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skepticalifornia Profile picture
skepticalifornia
@skepticaliblog
"It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought should be literally unthinkable" — 1984
May 23 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
A Florida court awarded the Mexican government a massive civil judgment against its former security chief Genaro García Luna—now serving a lengthy US prison sentence for taking bribes from drug traffickers

$748 million + $1.7 billion from his wife (!!)
apnews.com/article/mexico… The trial didn't get anywhere near the amount of US media coverage it deserved, considering its implications

García Luna—Mexico's secretary of public security under president Felipe Calderón—had been working for the Sinaloa cartel while in office
english.elpais.com/international/…Image
Apr 16 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
Reading up on the history of how the US killed off its domestic rare earth/magnet industry and it's even worse than I thought
counterpunch.org/2006/04/07/the…Image “This is America’s, and the world’s, Achilles’ heel, which China continuously exploits”

China now produces 90% of the world’s high-performance rare earth magnets; the United States produces practically none
nytimes.com/2025/06/02/bus…
Mar 3, 2024 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
*South Africa vibes intensify*

California has now arrived at the "infrastructure is being cannibalized" junction

Copper thefts have escalated at an alarming rate from ~500 cases five years ago to a staggering 6,842 cases—costing LA well over $20 million
dailynews.com/2024/02/14/la-… “Train signals are being shut down because of metal theft, putting at risk a train full of people, all for the benefit of $20 to $30 worth of copper”

The cost to taxpayers will be $2.5 million to repair Sixth Street Bridge and bring the lights back on
dailynews.com/2024/02/14/la-…
Jul 2, 2023 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
It's important to grasp the level of zealotry involved in the Church of Progressivism

White SJWs will literally get *murdered*—and their circle of friends and family will still demand that the killer is released via "restorative justice"
eastbaytimes.com/2023/06/23/tee…Image Denial of recidivism is a key tenet of the Church of Progressivism

What activist demands for "alternatives to traditional prosecution" & "restorative justice" translate to in the *real world* is offering up innocent members of the public as future victims
Feb 27, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
"Somehow, Britain has adopted de facto blasphemy laws.

...In one town, a teacher had to flee for his life for the crime of showing a picture. In another..four kids were kicked out of school and showered with death threats for the crime of dropping a book"
thecritic.co.uk/britains-blasp…
Feb 26, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
What's the half-life for "widely dismissed as a conspiracy theory and censored/derided by the MSM" collapsing to "belatedly reported as news" nowadays?

Energy Dept concludes Covid most likely arose from a lab leak, according to classified intel report
wsj.com/articles/covid… "The DOE now joins the FBI in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory... Energy Dept’s conclusion is .. significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories"
wsj.com/articles/covid…
Feb 25, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
The Baltimorization of the Bay Area continues apace:

Gunman in ski mask holds up El Pollo Loco in Oakland for 50 pieces of chicken
sfstandard.com/criminal-justi… Armed robbers storm San Francisco cafe to steal customers’ laptops
sfstandard.com/criminal-justi…
May 28, 2022 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
🧵1/ You may have noticed Newsom stopped tweeting about the mass shooting in Sacramento

He has, however, enthusiastically moved his virtual campaign stump to Texas and is now fundraising off of dead children to advance his career

The reason why: Progressive gun policy failure 2/ "The elephant in the room is wearing gang colors"

Newsom's only tweet—tentative b/c he still thought it exploitable politically

Unfortunately for him, not only was it yet another example of CA gun policy failure, but direct tied into the largest taxpayer fraud in US history Image
Sep 20, 2020 • 16 tweets • 6 min read
California government:

"Hey, sorry that our draconian lockdown made you LOSE YOUR JOB

You probably have rent and bills to pay.

But we are so thoroughly and ludicrously incompetent and TERRIBLE at our jobs—we need a few weeks just to get our 💩 together"
sacbee.com/article2458739… California's government is so dysfunctional and the EDD so fraud-ridden that it rendered *national* US unemployment data MEANINGLESS

After EDD took action to deter suspected scammers from filing false applications—PUA applications dropped by more than 72%
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Mar 28, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
In 2006, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the state would invest more than $200 million in a powerful set of medical weapons to deploy in the case of large-scale emergencies and natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires and pandemics.
sandiegouniontribune.com/news/californi… Jerry Brown sacrificed California's public health upon the altar of state sector union pensions.

In 2011, he cut off the money to store and maintain the huge stockpile of medical supplies and defunded the mobile hospitals.
sandiegouniontribune.com/news/californi…
Mar 22, 2020 • 19 tweets • 10 min read
California's economy is hyper-cyclical: it outperforms the nation during periods of growth—but underperforms massively in a recession.

The California economy—and state budget—is about to get absolutely slammed.
pewtrusts.org/en/research-an… ImageImageImageImage 2/ At the same time as states are incurring huge costs responding to the pandemic public health crisis—they are facing cratering consumer and business activity because of the shutdown.

A large amount of regular tax revenue just got vaporized overnight
routefifty.com/finance/2020/0…
Feb 16, 2020 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
"Commuters remain strangely unwilling to use the filthy, violent, dangerous Bay Area Robbery & Terror (BART) murder train for their local transit needs"🙄

Bonus points for using the phrase "luring them back" for a strategy of enticing crime victims back
sfchronicle.com/bayarea/articl… "A Tale of Two SF Chronicle Transit Graphics"

Regarding: the Bay Area Robbery & Terror (BART) Murder Train and the BIZARRELY INEXPLICABLE phenomenon of *declining* ridership🤷‍♂️

Homicide, rape, assault & robbery on BART have DOUBLED from 2015 to 2018🤔
sfchronicle.com/bayarea/articl…
Jan 11, 2020 • 12 tweets • 7 min read
As if California's pension fiscal crisis wasn't bad enough *already*...

Record outmigration & demographic changes mean CA is also rapidly getting older—the dependency ratio (no. over the age of 65 to those of working age) has increased by 85% since 2010
politico.com/states/califor… To put that stunning figure into context—an 85% jump in the California dependency ratio over just 10 years is much WORSE than anything *ever* in Japan's history😲

And Japan is generally considered the *worst-case* scenario for a rapidly aging population
Nov 15, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This is Kamala "acting to end gun violence"

As SF DA, she RELEASED violent MS-13 gang member & illegal immigrant Edwin Ramos: caught with associate hiding a gun—used the *night before* in a DOUBLE HOMICIDE—down a storm drain

He then slaughtered a family
sfgate.com/crime/article/… 2/ This is Kamala "acting to end gun violence"

As Attorney General, she pushed a dumb law that DOWNGRADED gun theft to a misdemeanor

CA Democrats are OK with criminals—or the government—taking your guns

They just don't want legal gun owners to have them
sacbee.com/opinion/editor…
Oct 25, 2019 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
It’s not *just* pensions that threaten to sink California’s cities.

More than 70% of the cities in California do not have **ANY** funds set aside for other post-employment benefits—such as retiree health care—according to State Auditor Elaine Howle.😲

dailybreeze.com/2019/10/24/la-… How did California get here?

Simply put, CA governments can promise retirement benefits—including healthcare—WITHOUT accounting for them

Before Detroit took** California's crown, Stockton was the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history

** borrowed
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Oct 21, 2019 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
California paradox

✅CA has the strictest gun laws in the nation
✅CA also loathes imprisoning criminals—felons with illegal guns are given very light sentences

Solution?

Local police are now going straight to federal authorities to prosecute gun crimes
calmatters.org/gun-violence/2… He seemed like a perfect candidate for prosecution under California’s "tough" gun control laws.

A long rap sheet dating to 2007—including being a felon in possession of a firearm (his *first* gun arrest)

But when he was arrested again—with a stolen gun—police turned to the feds
Sep 12, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The Pentagon’s budget for 2020 has lavished almost $1bn on AI and over four times as much on unmanned and autonomous capabilities that rely on it.

A similar flurry of activity is under way in China and in Russia.
economist.com/science-and-te… The paradox is that AI might at once penetrate and thicken the fog of war, allowing it to be waged with a speed and complexity that renders it essentially opaque to humans.

DARPA conducted tests of a drone swarm capable of collaborating even when cut off from human contact
Aug 15, 2019 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
THIS is the crux of the “gun control” issue

Democrats want to pass *more* laws to make it even harder for LEGAL gun owners to buy or possess guns

BUT

They do NOT want to enforce *existing* laws when criminals BREAK those laws—lying on a background check
usatoday.com/story/opinion/… California has the most restrictive guns laws in the nation

It is also one of the 13 states that conduct their own background checks on firearm purchases

And also one of the 10 states that DO NOT investigate or prosecute anyone for lying to buy a gun