times had a story today about the cost of illegal immigration on the California taxpayer. Because the LA Times has been nothing less than militant advocates for amnesty and citizenship for illegal aliens, I’m shocked that they even admitted that the “undocumented” put any burden on the state.

So as you read the following, remember that it’s likely that the Times my be woefully under-reporting the costs.

State welfare officials estimate that cutting off payments to illegal immigrants for their U.S.-born children could save about $640 million annually if it survives legal challenges.

California has roughly 2.7 million illegal residents, according to an April 2009 report from the authoritative Pew Hispanic Center, accounting for about 7% of the state’s population. State officials estimate that they add between $4 billion and $6 billion in costs, primarily for prisons and jails, schools and emergency rooms. Beyond those services, the illegal population adds to the overall cost of other parts of local government, from police and fire protection to highway maintenance and libraries.

[...]

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.

I’m not informed enough to dispute the accuracy of the prison and healthcare numbers, but I have a serious problem with the education figure.

Anyone who’s spent any time in a classroom knows that English Learners are significantly more expensive to educate than English speakers. So if an average student costs $7600 a year to educate, you can add a couple grand to the price tag of an English Learner. The cost doesn’t just include special instruction, but special testing that requires one-on-one attention. You can also add in the cost of bi-lingual para-educators who help teachers in classes with large numbers of English learners.

In addition to the extra testing and instruction, students who begin school not speaking English are more likely to repeat one or more grades. An extra year of school and EL instruction can run around $9000. If a student repeats 2 years, then his or her education could end up costing taxpayers $15,000 to $19,000 more than a student who doesn’t repeat a grade.

There are additional costs to schools for after school tutoring (designed to improve chances of underperforming students) which is common in California schools.

I can’t address how the prison and healthcare numbers might be understated, but it’s clear that the LA Times and the amnesty lobby are deliberately underestimating the cost of educating illegal immigrants.

The biggest problem in California isn’t the fact that our state is broke. The biggest problem is that large sections of many cities have basically been colonized by vicious street gangs. This has largely occured in urban area, and politicians in places like LA County, Riverise County and the Bay Area have been take any meaningfull actions against gangs.

According to SGGate.com, a college student in Daly City was shot because a couple of his buddies made the mistake of wearing red.

PDT DALY CITY—Two suspected members of the MS-13 gang have been arrested and a third is being sought in the Daly City slaying of a 21-year-old college student who was shot because his friends were wearing red - a color claimed by a rival gang - police said Thursday.

One of Moises Frias Jr.‘s companions was wearing a red sweater, and another a red-and-white San Francisco 49ers cap, when their car was riddled with bullets near the Daly City BART Station on Feb. 19. Frias died before he could reach the hospital, and two of the other three young men in the car were wounded.

None of the victims had anything to do with gangs, investigators said.

That’s what life in California has come to. An innocent college kid with no gang ties is gunned down by vicious MS13 because be was in a group that included two a kid with a red sweater and another with a 49ers jacket.

LAst year in the bay area an MS13 illigal alien gang member was arrested after gunning down a father and his two sons.

Daly City police Detective Gregg Oglesby noted that Frias’ shooting was strikingly similar to the June 2008 killing of a San Francisco father, Tony Bologna, and his two sons in the Excelsior neighborhood. Prosecutors say another member of MS-13 - a subset of the Sureño gang, which claims the color blue - opened fire after mistaking one of the sons for a member of the rival Norteños, who claim red.

 

Here in California, progressives have insisted on treating gang members as poor unfortunate victims of society. LA City Council-woman Janice Hahn has even put active gang members on the payroll.

Gang members are nothing less than domestic terrorists, and should be treated no differently than any terrorist group.

Students at one of California’s public universities can expect to pay more in tuition next year. Shortfalls in budget means that the California State University and University of California system were faced with the choice of cutting waste or raising tuition, and chose to raise tuition.

For the fourth consecutive year, students of the University of California will be slapped with an increase in tuition.

The UC Board of Regents voted yesterday in a condensed teleconference meeting to increase undergraduate tuition fees for the 2009-10 school year by 9.3 percent - or approximately $662. The approved fee hikes will go into effect this summer.

The measure garnered 17 votes in favor and four against, with Regents John Garamendi, Eddie Island, Odessa Johnson and D’Artagnan Scorza voting against the increase.

Student fees at the UC have more than doubled since 1990.

While the UC regents decided to make students cough up an extra (almost) $700 a year, they also installed a new UC Chancelor at the measely cost of $400,000 a year.

Things were are even worse for students at the lower tier California State schools. According to the LA Times, students at Cal State will face a 20 percent tuition increase.

In a first concrete look at how California’s fiscal crisis may dramatically reshape higher education in the state, California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed said Tuesday that he will ask the university’s trustees to approve an additional student fee hike of 15% to 20% for this fall, and enrollment reductions of 32,000 students in the year to follow.

The proposed increase would come on top of a 10% hike approved in May and would bring average yearly undergraduate fees to $4,688 to $4,861. That figure includes additional charges set by each campus, but not the cost of books, transportation or room and board.

My question for the heads of the UC and Cal State systems, why not trim the fat out of your university systems. Where’s the fat? How about some of the crazy ass departments you guys are continuing to fund even as you stick it to your students.

Multiple examples can be found on the San Francisco State University website. SFSU doen’t just have an ethnic studies department, has a College of Ethnic Studies. It also has seperate departments for Raza (Race) Studies, A Seperate Raza Studies - Community Learning Center, an Africana Studies Department, American Indian Studies Department, Asian American Studies Department, and something called the Ceasar Chavez Institute. Additionally SFSU has a Sexuality Studies Department and a Womens Studies Department.

If San Francisco State got rid of all these victimology studies, and an entire college of victimology, how much money could be saved. I’m not saying that’s the only cuts that would need to be made, but it’s a good start. (more...)