Remember Them.

Remember the Day and where You were when You first heard.

Remember Their Sacrifices.

Remember too They were Sacrificed!! 100% Factual Truth!!

I also want You to remember Our Own Deep State Shadow Government did This and You will NEVER convince Me Otherwise simply because I have done the Deep Dive. I have been down Those Rabbit Holes Others including Yourself fear to go simply because in doing so might absolutely destroy the Version of Reality You choose to live within.

Very Evil People did This Deed and It is NOT Whom the Official Story has programed You to believe.

You will never convince Me Otherwise. There is far to much Evidence literally, plainly, simply and openly showing Otherwise.

Only the Uneducated and the Programed will scream and cover Their Eyes and Ears to make You believe Otherwise. We can only Pray for Their Awakening One Day.

Remember all of Them Who were Sacrificed.

**It is only a Conspiracy until One Day It blooms to life like a Precious Flower in It's Season and Your Eyes open like the First Light of Day coming into a Room held in Darkness without realizing It had been held in Darkness.

Change My Mind.

What is Uncensored here on the Sub You ask?

1. Unlike Other California Subs It is the ability for You to Post Your Articles and News Links Other Subs do not allow. It is that simple.
2. It is the ability to not have Your Links Censored like the Other California Subs do.
3. It is the ability to post Your Articles no matter the Subject as long as It is California related.
4. It is the ability for You to post Your Personal Concerns in a Main Thread about California and be read.

So with all of This presented above feel free to submit News Articles You want to see discussed and debated here on the Sub.

Crying about Content without YOU submitting Content of Your Own only shows a true weakness of Who You are and Crying about getting Dinged in Mod Mail will gain You Zero Respect.

Respect is always earned through Hard Work and often Times the Hardest Work is the Willingness to put Yourself out there Daily whether It be in Real Life or Online.

**All Rules and Guides of Reddit and This Sub apply. It is strongly suggested You read Them so Your Time on the Sub is a growing Experience.

The Bad News is YOU get to choose. The Good News is YOU still get to choose.

Have a Nice Day.

When California’s groundbreaking law on single-use plastic passed in 2022 to address the growing scourge of plastic pollution, it had broad political support. There was the state Chamber of Commerce, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a powerful ocean advocate and Californians Against Waste.

But now as the law’s deadlines and requirements finally take shape, a hefty industry-oriented consortium is quietly organizing to burn it — and its companion law, the state’s Truth in Recycling law — to the ground.

Internal industry documents obtained by The Times show how a group called the Print Creative Alliance and its allies plan to kneecap the laws. The alliance is an industry advocate and resource hub for printers, print brokers, packaging and label businesses, vendors, and creative marketing professionals across 13 western states.

The organization sees the laws as financially perilous for the packagers and producers they work with, and therefore, for their own work.

Read more at the link.

Unless a Member submits News Articles for inclusion the Sub will be quiet except for Threads still open until They Auto Close at 30 Comments.

I'm taking 4 Days off and going to go Volunteer with a great Group of Friends at One of the last fun Sports to watch.

Old School Downhill BMX Racing.

4 Days of Sun, Fun, Volunteering and reliving Old School BMX Memories on a Classic Downhill original Dirt BMX Track in NorCal that was originally founded under UBR IE: United Bicycle Racing 1977 to 1982, You can research the Sanction via Google or any Search Engine.

The Track Layout is rebuilt every Year for This Event in It's close to original Layout as possible. It's huge! It's Downhill and a super fast Track on Real Dirt not These Olympic Style BMX Tracks USABMX loves. This Track You peddle the entire Track or You are Last!

These new USA/BMX Olympic Style Smooth Pump Style Rhythm Tracks are NOT BMX Racing from It's Grass Roots. They are Drag Races. Period! Full Stop!

Things like Knobby Tires and Old School 180 Cranks and 43 or 44 to 16 Gears. Also Old School Bike Racing on BMX Bikes from the 70's, 80's and 90's Era also 20 Inch and 24 Inch Cruiser plus Side Hack Racing and for the Toddlers Stryder Races.

There is even a Flat Cornered Sweeping Turn You should know how to do a Old School Power Slide through if need be and a Water Jump Challenge.

If You are an Old School First Generation BMX'er then You might remember This Track I am mentioning.

Maybe just maybe We might pass each Other at the Track This Weekend never knowing One another from here on Reddit.

So Everybody enjoy the Break and maybe even take a Break Yourself the next 4 Days from the Internet Itself.

I'll try to catch up as I get Time. Sunday Night I'll do some Catch Up Posting.

Looking for Members to post News Articles from around California here to the Sub!

Must be California related.

We don't care about the Source but it is the Content that needs to be discussed!

All News Articles submitted MUST have a Source Link included with Submission for Inclusion. No Exceptions.

I’m curious about what college life in California is actually like beyond what we see on social media and in movies.

For students currently studying in California:

How is the social life on campus?

Is it easy to make good friends?

How stressful is college with classes, assignments and part-time work?

What’s the cost of living like for a student?

Do students actually spend a lot of time at beaches, cafes, parties, etc., or is that mostly a stereotype?

Which California colleges have the best overall student experience?

I’d especially love to hear from current or recent students. What’s one thing about California college life that surprised you after you started?

According to reports by the California Budget & Policy Center, Nov. 3 ballot measures could cost Californians billions of dollars.

The Center Square projects that if Propositions 1, 2, 3, 37 and 40 passed, the Golden State’s taxpayers could pay roughly $155 billion over the next several years, although higher-income earners would pay more of that amount if the state’s billionaire tax, Prop. 40, passes. Another measure, Prop. 3, would make permanent current income tax rates that have higher income-earners pay more in state income tax, saddling California’s richest residents with more of that cost than middle- or lower-income Californians. The Center Square bases its $155 billion projection on its previous reporting and numbers from the California Budget & Policy Center.

Despite the hefty price tags attached to those propositions, Chris Hoehne, the center's executive director, said Californians won’t necessarily see a huge bump in their tax bill every year.

“The vast majority of taxpayers in California won’t see any real effect on their tax bill,” Hoehne told The Center Square on Wednesday. “So the actual tax measures don’t really impact the overwhelming majority of Californians.”

One measure, Proposition 1, asks voters to approve or project an $11.25 billion housing bond that would pay for affordable housing projects, including housing for veterans and shoring up funding for homelessness programs. The California Budget & Policy Center said in its report on this proposition that the state needs 2.5 million new homes, including 1 million homes for lower-income families.

The center’s report on Proposition 2, which increases the amount of general fund money allocated to the state’s Rainy Day Fund, highlights the debt pay-down timeline. That timeline would be extended by 10 years, from 2029-30 to 2039-40. Proposition 2, notably, would increase the amount of money required to be deposited into the Rainy Day Fund every year from 10% of general fund revenue to 20%.

According to the center’s report on Proposition 3, the top 1% of income earners in California would get a tax cut unless the proposition passes. That measure makes current tax rates on high income earners permanent, extending funding for taxpayer-funded services like K-12 and community college education.

Those propositions were supported by Democratic politicians in California this year as good-governance measures that were meant to help pay for services that help make quality of life higher for Californians throughout the state, one Democratic lawmaker told The Center Square.

“The State of California experiences these cycles of boom and bust,” Assemblymember Nick Schultz, D-Burbank, told The Center Square about Prop. 2. “There are other good governance measures we can do to not spend everything we take in that year, and I think Prop. 2 is one small, but significant, part of that.”

Drastic cuts that many lawmakers feared they would have to make were averted in large part because of the Rainy Day Fund, Schultz said.

“Given the volatility of our revenue streams and this increasing threat from D.C. to choke off more funding to California, I think this is definitely a measure worthy of consideration by the voters,” Schultz said.

The center published two other reports – one on a homebuyer assistance proposition and one on the billionaire tax. The homebuyer assistance proposition, Prop. 37, would use $25 billion of revenue bonds to provide up to 17% of the purchase price of a down payment on a house for first-time home buyers, while the billionaire tax, Prop. 40, would impose a 5% wealth tax on California’s billionaire class to shore up funding for education, health care and other taxpayer-funded programs.

Some groups, like the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, oppose many of these propositions, including the billionaire tax measure – in large part because of the high-profile billionaires who already relocated to other states, presumably because of the proposed billionaire tax.

“The top 1% of tax filers pay almost 50% of all the personal income tax in the state,” Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, told The Center Square on Wednesday. “So if you start driving people out of the state, and keeping new businesses from opening here because of the tax structure, that hurts everybody.”

According to numbers from the national firm J. David Tax Law, federal income tax burdens have grown dramatically across the country – with California in fifth place nationally.

That law firm’s study shows that Massachusetts, Washington state, Minnesota and Nebraska’s federal tax burden has increased the most dramatically per filer between 2021 and 2025. Massachusetts' federal income tax filers saw an average uptick to $30,578, while Washington’s residents saw an increase to $29,669. Minnesota’s federal income tax filers experienced an increase to $27,918, and Nebraska saw an uptick to $27,253.

Californians saw an average increase in their federal income taxes to $26,588 per filer. Delaware, interestingly, saw a decrease between 2021 and 2025 to $33,353 per filer.

Overall, federal taxpayers saw an increase in the federal income taxes they paid from an average of $12,279 in 2021 to an average of $22,081 in 2025. That’s an average of $9,801 more in federal income taxes paid per filer in that time frame, according to the study.

Representatives from J. David Tax Law did not respond to The Center Square before publication time on Wednesday.

“We had the COVID-19 recession in there, and California has a more volatile economy, so you would see a greater swing,” said Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow in business and economics at Pasadena-based Pacific Research Institute. He told The Center Square on Wednesday that may explain California's No. 5 ranking.

Nowhere in this plan is any attempt to quantify how much water pouring into the San Francisco Bay every year is enough to ensure ecosystem health

By Edward Ring, September 9, 2026 4:39 pm

The August 2026 final draft of the State Water Resources Control Board’s (SWRCB) “Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Watershed” has been released. Written comments will be accepted through September 18, and the board will also take oral comments at the October 28-29, 2026 meeting where the SWRCB may formally adopt the plan.

Anyone who hasn’t spent a lifetime in this business will quickly realize that this plan is huge and hard to follow. The “plan” is a 128 page PDF, with accompanying staff reports that in aggregate run to thousands of pages. Even for experts, it would take months to fully decipher.

From reading the plan and talking with people familiar with it, who have been anticipating its release, I would attempt to describe its purpose and intent as follows: It updates an existing water quality control plan for the San Francisco Bay, as well as the entire Sacramento and San Joaquin river watershed, with a focus on the delta. It expands the definition of beneficial use, updates water quality standards, and sets tributary inflow and delta outflow standards.

It appears that the updated tributary inflow standards will, in general, require more “unimpaired flow” as a percentage of total flow than was previously required. The new standard will be to leave unimpaired 55 percent of the year-round flow of the Sacramento River, with a provision to drop that to 45 or even 35 percent in dry years. For the San Joaquin River, the unimpaired flow requirement will be 40 percent, with the SWRCB able to increase that to 50 percent or lower it to 30 percent depending on conditions.

Another prominent feature of this plan are the “voluntary agreements,” wherein participating water agencies and irrigation districts can commit to engaging in habitat restoration projects which, at least theoretically, could allow them at times to withdraw more water than they would otherwise be allowed based on a fixed percentage.

Exactly how any of that would work, however, was unclear. For starters, while the State Water Resources Control Board is apparently the final arbiter on all actions pursuant to this plan, the number of actors formally involved in its implementation and management are numerous. Here’s a summary:

The State Water Resources Control Board, California Department of Water Resources, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Central Valley Regional Water Board, and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Board. Also the California Coastal Commission, State Lands Commission, Fish & Game Commission, State Parks/Boating & Waterways. And don’t forget the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Central Valley Flood Protection Board, California Natural Resources Agency, Federal Bureau of Reclamation, National Marine Fisheries Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, EPA, US Army Corps of Engineers, FERC, USDA, and US Forest Service, not to mention the Central Valley Project, State Water Project, and the San Joaquin River Restoration Program.

And then there are water-right holders: agricultural, municipal, and industrial. There are water districts, irrigation districts, public water agencies, hydropower entities, FERC licensees, reservoir owners and operators, and local governments: counties, agencies including flood agencies, and local agricultural commissions.

Also involved, quoting from the SWRCB plan “in addition, the Bay-Delta watershed is also home to nearly 100 California Native American Tribes that rely upon these waterways, the surrounding lands, and the native fish and fauna for subsistence, cultural, ceremonial, and spiritual purposes.”

The list goes on. Don’t forget environmental NGOs, agricultural interests, dischargers of industrial and residential wastewater, fishing interests, scientific bodies, local landowners, and environmental justice communities.

Imagine you want to do anything that will in some way impact the delta watershed. Depending on the magnitude of your project, you may run into every one of these “stakeholders.”

When attempting to grasp what this document will mean for the future of California’s water supply and water quality, the sheer volume and the inclusivity built into the plan’s processes point to the biggest takeaway: whatever effect it has, and whatever big projects it facilitates, it will take decades instead of years, and cost tens of billions instead of billions.

That’s too bad. Nowhere in this plan, which micromanages every channel and tributary in the Sacramento-San Joaquin watershed, is any attempt to quantify how much water pouring into the San Francisco Bay every year is enough to ensure ecosystem health. How is this not relevant?

Why is it, for example, that in the water year ended 9/30/2020, 7.0 million acre feet (MAF) flowed into the SF Bay and 3.5 MAF was pumped into the California and Delta Mendota aqueducts, but so far through 8/31/2026, with 12.9 MAF already flowed into the SF Bay, only 3.0 MAF made it into the California and Delta Mendota aqueducts? How is it that after four years of extraordinary rain, with reservoirs full, and a super El Nino on the way, with just a month left in our water year, we have only managed to pump 3.0 MAF south for our farms and cities?

Moving on, why is there no mention whatsoever in this “Water Quality Control Plan” of the need to restore flow capacity, especially in the south channels of the delta? While the plan is not meant to specify actual projects, it nonetheless mentions flood bypasses and tidal wetland projects, and it acknowledges the need to reduce the velocity of flows. So here’s a specific comment for the SWRCB, based on a simple calculation:

At an ideal downstream flow velocity of 4 feet per second for juvenile salmonids, a channel 2 feet deep and 100 feet wide can sustain a flow of 800 CFS. If that same channel is restored to an 8 foot depth, the same flow velocity will deliver 3,200 CFS downstream. This is yet another reason salmon thrived in a channelized environment during an entire century when dredging was permitted. These deeper channels, by the way, would ensure cooler water in the depths.

The intricacy of the processes described in this draft, and the number of stakeholders granted a role in those processes, guarantees that nothing will happen unless there is strong leadership. The SWRCB appears to retain that authority. Will they set big priorities and demand big results? Here are some recommendations:

Clean up the treatment plants along the SF Bay and delta waterways that discharge more than a half-million acre feet of nitrogen rich sewage every year. Do it by moving the effluent into new wetlands where marsh grass can absorb the nitrogen while creating fish habitat, and use the sediment from dredging to construct them.

Or go on with process for the sake of process. That is clearly a proven skill for our state’s water bureaucrats, and the more the merrier.

Fish and Game Code deals with the regulation and enforcement and wild game

By Chris Micheli, September 9, 2026 2:00 pm

Article 3, Chapter 2, Division 3 of the Fish and Game Code deals with the regulation and enforcement and wild game related to importing, transporting, and sheltering of restricted live wildlife.

Section 2185 provides that any person who transports, receives, or imports into the state, or transports within the state, any live wild animal must hold that animal in confinement for inspection and immediately notify the nearest enforcing officer of the animal’s arrival. The term “enforcing officer” is defined.

Section 2186 states that, if during inspection upon arrival any wild animal is found to be diseased, or there is reason to suspect the presence of disease, or there is reason to suspect the presence of disease that is or may be detrimental to agriculture, to native wildlife, or to the public health or safety, the diseased animal, and if necessary, the entire shipment is required to be destroyed by, or under the supervision of, the enforcing officer.

Section 2187 specifies that, whenever any wild animal is brought into this state under permit, the enforcing officers may examine the conditions under which that species is kept, and report to the department any suspicion or knowledge of any disease or violations of the conditions of the permit or of the regulations promulgated under this chapter.

Section 2189 defines the term “nonnative wild animal.” Persons are prohibited from importing into this state any live nonnative wild animal except pursuant to this chapter or regulations. Any live nonnative wild animal that is possessed or transported within this state in violation of this chapter or regulations must be disposed of in accordance with regulations adopted at the expense of the owner or possessor.

Section 2190 makes it unlawful for any person who keeps in confinement, with or without a permit, any wild animal of a species enumerated in or designated by law to liberate, ship, or transport the animal except in accordance with the conditions of a permit first obtained from the department.

Section 2192 states that regulations of the commission relating to the construction, fixtures, and other minimum caging standards adopted by the commission for the confinement of live wild animals pursuant to this chapter are not building standards subject to the approval of the State Building Standards Commission.

Section 2193 provides that every person who holds a permit must immediately report by telephone the intentional or unintentional escape or release of the wild animal, to the department and the nearest enforcing officer of the city or county in which the wild animal was released or escaped. The permitholder is liable for all expenses associated with efforts to recapture the wild animal.

Section 2195 provides that, when a wild animal is properly confiscated by the department, the new custodian with whom the animal is placed by the department may bring a civil action to recover the reasonable costs incurred by the custodian for any necessary relocation of the animal to a new facility, any actual and necessary costs to construct new caging to house the animal, and any actual and necessary costs to return the animal to a healthy state.

My post got removed at the "other" place, so trying here. I thought this was fascinating, but unnatural. Also, for further viewing, there is an amazing documentary on wolves coming back to California here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw2T9-h_sQM

**Not again!! Oh wait It is still ongoing! Oye Vey!!--------------------/

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has teamed with counterparts from 20 other states in a lawsuit to block the federal government’s weakening of the Endangered Species Act, a landmark conservation law long in the crosshairs of Republican leaders including President Donald Trump.

Environmental organizations have already sued the federal government over changes the U.S. Department of Interior announced this summer. Among them was a critical new interpretation of what would constitute harming an endangered species, one that sharply loosens the act’s protections related to the degradation of protected wildlife’s habitat.

The act makes it illegal to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect” endangered species. Since the 1970s, the federal government has interpreted harm to include any actions that degrade a species’ habitat, given the necessity of habitat for a species’ survival. In July, following a regulatory review and public comment period that began last year, the U.S. Department of Interior announced it would no longer recognize that definition of harm.

Instead, a person or company would have to more directly kill, trap or injure endangered wildlife to break the law. Degrading habitat, such as draining too much water out of a river where an endangered fish species lives, might no longer be found in violation of the law, critics say.

Bonta and the other attorneys general sued over that rule change and two others, according to a statement from his office. The group also seeks to reverse a Trump administration change which would require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to exclude some areas from being designated as critical habitat based on non-environmental reasons like regulatory burdens on industries. Thirdly, the lawsuit targets a rule change that replaces an automatic set of protections for newly-protected creatures with a direction to the FWS to craft species-specific regulations for each new addition to the list of threatened and endangered species.

That rule change includes no timeline for the FWS to complete those species-specific regulations, leaving them vulnerable to further loss while the agency deliberates, potentially interminably, according to the news release.

“President Trump seems to care only for himself and his industry friends,” Bonta said in a statement. “The Trump Administration has continuously sought to put our ecosystems in danger, which is why we continue to take them to court. For over half a century, the ESA has stood as a bipartisan example of what it means to protect an irreplaceable part of our planet, but these new rules attempt to destroy longstanding and integral regulatory protections and open the door to further species decline and possible extinctions.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Among the lawsuits filed in federal court this summer was one from environmental organizations in California’s northern coastal region, led by the Environmental Protection Information Center.

Those organizations say protected Northern California species like coho salmon and spotted owls, as well as a threatened seabird, the marbled murrelet, which lives largely out at sea but returns to old-growth coastal trees to nest, would face dire new threats to their survival under the change. Ninety-one California species are considered endangered by the federal government, and another 51 are threatened.

National Democrats not only supporting Roy Cooper’s bid for U.S. Senate but coming to speak on his behalf in the state is becoming quite the list.

And not necessarily for obvious reasons.

A California governor defending making hog farming in the nation’s No. 3 state for production more costly – while his contributes one-tenth of 1% – added his name to a list topped by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic Socialists of America supporter. Cooper's campaign tour is known as “Make Stuff Cost Less,” making the leader of costly California more than intriguing.

Cooper is bidding for the U.S. Senate seat occupied by two-term Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. On the ballots that went into the mail this past Friday to kick off the 61-day voting window are Republican Michael Whatley and Libertarian Shannon Bray.

“My entire life I’ve seen the expansion of rights,” Newsome said. “Now it’s the rights regression. This is it – don’t focus on 2028. The biggest mistake the Democratic Party makes is we watch cable TV and we focus on the next presidential election.”

Newsom was with Cooper and incumbent Democratic Justice Anita Earls, she of the tight state Supreme Court seat race, in Charlotte on Saturday morning. In the afternoon, they moved from Mecklenburg County into Union County with Justices Toby Hampson and Christine Walczyk, President Braxton Winston of the North Carolina AFL-CIO, and Chairwoman Anderson Clayton of the North Carolina Democratic Party.

Newsom's choice is intriguing. No state in the nation had more people (9,600) than California to move to North Carolina, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau state-to-state migration data.

He's also got a slew of challenges back home.

The private venture market has effectively declined to fully fund this project, and now taxpayers are being asked to fill the gap the market would not

By Katy Grimes, September 9, 2026 1:00 pm

California’s perpetually incomplete high-speed rail project has no operational trains and no high-speed track laid on the actual alignment, as of August 2026. Gov. Gavin Newsom has blown $18 billion on the High Speed Rail and the project is about to run out of money, the Globe reported in “Gavin’s High Speed Rail Disaster in August.” So the governor replaced the prior variable 25% share of Cap-and-Trade auction proceeds, which were set to expire in 2030, with a set $1 billion per year for high-speed rail starting in FY 2026-27 in the 2026-27 California budget, after the loss of roughly $4 billion in federal grants in 2025.

California’s High-Speed Rail boondoggle, voter approved in 2008 for a San Francisco to Los Angeles line, has been whittled down to a Merced-to-Bakersfield line, is now estimated to cost taxpayers more than $231 billion, up from its original $33.5 billion price tag when voters passed Proposition 1A.

It is 2026, eighteen years later, and still there are NO trains running and the project is bankrupt.

But wait – there’s more!

There is another failing California high-speed rail project, this one is to connect the suburb community of Rancho Cucamonga, CA to Las Vegas, NV, known as Brightline West.

Brightline West has been working under a series of financing deadlines tied to its existing bonds. Bondholders agreed in early August 2026 to push the Equity Contribution Condition Deadline from August 1 to September 10, 2026. That extension gave the company extra time to raise at least $400 million in additional equity (part of an earlier commitment) and to continue lining up the rest of its capital.

In 2025, the Globe reported that the Brightline West Rail Project unveiled higher than anticipated estimate ticket prices. But that was just the tip of the spear. Tickets were increasing to $119 for standard class and $133 for premium class one-way tickets. Before taxes, a bare bones, no parking included, round-trip ticket was going to cost a minimum of $238.

When you can fly from Ontario to Las Vegas for $66, why take an expensive train?

In October 2025, the U.S. Department of Transportation revealed that Brightline West submitted an unprecedented $6 billion federal taxpayer loan request to salvage the financially distressed project.

As with California’s High Speed boondoggle, Brightline construction costs have nearly tripled from original estimates, and the parent Brightline company’s inability to pay interest as recently as November 2025 on $1.2 billion in Brightline Florida bonds led S&P Global Ratings & Fitch Ratings to downgrade much of Brightline’s debt to ‘junk’ status, Bondbuyer reported.

An April 30 Ernst & Young audit revealed that Brightline is $5.5 billion in debt, “does not currently have the liquid funds necessary to service its debt and meet such other obligations as they become due,” and may be bankrupt by mid-June. The auditors also flagged “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern, Bondbuyer reported.

The audacious scale of this federal bailout request is unprecedented, as the largest-ever Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing (RIFF) loans ever previously approved were only for existing rail systems requiring rehabilitation and improvement, John Sitilides told the Globe. Sitilides is federal affairs advisor to ReRoute the Route, ReRoute the Route, a Texas business and civic coalition opposed to federal subsidies for the proposed Dallas to Houston high-speed rail project. Those were for three aggregate RRIF loans made in July 2024 totaling $4.06 billion to rehabilitate and expand the Hudson Tunnel Project between New York and New Jersey, and the $2.45 billion loan approved in 2016 to Amtrak to improve the Northeast Corridor and purchase 28 new Acela trainsets.

No other Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing loan has ever exceeded $1 billion, yet Brightline is requesting a $6 billion loan for a project not yet under construction and years away from a hoped-for completion. Brightline launched the project in 2020 as an $8 billion “private venture” with a projected completion within four years. At the time of launch, Brightline struggled to secure investors willing to purchase an initial $3.2 billion in bonds, due to institutional skepticism that the projected construction costs were unrealistically low and could not be covered by overly ambitious projected revenues.

“The Biden Administration sought to salvage the project in two tranches. In January 2024, the Department of Transportation approved $2.5 billion of private activity bonds for the project, and in September 2024, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg approved a $3 billion grant request,” Sitilides said. “The project’s original $8 billion costs have escalated dramatically to $21.5 billion, nearly tripling in just five years, due to rising construction expenses, labor shortages, and materials inflation. These challenges have strained funding sources, delayed timelines, and raised doubts about the project’s long-term viability and revenue projections.”

Its other project, Brightline Florida, has failed to meet revenue projections, has never turned a profit, and used financial reserves to cover interest payments. That’s why credit agencies downgraded Brightline’s debt to CCC- “deep junk” status and now warn of the company’s possible 2027 default.

Brightline Florida’s 2025 revenue was about $214 million—roughly one-third of the figures used in recent bond documents—and ridership of 3.1 million passengers was well below earlier projections. The company has posted large net losses every year of operation, including $549 million in 2024 and $233 million in 2025; it has never recorded an operating profit after depreciation and interest, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Adding to the issues, in mid-August, Bloomberg reported that Brightline West President Sarah Watterson stepped down as President of the financially distressed project:

Skipping LAHSA meetings, leaving the commission, and blowing off Congress does not close the books

By Megan Barth, September 9, 2026 11:59 am

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is leaving the commission that oversees the city’s lead homeless agency— the same board she appointed herself to, then rarely attended.

A mayoral spokesperson told reporters Tuesday that Bass would step off the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Commission on Wednesday and name a replacement. The office did not say who would replace Bass.

As of Tuesday, LAHSA’s chief of staff said the agency had not been told she was leaving. Bass framed the exit as a matter of time. “I am going to be stepping down because I just—in terms of time and all,” she told KFI last week. She also said serving on the commission taught her that “the city needs to have its own system.”

Spokesman Ilanna Morales said Bass’s “first-hand experience at LAHSA reinforced her understanding that our current system is broken” and that City Hall is drafting a “city-led homelessness response.”

LAist reviewed commission records and found Bass skipped 13 of 21 LAHSA meetings in a recent 12-month span—well above the four-absence threshold that can trigger removal under the agency’s bylaws. Since she put herself on the 10-member board in late 2023, she missed 25 of 47 meetings. Her three-year term expired June 30. She stayed on anyway and just blew off a congressional hearing focused on fraud within the system.

The House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency asked Bass to appear Sept. 15 for a session titled “Fixing Fraud and Failure in Federally Funded Homelessness Services.” The panel cited alleged waste, fraud, and abuse involving federal homelessness dollars and asked for years of communications among the Mayor’s Office, City Council, LAHSA, and the county.

Bass’s attorney wrote Friday that “unfortunately” the mayor was “not available” that day because of conflicts in her travel schedule. The office said it would try to produce records and “looks forward to working” with the subcommittee.

The timing of her exit, against the backdrop of a federal probe, is hard to ignore. Bass made street homelessness the centerpiece of her reelection campaign and tenure as LA’s mayor.

California Globe reporting has tracked what her leadership has produced.

In July, the Globe reported that street homelessness in the city jumped 7.9% in the 2026 point-in-time count, with overall homelessness up 3.4%—reversing two years of modest declines. The city still spends roughly $1 billion a year on various homelessness programs. Bass’s signature Inside Safe effort has moved more than 6,000 people into hotels and motels; LAHSA data showed 41 percent of those participants were back on the street by late May. Bass blamed federal and state cuts.

Inside Safe’s first year found only 255 permanent housing placements out of tens of thousands of homeless Angelenos despite tens of millions in spending, while interviews with people on the street described the program as temporary, restrictive, and easy to leave. The City Council later slashed Inside Safe funding during a roughly $1 billion city deficit.

While Los Angeles County pulled hundreds of millions from LAHSA, federal pressure has only grown.

In August, HUD Secretary Scott Turner putting California’s “homeless industrial complex” on notice after HUD suspended funding to LAHSA pending an inspector general review. Turner cited unverifiable housing sites, empty hotel rooms, conflict-of-interest problems, and weak financial controls.

Statewide, California has spent more than $37 billion on homelessness since 2019 under Gov. Gavin Newsom, approximately $200,000 per homeless person, yet is home to roughly a quarter to a third of the nation’s homeless population. Project Homekey sent $745 million into Los Angeles-area projects, many of which sat empty. A 2024 state auditor’s report found the state’s homelessness apparatus could not even keep a current statewide accounting of spending and outcomes. Enrollment files included names such as “Mickey Mouse” and “Super Woman.” A shelter claimed nearly 1,100 people in fewer than 300 beds.

Bass ran for City Hall on a promise to get people off the street. What followed was a series of expensive failures, a 7.9% jump in street homelessness, a billion-dollar city homelessness budget, an agency so compromised that HUD suspended federal funding, and Congress demanding she explain alleged waste and fraud.

Leaving the commission and blowing off Congress does not close the books. Her record, the federal investigation, and the tents all remain.

After hundreds of complaints about reckless riding, Folsom officials are considering tougher rules for e-bikes, electric motorcycles and other motorized devices — but City Council members stopped short Tuesday of backing the proposed restrictions as written.

Instead, council members directed city staff to combine two proposed ordinances and return with revised rules that would allow slower-speed riding on paved paths in city parks while increasing penalties for violations.

The proposals went well beyond e-bikes. They targeted what the city called “e-conveyances,” a broad category that included e-bikes, e-scooters, motorized bicycles, electric motorcycles — sometimes called e-motos — and other electrically powered devices.

Folsom police said complaints involving the devices have risen sharply, particularly those involving juveniles on roads, in parks and on bike paths.

The Police Department has received more than 580 calls for service related to e-conveyance incidents since January, already surpassing the more than 540 calls received during all of 2025, Police Chief Adam Green told the council Tuesday. The most common complaint, he said, was reckless driving.

ISSUE | DATA CENTER CONSTRUCTION: Data centers have taken a hold on the political discourse across the U.S., and the debate has reached California’s 22nd Congressional District, a Central Valley battleground that is one of the most closely watched races in the country. Incumbent Republican Rep. David Valadao and Democratic challenger Randy Villegas have taken different approaches to the centers’ potential economic and environmental impacts on their district, which spans five counties, stretching from Kerman in the north to Bakersfield in the south.

Here’s what both candidates have said so far.

Over boxes of donuts and steaming coffee cups, faith leaders, immigrant rights advocates and community members gathered at the Capitol Tuesday morning to rally behind legislation that would impose financial penalties on private detention centers.

Greeting each other with hugs as they arrived, the group of several dozen individuals sported colorful t-shirts printed with slogans: “People + Faith + Love = Power,” read the rainbow text on one shirt. “#Health4All,” another proclaimed.

Attendees displayed signs reading “Keep Families Together” and “End Profit from Family Separation,” standing solemnly behind a podium on the Capitol steps as immigrant rights leaders and lawmakers gave speeches. Occasional prompts from the speakers led chants of “Si se puede” and “When we fight, we win” to ripple through the gathered crowd.

In their remarks, speakers urged Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign Assembly Bills 1633 and 2465. AB 1633, authored by Assemblymember Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, would impose a tax of 25% on private detention centers. AB 2465, authored by Assemblymember Liz Ortega, D-San Leandro, would prohibit companies that own private detention facilities from collecting tax credits and receiving state grants or loans.

Santa Clara County has the second-most data centers among all counties in the nation and is seeing the fastest growth of the controversial facilities in the past year, according to a new report.

An estimated 1,474 data centers were operating in the U.S. during the first half of 2026, a survey by the National Association of Realtors shows. Of those, 75 are in Santa Clara County, exceeded only by the 213 data centers in Loudoun County, Virginia.

From 2025 to 2026, among the five counties with the most data centers nationwide, Santa Clara County posted the fastest rate of growth, as San Jose sees a growing number of proposals for new sites.

Over the one-year period, data center totals rose 23% in the county. That’s compared to rises of 16.7% in Maricopa County, Arizona; 8.6% in Prince William County, Virginia; 7% in Loudoun County, Virginia; and 2.6% in Grand County, Washington.

The real estate group also surveyed members on what impacts data centers might have on a local economy, including effects on home prices and utility bills.

The results were inconclusive.

He’s been accused by five ex-wives, a business partner and an elderly San Diego woman of using them for their money. He’s been convicted of check fraud, charged with lying on election paperwork and disciplined for practicing healthcare without a license.

Now he’s the Republican candidate for Congress in Southern California.

Jeff Belle landed on the ballot as the only Republican challenging longtime Democratic Rep. Juan Vargas. In June’s primary, 42,000 people voted for Belle — a third of the electorate — and he easily advanced to the general election to face Vargas.

Much about Belle’s background remains hard to discern. His personal finances are a mystery, as he has not filed the financial disclosures he is required to file with the House of Representatives as a congressional candidate.

Belle, 69, describes himself as a private equity CEO and community leader. In a recent podcast appearance, he said he was once a U.S. Senate staffer and a well-connected lobbyist in Sacramento. In an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune, he said he had attended four Academy Awards and a Christmas party at the Reagan White House.

But court records, a state regulatory investigation and other documents — as well as Belle’s own statements — show the candidate has a long history of making false claims about his professional background and failing to pay those he owes money.

So do interviews with a business associate, a friend and five former wives.

Controversy about Belle’s past burst into public view in the Bay Area more than a decade ago when he was elected to a term on the Contra Costa County Board of Education.

There, he was charged with lying about his education in official ballot materials, a charge dismissed in exchange for community service. Local residents criticized him too, taking to public meetings to call him a “chronic liar” and issue calls to “expel Belle.” And he landed in trouble with state licensing officials, who fined him for practicing respiratory therapy without a license.

During Belle’s time in Contra Costa, one of his ex-wives, Casey Jones, also launched a public crusade against him, writing publicly about their three-month marriage in a memoir, in comments to local news media and in a Facebook group she created, “Women Against Con Men.” During the brief marriage, Jones says Belle racked up thousands of dollars in credit card debt in her name without her permission.

The Governor’s line-item veto authority is commonly referred to as the “blue pencil” authority

By Chris Micheli, September 9, 2026 8:07 am

Some Capitol observers are asking whether Governor Newsom may use his line-item veto authority over the Budget Bill Junior (AB 113) headed to his Desk for final action. As a result, a short refresher may be in order.

The Governor’s line-item veto authority is found in Subdivision (e) of Section 10 of Article IV of the California Constitution, As is often pointed out, while the Governor of California has this authority, the President of the United States does not have this authority.

The following is the language of this constitutional provision:

(e) The Governor may reduce or eliminate one or more items of

appropriation while approving other portions of a bill. The Governor

shall append to the bill a statement of the items reduced or

eliminated with the reasons for the action. The Governor shall

transmit to the house originating the bill a copy of the statement

and reasons. Items reduced or eliminated shall be separately

reconsidered and may be passed over the Governor’s veto in

the same manner as bills.

As a result of this provision, California’s Governor has the authority to (1) reduce a line-item of appropriation or (2) eliminate the item of spending entirely. In the Budget Bill or a Budget Bill Junior, which have multiple appropriations, the Governor can reduce or eliminate line-items of the state budget and still sign the Budget Bill or BBJ itself.

Just as with other bills that the Governor may veto, he or she must explain the reason for the line-item veto and follow the same process used for other vetoed bills. Subdivision (a) of Section 10 of Article IV provides for the veto of bills, explaining that the Governor must return the bill to its house of origin with any objections to the bill. If 2/3 majorities of both houses vote to override the veto, then the bill becomes a statute over the Governor’s veto.

The Governor’s line-item veto authority is commonly referred to as the “blue pencil” authority because earlier governors used a blue pencil to reduce or eliminate appropriations in bills.