Social Issues

Only in California.  California State Senator Kevin de Leon has introduced a bill, SB-54 or the "California Values Act" (because if you disagree with this legislation then you're obviously just an immoral, racist asshole), that explicitly prohibits "state and local law enforcement agencies" from investigating, detaining, detecting, reporting or arresting people for "immigration enforcement purposes."  Moreover, the bill would force "public schools, hospitals, and courthouses" to establish "safe zones" that "limit im

Two days after the Mayor of Dallas, Mike Rawlings, filed a lawsuit against the Dallas Police and Fire Pension system to block withdrawals, which he referred to as a "run on the bank" of an "insolvent" pension system in "financial crisis, the Pension's board has finally taken steps to halt further withdrawals.  Of course, this delayed action has come only after $500 million in deposits have been withdrawn since just August. 

For the first time in two decades, according to a new study released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the life expectancy of the average American declined in 2015.  Of course, with America's obesity epidemic spiraling out of control it probably shouldn't be a surprise that the occurrence of deaths related to America's number 1 killer, heart disease, is on the rise (see "FatLivesMatter: At Least 1 Out Of Every 5 People Are Obese In All 50 States").

Immigration hard-liners had been routing for Trump to appoint Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach as head of the Department of Homeland Security.  Kobach was generally viewed as the candidate most likely to draw the hardest line on illegal immigration after helping to draft one of the toughest pieces of immigration law in the country, Arizona's SB 1070, which requires law enforcement officers to demand to see the immigration papers of anyone they suspected of being in the country illegally.

Last week, Dallas Mayor Michael Rawlings sent a scathing letter to the Dallas Police and Fire Pension (DPFP) Board demanded that withdrawals be halted immediately until the "solvency and actuarial soundness of the Pension System is restored."  That said, the Mayor's request was seemingly ignored as he has now filed a lawsuit with the Dallas District Court to force the pension board to halt withdrawals amid a "run on the bank."