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After Donald Trump victory, Oregonians submit ballot proposal to secede from the union
By Lizzy Acker | The Oregonian/OregonLive
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on November 10, 2016 at 10:00 AM, updated November 10, 2016 at 3:34 PM
Two days after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, two Portlanders have submitted a petition for a 2018 ballot initiative to have Oregon secede from the United States.
On Thursday morning, Jennifer Rollins, a lawyer, and Christian Trejbal, a writer, filed the Oregon Secession Act.
"Oregonian values are no longer the values held by the rest of the United States," Trejbal said over the phone Thursday.
Those values? "Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness," Trejbal said, "plus equality."
"Obviously," he said, the ballot proposal "came about partially in response to the election results on Tuesday."
"But," he added, "it's been developing over time."
http://media.oregonlive.com/politics...0064-large.jpg
6 maps show what U.S. would look like if West Coast seceded
Tuesday's election has renewed interest in Cascadia and some are calling for Oregon and California to leave the United States.
http://image.oregonlive.com/home/oli...0201-large.jpg
Mark Graves | The Oregonian/OregonLive
Trejbal said that he and Rollins are hoping to start a serious conversation in Oregon about what it would mean to peacefully leave the United States. They opted for 2018 to give Oregonians some time to really think about what seceding from the union would mean.
Some Californians have already expressed interest in seceding and the language of the Oregon proposal includes the option to bring other states into a "Constitutional Convention."
Trejbal said that joining forces with other states like Washington, California and Nevada is "a viable way to go forward."
These states, he said, "could all get together and form a nation that uphold the values that we share."
To start the ballot title drafting process, the Oregon Secession Act must receive 1,000 signatures. Trejbal said he and Rollins would be at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland on Thursday night to begin the process of getting those signatures.
You can read the Oregon Secession Act here.
-- Lizzy Acker
503-221-8052
lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker
Hollywood Actor Michael Shannon Suggests ‘Civil War,’ Tells Trump Supporters It’s ‘Time For The Urn’
November 18, 2016
Michael Shannon, whose acting credits include roles in Boardwalk Empire and the movie Revolutionary Road, for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 2008, is currently on a press tour promoting his new movie, Nocturnal Animals.
That’s not all the actor is doing, however. He’s also quite busy disparaging President-elect Donald Trump and the millions of people who voted for him.
Without repeating them, here are the vile things Shannon said in an interview published earlier this week:
Michael Shannon holds NOTHING back in his interview with @nickallen_redux https://t.co/goXq5PBMWN pic.twitter.com/B6oH83vL0I
— Brian Tallerico (@Brian_Tallerico) November 15, 2016
And now, Shannon is at it again in this Wednesday interview with Metro News. Here are a few direct quites related to Trump, his supporters, and the election.
"Basically this man is probably going to destroy the earth and civilization as we know it. It’s kind of terrifying.”
“These protests are so moving, but ultimately what are they going to accomplish? I’m so glad these kids on the campuses everywhere are going ape s—, but at the end of the day the guy’s still going to be president. Maybe you need a civil war or something.”
“I don’t want to live in a country where people voted for Trump. I want to live in some other f—ing country. But I don’t want to run away. So we’re just going to have to bust this thing up.”
“There’s a lot of old people who need to realize they’ve had a nice life, and it’s time for them to move on. Because they’re the ones who go out and vote for these assholes. If you look at the young people, between 18 and 25, if it was up to them Hillary would have been president. No offense to the seniors out there. My mom’s a senior citizen. But if you’re voting for Trump, it’s time for the urn.“
This actor turned “political thinker” still doesn’t get it, and he never will.
A “civil war?” “Bust this thing up?” “Time for the urn?” If Shannon were saying the exact same things against Obama and his supporters in 2008, it’s pretty safe to say he’d be UNDER the jail right now. Thankfully, all of his rhetoric, and that of all the other Hollywood types who think the American people really care what they think, does is drive more and more people into the sane, conservative camp.
If you're like me, you said, "Who?"
I'll save you the search. This goofy fucker:
http://www.littlebigpicture.co.uk/me...alk-empire.jpg
The guy who played General Zod in the recent Superman. I guess he's made the mistake of thinking he actually is Zod. :lool:
Just like Larry Grathwohl warned, these people would walk us straight into the ovens or gulags if they had their way.
By the way, hey Mikey,
http://i.imgur.com/7bzqeXZ.png
California’s Democrats Are Ready for Political War
“We’re going to do everything in our power to protect our people and our values.”
James Nash
Esmé E Deprez
https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/.../v0/450x-1.jpg
Bloomberg Businessweek
November 18, 2016 — 5:00 AM PST
The Republicans are about to control Congress and the presidency for the first time in a decade, and they have an ambitious agenda. They’ve promised to undo Obamacare, deport undocumented immigrants, and roll back environmental regulations. The Democrats who run the state government in California aren’t happy. Immediately after the election, state Senate President Kevin de León and his Assembly counterpart, Anthony Rendon, both Latinos from Southern California, sent out a scathing statement in English and Spanish assuring all 39 million Californians that they were ready for political war. “Today, we woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land, because yesterday Americans expressed their views on a pluralistic and democratic society that are clearly inconsistent with the values of the people of California,” they wrote. “We will lead the resistance to any effort that would shred our social fabric or our Constitution.”
Democrats have dominated all branches of California’s government since 2011, when Jerry Brown succeeded Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor. With the largest economy in the U.S. and the sixth-largest in the world, the state enjoys greater independence from Washington than most. It was the first state to adopt its own vehicle emissions standards, in 2002. In 2012, California created the only state-level cap-and-trade system for limiting greenhouse gas emissions after Republicans in Congress rejected a national model. California, which has more undocumented immigrants than any other state, offers them driver’s licenses as well as financial aid for college. It has imposed some of the country’s strictest background checks on firearms purchases. It’s one of three states to provide paid family and medical leave and one of five that require employers to offer paid sick leave. “This is unlike anything we’ve seen in modern political history,” says de León. “We’re going to do everything in our power to protect our people and our values as Californians.”
Hillary Clinton won more than 61 percent of the state’s vote, a higher share than President Obama won in 2012. Voters approved ballot measures decriminalizing recreational marijuana use, restricting ammunition purchases, and increasing taxes on the rich. The national election triggered a resurgence of California secession fantasies, this time under the hashtag #Calexit—a reference to Brexit, Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.
State Democrats say there’s plenty they can do short of leaving the U.S. California has long been a net contributor to Washington’s coffers, receiving an estimated 78¢ in federal spending in return for every dollar it sends, according to a study by the Washington-based Tax Foundation, a nonprofit think tank that provides analysis of federal and state tax policies. That gives state leaders potential leverage when it comes to complying with policies it doesn’t like, starting with the deportation of undocumented immigrants.
From January 2014 to September 2015, California released immigrants considered deportable under federal law in more than 11,000 instances, rather than keeping them in custody for federal agents, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data obtained by the Texas Tribune. The next state on the list, New York, released people in fewer than 2,000 cases.
On Nov. 14, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said he won’t reverse long-standing department policy blocking officers from doing immigration enforcement, despite Donald Trump’s threats to cut federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities, which offer residents protection from federal agents. “We are not going to work with Homeland Security on deportation efforts,” Beck said. “That is not our job, nor will I make it our job.” San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has also publicly affirmed his commitment to remaining a sanctuary city, and his office has begun drawing up contingency plans for dealing with a loss of federal funding, says City Controller Ben Rosenfield.
One of the biggest points of contention between Sacramento and Trump’s Washington will be climate change. The incoming president has called global warming a hoax “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.” He’s also pledged to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement, the first legally binding global deal to reduce carbon emissions, and to shred Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which sought to control emissions from power plants.
Governor Brown has devoted himself to strengthening California’s carbon pollution rules, already the nation’s toughest. “We will protect the precious rights of our people and continue to confront the existential threat of our time—devastating climate change,” Brown said in a statement that also referred to finding common ground with Trump and the GOP where possible. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf says cities should be willing to uphold the Paris commitments at the local level. “You have 70 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from cities,” she says. “If all mayors agree to take action, we can actually render federal action irrelevant.”
California’s Democrats are also exploring ways to ensure continued access to health care. The Affordable Care Act guarantees federal subsidies for 90 percent of the 1.4 million residents insured by Covered California, the statewide health exchange, and about 5.5 million more Californians now have insurance via the Medicaid expansion made possible by the 2010 law. A repeal, as Trump and Republicans have pledged, would cost the state more than $15 billion in federal subsidies a year, according to the nonprofit Urban Institute. “In theory, California could implement its own universal health-care program,” says California’s insurance commissioner, Dave Jones—though doing so, he warns, would require significant state tax increases.
One area where Trump may be able to override state objections is his plan for a border wall, although much of California’s border with Mexico is already lined with high fences and motion sensors. Yet there are plenty of policies that Trump won’t be able to disrupt. Take abortion rights: If Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, were to be scrapped by a new court majority, the issue would revert to states. California leaders have taken steps to expand access to the procedure, and could make the state a haven for women seeking abortions if Roe were to fall. And some ideas that Trump has endorsed, like stop-and-frisk law enforcement policies, are determined at the local level, not by Congress. Says Mayor Schaaf: “I think it is wise to not react too much to things that have not yet occurred, but rather to be prepared and strengthened in the event that they do.”
The bottom line: More than 61 percent of Californians voted for Clinton, and state Democrats say they’ll block Trump’s policies.
Hey Cali, let me help...
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BarackObama.com: Fight, 'we're not backing down'
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President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump shake hands following their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
BarackObama.com: Fight, 'we're not backing down'
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By PAUL BEDARD (@SECRETSBEDARD)
11/19/16 11:12 AM
President Obama's grassroots Organizing for Action, in a message to supporters, said that voters turned their back on them and it is time respond by fighting "harder than we ever have before."
Scrapping any intention to work with the new administration, the message from OFA's BarackObama.com said, "we're not backing down."
The email to supporters was a clear rallying cry to fight the incoming Trump administration, despite Obama's pledge to help the new team.
OFA's Jeremy Bird said, "If you're anything like me, you're still sorting through the events of the past week and a half. It's hard — there's no way to sugarcoat that. Vulnerable communities are feeling like this country has turned its back on them. And years of hard work are on the chopping block, seemingly overnight.
"Maybe you're feeling disillusioned, cynical, or frustrated. But now is not the time to walk away — now is the time to get in the ring and fight harder than we ever have before."
His full email is below:
If you're anything like me, you're still sorting through the events of the past week and a half. It's hard — there's no way to sugarcoat that. Vulnerable communities are feeling like this country has turned its back on them. And years of hard work are on the chopping block, seemingly overnight.
Maybe you're feeling disillusioned, cynical, or frustrated. But now is not the time to walk away — now is the time to get in the ring and fight harder than we ever have before.
Everyone knows what's at stake.
If you've been an active part of this movement, we need you to double down. If you're just joining us or want a constructive way to start organizing in your community, now is the time to roll up your sleeves and get involved. Don't ever think that you can't make a difference.
We need you.
Your voice, your compassion, and your actions have never been more important than they are today, right now. OFA leaders, volunteers, trainers, supporters, and staff are here, and we're not going anywhere.
Progress is never easy. But we've never been here for the easy fights.
Let's get to work.
Never been more fired up. Still ready to go,
Jeremy
Jeremy Bird
Organizing for Action Advisory Board
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ba...rticle/2607836
#Calexit secession effort begins signature gathering to be on California ballot
https://img.rt.com/files/2016.11/ori...02128b46e0.jpg
Published time: 22 Nov, 2016 04:01
Supporters of Californian independence have taken the first real step towards secession from the US, submitting a ballot proposal to the state attorney general. Should the option garner enough support, 'Calexit' might become an issue.
A group called ‘Yes California Independence Campaign’ filed their proposal with the attorney general’s office, asking to “prepare a circulating title and summary of the enclosed ballot measure: "Calexit: The California Independence Plebiscite of 2019.”
Secession supporters want to repeal the California Constitution’s wording as well as offer a “yes/no” question on California’s independence.
“In the Spring of 2019, Californians will go to the polls in a historic vote to decide by referendum if California should exit the Union, a #Calexit vote,” the group said on its website.
Before 2019, however, the idea must garner enough preliminary support via the November 2018 ballot. Under the group’s proposal, the Golden State would be cut loose if 50 percent of voters cast ballots and at least 55 percent of them support Calexit. In that case, they also want the “newly-independent Republic of California” to be able to join the United Nations.
For the separation vote to take place at all, the group first needs to make sure that the state’s constitution is changed.
As of now, Article III, Section 1 of the California Constitution reads that California is “an inseparable part” of the US, meaning that the so-called Calexit, a take-off of the British Brexit anti-EU vote, is illegal in the first place. This is what Yes California Independence Campaign wants to change and, thus, clear a path to independence.
Still, the group needs nearly a half-million signatures for the referendum to appear on the November 2018 gubernatorial ballot. It is now asking people to sign a petition for the vote be established.
President of the Yes California Independence Campaign Louis Marinelli has tried to get the referendum on the ballot in the past, but has yet to reach the 400,000 signatures needed to appear on the ballot. This time, the Yes Campaign supporters are hopeful.
“We will have six months to collect some 585,407 valid signatures. We're shooting for one million,” they said.
The group has been around since 2014, but the idea of California’s secession has only gained momentum since President-elect Donald Trump’s victory.
https://www.rt.com/usa/367752-calexi...ession-ballot/
I would LOVE to see California do it. DO it. Do it NOW. If you want to LIVE.... lol
Fuckers are so God Damned stupid. They have NO fucking idea how to fight with a rolled up newspaper, let alone guns. And they have rolled up newspapers.
Hey California,
http://i.imgur.com/djdAR0v.gif
California leaving would soooo screw over the liberals left in the rest of the US. Those 35 electoral college votes are Democrat locked in votes. It's just a given they will go to whatever Democrat candidate. Now they're gone? BWAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAaaa! Suddenly the EC playing field just got a lot tougher for the Left.
The Divide Between Red and Blue America Grew Even Deeper in 2016
November 10, 2016
Counties that voted for the Republican or Democratic presidential candidate by 20 percentage points or more
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The proportion of voters living in counties that were won in a landslide for the Democratic or Republican presidential candidate has steadily increased over the last seven elections and now makes up a whopping 60 percent of the electorate.
Nearly all of this 10-point increase from 2012 came from Republicans in rural and small-town America, who swept Donald J. Trump into office.
For the first time since 2004, the last time a Republican won the White House, the voters in the less populous but more numerous deep red counties accounted for a greater share of the total vote than those in the far fewer but more populous bluest ones.
In 1992, 38 percent of voters lived in one of these landslide counties, defined here as being won by 20 percentage points or more. This shift reflects the growing tendency of like-minded people to live near one another, according to Bill Bishop, a co-author of “The Big Sort,” a 2008 book that identified this phenomenon.
Mr. Bishop said Americans have been self-segregating by lifestyle, though not necessarily politics, for several decades, but lifestyle has grown to reflect politics. “We’re sorting by the way we live, think and — it turns out — every four years or every two years, how we vote.”
(There's a whole bunch of animated info-graphics at the link that won't copy over.)
Liberal Preppers Stock Up On Guns, Food As Trumpocalypse Looms
With Trump on the horizon, the survivalist movement — long a pastime of the right — is picking up progressive converts fast
January 17, 2017
Colin Waugh bought a shotgun four weeks before November’s election.
An unapologetic liberal, he was no fan of firearms. He had never owned one before. But Waugh, a 31-year-old from Independence, Missouri, couldn’t shake his fears of a Donald Trump presidency — and all of the chaos it could bring. He imagined hate crimes and violence waged by extremists emboldened by the Republican nominee’s brash, divisive rhetoric. He pictured state-sanctioned roundups of Muslims, gays, and outspoken critics.
“I kept asking myself, ‘Do I want to live under tyranny?'” said Waugh, who supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and later backed Hillary Clinton. “The answer was absolutely not.”
With Trump now days away from assuming the White House, Waugh’s preparing for the worst. He’s made “bug-out bags” stuffed with ammo, energy bars, and assorted survival gear for his wife and their three cats. He’s begun stowing water and browsing real estate listings in Gunnison County, Colorado, which he’s determined to be a “liberal safe-haven.” Last month, Waugh added a 9mm handgun to his arsenal.
His advice to others on the left fearful of the next four years? “Get ready. Pay attention. Keep your wits about you.”
Waugh’s not alone. He is among a new cadre embracing extreme self-reliance in the wake of Trump’s surprising victory. Long a calling among conservatives spooked by big government boogymen and calamitous natural disasters, the so-called prepper movement is gaining a decisively liberal following.
“We’re tired of being perceived as wusses who won’t survive when shit hits the fan,” said Stacy, a Texas Democrat who recently caught the prepper bug. She spoke with Vocativ on the condition we not publish her last name. “I, for one, don’t like to be thought of as some precious snowflake.”
After years cast as a fringe survival group, preppers entered a kind of golden age during the Obama presidency. A horrific housing crash and the spectacle of Hurricane Sandy helped give rise to reality television shows like Doomsday Preppers and Doomsday Bunker, and fueled a multi-billion dollar survival industry. Branded by some as a foreign-born, gun-grabbing socialist, Obama aroused deep suspicion among the patriot groups, right-wing conservatives, and apocalyptic Christians at the center of the growing movement.
Trump’s provocative posturing and unpredictability is now inspiring a fresh wave of panic on the left. Those who spoke with Vocativ have envisioned scenarios that could lead to military coups led by loyalists of the president-elect and internment camps packed with political opponents, bloody social unrest and an all-out civil or nuclear war. Sound bonkers? Perhaps. But, for many, so was the prospect of a President Trump.
“It’s the nature of the political beast,” said Kevin O’Brien, a conservative prepper and realtor who specializes in off-the-grid properties in eastern Tennessee. “Obama had many on the right really wound up. Now it’s the left’s turn.”
The signs of change are surely in the air. Groups that cater to gun-toting bleeding hearts — such as the aptly named Liberal Gun Club — say they’ve seen a surge in paid membership since the election. Candid talk of disaster preparedness among progressives is showing up on social media. Even companies that outfit luxury “safe rooms” — which protect their wealthy owners from bombs, bullets, and chemical attacks — attribute recent boosts in business to the incoming administration.
“I don’t think we’d have the same level of interest if Hillary had been elected president,” Tom Gaffney, whose fortified home shelters at Gaffco Ballistics run as high as $400,000, told Vocativ in an interview.
Looking for likeminded folks to weather the Trumpocalypse, Waugh started a private Facebook group called the Liberal Prepper shortly after the election. In nine weeks, it’s drummed up more than 750 members, all of whom are individually screened and vetted, Waugh said. Dozens more flock to it daily.
Few are wasting precious time. They trade tips on survival swag and solicit recommendations for solar panels, firearms, and raising chickens. There are discussions on homesteading and home safety. Links to news stories about the president-elect or signs of instability around the globe are never in short supply.
Occasionally, posts on the Liberal Prepper seem to veer close to parody. One debate thread last week centered around the merits of stocking up on recycled toilet paper rolls versus buying Angel Soft, a brand produced by Koch industries, a notorious climate change foe. And in another discussion, vegetarian and vegan members talked about the best meat- and dairy-free food supplies to have during a sustained crisis.
In a smaller Facebook group, Progressive Liberal Preppers, members who blacksmith, bow hunt, and operate ham radios are eager to teach their skills with others, said one the site’s administrators, who goes by the name of Blythe Bonnie. “The next thing we’re going to do is a class on home brewing and winemaking,” said Bonnie, a lifelong Democrat and 70-year-old now living in Arkansas.
While most of these liberal preppers say they are readying for any disaster — natural, manmade, or even zombie — a doomsday scenario at the hands of a President Trump continues to be a primary concern.
“With the new administration I worry about Nazi-style camps that would include my wife, our twins and myself,” said Melissa Letos, who lives with her family on a five-acre spread near Portland, Oregon. In a recent interview, she said she raises chickens, strives to keep a year’s supply of canned food, and is able to hold her own with a firearm. She and her family plan to a build a bunker-style basement in the future.
Even as Letos and other liberals brace for bedlam, some longtime preppers worry that others in the movement have let their guard down. Michael Snyder, author of The Economic Collapse blog, recently warned against those on the right who seemed overly optimistic about a Trump presidency. “Everyone is feeling so good about things, very few people still seem interested in prepping for hard times ahead,” he wrote, raising the specter of financial instability in Europe and a potential trade war with China. “It is almost as if the apocalypse has been canceled and the future history of the U.S. has been rewritten with a much happier ending.”
For Waugh and his liberal peers, the apocalypse may have just begun. “Fear is an unfortunate catalyst for a lot of folks,” he said. “But there are still too many caught up in the idea that the system is infallible and that it will persevere and prevail.”
I'm seeing this already....
I'm seeing lefties joining my NJ gun forum and asking about purchases and such.
:lool: I hope you've advised them on only the finest Hi-Point, Jimenez, and Raven offerings available. http://i.imgur.com/qAVTUOu.gif
Let them buy all the 12 gauges and .22s they want. Joke's on them! Some of us can see in the dark... http://i.imgur.com/mWXDwBK.png
On the topic of the thread, saw this earlier...
California Strikes a Bold Pose as Vanguard of the Resistance
January 18, 2017
In the months since the election of Donald J. Trump, California has turned into a laboratory of resistance — championing legal, legislative and political strategies to counter Republican policies while pressing the kind of new Democratic policies that presumably will not be coming out of Washington anytime soon.
The state lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, who is running for governor, said California could use its stringent environmental protection law to block Mr. Trump from building a wall along the Mexican border. In Sacramento, Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers are pressing bills to expand environmental protections, provide legal assistance for immigrants facing deportation and raise gasoline taxes to pay for highway construction.
“An earned-income tax credit,” said Anthony Rendon, the speaker of the Assembly. “Huge infusions for early-childhood education. Those types of things are certainly things that we are interested in doing.”
Democratic members of the California delegation to Congress are lining up to announce they will not attend the inauguration of Mr. Trump. And in Los Angeles, Sheila Kuehl, a member of the powerful county board of supervisors, has started what she has called “Operation Monkey Wrench,” urging people, including state and federal government workers, to systematically disrupt Trump policies that run counter to California laws and policies.
“I am encouraging people to engage in any way they can to slow down anything that might come from the federal departments and Congress,” she said. “You can’t just be dormant when fascism is growing.”
It may not be “Calexit” — the name of a decidedly quixotic campaign for California to withdraw from the union — but it is turning into what is, for all intents and purposes, a slow-motion secession.
California is becoming to Mr. Trump what Texas — which is as Republican as California is Democratic — was to President Obama: a sea of defiance and a potential source of unending legal and legislative challenges. Texas sued the federal government more than 40 times in recent years, moving to block an influx of Syrian refugees and to stymie air pollution regulations and Mr. Obama’s health care plan. Earlier this month, Democrats in the California state legislature hired Eric H. Holder, the former attorney general, in anticipation of a run of legal battles with the Trump White House.
“We will definitely not sit by idly as the Trump administration tries to deport immigrants, throw people off health care, ignore climate change and steal our water,” said Scott Wiener, a former member of the San Francisco board of supervisors who was just elected to the State Senate. “It’s about playing defense to whatever the administration throws at us — but also offense in terms of continuing California’s push for progressive social change.”
Antonio R. Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles who is running for governor, said threatening to actually secede was the wrong response to what he described as policies that could be devastating for this state.
“I hear a lot of talk about Calexit,” he said. “The last time a state tried to leave the union there was a civil war. I think it would be a lot more productive for us just to double down on what we do well.”
For all the talk of defiance, and political considerations are certainly at play in the early war footing taken by leaders in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, there are great risks to assuming this confrontational stance from the outset.
For one thing, it could invite retribution from Mr. Trump, who has not seemed inclined to turn the other cheek.
For another, California could find itself at the end of the line should Mr. Trump proceed with the extensive infrastructure program he has pledged. It might also find itself in a difficult position in the event of the kind of natural disaster where states need to turn to the federal government for assistance; some Republicans in Congress opposed giving federal aid to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
“You don’t want to paint yourself into a corner where you lose your ability to negotiate,” said Ted Gaines, a Republican senator who represents a rural district east of Sacramento. “They’d be better off offering an olive branch rather than setting down a pathway that may make it difficult to back off.”
“I think it’s premature,” Mr. Gaines said. “If they want to come out fighting, I think that hurts the relationship in the long term.”
Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a former aide to Pete Wilson, a Republican governor, said that he thought Democrats were “playing to the crowd.” But he described the approach as a short-term strategy with risky long-term implications.
“Trump likes to bully. He does not like to be bullied. And he likes to have the last word,” he said. “There are going to be millions of dollars to be spent across the country on infrastructure. Why would you want to end up on Donald Trump’s blacklist? You could end up on that list anyway. But why pick a fight?”
All of this has unnerved some in the business community.
“This is all based on the president-elect’s campaign messaging,” said Allan Zaremberg, the chief executive of the California Chamber of Commerce. “We don’t know how that is going to manifest in action.”
Jimmy Gomez, a Democratic assemblyman running for Congress, said he was not worried about any kind of retribution. “That would be an overreach for one president to punish one state,” he said. “When they do political payback not based on policy, but based on whether you are with them or against them, we will use that against them. If California doesn’t do well economically, the country doesn’t do well economically.”
California’s economy is the sixth-largest in the world.
There are parts of this state, however, that showed considerable support for Mr. Trump, and that would applaud efforts, for example, to roll back air pollution regulations.
The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District — which regulates air quality in one of the dirtiest areas of the nation — is looking to President Trump’s transition team to amend the federal Clean Air Act, said Mark Keppler, a professor of public affairs at the California State University in Fresno, noting one example.
And there are limits to what the state can do. Mr. Brown, in a budget he presented last week, projected a $1.6 billion shortfall by next summer, which means it will be difficult for California to promote the kind of spending program lawmakers want to make up for cuts in Washington, particularly on health care. The legal efforts being threatened — by Mr. Holder for the legislature and by Xavier Becerra, whom Mr. Brown just tapped to be attorney general — could delay some actions by the Trump White House, but won’t necessarily block them.
Still, Democrats overwhelmingly control California, and the thinking about Mr. Trump appears to be uniform: The state is entering rough waters. Mr. Trump could move to cut off funds for so-called sanctuary cities accommodating illegal immigrants, such as San Francisco; sharply cut federal aid that was part of President Obama’s health care program; or use regulatory powers to try to halt this state’s aggressive policies to reduce carbon emissions.
“The impact of anything coming out of Washington is going to be so difficult for California that we are almost thrown into survival mode,” said Ms. Kuehl, who has been in public office since 1994. She said she had urged people — “everyone: local and state governments, staff of federal agencies, nonprofits, neighborhood groups” — to aggressively try to impede any policies pushed by Mr. Trump that undercut California laws or policies.
“I said ‘If you have to lie, cheat and steal, do it,’” Ms. Kuehl said. “Take federal money and just tell them you are going to do whatever they want.”
America’s Second Civil War
We’re in a fight over basic values.
January 24, 2017
By Dennis Prager
It is time that our society acknowledge a sad truth: America is currently fighting its Second Civil War.
In fact, with the obvious and enormous exception of attitudes toward slavery, Americans are more divided morally, ideologically, and politically today than they were during the Civil War. For that reason, just as the Great War came to be known as the First World War once there was a Second World War, the Civil War will become known as the First Civil War when more Americans come to regard the current battle as the Second Civil War.
This Second Civil War, fortunately, differs in one other critically important way: It has thus far been largely non-violent. But given the increasing left-wing violence such as riots, the violent taking over of college presidents’ offices, and the illegal occupation of state capitols, non-violence is not guaranteed to be a permanent characteristic of the Second Civil War.
There are those on both the left and the right who call for American “unity.” But these calls are either naïve or disingenuous. Unity was possible between the Right and liberals, but not between the Right and the Left.
Liberalism – which was anti-Left, pro-American, and deeply committed to the Judeo-Christian foundations of America, regarded the melting pot as the American ideal, fought for free speech for its opponents, regarded Western civilization as the greatest moral and artistic human achievement, and viewed the celebration of racial identity as racism – is now affirmed almost exclusively on the right and among a handful of people who don’t call themselves conservative.
The Left, however, is opposed to every one of those core principles of liberalism.
Like the Left in every other country, the Left in America sees America as essentially a racist, xenophobic, colonialist, imperialist, war-mongering, money-worshipping, moronically religious nation.
Just as in Western Europe, the Left in America seeks to erase America’s Judeo-Christian foundations. The melting pot is regarded as nothing more than an anti-black, anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic meme. The Left suppresses free speech, wherever possible, for those who oppose it, labeling all non-Left speech “hate speech.” To cite only one example, if you think Shakespeare was the greatest playwright, or Bach the greatest composer, you are a proponent of Dead White European Males and therefore racist.
Without any important value held in common, how can there be unity between Left and non-Left? Obviously, there cannot.
There will be unity only when the Left vanquishes the Right or the Right vanquishes the Left. Using the First Civil War analogy, American unity was achieved only after the South was vanquished and slavery abolished.
How are those of us who oppose left-wing nihilism – there is no other word for an ideology that holds Western civilization and America’s core values in contempt – supposed to unite with “educators” who instruct elementary-school teachers to cease calling their students “boys and girls” because that implies gender identity? With English departments that don’t require reading Shakespeare in order to receive a degree in English? With those who regard virtually every war America fought as imperialist and immoral? With those who regard the free market as a form of oppression? With those who want the state to control as much of American life as possible? With those who repeatedly tell America and its black minority that the greatest problems afflicting black Americans are all caused by white racism, “white privilege,” and “systemic racism”? With those who think that the nuclear-family ideal is inherently misogynistic and homophobic? With those who hold that Israel is the villain in the Middle East? With those who claim that the term “Islamic terrorist” is an expression of religious bigotry?
The third significant difference between the First and Second Civil Wars is that one side has been doing nearly all the fighting. That is how it has been able to take over schools – from elementary schools to high schools to the universities – and indoctrinate America’s young people; how it has taken over nearly all the news media; and how it has taken over the entertainment media.
The conservative side has lost on every one of these fronts because it has rarely fought back with anything near the ferocity with which the Left fights. Name a Republican politician who has run against the Left, as opposed to running solely against his or her Democratic opponent. And nearly all American conservatives, people who are proud of America and affirm its basic tenets, readily send their children to schools that indoctrinate their children against everything the parents hold precious. A mere handful protest when their child’s teacher ceases calling their son a boy or their daughter a girl, or makes “slave owner” the defining characteristic of the Founding Fathers.
With the defeat of the Left in the last presidential election, the defeat of the Left in two-thirds of the gubernatorial elections and in a majority of House and Senate elections, this is likely the last chance liberals, conservatives, and the Right have to defeat the American Left. But it will not happen until these groups understand that we are fighting for the survival of America no less than the Union troops were in the First Civil War.
Oh, look at the precious snowflake, wants to take back his country...from what exactly?
From the backwater, gun-toting, bible-thumping, cis-normative, homophobic, xenophobic, racist, womyn-hating, inbred, shit lords that are keeping us from progressing and joining the world community.
(Did I get a Buzzword Bingo?)
And in other news...
More Californians Dreaming Of A Country Without Trump: Poll
January 24, 2017
The election of Republican businessman Donald Trump as president of the United States has some Californians dreaming - of their own country.
One in every three California residents supports the most populous U.S. state's peaceful withdrawal from the union, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, many of them Democrats strongly opposed to Trump's ascension to the country's highest office.
The 32 percent support rate is sharply higher than the last time the poll asked Californians about secession, in 2014, when one-in-five or 20 percent favored it around the time Scotland held its independence referendum and voted to remain in the United Kingdom.
California also far surpasses the national average favoring secession, which stood at 22 percent, down from 24 percent in 2014.
The poll surveyed 500 Californians among more than 14,000 adults nationwide from Dec. 6 to Jan. 19 and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of one percentage point nationally and five percentage points in California.
The idea of secession is largely a settled matter in the United States, though the impulse to break away carries on in some corners of the country, most notably in Texas.
While interest has remained about the same nationwide, it has found more favor in California and the concept has even earned a catchy name - "Calexit."
"I don't think it's likely to happen, but if things get really bad it could be an option," said Stephen Miller, 70, a retired transportation planner who lives in Sacramento and told pollsters he "tended to support" secession.
During the campaign, Trump alienated many in the Democratic-leaning state with his promises to crack down on illegal immigration, threats of creating a Muslim registry, remarks women found offensive and vows to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
"There's such hostility towards Trump that many citizens believe it would be smarter to leave than fight," said Democratic political consultant Steve Maviglio, who last year ran the campaign against a proposed ballot initiative to break California into six states.
ANTI-TRUMP PROTESTS
With 39 million residents and the sixth-largest economy in the world, California is already a nation-state, Maviglio said. In November's election, the state broke nearly two-to-one in favor of Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
In practice, secession is highly unlikely, facing political, legal and possibly even military obstacles, considering that the United States fought the Civil War over the secession of the South, Maviglio and others said.
Trump's election gave a huge boost to the quixotic campaign to remove California from the United States called Yes California, run by a former conservative turned progressive who now lives in Russia.
Dubbed "Calexit" by pundits comparing the effort to "Brexit" - Britain's vote to withdraw from the European Union - Yes California's email list jumped from fewer than 2,500 before the election to 115,069 currently, the group's president, Louis Marinelli, said in a telephone interview.
Marinelli, who moved to Yekaterinburg, about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) east of Moscow, in September and has lived in Russia on and off for several years, said he became disenchanted with the United States after difficulties arose with the immigration process for his Russian-born wife.
On Friday, activists from the group waved signs saying "California out of the United States" and "U.S. out of California" at anti-Trump protests in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Marinelli said. They have requested approval from the state to begin collecting signatures for a pro-secession ballot initiative.
In Lodi, California, Democratic party activist Bruce Rubly, who told Reuters/Ipsos pollsters that he "strongly supported" California secession, said he thinks it could happen if Trump and the Republicans who dominate the U.S. Congress impose conservative policies on such issues as the environment, immigration and marijuana legalization.
"There's a whole series of things that are going to get Californians riled up," said Rubly, 68. "And if he pushes those buttons in the wrong way, there's going to be hell to pay."
I don't see why we couldn't just make that wall hang a right at the end of Arizona and head north...
California Threatens To Cut Off Funds To Washington
by Tyler Durden
Jan 28, 2017 4:45 PM
With secession threats looming, the state of California is reportedly studying ways to suspend financial transfers to Washington after the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal money from sanctuary cities.
With California counties among the Top 10 who stand to lose tax-payer funding for providing sanctuary to illegal immigrants...
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KPIX5 reports that officials are looking for money that flows through Sacramento to the federal government that could be used to offset the potential loss of billions of dollars’ worth of federal funds if President Trump makes good on his threat to punish cities and states that don’t cooperate with federal agents’ requests to turn over undocumented immigrants, a senior government source in Sacramento said.
The federal funds pay for a variety of state and local programs from law enforcement to homeless shelters.California is among a handful of so-called “donor states,” which pay more in taxes to the federal Treasury than they receive in government funding.
“California could very well become an organized non-payer,” said Willie Brown, Jr, a former speaker of the state Assembly in an interview recorded Friday for KPIX 5’s Sunday morning news.
“They could recommend non-compliance with the federal tax code.”
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-28/california-threatens-cut-funds-washington