California, Sanctuary, Open Borders, de Facto Secession, and the Constitution

IS CALIFORNIA STILL A STATE? Or is it a country currently attached to the United States of America? • • • SANCTUARY FOR ALL. That is the newly inaugurated Democrat California governor's position. American Thinker's Rick Moran discussed this in an article published on Monday. California governor Gavin Newsom, in his inauguration address called for "sanctuary to all who seek it?" Moran stated, rather quietly considering the enormity of the governor's remarks, that : "Even for a liberal, Newsom's laundry list of promises leaves one gasping for air." • TV station KCAL reported the governor's first address to the people of California : " 'People's lives, freedom, security, the water we drink, the air we breathe -- they all hang in the balance,' Newsom, 51, told a crowd of hundreds packed into a tent outside the state Capitol. He says children should not be 'ripped away from their parents' at the border, and they also shouldn't be left hungry while Trump pledges to spend billions of dollars on 'a wall that should never be built.' While he avoided referencing Trump by name, Newsom referred to the administration as corrupt and incompetent and promised California will 'write America's future.' Even as he needled Trump, Newsom offered an overture to voters in rural California, millions of whom voted for Trump and John Cox, Newsom's Republican rival in November. 'I recognize that many in our rural communities believe that Sacramento doesn't care about them -- doesn't even really see them," he said. 'I see you. I care about you. And I will represent you with pride.' " • Then, Newsom got down to his central theme -- he promised "sanctuary for all who seek it." KCAL pointed out one audience member with press credentials who begged to differ : 'Newsom, accompanied on stage at the State Capitol in Sacramento by his wife and children, was about to be sworn in as California's 40th governor when a man in the crowd began yelling, 'I object!' The crowd began booing the man as he voiced his opposition to California's sanctuary state law and the lawmakers who support it. 'Corporal Ronil Singh's blood is on your hands! Shame on you! Shame on you!' the protester yelled as he was being walked out, referring to the California police officer who was gunned down last month, allegedly by an illegal immigrant who had prior arrests.' " • A worrisome start for a governor who promised to see and and represent all Californians. • The San Francisco Chronicle also reported the governor's speech : " 'It is up to us to renew the California dream for a new generation. And now more than ever, it is up to us to defend it,' Newsom said. 'But there is an administration in Washington clearly hostile to California's values and California's interests.' The former San Francisco mayor painted a picture of California as a virtual 'nation-state,' one that will push beyond the strictures proposed by the GOP leaders in Washington toward a more Progressive future....Newsom talked about the need for a range of programs to shore up California's safety net and deal with problems 'that have been deferred too long' amid the state's growing prosperity, such as homelessness and chronic hunger. 'These aren't merely policy problems,' he said. 'They are moral imperatives. So long as they persist, each and every one of us is diminished.' Like all inaugural speeches, Newsom's talk was long on vision and short on specifics. He called for a 'Marshall Plan' for affordable housing and fair pay for workers and said the state will 'never waver in our pursuit of guaranteed health care for all Californians,' but he was silent on exactly how the state will pay for those new initiatives." • Ah ha, who will pay for all this bounty meted out to sanctuary seekers and those seeking guaranteed health care, aka 'Medicaid for All' ?? You guessed right -- the citizens of California, both those who voted for this train wreck of a Progressive Democrat and those who did not. And, says Rick Moran, "with a supermajority of Democrats in the state legislature and the Republican opposition more concerned about trying to explain why voters don't like them than actually fighting for sanity, Newsom will be able to pass just about any weird, wild, cockamamie scheme he wants. The voters have become so used to 'free' stuff that they won't care, either. Eventually, people and businesses will vote with their feet and head off to live in some other liberal paradise where, after a couple of years, they will trash that state, too. But it's all for our own good. Just ask them." • • • CALIFORNIA -- A LAND UNTO ITSELF. When we ask if California is still a state within the United States of America, the answer seems to be 'less and less.' There is no crime of 'secession,' so ProgDem leaders can tax-and-spend a state into abject poverty -- Illinois is already well on the way to becoming permanently bankrupt. And, according to a January, 2017, study, “California state and local governments owe $1.3 trillion as of June 30, 2015.” The study was based on “a review of federal, state and local financial disclosures.” In other words, that $1.3 trillion in debt is the amount that California governments are willing to admit to. Many economists say that California is currently going through a financial tragedy, with a projected budget deficit of $19 billion in 2017. What's more unnerving is that California is currently ranked the 9th largest economy in the world -- California's economy of $2.7 trillion sits behind the United States, China, Japan and Germany. California's large economy is attributed to its thriving tech sector and Hollywood, according to the Associated Press. It has 12% of the US population, but has contributed 16% of total job growth between 2012 and 2017. With a population of over 37 million and a suffocating cost of living, California uses its income plus borrowing -- mostly from bond issues that are readily approved by California voters and taken by bond market buyers because of California's economy of $2.7 trillion and low debt-to-GDP ratio -- to support an inordinate number of households receiving public assistance. With $103 billion going toward welfare in 2017, California's spending on the financially needy is more than the next two states on the list combined. • Forbes wrote in April in an article by Tom Del Beccaro : "California is a place unlike any other on the Globe. It boasts perhaps the greatest natural resources of any state along with shining high-tech industries. However, like many good economic stories, government policies threaten its future. Indeed, its government has made California unsustainable. Of course, it wasn’t always this way. As the 1960s came to a close in California, it had a population of nearly twenty million. In the decade before, its economic strength afforded the construction of a vast State Water Project and higher education system that was the envy of the world. Matched with a majestic and trade friendly coastline, along with visionary business leaders, California’s future seemed secured. No more -- and here are the four major reasons California is at such great risk. INFRASTRUCTURE DEFICIT. Forbes states : "That vast State Water Project was designed for a population not much greater than 25 million. Today, on any one day, California verges on nearly 40 million people within its borders and is projected to reach 50 million if not higher. The state’s water system remains essentially is as it was in the 1960s. As for its roads, a recent headline declared that 'California’s roads are some of the poorest in the nation and rapidly getting worse....5.5% of bridges are rated structurally deficient. Drinking water needs in California are an estimated $44.5 billion, and wastewater needs total $26.2 billion. 678 dams are considered to be high-hazard potential. The state’s schools have an estimated capital expenditure gap of $3.2 billion.' In 2017, California’s Governor Jerry Brown estimated California was facing $187 billion in unmet infrastructure needs.' However, the Bay Area Council Economic Institute 'pegs the cost of California’s unfunded infrastructure needs at up to $737 billion and possibly as much as $765 billion.' " GOVERNMENT DEBT. Forbes says : "According to a January 2017 study, 'California state and local governments owe $1.3 trillion as of June 30, 2015.'....Other studies believe it to be more. Indeed, one study says it is actually $2.3 trillion and a recent Hoover Institute stated that there is over $1 trillion in pension liability alone, or $76,884 per household. Incredibly, there are 4 million current pension beneficiaries, a number that continues to grow and which exceeds the total population of 22 states. What’s the right number? Apparently, it is so large it is hard to accurately estimate. In every case, the number is staggering." TAXES AND REGULATION. According to Forbes : "California is likely the most regulated state in the Country, if not the World. California also is among the highest taxed states in the nation. California has the highest income tax rates. The top rate is 13.3%. The next closest top tax rate is in Oregon at 9.9%. However, Oregon does not have a sales tax. California has the 10th highest sales tax. What is remarkable about the California income tax isn’t just that it has the highest rate, it is how little income it takes, just above $52,000, to qualify for California rate of 9.3%. Given the high cost of living in California, that means many Californians are subject to that rate. On the other hand, for more than a decade, less than 150,000 of California’s 35+ million people pay half of all of its income tax -- a highly imbalanced system....those prolonged high taxes, debt burden and regulations limit California’s economic future. After all, why would businesses locate in California in the future with the impending tax-armageddon that must be in the offing? Also, California’s middle class has been hollowed. A recent CNBC headline read : 'Californians fed up with housing costs and taxes are fleeing state in big numbers.' Where are they going? Many have left for low tax states offering more jobs than California. They have been replaced by those taking advantage of California’s magnet government policies, which increase California’s long-term spending needs. For those that remain, according to Smartasset.com 'California has the highest debt-to-income ratio in the country.'....demographer Joel Kotkin concluded that 'the state is run for the very rich, the very poor, and the public employees.' It is also how California found itself with the worst poverty problem and why 'California ranks dead last among US states in quality of life, according to a study by U.S. News.' ” GOVERNMENT. Forbes states : "...the number one reason California is not sustainable....California spends nearly $200 billion a year on budget and even more off-budget in the form of programs paid with bonds, i.e., debt financing. As for the pension debt, of that nearly $200 billion, in the most recent budget less than $2 billion was allocated to paying down that pension debt. More than that was spent this year on a high-speed rail project currently estimated to cost $70 billion and which no one seems to want....California is moving ever farther left and wants the nation to pay for it. The next generation of leaders, Gavin Newsom, Kevin de Leon, Xavier Becerra and Kamala Harris, are significantly to the Left of the old (and 'conservative' by comparison) Jerry Brown and Diane Feinstein. That new generation of leaders is supported by an influx of friendly voters who are replacing those that are leaving. All of those leaders support the dozens of lawsuits brought by the Democrat Attorney General Xavier Becerra against the Trump Administration. Many describe those lawsuits as part of California Democrats resistance movement -- a resistance designed to result in political gains more than policy benefits. Gavin Newsom, Kevin de Leon, Xavier Becerra and Kamala Harris also support some form of significantly expanded healthcare benefits if not universal healthcare -- which is estimated to cost as much as $400 billion a year (that is not a typo). All of them support the California magnet policies that attracted so many of those in California illegally. In fact, there is no indication that the next generation has any concern for the future debt. Instead, they support higher taxes....Within a decade you can expect higher income taxes and sales taxes. There is always a movement afoot to do away with California’s landmark property tax protection known as Prop 13. You also can expect a service tax -- a tax on lawyers and accountants as well as hairdressers and gardeners. That service tax would be on top of the existing income tax. Beyond all of that, sooner or later an asset tax will be proposed. California counties already collect an asset tax on businesses. Look for that to be proposed statewide as California lurches ever farther to the Left and is forced to confront future debt." • • • CALIFORNIA IS THE FORERUNNER OF A SOCIALIST UNITED STATES. Forbes says that if you are living in one of the 49 other states, you should learn from the lesson that is California. If you are living in California, there is always the lesson of how Michigan came to be governed by a more centrist [Republican] government. Of course, that came after the failure of the prior government. For now, however, for all its concern for sustainable foods and products, California is on a high-speed rail to unsustainability. • The Corruption Chronicles (Judicial Watch Blog) wrote on Wednesday : "Weeks after mainstream media outlets reported that illegal immigrants don’t bring disease into the United States, the Border Patrol reveals that it is getting slammed daily with dozens of illegal immigrants carrying 'serious illnesses.' This includes tuberculosis, influenza and pneumonia....Federal agents are referring 50 illegal immigrants a day for urgent medical care....Many of the migrants have tuberculosis, parasites or the flu, the feds confirm. There are also lots of pregnant women about to give birth....One story, published by NBC news and reiterated by various other outlets, focused on a study commissioned by a medical journal. One of the researchers received lots of print for declaring that migrants spreading disease is a 'false argument' used to keep them out. The editor of the medical journal that conducted the study was quoted saying this : 'In too many countries, the issue of migration is used to divide societies and advance a populist agenda.' The biased coverage marked a great example of the mainstream media distorting information to promote a liberal agenda." Corruption Chronicles draws a comparison : "[Venezuela] migrants are spreading malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, dengue, tuberculosis and AIDS throughout South America. Many of the diseases had been considered eradicated in the neighboring Latin American countries, according to government officials....As an example,...'measles reappeared with a vengeance' in a Brazilian city near the Venezuelan border that had declared the highly contagious airborne disease 'vanquished' nearly two decades ago. 'Measles is already spreading beyond the Brazilian Amazon to other Brazilian states, as well as Colombia, Peru and as far south as Argentina, according to recent Pan American Health Organization reports,'....Other diseases racing through communities in Venezuela are now crossing borders and raising concerns among health authorities as far away as the US.” • California, with its sanctuary state law and open border policy, attracts these illegal immigrants with their needs -- welfare for food, clothing, and shelter, and medical care to be healed and to prevent disease spreading to California's legal residents. • Newsmax reported on Wednesday that President Trump said he has ordered a halt to federal emergency funds for California to fight wildfires and manage its forests unless officials in the western US state can "get their act together." The President tweeted : "Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!" • Insurance claims from the recent round of California wildfires, including one ranked as the most deadly and destructive in state history, have topped $9 billion and are expected to grow, the state insurance commissioner reported last month. California utility company PG&E Corp is exploring filing some or all of its business for bankruptcy protection as it faces billions of dollars in liabilities related to fatal wildfires in 2018 and 2017, people familiar with the matter say. California's former top firefighter, Ken Pimlott, disagrees with President Trump's assessment. He said last month that California leads the nation in clearing away dead trees and thinning areas to remove fuel for fires. • Whatever the reason, wildfires are sweeping through California at a growing rate. Is it a lack of government funding for forest management, or a lack of water to support forest fire extinguishment, or simply the green-socialist view of the world -- forest fires are natural. • The Patriot Post's Mark Alexander wrote on Wednesday about "Pelosi's MSM 'Wrap-Up Smear' Collusion Against Trump." Alexander described it : "It's all about leftists' unquenchable thirst for statist power, and for them, Americans outside the Beltway are just collateral damage in their quest...In a March 2017 interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Pelosi described what she said were smear tactics against Barack Obama. According to Pelosi : 'It's called a wrap-up smear. You make up something. Then you have the press write about it. And then you say, 'Everybody is writing about this charge.' It's a tool of an [authoritarian regime] to just have you always be talking about what you want them to be talking about.' The problem with Pelosi's explanation is that even those with the most rudimentary brainstem activity know that Republicans can't 'have the press write about' whatever they dictate, and then use that as bona fide to make their point. That tactic belongs exclusively to the Democrats, whom the media have long favored. In June, during a House Minority Leader Weekly Briefing recorded by C-SPAN, Pelosi went into more detail about the 'wrap-up smear' strategy : 'It's a diversionary tactic. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You demonize, and then you -- we call it the wrap-up smear. You want to talk about politics? It's called the wrap-up smear. You smear somebody with falsehoods and all the rest, and then you merchandise it, and then you write it, and they'll say, 'See, it's reported in the press that this, this, and this,' so they have that validation that the press reported the smear, and then it's called a wrap-up smear. 'Now I'm going to merchandise the press's report on the smear that we made.' It's a tactic.' Again, she ludicrously claimed that Republicans actually control the Demo/MSM media machine, but the phrase she used to describe tactical political deflection originates with her. Pelosi's corrupt collusion tactics with the mainstream media amount to a gross betrayal of the First Amendment. The resulting perversion of the power of the press completely erodes the historic role it was intended to fill, providing a balanced and truthful check against political corruption. But most of the media has now hitched its wagon to that corruption." • Speaker Pelosi represents a congressional district in the San Francisco, California, area. She is an anti-Constitution California official whose goal is to destroy the freedom of the press guaranteed in the First Amendment by distorting it beyond acceptability with her "wrap-up smear" strategy. She "is" California. • • • SECESSION FOR CALIFORNIA? We usually think of "secession" as being a Civil War phenomenon that began on December 20, 1860, and extended through June 8, 1861, when eleven states in the South severed their ties with the Union. The first seven seceding states of the Lower South set up a provisional government at Montgomery, Alabama. After hostilities began at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, the border states of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the new government, which then moved its capital to Richmond, Virginia. The Union was thus divided approximately on geographic lines. Twenty-one northern and border states retained the style and title of the United States, while the eleven slave states adopted the nomenclature of the Confederate States of America. The border slave states of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri remained with the Union, although they all contributed volunteers to the Confederacy. • History.com tells us that the term secession had been used as early as 1776. South Carolina threatened separation when the Continental Congress sought to tax all the colonies on the basis of a total population count that would include slaves. Secession in this instance and throughout the pre-Civil-War "antebellum" period came to mean the assertion of minority sectional interests against what was perceived to be a hostile or indifferent majority. Secession had been a matter of concern to some members of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Theoretically, secession was bound up closely with Whig thought, which claimed the right of revolution against a despotic government. John Locke argued this theme, and it played a prominent role in the American Revolution. • Any federal republic -- as the United States is -- by its very nature invites challenge to central control. James Madison recognized this and sought at the convention a clause that would prohibit secession from the proposed union once the states had ratified the Constitution. In debate over other points, Madison repeatedly warned that secession or “disunion” was a major concern. The Constitution as written and finally accepted by the states divided the exercise of sovereign power between the states and the national government. By virtue of the fact that it enumerated the powers of the central government, the division was weighted toward the states. Yet much of the Constitution was drawn up in general terms and was susceptible to interpretation that might vary with time and circumstance. • In the Civil War period, it was recognized that the South was committed to an agrarian way of life. It was a land where profitable and efficient plantations worked by slave labor produced cotton for the world market. It was also a land where a majority of its white population was made up of subsistence farmers who lived isolated lives on the edge of poverty and whose literacy rates were low compared with those in the more densely populated North. The South nevertheless was beginning to industrialize, a factor that added to the social tensions surfacing during the 1850s between the haves -- plantation owners and professional groups in the few urban centers -- and the have-nots -- an increasingly restive small-farmer group. Southern leaders were concerned over internal stresses in their society and were increasingly aware of the moral and social repugnance the slave system engendered not only in the North but also in the South's markets in Europe. Southern leadership began as early as 1858 to prepare its region for separation from the Union. Concerned about the loyalty of the border states of Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, the new Lincoln administration went so far as to offer the slave states an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee slavery where it legally existed. Lincoln himself in his inaugural address pledged only to hold federal property that was in the possession of the Union on March 4, 1861. The provisional Confederacy likewise sought vigorously to stimulate secession sentiment in the border states. Had all the border slave states thrown in their lot with one or the other government, there might not have been a war, or conversely, separation might well have become an accomplished fact. As it was, however, the prompt action of the Lincoln administration after the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter secured Maryland and Delaware for the Union. Kentucky proclaimed its neutrality but eventually remained loyal to the Union. Missouri, too, though a major battleground for the contending forces, contributed most of its resources in men and matériel to the Union. Once the war began, waves of patriotic sentiment swept over North and South. Vocal political opposition existed on both sides, but it was never strong enough to overthrow either government.But, secession as revolution, an early theme in southern rhetoric, was not emphasized after the formation of the Confederacy. Instead, Thomas Jefferson’s compact theory was enshrined in its Constitution. It is key to remember this -- a nation could not have been formed, nor a war fought, if the states were wholly independent of any central authority. • • • DEAR READERS, behind it all in the 1860s was the unity of a minority geographical region defending a distinct set of institutions that were thought to be under attack. The original federal Union that shared the exercise of power with the states strengthened the concept of secession. The constitutional federal Union also supplied a pretext for southern leaders to seize the initiative and form a separate nation. • Is the secession of California inevitable? It certainly, as a state that is the 5th largest economy in the world, has the resources and economic power to survive independently. But, its government, led by the Progressive-Socialist Democrats whom its citizens keep re-electing, is deficient in self-discipline when it comes to financing California's Progressive agenda. California outspends its income and is 'saved' by bond issues that raise billions of dollars. This gives the state a Fake surplus that is quickly eaten up by its expenditures. There are rumblings of both secession and splitting California into two states, one that is constitutionally conservative and one that is anti-constitutionally Progressive-Socialist. Neither side has thus far put these issues out for a vote on a serious referendum ballot. • But, one thing is clear. The aggressive defiance of the elected leaders of California toward the federal government is growing and it is destructive of the constitutional Union of states. We can add to that list New York. Finally, President Trump, or one of his successors, will have to force California to comply with the Constitution and federal laws. Sanctuary state laws are an open defiance of the Union, as much as firing on Fort Sumter was. The alternative will be to arrive at a de facto admission by the President, whoever he or she is at that moment, and the Department of Justice, that any state can do anything it likes. That would be the end of the Constitution and its Republic. • These issues will probably not be hot topics in the immediate future, but they are fundamental issues that will finally demand attention. However, the brazen and public rejection of Donald Trump as the duly elected President of the United States is the current symptom of the coming storm. Will the issue of building a wall to secure the southern US borders precipitate the constitutional crisis? It certainly could if Speaker Pelosi and her radical Democrat House caucus join forces with California to defy the will of the American people, 79% of whom agree that the border situation is a crisis that needs to be addressed. If the Democrat Party leadership misreads and misjudges the determination of Americans and their President by insisting on 'no wall,' the stage could be set for a federal vs. state battle led by California, with the support of Speaker Pelosi and the Democrat Party. And, at her weekly press conference, Nancy Pelosi made the outrageous statement this week that American deaths are 'not a justification' for 'taking babies out of the arms of their parents.' She was talking about illegal immigrants, of course. And, that may become the federal vs. state battle -- led by California and Speaker Pelosi and the Democrat Party. It will be a battle fought over the sovereignty of the Republic's borders and the right of Americans, guaranteed by the Constitution, to have a proper country, defined by secure borders. It will be "We the People" vs. they the "de facto secessionists."