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“An Absolute Mad Rush”: Californians Confess Why They’re Fleeing The State

"An Absolute Mad Rush": Californians Confess Why They’re Fleeing The State

Authored by Jamie Joseph via The Epoch Times,

When former Bay…

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"An Absolute Mad Rush": Californians Confess Why They're Fleeing The State

Authored by Jamie Joseph via The Epoch Times,

When former Bay Area resident Terry Gilliam, 62, started the Facebook group “Leaving California” in 2018, the group attracted 200 members within six months. Four years later, the group has over 50,000 members, and the number continues to climb every week.

“In the last 30 days, we’ve added 11,000 members, which is darn close to a record,” Gilliam told The Epoch Times.

“And it all started on January 1st … I think there is an absolute mad rush of people who are going to get out of California this year.”

Although he formed the group a few years ago, Gilliam didn’t take the plunge and move out of state to Florida until last year. Issues like homelessness, crime, politics, cost of housing, traffic, and exorbitant taxes pushed Gilliam away—and he’s not the only one.

When the group first began, Gilliam said Idaho and Texas were the most popular destinations for California residents. Now, he’s seeing more people moving to Tennessee and Florida as well.

Earlier this month, U-Haul reported that the top states for people moving within the United States in 2021 were Texas, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Arizona, while California was at the very bottom of the list.

Matt Merrill, U-Haul area district vice president of the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex and West Texas, said in a statement that many people are moving to Texas from California, New York, and other states “due to the job growth—a lot of opportunity here. The cost of living here is much lower than those areas. Texas is open for business.”

Demand was so high, U-Haul even ran out of trucks leaving California last year, according to the company.

In this file photo, a worker moves a piece of furniture into a truck while moving a family in Tiburon, Calif., on Aug. 3, 2010. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Gilliam’s Facebook group has become a sort of haven for disaffected natives who are able to connect with local moving companies who are also in the group and eager for business. Though most of the users lean conservative, Gilliam said he didn’t start it for that reason.

“But I think conservatives in California are the most upset with what’s happening, so they’re the first to leave,” he said.

Mild weather, beautiful coastal beaches, and a vibrant, diverse culture bring tourists to California year-round. But for some residents, it’s not enough to keep them here anymore.

Alexander Erwing, 30, and his wife moved from the Monterey Peninsula to Oklahoma last year.

“The business I worked for was headquartered here, and now they’ve moved their headquarters to the Midwest, and you know, that’s just one less reason to stay here,” Erwing told The Epoch Times. “So, it’s like over the years all the reasons to stay have kind of gone away.”

The state has the highest top income tax rate at 13.3 percent, with an 8.84 percent tax rate for businesses, in addition to permits and regulatory costs depending on the county and city. With a high cost of living and rent prices averaging $2,500 in competitive markets, mom-and-pop shops have to turn an incredible profit to stay afloat.

In the first six months of 2021, more than 70 company headquarters left California, according to a Hoover Institution of Stanford University report (pdf), which found the exodus was accelerating. Later that year, Elon Musk’s Tesla made headlines by relocating to Texas.

An aerial view of the Tesla Fremont Factory in Fremont, Calif., on May 13, 2020. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“Our findings identify the California counties that lost headquarters facilities, the states to which migrations occur, and extensive discussion of the reasons, including high tax rates, punitive regulations, high labor costs, high utility and energy costs, and declining quality of life for many Californians which reflects the cost of living and housing affordability,” the report said.

California’s own Legislative Analyst’s Office found that the state’s “outmigration is increasingly concentrated among older, more affluent people” in a report from last July. Data from the office also showed “a persistent, long-term net outmigration.”

“A key driver of migration between California and other states is living costs, particularly the cost of housing,” the report read.

The median cost for a house in the Golden State as of 2021 is more than $800,000, up 34.2 percent from the previous year, according to the California Association of Realtors. The U.S. national average is perched around $400,000.

U-Haul isn’t the only moving company getting a piece of the massive demand. Joey Childs, 22, co-owner of San Jose-based Silicon Valley Moving & Storage told The Epoch Times the past two years “have been like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“December, January, February, was a little slow. But last year was it was ridiculous—I mean, we were booked four or five months out in advance,” he said. “It’s getting very expensive to live here too … with very high taxes. A lot of people that we move are also small business owners too, and it’s getting very hard for them to operate their business here. So, they’re just leaving, and it’s a no brainer.”

A closed restaurant in Los Angeles on Dec. 8, 2020. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)

Childs said his family is also looking to relocate to Ohio soon and open a second location of their moving company there.

Nonpartisan policy research group California Policy Lab examined exits from the state amid the pandemic. The study revealed that fewer people are moving to California since the start of the pandemic in 2020, while the number of residents leaving has gone up significantly.

“At the end of September 2021, entrances to California were 38% lower than at the end of March 2020,” the study noted. “Exits, following a dip early in the pandemic, have rebounded and are now 12% higher than pre-COVID levels—on pace with pre-pandemic trends.”

California native Kathy Kean, 62, moved from Yorba Linda to Spring Ranch, Texas last year with her husband. She said she had noticed an increase in crime in her region.

“It’s not what we remembered our area to be,” Kean told The Epoch Times. “Some of the crime, like the gangs, were getting worse in our area from L.A. and Riverside coming in.”

The Public Policy Institute of California examined the state’s crime trends in 2021 and found an increase in property and violent crime numbers—with homicides increasing—in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, and San Francisco.

“An increase in property crime in 2021, driven by car break-ins and auto thefts, returned property crime numbers close to pre-pandemic numbers,” the policy institute memo read. “The need to continue monitoring crime trends, investigating underlying causes, and identifying effective solutions remains high.”

Homelessness has also been an explosive issue for voters as the November election remains on the horizon. In total, California has the highest number of homeless people in the country, with 161,548 people. Gov. Gavin Newsom allocated an aggressive investment of $2 billion to address homelessness in his 2022 budget.

Homelessness in Venice Beach, Calif., on Jan 27, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

San Mateo resident and union pipe fitter Michael Bentley, 53, is moving to Colorado in June. He said he was never into politics until a few years ago and would always vote alongside his labor union’s suggestions.

Then, he noticed an increase in homelessness in the Bay Area. He began avoiding downtown due to the crime and squalor he saw on the streets.

“When I first came here, there was wasn’t very much homelessness,” Bentley told The Epoch Times. “Now, I mean, it is freaking crazy. I mean, I avoid San Francisco at all costs. I don’t go downtown, I mean, I feel sorry for these people.”

Others who have left, like former Fontana resident Michael Welter, 63, packed up due to the pandemic restrictions the state imposed. He now resides in Arizona.

“The freedoms that we experienced here, particularly around the pandemic, has been a breath of fresh air, literally, because we don’t wear a mask anymore,” Welter told The Epoch Times. “And you know, we can make decisions for ourselves. I like that I can carry a gun without getting a permit. It’s just freedom—it’s just what America should be.”

All of the subjects interviewed said they only miss the weather in California, while their quality of life has now improved, especially financially. Many had family already in other states they were moving to, or moved with their families. They also uniformly said taxes were one of the top reasons they chose to leave, with some mentioning recent policy disagreements.

“I think the Democrats in legislature and the governor have been emboldened by the failed recall,” Gilliam said.

“And they’re going to double down on everything. They they think that everybody agrees with what they should be doing. Instead, they’re going to lose the middle class because of it.”

After forming the Leaving California Facebook group, Gilliam also created a “Life After California” group, which focuses on former residents posting about their new lives after moving away. That group now has 79,000 members.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/11/2022 - 22:20

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Are Voters Recoiling Against Disorder?

Are Voters Recoiling Against Disorder?

Authored by Michael Barone via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The headlines coming out of the Super…

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Are Voters Recoiling Against Disorder?

Authored by Michael Barone via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The headlines coming out of the Super Tuesday primaries have got it right. Barring cataclysmic changes, Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be the Republican and Democratic nominees for president in 2024.

(Left) President Joe Biden delivers remarks on canceling student debt at Culver City Julian Dixon Library in Culver City, Calif., on Feb. 21, 2024. (Right) Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump stands on stage during a campaign event at Big League Dreams Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nev., on Jan. 27, 2024. (Mario Tama/Getty Images; David Becker/Getty Images)

With Nikki Haley’s withdrawal, there will be no more significantly contested primaries or caucuses—the earliest both parties’ races have been over since something like the current primary-dominated system was put in place in 1972.

The primary results have spotlighted some of both nominees’ weaknesses.

Donald Trump lost high-income, high-educated constituencies, including the entire metro area—aka the Swamp. Many but by no means all Haley votes there were cast by Biden Democrats. Mr. Trump can’t afford to lose too many of the others in target states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Majorities and large minorities of voters in overwhelmingly Latino counties in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley and some in Houston voted against Joe Biden, and even more against Senate nominee Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas).

Returns from Hispanic precincts in New Hampshire and Massachusetts show the same thing. Mr. Biden can’t afford to lose too many Latino votes in target states like Arizona and Georgia.

When Mr. Trump rode down that escalator in 2015, commentators assumed he’d repel Latinos. Instead, Latino voters nationally, and especially the closest eyewitnesses of Biden’s open-border policy, have been trending heavily Republican.

High-income liberal Democrats may sport lawn signs proclaiming, “In this house, we believe ... no human is illegal.” The logical consequence of that belief is an open border. But modest-income folks in border counties know that flows of illegal immigrants result in disorder, disease, and crime.

There is plenty of impatience with increased disorder in election returns below the presidential level. Consider Los Angeles County, America’s largest county, with nearly 10 million people, more people than 40 of the 50 states. It voted 71 percent for Mr. Biden in 2020.

Current returns show county District Attorney George Gascon winning only 21 percent of the vote in the nonpartisan primary. He’ll apparently face Republican Nathan Hochman, a critic of his liberal policies, in November.

Gascon, elected after the May 2020 death of counterfeit-passing suspect George Floyd in Minneapolis, is one of many county prosecutors supported by billionaire George Soros. His policies include not charging juveniles as adults, not seeking higher penalties for gang membership or use of firearms, and bringing fewer misdemeanor cases.

The predictable result has been increased car thefts, burglaries, and personal robberies. Some 120 assistant district attorneys have left the office, and there’s a backlog of 10,000 unprosecuted cases.

More than a dozen other Soros-backed and similarly liberal prosecutors have faced strong opposition or have left office.

St. Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner resigned last May amid lawsuits seeking her removal, Milwaukee’s John Chisholm retired in January, and Baltimore’s Marilyn Mosby was defeated in July 2022 and convicted of perjury in September 2023. Last November, Loudoun County, Virginia, voters (62 percent Biden) ousted liberal Buta Biberaj, who declined to prosecute a transgender student for assault, and in June 2022 voters in San Francisco (85 percent Biden) recalled famed radical Chesa Boudin.

Similarly, this Tuesday, voters in San Francisco passed ballot measures strengthening police powers and requiring treatment of drug-addicted welfare recipients.

In retrospect, it appears the Floyd video, appearing after three months of COVID-19 confinement, sparked a frenzied, even crazed reaction, especially among the highly educated and articulate. One fatal incident was seen as proof that America’s “systemic racism” was worse than ever and that police forces should be defunded and perhaps abolished.

2020 was “the year America went crazy,” I wrote in January 2021, a year in which police funding was actually cut by Democrats in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver. A year in which young New York Times (NYT) staffers claimed they were endangered by the publication of Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) opinion article advocating calling in military forces if necessary to stop rioting, as had been done in Detroit in 1967 and Los Angeles in 1992. A craven NYT publisher even fired the editorial page editor for running the article.

Evidence of visible and tangible discontent with increasing violence and its consequences—barren and locked shelves in Manhattan chain drugstores, skyrocketing carjackings in Washington, D.C.—is as unmistakable in polls and election results as it is in daily life in large metropolitan areas. Maybe 2024 will turn out to be the year even liberal America stopped acting crazy.

Chaos and disorder work against incumbents, as they did in 1968 when Democrats saw their party’s popular vote fall from 61 percent to 43 percent.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 23:20

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Veterans Affairs Kept COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate In Place Without Evidence

Veterans Affairs Kept COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate In Place Without Evidence

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The…

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Veterans Affairs Kept COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate In Place Without Evidence

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reviewed no data when deciding in 2023 to keep its COVID-19 vaccine mandate in place.

Doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in Washington in a file image. (Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

VA Secretary Denis McDonough said on May 1, 2023, that the end of many other federal mandates “will not impact current policies at the Department of Veterans Affairs.”

He said the mandate was remaining for VA health care personnel “to ensure the safety of veterans and our colleagues.”

Mr. McDonough did not cite any studies or other data. A VA spokesperson declined to provide any data that was reviewed when deciding not to rescind the mandate. The Epoch Times submitted a Freedom of Information Act for “all documents outlining which data was relied upon when establishing the mandate when deciding to keep the mandate in place.”

The agency searched for such data and did not find any.

The VA does not even attempt to justify its policies with science, because it can’t,” Leslie Manookian, president and founder of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, told The Epoch Times.

“The VA just trusts that the process and cost of challenging its unfounded policies is so onerous, most people are dissuaded from even trying,” she added.

The VA’s mandate remains in place to this day.

The VA’s website claims that vaccines “help protect you from getting severe illness” and “offer good protection against most COVID-19 variants,” pointing in part to observational data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that estimate the vaccines provide poor protection against symptomatic infection and transient shielding against hospitalization.

There have also been increasing concerns among outside scientists about confirmed side effects like heart inflammation—the VA hid a safety signal it detected for the inflammation—and possible side effects such as tinnitus, which shift the benefit-risk calculus.

President Joe Biden imposed a slate of COVID-19 vaccine mandates in 2021. The VA was the first federal agency to implement a mandate.

President Biden rescinded the mandates in May 2023, citing a drop in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. His administration maintains the choice to require vaccines was the right one and saved lives.

“Our administration’s vaccination requirements helped ensure the safety of workers in critical workforces including those in the healthcare and education sectors, protecting themselves and the populations they serve, and strengthening their ability to provide services without disruptions to operations,” the White House said.

Some experts said requiring vaccination meant many younger people were forced to get a vaccine despite the risks potentially outweighing the benefits, leaving fewer doses for older adults.

By mandating the vaccines to younger people and those with natural immunity from having had COVID, older people in the U.S. and other countries did not have access to them, and many people might have died because of that,” Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine on leave from Harvard Medical School, told The Epoch Times previously.

The VA was one of just a handful of agencies to keep its mandate in place following the removal of many federal mandates.

“At this time, the vaccine requirement will remain in effect for VA health care personnel, including VA psychologists, pharmacists, social workers, nursing assistants, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, peer specialists, medical support assistants, engineers, housekeepers, and other clinical, administrative, and infrastructure support employees,” Mr. McDonough wrote to VA employees at the time.

This also includes VA volunteers and contractors. Effectively, this means that any Veterans Health Administration (VHA) employee, volunteer, or contractor who works in VHA facilities, visits VHA facilities, or provides direct care to those we serve will still be subject to the vaccine requirement at this time,” he said. “We continue to monitor and discuss this requirement, and we will provide more information about the vaccination requirements for VA health care employees soon. As always, we will process requests for vaccination exceptions in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies.”

The version of the shots cleared in the fall of 2022, and available through the fall of 2023, did not have any clinical trial data supporting them.

A new version was approved in the fall of 2023 because there were indications that the shots not only offered temporary protection but also that the level of protection was lower than what was observed during earlier stages of the pandemic.

Ms. Manookian, whose group has challenged several of the federal mandates, said that the mandate “illustrates the dangers of the administrative state and how these federal agencies have become a law unto themselves.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 22:10

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate…

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.

(Shutterstock)

A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.

Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels

Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.

In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.

According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.

But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.

When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”

The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.

It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”

The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.

1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID

COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 12:50

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