Assembly District 73 – 2014’s Primary is a Year Away

Well, just when you’ve recovered from the 2012 election, it’s about time to start studying for 2014.

Yep, I said it. The first election (*cough* primary *cough*) is June 3, 2014. That’s one year away (and not very long to build up your Twitter following, by the way).  The top two contestants (I mean candidates) will go to the final round in November.

Assembly District 73 looks pretty full already according to the post I read from “Around The Capitol.”

#AD73 Probables: @SteveBaric19 @Anna_Bryson @bill_brough @JessePetrilla and @paulglaab http://t.co/DqovJ3oKfb via @scottlay #OCGop

— Gidgey (@gidgey) May 14, 2013

Of the five listed there, four are city council members.  This is a good reminder that we should pay attention to local politics.  Every vote counts in local elections and these people always seem to move up the food chain.

For example, Diane Harkey (termed out for AD73 but running for BOE, District 4), used to be my mayor (Dana Point).  She ran for Assembly after it was vacated by Mimi Walters (who was the mayor of Laguna Niguel and is now a State Senator).

I’m not sure what your deal breakers are but I am interested in someone who is a fiscal conservative.  After all, this is a person we’ll send to the California Legislature who, in my opinion, already overtaxes and overspends.

Bill Maher gets the bill for the government he voted for, now threatens to leave California

Hypocrite:

Liberal HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher says he may leave California, due to the state’s high tax rate.

“Liberals,” he said, during a recent broadcast,” you could actually lose me.”

He made the comments during a panel discussion of current Capitol Hill budget policy that included the participation of MSNBC Rachel Maddow, who blasted Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposal as beneficial to the rich.

“The Ryan budget is a document that says the big problems in American right now are that rich people do not have enough money. They need relief from confiscatory tax rate,” she said, Newsbusters reports.

Mr. Maher answered: “You know what? Rich people — I’m sure you’d agree with this — actually do pay the freight in this country.”

No kidding, Bill? Welcome to your California. Soon you’ll have no place to escape to when the bill comes.

New laws California gets to deal with in 2013

Via Californiality

The State of California has many new laws for 2013, so what are the new California laws that everyone’s buzzing about?

Let’s see what is legal and illegal in 2013 while examining the very long list of new California laws signed by Governor Jerry Brown.

The following new California laws are effective on January 1, 2013 unless stated otherwise.

Read them all

h/t KFI

Los Angeles! You voted for higher taxes? Guess what? They want more.

In the Nov. 6 election, LA voted to tax its “rich” friends and neighbors to pay for all the city’s overspending and wasteful ways:

Well that was just the rich. This is you:

The Los Angeles City Council agreed to place a half-cent sales tax hike on the March 5 ballot to avert new cuts in city services, drawing immediate opposition from critics in and outside city government.

Voters would decide the measure, which will boost collections by an estimated $215 million a year, on the same day they choose a new mayor. And there were signs the proposal already is influencing the race, which is expected to focus heavily on resolving the city’s chronic budget crisis.

Go ahead and vote for it. You know you want to. After all, you voted for “fairness” when it was someone else’s money. Be fair. Vote to give them yours, too.

Throttle to the floor now, California, the hard left turn is probably here

Forget about Propositions to raise your taxes by you voting them on yourselves, the Democrat legislature now has (or soon will) a super majority:

The main check on Sacramento excess has been a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority of both houses to raise taxes. Although Republicans have been in the minority for four decades, they could impose a modicum of spending restraint by blocking tax increases. If Democratic leads stick in two races where ballots are still being counted, liberals will pick up enough seats to secure a supermajority. Governor Jerry Brown then will be the only chaperone for the Liberals Gone Wild video that is Sacramento.

Mr. Brown can blame himself for this predicament, after he drove more young voters to the polls by threatening to cut $500 million from higher education, which would have brought on large tuition increases. Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 made up 28% of the electorate, up from 22% in 2008 and 15% in 1996.

Unions also ramped up their turnout machine to kill a ballot initiative that would have barred unions from automatically withholding money from worker paychecks for political spending. The high Democratic turnout in moderate and right-leaning districts helped the party pick up three seats in the senate and four in the assembly.

So now Californians will experience the joys of one-party, union-run progressive governance. Mr. Brown is urging lawmakers to demonstrate frugality and the “prudence of Joseph.” As he said the other day, “we’ve got to make sure over the next few years that we pay our bills, we invest in the right programs, but we don’t go on any spending binges.” That’s what all Governors say. Trouble is, merely paying the state’s delinquent bills will require tens of billions in additional revenues if lawmakers don’t undertake fiscal reforms.

Read the rest –

The only thing good about this development is leftism will be on full display for the rest of the nation to see – and they’d better pay attention, because not only can what’s about to happen to California happen to them, it will.

Meanwhile, conservatives in California can only hope the more conservative Governors somehow hold the line in their respective states to give us someplace to retreat to. No liberals allowed.

No new jobs at Intel in ten years – think it’ll get better, California?

If you do, what have you been smoking?

Intel’s Paul Otelini was interviewed by WSJ, and spoke aloud what many, many soon to be ex-California business people are thinking.

Speaking on stage this week at the Intel Capital Global Summit in Huntington Beach, Calif., an annual gathering for executives of companies that Intel has invested in, Otellini was responding to a question from former California Republican Congressman Tom Campbell on whether he was “bullish” on California.

“Oh, God,” Otellini said, “I was born and raised here. I’m fifth or sixth generation. It’s one of the nicest pieces of real estate on the planet, and we’re so close to screwing it up, it’s pathetic. I’d like to be bullish, but I worry that we have to hit the abyss before we can fix things, and I worry that the abyss will be more like Greece.”

Intel, Otellini continued, has not added a job in California in 10 or 12 years and closed its last factory in the state around six years ago.

“Employees have a hard time buying houses, and they have complaints about the schools,” he said. They’re drawn to California despite the state’s high housing costs, heavy traffic and high tax rates because of “the allure of Silicon Valley, but then they get married and have kids, and they’re begging us, ‘Can you transfer me to New Mexico or Arizona?’ We’re not an outlier here.”

Read the rest, and then ask yourself why you keep voting Democrat? It can’t be because you hope for new jobs to magically grow in the unicorn poop that the state uses for job growth medium.

Is it because you believe there’s an inexhaustible supply of rich people to suck from? If so, there’s bad news for you on that front as well:

What has caused California’s transformation from a “pull in” to a “push out” state? The data [from this study – eb] have revealed several crucial drivers. One is chronic economic adversity (in most years, California unemployment is above the national average). Another is density: the Los Angeles and Orange County region now has a population density of 6,999.3 per square mile—well ahead of New York or Chicago. Dense coastal areas are a source of internal migration, as people seek more space in California’s interior, as well as migration to other states. A third factor is state and local governments’ constant fiscal instability, which sends at least two discouraging messages to businesses and individuals. One is that they cannot count on state and local governments to provide essential services—much less, tax breaks or other incentives. Second, chronically out-of-balance budgets can be seen as tax hikes waiting to happen.

Hypocrisy alert! SF Democrats fighting AGAINST the environment – when it affects THEM, that is

You know, it’s funny, San Francisco Democrats like Feinstein and Pelosi are all for economy-killing policies when their own constituents aren’t directly affected: all in the name of “Saving the Environment™.” President B. Hussein Obama has no problem killing job-saving bills that would bring water to California’s parched Central Valley if it saves an ecologically-challenged minnow at the expense of our nation’s fertile farmland, our food supply, and jobs.

Hetch Hetchy Valley before the flood (via Wikipedia)

Well the infamous San Francisco Dems Pelosi and Feinstein are currently blocking a plan to actually restore part of Yosemite National Park that was flooded by the construction of a dam back in 1923, providing not only water, but electricity to the city of San Francisco over 190 miles west.

On one side are Republican lawmakers and environmentalists, including Ronald Reagan’s former interior secretary, who want the dam removed and valley restored. On the other are Democratic San Franciscans, led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, fighting to hold onto the city’s famously pure drinking water in a drought-prone state.

“Eventually it will be broadly understood what an abomination a reservoir in a valley like Yosemite Valley really is,” Donald Hodel, the former interior chief, told The Associated Press. “I think it will be hard to quell this idea (of restoration). It is like ideas of freedom in a totalitarian regime. Once planted they are impossible to repress forever.”

Hetch Hetchy Valley today (same general area – via Wikipedia)

Over the past decade, studies by the state and others have shown it’s possible for San Francisco to continue collecting water from the Tuolumne River further downstream.

But the city never seriously has considered giving up its claim to the valley.

“This is a ridiculous idea,” Mayor Ed Lee said. “It’s a Trojan Horse for those that wish to have our public tricked into believing we have an adequate substitute for the Hetch Hetchy reservoir. We do not. There isn’t any.”

The gravity-fed system serves 7 percent of California’s population, city water officials say. Turbines from its dams generate hydroelectric power for city buildings, streetlights and traffic signals, the airport and the transit system. And two-thirds of the water from the system is sold to neighboring municipalities.

And this at a bargain! [Emphasis mine]

All of this for just $30,000 a year. That was the rent set by Congress when it passed the Raker Act in 1913, giving San Francisco exclusive control and use of the Hetch Hetchy valley, despite opposition by 200 newspapers across the country and after a week of contentious debate.

Read the rest –

Now here’s where it gets weird – I agree with the SF Democrats: keep the valley flooded and provide water and power to the people. The damage was done years ago and would cost billions to reverse.

And here’s where it gets impossible to conceive: that Democrats would learn from this and STFU when it comes to people needing water in other areas, like the Central Valley farmers. And since I’m dreaming here anyway, maybe they’ll rein in their EPA and stop them from destroying people’s lives?

No, they’ll never do that. The only thing for it is to cause the Democrat to become endangered and finally extinct.

Crossposted to A Tow Dog

Related articles

• S.F. to vote on restoring Yosemite’s lost valley (fresnobee.com)
• Yosemite’s lost valley will be subject of vote (foxnews.com)
• Vote Could Expose Lost Yosemite Gorge to Public (foxnews.com)
• Bring back Yosemite’s lost valley? Voters to decide (msnbc.msn.com)

A “Food” Lawyer Blames Obesity on Subsidies

crossposted from A Little California Dog

It’s not often I read something that makes me so angry that I just have to bring myself to write about it, usually I reserve that for the magical California budget. But there was so much wrong with the thinking in this article that I’m still spitting two days after reading it, and watching normally bright folks swallow it whole!

But somebody didn’t bother to check his facts! Now apparently this lawyer practices Agricultural Law…

I tend to stay away from policy on this blog, but Bloomberg’s soda ban perfectly crystalizes the absurdities of our food system. We pay farmers to overproduce the raw materials for our sweets, then we tax consumers to discourage them from eating it. The way I see it, when a state or city passes a Happy Meal toy ban or a soda tax, it is a repudiation of national agricultural policy.

Unfortunately he apparently doesn’t seem to realize what a “subsidy” is on ANY of the crops he’s complaining about. Or that many of the programs are specifically designed to prevent “over production” or cover losses when crops are destroyed, or the market price collapses.

Sugar cane production in this country is almost non-existent, it’s only grown in Hawaii, Florida, and Louisiana (total receipts in 2006-07 were $897 Mil, not even 1/2 of 1% of total crop values for that year). It doesn’t even register in the top 25 crops that have received subsidies since 1995…

Sugar Beets have not received any subsidies to farmers since 2005, and place 20th on the top 25 list for the years 1995-2010 (Sugar Beets are the other, bigger half of that 1% by the way…)

Graphic from 2011 Farm Subsidy database

    In fact tariffs charged on non-domestic sugar made from cane sugar and sugar beets have caused Americans to spend twice the world price for these sugars. So tariffs are keeping our prices higher than they should be.

Unlike other crop initiatives that send farmers payments, the sugar program keeps prices high primarily by limiting imports, harming consumers and companies, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the sponsor of the amendment, said yesterday on the Senate floor. “This outdated program puts American companies at a competitive disadvantage, and it should go,” the New Hampshire Democrat said.

Tariffs, not subsidies… You’d think an Agricultural Law lawyer would know that “little” distinction. And yeah, our Congress is so dumb they are keeping the import tariffs.

Tariffs… that keep prices higher for consumers. Yet this fellow thinks that is why local governments should be justified in banning sodas, Happy Meals and who knows what else because it make sugar too cheap??

Sorghum is also a form of sugar that gets “subsidies”, but it is not generally used for human food, it’s generally used in animal feeds. So I can’t think of what stretch this lawyer imagines makes it’s too cheap and justifies the food nannies of the world…After all they want to ban Happy Meals because they come with a toy, not because 3 year olds won’t eat salad…or cattle feed.

The dark blue lines (if the graphic are too small to see) are for Market Loss Assistance, in other words the market price was lower than what it cost to produce the crop.

Which brings us to what he’s really bitching about, Corn Syrup! First you should ask yourself why High Fructose Corn Syrup would be cheaper than any other sugar. It couldn’t have anything to do with the subsidies that go to ethanol producers? Not to the corn farmers, btw. Though the ethanol producers are supposed to pay farmers more for their corn,but they’re not paying for what they’re not buying (see where this is going?) Why yes that could have something to do with HFCS being cheaper, not corn prices being higher!
Feed corn (coarse grains) prices for the US as of Jun 12, 2012 ~

Projected corn ending stocks for 2011/12 are unchanged, as is the 2011/12 season average farm price which remains at $5.95 to $6.25 per bushel.

Now this is field corn which is pretty unedible for Americans in particular, but this is the corn used for ethanol, and cattle feed for the most part. But farmers are growing it instead of sweet corn or other food products. So what do you think happens to the price of those products that aren’t being grown? And what happens to the corn that isn’t being turned into Ethanol?   Ethanol is a terrible waste of an animal feed product, a human food product, is an inefficient fuel product, has caused food prices all over the world to rise, and since demand hasn’t matched supplies the by-product is cheap corn syrup that isn’t getting used to make ethanol. Because it is liquid it is easier and cheaper to transport than cane or beet sugar which is generally moved in a crystal form. Because of tariffs, where the government is collecting the money, not the farmer, on the other types of sugar, corn syrup is the cheaper sugar. Of course producers of products that use sugar are going to use corn syrup. It sweetens just the same

So what, you say? Isn’t HFCS bad for you or as a very smart friend said tonight, “it isn’t a real sugar”. Head Desk!, Head Desk!, Head Desk!…GRRR!!  So without making this post 14 times longer and so technical that I lose all of my 3 readers…the short answer is emphatically NO!!

Sugar is sugar is sugar. Period. Unless you are afraid of letters you don’t understand…sigh…

That “F” in HFCS is FRUCTOSE ~ High FRUCTOSE Corn Syrup. The very same sugar found in all fruit, all vegetables, and all plant life. Period, no exceptions. HFCS is called that not because it is pure fructose,or even “high” in fructose, but to distinguish it from regular cooking corn syrup which is glucose (that’s Karo to you folks from the South, like you’d use in a Pecan Pie). HFCS is equal parts of fructose and glucose. Cane and Beet sugars are processed down for human consumption to Sucrose, that then breaks down in the body to fructose and glucose, in surprisingly the same percentages as is found in HFCS (fancy that!). They are all sugars, just different types. And guess what? Even the American Medical Associations says there is no problem and no difference with those scarey letters!

One. More. Time. Sugar is Sugar is Sugar

Everything you eat has got to be broken down into a sugar for your body to use it. Every fat, every carbohydrate, every starch, even fiber has to be turned into a sugar for your body to use it’s energy. Fructose is sugar, a real sugar…same calories and everything!
So although a soda has an awful lot of sugar, it isn’t going to be broken down by your body any differently than any other kind of sugar. And guess what? Because sucrose (beet and cane sugar) is unstable in acid (like a soda) it breaks down to be identical to HFCS…

Sugar is Sugar is Sugar.

End of sugar rant. Grr!

Corn subsidies. Yep, they exist, and ethanol has made them worse. But there is a reason corn is not only the top subsidy receiver, but the number one agricultural product grown in the US with well over 72 million acres grown every year. It is not just an animal feed; or a human food, that gains more and more importance the poorer the country(the US produced 42% of the world’s corn in 2005); or mis-guidedly used for ethanol, but is also used to make oil for frying, alcohol fuel for cooking and 90% of the starch for food and industrial uses in the US. Over 30% of the corn grown in the US is used as animal feed(to grow those Happy Meals the food police hate!)

So what is wrong with this fellow’s using “sugar” subsidies as a rationale for Nanny Bloomberg? Plenty.

There is NO rational reason to ban either Happy Meals for their toys, or the soda you want to drink. Nobody who isn’t paying your bills has any right at all to tell you what food you can eat or not. And once again…sugar is sugar is sugar! There is no nutritional reason to ban sugar, and HFCS is just another sugar. Cheaper maybe because of dumb government policy, and because it is easier to transport and use in other products, and is more stable to use in those products. BUT there is no moral reason to ban cheap food, the cheaper the food prices the better it is for the whole world. So why invent some dumb theory that farmers over produce and that gives the Food Police some right to tax it? The two items have no earthly connection, unless you just want to invent excuses for control freaks.

Do farmers over produce so the Food Police can tell you what you should be allowed to eat? I don’t think they have any right to tell you what you can eat under some misguided idea that cheap food is bad, and we shouldn’t be growing it. In the first place the US is one of the largest exporters of food, if we under produce that means world food prices rise accordingly. That is NOT a good thing, unless you believe in world population control by starving Third World Countries. Exporting is both good for our farmers AND the Third World(& the other developed countries too btw) Cheap food is a moral good.

Do farmers over produce so as to make more money? Not hardly, more of anything drives the price down. I live in wine country, and there is nothing sadder than seeing a grown man cry because all of his work for the past year has gone down the tubes because it will cost more to pick his grapes than they are worth because for once the climate was “perfect” and they had a overly large production! Can’t even give them away, as wine grapes just aren’t “eating” grapes, hundreds of acres of grapes left to rot on the vine. And the dollar loss to that farmer is astronomical! Even crop insurance only covers a part of it.

Or the dairy farmers whose feed costs meant they were only getting half of what it cost to get their milk to market. All that means is that they will have to get rid of every extraneous animal they can(and maybe a few more!), which in turn means meat prices might be lower in the short term, but will boomerang soon after when there aren’t enough cattle coming to market. And what does less production of milk do to the milk market? It may mean the farmer gets a better price for his product, but the milk buying public suffers from higher prices in the long run. Over produce? Hardly, even multi-million dollar farms have to watch every dollar, they are not going to deliberately cause the market price of their product bottom out.

Do farmers over produce? No, they don’t, and subsidies are not to make them over produce either. But that was the take away from at least one reader of that ridiculous post.
Is there a reason HFCS is cheaper than it could be, or cheaper than other sugars? Yep! It’s cheaper because of misguided Ethanol usage of corn, leaving extra corn syrup to be sold to food processors, and because other sugars are kept unnaturally high…

You’re going to have to find a different rationale (I use the word loosely, as there is nothing rational about the Food Police) than the non-existent over-production of a necessary food source to justify telling folks to eat their broccoli (Hey! Guess what?? It has fructose too!) And folks like Bloomberg don’t really care what kind of sugar is in a soda, or if the ingredients are “cheap” or not. They just think they have some divine right to tell others what to do. Guess what? Bloomberg is wrong. Period.

Yep! That lawyer should stay away from “policy”, but then again what he seems to see as repudiation, I see as making lame excuses for bad “policy”.

flicka

Why is this not surprising?

Watts Up With That?

There’s more ugliness like what went on recently with Oregon State University. This professor exposed corruption within the California University system that had ties to the California Air Resources Board’s botched PM2.5 rules. As we’ve seen recently, this PM2.5 regulatory action is so vile that the EPA does unannounced human experimentation.

From WND:

What’s academia’s response to a whistleblower who exposes fraudulent research and faked credentials on a panel of experts?

Fire the whistleblower, of course.

That’s the allegation in a new complaint filed against the regents of the University of California by the American Center for Law and Justice on behalf of former professor James E. Enstrom.

The lawsuit explains that Enstrom was a UCLA research professor for decades – until he blew the whistle on “junk environmental science and scientific misconduct at the University of California” and was dismissed.

“The facts of this case are…

View original post 1,426 more words

USS San Diego (LPD-22) commissioned in San Diego

The USS San Diego is the fourth US Navy ship to be named after the Navy town of San Diego, California. LPD-22 is capable of hauling two LCACs, plus a fully equipped Marine battalion and has a crew of 361 officers and enlisted personnel.

From Channel 10 in San Diego:

The amphibious transport dock USS San Diego was the first with the moniker of “America’s Finest City” to be stationed here. The ship bears Navy number LPD-22.

“With today’s ceremony, the Navy will commission the fourth ship to bear the name USS San Diego. From what I’ve been told, the ship being commissioned today is the most advanced amphibious ship in the world,” Mayor Jerry Sanders said. He said the city’s relationship with the Navy stretched back to 1921, when a Navy repair base was established.

Sanders presented the ship’s officers and the crew with the key to the city, “in honor of welcoming America’s finest ship to America’s Finest City.”

The commissioning ceremony is a naval tradition and historic event for a ship, marking the moment a new craft is placed in active service in the fleet.

Adm. Mark Ferguson, the vice chief of naval operations, said San Diego had been a great home to the United States Navy. He said expectations for the ship were high.

“The USS San Diego joins a Navy that has never been more in demand, never more needed and essential to ensure that our nation retains command of the seas,” Ferguson said.

The 684-foot long San Diego, the sixth ship in the San Antonio class, had its keel laid on May 23, 2007, at the Huntington Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. It was christened June 12, 2010, and delivered to the Navy Dec. 19, 2011.

The ship’s sponsor is Linda Winter, wife of former Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter. She gave the command to “Man our ship and bring her to life.”

The San Antonio class ship is designed to carry landing craft, fighting vehicles, helicopters and personnel. The ships have more capacity than their predecessors and use “stealth” technology that includes the shape of the hull and its superstructure. It is being called the most advanced amphibious ship in the world.

“Look at the size of it!” said veteran George Horton. “How would you like to paint it? My God.”

Horton, 88, has seen the ships grow over the years. Horton joined the Navy in 1942 and served on an older USS San Diego during World War II, just after his 17th birthday.

“Oh, this ship is so magnificent,” Horton said through tears. “[I] waited 60 years for this.”

Horton’s heart seemed to swell with pride as he looked up at the new USS San Diego.

“I just want to see this go to sea and let them know that whenever they release the anchor or let the lines go that my shipmates and I are going with them,” Horton said. “They treat me like a member of the ship and it’s really touching.”

More-

Sailors and Marines man the rails during the commissioning ceremony Sat. May 19, 2012

The San Diego’s Facebook page is here, and if you live there, you can cheer them on personally.

Crossposted at A Tow Dog

Related articles

• Navy commissions the high-tech USS San Diego (stripes.com)
• USS San Diego Comes Home (usnaorbust.wordpress.com)