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At The American Spectator, Patricia Mahon describes the utter carnage inflicted on California by its progressive liberal politicians. Rampant homelessness, drug use, prostitution, and crime have infected the state’s big cities. Mahon writes (abridged):
With a burgeoning homeless population of some 50,000, Los Angeles now boasts one of the largest unsheltered communities in the United States. It is a rough group of heroin addicts, prostitutes, the mentally ill, and folks who are simply down and out in Tinseltown.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the city’s homeless population has surged 75 percent in six years, and it’s evident everywhere. This notoriously hip, rich, and progressive place has an ugly underbelly of filth and disease. Residents walk their dogs with pet boots in downtown L.A., not because it’s trendy but to protect them from Hepatitis A, which has blanketed Skid Row.
It’s no secret that the “City by the Bay” is also littered with trash, needles, and feces. Other parts of the Golden State are plagued by gangs, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, child prostitution, and people smuggling. Violent crime in California has increased over the past two years, and in some cities, like Sacramento, murder, robbery and rape are rising at twice the national average.
Make no mistake, this is a one-party state. The Democrats have presided over the California Legislature for 40 years. The State Controller has been a Democrat for over 44 years. There has not been a Republican senator elected from the state in over 25 years. There has not been a Republican attorney general or a Republican state treasurer in over two decades.
There is no healthy debate here — no passionate discourse, no differing opinions, and no democratic process. California is in the throes of the greatest economic, political, and public monopoly in the history of this country. And it’s failing miserably.
From a gallon of gas to a gallon of water, the cost of living is scandalous. We find ourselves in a grossly overpriced one-star hotel from which residents are checking out and leaving en masse— to Arizona, Nevada, and Texas to escape high taxes, unsafe neighborhoods, failing schools, a wall of debt, a pension crisis, and a political ruling class that has neither the guts nor the will to effect change.
Read more here.
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