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‘If You Don’t Want Us, Tell Us To Go Back’: The Making of a California Prison Town

Sarah Tory, High Country News High Country News
Adelanto, a town of 32,000, is home to three prisons. This was not a coincidence. With a history of agriculture, excessive water use, the Great Depression, cheap vacant land filled with a military base which closed in the 1990s, Adelanto turned to prisons. During the 1980s, under increasingly stringent drug laws and harsh sentencing policies, demand for new prisons had grown. So had the belief that prisons could nourish economic development in rural communities.

How California Hopes to Undo Trump

Harold Meyerson The American Prospect
America’s mega-state is now clearly its leftmost, too—and on social insurance, climate change, and immigrant rights, it has more capacity and desire to defeat Republican reaction than any other institution.

How California Hopes to Undo Trump

Harold Meyerson American Prospect
America's mega-state is now clearly its leftmost, too--and on social insurance, climate change, and immigrant rights, it has more capacity and desire to defeat Republican reaction than any other institution.

The Golden State of Hate: California’s Extremist Roots Run Deep

Gabriel Thompson Capital and Main
Almost from the day Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the White House in 2015, California, along with the rest of the country, has experienced an uptick of reported hate and bias incidents. As Capital & Main’s new series reveals, most of these attacks have been directed at immigrants and people of color. But this is hardly new – the Golden State has a long history of violence and discrimination against nonwhites and the foreign born.

California Just Threatened To Stop Paying Taxes If Trump Cuts Federal Funding Over Sanctuary City Status

Grant Stern Occupy Democrats
The State of California's elected officials are exploring ways to combat President Trump's Executive Order cutting off funding to sanctuary cities. National legal experts say that Trump's sanctuary cities order is unconstitutional because, at its core, the order is an attempt to commandeer state and local officials in violation of the 10th Amendment.

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5 California Victories That Burned Bright in the Year of Trump

Dean Kuipers Capital & Main
California appears to be ready to stand up against the Trump agenda. This builds off much of the organizing already taking place in the state, including some strong victories for workers in 2016. (It is worth noting that even white voters vote differently than whites elsewhere - see http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article119870398.html).

Election Inflections: Expanding the Electorate

Bobbi Murray Capital and Main
The phone bank on Florence Avenue near Western is fully staffed on a Thursday afternoon. Its 20 callers could be hawking solar paneling or copper water pipes to anyone who answers. Instead, the men and women here are selling change in the most populous city in the most populous state in the nation. On this day, shortly before the election, they are contacting potential voters about three of California’s 17 ballot propositions.

Stunned But Motivated

Christina Livingston ACCE Action
In the face of Nov. 8th election's knock down, we all have to come together to get back up and decide how to navigate this new reality and win for our communities. While nationally we need to rethink our strategy, there is much to celebrate across California. Our work and wins in California give us an opportunity to show how our state can be a model for the rest of the country as it relates to inclusion, opportunity, protection, and investment in our families.

Free Tuition Initiative Aims to Reclaim SF's City College

Marcy Rein Common Dreams
Prop. W would levy a .25% tax on real estate transactions in San Francisco worth more than $5 million. About $12 million of the estimated $44 million in revenue raised by the measure would be earmarked for a special fund that would pay tuition at City College for students who live in the city and those who work at least half-time there.
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