California’s Aging Scam – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

In public service announcements on television, the California Department of Aging (CDA) warns of internet scams, identity theft, and other forms of fraud. Such announcements, Californians have cause to believe, are better issued by state Attorney General Rob Bonta, who has been warning of “text-based toll scam activity.”

When it comes to aging, Californians have access to helpful information from their doctors, HMOs, and countless medical websites. That invites a look at what the California Department of Aging, with its labyrinthine organizational chart, is all about.

With a budget of more than $466 million, the California Department of Aging has 284 employees, led by director Susan DeMarois. She is accompanied by a chief deputy director, two deputy directors, two assistant deputy directors, plus a deputy director and chief information officer. The California Department of Aging also deploys a Division of Policy, Research and Equity, with its own deputy director, assistant deputy director, and yet another assistant director. By its own account, the California Department of Aging is quite top-heavy, but there’s more to it.

“The CDA believes diversity, equity, and inclusion are essential for creating a more just and equitable society for all older adults.” The California Department of Aging funded a survey about “the current and future health and well-being of LGBTQIA+ older adults.” In addition, “the LGBTQIA+ community continues to face challenges as they age,” and so on.

Since the letters represent different phenomena, the alphabet formulation is a construct, relentlessly imposed on California youth. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1955, the “Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth Act.” The measure bars government school districts from notifying parents about the gender transitions of their own children.

California policy also portrays the alphabet construct as an oppressed community. Californians have evidence that precisely the opposite is the case. Consider, for example, Herbert David Brown, who in 2013 murdered his 22-month-old daughter, Lily.

The child was found with a “fractured skull, consistent with being hit with great force against a hard object and vigorous shaking.” In September 2015, Brown pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. After serving 12 years, Brown, “now identifies as a woman, going by the name Allie Hazel Brown.”

On October 30, 2024, California granted parole to the convicted murderer, still regarded as a threat to public safety by San Luis Obispo County district attorney Dan Dow. If Californians thought the claim to be a woman played a role in the murderer’s early release, it would be hard to blame them. Consider also the case of Rodney Quine.

In 1980, the father of two daughters murdered Shahid Ali Baig and stole his car. In prison, Quine claimed that since the age of nine he believed he was really a woman. Federal judge Jon Tigar believed him and in 2017 Quine became the first inmate to receive sex-change surgery funded by taxpayers. The convicted murderer is now inmate WB1121 at the Central California Women’s Facility.

Quine and Brown both pleaded innocent, after which the court examined physical evidence to determine if the claim was true. On the other hand, with the murderers’ claims to womanhood, nothing of the kind took place.

In California, reality dysphoria trumps justice and gains a new supporter in the California Department of Aging, another redundant bureaucracy pushing misguided policy on the taxpayers’ dime. Meanwhile, as the people might recall, the California Department of Aging issued no televised warning about possibly the worst scam in state history.

On the watch of Julie Su, head of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, California indulged more than $30 billion in unemployment fraud, with millions in payments to convicts and out-of-state fraudsters. Never held accountable, Su was Joe Biden’s pick for labor secretary. If Gov. Newsom Julie taps Su for some government post, embattled Californians would not be surprised.

Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.