Progressive Showcase: California
The old blue/red war for California is over. Conservatives lost. Liberals won -- by a combination of flooding the state with government-supplied stuff, and welcoming millions in while showing the exit to others. -Victor Davis Hanson
It’s now undeniable that liberal policies have destroyed the quality of life in one of our most beautiful states.
This isn’t hyperbole, it’s an objective assessment by US News and World Report’s “Best States” ranking, which places California dead last in the “Quality of Life” category.
-Tammy Bruce 
Driving across Arizona, it’s hard not to notice a surge in California license plates. The reason for this is becoming more apparent every day.
California is a failed state.
-Jon Gabriel
California, as the biggest state in the nation, and one where Democrats hold total control of the government, carries a special burden.
If progressivism cannot work here, why should the country believe it can work anywhere else?
-Ezra Klein
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Un, Oops
In January, United Nations Special Rapporteur Leilani Farha visited Oakland and San Francisco as part of a fact-finding mission about housing and expressed shock and horror at the living conditions of homeless residents in one of the wealthiest societies in the world.
Last week at the UN General Assembly in New York, Farha presented her findings in a report titled On Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living, which made special mention of the Bay Area’s “cruel and inhuman” treatment of the homeless...
Though some might assume that conditions in the Bay Area would not compare to those in more impoverished countries, Farha noted that Oakland homeless encampments are essentially interchangeable with those she visited in Mexico City.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Oops, Waste, Metaphor
Tourists are turning away from the City by the Bay, while a huge medical convention has cancelled plans to meet in San Francisco, saying its members don’t feel safe on the streets. Locals may feel comfortable, but visitors are often shocked when the reality of San Francisco’s streets is a far cry from its postcard image...
“You can smell it,” says one tourist. “I come from a third world county and it is not as bad as this,” says another. Now it’s seriously affecting the city’s biggest business: tourism...
A major medical association has pulled its $40 million convention out of San Francisco over the state of the streets. “The convention felt that the streets of San Francisco are not a place that a lot of their delegates wanted to come to,” says Alessandro.
The medical group is not alone.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Character, Degeneracy, Waste
San Francisco Mayor London Breed, in her first one-on-one interview since taking office, said homeless advocacy groups that receive funding from the city need to better educate the homeless to "clean up after themselves."
"I work hard to make sure your programs are funded for the purposes of trying to get these individuals help, and what I am asking you to do is work with your clients and ask them to at least have respect for the community — at least, clean up after themselves and show respect to one another and people in the neighborhood,"...
The report centered around a 153-block survey of downtown San Francisco, which revealed trash on every block, 100 needles, and more than 300 piles of feces along the 20-mile stretch of streets and sidewalks.
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Government, Fraud, Corruption, Sexism
The groundswell over sexual harassment that has rocked Hollywood moved into California’s capital on Tuesday as more than 140 women — including legislators, senior legislative aides and lobbyists — came forward to denounce what they describe as pervasive sexual misconduct by powerful men in the nation’s most influential legislature.
Women complained of groping, lewd comments and suggestions of trading sexual favors for legislation while doing business in Sacramento...
“Men have groped and touched us without our consent, made inappropriate comments about our bodies and our abilities,” the letter said, adding: “Why didn’t we speak out? Sometimes out of fear. Sometimes out of shame. Often these men hold our professional fates in their hands.”
California is the prototypical example. It has the highest tax rates of any state. It has very generous welfare benefits. Many of its cities have a high minimum wage. But day after day, the middle class keeps leaving.
The wealthy areas such as San Francisco and the Silicon Valley boom. Yet the state has nearly the highest poverty rate in the nation.
The Golden State, alas, has become the inequality state.
-Stephen Moore
Democrat, Liberal, Tax, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Economy, Regulation
One in five Californians lives in poverty, the highest rate in the country, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau...
Under the methodology, an estimated 20.4 percent of Californians lived below the poverty line in a three-year average of 2014, 2015 and 2016. That is virtually unchanged from the 20.6 percent average for 2013, 2014 and 2015, according to Tuesday’s release. Nationwide, 14.7 percent of people lived in poverty under the supplemental measure during the latest three-year average.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Economy, Regulation
Los Angeles was once the epicenter of apparel manufacturing, attracting buyers from across the world to its clothing factories, sample rooms and design studios... Now, Los Angeles firms are facing another big hurdle — California's minimum wage hitting $15 an hour by 2022 — which could spur more garment makers to exit the state. Last week American Apparel, the biggest clothing maker in Los Angeles, said it might outsource the making of some garments to another manufacturer in the U.S., and wiped out about 500 local jobs.
Democrat, Liberal, Tax, Government, Oops, Economy, Regulation, Jobs
Californians fled the state in unprecedented numbers over the last decade, and their primary destination was Texas, according to an analysis issued Monday. About 5 million Californians departed the Golden State between 2004 and 2013, while 3.9 million arrived from other states for a net population loss of roughly 1.1 million... Analysts blame a host of factors for the migration, starting with California’s high tax rate and cost of living.
Environmentalist, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Energy
At a special meeting of California energy companies and regulators held Feb. 26, Todd Strauss of Pacific Gas & Electric saw the possibility of state power blackouts emerging in 2013 to 2015. The reason is that it has suddenly dawned on state power regulators that green power has resulted in a precarious lack of system flexibility in the state’s power grid.
“When you look at the whole package, it’s difficult to be a business here,” lamented Torrance Mayor Frank Scotto, whose community on the edge of the Pacific will suffer as the jobs migrate to Texas.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Education
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The pension system for California’s teachers has $56 billion less than it needs to cover the benefits promised to its 852,000 members and their families, the fund reported Thursday, as big investment losses in 2008 continue to reverberate.
One-third of Bay Area residents were polled as hoping to leave the area soon. Such pessimism is daily fare, and for good reason. The basket of California state taxes -- sales, income and gasoline -- rates among the highest in the U.S. Yet California roads and K-12 education rank near the bottom.
California: "Once the paradise of the West Coast"...
Illnesses are again being seen in this state that had been rare or non-existent until recently. Typhus, Tuberculosis, Mumps, Measles, Hepatitis A, B, and C are all here again. A worker on the upper floors at L.A. City Hall recently came down with typhus, spread by rats living in the disgusting conditions around the Civic Center.
But you’re concerned that I might ask for a plastic straw.
Environmentalist, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Degeneracy
San Francisco may be the greenest city in the nation, but some residents have a funny way of showing their appreciation. On Earth Day, Marina district residents took their celebrations a little too far, leaving behind a Fort Mason disaster zone.
It's now undeniable that liberal policies have destroyed the quality of life in one of our most beautiful states.
Democrat, Editorial, Liberal, Incompetence, Narrative, Oops, Education
When it come to excellence in education, red states rule — at least according to a panel of experts assembled by Tina Brown’s Newsweek. Using a set of indicators ranging from graduation rate to college admissions and SAT scores, the panel reviewed data from high schools all over the country to find the best public schools in the country.
Government, Incompetence, Character, Degeneracy, Waste
As a result of too many high profile drunken driver arrests involving California legislators, state senate officials have hired designated driving employees to drive home inebriated lawmakers... One legislative chief of staff told the Bee that the service is intended to prevent drunken driving by legislators.
Guess which state has the highest poverty rate in the country? Not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia, but California, where nearly one out of five residents is poor. -Kerry Jackson, Jan 2018
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops
A new poll reveals that 53% of California residents are considering leaving the Golden State because of the high cost of living... Nearly two-thirds, 62%, of respondents said they believed the best days of California were in the past...
Nearly three-fourths of residents, 72%, say “cost and availability of housing is a very serious issue for California” — rising to 76% in the Bay Area. And 62% of residents say “homelessness is a very serious issue for California. The proportion in the Bay Area is the same.
Taxing, Regulating, Destroying
Quite simply, California has morphed from a land of limitless opportunity to a highly regulated land of limits and control.
-Steven Greenhut
Business Exodus From California
According to a report by business relocation expert Joseph Vranich, from 2008 through 2015, at least 1,687 California companies moved operations out of the state.
The California Welfare State
The generous spending, then, has not only failed to decrease poverty; it actually seems to have made it worse. -Kerry Jackson
California Bullet Train
California talks a big game on climate change, but even with billions of dollars in federal funding, it couldn’t build high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco. -Ezra Klein
California: A Habitat For Crime
Proposition 47, which passed in 2014, no longer made it a felony to steal if the value of what you steal doesn’t exceed $950. It’s also no longer a felony to receive stolen property valued at less than $950.
-John Nolte
California Societal Devolution
For those who have maintained that San Francisco is full of . . . whatever, there is now living proof. How much poop is there on the streets of the City by the Bay? Would you believe there is an online map to track human feces on the city’s streets? There is. -Hank Berrien
Plaintiff Paradise
Apart from having higher taxes, absurd housing costs and more regulations than nearly any other state, California’s wacky laws have turned the Golden State into a venue of choice for activist groups to file costly class action lawsuits...
A recent United Way study found that close to one-third of state residents can barely pay their bills, largely due to housing costs. When adjusted for these costs, California leads all states—even historically poor Mississippi—in the percentage of its people living in poverty.
California is home to 77 of the country’s 297 most “economically challenged” cities, based on poverty and unemployment levels. - Joel Kotkin Wendell Cox
In the years between 2004 and 2013, over one million California residents left, taking their $26 billion in taxes with them. -Sarah Lee
Blackouts, typhus, poop, an army of homeless, wildfires, contaminated syringes, garbage, rats, fleas, and Progressive government -- these are the Plages of California. I'd ask the last person to leave California to please turn off the lights, but they'll have gone dark long ago.
- Stephen Green, June 2019