Category: California

By Thomas ltican / Tultican

Two pieces of legislation are racing through California’s state legislature both advancing the school privatization agenda. A third piece designed to protect taxpayers from the ravenous charter industry has been squashed. Public schools and sound pedagogy are being harmed by a radical market based ideology. Democrats continue their complicity in this conservative agenda.

The Charter School Give Away

A few weeks ago, Oakland school board Trustee Mike Hutchinson raised alarm bells about Governor Newsom’s education budget trailer bill.

by Jill Castellano / inewsource / July 1, 2021

Hundreds of California inmates will charge to the front lines of rapidly spreading wildfires this summer, risking injury and death in exchange for shorter sentences and a few dollars a day.

When the flames recede, they will return to their living quarters at one of 35 low security camps, where picnic tables and barbecues once bustled with families — a perk that higher security prisons don’t allow.

Now, the inmates have the grounds to themselves.

By Deborah Sullivan Brennan / San Diego Union-Tribune / July 7, 2021

The exodus of Californians forecast in recent news headlines isn’t likely to happen soon, UC San Diego researchers reported in a survey released Wednesday.

The UC San Diego survey queried more than 3,000 Californians, including 295 who completed the questions in Spanish. It found that nearly two-thirds of residents still believe in the “California Dream” of opportunity and prosperity.

By Carolyn Coleman / Times of San Diego / May 17, 2021

Like so many essential workers, city employees and elected officials have been in overdrive for the past year, trying to save and support our communities from the ravaging effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic recession.

California’s cities spent billions addressing the public health crisis, maintaining essential services like public safety, sanitation and transit that our citizens cannot live without, and supporting small businesses to help them survive.

By Colleen O’Connor

This is not news to anyone who lives, works, drives, or opens their eyes.

Not just San Francisco, L.A. or Sacramento are “too damn dirty,” (as the Governor said) so, too is San Diego.

And so, too, is almost every California freeway. What used to be hidden in bushes and under bridges has now overflowed to city streets and neighborhoods. Downtown San Diego is something of a petri dish. Frankly, it is filthy. As are the city’s beaches, parks, bus stops and any place where the local volunteers are not cleaning up

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / May13,2021

At 1:45 PM Wednesday, May 12, the California State Board of Education (SBE) adopted a “student growth model” to evaluate student learning. It is a method fans of standardized test based accountability have been trumpeting. The big winner here is the testing giant Education Testing Services (ETS) who created the model to be used.

Board member Sue Burr who was appointed to the board by then Governor Jerry Brown made the motion for using the growth model. She carefully presented her motion directly from the state’s California Department of Education (CDE) staff report which recommended:

Nuclear Shutdown News April 2021

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of nuclear power in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those working for a nuclear free future.

Since I began writing Nuclear Shutdown News in 2014, I’ve learned that the No Nukes Movement resembles a woe-begone tale with more twists and turns than anyone would care to imagine.

The now outdated nuclear power technology began as the Atoms for Peace program following the mass nuclear destruction of multitudes of humans at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now nuke power freaks don’t seem to know how to give up the ghost.

Perhaps nothing illustrates this better- or worse– than the current situation with California’s two remaining nukes, both overshadowed by the legacy of multiple meltdowns at Fukushima 10 years ago

Yesterday, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pleaded with Americans to not give up on using the measures we’re employed this last year to staunch the spread of COVID-19, and warned of a the possible coming of a Fourth Surge.

In an emotional address to the country, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, issued a dire warning of a sense of “impending doom” as coronavirus infections and hospitalizations tick up. Walensky said there are “continuing concerning trends” in the nation’s response to the pandemic, as the numbers of infections, hospitalizations and deaths are all rising.

The trajectory of the pandemic in the United States, she said, is following European countries like Germany, Italy and France, which have experienced a “consistent and worrying spike in cases.”

In her televised address, Walensky became emotional, and said:

By Colleen O’Connor

Time to be blunt. Teachers, students and children are the new electoral battering rams amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Just as I wrote in June of last year, the 2020 Presidential election it was “not Biden v. Trump, but COVID-19 v. Trump).” And the GOP’s own confidential postmortem report (as quoted on Politico), confirms it.

“The autopsy says that coronavirus registered as the top issue among voters, and that Biden won those voters by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. A majority registered disapproval of Trump’s handling of the virus.

5 Things to Know About Alex Padilla

By Ben Christopher / CalMatters / Updated Jan. 18, 2021

After Joe Biden picked Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice presidential running mate in August, the parlor game of choice for California’s most politically plugged-in was: Who will Gov. Gavin Newsom pick to fill her vacant Senate seat?

Alex Padilla — California’s secretary of state, a Democrat from Pacoima, loyal Newsom ally and a Latino in a state that has never had a member of that largest ethnic group serve as senator — was a top pick among the predictions of insiders. The governor announced his choice in late December and made the appointment official today.

From 13CBS-Sacramento
Gov. Gavin Newsom has deployed the California National Guard in Sacramento to protect the State Capitol ahead of the presidential inauguration. In the week since the attacks on the U.S. Capitol, the FBI has warned capital cities around the nation of potentially armed protests as inauguration day nears.

On Thursday, Newsom announced a series of actions the state is taking to “bolster security.” The governor said California’s State Operations Center is working with federal, state and law enforcement to assess threats and share intelligence “to ensure those disgraceful actions are not repeated here.”