San Diego Takes the Lead in Greenpeace Strike

On August 5, 16 of 19 canvassers for Greenpeace in San Diego walked off the job. They were followed by a majority of the Sacramento office. 22 total employees of the Frontline program, Greenpeace’s in-house fundraising program, have had enough of labor policies that give them no job security.

The strike, led by two veteran canvassers in Socialist Alternative San Diego, comes against an organization that claims to be progressive. However, Greenpeace uses a quota system where even veteran fundraisers can be fired for missing quota two or three weeks consecutively. Senior workers bring in six or seven times their salary in recurring donations, yet are routinely fired. Morale is understandably very low. But choosing to resist, they have mobilized in defense of their jobs and dignity. Non-profits beware: the persuasive skills developed by your employees can be used against you. Instead of selling Greenpeace, organizers now sell the strike against it.

Tara Dawn, a strike member from the Sacramento field office, said “As a single mother, I work hard week in and week out not knowing if I’ll have a dependable paycheck to keep a roof over our heads. That is a very difficult reality to face. I love my job and the organization I work for, but myself and the all of the other canvassers deserve to see reform.”

Resistance to reform, both in senior and mid-level Greenpeace administration, emphasizes the presence of “the worker elite”. Despite being former fundraisers themselves, low-level managers have decided not to stand in solidarity with their former co-workers, their interests now aligning with their superiors. In the absence of help from those potential allies, the street-level workers have banded together, using democratic methods and a sophisticated media campaign to damage Greenpeace’s most valuable asset: its image and reputation.

Canvassers have great labor power for two main reasons. First, because they gather monthly donations, each $20 donation that is not gathered is multiplied, since most people donate for 9 or 10 months before canceling. Second, attempts to bring in strikebreaking replacements are frustrated because good canvassers emerge from training, not raw talent. The trainers are on strike, thus nobody can truly be their replacement.

Socialists everywhere should stand in the new areas of labor struggle. Thousands of vulnerable canvassers for all sorts of non-profits can learn from a strong victory.

Their Facebook page is: facebook.com/GreenpeaceOnStrike

Their strike fund page is: crowdrise.com/GreenpeaceOnStrike

Andrew Mackay along with friends Bryan Kim and Joe Henry are all members of Socialist Alternative. Bryan and Joe are ex-Greenpeace, and have organized members of the Frontline program, the street canvassers, to strike in San Diego and Sacramento. With the national organization not thinking the threat serious, the strike now enjoys growing support from members in all national sections of Greenpeace, other non-profit leaders, and labor- such as Sarah Saez, program director of United Taxi Workers of San Diego. The strike began August 5 and is continuing, with negotiations beginning in California soon.

Via: San Diego Free Press

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California Voted to Raise Taxes on Corporations to Create ‘Green Jobs.’ Here’s How That’s Working Out Three Years Later

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Three years after California voters passed a ballot measure to raise taxes on corporations and generate clean energy jobs by funding energy-efficiency projects in schools, barely one-tenth of the promised jobs have been created, and the state has no comprehensive list to show how much work has been done or how much energy has been saved.

Money is trickling in at a slower-than-anticipated rate, and more than half of the $297 million given to schools so far has gone to consultants and energy auditors. The board created to oversee the project and submit annual progress reports to the Legislature has never met, according to a review by The Associated Press.

Voters in 2012 approved the Clean Energy Jobs Act by a large margin, closing a tax loophole for multistate corporations. The Legislature decided to send half the money to fund clean energy projects in schools, promising to generate more than 11,000 jobs each year.

Instead, only 1,700 jobs have been created in three years, raising concerns about whether the money is accomplishing what voters were promised.

“Accountability boards that are rubber stamps are fairly common, but accountability boards that don’t meet at all are a big problem,” said Douglas Johnson, a state government expert at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California.

The State Energy Commission, which oversees Proposition 39 spending, could not provide any data about completed projects or calculate energy savings because schools are not required to report the results for up to 15 months after completion, spokeswoman Amber Beck said.

Via: The Blaze

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[VIDEO] Shawn Hubler: What they really do at Planned Parenthood

The entry to downtown Sacramento’s Planned Parenthood clinic is literally transparent. Through tall windows, you can see right into the waiting room from the sidewalk outside.

This week, the women walking in and out were equally open.

One visitor to downtown Sacramento’s Planned Parenthood clinic, Stephanie Porter of Rio Linda, explained that she appreciates the clinic because “they’ve saved me plenty of times. Like, the Plan B pills you get in the stores? They cost like $50, $60. People steal that stuff. Here, they give you condoms, Plan B pills, birth control pills, IUDs, everything.” Dick Schmidt Sacramento Bee file

“I’ve been coming here since I was a teenager,” said Maria Martinez, 28, of Oak Park, in for a checkup. “I was a teen mom.”

“I’m not ready to be pregnant,” shrugged Stephanie Porter, 24, of Rio Linda. “And they’ve saved me plenty of times. Like, the Plan B pills you get in the stores? They cost like $50, $60. People steal that stuff. Here, they give you condoms, Plan B pills, birth control pills, IUDs, everything.”

“I come for my examinations,” said a 37-year-old Sacramento homemaker named Luz, who was pregnant with her third and, she said firmly, last child. She’d been getting checkups and contraception at Planned Parenthood for 10 years “porque es gratis – we have emergency Medi-Cal only and it is free.”

If all you knew about Planned Parenthood was what has been in the news, you might reasonably wonder what shady business people there are up to. For weeks, a veteran of the radical anti-abortion youth group Live Action has been releasing undercover videos that purport to show the organization’s leaders illegally profiting from the sale of aborted fetuses.

SENSATIONAL AS THEY MAY BE, THE TAPES COMPLETELY MISS THE POINT OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD’S DAY-TO-DAY OPERATION, WHICH HAS JUST ABOUT NOTHING TO DO WITH FETAL TISSUE, OR EVEN ABORTION.

The tapes have predictably generated much political grandstanding and partisan “investigation.” I put that word in quotes because both the tapes and the furor are clearly more about galvanizing true believers in a presidential campaign year than about the legalities of using fetal tissue and stem cells for medical research.

But provocative as they may be, the tapes completely miss the point of Planned Parenthood’s day-to-day operation, which has just about nothing to do with fetal tissue, or even abortion. And to spend an afternoon at one of its 700 clinics is to be reminded repeatedly just how random a tangent its enemies have taken with this fetal tissue gambit.

Not that the tapes aren’t upsetting to watch. Just as it’s grotesque to see a helpless child go unloved by some woman – or man, or teenager – who had no business at that point in life becoming a parent, most Americans have mixed feelings about abortion, and no one who has ever had one goes around boasting about it.

But 80 percent of the 2.7 million people who visit Planned Parenthood each year are like the women in downtown Sacramento, there not to commit some stigmatized last resort, but to rightly ensure that they don’t get pregnant with children they don’t want in the first place. And most of the other 20 percent are there for things such as sexually transmitted disease tests and breast exams.

Via: Sacramento Bee

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Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/shawn-hubler/article30104334.html#storylink=cpy

CALIFORNIA: POT TAX: SACRAMENTO POLITICIANS ‘JONESING’ FOR A SPENDING FIX

With Sacramento politicians desperate to find a new source of continuous tax revenue, the state’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy has just published a study, “Pathways Report Policy Options for Regulating Marijuana In California,” as a precursor to sponsoring a 2016 ballot initiative to legalize recreational pot use.

However, it seems that underground farmers of California’s largest cash crop have no intention of going legit and paying taxes.

“One of the major findings of the Blue Ribbon Commission’s work is that the legalization of marijuana would not be an event that happens in one election. Rather, it would be a process that unfolds over many years requiring sustained attention to implementation,” the report says.

In perhaps the most hilarious section of the report, under the heading “What to do with all that new tax money,” the Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom-led group of academic and law enforcement experts suggests that the expected cash hoard from taxing marijuana should not go to back-fill the State General Fund: “We do not believe that making government dependent on cannabis taxes makes for sound public policy, nor do we believe cannabis tax revenue will be very large in relation to the total budgets of state and local government.”

Sacramento politicians have been clear that they hope marijuana can provide a stable tax revenue base for the perpetually insolvent state. After passing Proposition 30‘s“temporary tax increase” in 2012, the Golden State saw its top marginal tax rate jump by 33% and capital gains taxed at the same rates as income, up to 13.3 percent.

The media have been full of stories about companies moving to lower-taxed states, but tax collection was up by $11 billion in the 2015 fiscal year, mostly due to huge capital gains taxes from Silicon Valley. California’s collection of capital gains jumped from $4.7 billion in 2010 to 11.9 billion in 2014, and may have hit $15 billion for 2015.

Yet with the annual cost for state employees’ salaries and benefits at $10 billion, any fall in capital gains collections would create the same type of disaster for public employee unions that happened in the Great Recession, when capital gains income to the state plunged from $10.9 billion in 2007 to $2.3 billion in 2009. In that crash, 6.7 percent of the state’s public employees were terminated; K-12 and early education were slashed by 8 percent; and public health and welfare were slashed.

The 93-page Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy report makes 58 recommendations essentially suggesting that marijuana “licensing” should shadow the policies used to maximize tax collection in regulating alcohol distribution and consumption in California.

Licensed and taxed entities would include: cultivators who grow cannabis; distributors and wholesalers; manufacturers who make specific products for retail sale; retailers who sell to individuals; transporters who are responsible for delivery between any two points in the system; suppliers of seeds; product testing; training providers and any other entities involved in supply chain monitoring; and product safety testers.

Separating alcohol manufacturing, transportation and distribution has been the key to maximizing tax collection in the U.S.. The weight and size of alcohol liquids make them much easier to identify in illegal transit and storage.

But the bad news for tax-hungry Sacramento politicians is that the current drug business is highly integrated with criminal gangs controlling all levels of production, transportation and distribution. Recognizing that the only way to bring the illegal pot trade into regulation, the Newsom report suggests that marijuana regulation would have to allow a higher level of integration than alcohol:

Alcohol regulation clearly separates manufacturer, distributor and retailer, with few exceptions. Prohibiting all vertical integration would have the effect of breaking up some current responsible players in the medical marijuana industry who engage in cultivation and sales, while requiring vertical integration of cultivation and sales could force large numbers of small incumbent growers into rushed and perhaps unwanted “shotgun marriages” with retailers.

The report also seems to suggest concessions to labor unions as a way to add political support: “The workforce involved in marijuana cultivation and processing should be afforded the same protections and rights as other workers in the agriculture and processing industries. This includes the right to collective bargaining, as well as other worker safety protections.”

As Breitbart News recently noted, in “California Is Greece, but with Capital Gains,” the state’s failed experiment in liberalism has resulted in the highest poverty rate in the U.S. at 23.4 percent. The grossly insolvent Gold State, with about $500 billion in debt, has survived–on life support–from billions of dollars of inconsistent revenue from capital gains taxes.

Desperate to keep the game going, Sacramento politicians are pushing to legalize marijuana for the tax revenue. They are likely to be disappointed.

Via: Breitbart

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Judge Orders Government to Return $167,000 Seized From Motorhome Driver Visiting His Girlfriend

A federal judge in Nevada has ordered the government to return $167,000 that was seized from a man driving his motorhome on a highway two years ago. The man, Straughn Gorman, was traveling to visit his girlfriend. He was never charged with a crime.

The seizure originally occurred in January 2013, when Gorman was driving his motorhome from Delaware to visit his girlfriend in Sacramento, Calif.

Police stopped Gorman not once, but twice, within 50 minutes while he drove west on Interstate 80, according to documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.

In the first traffic stop, which occurred near Elko, Nev., a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper stopped the man for driving too slowly in the passing lane. Gorman refused to let the trooper search his vehicle, and the Nevada Highway Patrol officer allowed him to continue on without issuing any citations.

Less than an hour later, Gorman was stopped again by an Elko County Sheriff’s Office deputy, who the highway patrol trooper had arranged to pull Gorman over once more, court documents show. The deputy had a drug-sniffing dog with him, and a search of the motorhome was conducted.

In the two-minute video originally posted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the officer searched the vehicle, where he found $167,000 in cash stored in different places throughout the motorhome.

The officer told Gorman that the cash, his computer, cellphone and vehicle would all be seized under civil asset forfeiture laws.

Though the Elk County Sheriff’s deputy said the dog detected drugs in the motorhome, none were found, and Gorman was never charged with a crime.

Instead, he became another victim of civil asset forfeiture, a procedure that gives local, state and federal law enforcement the power to seize money and property if it’s suspected of being related to a crime.

Via: Daily Signal

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CALIFORNIA: Free Rides Program for Drunk Senators Withers Under Public Criticism

Ancient Greek historian Herodotus tells us that when the Persians decided a matter while drunk, they made a rule to reconsider it when sober.

Recent news from Sacramento tells us that the state Legislature may have adopted at least the first part of the Persian ritual. Members of the Senate were recently issued cards with a phone number they could call 24/7 when inebriated, so they could be picked up at whatever location and be driven home by a Senate employee. When the program became public last week, it withered under public ridicule and the Senate leadership responded by attempting to quietly put the genie back in the bottle by canceling the free service to lawmakers late Friday afternoon.

However, if the “drunks ride free” cards are no longer valid, the questions raised by this elitist perk remain.

The program was probably a defensive reaction to the bad publicity stemming from the drunken driving arrests of four lawmakers in the last five years, but it makes one wonder: How serious is this problem?  If taxpayers were expected to pay for this service, should money also be spent providing counseling or detox to those members of the Legislature who drink in excess? Perhaps these cards were a tacit admission that some legislators have a drinking problem,which may boost the argument that some have been making that drug testing should be required for elected officials. Just last year such a bill was introduced in the Florida Legislature.

Some will say that safety should be the primary concern, and they would be right, but aren’t our elected officials bright enough to call a cab when they are tipsy?  Perhaps they don’t like dipping into their $142-a-day in tax free expense money, which they get on top of the highest legislative salaries in all 50 states. And considering their ability to influence government policy, is it fair to say that it is most likely that the drinks they consume are not paid for by them but by favor seekers?

Although the cost to taxpayers for the free ride program was relatively small – we have a state budget of $170 billion – it is another symbol of the arrogance of the political class when dealing with other people’s money. It is the same kind of thinking that allowed the Senate President Pro Tem to spend nearly $30,000 in taxpayers’ money on his “inauguration” held at the Los Angeles Music Center.

Via: California Political Review

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Illegal immigrants: State Senate approves health care for many

SACRAMENTO -- A first-in-the-nation bill aimed at expanding health care for illegal immigrants sailed through the Senate on Tuesday even as some lawmakers acknowledged that thousands of legal residents are having to struggle to access health care through the state's Medi-Cal program.

In a 28-11 vote, a newly pared-down version of Senate Bill 4 by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, would let undocumented Californians buy health insurance with their own money through the state's Covered California exchange if the state is given a waiver by the federal government. It would also allow anyone age 18 and under to enroll in Medi-Cal regardless of immigration status -- and let undocumented immigrants age 19 and up enroll in Medi-Cal if there's money provided in the state budget.

"We are here today trying to address this critical issue that is vital to the success of our California: ... providing care to our undocumented community,'' Lara told colleagues before the vote. "The time has come for us to lead.''

Last week, SB 4 was scaled down from a "health care for all" bill that would have allowed all undocumented immigrants to enroll in Medi-Cal. But that bill would have cost taxpayers from $175 million to $740 million annually -- something Gov. Jerry Brown said was just too expensive.

The exact cost of the amended SB 4 won't be known until an upcoming fiscal analysis is released shortly, said Lara spokesman Jesse Melgar, though he said he believes the cost will be lower than $175 million.

Via: San Jose Mercury News

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California: More Pain at the Pump

Sacramento is about to launch a new attack in its ongoing war on drivers.

California’s 48.6 cent gas tax already ranks second out of 50 states –- the feds take another 18.4 cents — and when the hidden carbon tax, part of the cap-and-trade program, is factored in, our state leads the pack by a wide margin. But this is not nearly enough, according to the political class.

Sen. Jim Beall is building a coalition of both Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature to hike gas taxes along with vehicle license fees and registration.

The San Jose lawmaker’s Senate Bill 16 slams taxpayers in three ways. First, it would raise at least $3 billion annually by increasing the gas tax by another 10 cents a gallon.  Second, it would hike the vehicle license fee, which is based on value, by more than 50 percent over 5 years. Third, it would increase the cost to register a vehicle by over 80 percent.

Although the backers of the SB16 tax increase say it is vital to make up the claimed $59 billion backlog in roadway maintenance, some of the funds are slated to go to repaying transportation bonds that, when passed, were to be paid from the general fund. This means that not all of the new revenue will go to the stated intent of fixing roads and highways.

Whatever the actual dollar amount of the backlog in roadway maintenance, this shortfall is the result of previous diversions of gas tax and truck weight revenue to budget items that have no direct impact on road improvement, and Beall’s bill would allow this practice to continue.

It should not go unnoticed that the $59 billion estimated backlog approaches the $68 billion that the governor and Legislature want to spend on the bullet train. Quentin Kopp, former chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, has become a strong critic, characterizing it as “low-speed rail” due to the changes that have been made to the original plan that voters were promised to convince them to provide seed money for the project in 2008. He adds that to be financially viable, high-speed trains need to run from 10 to 20 trains per hour, but due to the current plan, called a “blended system,” slower trains and bullet trains must share the same track, reducing the number of fast trains to about four per hour. And even supporters of the project as currently envisioned concede that the Los Angeles to San Francisco trip that voters were told would take about two-hours and forty minutes for a $50 fare, will likely take closer to 5 hours at nearly double the cost to the rider.

Via: California Political Review

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California high speed rail boondoggle blocked by judge

SOMEBODY FINALLY GOT IT RIGHT!!!

California's plan to squander potentially hundreds of billions of dollars on a "high speed" rail line that would achieve average speeds no higher than railroads routinely achieved a century ago has hit a serious roadblock. Melody Gutierrez of the San Francisco Chronicle reports:

A Sacramento judge put the brakes on California's plans to build a bullet train after dual rulings Monday blocked the sale of $8 billion in bonds and ordered the rail authority to rewrite it sfunding plans for the huge project.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny ruled that there was "no evidence in the record" to support theCalifornia High-Speed Rail Authority's request in March to sell the bonds from Proposition 1A, a $10 billion measure approved by voters in 2008 that allowed the bullet train project to move ahead.

In a separate but related case, the judge sided with the Kings County Board of Supervisorsand two homeowners who sued the rail agency, saying it had failed to detail how the project will be financed, as legally required, before seeking bond money to begin construction.

The judge's rulings leave the future of the $68 billion project in question. The state has been trying to get the first 130-mile segment in the Central Valley built using $3.24 billion in federal funds and $2.61 billion in Prop. 1A bond money. The rail authority has already signed a construction contract to build the first 29 miles of track from Madera to Fresno.

The judge rejected opponents' calls for that contract to be rescinded.

Via: American Thinker

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