Well boo-frickin’-hoo! Emphasis added:

Juan Reardon, standing on the corner of 23rd Street and Barrett Avenue in Richmond on a hot Monday afternoon, strongly suggests you turn right. Particularly if you speak Spanish. Particularly if you lack a driver’s license or drive an uninsured vehicle.

Just know that police wait ahead at a checkpoint to ask for that paperwork, and to tow cars.

“We have a law that mandates you to have a driver’s license, but at the same time prohibits you from getting one,” said Reardon, fronting a group of placard-waving locals. “And the Richmond police, by implementing these BS policies, are … directly targeting the Latino population.”

I can’t help but notice how he neglects to mention that it was law-breaking that got these people into this situation in the first place.

Political candidate Chris Tallerico can set him straight:

“Driving is not a right. It’s a privilege,” Tallerico said. “If this provides us with a safer city, more power to it.”

The Richmond Vice Mayor also has his head on straight:

[John] Marquez, one of the city’s first Latino politicians and the council member most closely identified with the Latino business community, also is chairman of the council’s public safety subcommittee. He joined in a unanimous vote in the winter to support checkpoints and also clamored for the California Highway Patrol to temporarily supplement the local police force.

It is not “helping” the Latino community to allow lawlessness to run rampant in their neighborhoods, or to pick and choose which laws to enforce. It is not the job of law enforcement, or indeed of local government, to pass judgment on the laws passed by the legislative branches of state or federal government - their job is only to enforce them. It is up to the legislature to pass or repeal those laws, and it is for the courts to determine if they are unconstitutional. The anarchy that these protesters are asking for is not part of the American legal system.

From 2001 to 2007, the area’s population jumped 25 percent. But local government expenditures – adjusted for inflation – grew about 50 percent…On top of that spending, many local governments also accumulated a mountain of debt…

Are we surprised? This is the way most Americans manage their home finances so is it any surprise that, when elected to office, they bring the same habits with them?

Only more so - it’s so much easier to spend someone else’s money…

City governments throughout the Sacramento region spent money at a rate that outpaced population growth during the boom years of this decade – and they’re now living with a sobering morning after.

From 2001 to 2007, the area’s population jumped 25 percent. But local government expenditures – adjusted for inflation – grew about 50 percent to roughly $2 billion, according to a Bee analysis of financial reports from every city in Sacramento, Yolo, Placer and El Dorado counties.

On top of that spending, many local governments also accumulated a mountain of debt.

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Insurance

Local herb farmer Rose Loveall-Sale says that if her health insurance premiums continue rising she’ll have to consider a career change. It’s a plight shared by farmers and ranchers statewide, a new survey shows.

Okay, rising health care costs, including the premiums, are hurting a lot of people and certainly farmers are a necessary part of our nation’s economy. But, as usual, the devil is in the details.

A new The Access Project report that surveyed more than 1,700 California family farmers and ranchers, found about one third have no access to group health coverage and must buy expensive individual insurance.

Maybe I’m just ignorant, but why don’t those 1,700 form a group and buy group health insurance?

The person featured in this article - and understand, I’m not criticizing her in any way, I’m criticizing the reporter’s choice of her to be featured in this article - does not even represent what she should represent based upon the topic of this article - a farmer without group insurance. She has group insurance through her husband’s employment.

Loveall-Sale said she and her husband pay $300 in monthly health insurance premiums, and it’s already a stretch.

“When you’re working with a narrow profit margin, another few hundred dollars a month for health care costs is huge,” she said.

$300 a month is pretty average for those with group insurance. And yes, when money is tight a few hundred dollars can make a huge dent in the monthly budget (and when is the last time our Congresspeople - who essentially control the insurance and health industries through heavy regulation - experienced THAT?) But that narrow profit margin is a fact of life for many of the country’s small business owners. Why did this reporter focus on farmers and ignore all other small business owners? To be fair, all such articles are better assimilated when a personal face is put on them, and maybe this is even part of a series, although the article makes no mention of such. But to imply that health care costs ALONE are the cause of grief for small farmers is disingenuous. There are many more issues threatening our nation’s small businesses, and many more problems in our health care system than just the rising cost of insurance premiums.

I note that this article mentions not at all whether these farmers are providing health care coverage for the 1.1 million jobs they support. Calls for more health care coverage to be provided by small employers routinely ignore this critical factor - that small business owners who can barely pay for their own insurance will lose their businesses if required to insure others.

Why do we even expect employers to foot the bills for health insurance? This whole scheme was started by - you guessed it! - Congress: “The history of health insurance is that people began receiving coverage as a “non-cash” benefit during World War II because of wage controls. A few years later Congress confirmed that health insurance was exempt from taxable wages. The effect of this regulation meant that coverage received in lieu of wages was more affordable than using after-tax wages to purchase health insurance. The same was true of funds used to pay for incidental medical needs. Thus began the trend of purchasing health coverage through your employer and paying third parties to manage all your health care spending — including data-to-day medical needs.” Testimony before the House Select Committee on State Health Care Expenditures, March 24, 2004.

“Paying third parties to manage all your health care spending — including data-to-day medical needs”…such as dictating the co-pay for medications? choosing which medications are covered at all? Deciding which medical procedures are necessary, and therefore covered, and which are not?

All efforts both by government and as called for by grass-roots movements focus almost exclusively on providing health insurance to the uninsured. If anything, this article amply demonstrates why providing health insurance coverage alone isn’t the answer.

Isn’t it about time we end this way of managing health care?

Finally, someone grows a pair and smacks down the union mafia:

A labor-backed California law that barred companies from using funds from the state to campaign against union organizing drives violates federal labor law by limiting employers’ free expression, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday. [That's not quite what the law did - see the bold print in paragraph 5. -ed.]

The same federal law that protects workers’ right to join a union also favors “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open debate in labor disputes,” the court said in a 7-2 ruling.

Employers are entitled to speak against unionization as long as they don’t use threats or coercion, said Justice John Paul Stevens in the majority opinion. He also said employees have a right to receive information opposing unions.

Dissenting justices said the California law left employers free to use their own funds to oppose union organizing.

The state law, signed in 2000 by then-Gov. Gray Davis, was the first of its kind in the nation. It barred state contractors and other companies that receive at least $10,000 from the state in a year from using any of that money to support or oppose union organizing.

Or in other words, the law said that, if any company wanted to do business with the state, they had to bow down to the unions - amounting to government sponsorship of unions! What right does the government have to tell anyone, be it an individual or a business, how to spend their hard earned money? What right does the government have to keep strings attached to the money it pays for a job done?

Smacking down this law doesn’t level the playing field, but at least it ensures employers their First Amendment rights.

Pledging to “take them on big-time,” Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, sharply criticized the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency Friday and declared she would push for measures to reduce the fear she said agents have caused East Bay immigrant families.

The Oakland Democrat told a packed North Oakland church that she wants to “ensure that ICE is following the rules and that those rules are well-known and publicized — especially when it comes to actions at schools, hospitals, religious centers and other critical community institutions.”

Her comments followed a furor in Oakland and Berkeley last month when federal operations to arrest illegal immigrants, which ICE says were routine, caused panic because agents were seen in the vicinity of public schools.

But was ICE to blame for the panic?

Berkeley High senior Chase Stern said he was taking an Advanced Placement test May 6, when he noticed that his classmates were fidgeting in their seats and seemed distracted.

He soon found out that the Latino students were receiving text messages and phone calls from family members, warning them that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were nearby, and that they should be cautious and find their way home because family members could not pick them up.

Scores of undocumented parents began to panic as early as 7:30 a.m. May 6, as word got around that ICE vehicles were parked near schools in East Oakland and South Berkeley.

ICE agents “seen in the vicinity” caused people admittedly breaking the law to panic, and they themselves spread the disinformation.

And who was it that ICE was after?

ICE fugitive operations teams arrested four adults from a residence in Berkeley and one adult from a business in Oakland on May 6…The fugitive operations teams were looking for specific individuals who were named in administrative warrants, she said.

ICE’s Fugitive Operations Teams are tasked with identifying and arresting foreign nationals who have ignored final orders of deportation or have returned to the United States illegally after being removed. The teams prioritize cases involving immigration violators who pose a threat to national security and community safety. These include child sex offenders, suspected gang members, and those who have convictions for violent crimes.

It should be noted that we found no reports that the individuals arrested in Oakland and Berkeley on May 6 were violent offenders. However, given that ICE is tasked with arresting immigration violators who pose a threat to the community, why would Lee choose to risk the safety of immigrant children just to avoid causing them fear - fear caused, not by the ICE agents doing their jobs, but by paranoid immigrants?

It should also be noted that the “well-known rules” Rep. Lee claims ICE is violating may not exist:

What remains unclear is whether ICE has the sort of rules about sensitive locations that Lee said she wants to make sure are followed.

ICE’s predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, had a written policy expressly stating that the service “attempt to avoid apprehension of persons and to tightly control investigative operations on the premises of schools, places of worship, funerals and other religious ceremonies,” according to copies of agency memorandums from the 1990s.

But Kice said that past policies were not necessarily transferred to ICE when it formed under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.

I spent a couple of hours trying to verify the rules in this regard pertaining to ICE raids, but was unable to confirm or deny their existence.

I call BS on Rep. Lee’s unfounded claims of broken rules and her attempts to obstruct federal agents from doing their lawful work! Congresspeople have a duty to verify the facts and not make unfounded accusations! I challenge Rep. Lee or any of her supporters to specify any rules or laws that ICE broke in this matter!

Doesn’t “one of the most important issues of our time” deserve straight talk and honest discussion?

I recently received the following email from Senator Barbara Boxer. All emphasis is mine; my comments are in bold.

Dear Friend:

On Saturday morning, May 31, I had the honor of presenting the Democrats’ national weekly radio address, and I wanted to share the text of my remarks with you.

My topic could not be more timely: I discussed the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, the landmark global warming bill that is being debated on the Senate floor this week. My bill will give our nation the tools we need to combat global warming and reverse the catastrophic impacts of climate change.

The text of the radio address, as delivered, is below.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

——————————————————————————–

“Good morning. I’m Senator Barbara Boxer from California and Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Next week, the Senate will begin debate on one of the most important issues of our time – global warming.

“Senators have come together across party lines to write a law that will not only enable us to avoid the ravages of unchecked global warming, but will create millions of new jobs and put us on the path to energy independence. Other benefits of our legislation will be cleaner air, energy efficiency, relief for consumers and the alternative energy choices that American families deserve. And, by acting wisely, America will regain the leadership we have lost these past seven years.

“There are some in the Senate who insist that global warming is nothing more than science fiction. These are the same kind of voices who said that the world was flat, cigarettes were safe and cars didn’t need airbags – long after the rest of us knew the truth.

[Empty rhetoric at its finest! Discrediting anyone who dares disagree on any aspect of global warming dogma as a flat-earther!]

“The fact is that the overwhelming majority of scientists say that the earth is in peril if we don’t act now. They’ve told us clearly that more than 40 percent of God’s creatures could face extinction if we don’t act now. They’ve told us of more intense weather events if we don’t act now. Health experts have told us that infectious diseases will increase due to warmer waters. And military leaders have told us that unchecked global warming will lead to severe conflict and war as droughts, floods and rising sea levels create huge numbers of desperate refugees.

["The overwhelming majority of scientists" do NOT say the earth is in immediate peril! The overwhelming majority don't even agree on the cause of recent climate changes - even on the crucial question of whether these changes will continue short term or long term!]

“I hope you will help us convince the negative voices that we must act now to avert these dangers. Tell the Bush administration to help us, not fight us. Tell your Senators that action now will have positive results for our families and our nation. Tell those skeptics who say ‘wait for China and India to act’ that the America we know and love doesn’t hide from a challenge and wait for others to lead.

[Except when the challenge and leadership are about an issue that the far left doesn't agree with.]

“Right now, many of our states, including my home state, are leading. They have the will. Our mayors are leading. They have the will. Religious leaders have urged us to act now as well. They reminded me of a wonderful quote that motivates me to work as hard as I can for as long as it takes to responsibly address global warming. These words stay with me: ‘When God created the first man, he took him around to all the trees in the Garden of Eden and said to him “see my handiwork, how beautiful and choice they are. Be careful not to ruin and destroy my world, for if you do ruin it, there is no one to repair it after you.”’

[Funny how "separation of church and state" only applies when they want it to apply.]

“I truly hope that you will support our efforts on the Senate floor. Please join our fight, and thanks for listening.”