As triple-digit temperatures engulf much of the United States, the Trump administration wants grid managers to require the use of backup power that often goes unused.
Elected officials in California are carrying on with business as usual, even after their constituents voted overwhelmingly to send them packing.An election was held on April 28 in the California city of Avenal in Kings County, where the mayor, Alvaro Preciado, and three city council members — Leticia Gamez, David Reynosa, and Pablo Hernandez — were recalled with at least 76% of voters backing the ouster in each case. The Kings County Registrar of Voters certified the recall election.'I’ve never seen a city so deflated.'The driving force behind this electoral housecleaning — which the council members unsuccessfully attempted to stop with a lawsuit in April — was principally voter concerns about transparency and the council's previous decision to cease contracting with the county fire department.Preciado, Gamez, and Hernandez voted on June 11 to reject the will of the electorate and remain in office. They even approved a new city budget despite recall advocates producing a restraining order, reported the SF Chronicle.Those officials clinging to power, including Reynosa, maintain that the recall election was conducted unlawfully by Kings County and without the council's authorization.Preciado told the SF Chronicle last month that he was staying in office until a judge decides on the recall's legality.California Democrat Attorney General Robert Bonta cleared the way for legal action against the recalled officials on June 11.RELATED: Gov. Pritzker says he's one of the good billionaires, not the ones vilified by socialists In his opinion, Bonta noted that "if the Relators are correct on the merits, then the Defendants are not lawfully occupying office. It would not be in the public interest to permit elected officials to disregard election results."Days after Bonta granted the recall campaigners' application for leave to sue in quo warranto, residents served Preciado and the other recalled officials a lawsuit and an earful at an Avenal city council meeting.Dalila Barajas, a resident of Avenal who is one of the recall proponents, told KGPE-TV, "It just seems that the more meetings they have, the more money that they're spending illegally, the more our citizens are getting frustrated and the more we're asking for them to step down."While Bonta cleared lawsuits against the recall officials, King County District 2 Supervisor Richard Valle criticized the state attorney general for his apparent disinterest in the scandal, telling KMPH-TV on Wednesday, "I believe that if these were MAGA republicans who were refusing to leave office, someone in California would have done something about that.""We were hoping he would take some action," added Valle."I’ve never seen a city so deflated in my time of being around in public service. The people feel like nobody’s coming to help," added the King County supervisor. "Why is it being allowed to take place here in the state of California, in the county of Kings, in the city of Avenal? It’s embarrassing."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
In 1874, the state geologist of Pennsylvania, then the nation's leading oil producer, warned that the U.S.
The post “We’re Running Out of Oil”: The Lie Used to Support the Green Energy Agenda appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Iran’s joint military command on Thursday warned of a “forceful response” if all the oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz do not follow the approved routes. “Any failure to comply, deviation from the designated route, or disregard for the navigation protocols of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz will…
The Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship this week. The Times said the decision "capped a more than decade-long effort by Mr. Trump to use the issue as a political tool." A relief, to be sure, but no cause for celebration. A plain reading of the 14th Amendment would bring anyone to the same decision. The court was split, however, with some justices unable to resist the temptation to dehumanize immigrants by calling them "foreign birth tourists." The majority didn't check the president, though that's how most people will see it. A more accurate interpretation would be that it encouraged him, or some future authoritarian, to try again. Change a few things, including who's on the court, and a plain reading of the 14th Amendment won't matter anymore. All it would take to destroy equal citizenship would be five rogue justices pretending that history didn't happen and words don't have meaning.The high court can't be allowed to continue in its present form, not when it profanes the Constitution, perverts the rule of law, and comes within a hair of transforming America into de jure apartheid state. It has already legalized corruption. It has already gutted the Voting Rights Act. Yesterday, it said that the US Congress (meaning we, the people) has no rights which a Republican president is bound to respect. All things being equal, it's only a matter of time before the current court finds a way to turn "white makes right" into law. The Republican won't stop it. Will the Democrats?I can't say I'm encouraged after reading Dana Milbank's latest. A former Post columnist who now writes for NOTUS, Milbank wanted to know if the unitary executive powers amassed by Trump and blessed by this court can be used to launch what he called "a new Progressive Era, in which a Democratic president imposes by executive fiat government run health care and many other ideas liberals have long dreamed about but lacked the votes to enact." Milbank interviewed "veterans of previous Democratic administrations and liberal policy wonks" to ask "what would it look like if the next Democratic president wielded power the way Trump does?" The answer, Milbank said, is like "an embryonic Project 2029," though no one called it that. "The advocacy arms of the Roosevelt Institute, the Center for American Progress and other influential groups on the left are already assembling lists of ways a Democratic president could use the breathtaking executive power Trump has seized."On that list are some golden nuggets. They include (and here I'm quoting Milbank almost verbatim): creating a government-run health insurer; seizing patents from drug makers that developed their products with government funding; establishing government-run grocery stores; cutting off funds for businesses that don’t significantly raise their wages; taking “golden shares” in, or other forms of government control over, frontier AI firms, banks, pharmaceutical firms and others; dismantling the Department of Homeland Security; and breaking up media monopolies like Paramount's merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. I'm sampling what is a truly mouth-watering list of progressive objectives, but two aspects stand out from the full list. One is that it's limited to policy. Two is that there's nothing on the list about reforming the Supreme Court. Indeed, there does not seem to be awareness among Milbank's sources that the Supreme Court will strike down every one of these policies if given a chance, no matter how good or popular they might become. Worse, a kind of magical thinking seems to be driving the debate. None other than Neera Tanden suggested what's good for a Republican is good for his Democratic successor in the eyes of the court. "Trump has discovered, or created, powers that no president has ever had that have been sanctioned by a rightwing Supreme Court,” said the head of the Center for American Progress. “Trump has widened the aperture of the powers the federal government has.” That aperture, Tanden said, can be used by a Democrat to "create a kind of new social contract.”Not if John Roberts has anything to say about it. It doesn't matter how much "Trump has widened the aperture of the powers the federal government has." The next Democratic president can't change America without changing the court. It is not politically neutral. It does not serve the law. It is profoundly corrupt. And only a fool would forget that what this court gives, this court can take away. It must be held accountable for its impunity for the law, same as everyone. So expand its number, impose term limits, strip its jurisdiction, throttle its budgets – whatever it takes, because there will be no new dawn as long as there's a rightwing supermajority that's prepared to veto it.
California’s newest master-planned community aims to tackle the affordability crisis by building homes, a college, and creating jobs all in one location that relies solely on electricity.
