CORRUPTION: Ever wonder how politicians get so rich? They funnel billions into NGOs where their families work and who pay them to speak and to serve on boards. The $24 billion California spent on the homeless crisis went almost exclusively to NGOs who rely on a steady stream of… pic.twitter.com/48g8WkO9Y0 — @amuse (@amuse) September 22, 2024 This is common. People make money advocating for the solution to a social problem. They don’t solve the problem, they advocate for a solution to the problem. If the problem were solved, their money stream would dry up. Perverse incentives, as the poster says. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: California
Political Suicide Averted
Gavin Newsom Slaps Down Democrats’ Attempt To Give Home Loans To Illegal Migrants https://t.co/NPkK9lDjDu via @dailycaller — Paul Epps (@paulepps) September 8, 2024 I heard Nancy Pelosi on Bill Maher’s show saying this bill was a great idea. Maher suggested that free houses for migrants is maybe not a great idea. “It’s not free housing,” Pelosi said. “It’s making the American dream available to more people.” HAHA. “It’s making the American dream available to people who are not Americans.” People who’ve lived and worked in the US their whole lives can’t afford to buy houses. Especially in California. Let’s say we did give free down payments to illegal immigrants. How are they going to make the payments? It’s illegal for them to hold a job. How are they going to pay for insurance, property tax, HOA, upkeep? To Newsom’s credit, he recognizes political suicide when he sees it. Read more →
Thomas Jefferson on Pete Buttigieg, Lies and Crime Stats
Keeping it real here, Mayor Pete can't possibly know what Donald Trump or anyone else actually thinks about anything. More on this later …https://t.co/kmuyogVwFi — Paul Epps (@paulepps) July 30, 2024 My fellow Americans – What Mayor Pete is saying here is that even though Donald Trump has disavowed a national abortion ban, he — Mayor Pete — doesn’t believe him because “he lies all the time.” In my opinion, this is not the right moment in history for Democrats to take a holier-than-thou position vis-a-vis lying to the American people. If I were a Democrat, I would not show my face in public and if I did, it would not be to lecture anyone on the perils of lying to the public. We’ve just had 3-1/2 years of Democrats lying to us about the mental health of our president, Joe Biden. Anyone, during that period of time, could watch… Read more →
Climate Change — Is There Anything it Can’t Do?
Climate change is behind increasing flight turbulence, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says — cnbc.com There’s no “asserted without evidence” caveat of the kind you see whenever Donald Trump says anything. Climate change is the default explanation for everything. “Climate change,” Buttigieg says and everyone just nods in agreement. I remember reading a news story several years ago saying that climate change was reducing the amount of fog in the Bay Area of California: The sight of Golden Gate Bridge towering above the fog will become increasing rare as climate change warms San Francisco bay, scientists have found. But a a news story from the previous summer stated that climate change was increasing the amount of Bay Area fog: The Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it’s about to get even foggier. Less fog? Climate change. More fog? Climate change. What if… Read more →
The Three Nevers of Working With Recruiters
I recently read a LinkedIn post written by a recruiter, the gist of which was that recruiters are fully transparent with candidates, therefore candidates should be fully transparent with recruiters, and candidates who are not fully transparent about things like current salary are “cagey.” That was the word the author used — “cagey.” Multiple other recruiters added supportive comments. Full transparency is not a quality I associate with recruiters, even though I’ve worked with some excellent recruiters that I like a lot. Recruiters work for clients. They get paid by clients. When they submit you for a job, they also submit multiple other candidates to compete with you because that maximizes their chances of getting paid. I suppose everyone knows this but it’s never mentioned. It’s not something recruiters are transparent about. Never tell a recruiter your current salary. In some localities, like my state of California, asking a candidate’s… Read more →
California’s Workers Now Want $30 Minimum Wage
California’s Workers Now Want $30 Minimum Wage — msn.com In January, California raised the minimum hourly wage from $11 to $16. In April, the minimum wage for fast-food workers went to $20. That’s a problem if you own a fast-food restaurant because in addition to the increased labor cost, you’ve got to deal with inflated prices for beef, poultry, vegetables, eggs, etc. You can either eat (no pun intended) the costs yourself or pass them on to customers, some of whom will become former customers because they can no longer afford to eat at McDonald’s. Another option is you can lay off workers — 10,000 fast-food workers in California have lost their job since the $20 minimum wage took effect. Nobody learned anything from that because now they want $30/hr. If you think about it for a minute, you’ll realize that if you have skills that are worth $30/hr, you’d… Read more →
Severe Weather Alert
I saw a sign on the freeway today: SEVERE WEATHER ALERT AVOID TRAVEL THRU TUESDAY “Severe weather” in most of Southern California, including where I live, means you’re going to have to turn on the windshield wipers. And I mean turn them on and leave them on, not in intermittent mode. Read more →
Pharmacy Deserts — The Struggle is Real?
Drugstore closures are leaving millions without easy access to a pharmacy — washingtonpost.com The nation’s largest drugstore chains — Rite Aid (which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week), CVS and Walgreens plan to collectively close more than 1,500 stores. Public health experts have already seen the fallout, noting that the first neighborhoods to lose their pharmacies are often predominantly Black, Latinx and low-income. That sentence is written in a way that makes the world sound worse to the casual reader than it probably is. How have public health experts “already seen the fallout” of something that hasn’t happened yet? Predominantly Black, Latinx and low-income neighborhoods are “often” the first to lose pharmacies. Not always, but often. Ok, that makes sense. But it’s phrased in a way that sounds like the pharmacies are being closed because of the demographics. If pharmacies didn’t want to be in predominantly Black, Latinx… Read more →
True and False Statements About Trans People
Report: Trans People Seven Times More Likely Than Cisgender People to Experience Violence In California An annual report detailing how many Californians were the victims of violence over the past year finds a slight dip in reported violence among most populations, but a sharp increase in reported violence against transgender people. — sfist.com (emphasis added) Nothing I say here is intended to disparage trans people . . . I’m fine with adults doing what they want, dressing the way they want, acting the way they want, with a few minor restrictions — keep your hands to yourself, that sort of thing. I don’t really care about trans people. But I take exception to being lied to by people advancing an agenda. That said, the report mentioned in the article above is based on the fourth annual California Violence Experiences Survey, conducted by UC San Diego and Tulane University. If you… Read more →
Secretive Transgender Policies in California Schools
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has defied a court order by directing school districts to adopt policies that allow them to hide a student’s claimed transgender identity from parents or guardians, despite a federal judge’s ruling that such policies likely violate the U.S. Constitution, lawyers say. Bonta sent a letter to school districts across California, encouraging them to adopt secretive transgender policies. When my son was younger, my hottest hot button was “Do not fuck around with my kid.” Now that my son is an adult, I don’t know if I have a hottest hot button, but one of my hottest hot buttons is “Don’t fuck around with other people’s kids.” I absolutely believe in the right of parents to direct the education, health and upbringing, and to maintain the well-being of, their children. Do I think a lot of parents do a poor job of that? Yes. But I… Read more →
California’s a Brand-New Game
All the gold in California Is in the bank in the middle of Beverly Hills In somebody else’s name. So if you’re dreamin’ about California, It don’t matter at all where you’ve played before. California’s a brand-new game. — Larry Gatlin, “All the Gold in California” Read more →
Supreme Court Kills Affirmative Action
The Supreme Court Has Killed Affirmative Action. Mediocre Whites Can Rest Easier. — thenation.com The author of that piece really hates white people. I don’t recommend reading it, you will not be a better person for having done so, as it consists solely of sweeping generalizations, broad judgments, unfounded inferences and racial insults. Even if five points (out of a possible 100) were deducted for each verifiable fact, it still scores at least a 95. Grammar and spelling are passable. The only “fact” I remember being cited in support of affirmative action is actually false: In California, which ended its affirmative action policies over 25 years ago, the studies show that, without affirmative action, Black enrollment plummets, Latino enrollment plummets, AAPI enrollment goes up a little bit, and whites flood the remaining opportunities. The article that the author links to doesn’t even say that. Black and Latino enrollment in the… Read more →
What the State of the Union Didn’t Say
The president entered office with a 1.4% inflation rate and spiked it to 7%. 30-year mortgages of 2.7% soared to 6.5% in less than two years. Eggs are $7 a dozen. A thin steak is $15 a pound. A sheet of plywood is $95. Gas averaged $2.39 a gallon when the president took office and even after draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve it is still $3.50 a gallon. In my state, California, gas has recently been over $5 a gallon. The price of natural gas has tripled in less than a year. In two years over 5 million foreign nationals poured into the United States—all illegally across a nonexistent border. The president said that he “lowered” inflation, energy prices and interest rates after sending them to astronomical levels and then seeing them momentarily taper off a bit. Like Nero bragging about rebuilding Circus Maximus after burning it down. He omitted… Read more →
A Parkland Parent on Permitless Carry
Hey Gavin, my daughter Alaina was killed at Parkland and I support permit-less carry in Florida. If my daughter were alive she’d be carrying, because she would be defenseless in a gun free zone. Sit this one out. https://t.co/htDcUnVK73 — Ryan Petty (@rpetty) February 1, 2023 Mr. Petty went on to make some cogent points in a subsequent interview: “California has suffered some horrific tragedies over the last couple weeks in mass shootings and gun control advocates promise that if we just implement their preferred policies, we’ll be safer as a nation. “California has enacted what you could only call ‘the dream’ for gun-control advocates, and it is not proving to make Californians any safer. The reason is simple. “Criminals don’t obey gun laws. “The only thing Gavin Newsom and the California legislature have accomplished is curtailing the rights of law-abiding Californians, and in doing so they have made no… Read more →
California Teacher Helps Change Students’ Gender Identity Without Parents Knowing
California teacher helps change students’ gender identity without parents knowing — torontosun.com The biggest problem in education is too much emphasis on academics and not enough emphasis on teachers changing students’ gender identity without parents knowing. Read more →
Strict California Gun Laws
Gavin Newsom swats down CBS reporter’s Second Amendment question — msn.com That’s not really the way I saw it. Gavin Newsom is not a smart man. He’s not going to win too many forensic scrimmages against another adult. The reason the CBS reporter was talking to Newsom about guns and the Second Amendment is that we had 3 mass shootings in 3 days in California. I’ve heard that California has the strictest gun control laws of any state in the country, whatever that means, but we still had 3 mass shootings in 3 days. What Newsom was responding to was not even a question. He had just finished calling the Second Amendment a “suicide pact” when the reporter pointed out that many people in the U.S. support the Second Amendment. This was Newsom’s swat-down reply: “Yeah, I have great respect. I have no ideological opposition with someone reasonably and responsibly… Read more →
California Just Quit Flavored Tobacco
According to a flyer I picked up in a local convenience store, “a new California law makes it illegal to sell most flavored tobacco products, including vapes and menthol cigarettes — protecting our kids from a lifetime of deadly addiction.” If a kid wants to smoke and vapes are not available, won’t the kid just smoke regular cigarettes like we did as kids? Vapes are probably not good for your health but I have heard that they’re not as unhealthy as cigarettes. I’d rather see kids smoke cigarettes than vape anyway. Not my kid, but your kids and other people’s kids. Smoking is cool. Think Steve McQueen, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, etc. Vaping is, pardon the expression, gay. Still I’m appalled at the idea that individual rights can be violated by the state using its coercive apparatus in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection.… Read more →
If California Slides Into the Ocean
And if California slides into the ocean Like the mystics and statistics say it will I predict this motel will be standing Until I pay my bill. — Warren Zevon, “Desperadoes Under the Eaves” Read more →
Climate Change: Is There Anything It Can’t Do?
The recent rainstorms here in California are “proof that the climate crisis is real and we have to take it seriously,” according to our governor, Gavin Newsom. Because we never in history had rainstorms until very recently. He’s not very smart. If we got no rain this winter, he would have blamed that on “climate change” too. Read more →
Messaging vs. Reality
I live in California. Gavin Newsom’s main flaw is that he’s very stupid. Democrats are not getting destroyed on messaging. I don’t even know what the Republican message is. I know the Democratic message is “MAGA Republicans, extreme MAGA Republicans, fascists.” Now that is a losing message, I grant you, because Democrats who aren’t insane, for whom politics does not play a destructive force in their life, have friends, neighbors, co-workers, family members, etc., who are Republicans and understand that while Republicans have different political views, they aren’t trying to put Democrats in gulags. Democrats are getting destroyed by reality. Republicans are running on GDP, inflation, lying about inflation, recession, lying about recession, gas prices, food prices, stock market, crime, border security, fentanyl deaths, energy independence, foreign policy, supply chain, social corruption, silencing, lies, pronouns and fucking with children. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe the Republicans could… Read more →