On the heels of the reversal of the years-old Vergara decision, which had imperiled the Golden State’s protective teacher tenure standards in the name of civil rights, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco added to the controversy by ruling against plaintiffs claiming a right to a quality education. The divided court held “that California’s anemic level of school funding does not violate students’ constitutional right to an education of ‘some quality’ because no such right exists,” as the San Francisco Chronicle reported. 

The 2-1 decision “upheld a judge’s dismissal of a suit filed by some of the state’s major participants in public education — school boards and administrators, the California Teachers Association and State PTA, and nine school districts, including San Francisco and Alameda,” the paper added. “The plaintiffs argued that a state that trails nearly every other state in per-pupil spending, staffing and student achievement violates California’s 1879 constitutional guarantee of a school system that encourages ‘the promotion of intellectual … improvement.'”

Wrestling with rights

For now, the decision puts California students and teachers in a precarious, and possibly untenable, position. On the one hand, the current Vergara ruling has denied that students have a right to an education that trumps teachers unions’ interests in protecting failing teachers.

“The appeals court suggested that any fallout from failures to oust bad teachers should be blamed on local school administrators, not the California laws that provide the framework for the system as a whole,” as the San Jose Mercury News recalled.

On the other hand, the new District Court ruling has denied that students — this time backed by unions — have a right to an education that meets some qualitative standard. In the wake of the shift toward implementing Common Core, the state’s educational bureaucracy has labored to impose and meet new quantitative educational standards. At the same time, activists have pushed for California’s educational system to expand and centralize even further, despite its current dysfunction and uncertainty.

A high-powered commission convened by Common Sense Media, a non-profit childhood advocacy group, recently urged “that all 4-year-olds in California have access to transitional kindergarten (a public school-based preschool program) or other high-quality preschool,” as Education Week noted. “All children 3 and younger should also have access to high-quality care regardless of their ability to pay, the commission’s report states.” Gov. Jerry Brown has doggedly negotiated against his own party in Sacramento to block the big budget allocations that such a new statewide pre-K regime would require.

Language changes

Complicating the picture yet further, a coalition of activists have placed the so-called Multilingual Education Act on the ballot this November. Amid persistent concerns that children in immigrant families can only be integrated fully into California society if they are educated early into English fluency, the ballot initiative would “substantially revise Prop. 227,” the 1998 Ron Unz-led measure that mandated English-language public school education, according to PBS. Part of the raft of new changes to the state’s Smarter Balanced testing regime, implemented in accordance with Common Core, saw officials embrace a more lenient attitude toward multilingual education.

“This year the Smarter Balanced test will allow students to control the volume and pitch on the computer program that reads a question to a student and that reads glossary words related to questions on the test. The test will also now provide Spanish language glossaries to help students who have a disability and who are classified as English Learners,” Southern California Public Radio reported. In March, Unz declared his candidacy to replace outgoing Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., in order to rescue Prop. 227. “The primary factor behind this sudden decision on my part was the current effort by the California Democrats and their (totally worthless) Republican allies to repeal my 1998 Prop. 227 ‘English for the Children’ initiative,” he declared in a statement.

On Jan. 28, the California Senate passed Senate Bill 199, by state Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles. The vote was 23 to 8. The bill would require BB and airsoft guns to be painted bright colors to make them “readily identifiable” so law enforcement officers could distinguish them from real firearms.

Police shooting of 13-year-old

In the Senate debate on Jan. 23, de Leon addressed the recent shooting death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa, who was carrying an airsoft BB replica of an AK-47 automatic rifle.

“Law enforcement officers have extreme difficulty distinguishing between the real thing and what is fake,” de Leon said. “This is about saving lives.”

Sen. Steve Knight, R-Lancaster, disagreed. The former Los Angeles police officer said, “Today a brand new 9 millimeter gun can look like a toy. A brightly colored gun isn’t necessarily a toy. Are we going to write a bill when a police officer gets shot by a real gun painted bright orange?”

“The tragedy has rocked Santa Rosa and Sonoma County to its very core,” said Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, a co-author of the bill. “A toy should look like a toy. A toy should not get a child killed.”

Santa Rosa police said that Lopez’ airsoft gun did not have the required orange marker.

Similar incidents have occurred elsewhere in America. In 2012, police fatally shot a Texas eighth-grader who was carrying a pellet gun resembling a black Glock. In 2011, Miami police shot and killed a man carrying a realistic-looking replica gun.

However, bright colored firearms — real guns — already exist. There are bright pink Glocks, white AR15s, pretty pearl-handled revolvers, Burberry print rifles and even a 9 millimeter with a leopard print grip — all designed to appeal to women.

For many years gang members, and some suspected narcotics dealers near the border with Mexico, have painting their weapons to resemble airsoft weapons.

The bad guys

“The problem is, we can’t control the bad guys from painting their weapons,” said Sen. Joel Anderson, R-San Diego. “If this bill was about educating our youth how to react to law enforcement, I’d support it.”

Anderson told a story about a man in San Diego apprehended by police. He came at officers with a trowel — and they shot and killed him.

“The bill puts false hope out there,” Anderson said.

Airsoft is a sport

Redding resident T.J. Armstrong is an airsoft enthusiast. “It’s a community sport,” Armstrong said. “It is a father-son sport.”

Armstrong plays on an all father-son team in Redding and told CalWatchdog.com what SB199 will do to the sport. “This bill just kills another sport and successful industry,” he said.

Armstrong said the area property he uses was a local eyesore. So his team asked the property owner if they could use the land for airsoft sporting in exchange for a huge cleanup and ongoing maintenance of the land.

Now, not only do all of the airsoft players in Redding use the field, local police and sheriffs participate for training and ongoing exercises.

Armstrong said that if SB199 becomes law, it will shutter many businesses and thousands of people will lose their jobs. “This bill will not improve public safety at all,” he said.

Specifics

Specifically, SB199 would require that all toy guns, replica guns and BB guns be painted bright orange, purple, red, blue, green and yellow colors.

And in would make it illegal to own all weapons that shoot a 6 mm BB. “No more Red Ryder Daisy BB Guns, no more Pellet Guns, no more Airsoft guns,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong provided a partial list of of groups and businesses located throughout the state of California that would be affected:

AirsoftGI

Airsoft Megastore

Evike.com

Airsplat

U.S. Airsoft

Fort Ord

CQB City

Shorty Airsoft

Lion Claws

Airsoft Extreme

DogTag Airsoft

And the communities which have active Airsoft facilities:

Redding Area Airsoft

The Shadow Legion Airsoft Team

The Jefferson State Regulators Airsoft Team

U.S. Airsoft Team

The Misfits Airsoft Team

The SMS Airsoft Team

Sacramento Airsoft

Butte County Regional Airsoft

Easy Company Airsoft

Airsoft Craigslist

Sutter Yuba Airsoft

Airsoft World Wide

Magpul Masada PTS

Phantom Force Airsoft

Susanville Airsoft Squad S.A.S.

Polarstar Airsoft Owners’ Group

I Play Airsoft

PTW Sales & Forum

BoE Airsoft

The Airsoft Exchange

And no, it’s not a car.

Liberty is something we often hear about, but isn’t exactly a topic of discussion at dinner parties. If we don’t really know what liberty is, how will we know when it is taken away, or if it is being taken away? Unfortunately, it often takes tyranny to make liberty more precious.

The purpose of liberty is to allow human life to flourish. Are we flourishing in California and the rest of America in 2013? What will liberty look like in 2014?

Are Americans prepared to fight for liberty?

Government serves the people

John Locke, a 17th century English philosopher and physician, regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers, said government is morally obliged to serve people, namely by protecting life, liberty, and property. He explained the principle of checks and balances to limit government power. He favored representative government and a rule of law. He denounced tyranny. Locke insisted that when government violates individual rights, people may legitimately rebel.

Locke said the only legitimate governments are those that have the consent of the people. Therefore, any government that rules without the consent of the people can, in theory, be overthrown.

These views were most fully developed in Locke’s famous “Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government.”

Locke said that if, either through an abuse of power or an impermissible change, these governing bodies cease to represent the people and instead represent either themselves or some foreign power, the people may–and indeed should–rebel against their government and replace it with one that will remember its trust.

“All men are naturally in a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man,” said Locke.

What Locke identified are the three but interconnected keystones of a society of free men: Liberty, Rule of Law, and Legislative Power by consent of the governed.

The people work for the government

Americans are burdened by a labyrinth of government policies, procedures, rules and regulations. Our federal government, once limited to basic core functions, now dominates virtually every area of American life. States, local governments and municipalities, and private businesses are increasingly overwhelmed by federal programs and influence. And as government expands its influence, our liberties recede.

The Left has been engaged in a century-long attack on the first principles of America, the Constitution, and the culture that supports liberty and freedom. However, the Left, steeped in ideology and control, always eventually oversteps, and has done so once again.  The recklessness of government, and the arrogance of officials, appear to have finally awakened a sleeping giant, in a nation that has been too long asleep. Many Americans have been jolted awake and are beginning to recognize the imperative to save our Republic.

Compared to the Founding era, more and more power is now being centralized in the national government. Today, for example, many policies that affect local public schools are made in Washington. As creeping centralization slowly overcomes the Constitution’s federal design, the national government has begun to restrict the freedom of religion that is an indispensable element of the American founding.

The Constitution, the supreme law of the United States, is under assault. First Amendment speech rights are being challenged by Congress. Some members of Congress want to limit the definition of the press to only those who work for large, established news outlets. They want alternative media and bloggers quieted.  Yet the First Amendment is very clear: Congress cannot interfere with an individual’s religion or speech. It cannot restrict a citizen’s communication with others to form community by worship, publishing, gathering together or petitioning the government.

President Obama and the Constitution

In 2013, President Barack Obama targeted Second Amendment gun ownership rights, and tried to impose sweeping federal gun control legislation. It failed, but he and the Left have made it very clear, they will attempt this again. Yet the Second Amendment guarantees the right of citizens to keep their own weapons.

One of the most egregious centralizations of power in U.S. history was ushered with President Obama’s health care overhaul in 2010. The law dictates what patients must buy, what insurance companies must offer, orders employers to provide health care coverage for employees, and and what the insurance must cover. Obamacare offers no way out, and no choice. This is a staggering loss of liberty.

Religious freedom under assault

“Religious freedom requires that the government does not interfere with religious faith and the charitable works it inspires,” the Heritage Foundation explained. “If a government is truly limited, friction with religious institutions and individuals will be rare. Of course, occasionally, tensions between faith and state may arise even under a limited government. The Founders counted on these tensions to keep the state in check.”

While we still have religious freedoms in America, the Left continually wages attacks on religion, and specifically Christianity. And they do it legislatively.

Attacks on the Boy Scouts of America are based on the Scouts’ inclusion of religion in their scouting practices and oath.

Public schools across the country are no longer allowing school facilities to be used by groups with religious affiliation.

Catholics have come under assault for standing their ground on the Obamacare contraception mandate. Religious employers are going to be forced into providing contraception, abortions, and sterilization procedures to their employees.

A judge recently ruled that a bakery owner violated the law when he refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding.

As government grows, liberty decreases

It was Thomas Jefferson who warned, “The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild, and government to gain ground.”

Jefferson also had plenty to say on liberty: “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

What will you do to save and restore liberty in 2014?

California Fair Share is calling for expanded spending on early childhood education and mandatory preschool.

This “nonpartisan” group claims to be pushing progressive values on its IRS I-9 form. And when doing a Google search of “Start Strong for America’s Children Act,” the first selection is the U.S. Democrat’s Committee on Education and the Workforce, led by U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-CA.

“We believe that everyone deserves a fair shot in life, and that starts with a quality education,” California Fair Share says on its website. “Unfortunately, some in Congress are moving to cut billions from education. Congress already made deep cuts in early 2013 that will slash programs for 1.2 million kids and take 30,000 teachers out of classrooms.”

President Obama proposed significantly increasing federal spending on early childhood education and care as part of his drive for a “cradle-to-career” government-controlled education system, in February 2013.

“Expanding federal intervention in education to include infants, toddlers, and three-year-olds and four-year olds will crowd out private preschools, increase costs for taxpayers, and fail to create lasting academic benefits for children,” the Heritage Foundation said in response.

Welcome to more government expansion, brought to you by “nonpartisan” FairShare.org, “researching and organizing around critical issues such as economic fairness, health care, global security and education reform.”

California’s universal preschool

California already passed a cradle-to-career Resolution, ACR 45 by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, in support of President Obama’s proposal.

In May during an Assembly session which I attended, Weber, a retired African-American Studies professor, said the purpose of ACR 45 was to boost early childhood education funding in order to get children into day care and educational programs even before preschool.

Neglecting such development “could prove very harmful to the future of these children, especially African-American males,” the Assembly Black Caucus noted. The Assembly Black Caucus is also made up of all Democrats.

“Head Start, the flagship pre-kindergarten program introduced in 1965, has been a $166 billion failure,” according to Andrew Coulsen, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom.

“But by the end of the first grade, even those few effects have disappeared, according to the follow-up released this month,” Coulsen said. “Out of 44 separate cognitive tests given to former Head Start students at the end of the first grade, only two showed even marginally significant effects. The other 42 showed no statistically significant effect at all.”

Coulsen also cited multiple studies finding that, while Head Start had some initial positive effects, most of those were not sustained into elementary school.

Weber’s justification for ACR 45 was interesting:

“A child who attends quality early care and education programs is less likely to be arrested and more likely to earn higher incomes than a child who does not, and the opportunity to participate in such programs prepares children to attain a higher standard of living as adults and to become members of the high-skilled workforce that is critical to our nation’s economic future.

“If we are only looking at preschool beginning at age 2-1/2 to three, we are missing a significant part of time when we should be stimulating the child.” 

Weber also explained of parenting classes, “Of all the things we are licensed to do, drive a car, own a business, we basically give birth to children with no training or background or assistance. That is why parenting classes are important.”

By Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, AB 1266’s language says “that a pupil be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

The bill was co-authored by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Leno explained the need for the bill to AP:

“There should be certainty that every kid has the chance to go to school and be treated equally and fairly. We know that these particular students suffer much abuse and bullying and denigration. We can’t change that overnight, but what we can do is make sure that the rules are such that they get a fair shake.”

And AP reported on a statement emailed by the Transgender Law Center. In it, 16-year-old transgender boy Ashton Lee said:

“I just want to be treated the same as all the other boys, but my school forces me to take P.E. in a class of all girls and live as someone I’m not. I can’t learn and succeed when every day in that class leaves me feeling isolated and alone.”

Signatures

If the 620,000 signatures just turned for the initiative qualify the referendum for the ballot, it will be voted on during the next general election in Nov. 2014.

“This is a win for the people,” said Karen England, Executive Director of the Capitol Resource Institute, a conservative think tank, and the co-chairwoman of the Privacy for All Students referendum.

Privacy for All Students is a coalition of parents, students, nonprofit and faith groups who launched the referendum effort to give voters the right to decide whether to accept AB 1266, which would inevitably transform intimate school facilities such as showers, bathrooms and locker rooms, according to England.

The law would allow transgender students to self-identify as transgender, in order to use school bathrooms and try out for sports teams of their chosen gender, even if that differs from what’s stated on their birth certificates.

Around the state in 80 days

“We had under 80 days to do this,” England said. “This is a new way of doing things, which may be how our founding fathers intended.”

England said she had so much support for the signature gathering. “We had a fellow in Reedly, CA who collected 2,000 signatures,” she said. “We had people who drove for hours to deliver only a few signatures, and hundreds of signatures. The Calvary Chapel church in Chino Hills delivered 46,000 signatures! Sadly, it’s clear, most politicians don’t care. It does take the people.”

England said a change of the magnitude of AB 1266 would cause chaos and confusion in the state’s public schools.

England said there was also huge support coming from Chinese churches in the San Francisco Bay area. “People drove more than five hours round trip to deliver their collected signatures,” she said.

Privacy violations for 99.7 percent

“We’re not going to stand by and let 99.7 percent of our students lose their privacy and free speech rights just because 0.3 percent of the population are gender-confused,” said Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute.

Specializing in the defense of religious freedom, parental rights, and other civil liberties, the non-profit Pacific Justice Institute works without charge, to provide its clients.

“LGBT activists are sacrificing the safety and sanity of children in our schools to push an extreme political agenda,” Dacus said. “This battle is no longer confined to California or Colorado, where we have another case; it is spreading to every part of the nation. It is crucial that we act now to prevent a crippling blow to our constitutional freedoms.”

If allowed go into effect, AB 1266 would deprive non-transgender students in public schools of their privacy rights and affect girls’ rights to participate in sports, Dacus explained. “Case law firmly establishes that we as Americans have the right to privacy, under the Constitution,” said Dacus. “This case is irrefutably self-evident.”

Privacy is especially sensitive to students during the pre-teen and teenage years. “A 12- or 14-year-old girl should have a right to change clothes and shower in a locker room, without having a 14-year old boy showering and changing his clothes next to her,” Dacus said. “Outside of rape, this is the greatest violation of individual privacy imaginable. Yet it is exactly what was legislated and mandated to occur, under the pretext of a boy who, in his mind, thinks he’s a girl.”

“The Legislature could have passed something compassionate and supportive for gender-confused children, to help resolve the underlying issues for dysphoria,” Dacus said. “Instead, this law ties the hands of parents, school officials, and psychologists, in how gender confusion is addressed. It’s anti-transgender.”

Defending AB 1266

NBC Bay Area profiled one teen who backs the bill:

“Kane Atticus Tajnai lived as Kathryn Amanda for 16 years before coming out to his family as a transgender teen.

“Kane, now a senior at Gunderson High School in San Jose, said he never felt completely comfortable — not just with being identified as a girl, but about labels in general. For Kane, the labels on the bathroom doors at school were some of the hardest to face. He wanted to go into the boys’ room, but felt obligated to go into the girls’ bathroom.

“So he tried not to go at all….

“As for Kane, changing in the boys’ locker room and using the boys’ bathroom at school has not resulted in any problems.

“He believes this new law has the power to save lives. He remembers his worst nights, feeling desperate and alone, and though he sometimes still has emotional struggles, he feels much freer — a feeling he hopes others in his shoes can also experience. With that, he had a question for the opponents of AB 1266.

“’Don’t I deserve the same safety at school and same comfort level at school, that all the other students do?’ he said.”

Parents mad at the mainstream media

Karen England said hundreds of the Privacy for All Students volunteers told her they were angry with the mainstream media for not highlighting the seriousness of Ammiano’s bill. “People from all over the state said they heard little or nothing about AB 1266,” England said. “They were outraged when they realized the law had passed, and asked me, ‘what was Jerry Brown thinking?’ This referendum protects all students, including girls who don’t want to go the bathroom with a boy in the next bathroom stall.”

“A referendum is hard, and it should be,” England added. “This has cost $500,000, of which $300,000 has gone to paid petition gatherers. The rest is a massive grass roots organization.” In recent years, paid petition-gathering has cost about $2 million for a statewide initiative. So the low cost of this campaign shows the grassroots effect.

“This has been a huge battle,” England said. “Democratic politicians need take note — the sleeping giant in California is going to wake up.”

The UFW won an election to organize Gerawan Farming more than 20 years ago but has been silent ever since. Certified by the ag labor board in 1990, the UFW held only one meeting a couple of years later, then abandoned the farm due to lack of worker support. There was never a contract.

So when the UFW, needing new dues-paying members, showed up in October 2012, claiming Gerawan Farming’s 5,000 employees were de facto union members, the workers were furious.

Organized by longtime Gerawan Farming employee Silvia Lopez, thousands of workers fought against the attempted takeover.

“We never certified the union,” said Silvia Lopez during an interview on KMJ radio with host Ray Appleton on Friday. “Why do we have to certify the union? This is a question for Jerry Brown.”

“I tried to contact the governor, but couldn’t,” Lopez said. “The only thing we want is to vote.”

Does the Ag labor board have an agenda?

SILVIA LOPEZ

Lopez collected signatures to petition the Agricultural Labor Relations Board for decertification of the UFW. She turned in 2,000 signatures Sept. 19. The ALRB rejected her petition and said most of the signatures were forged.

Undaunted, Lopez turned in another 3,000 signatures Friday, Oct. 25.

Within 24 hours, Silas Shawver in the Visalia ALRB office said Lopez turned the petition and signatures in too late to be valid.

But then the Sacramento ALRB overturned Shawver’s decision and said the workers could have an election, within seven days of submitting the signatures.

But on Thursday, Oct. 31, Shawver announced his decision to block the decertification election.

Angered and frustrated, 1,000 workers protested at the Visalia ALRB office Friday, demanding the right to vote.

On Friday, Nov. 1, workers received word from the ALRB they could have their election Tuesday, Nov. 5.

‘They have a right to vote’

Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, is also angry. “The workers have been entirely ignored by the very people and political leaders supposed to be representing them,” he told me. “The ALRB is a rogue agency now, entirely biased and out of control.”

Patterson, shown at right, wrote a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown expressing his support of the farm workers and urging Brown to intervene with the ALRB.

“It is the governor’s responsibility,” Patterson said. “He authored and signed the enabling legislation. It’s an absolute obligation to meet with these people. They have the right to vote.”

Patterson said he would work toward legislation reining in the rogue ALRB. “They cannot treat people like this,” he added. “I’m just amazed the governor has not intervened.”

Patterson said he was particularly disgusted at the silence of Assembly colleagues who represent the Central Valley. “I’ve reached out to Assembly Democrats Henry Perea and Rudy Salas on a number of occasions,” he said. “The silence is deafening.”

“This is what one-party rule looks like,” Patterson said. “This is the consequence of a supermajority of one party. And it’s an abuse of power.”

Legislative games abet union power plays

The United Farm Workers sponsored a bill earlier this year by Sen. Darrell Steinberg to grant the union advantages given to no other union in California, such as forcing employers into constant, repeated mediation.

SB 25 was specifically targeting six of the state’s largest farms in order to assume control of the workers, and thus instantly triple UFW membership.

But the farm workers who found themselves impacted by this law did began to fight. Silvia Lopez and thousands of Gerawan workers fought against the attempted takeover.

Even lawmakers from farming regions would not vote for SB 25. Unable to get the bill passed out of both houses of the Legislature, Steinberg sent SB 25 to the inactive file in September.

But that did not end the union troubles for the farm workers, or for Gerawan Farming.

Ag board in ‘cahoots’ with union?

Because Silas Shawver, the ALRB regional director in Visalia, refused to document and publish the total signatures on the first petition Lopez submitted, his decision to dismiss the petition looked subjective and suspicious.

Lopez told me ALRB officials, including Shawver, personally met with more than 2,000 Gerawan employees at the farm before the first election so the ALRB could inform the workers of their right to ask for an election.

Given that the ALRB witnessed firsthand the interest of the workers in an election during that meeting, Shawver’s ruling invalidating the signatures was troubling to many.

And so was the UFW’s statement to me:

“The ALRB issued a 12-page report which dismissed the workers’ petition,” said UFW communications director Maria Machuca, when I called her following the first election. ”It was just a small group, the petition, and included forgeries and company involvement, which is illegal.”

“The ALRB invalidated the Gerawan decertification petition based on illegal employer involvement,” Machuca added in an email following my call. “In its review of the petitions signed by employees, the ALRB found a substantial number of forged signatures.  Nothing demonstrates more disrespect for employees than forging their signatures on a legal document.”

As this story unfolds the seeming relationship between the ALRB, a government agency, and the UFW, a union, continues to be of interest.

In a recent CalWatchdog story, I explained: “During an August 21, 2013 court proceeding, Judge Jeffrey Y. Hamilton said, ‘So the court is very suspect of, one, the ALRB’s position here.  It almost seems like it’s in cahoots.  And the court finds it very troubling that the ALRB is taking such a position, especially sitting in a prosecutorial role.’”

More to come on this story as it develops.

“Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama,” the Mercury news said. “Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.”

Vinson, a 60-year old retired teacher will pay $1,800 more a year for her individual policy. Waschura, 52, self-employed engineer, will have to pay $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four.

This isn't funny, although the irony is. We at CalWatchdog, along with many in the new media, have been warning about the impending fallout of Obamacare. Our critics accused us of everything from being doom-and-bloomers, to wanting poor people to die.

CalWatchdog stories provided data, numbers, facts, studies, and quoted health care experts. But as is the case with so many, people apparently need to experience things first hand in order to learn.

Surprisingly, even with the painful reality of the significant health care cost increases, the San Jose Mercury News called media stories warning about Obamacare-induced cost increases, “political rhetoric.”

“For years, the nation has been embroiled in the political rhetoric of 'Obamacare,' but this past week the reality of the new law sank in as millions of Americans had their first good look at how the 3 1/2-year-old legislation will affect their pocketbooks,” the Mercury News said.

Obamacare facts page says, “In exchange for the new rights and protections most Americans must obtain health coverage by 2014, get an exemption, or pay a fee.”

Covered California spokesman Dana Howard defended the “winners and losers” under Obamacare. “Some people will see an increase who are already on the individual market purchasing insurance,” he said, “but most people will not,” Howard said.

Covered California, the state's health insurance exchange, claims on its website, “Your destination for affordable health care.”

I guess that depends on who you ask.

The list of who won't have to pay for health care under the Affordable Care Act is long. “The shared responsibility payment (IRS penalty) should not apply to any taxpayer for whom coverage is unaffordable, who has other good cause for going without coverage, or who goes without coverage for only a short time,” according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The list of exemptions to the payment of Obamacare exempts just about everyone except the middle class and those who pay income tax.

“I really don't like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this,” Waschura said. “When you take $10,000 out of my family's pocket each year, that's otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy.”

“I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today,” Waschura said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner, and the Republicans' charge to defund Obamacare.

But it was okay that the $10,000 health care cost was going to come out of someone else's pocket.

Noticing Brown's silence, the association representing active and retired state fish and game wardens sent a letter Thursday to the governor opposing the bill to ban lead ammunition, urging a veto.  This is fairly significant since the California Fish and Game Wardens’ Association are breaking with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is supportive of AB 711, the lead ammo ban by Assemblyman Anthony Rendon, D-Southgate. The bill would effectively ban hunting under the guise of “protecting the environment.”

Animal rights groups, including the Humane Society, and Audubon California, are pushing for California to be the first state in the nation to kill wild game hunting. Hunting opponents claim the lead in the bullets is killing the California Condor. I wrote about this recently in “CA and feds take aim at hunting ammo.”  By prohibiting the use of all lead ammunition for hunting in California, coupled with the federal government’s attempt to ban non-lead ammo, hunters could be left out in the woods with an empty weapon.

Media silence on opposition

BIG BROTHER

The committees will also have to report the name of the website where the content appears.

The long arm of the government has found a chilling new way to intimidate new-media.

Political bloggers writing online will be subjected to new disclosure rules under state regulations the Fair Political Practices Commission approved Thursday.

Here's how the State, under California Code Section 82013, defines a “committee”:

“Committee” means any person or combination of persons who directly or indirectly does any, of the following: (a) Receives contributions totaling one thousand dollars ($1,000) or more in a calendar year. (b) Makes independent expenditures totaling one thousand dollars ($1,000) or more in a calendar year; or (c) Makes contributions totaling ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or more in a calendar year to or at the behest of candidates or committees. A person or combination of persons that becomes a committee shall retain its status as a committee until such time as that status is terminated pursuant to Section 84214.

Any writer who receives indirectly or directly, $1,000 or more, will be subjected to this state-required reporting. The FPPC claims this is to corral the campaigns, but it's really aimed at political writers.

That could mean non-profit journalism, which is supported through voluntary donations, will now be under mandatory reporting by the State. (Full disclosure: CalWatchDog.com's parent think tank, the Pacific Research Institute, is a nonprofit.)

Conflict of interest lobbying and Capitol staff

Adding another twist to California's new FPPC regulation, The Sacramento Bee reported Democratic consultant Steven Maviglio, who is also the Communications Director for Assembly Speaker John Perez, has been involved in the decision-making process.

The Bee left Maviglio's Assembly job out of the story. He is paid $9,500 a month by the California Legislature for the part-time job.

“Democratic campaign consultant Steven Maviglio, who writes for the California Majority Report blog and has been working with the FPPC on the regulations for more than a year, said he was unhappy with the final product,” the Bee reported Thursday evening.

“The goal has always been righteous,” Maviglio said. “Implementation is going to be an avalanche of paperwork that is unenforceable.”

Maviglio's “work” with the FPPC on this new regulation is highly suspect. As Communications Director for the Assembly Leader, he does more than just write press releases. He advises the leader on the potential fallout or benefits of certain legislation. And he reports the pulse of the other Assembly members, as well as the constituents they represent. Maviglio plays a big role in influencing what happens in the Assembly.

There is a legislative manual which states a “consultant” like Maviglio can't have clients or do outside business with while on the state payroll, especially where there might be the slightest hint of a conflict of interest, according to a Capitol source who asked to remain unnamed for this story.

History repeating

Maviglio is not alone. Infamous political consultant Richie Ross helped Democrats get elected, and then proceeded to lobby them unabashedly at the Capitol. This went on for decades. He vehemently defended his duel roles, and insisted there was no conflict in his interests.

In 2003, Democratic Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson appointed a task force to address what he referred to as a growing problem of aggressive lobbying tactics and conflict of interest by political consultants who lobby legislators they helped elect. He had Richie Ross in mind after Ross verbally abused the staff members of two legislators who refused to vote against a bill that was of interest to one of his lobbying clients, the United Farm Workers Union, CalState News reported.

In 2006, Gale Kaufman, a top political strategist to Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and the California Teachers Association Union, returned to the state payroll as a consultant to the speaker's office, Capitol Weekly reported.

“'I'm only working part time. I can still rake in the big bucks on the outside,' Kaufman joked in a conversation with Capitol Weekly. “'I'm in and out of [the Assembly] all the time. This time around, for the next little while, I'll be doing some more work, so I decided to go on the payroll.'”

“Kaufman even has a small office on the third floor of the Assembly annex, around the corner from the Assembly floor,” Capitol Weekly found. “She says she will be working out of the office part time.”

The conflict lies with the revolving door between political parties, labor unions, consultants, and paid staff, and rarely with the people doing the writing, reporting and exposing.

But now, Maviglio and his political ilk have influenced more than the Assembly leadership — they've gone in through the back door of the state, into the bowels of state code, in an attack on dissent.

California lawmakers are ignoring the historic recall last week of two Colorado state legislators who backed new gun restrictions. And they are ignoring the Bill of Rights.

Second Amendment

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” says the Second Amendment within the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

The gun control debate waged during the last eight months in the California Legislature has been an attack on the Second Amendment.

Democratic lawmakers claim the legislation is needed to address acts of gun violence. But who are they trying to control?

Increase in violence, or media hype?

Never letting a good crisis go to waste, California’s Democratic lawmakers reacted en masse to the Dec. 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults. By January 2013, the Legislature introduced 40 gun control bills.

But as I wrote in “Gun control laws would not make us safer,” the worst deadly massacre at a school in American history was not the Newtown shootings, or the Columbine shootings.

The worst school massacre took place before there was even a television in every home — in Michigan in 1927 when a school board official, enraged at a tax increase to fund school construction, planted explosives in Bath Township Elementary school, then blew the school up.  When crowds rushed in to rescue the children, he drove up his shrapnel-filled car and detonated it, killing more people, including himself.

While the media and politicians respond purely emotionally and opportunistically, they have ignored that these incidents are not new, and are certainly not indigenous to America.

Despite media claims that these types of mass killings are on the rise, criminologist James Allen Fox, of Boston Northeastern University, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, said “the random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest,” Fox said. “Most people who die of bullet wounds knew the identity of their killer.”

Experts who study mass shootings say they are not becoming more common or on the rise.

In April, the U.S. Senate killed measures to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and require background checks during the purchase of guns at gun shows or on the Internet.

Study after study has shown that between 6 percent and 10 percent or criminals are responsible for up to 70 percent of all crimes committed.

Interpretation of the second amendment varies between those who believe it protects citizens’ rights to own guns, and those who do not.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protected the individual right to keep suitable firearms at home for self-defense. This case overturned Washington D.C.’s ban on handguns.

Naming names

Listed are the lawmakers who authored the gun control bills — all Democrats:

AB 48 by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, bans ammunition and gun parts. Skinner infamously said, “bullets are the very thing making guns deadly.”

Also by Skinner, AB 1131, increases prohibition periods after credible threat of violence from 6 months to 5 years.

AB 170 by Assemblyman Steven Bradford, D-Gardena, prohibits anyone who owns a business from getting assault weapon permits.

SB 374 by Sen. Pres. Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, bans detachable magazines in rifles.

SB 567 by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, redefines a shotguns to delete the requirement that it be fired from the shoulder.

SB 755 by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, expands list of crimes resulting in ban from owning firearms.

AB 180 by Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, allows the city of Oakland to pass gun control regulations.

AB 500 by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, allows the Department of Justice additional time to run background checks on gun purchasers.

SB 299 by Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, requires gun owners to report all lost or stolen firearms.

SB 683 by Sen. Marty Block, D-San Diego, requires gun buyers to take a firearm safety class to earn a “safety certificate.”

SB 475 by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, bans gun shows at the Cow Palace by requiring approval from San Mateo and San Francisco counties.

AB 169 by Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, limits transfer of “unsafe” handguns — any pistol, revolver, or other firearm capable of being concealed, which has not been vetted by the California Department of Justice.

AB 711 by Assemblyman Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, bans the use of lead ammunition.

AB 231 by Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, adds criminal liability for firearm storage that endangers a child.

Oppressive CA government

An oppressive government is what led to the Bill of Rights. The Founding Fathers wrote into the Bill of Rights that rights are human rights endowed with by our Creator, and not rights granted by the government. The argument over the Second Amendment is not just about preserving the right to keep and bear arms; this fight is about making sure the government cannot take away citizens’ rights.

If the government can grant rights, it can also take them away. That’s what makes the liberties outlined in the Bill of Rights “unalienable.”

“All power is inherent in the people; . . . it is their right and duty to be at all times armed,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, shortly before his death.

George Mason, a delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention, believed the relationship between arms and liberty was crucial, and said history had demonstrated that the most effective way to enslave a people is to disarm them.