I do not know whether Ron Martinelli is a member of the California family that has been producing Apple Juice and other such products for over a 100 years. Lynn and I met the Martinelli grandparents of the founders at a Tennis Camp in Arizona decades ago.(See 1 below.)
Meanwhile, radicalism that happens in our two main bookend coastal states eventually is embraced by the rest of the country. The value system of Hollywood and Wall Street, over time, tends to mesh and if the current more radical candidates for Governor's in Florida and Georgia are elected rest assured the path will have been laid.
Radical values are anathema.
I was particularly interested in Kim's comment about how so many Democrat candidates are former veterans. When did Democrats ever believe supporting anything to do with the military was in their wheel house?(See 1a below.)
Meanwhile, a dear friend and fellow memo reader voices his viewpoint on candidate Kemp. My friend has his biases as I do but he also states facts which the candidates are seeking to downplay with appearances by Oprah etc.
Politics is a game of constant hide and seek whereas, Halloween comes on day each year. (See 1b below.)
Finally, four Democrat candidates, who are in serious campaigns, have actually begun attacking their own party's nonsense. Why would they distance themselves from the radicalism of their own party and try and swim back to the center? First, obviously they want to win re-election and know they are too far out on a limb and second, one would hope they looked in the mirror one morning and did not recognize themselves.
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Daniel told me of how his city has come together and how the mayor has been marvelous and that the entire city feels it was attacked and not just a Pittsburgh synagogue. He is going to send me something which I will post in a subsequent memo. Based on what he told me is happening in the Pttsburgh community is heartening. Sometimes it takes a tragedy for people to realize we are all in the same boat.
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Judicial Watch hammers away at State Department and Soros' ties. (See 2 below.)
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Dick
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1)Written by Dr. Ron Martinelli
(Dr. Martinelli is a renowned forensic criminologist and retired police detective with the San Jose Police Department).
As I sit in the LAX terminal after concluding business in downtown Los Angeles for the past two days, I cannot help but reflect upon my journey from a once California native to a new resident of the Great State of Texas and why. You see, in my personal and professional opinion, the once great State of California has in essence become a third world country.
“The concept of the “third world” has evolved to describe countries that suffer from low economic development, high levels of poverty and little to no ability to utilize natural or economic resources.” French demographer Alfred Sauvey, 1952.
While the reasons for California’s ever-spiraling downwards status from 1st World economic prominence and prosperity to near 3rd World malaise are many; I will assert that when you combine uber-liberal politicians, with rich elitist Hollywood Celebrities, dotcom CEO billionaires, disengaged millennials and illegal aliens; you in effect create the circumstances where your city or state becomes a 3rd World environment.
The process of California’s demise from the “Golden State” to 3rd World status has been slow but steady; supported and enabled by the aforementioned actors. While much of the legislated changes for the worse have been designed and voted in by politicians in Sacramento; municipal politicians and a complicit uninformed, naive and entitled voting public must also share blame. After all, when 51% of those on some type of government subsidy out-vote the 49% of the money earning and tax paying citizenry, any state is doomed to failure. With California now a “Sanctuary State” and their libtard Democratic state legislature pushing for voting rights for illegal aliens, the state will never recover.
My observations during my short visit to Los Angeles underscored many of the problems Californians are facing as they follow lemming-like their Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown, their Democratic legislators and urban mayors like Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles off the economic cliff. Literally nothing substantive is good about L.A. anymore. An ever-growing homeless subculture populates the downtown area. The intoxicated, drug influenced, mentally impaired and criminals are everywhere. They literally surround Civic Center, federal buildings and courts – the so-called foundations and protectors of the Rule of Law and society.
How ironic to be surrounded by the failures these very systems, liberal politicians and judges have created. Isn’t karma interesting to watch in real time?
The homeless, numbering in the thousands, sleep in the shadows of immense, gleaming edifices owned by multi-billion dollar international conglomerates and dotcom corporations. Business executives in Brioni suits and workers quickly pass by the unwashed masses, while holding their noses to screen out the stench of urine and feces. The obvious health and safety hazards to the public are too many to count.
Interconnecting Los Angeles city roadways and state highways designed to transport the commuting, tax paying public to their job sites are a debacle. The ribbons of roadways are a mess of potholed, weed infested, trash laden, graffiti vandalized passages filled with vehicles lined up bumper-to-bumper going nowhere fast. These are your tax dollars at work. While California voters grumble and groan, in the end they just seem to accept their fate as one of the prices to pay for living the California dream.
You see, the working public has no time to get out and protest the outrageous and constant increases in taxes on gas, municipal services, vehicle registrations, rapid transit and a bullet train going to nowhere. Only the unemployed, government subsidized masses have time to demonstrate in the streets to ensure that their subsidies continue. Since the liberal politicians in Sacramento know this dynamic and their power base all too well, the taxation without representation continues. I was staying at a hotel near LAX and my mileage commute to downtown L.A. was a mere twelve miles. However, it took me every bit of one hour and twenty minutes to arrive at my destination. I then paid $20 for the privilege of parking my car in a public lot. Of course, this was after I paid $30 a day to park my rental car at my hotel. Nice. I’m seriously considering Uber next time.
Since I frequently travel throughout California on business, I will tell you that Los Angeles is a mirror image of all of the other large urban cities in the state. I have observed similar and even worse depressed and dysfunctional urban environments in the San Francisco Bay Area, Orange County, San Diego and a number of other cities. California is rapidly becoming a two-tiered society of the very rich and the very poor, similar to the 2nd and 3rd World countries I regularly visit. The middle class, small business owners and the retired are either being pushed out of state and/or escaping in droves to such tax free, business friendly and less crime ridden states such as Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Florida. Lame duck Gov. Moonbeam and the state’s liberal Democratic legislature know this. They just don’t care because their power base is now assured Just ask any of their castrated, powerless Republican colleagues.
There will never again be a Republican administration in California. The days of Ronald Reagan have long passed. The candidates lining up for the governor’s race in 2018 are Open Borders and Sanctuary State advocates Anthony Villaraigosa and Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom. Governor Brown and his Democratic legislature are pulling out all the stops creating legislation that will allow illegal aliens in the state to vote in state and local elections. Republicans, conservatives and moderates don’t stand a chance.
Here are just some of things Californian’s have done in recent years to turn their state into a 3rd World mess:
1. Passed Proposition 47 which has since freed tens of thousands of felons from state prisons and county jails back into communities.
2. Prop. 47 also eviscerated the parole enforcement agency and created a system where police on the streets can’t even enforce outstanding felony and misdemeanor warrants anymore.
3 . Police no longer arrest people for being under the influence of dangerous drugs. What would be the point; it’s just a misdemeanor.
4. They have reduced the crime of auto theft to a citable misdemeanor. Steal a car; get caught and get a ticket. Commit non-violent crimes, get arrested and you are out the same day with a promise to appear in court that will not ever be enforced. No warrant enforcement, remember? Amazing!
California’s new “Sanctuary State” status supports and enables its Open Borders mentality. Police in a number of cities such as San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles are ordered not to assist ICE with border enforcement. Remember the Kate Steinle murder case where her five-time convicted criminal and deported illegal alien was acquitted? Well, that’s the political mentality that created that circumstance. This is also an excellent example that liberal politicians in California are willing to sacrifice the innocent to demonstrate that they support violent illegal alien criminals.
What happens in California’s larger cities filters down to its medium and small sized cities as well. I recently wrote about the city of Salinas, CA. that experienced an incredible 150% increase in its homicide rate from 2014 – 2015 which rated Salinas as one of the nation’s 30 most violent cities. Fifty percent of all of their murders were gang and drug related, with the predominate population of gang members being illegal aliens. I can only wonder how Silicon Valley dot-commers’ who are paying over half a million bucks for a home and commute over four hours a day to San Jose like living in that violent environment?
Which brings me back to why my successful business owner wife and I escaped to Texas. The state loves us No commute problems, no state taxes and we live in an area where there is little to no crime. Our area just outside of San Antonio some of the best school districts in the U.S.; high employment, great people and lots of fun things to do.
My wife and I live a great life on a ranch with a river in our backyard where we can fish, swim, kayak and BBQ with family and neighbors anytime we want. The price? Less than you would pay for a one bedroom studio condo in any of the cities in California I’ve mentioned. New home buyers only need three percent down to purchase a home and veterans make no down payments. If you are a younger middle-class person, a small business owner or retired, you’d be nuts to remain in California.
With California over a trillion dollars in debt and 30% of their budget going to subsidizing illegal aliens at the expense of hard-working, taxpayers who have little to no voice on how their state is run, the state and the majority of their citizens are doomed That’s what a two-tiered society eventually creates.
1A) The Lesson of 2018
Even if the Democrats end up winning, they showed progressivism is a losing message.
By
In a few days the U.S. will have its midterm results, and the Beltway press corps will lecture us on the lessons. Don’t expect to hear much about the one takeaway that is already obvious: that today’s preferred progressive politics—of character assassination, mob rule, intimidation and wacky policies—is an electoral bust. It is not what is winning Democrats anything. It is what is losing the party the bigger prize.
Six weeks ago, Democrats were expecting a blue wave to rival the Republican victory of 2010, when the GOP picked up 63 House seats. Everything was in their favor. History—the party in power almost always loses seats. Money—Democrats continue to outraise Republicans by staggering amounts. The opposition—some 41 GOP House members retired, most from vulnerable districts where Donald Trump’s favorability is low. Democrats were even positioned to take over the Senate, despite defending 10 Trump-state seats.
Democrats obliterated their own breaker in the space of two weeks with the ambush of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The left, its protesters and its media allies demonstrated some of the vilest political tactics ever seen in Washington, with no regard for who or what they damaged or destroyed along the way—Christine Blasey Ford, committee rules, civility, Justice Kavanaugh himself, the Constitution. An uncharacteristically disgusted Sen. Lindsey Graham railed: “Boy, y’all want power. God, I hope you never get it!”
A lot of voters suddenly agreed with that sentiment. The enormous enthusiasm gap closed almost overnight as conservative voters rallied to #JobsNotMobs. Even liberal prognosticators today forecast that Republicans will keep the Senate and Democrats will manage only a narrow majority in the House, if that. It’s always possible the polls are off, or that there is a last-minute bombshell. But it remains the case that the ascendant progressive movement blew an easy victory for Democrats.
Meanwhile, to the extent Democrats are winning, it has been in large part due to party leaders’ quiet but laborious efforts to sequester that movement. Yes, talk-show hosts have made a darling of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive activist who defeated incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in a New York primary. And liberal pundits are already claiming a victory by left-wing Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum in Florida’s gubernatorial race will prove America aches for Medicare for All.
But on the ground, Mr. Gillum and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez are the anomalies of this cycle. The far bigger if less covered story is the extent to which Democrats have run candidates with conservative credentials, or candidates who can’t run fast enough from liberal positions.
For all the talk of the “year of the woman,” it is equally the year of the Democratic “veteran.” In battleground after battleground district, Democrats recruited former service members as their candidates: Amy McGrath in Kentucky, Richard Ojeda in West Virginia, Jason Crow in Colorado, Jared Golden in Maine, Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, Max Rose in New York. By at least one count, more than half the veterans who’ve run in 2018 are Democrats—a huge shift, and a reason some traditionally GOP districts are competitive.
Senate races, meanwhile, have been entirely defined by the extent to which Democratic candidates have positioned themselves as “moderates.” Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, a self-described “Prada socialist” and onetime antiwar activist, now insists she would be an “independent” voice in favor of bipartisanship. Nevada’s Jacky Rosen was one of three House Democrats who voted in September to make the Trump individual tax cuts permanent. Missouri incumbent Claire McCaskill is running a radio ad boasting she “is not one of those crazy Democrats.” Asked on Fox News about her Senate colleagues, she took a swipe at Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
All of this is reminiscent of 2006 and 2008, when Democrats won Congress by running moderates and then the White House by nominating a candidate who promised to unite the nation. Only after the party jerked left did the GOP win its 2010 blowout.
Will it be different this time? The moment the polls close on Tuesday, it will be wheels up for the 2020 presidential campaign. And save for Joe Biden, every current leading contender for the Democratic nomination either was a ringleader of the Kavanaugh spectacle (Sens. Cory “Spartacus” Booker and Kamala Harris) or is a progressive icon (Ms. Warren, Mr. Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand).
If Democrats win Tuesday, it will be despite this crowd, not because of it. They’d be wise to remember that a vote to rebuke President Trump’s inflammatory politics isn’t the same as an embrace of a progressive agenda or its candidates. The Democrats’ own recent history and campaign strategy prove it.
1b) Kemp Supports Israel and Jewish Issues
Chuck Berk, co-chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, explains his position for supporting Brian Kemp for governor.
By CHUCK BERK
Chuck Berk
Are supporting Israel and Jewish issues important to you? Let me clarify and enumerate for you why Brian Kemp is without question the right person to be our next governor and why Stacey Abrams’ past actions should both worry you and disqualify her.
1. In 2016, Georgia passed an anti-BDS bill that prohibits any company from doing business with the state of Georgia if they boycott, divest or sanction Israel. The BDS movement’s goal is to delegitimize and bring about the destruction of Israel. Stacey Abrams, while House minority leader, lobbied against and voted against the bill.
2. Ms. Abrams has support from and campaigned with Linda Sarsour, a known pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel advocate who also is aligned with Louis Farrakhan, a known virulent anti-Semite.
3. Georgia Student Scholarship Organization programs (SSOs), which include the ALEF Fund, allow people to enroll their children in and contribute to Jewish schools like Davis, Epstein, AJA, Weber and countless synagogue schools. In return, they receive a 100 percent state tax credit! Stacey Abrams has publicly stated her disdain for private schools, whether they be Jewish or otherwise, with her intent to eliminate the ALEF Fund and SSOs. In comparison, Brian Kemp would protect these programs.
4. Only under Republican leadership and with a Republican governor has the state invested in Israel Bonds. Georgia currently holds $20 million in Israel Bonds. Do you think that Ms. Abrams, who voted against Israel while minority leader and has sought support from and campaigned with a known anti-Israel advocate, will continue to support the purchase of Israel Bonds? Brian Kemp not only has pledged his continued support, but put that in writing with an ad in this newspaper.
5. You’ve heard that Stacey Abrams didn’t pay her taxes because she needed funds to help her parents with medical issues. It is admirable to help one’s parents. But what you may not have heard is that after that, she subsequently earned almost a half a million in compensation from nonprofit groups she set up, and rather than pay off her tax debt, she chose to loan $50,000 to her campaign. Do you want to trust someone who hasn’t paid her taxes with the responsibility for managing billions of state funds?
6. The Republicans led the effort to pass House Bill 341, a bill aimed to crush the sex trafficking problem. They reached across the aisle and accommodated Ms. Abrams, who asked that certain additional provisions be included. The bill passed with bipartisan support, but Ms. Abrams refused to vote on it. Really?
Brain Kemp is a solid supporter of Israel and Jewish issues. I currently serve on the Georgia Holocaust Commission, which has reported to the secretary of state’s office. Brian has been a great supporter of the Commission’s initiatives. He also has pledged to lead a trade mission to Israel during his first year in office as governor, further strengthening Georgia’s business ties with Israel, opening new economic opportunities.
Contrary to all the noise you may have heard in negative ads, during Brian’s tenure as secretary of state minority voting wasn’t suppressed … it increased by 23 percent and access to voting has increased substantially, with almost 1 million more people on the voter roll for this election than for the 2016 presidential election.
You have a choice in this election. With Stacey Abrams you would get higher taxes, government-run healthcare, sanctuary cities and HOPE scholarships to illegal immigrants.
With Brain Kemp as governor, you’ll get lower taxes, less government regulation, increased jobs throughout the state, and improved education by supporting charter schools and innovative digital learning … and a proven friend of Israel and Jewish causes.
Chuck Berk is co-chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a member of the Georgia Holocaust Commission and former Southeast chairman of Israel Bonds.
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2)
More Evidence of George Soros Foundation Ties to State Department
The State Department has been all too happy to collude with leftwing billionaire George Soros, using your tax dollars to fund his zealotry. Of course the department would rather you not know about it, but we’re keeping our foot in the door.
We just released 49 pages of new State Department documents showing top Soros representatives in Romania collaborating with the State Department in a program jointly funded by, among others, Soros’s Open Society Foundations – Romania and USAID, called the “Open Government Partnership.”
The documents were obtained thanks to our March 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of State and USAID after it failed to substantively respond to an October 2017 request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development (No. 1:18-cv-00667)). The lawsuit seeks:
· All records relating to any contracts, grants or other allocations/disbursements of funds by the State Department to the Open Society Foundation – Romania and/or its personnel and/or any OSFR subsidiary or affiliate.
· All assessments, evaluations, reports or similar records relating to the work of Open Society Foundation – Romania and/or its subsidiaries or affiliated organizations.
On September 16, 2016, the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Senior Program Designer Jennryn Wetzler sent an email announcing that the featured speaker in a State Department-sponsored “Open Government Partnership” conference call would be longtime Soros foundations official in Romania, Ovidiu Voicu. Voicu is the Executive Director of a Romanian non-government organization (NGO) called the Center for Public Innovation, which describes itself as a “spin-off” of Soros’ Open Society Foundation Romania.
From: Jennryn M. Wetzler and Tom Fitton
Please join us for a conversation with Ovidiu Voicu, Executive Director of Romania’s Center for Public Innovation. Ovidiu will share updates from Romania, including recent OGP commitments to OER and open data & transparency in education! We encourage everyone to share thoughts and questions, as well as their own country updates.
Speaker Bio: Ovidiu Voicu leads the Center Public Innovation, a spin-off of the Open Society Foundation Romania. He joined the Foundation in 2000 to coordinate its social research programs, and in April 2012, he. took the leadership of the newly created public policy unit. In 2015, with the Foundation phasing-out its activities in Romania, Ovidiu and his team created the Center for Public Innovation, to continue the open society legacy and work on the ground.
On April 19, 2016, Wetzler emails Romanian chancellery official and Open Government Partnership participant Radu Puchiu regarding a meeting with an “Open Society Romania colleague” regarding the possibility of Romania committing to open educational resources (OER) programs.
On October 13, 2016, State Department official Richard Silver circulated summaries of Romanian news stories. In an analytical comment concerning a summary of a newspaper article discussing a proposal by Romanian politicians to ban George Soros-backed NGO members from holding public office, he defended Soros’ Open Society Foundation’s involvement in Romania. Ironically, in doing so, he confirmed the Soros operations outsized influence in Romania and other countries:
Since 1990, the Soros ‘s Foundation for Open Society was one of the main donors in Romania and other former communist countries, financing sociological research, education, social inclusion, good governance, civic culture and integrated community intervention. The most influential Romanian NGOs as well as politicians, researchers and other players who had scholarships abroad benefitted by its financing. Over the past 26 years, a series of political parties, mainly PSD and its political allies, have blamed NGOs, intellectuals, cultural personalities of eroding Romania’s economy, territorial autonomy, public order or the health of the population. Independent analysts warned about the danger of such messaging which creates social shifts and turns Romania back to communist practices.
Also on October 13, 2016, Silver circulated the same news summaries, but the analysis contained additional material that was redacted as classified.
These government documents detail a close working relationship between the State Department and the Soros foundations’ operations in Romania and Europe. The State Department shouldn’t be using tax dollars to either fund or advocate for Mr. Soros’s far-left agenda. George Soros needs zero financial assistance from taxpayers.
We are currently pursuing three FOIA lawsuits relating to the Obama administration’s funding for Soros’ operations. We are pursuing information about Soros’ activities in Macedonia and Colombia as well.
In April 2018, we published an in-depth study of Soros’ Open Society Foundation activities in Guatemala.
In July 2018, a Colombian human rights group funded by the U.S. government and Soros attacked us for exposing its ties to FARC, the country’s famously violent Marxist guerrillas.
In February 2017, we reported that the U.S. government had quietly spent millions of taxpayer dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia.
In a March 2017, letter to former Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, six U.S. Senators (Sens. Lee (R-UT), Inhofe (R-OK), Tillis (R-NC), Cruz (R-TX), Perdue (R-GA) and Cassidy (R-LA)) called on the secretary to investigate the relations between USAID and the Soros Foundations and how U.S. tax dollars are being used by the State Department and the USAID to support left-of-center political groups who seek to impose left-leaning policies in countries such as Macedonia and Albania.
The leftist media is circling the wagons around Mr. Soros, and smearing Judicial Watch and others investigating his network. As you can see, your Judicial Watch won’t be cowed and will continue our oversight work about how his foundations are able to leverage taxpayer resources to advance his radical left agenda.
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