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Article: California Is Booming. Why Are So Many Californians Unhappy?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/business/economy/california-economy-housing-homeless.htmlSAN FRANCISCO — Christine Johnson, a public-finance consultant with an engineering degree, was running for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She crisscrossed her downtown district talking about her plans to stimulate housing construction, improve public transit and deal with the litter of “needles and poop” that have become a common sight on the city’s sidewalks.
Today, a year after losing the race, Ms. Johnson, who had been in the Bay Area since 2004, lives in Denver with her husband and 4-year-old son. In a recent interview, she spoke for millions of Californians past and present when she described the cloud that high rent and child-care costs had cast over her family’s savings and future.
“I fully intended San Francisco to be my home and wanted to make the neighborhoods better,” she said. “But after the election we started tallying up what life could look like elsewhere, and we didn’t see friends in other parts of the country experiencing challenges the same way.”
California is at a crossroads. The state has a thriving $3 trillion economy with record low unemployment, a surplus of well-paying jobs, and several of the world’s most valuable corporations, including Apple, Google and Facebook. Its median household income has grown about 17 percent since 2011, compared with about 10 percent nationally, adjusted for inflation.
But California also has a pernicious housing and homeless problem and an increasingly destructive fire season that is merely a preview of climate change’s potential effects. Corporations like Charles Schwab are moving their headquarters elsewhere, while Oracle announced that it would no longer stage its annual software conference in San Francisco, in part because of the city’s dirty streets. “Shining example or third-world state?” a recent headline on a local news website asked.
“You get depressed if you listen to everything going on, but you can’t find a contractor and the state continues to create jobs,” said Ed Del Beccaro, an executive vice president with TRI Commercial Real Estate Services, a brokerage and property management company in the Bay Area.
Whether it’s by taming bays and mountains with roads, bridges and power lines or grappling with a lack of water and crippling earthquakes, California is perennially testing the limits of growth. Its population has swelled to 40 million and the state’s economy has grown more than previous generations had thought possible, cramming more cars and more people into cities that were supposed to be tapped out, while seeding new companies and new industries as old ones died or moved elsewhere.
But today it has a new problem. For all its forward-thinking companies and liberal social and environmental policies, the state has mostly put higher-value jobs and industries in expensive coastal enclaves, while pushing lower-paid workers and lower-cost housing to inland areas like the Central Valley.
This has made California the most expensive state — with a median home value of $550,000, about double that of the nation — and created a growing supply of three-hour “super commuters.” And while it has some of the highest wages in the country, it also has the highest poverty rate based on its cost of living, an average of 18.1 percent from 2016 to 2018.
That helps explain why the state has lost more than a million residents to other states since 2006, and why the population growth rate for the year that ended July 1 was the lowest since 1900.
“What’s happening in California right now is a warning shot to the rest of the country,” said Jim Newton, a journalist, historian and lecturer on public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s a warning about income inequality and suburban sprawl, and how those intersect with quality of life and climate change.”
'The law is the law': Virginia Democrats float prosecution, National Guard deployment
Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill say local police who do not enforce gun control measures likely to pass in Virginia should face prosecution and even threats of the National Guard. After November's Virginia Legislature elections that led to Democrats taking control of both chambers, the gun control legislation proposed by some Democrats moved forward, including universal background checks, an “assault weapons” ban, and a red flag law.
Legal firearm owners in the state, however, joined with their sheriffs to form Second Amendment sanctuary counties, which declare the authorities in these municipalities uphold the Second Amendment in the face of any gun control measure passed by Richmond. Over 75 counties in Virginia have so far adopted such Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions in the commonwealth, the latest being Spotsylvania County. The board of supervisors voted unanimously to approve a resolution declaring that county police will not enforce state-level gun laws that violate Second Amendment rights.
Virginia Democratic officials, however, already say local law enforcement supporting these resolutions will face consequences if they do not carry out any law the state Legislature passes.
“I would hope they either resign in good conscience, because they cannot uphold the law which they are sworn to uphold, or they're prosecuted for failure to fulfill their oath,” Democratic Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly told the Washington Examiner of local county police who may refuse to enforce future gun control measures. “The law is the law. If that becomes the law, you don't have a choice, not if you're a sworn officer of the law.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/the-law-is-the-law-virginia-democrats-float-prosecution-national-guard-deployment-if-police-dont-enforce-gun-control
Getting dismayed at life in California, need advice on what to do
I'm poor and I don't earn that much, I'll admit. I just don't have the skills to be earning 6 figures but I love living in California if it wasn't so expensive. This is my home and I grew up here but at this point I don't know what to do anymore and it's literally driving me insane. Even here in the poorer region of the Central Valley the cost of living, especially rent, is just going up every year and I can't keep up anymore at this point unless I further cut my budget even more and live miserably.
What do I do? I don't know anymore, I don't know anyone else in any other state and am afraid to just pack up and start over with little savings, no guarantee of a job and no clue about how life works in other states either. Any serious advice would be appreciated, thank you.
California housing crisis - Homeless mothers, activists take over vacant Oakland house
OAKLAND — Sick of struggling with homelessness under a system they say hasn’t helped them, two Oakland mothers took matters into their own hands Monday — by taking control of a vacant West Oakland house.
In front of a crowd of supporters, community members and media, 34-year-old Dominique Walker and 41-year-old Sameerah Karim moved their belongings into a house on Magnolia Street that they say has been sitting empty for two years. It was the first step in what they hope will snowball into a larger movement to take back vacant, investor-owned houses in the neighborhoods where single, working mothers like themselves grew up but can no longer afford.
“This is my home,” Karim, a second-generation Oakland resident, said of the city. “I was born and raised here. I deserve to be here.”
The women, who founded a collective called Moms 4 Housing to support their mission, do not have permission to be in the house and declined to say how they got inside. The home has functioning water and power, they said.
Representatives from the city of Oakland and the Oakland Police Department did not respond to questions about what legal ramifications, if any, the mothers might face.
The property is owned by Catamount Properties 2018 LLC, according to the Alameda County Assessor’s Office. That company is part of Wedgewood, a Redondo Beach-based real estate investment company that does business throughout the Western U.S. and Florida. “The flip business is the backbone of Wedgewood,” according to the company’s website. Wedgewood did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/18/homeless-mothers-activists-take-over-vacant-oakland-house/
German documentary on how poor people survive in the USA
It's pretty depressing so don't watch it unless you're willing to see just how desperate and horrible life here is. Why is this country still so fucked up? And this is in California too so it's probably even worse in other states.
Treasures worth 'up to a billion euros' stolen in Green Vault heist
Thieves have stolen three "priceless" ensembles of early 18th century jewellery containing diamonds, rubies and emeralds, German officials have said.
Security camera footage showed two men breaking into the Green Vault museum in Dresden, Saxony, via a grilled window.
They then smashed three display cases before removing the ensembles, or parures, that were kept inside.
The alarm sounded just before 5am local time (4am GMT) and officers arrived five minutes later but the burglars had escaped.
Volker Lange of Dresden's police force said earlier: "Two suspects can be seen on the recordings, but that doesn't mean there weren't other accomplices."
Museum director Marion Ackerman has described the stolen items as "priceless" and said it would be impossible to sell them on the open market.
When asked whether the jewellery might be broken up or melted down, she replied: "It would be a terrible thing."
She added that it's "cultural value far outstripped any material value".
https://news.sky.com/story/green-vault-heist-treasures-worth-up-to-a-billion-euros-stolen-dresden-in-museum-heist-11869948
American couple held captive in Mexican hospital unless they pay bill
Atlanta — Help is on the way for a couple from Georgia who said they're being held hostage in a Mexican hospital. Stephen Johnson went into diabetic shock while on a Carnival cruise. Doctors in the port city of Progreso treated him, but won't let him leave.
"I still feel like a captive now because I can't leave," Johnson told CBS News from the hospital.
He and his fiancée, Tori Austin, were on the cruise when he collapsed suddenly and was in danger of dying. At the hospital in Mexico, a team of doctors, dialysis and a ventilator helped him recover. But when he tried to leave three days ago, he said the hospital became a prison.
"It was three or four of them and they just kept pushing me and I had to hold on to the rail. I was going to start swinging and throwing and punching because I was scared," Johnson said.
The hospital wanted its money first, amounting to $14,000, paid in full. Johnson had no health insurance and the hospital refused his offer to pay over time. Hospital staff physically blocked them from leaving several times, once with a trash can lid.
Donors stepped in, including movie mogul Tyler Perry. He heard about Johnson's story and agreed to settle the bill.
"I owe him my life and I hope to get to meet him when I get back to Atlanta because he deserved the biggest hug," Johnson said.
But he will have to wait because the hospital said he's not well enough to travel.
The State Department's aware of Johnson's case. It has sent an official to help out the couple. Even if Johnson had insurance, he might be in the same predicament. Many health plans providers don't cover care outside the U.S. One option often recommended is travel medical insurance.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tyler-perry-helps-american-couple-held-captive-in-mexican-hospital-2019-11-22/
Trump likes the new "Joker" movie so much he's screening it at the White House
Funny, considering how the movie was a dig against rich assholes like him. He probably saw himself as a victim like Arthur in the movie.
AP sources: Epstein jail guards had been offered plea deal
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors offered a plea deal to two correctional officers responsible for guarding Jeffrey Epstein on the night of his death, but the officers have declined the offer, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The existence of the plea offer signals the Justice Department is considering criminal charges in connection with the wealthy financier’s death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York in August. The city’s medical examiner ruled Epstein's death a suicide.
The guards on Epstein's unit are suspected of failing to check on him every half hour, as required, and of fabricating log entries to show they had. As part of the proposed plea deal, prosecutors wanted the guards to admit they falsified the prison records, according to the people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to publicly discuss the investigation.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan had no comment on the plea offer.
Both guards were working overtime because of staffing shortages. They have been placed on administrative leave while the FBI and the Justice Department's inspector general investigate the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death. The 66-year-old had been awaiting trial on charges of sexually abusing teenage girls.
Epstein was placed on suicide watch after he was found on his cell floor July 23 with bruises on his neck. Multiple people familiar with operations at the jail have said Epstein was then taken off suicide watch about a week before his death, meaning he was less closely monitored but still supposed to be checked on every 30 minutes.
Epstein’s death exposed mounting evidence that the chronically understaffed Metropolitan Correctional Center may have bungled its responsibility to keep him alive. Guards often work overtime day after day, and other employees are pressed into service as correctional officers.
Falsification of records has been a problem throughout the federal prison system. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, who was named director of the Bureau of Prisons after Epstein’s death, disclosed in a Nov. 4 internal memo that a review of operations across the agency found some staff members failed to perform required rounds and inmate counts but logged that they had done so anyway.
“Falsification of information in government systems and documents is also a violation of policy, and may be subject to criminal prosecution as well,” Hawk Sawyer wrote in the memo to top prison officials, a copy of which was obtained by the AP.
https://news.yahoo.com/ap-sources-epstein-jail-guards-232232259.html
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