Category: California

Explanation of why Eric Swalwell had to be destroyed

by philg

If you’ve been wondering why multiple embarrassing stories about Eric Swalwell have been released in a seemingly coordinated fashion and why Democrats call for the accused-and-presumed-guilty rapist to drop out of the California governor’s race, but not to resign from Congress … “Top Three Candidates in the California Governor’s Race” (Governing, April 9, 2026 (one day before the anti-Swalwell tsunami arrived)):

if the election were held today, two Republicans would likely advance to the runoffs, shutting Democrats out

With nearly half of its voters registered as Democrats and only a quarter registered as Republicans, California is one of the bluest states in the union. The state has gone for Democrats in every presidential election since 1992. But Democrats are facing the prospect of being shut out of the governor’s office next year, even without a single charismatic Republican winning over left-leaning voters.

Recent polls show a large pack of Democratic candidates trailing two Republican candidates in the gubernatorial primary scheduled for June. Under California’s voting system, the top two vote-getters in the primary will proceed to a general election in November, no matter what party they’re from. If the primary were held today, according to the most recent polling, that would mean two Republican candidates, each pulling in just 14 percent of the primary vote, battling it out for the governor’s office in the fall. A lot could change before primary day, but the Democratic Party is increasingly nervous.

A lot did change! Instead of being celebrated for living Cesar Chavez‘s teachings, Swalwell was suddenly hit from all sides, like the noble peaceful Lebanese members of Hezbollah merely trying to defend their paradise of Christian-Muslim cooperation and tolerance from “the Zionist entity” (the Lebanese declared war on the Jews to their south in 1948 and don’t recognize a state of “Israel”).

Before I saw this Governing article, I was confused. Swalwell spent 85 percent of his time in Congress having sex with earnest perky 20-year-old progressives and then just wasted the remaining 15 percent?

For whom was the way cleared? Katie Porter, who pushes her biography “as a single mom of three kids”. It’s a selling point that she was unable to create harmony in a household of five people, including the biological father of her children (she sued him in 2013), because this experience will help her create harmony for 40 million Californians, a random assemblage of humans who, thanks to our asylum-based immigration system, don’t have a language, a religion, or a culture in common.

She says “California is in the grips of a decades-long housing crisis” and “I’ll push the federal government to invest in California’s housing challenges”. Despite California being richer than the average state and despite Californians preaching on the evils of inequality, in other words, comparatively poor taxpayers in Maine, Michigan, and New Mexico should be tapped to subsidize Californians’ desires to live in newer and more spacious accommodation.

Related… on the same weekend that he was exposed as a rapist, Swalwell was highlighted in the media for employing an undocumented migrant (normally a sign a virtue for Democrats):

Loosely related, from a Deplorable open-source software nerd:

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San Diego tries to outlaw Jew-hate (sort of)

by philg

Instead of trying to stop immigration from countries where Jew-hatred is the norm, a California city decides to try to stop Jew-hatred with some elaborate non-binding words… “San Diego City Council adopts controversial definition of antisemitism” (state-sponsored KPBS):

The security line into the city administration building backed up through the door as hundreds of people filed in for a San Diego City Council meeting Tuesday. The councilmembers were scheduled to discuss whether to adopt a resolution — not a binding law, but something they described as “the lowest form of what we can do.”

The city adopted the definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Dozens of countries and cities across the U.S. have already adopted it, including Los Angeles, Chula Vista and El Cajon.

It says: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

Californians a random assemblage of humans from all over the U.S. and the world, proceeded to argue over this pointless non-binding vague definition (“certain perception”?):

“Don’t you f–ing touch me, that’s assault!” a man cried before the meeting had even come to order.

Increased security surrounded the room. Before the night was over, they would escort out five members of the public.

Public comment ran over four hours.

The more than 200 in-person public commenters were nearly evenly split for and against the IHRA definition, despite the concern one Muslim speaker raised that the meeting was being held during Ramadan, preventing many from attending.

See also “In near unanimous vote, San Diego City Council passes IHRA resolution” (JNS):

“One speaker openly said, ‘Look at all the well-dressed Jews here with money in their pockets,’” she said. “At least two people were asked to be removed for their hateful outcries, with one of them causing an altercation with our incredible San Diego Police Department officers who attended to keep the peace.”

Cohen-Reeis added that one person who spoke virtually stated that Jewish children deserve to be spat upon.

Multiple speakers, who expressed opposition to the resolution, accused Israel of apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Meanwhile, here in Palm Beach County, Florida:

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Rename Cesar Chavez schools and streets to honor Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei?

by philg

Cesar Chavez is in the news this week, e.g., “Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years” (NYT) and now Democrat-run states such as California have tons of Cesar Chavez schools and streets to rename. ChatGPT estimates 43-45 public schools and as many as 100 streets are named after a vegetarian who died at age 66 of “natural causes” for which there is likely no ICD-10 code (maybe add W50.5 “sex with energetic teenagers” or W50.6 “sex with teens who volunteered to help a progressive cause”?).

What about renaming all of these schools and streets to honor a hero to modern-day Californians? Suppose there were a person heroically standing up to an illegal war, unafraid of death, and leading a society that is a City on a Hill to Californians? From March 1, 2026, Gavin Newsom characterizes the U.S. war on Iran as “illegal”:

From today, Gavin Newsom in his official capacity offers a hearty “Assalamualaikum, California!”:

A few months ago, a Hamas leader might have been the natural choice. However, except for occasional swipes at Israel for “genocide” or “apartheid“, the California righteous seem to have forgotten about their brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters in “Palestine”. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the model now and, certainly, nobody observes Ramadan more piously and peacefully than an Iranian ayatollah. Nobody stands up to Donald Trump’s aggression more bravely than an Iranian politician. The natural choices for new names, then, are “Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei High School”, “Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei Avenue”, and similar.

Separately, what did Cesar Chavez do, according to the NYT?

The man, Cesar Chavez, one of the most revered figures in the Latino civil rights movement, was 45. She was 13. Ms. Murguia said she was summoned for sexual encounters with him dozens of times over the next four years.

Ms. Rojas said she was 12 when Mr. Chavez first touched her inappropriately, groping her breasts in the same office where he’d meet with Ms. Murguia. When Ms. Rojas was 15, he arranged to have her stay at a motel during a weekslong march through California, she said, and had sexual intercourse with her — rape, under state law, because she was not old enough to consent.

The Times investigation found that Mr. Chavez also used many of the women who worked and volunteered in his movement for his own sexual gratification. His most prominent female ally in the movement, Dolores Huerta, said in an interview that he sexually assaulted her, a disclosure she has never before made publicly.

One night during the winter of 1966 in Delano, Calif., she said, Mr. Chavez drove her out to a secluded grape field, parked and raped her inside the vehicle. Ms. Huerta, who was 36 at the time, said she chose not to report the assault to the police because of their hostility toward the movement, and she feared that no one within the union would believe her. She also described an earlier encounter in August 1960, when she said she felt pressured to have sex with him in a hotel room during a work trip in San Juan Capistrano in Southern California.

Note that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tahrir al-Wasila wrote that it was acceptable for a middle-aged man to have sex with a 9-year-old, just as Muhammad did, within the context of a marriage (but younger than 9 years old is forbidden or, perhaps, 8 years and 9 months). Chavez, in other words, wouldn’t have been breaking the law in Iran so long as he married the girls described in the article. (“While marriageable age is defined at 13 years for girls and 15 years for boys, there is no specific age limit for marriage in Iran and marriage is possible at any age” says “The trend of girl child marriage in Iran based on national census data” (2020).)

Related:

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San Francisco Bay Area Trip Report III

by philg

In order to avoid what Google Maps said would be a very un-rapid rapid transit ride, I Ubered into San Francisco on a Sunday morning to meet a friend for dim sum in Chinatown.

If you get something at one of the take-away places, there is a nice patio above the Rose Park Station at Stocktown and Washington St. where you can eat it. After Chinatown, we walked to the City Lights bookstore:

We didn’t prepare by reading A Black Queer History of the United States, unfortunately, but enjoyed a visit to the USS Pampanito (a couple of days later, a U.S. submarine sunk an Iranian frigate).

“Essential” marijuana is available down by the water, right next to the In-N-Out Burger that was closed by authorities for its refusal to demand vaccine papers (remember that California marijuana stores were open for the entire 18-month period during which schools were closed):

Transportation variants:

Then back to Berkeley for coffee the next morning:

To be continued…

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San Francisco Bay Area Trip Report II

by philg

Moe’s Books (Berkeley) moved all of the Gaza books to the back of the store (see A trip to Berkeley, California (November 2024))

Some of the books that were prominently displayed:

Nearby Mrs. Dalloway’s Books features works on how to spend most of the day reminding kids that they’re going to die when the Earth goes Full Venus:

I talked to a professor of adolescent medicine shortly after seeing these books and he said that it made sense for all teenagers to be in therapy because of their reasonable fears regarding climate change.

Housing is a human right, which means either a $3 million house from this real estate agency or sleeping in the real estate agency’s alcove:

Dove soap is too precious to be left on the shelf at CVS:

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Why won’t San Francisco Democrats provide their teachers with fair compensation?

by philg

Californians love to brag about how productive and rich they are. San Francisco should be the richest city in the world right now given that most of the AI companies have set up shop within the city limits and the founders/executives of these companies also live within city limits, e.g., Sam Altman (worth nearly $2 billion) That’s a tax base that municipal governments all around the world can only envy. We are informed that Democrats protect American workers’ interests and there are no Republicans who could potentially prevent San Francisco from taxing and spending.

Separately, we are informed that public employee unions would never use their power to exploit taxpayers by demanding above-market compensation. Our newspapers report as an established fact that unionized schoolteachers are “underpaid”.

This week, however, we learn that the elite Democrats who run San Francisco refuse to provide their public schoolteachers with the fair compensation that the union has requested, thus necessitating a strike. NYT:

On Monday morning, Cassondra Curiel, the president of the union, the United Educators of San Francisco, led a rally on the steps of Mission High School, where dozens of teachers, dressed in red, rattled tambourines and hoisted signs calling for higher wages. Some brought their children, who were out of school for the day.

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Forced masking is back in California

by philg

“Mask mandates return in parts of the Bay Area as virus season nears” (San Francisco Chronicle via Yahoo! News):

Mask requirements are returning to health care settings across parts of the Bay Area, as local health officials brace for the annual surge in respiratory illnesses – including COVID-19, influenza and RSV – that typically arrives with colder weather.

Starting Nov. 1, several counties – including Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Sonoma, Napa, San Mateo and Santa Cruz – will again require health care workers, and in some cases patients and visitors, to wear masks in patient care areas through the winter and early spring.

What about the county that will be hosting a COVID-19 superspreader event soon (the Super Bowl)?

Santa Clara County’s rule goes further, requiring everyone – workers, patients and visitors – to wear masks in “patient care areas” of hospitals, clinics and nursing homes.

#FollowTheScience

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Why won’t rich states fund SNAP and other welfare programs during the federal shutdown?

by philg

Gavin Newsom loves to brag about how rich California is. Here’s a typical post in which he says that “California is the fourth largest economy in the world” and is getting richer every day (“#1 in new business startups”).

Here’s a recent post from Gavin Newsom in which he says that “40 million people [will] lose access to food.” (Note that there are actually more than 40 million people on SNAP, which in no way should be considered “welfare”, but let’s accept 40 million as an approximation.) He doesn’t say that “Except for the 5.5 million Californians on SNAP/EBT (“CalFresh”), who will be fully funded with state tax dollars because California is so rich, SNAP/EBT beneficiaries nationwide will lose access to food.”

So…

  1. the state is rich
  2. the political party that runs the state says that inequality is bad
  3. the political party that runs the state says that taxpayer-funded food is a human right
  4. there is no political opposition to the ruling party
  5. the state won’t provide food for its residents unless it can feed at the federal trough

How is it possible for all of the above to be true?

Loosely related because Kentucky isn’t a rich state…

Governor Beshear has a huge charitable heart so long as other people are working longer hours to pay for his charity (kind of like if I borrow my neighbor’s car, donate it to a non-profit org, and then call myself virtuous/charitable). But why won’t he fund free food for all needy Kentuckians with Kentucky state tax dollars?

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Los Angeles Central Library, 39 years after the arson attack(s)

by philg

Californians love to destroy things that taxpayers fund, e.g., the Santa Monica Airport. Thirty nine years ago, this love of destruction reached the Los Angeles Central Library, torched by a still-unknown arsonist (see state-sponsored NPR). Nearly 400,000 books were destroyed. Here are some photos from the restored building.

Note the mural showing happy children with guns and also one of Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors:

We need humanoid robots so that every house can have one of these candeliers:

A plaque reminds us that Californians torched their own library twice in one year:

Egypt before the Muslim Conquest:

More than five years since the start of Coronapanic, the locals are still trying to avoid SARS-CoV-2 by voluntarily entering a crowded public space while wearing a cloth mask of some sort (note accessory Whole Foods bag):

From my earlier A Greta Thunberg yacht trip to California?, a poster in the Teen section reminding young Californians that humans are in charge of viruses and can end a pandemic via their own actions:

Also worth a repeat, the library reminds teens to cooperate in thwarting ICE:

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A trip to Los Angeles’s Koreatown

by philg

It’s the 72nd anniversary of the Korean War Armistice.

Our virtual loosely related journey starts in downtown Los Angeles:

A 15-minute Uber ride with photos taken out the window, Garry Winogrand-style:

Once you get to “Koreatown” you discover that it isn’t a town at all, but rather some strip malls that happen to contain a lot of Korean restaurants and shops. (Little Tokyo, by contrast, has a few attempts at recreating the experience of being in Japan.) Example:

Pro Tip: Eat at the 24-hour BCD Tofu House.

Even in the heart of Koreatown, the signature elements of downtown Los Angeles (trash and tents on the sidewalk) prevail:

In closing…

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