The Trump administration is done trying to negotiate with California, and will move forward with plans to revoke the state of its authority to set tougher fuel efficiency standards.
“At this point, we have to move to finalize,” Andrew Wheeler, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), stated in a Monday interview with the Washington Examiner. “We don’t have time to move to reopen [negotiations]. We tried to work with California, but we were just not able to. In California, politics was playing the bigger hand than the policy.”
The EPA will introduce its final proposal sometime this spring that strips a waiver California and other states have long used to set tougher vehicle emission standards than the federal government, forcing every state in the U.S. to comply with the same rules.
The move to revoke California of its waiver comes as the Trump administration is also looking to freeze Obama-era efficiency rules meant to cut carbon emissions from the transportation industry. The EPA, along with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is finalizing a proposal to freeze vehicle efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, in lieu of raising them annually.
The White House argues the Obama-era rules render new cars too expensive, and would prompt consumers to rely on older models that are less safe and not as environmentally friendly.
The Trump administration in August first proposed freeing fuel economy standards at 37 miles per gallon in 2020. The EPA and Department of Transportation estimated that the freeze would save $500 billion in societal costs and prevent around 1,000 traffic fatalities a year.
“California didn’t really give us a legitimate counteroffer,” Wheeler continued. “They promised it after a couple weeks of our proposal, and we waited over 12 weeks before we got an answer. The answer we got really isn’t credible.”
On Monday, March 4, 2019, I found an article in the Wall Street Journal that took me profoundly aback. In this excellent opinion piece, Mark Halperin laid out and connected facts that have troubled me for a long time. Beginning, he states that Washington is focusing too much attention on North Korea. Moreover, he believes that the government is dealing with the Koreans one way, and another way with China but that both are a joined entity. Instead of being distracted by chimeras, attention should be payed to our diminishing military Power.
Halperin boldly states that, “the U.S. is ceding the Pacific to China.” I considered that a very probable possibility since I first heard of the Chinese Island building activity, turning atolls into military stations. I also had reports that China is keeping during most times, six atomic U-Boats in the Taiwan Straits, ever ready for an attack on the island nation. Furthermore, China is establishing ports for its merchant and military ships in many parts of Asia and Africa.
Halperin states that China, as a dictatorship, is planning for the future in “which the chief objective is a favorable correlation of forces over time and the most important measure is capacity.”
China can spend enormous amounts on is military, even when its home economy suffers and contracts during economic downturns, while America is divided into patriots, and those who would gladly throw the country open to invasion of any kind. For that reason, our military might has been decimated. The Navy for example is only half the size it was under President Reagan.
The U. S. has virtually no power to contain either China’s weaponizing nor North Korea’s atomic militarizing, except to alter the balance of military forces in the Western Pacific, and thereby confront the inexorable expansion of China’s arsenals.
Military evaluation has shown that if it came to a military, and or nuclear, confrontation, China has the capability to, in one knock-out blow, destroy our military bases in South Korea, Japan and Guam, inciting long drawn out warfare, which the U.S. with its present arsenal cannot do successfully.
In a broad-based scenario, Mr. Halperin sketches how the Chinese military could use its new bases and harbors situated in nations all over the world that owe massive amounts of money to China. He believably convinces us that a ruthless Mr. Xi Jinping could have America involved in a global confrontation.
I strongly recommend that you read the article in the Wall Street Journal yourself, and I hope that someone at the Pentagon would also read it and lecture our Congress on the ramifications of a weak military.
In closing, I would like to remark on emerging details, exposing Chinese hackers targeting more than two dozen universities in the U.S. and around the globe, in an elaborate plan to steal maritime and military research and technology.
U.S. cyber security experts and former U.S. officials confirm the attacks. In a Wall Street Journal report, Dustin Volz mentions the University of Hawaii, the University of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S. among more than 27 universities in the U. S., Canada, and Southeast Asia that have been victimized according to iDefense, a cyber security intelligence unit of Accenture Security. More than ever, China attempts and succeeds in stealing U. S. military and economic secrets. iDefense identified targeted universities, observing that their networks were pinging servers in China, controlled by a Chinese hacking group. This research was verified by the U.S. cyber security firm Fire Eye. Furthermore, a Massachusetts oceanographic institute was likely to be compromised because of faculty with extensive knowledge in relevant fields. It has been established that the hacking group Temp. Periscope is linked to Beijing, for Beijing has, of course, a heightened interest in submarine missile plans and ship maintenance.
When questioned, the Navy avers that it recognizes the seriousness of cyber threats but does not comment.
In summation: America is facing an enormously dangerous enemy on the outside while being simultaneously attacked and weakened from the inside.
Sigrid Weidenweber grew up in communist East Berlin, escaping it using a French passport. Ms. Weidenweber holds a degree in medical technology as well as psychology and has course work in Anthropology. She is co-founder of Aid for Afghans. Weidenweber has traveled the world and lived with Pakistani Muslims, learning about the culture and religion. She is a published author and lecturer. You can find her books on Amazon.com
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Anna Gorman, Kaiser Health News Jennifer Millar keeps trash bags and hand sanitizer near her tent, and she regularly pours water mixed with hydrogen peroxide on the sidewalk nearby. Keeping herself and the patch of concrete she calls home clean is a top priority.
Jennifer Millar lives in a tent with her two dogs under a Hollywood freeway ramp. Millar says she keeps trash bags and hand sanitizer near her tent, and she regularly pours water mixed with hydrogen peroxide on the sidewalk. “I worry about all those diseases,” says Millar.
But this homeless encampment off a Hollywood freeway ramp is often littered with needles and trash, and soaked in urine. Rats occasionally scamper through, and Millar fears the consequences.
“I worry about all those diseases,” said Millar, 43, who said she has been homeless most of her life.
Infectious diseases — some that ravaged populations in the Middle Ages — are resurging in California and around the country, and are hitting homeless populations especially hard.
Los Angeles recently experienced an outbreak of typhus — a disease spread by infected fleas on rats and other animals — in downtown streets. Officials briefly closed part of City Hall after reporting that rodents had invaded the building.
People in Washington state have been infected with Shigella bacteria, which is spread through feces and causes the diarrheal disease shigellosis, as well as Bartonella quintana, which spreads through body lice and causes trench fever.
Hepatitis A, also spread primarily through feces, infected more than 1,000 people in Southern California in the past two years. The disease also has erupted in New Mexico, Ohio and Kentucky, primarily among people who are homeless or use drugs.
A homeless encampment off a Hollywood freeway ramp. Infectious diseases, some that ravaged populations in the Middle Ages, are resurging in California and around the country, and are hitting homeless populations especially hard.
Public health officials and politicians are using terms like “disaster” and “public health crisis” to describe the outbreaks, and they warn that these diseases can easily jump beyond the homeless population.
“Our homeless crisis is increasingly becoming a public health crisis,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in his State of the State speech in February, citing outbreaks of hepatitis A in San Diego County, syphilis in Sonoma County and typhus in Los Angeles County.
“Typhus,” he said. “A medieval disease. In California. In 2019.”
The diseases have flared as the nation’s homeless population has grown in the past two years: About 553,000 people were homeless at the end of 2018, and nearly one-quarter of homeless people live in California.
The diseases spread quickly and widely among people living outside or in shelters, fueled by sidewalks contaminated with human feces, crowded living conditions, weakened immune systems and limited access to health care.
“The hygiene situation is just horrendous” for people living on the streets, said Dr. Glenn Lopez, a physician with St. John’s Well Child & Family Center, who treats homeless patients in Los Angeles County. “It becomes just like a Third World environment where their human feces contaminate the areas where they are eating and sleeping.”
Those infectious diseases are not limited to homeless populations, Lopez warned. “Even someone who believes they are protected from these infections are not.”
Infectious diseases are resurging in California and around the country, hitting homeless populations especially hard. (Heidi de Marco/KHN)
At least one Los Angeles city staffer said she contracted typhus in City Hall last fall. And San Diego County officials warned in 2017 that diners at a well-known restaurant were at risk of hepatitis A.
There were 167 cases of typhus from Jan. 1, 2018, through Feb. 1 of this year, up from 125 in 2013 and 13 in 2008, according to the California Public Health Department.
Typhus is a bacterial infection that can cause a high fever, stomach pain and chills but can be treated with antibiotics. Outbreaks are more common in overcrowded and trash-filled areas that attract rats.
The recent typhus outbreak began last fall, when health officials reported clusters of the flea-borne disease in downtown Los Angeles and Compton. They also have occurred in Pasadena, where the problems are likely due to people feeding stray cats carrying fleas.
Last month, the county announced another outbreak in downtown Los Angeles that infected nine people, six of whom were homeless. After city workers said they saw rodent droppings in City Hall, Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson briefly shut down his office to rip up the rugs, and he also called for an investigation and more cleaning.
Hepatitis A is caused by a virus usually transmitted when people come in contact with feces of infected people. Most people recover on their own, but the disease can be very serious for those with underlying liver conditions. There were 948 cases of hepatitis A in 2017 and 178 in 2018 and 2019, the state public health department said. Twenty-one people have died as a result of the 2017-18 outbreak.
The infections around the country are not a surprise, given the lack of attention to housing and health care for the homeless and the dearth of bathrooms and places to wash hands, said Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, the health officer for Seattle and King County, Wash.
“It’s a public health disaster,” he said.
In his area, Duchin said, he has seen shigellosis, trench fever and skin infections among homeless populations.
In New York City, where more of the homeless population lives in shelters rather than on the streets, there have not been the same outbreaks of hepatitis A and typhus, said Dr. Kelly Doran, an emergency medicine physician and assistant professor at NYU School of Medicine. But Doran said different infections occur in shelters, including tuberculosis, a disease that spreads through the air and typically infects the lungs.
The diseases sometimes get the “medieval” moniker because people in that era lived in squalid conditions without clean water or sewage treatment, said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine and public health at UCLA.
People living on the streets or in homeless shelters are vulnerable to such outbreaks because their weakened immune systems are worsened by stress, malnutrition and sleep deprivation. Many also have mental illness and substance abuse disorders, which can make it harder for them to stay healthy or get health care.
Jennifer Millar receives a checkup by Saban Community Clinic physician assistant Negeen Farmand.Saban Community Clinic physician assistant Negeen Farmand checks Jennifer Millar at a homeless encampment near a Hollywood freeway one morning.
One recent February afternoon, Saban Community Clinic physician assistant Negeen Farmand walked through homeless encampments in Hollywood carrying a backpack with medical supplies. She stopped to talk to a man sweeping the sidewalks. He said he sees “everything and anything” in the gutters and hopes he doesn’t get sick.
She introduced herself to a few others and asked if they had any health issues that needed checking. When she saw Millar, Farmand checked her blood pressure, asked about her asthma and urged her to come see a doctor for treatment of her hepatitis C, a viral infection spread through contaminated blood that can lead to serious liver damage.
“To get these people to come into a clinic is a big thing,” she said. “A lot of them are distrustful of the health care system.”
On another day, 53-year-old Karen Mitchell waited to get treated for a persistent cough by St. John’s Well Child & Family Center’s mobile health clinic. She also needed a tuberculosis test, as required by the shelter where she was living in Bellflower, Calif.
Mitchell, who said she developed alcoholism after a career in pharmaceutical sales, said she has contracted pneumonia from germs from other shelter residents. “Everyone is always sick, no matter what precautions they take.”
During the hepatitis A outbreak, public health officials administered widespread vaccinations, cleaned the streets with bleach and water and installed hand-washing stations and portable toilets near high concentrations of homeless people.
But health officials and homeless advocates said more needs to be done, including helping people access medical and behavioral health care and affordable housing.
“It really is unconscionable,” said Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, a policy and advocacy organization. “These are all preventable diseases.”
The word of the month for the Democratic Party’s would-be 2020 presidential nominees is “aspirational.”
“The Green New Deal? I see it as aspirational,” US Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told Fox News on February 12. She would vote for the resolution introduced by US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and US Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), but “if it got down to the nitty-gritty of an actual legislation, as opposed to, ‘Oh, here’s some goals we have’ — uh, that would be different for me.”
Washington governor Jay Inslee echoed Klobuchar on March 1 as he announced his own candidacy, calling the Green New Deal an “aspirational document” and promising his own proposals on climate change.
“Aspirational” is another of saying that the Green New Deal isn’t a real legislative proposal. It’s just a feel-good wish list of things its proponents think Americans want and want us to believe they want too. It’s not legislation aimed at actually making those things happen.
The resolution asserts “a sense of” Congress,” [r]ecognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.” If the resolution passed, it wouldn’t create any “deal.” It would just assure Americans that those who passed it really, really want to do so.
It’s full of stuff most people would probably like to see: Prosperity and economic security for all people, clean air and water, healthy food, justice and equity, high-quality health care, adequate housing, just about everything good and desirable except for free ice cream and ponies (perhaps Ocasio-Cortez should have called in Vermin Supreme to consult).
But that’s only half of a “deal” (per Oxford Dictionaries, “an agreement entered into by two or more parties for their mutual benefit, especially in a business or political context”).
If we get all that good stuff, what do we give up for it?
The resolution calls, fuzzily, for “a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal,” but it doesn’t advertise that as a cost. It calls such a “mobilization” an “opportunity” and claims that its named predecessors “created the greatest middle class that the United States has ever seen.”
In reality, FDR’s “New Deal” stretched the Great Depression out for years (as of 1940, the unemployment rate was still nearly twice that of 1930), and World War Two diverted more than 16 million Americans away from productive employment to “employment” which killed nearly half a million of them.
What produced “the greatest middle class that the United States has ever seen” was luck of location: At the end of the war, the US was the only world power with its industrial plant still largely intact, its factories being located beyond enemy bomber range. The economic impact of the “mobilizations” themselves was to keep people poor, dependent on government, and willing to be ordered around by the likes of FDR.
The “mobilization” the resolution calls for would likely turn out the same way. Lots of sacrifice, little benefit.
Sorry, Alexandria and Ed: No “deal.”
Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.
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Los Angeles, March 12, 2019 – Michele Hanisee, President of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys issued the following statement regarding the decision by Governor Gavin Newsom to put a moratorium on the Death Penalty.
The voters of the State of California support the death penalty. That is powerfully demonstrated by their approval of Proposition 66 in 2016 to ensure the death penalty is implemented, and their rejection of measures to end the death penalty in 2016 and 2006. Governor Newsom, who supported the failed initiative to end the death penalty in 2006, is usurping the express will of California voters and substituting his personal preferences via this hasty and ill-considered moratorium on the death penalty.
The Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA) is the collective bargaining agent and represents nearly 1,000 Deputy District Attorneys who work for the County of Los Angeles.
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Respected area law firm Dion Law Group announces the appointment of two of their lead attorneys as 2019 president and vice president of the Ventura County Family Law Bar Association.
Two of Ventura County’s top attorneys of esteemed law firm Dion Law Group have officially been appointed top positions of the Ventura County Family Law Bar Association (VCFLBA). Susan Elston and Karen Oakman, Esq. for the year 2019 are now actively sitting as president and vice president, respectively, of the prestigious and highly-respected association. With the leading level representation of Dion Law Group, all VCFLBA meetings will therefore being held at the Dion Law Group office for the year.
Susan Elston has had a longtime focus in family law, while Karen Oakman focuses on both criminal and family law matters. The firm’s dedication to their clients’ best interests, upholding best law practices and furthering their insight on the industry is what makes the Dion Law Group a leading law practice in Ventura County.
The VCFLBA is a section of theVentura County Bar Association(VCBA), which is a non-profit founded almost a century ago and currently has over 12,000 members in various sections, committees and affiliates. Both Elston and Oakman are also members of the VCBA, which provides priceless resources and programs for attorneys and gives Elston, Oakman and the other attorneys at Dion Law Group a chance to make a strong impact in their community.
About Susan Elston, Dion Law Group
Susan Elston is an attorney that focuses on family law, encompassing issues such as divorce, child custody, child support, spousal support, domestic violence, and bankruptcy. As a single mother, Ms. Elston began her legal career in 1993 when she earned three paralegal degrees from the University of West Los Angeles, and subsequently completed her Bachelor of Science Degree in Paralegal Studies. She went on to earn her Juris Doctorate from Ventura College of Law in 2012 with a focus on Family Law and Criminal Law. Ms. Elston is a member of the Ventura County Bar Association, Ventura County Family Law Bar Association, Women Lawyers of Ventura County, and Jerome H. Berenson Chapter of the American Inns of Court. She is currently the President of the Ventura County Family Law Bar.
About Karen Oakman, Esq. of Dion Law Group
Karen Oakman graduated Magna Cum Laude from California Lutheran University, receiving her Bachelor of Science and Arts degrees in Criminal Justice and Political Science. She then graduated from California Western School of Law in 2010, receiving her Juris Doctorate degree. Ms. Oakman represents clients in criminal matters; including infractions, misdemeanors, investigations, and serious felonies. Ms. Oakman also represents clients in family law matters, restraining order hearings, and guardianship proceedings. Ms. Oakman is the current Vice President of the Ventura County Family Law Bar after serving as Treasurer of the Ventura County Family Law Bar last year. She is also on the Board of the Conejo Free Clinic as Secretary of the Board and Legal Director.
About Dion Law Group
The Dion Law Group specializes in providing clients with the most personalized service available. Their team understands that a legal problem can be one of the most stressful times in a person’s life. They use interest based problem solving techniques in order to keep legal fees as low as possible and find the best solution to a specific issue.
At the Dion Law Group, their goal is to provide clients with courteous, expedient, professional service of the highest caliber. They have the skill and tools to handle each case as efficiently as possible in order to avoid unnecessary legal expenses.
For any questions or to make an appointment for a no cost consultation, you can call them at (805) 497-7474.
About Ventura County Family Law Bar Association
The Ventura County Family Law Bar Association is a section of the Ventura County Bar Association (VCBA). The VCBA was established in 1929 and incorporated in 1968 as a California non-profit 501(c)(6) Mutual Benefit Corporation. Currently, the VCBA has 1227 members and 37 sections, committees and affiliates. The VCBA is governed by a 28 member board of directors, and operated by a devoted staff of 7 professionals. The Ventura County Bar Association/Volunteer Lawyers Services Program, Inc. (VLSP) provides legal services for low income individuals and families in Ventura County. VLSP, Inc. was incorporated as a non-profit in December 2001, and in June 2002 became a 501(c)(3) public benefit, tax exempt corporation.
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An enlightening and entertaining dialogue with Jewish Talk Show Host Dennis Prager and Christian Pastor/Broadcaster Alistair Begg. Moderated by National Radio and Television host Hugh Hewitt. Judaism is the oldest living religion, and the foundation on which Christianity was built. However, there are differences:
How do the Jewish and Christian faiths view life after death?
What do Jews believe about the Messiah?
Do we earn our way to heaven or it is by faith alone?
Join Dennis Prager and Alistair Begg, along with moderator Hugh Hewitt, as they discuss the similarities and differences of these two great world religions. The event will take place in the Reagan Library’s Presidential Learning Center, followed immediately by the VIP Reception in the Air Force One Pavilion.
Ventura Region 39 AYSO 12U National Team won a spot in the the National Games which happen every two years. There is a total of 12 girls on the team whom are 11 and 12. As you may know AYSO is a 501c non profit organization. This team has been fundraising and we need the communities help to get these girls to Hawaii and represent the 805. The players are selected due to their sportsmanship and chemistry as teammates and not by their family’s financial ability.
Every two years the National Soccer games are held in different locations through out the USA. This year it will be in Hawaii from June 29-July 8th. The journey for some of these young ladies maybe the one time they will fly on a airplane, or meet peers from across the country. A lot of us parents had no idea there was such an opportunity that would be awarded to our daughters. Each player needs to raise $2,000.00 which will pay for the flight, housing and transportation
Our group of young ladies has set up a “GoFundMe” campaign. Link is attached. (gf.me/u/rdbdb3)
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On 03/07/19 at approximately 2:20 AM, while a family was sleeping inside of their home located in the 300 block of Hill Street, an intruder entered their home through an open window.
While inside the residence the suspect identified as Ricardo Palazuelos, 23 years old began to rummage through the family’s personal belongings. Family members were awakened by the suspect and immediately detained him. The Oxnard Police Department was notified and he was taken into custody.
During the police investigation, property was found in possession of Palazuelos that did not belong to him or the family. It is believed that Palazuelos might have unlawfully obtained the property from another residence.
The suspect was charged with residential burglary, child endangerment, possession of narcotic paraphernalia and for being under the influence of a controlled substance.
The Oxnard Police Department is asking for your assistance. If you have any information regarding any additional burglaries or thefts in the area of the 300 block of Hill Street, or are a victim yourself, please contact the Oxnard Police Department and make a police report.
Residents are reminded and encouraged to report any and all suspicious activity to the police. Reports can be made anonymously and translators are available 24 hours a day. Anyone with information regarding criminal activity is encouraged to contact the Oxnard Police Department at (805) 385-7740 or the Ventura County Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477 and www.venturacountycrimestoppers.org.
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The city of Moorpark has selected a new chief to oversee police services in the city of 37,000 residents. Ventura County Sheriff’s Captain Victor Fazio was chosen as the top cop to replace John Reilly, who recently promoted to commander and will be in charge of patrol services for Eastern Ventura County.
Fazio is a 24-year veteran of the sheriff’s office, and has an extensive background in criminal investigations and narcotics enforcement. He takes an innovative approach to policing and problem solving. Fazio was instrumental in creating and overseeing the Pharmaceutical Crimes Unit to tackle the emerging opioid threat and the physicians who overprescribe addictive narcotic painkillers. He is a nationally recognized expert in pharmaceutical drug diversion and heroin trafficking organizations.
Fazio has a bachelor’s degree from UCLA in political science, a master’s degree from Arizona State University in criminal justice, and a doctorate in education from the University of Southern California, where his research was focused on physician education. Fazio is also a professor of criminal justice and holds the rank of faculty associate with the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions at Arizona State University. He was also recently appointed as an adjunct associate professor with USC Bovard College.
Fazio was born and raised in Thousand Oaks, and currently resides in Simi Valley with his wife Courtney and their two daughters. He will begin his new assignment as police chief on March 24, 2019.
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Jason Hopkins | Energy Investigator
The EPA will introduce its final proposal sometime this spring that strips a waiver California and other states have long used to set tougher vehicle emission standards than the federal government, forcing every state in the U.S. to comply with the same rules.
