Calif. Lawmaker's Bill Would Stop Police From Freeing Illegal Felons

If a measure set to be proposed in the California legislature is approved, law enforcement agencies in the Golden State will have to report to federal officials before releasing from prison an illegal immigrant convicted of a felony. 

Republican state Sen. Jeff Stone of Murrieta said that he will propose the bill after two California women were allegedly killed by illegal immigrant felons in Santa Maria and San Francisco, the Los Angeles Times reported.  

Under the expected measure, state law enforcement officials would have to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the illegal immigrant felon was about to be released and also hold the person in custody for 48 hours while ICE decides if it wants the detainee prosecuted or deported. 

Santa Maria resident Marilyn Pharis, 64, was allegedly raped and killed by Aureliano Martinez Ramirez and another man July 24, just days after Ramirez had been released from jail. 

Weeks earlier, Kathryn Steinle, 32, of San Francisco was allegedly killed by Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, who had been deported from the United States five times and had several felony convictions when he shot and killed Steinle on July 1, while she was walking on a San Francisco pier with her dad. 

"This has got to stop," Stone said. "If police and sheriff‘s departments were to notify immigration officials before they released these dangerous criminals, murders like these would not take place."

The San Francisco slaying led other lawmakers to look at the city's "sanctuary city" laws with more scrutiny. 

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon have authored "Kate's Law," which would require a minimum sentence of five years for any illegal immigrant that re-enters the country after they are deported. 

Cruz, along with Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, has also co-authored a measure that would result in withholding federal funds from sanctuary cities. 

Via: Newsmax

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California and the GOP Debate

Looking for California in the GOP debate presented some challenges even with one candidate who has tentative ties to the Golden State and the state’s Democratic governor who tried to put himself into the debate via a letter to the candidates on climate change.

There was only one Californian (sort of) in the field of 17 — Carly Fiorina who made her name as CEO of Hewlett-Packard and was handily defeated by Barbara Boxer for the California U.S. Senate seat in 2010. She now lives in Virginia.

She did fairly well in the first debate, many pundits declaring her the winner. And it appeared that former Texas governor Rick Perry has Fiorina lined up for the Secretary of State job if he becomes president. In criticizing the Iran nuclear deal Perry said, “I’d rather have Carly Fiorina over there doing our negotiation rather than (Secretary of State) John Kerry.”

Major California companies Google and Apple also made it into the first debate with Fiorina saying they should cooperate with the government on investigations that might prevent terrorism.

Apparently, Jerry Brown sent his letter to the wrong recipients for the main debate. California’s Democratic governor tried to work his way into the debate when he sent a letter asking GOP candidates how they would address climate change. He should have sent his letter to the Fox News Channel debate moderators. They didn’t bother to engage the candidates on climate change in the debate featuring the 10 leading candidates.

There was a reference to climate change in the first debate held for candidates in positions 11 to 17 in the polls. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham responded that if he debated presumptive Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton on climate change she would argue cap-and-trade that would ruin the economy while he would focus on energy independence and a clean environment. Cap-and-trade is a key strategy in Brown’s camapign on climate change.

Immigration was a big issue at the debate although nothing specific to California. However, the situation on sanctuary cities was raised in both the earlier and later debates. The sanctuary cities issue gained headlines after the shooting death in San Francisco of Kate Steinle by an illegal immigrant who had been deported many times but still came back. Candidates from Jeb Bush to Ted Cruz, to Bobby Jindal said they would eliminate federal funds to sanctuary cities.

There are a number of presidential candidates working with individuals with strong California ties. To name a few: Jeff Miller is campaign manager for Rick Perry, Mike Murphy is a strategist for Jeb Bush and Todd Harris is communication director for Marco Rubio.

While California didn’t have a big role in the debates one of her favorite sons was mentioned frequently –Ronald Reagan. And that will carry over with the next Republican debate scheduled for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley September 16.

Originally published of Fox and Hounds Daily

Via: California Political Review

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Sky-High California Gas Prices Have a Green Additive

ENLARGE

The national average is $2.76 a gallon, while Golden State drivers pay $3.88. Eco-virtue is expensive.

For most American families, the ritual summertime road trip is a lot cheaper this year thanks to plunging gas prices, propelled in part by the U.S. shale-oil boom. The average gas price nationally has dropped by nearly 25% to $2.76 a gallon over the past 12 months.

California is another story. While gasoline in the Golden State is averaging $3.88 a gallon, the average price in the Los Angeles market shot up 65 cents this week to $4.30 a gallon, about 20 cents higher than a year ago. Gas prices surpassed $5 per gallon at some stations, hitting $5.49 in downtown L.A., according to GasBuddy.com.

As usual, purported consumer activists are blaming collusion among putatively monopolistic oil companies. The real culprit is anti-carbon regulation promoted by a cartel of green activists and liberal politicians that is aimed at raising energy costs to discourage consumption. Sticker shock at the pump, like water rationing and high electric rates, is the price Californians must pay for their environmental virtue.

For most of the 1980s and ’90s, Californians paid roughly the national average, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. Since 1999—the year Democrat Gray Davis assumed the governorship following 16 years of Republican leadership—California gas prices have sizably surpassed the national average and most of the lower 48 states, principally due to more stringent fuel regulations. California gas taxes are also about 12 cents higher than the national average.

In 1999, Mr. Davis’s Air Resources Board banned the fuel additive MTBE—a smog-reducing oxygenate that in low quantities has been detected in groundwater. It also adopted cleaner “reformulated” fuel standards that raised production costs. A tiramisu of other environmental mandates have been layered into the state’s fuel standards.

The results? By 2006 Californians were paying 23 cents more than the national average for regular gas. The disparity increased to 40 cents in 2014 and now sits at $1.11.

Next to crude, electricity ranks as refiners’ largest production cost. Electric rates like gas prices have soared in California thanks to the state’s mandate that requires that renewables make up 33% of the state’s electricity by 2020. Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislators have proposed raising the mandate to 50% by 2030.

Via: Wall Street Journal
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California Republicans in Congress show stark divisions

WASHINGTON — California's congressional delegation has long been known for its inability to get along. But Golden State Republicans aren't just on the opposite side of issues from Democrats. Lately, they've been at odds among themselves.

The divisions were on display when the state's 15 Republicans split almost evenly on a vote to end the government shutdown and extend the nation's borrowing authority. All 38 Democrats, in contrast, stuck together in support of the measure.

The Republicans also split on roll calls this year to cut the food stamp program, provide Superstorm Sandy relief, reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and end a program that promotes U.S. agricultural products abroad. No California Democrats broke ranks.

The GOP differences have been stark on immigration.

While Republican Reps. Jeff Denham of Turlock and David Valadao of Hanford joined Democrats in support of legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the country illegally, some of their California GOP colleagues vehemently oppose what they regard as amnesty for lawbreakers. Others are open to granting legal status to some immigrants but oppose a path to citizenship.

It's no surprise to find divisions within the largest state delegation in Congress, given its size, regional differences on issues such as farm policy, and the political vulnerability of some of its members.

Via: LA Times

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Is This Paul Krugman’s California?

What is it about California that inspires such insistently cheerful happy talk from New York Times columnist/Princeton professor Paul Krugman?

This spring he claimed that California was in the middle of a roaring comeback. Has he ever been here? Read coverage of our Legislature? Read the Census Bureau’s declaration that the Golden State has the worst effective poverty rate of any state?

His blathering led to a harshly funny response from a professor who actually does know California because he lives here, Victor Davis Hanson, writing for National Review Online.

Now Krugman is at it again, suggesting Covered California is doing so well that it’s a confirmation of the glory that is Obamacare. And once again his blathering has inspired lots of sharp responses, this time including from other East Coast folks.

D.C.-based health-policy blogger Robert Laszewski, for example, notes that the Golden State is on track to have far fewer people covered by insurance than it did before Covered California began accepting applications.

“So, let’s summarize:

“–California has 5.3 million uninsured eligible to buy in the exchange with half estimated to be subsidy eligible.

“–California is cancelling another 1 million people of which Covered California has estimated hundreds of thousands will qualify for a subsidy they can only get if they go to Covered California. At least 80% need to act by December 23 to avoid losing their coverage.

“–The state is spending $250 million in federal money to get people signed up––dramatically more than any other state.

“–The Covered California goal is to sign-up 500,000 to 700,000 subsidy eligible people by March 31.

“Why should we be so impressed with Covered California because they have signed-up 80,000 people so far? Or, even that their goal is to sign-up 500,000 to 700,000 of the state’s 6.3 million people––half subsidy eligible––who are uninsured or having their insurance canceled?”

Via: California Political Review

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CA Not Enjoying TX-Sized Boom in Revenues From Oil

California increased its revenues last year by $8 billion a year, through passing the Proposition 30 and Proposition 39 tax increases.

Texas has added even more to its revenues, but did so a different way. The fracking boom added $28.6 billion in revenues to the Texas state budget during the last three years, or $9.3 billion a year.

Yet it’s a Los Angeles-based oil company, Occidental Petroleum, which owns 1.2 billion barrels of oil (or its equivalent) in Texas’ Permian Basin.  Sixty percent of Oxy’s oil and gas extraction comes from carbon dioxide flooding, which is used when water injection and pumping no longer works.

Oxy has successfully used C02 hydraulic fracturing of rock — called fracking — in the Permian Basin in Texas since 2011, when the West Texas Intermediate benchmark crude oil price went over $100 per barrel. Currently, that price is $97 a barrel.

Monterey

But since 2011, Oxy has not enjoyed similar success back here in the Golden State with its development of the Monterey Shale Formation. Oxy has suffered tough permitting delays, environmental opposition, threats of a permanent fracking ban and a lengthy 10-month delay in passing the SB4 fracking law.

Oxy reports that its Monterey Shale production of a piddling 370 barrels of oil per day can’t compare to its 45,000 barrels per day from other shale oil fields in California.

A big boost to drilling in California is that many wells can be drilled vertically and stimulated with cheaper hydrofluoric acid, rather than by the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing of rock. This is why SB4 specifically regulates hydrofluoric acid flushing.  Technically, matrix hydrofluoric acid stimulation is not fracking, but fracture acidizing is.  Occidental found that fracking was not economic in the Monterey Shale several years ago.

Both state and local politics aren’t the only impediments to Occidental and other oil producers in California.  Those holding shallower deposits have lower costs and potentially higher profits, according to Mike Edwards of Venoco Oil.

Via: California Political Review

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