California Issues ...

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California's New Food Waste Law Is Backfiring​

The law, S.B. 1383, which took effect in January, "requires supermarkets and other big food providers to divert as much as a quarter of edible food now destined for dumps to food banks to feed the needy," the Los Angeles Times reported in December. "It tasks cities and counties with formulating local plans, with a statewide goal of recovering 20% of edible food by 2025," Reuters reported earlier this month. S.B. 1383 is the nation's first statewide law to require businesses to donate excess food to be eaten by hungry people. Compliance requirements, which will ultimately include fines, are being phased in. "First, large grocery stores and food wholesalers; later, restaurants and cafeterias will have to comply or face fines," ABC7 reported last week.

In addition to fighting hunger, the law was also intended to combat food waste—which has an outsized contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, as food sent to landfills belches methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The massive scale of food waste is an enormous problem. As I detail in my book Biting the Hands that Feed Us: How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable, nearly 40 percent of all our food—roughly 40 million tons of it—goes to waste in the field, during processing, in transit, at the store, and/or on the plate. The value of that lost food totals more than $165 billion every year. Ten percent of the money Americans spend on food goes to waste. The environmental costs of that waste are colossal. Food waste is the third-leading contributor to atmospheric greenhouse gasses. And food that's wasted still uses the same inputs to grow—water, fertilizer, pesticides, fuel, wages—as food that's eaten. "Those resources are all used up whether a food is eaten or is left to rot in a field or landfill," I note in the book.

Giddy supporters have been busy touting the upside of California law. "This will reduce food waste and address food insecurity for millions of people," Alhambra Mayor Sasha Renée Pérez tweeted earlier this year. "California leads again!" Last month, San Diego's CBS affiliate reported the law had caused a dramatic jump in food donations there, calling the law "great news" because it means "more food going to residents of San Diego that might otherwise go hungry [and] that food won't have the opportunity to rot in a landfill and emit harmful greenhouse gasses in the process."

 

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Ethnic Training Sessions for 'White Teachers and White Students'​

The talking point that critical race theory is not in our schools is laughable. Here it is, being delivered right to the teachers so they can deliver it right to our students. It’s cloaked in the term “ethnic studies” but just a quick perusal of the training session shows the horrifically bias nature. This isn’t a study aimed at educating teachers on diversity. This is a study aimed at one group of people based on their race. White teachers are expected to bear the burden of all history, and to shut up about any opinions they may have about that, lest they succumb to their “fragility.” It is only framed as how they can diminish their own lives and accomplishments.

Pro tip: white Americans can be “ethnic” too.

Rhyen Staley, of Parents Defending Education says this is nothing more than activist training disguised as ethnic studies.

“Any curriculum or pedagogy that requires special trainings for white teachers and students should be a major red flag. Liberated ethnic studies requires students to become trained activists to ‘end oppression.’ Ethnic studies should be for students to learn and appreciate the histories of other cultures but should not be used simultaneously to disparage the United States and Western Civilization.”

 

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California law requiring property owners to pay one month’s rent to legally evicted tenants is upheld​

Under the law, AB 1482, rent increases are limited to 10% a year in areas without rent control. It also offers financial assistance to renters who are evicted because the owner decided to move or convert the property into a condo.

Better Housing for Long Beach, an owners’ group, filed a lawsuit against the state, arguing that requiring payments to legally evicted tenants amounted to confiscating their property, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The courts dismissed the argument and said it was not ruling out government benefit to property owners or interfering in their control of the property.

David Chu, who as a Democratic Assemblymember from San Francisco sponsored the law, praised its upholding, calling it "great news for tenants."

 

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California Fights Inflation by Sending People Free Money​

 

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Gavin Newsom Broke CA Law​

As RedState’s Cameron Arcand reported Tuesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vacationed in Montana with his family over the 4th of July holiday – a state that is currently on the list of states to which California has banned state-sponsored travel because it’s deemed to have anti-LGBTQ “discriminatory laws.”



Well, he’s on vacation, right? That’s private travel, ostensibly paid for by the Newsom family, and no big deal?

Not exactly. Newsom is afforded a state-funded security detail through the California Highway Patrol (CHP), and there’s no indication that those officers are not with him. That apparently puts Newsom in violation of California’s AB-1887, signed by Newsom’s predecessor, Jerry Brown, in 2016. That law states (emphasis added):

“[A] state agency, department, board, authority, or commission, including an agency, department, board, authority, or commission of the University of California, the Board of Regents of the University of California, or the California State University, and the Legislature shall not…require any of its employees, officers, or members to travel to a state that, after June 26, 2015, has enacted a law that voids or repeals, or has the effect of voiding or repealing, existing state or local protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression or has enacted a law that authorizes or requires discrimination against same-sex couples or their families or on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, including any law that creates an exemption to antidiscrimination laws in order to permit discrimination against same-sex couples or their families or on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

Security (including a car and driver) is provided for Newsom and California’s other seven statewide constitutional officers by the CHP, and we have an idea of the dollar amounts paid to the CHP for security for the other constitutional officers because their departments have contracts with and are billed for the usage by the CHP.

 

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California Fights Inflation by Sending People Free Money​

They should take that budget surplus and cut taxes to not have such a surplus. Or use some of it to not take fed money for projects.

 

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Gascon Kills 'Lifer Unit,' Will No Longer Let Victims Know When Their Assaulters Are up for Parole​

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon is continuing his one-man assault on the city, and according to our sources, he has now decided that victims and families of victims of violent crimes should no longer be notified when the convict comes up for parole. They should just read it in the newspaper like everyone else.

I never bought Gascon’s “progressive” prosecution arguments and his equity-based reforms, but he shows his true colors with this latest move: He loves criminals, and hates their victims. There is no other conclusion that can be drawn from this decision.

We have learned that Gascon has pulled the plug on the “Lifer Unit,” the group of deputy district attorneys charged with notifying victims of crime or relatives of victims (VNOK, or “victim’s next of kin”) of their victimizer’s parole hearings.

A Twitter user who wishes to remain anonymous posted the following Tuesday:

 

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Part of his ad campaign is to attack Florida -- currently run by Newsom's possible rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Yet, with the most burdensome regulations and high tax rates, Newsom's California is arguably the most unfree state in the union.

In return for these steep costs, the state's public institutions, infrastructure, and services are among the country's worst.

California's once-vaunted freeway system is near the bottom of all state comparisons. California's Highway 99, which runs the length of the Central Valley, is one of the deadliest roads in America based on miles driven.

Over half the nation's homeless crowd the state's major cities. One-third of America's welfare recipients have flooded into the state. A fifth of the resident population lives below the poverty line. Well over a quarter of Golden State residents were not born in the United States.

California public school test scores consistently fall among the bottom 10 states. San Francisco has the highest per capita property crime rate in the country.


The recently recalled San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and his soon-to-be recalled Los Angeles counterpart George Gascon have nearly ruined their cities. Both are iconic of multibillionaire George Soros' nationwide efforts to undermine the entire criminal justice system.

State residents are not free to drive safely because of their decrepit freeways. They are not free from filthy and toxic sidewalks or dangerous physical assault in their major cities.

Public school children are not free to enjoy competitive educations. San Franciscans are not free to park their cars without fearing that they will be vandalized or stolen.

The destruction of these freedoms is in direct proportion to the confiscatory taxes that the state collects -- the highest bracket of income and gasoline rates in the nation, among the highest sales taxes, and property taxes that soar due to inflated assessments in spite of a 1978 state constitutional amendment.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/07/14/gavin_newsoms_weird_idea_of_freedom_147886.html

 

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Homeless Man Who Allegedly Murdered NASCAR Star Bobby East Killed in SWAT Raid​

As Breitbart Sports reported on Saturday, “East’s murder comes at a time of spiking violence across much of California, with violence among California’s homeless population a leading factor.

“Just this week, former U.S. Olympian Kim Glass was the victim of an unprovoked assault by a homeless man in Los Angeles who threw a metal object at her face.”

 

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Now if this man was black and the police shot him dead we would have a riot.
Whereas I say put 2 in the back of his head and I won't lose a minutes sleep over it.

 

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Underground Moms Group Exposes LA Public Health's Plan to Return to Mandates the County's Own Doctors Say Aren't Needed​

We would have never had this information, which ostensibly Ferrer has access to (“the numbers”) without the efforts of an unnamed group of Los Angeles-area moms who are fed up and have decided to show just how much of a fraud she is. They leaked the video of the LAC+USC docs discussing the state of COVID and hospitalizations at LAC+USC. These doctors were mocking the idea that a COVID crisis was occurring in Los Angeles County, and that any hysteria surrounding this was media generated.

Dr. Brad Spellberg, the center’s Chief Medical Officer, spoke first, addressing Ferrer’s “the numbers are going up” mantra:

COVID positive tests have continued to go up, but this isn’t because we’re seeing a ton of people with symptomatic disease getting admitted. We’re seeing a lot of people with mild disease in the urgent care ED who go home and do not get admitted, and of those who are admitted, they’re 90 percent of the time not admitted due to COVID.
When they do go to the ICU, it is not for pneumonia. They are not intubated.
A lot of people have bad colds, is what we’re seeing,

Spellberg also said that severe COVID disease hasn’t been a factor since February and confirmed that they’re seeing electrolyte abnormalities and autoimmune issues related to COVID. According to the CMO:

“It is not the same pandemic as it was, despite the media hype to contrary.”

Really?

Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Holtom, speaking second, went even further (emphasis added):

“Maybe we can turn to the media which is trying to burst [our] bubble by talking about yet a new variant that was described in India sweeping the country and now in the United States the numbers will continue to go up, and indeed, the numbers in many areas are going up….
Certainly, if the experience of our hospital is reflective across the county, which I believe it is…we’re just seeing nobody with severe COVID disease. As of this morning, we have no one in the hospital who had pulmonary disease due to COVID. Nobody in the hospital.
I guess it is hard to get a little more excited.

Holtom then directly addresses Ferrer’s attempt to renew the mask mandate, saying that there is no reason to worry about hospitalization-due-to-COVID numbers:

Dr. Barbara Ferrer is expected today based on numbers to probably announce that LA County will go into a mask mandate situation for all indoor and large activities. That’s expected to be announced this afternoon, but we haven’t seen the final numbers that she may or may not choose to act on at that point. But certainly, there is no reason from a hospitalization-due-to-COVID perspective to be worried at this point.

So, why does Ferrer have this need for Angelenos to socially distance and be behind the muzzles again?

Thanks to this video leaking, major damage was done to Ferrer’s current attempt to muzzle the populace, and Ferrer did not like this. So, quick as a flash, Los Angeles County USC Medical Center stepped in to try and rein in the narrative.

LAC+USC tweeted out an unsigned letter on Health Services of Los Angeles letterhead. First, to try and restore the chosen narrative (COVID Bad, Forever Pandemic, Get vaccinated/boosted and wear your mask!), and second, to walk back the doctors’ comments and conclusions.

On behalf of LAC+USC Medical Center, we would like to be very clear: the COVID-19 pandemic remains a very serious public health threat that we must continue to fight with every tool available, including vaccines, masking, social distancing, and treatment. While we are not currently experiencing an increase in ICU admissions at LAC+USC, we are seeing a significant increase in the number of infections among our patients, staff and the communities we serve. Rising rates of infection are extremely concerning, as the more people who become infected, the greater probability that ICU admissions for COVID-19 will rise in the future.

Just like The Minority Report‘s pre-crime prevention, LAC+USC is letting you know that they are all over the pre-COVID prevention, and on top of any crisis, even when the numbers say there is no crisis to be on top of.

Importantly, one of the reasons we are seeing low rates of ICU admission currently is due to high rates of vaccination across Los Angeles County. We would like to underscore the importance of remaining current on vaccinations and using common sense measures to protect against COVID-19 transmission and infection, such as masking and social distancing.

And every new scientific study continues to find that there is no conclusive evidence that mask-wearing does anything but give you a warm, fuzzy feeling, along with some respiratory and speech issues. In her new book, Dr. Birx even admitted she made stuff up on masks and social distancing in order to manipulate the COVID response. Sounds like LAC+USC are following in her footsteps.

Now the unnamed letter writer gets to the heart of the matter — that video that exposed their Medical Industrial Complex fraud.

The video that is being circulated online was taken from an internal weekly virtual town hall meant to provide our staff at LAC+USC an update on COVID-19 hospital admissions.

THIS WAS NOT FOR YOU UNWASHED MASSES! HOW DARE YOU EXPOSE US?!

As was stated during the town hall, many patients are presenting every day to our Urgent Care Clinic and Emergency Department with COVID-19, reflecting extensive community transmission in Los Angeles County. Fortunately, most of these patients have mild disease – at this time – and do not require admission. The widespread vaccination coverage in Los Angeles County is critical to protecting against severe disease, hospitalization, and death.

So, if they’re presenting mild disease and do not require admission, why is there such concern about hospital admissions and ICUs? If the vaccination program is going so well, then any rampant spread of COVID or overwhelming the system should have been eliminated, right?

Talk about contradictory language.

Additionally, as a safety precaution for our staff and our other patients, all admissions to the hospital are tested for COVID, irrespective of the reason for admission. In the course of this testing, we are seeing a steady number of patients return a positive result. This is due to both high community transmission rates in Los Angeles County, as well as the fact that a person who has recovered from COVID-19 can continue to test positive on a PCR test for months, even when they are no longer actively infected.

How many of these tests are false positives? My husband is tested regularly for his work, and he has gotten more than a few positives, then when he tests again, it comes back negative. As far as I can tell, testing has served one purpose: to jack up the number of COVID cases, gin up the hysteria, and keep people in a perpetual state of confusion and fear. Take a gander at my deep dive into Naomi Wolf’s research on this if you don’t believe it.

 

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LA County Health Orders Employees to Prepare to Enforce Anti-Science Mask Mandate​

While all this is finally being covered in Los Angeles and by national media outlets, we have information from an LA County insider who reveals the Health Department has just issued a call to arms. An email blast was sent out to Environmental Health Specialist employees ordering them to prepare to enforce the all-but-certain rumored mask mandate headed our way on July 29. The email “requests” that all employees of the department sign up for training and to be prepared to work overtime to enforce the edict on the masses.


Here is the text of the email calling the troops to attention. It was sent out at the request of the Director of Environmental Health:

In anticipation of the reinstatement of the indoor mask mandate on Friday, July 29th, volunteers will be needed to work overtime on the weekends of July 30 and 31, and August 6 and 7.
The anticipated hours are:
Saturday – 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, with a 1 hr. lunch break
Sunday – 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, with a 1 hr. lunch break
On these weekends, volunteers will be visiting businesses at high risk for COVID transmission to educate/confirm compliance regarding the reinstatement of the indoor mask mandate.
All field inspectors (regardless of current program assignment) are asked to sign up to work overtime using the link below. [I have removed the link.]
Chief Environmental Health Specialists are also needed to volunteer to provide supervisory coverage over the weekend. Please use the same link above to sign up to work overtime.
All volunteers must have a laptop and use ECR to complete inspection reports that will be due at the end of each shift. Volunteers must also have a county cellphone.
Sign ups to volunteer are needed by Monday, July 25th.
Training on enforcement of the indoor mask mandate will be provided on Wednesday, July 27th. Additional information on this training is forthcoming.
********************************************************
Sent at the request of Liza E. Frias, Director of Environmental Health

In sum, what we have here is an out-of-control Public Health Director whose apparent main goal in life is to impose mask mandates on children and service workers, even when the evidence doesn’t support it and her own daughter is busted in a serious conflict-of-interest problem. If you remember the Little Napoleons at every supermarket and in every store angrily demanding that you pull up your mask, prepare for their return. And don’t forget how school administrators feel about children who’d like to breathe or be able to communicate—they say that the kids should just shut up and stay home.

 

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Largest Trucker Protest Over California Gig Worker Law Temporarily Shuts Down Port Of Oakland​

“These are independent, small businesses that choose to operate their own trucks, and now that right is taken away from them,” Bill Aboudi, owner of AB Trucking, told CNBC. “They do pay taxes; they do have insurance — it’s their choice to do that.”

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the California Trucking Association’s appeal that was in place for roughly two years to protect an estimated 70,000 independent truckers from the law’s impact.

Aboudi told KTVU that his company has independent owner-operators to backfill employee drivers.

“We can’t handle the volume with our company trucks,” Aboudi said. “So you rely on people that are working for multiple people or companies that are considered, they are owner-operators.”

Independent truckers like Ablelon Zersiel told KTVU that the law would complicate their lives with higher taxes, health care insurance, and other expenses used for their operations.

“They want us either to be employees of the company or become corporations,” Zersiel said. “This is the wrong time to do that — the inflation is swallowing us up.”

 

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Taxpayers on hook as Gascon brings in nation's highest-paid attorney in legal battle with his own prosecutors​

"It’s unfortunate that Gascon is spending so much time and money litigating against his own front-line prosecutors and challenging California’s Three Strikes law, which is well-established and supported by the majority of California voters," he said. "Especially as he faces a likely recall."

"As one of the attorneys representing the Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys in this lawsuit against LA DA George Gascon, I’m flattered that he felt the need to hire the most expensive law firm in the country to fight us," Nathan Hochman, an attorney representing the deputy district attorneys union in the case, told Fox News Digital Tuesday. "As a citizen of LA, I’m disgusted that he would waste so much of our money fighting tooth-and-nail against putting dangerous criminals in jail."

He went on to call on voters to reject the re-election bid for California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whom he is running to unseat, and endorse the effort to recall Gascon.

"As a parent, I’m worried that his aggressive disregard for the safety of all of us will continue to cause more tragic death and damage," he said.

Gascon’s office did not immediately respond to questions about how much taxpayer money is going toward paying Hogan Lovells or Katyal.

 

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It would appear that Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer’s Wikipedia page has been edited by people unhappy with her edicts, because as of 10:30 pm EST, the entry certainly doesn’t read as if it were approved by the not-medically trained doctor:

LA County Public Health Director

Barbara Ferrer’s Wikipedia page on July 23, 2022. Source: Wikipedia
It reads, “the far-left public health official and social justice warrior (not a Medical Doctor)…” Ouch! Somebody’s having some fun with the Mask Queen. According to archive.today, the entry read quite differently in June:

Barbara Ferrer(born September 30, 1965) is an American health executive, serving as the director of Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.[1][2]

It’s unclear why the birthdays in the two listings are 9 years apart. An internet search revealed that both birthdays were listed on various different websites. Not to be mean, but I’m guessing 1956 is the correct year of birth.

Ferrer has been the talk of the town lately, as RedState’s Jennifer Van Laar last week exposed the fact that Ferrer’s daughter Kaitlin Barnes was a co-author of a study that both the CDC and the LA County Health Department used to justify mask mandates. We also covered her desperate attempts to bring back mask mandates to Los Angeles despite the science indicating they are not necessary at this point in the pandemic, as she herself proved by attending the All-Star game last week without a mask.

People Are Having Fun Editing LA Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer’s Wikipedia Page

redstate.com

 

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Truckers Shut Down California Port Fighting for the Right To Be Their Own Bosses​

Wednesday's protests managed to shut down terminals at Oakland International Container Terminal, where 2,100 trucks pass through to collect and deliver goods each day. It's the eighth-largest port in the U.S. Trucks blocked the gates, and according to CNBC, labor rules allow dockworkers to leave if they fear for their safety, so they did.

The truckers say Gov. Gavin Newsom has not been responding to their concerns that won't be able to continue driving independently. Via CNBC:

One of those protesting is Bill Aboudi, owner of AB Trucking. "So far there has been no contact with the governor's office. It seems the governor is not concerned about taking American workers' rights away," Aboudi said. "These are independent, small businesses that choose to operate their own trucks, and now that right is taken away from them. They do pay taxes, they do have insurance. It's their choice to do that."
CNBC reached out to Governor Gavin Newsom's office asking when the enforcement of the law would begin, as well as if truckers have a way within the law to remain independent. In an email to CNBC, the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) Director Dee Dee Myers stated that with the federal courts rejecting the trucking industry's appeals, "it's time to move forward, comply with the law and work together to create a fairer and more sustainable industry for all."

One would think, if one were to actually take workers' rights seriously, that independent truckers should be able to decide for themselves whether their own work environment is "fair." That the state is insistent on pushing the law onto resisting laborers is at this point a very clear indicator that A.B. 5 was never about protecting workers from employers. It was always about protecting workers in heavily unionized industries from their competition. And now, it's yet another factor that will drive up inflation and the costs of the goods we purchase.

 

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LA Supervisor Kuehl Calls Those Opposed to Potential Mask Mandate 'Snowflake Weepies'​

While our betters have shown a stunning lack of compassion for the effects of their policies and edicts since COVID arrived on the scene, powerful Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl took things to new—and lower—depths at the board’s meeting Tuesday. She said she’s heard from critics in opposition to a new mask mandate that may be launched Friday, July 29, and took aim at them:

I’m particularly struck by the blowback from a number, though not a really significant number of sort of, snowflake weepies about how oppressive it is to wear a mask.

Snowflake weepies?! If you’ve ever wondered whether the authorities actually care about you, now you know for sure—they don’t. She further went on to ridiculously compare mask-wearing to donning everyday clothes like shirts and shoes:

I don’t hear them writing me about shoes, which are actually more oppressive to your feet than wearing a mask on your face but we do that really for health or the requirement to wear a shirt when you enter a restaurant.

This is so stupid as to barely warrant a response, but I’ll give one anyway. It’s real simple—shirts and shoes don’t impair your ability to interact with people, breathe safely, or for the very young, learn to read faces. There is ample proof that masks have caused impaired learning, but I don’t need to list a dozen studies and graphs, I can tell you from personal experience. The lockdowns severely impacted my kids, three of whom were sent home from school and college for over a year and a half. Then, when they were finally let back in, they had to be masked up, vaxxed, separated by Plexiglass, never even allowed to see their friends’ or teachers’ faces.

Other people weren’t impressed either:

 

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The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, an anti-discrimination nonprofit, plus two California taxpayers are challenging a pair of Alameda County programs that put non-minority-owned companies at a disadvantage when competing for government contracts. Pacific Legal Foundation, the nonprofit representing the Californians pro bono, filed a lawsuit in state court on Monday alleging that the programs are unconstitutional.

The programs require that at least 15 percent of the money the county pays for certain contracts, known as “set-asides,” be put into the hands of “minority business enterprises” — determined solely by skin color. Wencong Fa, the PLF attorney for the case, told The Federalist that normally a company known as a “prime contractor” would receive a contract for a project from the county and then subcontract other companies to complete certain parts of the project, but now a portion of that subcontracting is race-based.

Fa said that even though the set-aside is only 15 percent, it effectively excludes some non-minority businesses from competing for county contracts. If a prime contractor decides to meet the race requirement by subcontracting trucking to a minority company, for example, all non-minority trucking companies are automatically excluded from the entire county contract.

The program also harms minority businesses, Fa added. In the lawsuit, he referenced minority companies being used as “‘pass through’ subcontractors that allow the prime contractor [to] meet the minority business ‘participation goals,’ but perform none of the work.” He also referenced a minority subcontractor who “receives calls from companies that know that he cannot do the work — just so that they can say that they made the effort.”

CA County Gets Sued For Picking Contractors Based On Race

'Companies face a lot of barriers to opportunity. ... Government-sanctioned racial discrimination should not be one of those barriers.'

thefederalist.com

 

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Whistleblower Claims LA County's Ferrer Is Using State of Emergency to Abuse and Retaliate Against Employees, Shakedown Businesses​

According to a whistleblower who spoke to RedState on condition of anonymity, Ferrer has set up the Environmental Health division as her personal enforcement army, charged with issuing as many COVID violations as possible, with no warning and regardless of intentionality, to fill the coffers with revenue from fines; sent inspectors out during the “two weeks to slow the spread” time period with no PPE, leading to employee deaths; forced night/weekend/holiday overtime for the plebes while never working those extended hours themselves; and refused to grant leave to employees on COVID quarantine. Due to the provisions of the State of Emergency, the workers are left with no redress.

In short, while Ferrer expects private businesses to abide by her “health order” diktats regarding providing PPE, shutting down entire industries, and providing employees with paid time off to quarantine, she refused to do any of that in her own department.

Environmental Health is led by Deputy Liza Frias, her Assistant Deputy Brenda Lopez, and the Chief Communications Officer, Carl Kemp. Yes, the Carl Kemp we wrote about Monday, who is a felon convicted of tax fraud for failing to report $750,000 in “lobbying” income received from clients like drug kingpin John Walker. (Walker paid Kemp and a few other Long Beach insiders thousands of dollars a month in exchange for receiving favorable treatment from Long Beach authorities at a time when marijuana collectives who didn’t have such well-connected lobbyists were being raided by the Long Beach PD.)

As RedState’s Bob Hoge reported last week, the Environmental Health Division is already offering training for employee “volunteers” who will plan to work overtime this coming weekend to enforce a renewed mask mandate. About that, our whistleblower says:

With the impending return of the mask mandate, the department has sent out an email asking for “volunteers” for the overtime shift. Make no mistake, the department has always justified forced schedule change by saying that they did not get enough volunteers. Even if they meet the required numbers, they would just move the goal post so “enough” volunteers are never really reached. They do not care about facts or data outside of their agenda.

Employees department-wide are hoping that the county will rescind the declaration as soon as possible so the perverse incentives driving DPH’s direction are removed, and so employees’ schedules and job duties aren’t subject to the whims of Frias and Ferrer. Career DPH employees are terrified of the retaliation and potential blackballing because “the current people at the top are vindictive and cruel,” and that Frias is “extremely retaliatory” but many more are coming forward to RedState and other outlets. As this latest whistleblower says: