Is California Following Wisconsin's Lead?

I'm not talking about becoming fiscally responsible, or possibly going from blue to purple to red. California is permanently blue and its economic scorecard will be printed in red ink for decades to come. But there is one small ray of hope for some fiscal sanity. The legislature has refused to do what is necessary to get public employee debt under control, so the people may end up doing something about it via a state initiative.

The move doesn't match Wisconsin's, but it's a start.

The ship has hit the sand in the formerly Golden State. Employee pensions and benefits for public union employees have already bankrupted three of its cities—Vallejo, Stockton, and San Bernardino. Others are quickly approaching the brink. The whole state can't be far behind. Two major cities have addressed the problem with local ballot measures. San Diego, California's second largest city, passed a measure curbing future increases in the huge city-paid public employee pensions and drastically reducing those benefits for new employees. That is not a huge surprise, since San Diego is California's cleanest and most efficient big city, and leans moderate/Republican.

San Jose, California's third largest city, is a bit more of a surprise. San Jose recently passed a similar ballot measure, and it passed by a whopping 70%. San Jose leans heavily Democratic. Even more surprising is the fact that the Democratic mayor of San Jose, Chuck Reed, led the charge for pension reform and limits on public employee union direct involvement in political matters. It goes without saying that the representatives of the public employees unions immediately filed suit to stay implementation of the reforms. San Jose has temporarily avoided bankruptcy largely because of the huge taxes paid by its industries, including the computer industry and major dot.com companies like Google. But oppressive state taxes are driving major players out of Silicon Valley and into more business-friendly states.

The state initiative measure is less drastic, but moves the debate to the entire population and accomplishes a couple of major goals. It would specifically prohibit unions and corporations from contributing directly to candidates. It wouldn't have any effect on PACs. But as a companion to that, the measure includes the previously-failed “paycheck protection” provisions. Unions collect dues from their members whether they like it or not. And whether the members like it or not, a huge percentage of those dues go not to employee protection, but rather to left wing, Democratic political causes.

Currently, the weak and confusing decision in Beck v Communications Workers has had little effect on the unions' ability to use dues for political causes. If a member does not want to be an active union employee, he or she must file a “Beck statement,” which limits the dues collected to narrowly-defined activities. His or her dues must then be reduced by the percentage the union spends on political causes.

The unions routinely lie, and reduce the dues by 2% to 5%, depending on the weather. But the National Right to Work Foundation has filed multiple suits proving that the political spending is (depending on the union) somewhere between 18% and a stratospheric 48%. The NRTW Foundation has not lost a single case, but because of the arcane rules, it can only file for complaining individuals rather than entire groups. So the unions take a temporary loss, and move on to bigger and better extortion.

Wisely, the organizers of the measure included corporations in their restrictions. It is consistent with the Citizens United case. But it also corrects the problem that caused the paycheck protection plan to fail previously. This measure includes both unions and corporations, where the previous failed measure addressed unions only. Under this measure, no organization can use forced deductions to pay for candidate campaigns. Not from stockholders, employees or union members.

In the past year, public-sector unions and trade unions contributed $2.7 million to political candidates (96% Democratic) in California, while large corporations gave $4.3 million, almost evenly distributed. Under this measure, neither could make any direct contributions to candidate campaigns. The supporters of the measure have very smartly pointed that out, and emphasized instead that “special interests” should be curtailed. But the real distinction is that unlike unions, businesses cannot forcibly take money from their employees to support candidates that many of the employees oppose. This measure would fix that problem for union members and have no effect whatsoever on non-union employees.

In short, the measure prohibits the unions from forcing deductions from the member's paycheck for political candidates, and it equally prohibits the corporations from deducting that money from their union employees' paychecks. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. In the case of public employees particularly, this is a big hit. Not a Wisconsin-style hit, but a hit nonetheless. Paycheck deduction is automatic for public employees (unless they want to fight a Beck case). In the private sector, paycheck deduction is allowed, but not required. Most union employees just go along with it because it relieves them from having to write a check once a month and getting fined and disciplined by the union if they forget to write that check.

The measure levels the playing field a bit, but until Californians are ready to seriously restrict public employee contracts and collective bargaining a la Wisconsin, this is just a band-aid on a cancer. And until the state does so, it is headed the way of Vallejo, Stockton, and San Bernardino. Democratic politicians should pay heed to the efforts of the San Jose mayor and city council.

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Snakes In A Hissing Contest

The green mambas at the US Department of Justice and the spitting cobras at the California State Bar have gotten into a hissing contest over admissions policies for illegal immigrants. The dumbed-down, y'all come California Bar has provisionally admitted one Sergio C. Garcia after he passed the Bar exam in 2009. He has been in lawyer limbo ever since.

But he won't be practicing law in California or anywhere else until the conflict with the feds is resolved. Oddly, Garcia is a victim of the Obama administration's order-imposed DREAM Policy.

Without considering the DREAM Act in either its actual or fantasy version, a 1996 federal statute denies public benefits to illegal immigrants. Those few courts which have addressed the issue have declared that a license for a professional practice of any sort is a public benefit. DOJ officials who are involved in the Garcia dilemma have stated: “The 1996 law was drafted to preclude undocumented aliens from receiving commercial and professional licenses issued by states and the federal government.” The case is presently pending before the California Supreme Court.

There are multiple ironies involved in this case. To start with, the California Supreme Court is quite conservative, unlike every other branch of government in the state. But what does that mean for this case? One conservative view would be to hold that a non-citizen has never enjoyed the right to a professional license in California, and shouldn't now. That would put California on the same side as the DOJ. But the other would be to hold that under the Tenth Amendment, California has the sole right to determine the qualifications of its own professionals, and that the semi-independent State Bar has determined that Garcia should be allowed to practice law. That would put California on the side of the State Bar Committee of Bar Examiners and state Attorney General Kamala Harris. I won't even hazard a guess as to which way the state high court will go.

Then there's Garcia himself. He would seem to be a perfect candidate for DREAM Act treatment. California has actually formally approved a DREAM Act of its own, in advance of any Congressional action on the matter. But the devil is in the details. Garcia was brought to California illegally by his parents when he was seventeen months old. When he was nine, they went back to Mexico just ahead of the [then] INS agents. They came back in again when Garcia was seventeen years old. His father applied for citizenship, which was ultimately granted, but the parents didn't at first do anything to get citizenship proceedings instituted for the children, include young Sergio. In 1994, his father finally applied for a green card for Sergio. Garcia is now 35 years old, and under the arcane terms and mathematical formulas of the California DREAM Act (as well as the fantasy federal DREAM Act), he doesn't qualify for the exception.

Given the nature of the immigration services and the backlog of immigrants awaiting legal status, it is unlikely that Garcia would be able to get full legal American citizenship any time before 2021 or 2022. The procedure in California is that the State Bar certifies a candidate to the State Supreme Court, which then determines whether or not to issue a license to the applicant. In Garcia's case, the Supreme Court reviewed his file, and put his application on hold, resulting in the current litigation.

By the calculations of the Obama administration (and therefore the DOJ), Garcia wouldn't qualify for expedited citizenhip and “public benefits” even under the fantasy federal standard. Technically, Garcia [re]entered the US when he was seventeen. Obama's order says “before turning sixteen.” Deportations are halted and “public benefits” bestowed if the applicant is age thirty or under. Garcia is thirty-five, and will be in his mid-forties by the time the immigration authorities are likely to grant him citizenship.

Even Garcia's supporters, such as the political hack attorney general, admit that Garcia is not eligible under either state or federal law to be licensed at the present time. But then they pull out the liberal catch-all: “Allowing him to become a lawyer would be in keeping with the spirit of the new policy.” Note that the federal standard is indeed a “policy,” but California's DREAM Act is cold, hard law. It was designed to get rafts of illegals into the professions, but in Garcia's case it has had exactly the opposite effect.

State AG Harris said that “Garcia exemplifies the kind of self-sufficiency that Congress has stated should be a basic principle of immigration law.” True or not, it's irrelevant, since Congress has never passed a DREAM Act. Harris is arguing against a federal policy that she thinks ought to be interpreted differently in each case, totally ignoring the fact that the state she represents has actually passed a DREAM Act, under which Garcia still doesn't qualify. As I mentioned earlier, she's a political hack from San Francisco taking a purely political position on a legal matter.

So my final question is, “why is the Department of Justice attempting to force federal supremacy in a case that is in direct opposition to its position of 'putting undocumented aliens on the fast track'?” I think the answer may be simple. Obama has taken a position that he is a strict enforcer of immigration law (even though we all know that's a lie). But Garcia is just one hapless pawn in the political game. Obama and Attorney General Holder can express their deep sympathies for illegal immigrants in general, but use this specific case to point out their spurious dedication to strict enforcement of the law. Typical and cynical Obama smoke and mirrors.

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Bullet [Train] To The Brain

Two news items inevitably caught my attention this week. In the early stages of a national election, both point out the need for liberal government to jam things down the public’s throat that they don’t need, don’t want, and can’t afford. One is about California, the other about the Obama administration. They both say a great deal about why liberals shouldn’t be in charge at the state or federal level.

IF YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A HOLE, STOP DIGGING. Commonsense advice which liberals routinely ignore.

First, we have California’s recent legislative action approving $4.5 billion in state funding for what many Californians call the Bullet Train to Nowhere. Anybody who has been conscious recently knows that California is for all intents and purposes bankrupt. The legislature brilliantly attempted to fix this problem by getting the $3.2 billion in federal funds which would have been lost if California hadn’t voted to throw bad money after worse to build a pie-in-the-sky train. In other words, a bankrupt state is getting money from a bankrupt federal government which is borrowing the money from China.

The picture accompanying this article is an artist’s rendering of the nonexistent train pulling into a nonexistent station in one of California’s bankrupt cities. Last year, the city of Vallejo filed for bankruptcy protection. Recently, Stockton, California followed Vallejo’s filing, becoming the largest city in America ever to file bankruptcy. Last week, the City of Mammoth Lakes filed. Not to be outdone, on Wednesday, the City of San Bernardino, population 210,000, added to the list. Two major credit rating agencies recently reported that 20% of California’s cities face bankruptcy within five years.

So what does a good government do when faced with major portions of its body politic going bankrupt? Spend more money. Currently, the first leg of the fast choo-choo is set to go from Bakersfield to Madera. That’s farmland. But even though the ecoweenies have badly damaged the Central Valley’s water supply by protecting a useless fish, there are still huge areas continuing to produce food items for America’s dinner tables. Those remaining stalwart farmers have been using every means available to them to derail this train. They have been temporarily successful in stalling it at least, because the proposed routes (there have been three so far) cut off farmers, their livestock and their crops from their daily activities and means of transport. In case you're wondering, they don't allow cattle on bullet trains (unless they're service or emotional support animals, I suppose).

But despite astronomical budget deficits and hearty opposition to the train itself, the geniuses in Sacramento went ahead with the project anyway. Why write bad checks by yourself when you have enablers in Washington DC who will help you out with IOUs? Three other states had the good sense to turn the federal high speed rail funds down because of budget deficits. Two of the three have instead cleaned up their fiscal houses and now have budget surpluses. But they won’t have super Casey Jones. How sad.

Never daunted, Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown praised the legislature’s action and promised a quick signature from the State House. Says Brown: “The money is there. We have the capability in California in a $2 trillion dollar economy to finance this thing.” Well, the state had that economy before the train, and it is still billions of dollars in the hole. The estimated final cost of the high speed line is $68 billion (and you know how accurate government estimates are). Brown is another typical Democratic politician who believes that you’re not broke as long as you still have checks.

The second headline news that caught my attention was the reaction from the Obama administration to California’s brilliant move. Basking in the glow of other green initiatives and government glory such as Solyndra and LightSquared, the Obamists are positively orgasmic over California’s approval of the nation’s first High Speed Railway to Nowhere. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood took time off from praising the efficiency of China’s government by three-man dictatorships to extol the joys of the California action.

Here’s what LaHood had to say: “I congratulate the Legislature on taking this action, which will create thousands of jobs and strengthen the California economy. In the next 20 years, California expects more than 7 million additional residents. But, as the state’s residents know all too well, the highways between California cities are already congested, and short-haul takeoff and landing slots at Golden State airports are at a premium.” LaHood fails to notice that California is bleeding taxpayers and taxpaying businesses, so we can guess where those 7 million additional residents are coming from.

I have driven between the metropolitan Bay Area and the metropolitan Los Angeles area literally hundreds of times in my life. Interstate 5 is hardly congested, and I’ve had times in which I drove for half an hour or more before seeing another car. I drive because the waiting time and inconvenience of airports and airlines are outweighed by the convenience of traveling in my own car (though gas prices have changed that formula a bit).

Where does LaHood think these train stations are going to be located? They’ll be placed in exactly the same locations as the current airports. The congestion is not the travel time on either the airplanes or the trains, it’s the highways getting to the stations and airports. And whether the train goes 120 mph or 220 mph, the congestion getting to the stations won’t be any different. Then there’s the joy of leaving your car parked in high-crime areas while you take your high speed trip from crime-ridden Los Angeles to crime-ridden San Francisco. Poor San Diego has to wait for awhile.

So just remember next November that as California goes so goes the nation. Unless we make damned sure that the Democrats don’t win.

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Keep The "Bad" News Coming!

Every day I think I’ve covered the issues that matter and then people do stuff and more issues appear. I’m starting to think blogging is a Sisyphean task? In any event, we’ve got more sour grapes advance-excuses for Team Obama, bad news for Madame Pelosi, the NCAA and more!

● The Big Mo in Michigan: Romney has moved ahead of Obama in Michigan. Yes, Michigan. That’s the state with the “eternally grateful” autoworkers whose very lives were saved by Obama. That’s the state with all the Muslims who hate and fear Republicans for their evil. I don’t put much faith in polls, but I do put faith in momentum in the polls and Romney’s got the Big Mo.

● Cry Poverty: Obama’s campaign is not in the best financial shape. After all this talk of him raising a billion dollars for this election, the funds have actually been few and far between, and he’s nowhere near a billion. To the contrary, he’s only raised $261 million so far. At this point in 2008, he’d raised $296 million. What’s worse, he’s spending money faster than he’s bringing it in. Last month, he took in $39.1 million, but spent $44.6 million. At the same time, Obama is now worried that Romney will actually hit a billion dollars ($1.2 billion to be precise) and Obama will earn yet another historical distinction – being the first incumbent to be outspent by a challenger.

● Prog-not-stication: Pelosi has been claiming for a long time now that the odds of them retaking the House “are better than 50/50.” I would like to put down five grand on “no f-ing way.” Now the Cook Political Report, which is usually pretty good at guessing Congressional races, says it ain’t happening.

Using simple math, Pelosi needs only 25 seats to retake the House. However, only one time in recent history has an incumbent President’s party gained more than 25 seats in the House in an election: Johnson in 1964. So this is unlikely in any event. But there’s more. Because of redistricting, the Republicans will likely gain 8-12 seats. That means Pelosi likely needs 35 seats. That ain’t happening. Moreover, Cook predicts that the Democrats will gain only 10 seats. So much for Madame P’s ability to see the future.

Interestingly, one race which blew up on the Democrats involved California’s new voting law. Last year, California decided that rather than letting both parties select their own candidates, everyone would vote and the top two vote-getters would move on. The idea was to ensure that lots of races ended up with a choice between two Democrats. Well, something went wrong and a district which voted for Obama by 56% will now have a choice between two Republicans. Ha ha! Look for the law to be changed again in light of this. Maybe this time they’ll just ban Republicans from running?

● Prog-not-stication: What do you all think of Tim Pawlenty as Vice President? Honestly, I liked him and his ideas, but he quit awfully quickly and I don't see him having the killer instinct the job needs.

● Playoffs? Playoffs?!: Finally, slightly off topic, the NCAA has let it leak that they will do a college football playoff system starting in 2014, with a committee picking four teams and then letting them eliminate each other with extreme prejudice. I personally don’t like this idea. I think it caters to the obsession of finding a single best team at the expense of the traditions set up within college football. As the system stands right now, it means something to win your conference and win a bowl game. Dozens of schools can gain glory and fans love it. But under the new system, only four teams will be relevant and only one will matter, just like in the NFL. But you may disagree. Thoughts?

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Surprise! It’s Worse Than Predicted!

California Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown has just announced that his earlier prediction of a $12 billion budget deficit was slightly low. By about $4 billion. After vetoing the proposed budget that his own Democratic legislature considered tough but reasonable, the status quo of deepening debt continues. Brown had said that the proposed budget didn’t include sufficient tax increases to “balance” some minimal spending cuts.

As recently as January of this year, the state’s budget deficit was “only” $9.2 billion. It is now projected at $16 billion. The legislature had passed a budget that in theory at least would have “held the deficit line” with spending cuts and jury-rigging upward of certain state “fees.” Brown announced that he was vetoing the bill because it ignored the “hard choice” of raising income, sales and business taxes. At the time he signed the veto, he predicted that the deficit would remain about the same as he was preparing a ballot initiative which the voters could approve in June or November using his own calculations for raising taxes and cutting spending.

Brown has always been able to put his blinders on, do a few Buddhist chants, and convince himself that the real world doesn’t exist. Among the things he ignored were the cuts he did approve in state employee layoffs, reduced work hours for state employees (particularly the state prison system), cuts to state employee retirement benefits and required contribution to the pension funds for newer state employees. California has more lawyers than entrepeneurs, and Brown somehow didn’t foresee the intrusion into his plan via lawsuits, injunctions and federal interference which effectively blocked most of his cuts.

In an address during which he proclaimed that he was shocked--shocked-- to discover that the deficit had become even worse than he had imagined, Brown pandered to the public. Blaming the legislature for the additional shortfalls, he appealed to his liberal/populist base to “do what I can’t do and the legislature didn’t do.” He was talking about the not-yet completed budget proposal he will attempt to put on the state ballot for the voters to decide on.

A favorite liberal mantra came out during the speech. Do it for the children. “This [the additional deficit] means we will have to go much farther and make cuts far greater than I asked for at the beginning of the year. But we can’t fill this hole with cuts alone (most of which have not been implemented) without doing severe damage to our schools. That’s why I’m bypassing the gridlock and asking you, the people of California, to approve a plan that avoids cuts to schools and public safety.”

Brown also blamed “a crippling decade shaped by the collapse of the housing market and recession.” He neglects to mention that his fellow Democrats were instrumental in creating the economic mess he is now ostensibly attempting to fix. Businesses, the backbone of tax revenue, are fleeing California faster than bugs running from Raid. The worst thing a government can do in the midst of a recession and a lousy business climate is raise taxes, particularly taxes which make it more difficult for small and medium-size businesses to survive.

Brown proposes across-the-board tax increases as well as the ever-popular “millionaire’s” surtax. Like Barack Obama and the other Democrats, Brown simply doesn’t comprehend that those “millionaires” are largely business people whose income includes the income from the businesses that the taxes are crippling. Never having owned or run a business of his own, Brown is like most theorists who think “income” is the same concept as “salary.”

Most of the cuts he has proposed seem big (it’s a BIG budget), but they treat very gingerly the major source of the original and ongoing deficits—public employee benefits. That would be the public employees who are also union members, the unions being Brown’s single largest campaign contributors. The unions showed their gratitude during the first round of cuts by suing Brown and the state to retain all their bankrupting benefits and wage guarantees.

Now it’s important to be aware that Brown says that all the tax increases would be temporary. Temporary like the federal telephone excise tax that first went into effect during the Spanish-American War. Brown says that his temporary tax increases, if approved by the voters, would raise an additional $9 billion. Well, we already know how good his estimates are. The nonpartisan State Analyst’s Office says it would be more like $6.8 billion, and assumes that the economy will get no worse and not another single major employer will leave the state. Unless Brown is planning on deploying the California National Guard to the state borders, the business exodus will continue on an accelerating basis and net tax revenue will continue to decrease.

To punctuate his veiled threat if the voters don’t approve his ballot proposal, Brown says “I have a contingency plan which would automatically result in shortened kindergarten through twelfth-grade school schedules, as well as higher college tuitions at the state institutions.” I can’t help thinking that getting the kids out of the failed public schools and into the real world might actually be a true learning experience.

As a semi-related note, I can’t help mentioning that Brown is in some ways more successful than Barack Obama. Remember my articles about Goodwin Liu, the leftist UC Berkeley law professor whom the US Senate twice rejected for a seat on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals? Well, don’t cry for Liu, Argentina. Brown nominated Liu for a seat on the California Supreme Court, and he was unanimously confirmed this past September. Now, both the US Constitution and the California State Constitution are in danger.

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Leftists In Paradise

California taxpayers pony up just under three billion dollars a year to support the 230,000 students attending the various campuses of the University of California. And that doesn’t cover the even-larger California State Universities and Colleges System. Recently, the UC faculty was criticized for serious bias toward liberal and leftist causes by the National Association of Scholars. There was an immediate professorial backlash.

This tale relates to the UC system but could just as easily be applied to almost any other other state university system as well as the entire Ivy League. The National Association of Scholars (NSA) was not soft in its criticism of the university. It spoke plainly in its report. “The UC system does not help students to learn how to think, but rather teaches them what to think.” After twelve years of indoctrination in the public schools, far too many students are perfectly willing to accept whatever their professors tell them at face value. Academic inquiry beyond the most basic of questioning is treated as a sort of mental illness.

The report goes on to say that the lockstep professors have “turned UC campuses into a sanctuary for a narrow ideological segment of the spectrum of social and political ideas.” In 1999, a report by political science professor showed that nationwide, Democrats outnumbered Republicans nearly five to one. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. In some departments, the ratio was staggering. In the English departments, the margin was eighty-eight to three, and in social science departments eighty-one to two.

By 2007, a new study using the same criteria found that the overall ratio had increased to eight to one in favor of liberals. No longer feeling any obligation to hide their specific political leanings, twenty percent of social sciences professors and twenty-five percent of sociology professors readily identified themselves as “Marxist.” And as genetics has proven that incest produces idiot children, so the inbreeding older leftist professors have produced young professors leaning even farther left. When the teaching assistants, assistant professors and associate professors move in to replace the older full professors, the 2011 NSA study (A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California) concludes that the ratio is likely to go to fifty to one.

The California head of the NSA, professor John Ellis, became the front man for deflecting the inevitable denials and accusations coming from the leftist professors. His major critic was Berkeley professor Robert Anderson. Anderson called the report short on facts but long on innuendo and anecdotes. Professor Ellis minced no words after receiving the criticism: “I don’t know any polite way of putting this—but he’s lying.” Ellis cited not only verifiable statistics, but examples of how academia continues to move left and create “victim” majors which perpetuate their agenda.

Professor Ellis’s primary example is a required Berkeley history course for those who pursue a major in history. The course is entitled The United States from Settlement to the Civil War. That hasn’t changed since I was a bright-eyed freshman at Berkeley in 1962. So what has changed? It’s the description of the goal of the course: “To understand how democratic political institutions emerged in the United States in this period in the context of an economy that depended on slave labor and violent land acquisition.” Nothing about freedom, abolitionism, the Constitution, the Enlightenment, or anything neutral or positive. Just the usual slavery and oppression.

No longer expected to look at issues, realities, time-frames, varying views, logic, economics, historical perspective, or comparative governments, the UC student now has the course predigested for him or her, and has been told the proper conclusion. Many will never know that all their course materials will now contain only those things which support the leftist view. They will finish their courses thinking they have been educated rather than indoctrinated.

According to the leftist professors, who the studies have shown to be a heavy majority, America was born, grew, and perpetuates itself on fundamentally evil racism, slavery and economic exploitation of what today are referred to as minorities. Having indoctrinated the students into thinking that America has been evil from the get-go, it’s easy to move on to today’s victimology--the sufferers from gender discrimination, homophobia, ethnic exploitation, sexism, speciesism, lookism, and the whole panoply of “isms.” Hovering over it all is the greatest criminal ism of all—capitalism.
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Ya Can’t Make This S—T Up

San Francisco would be expected to be the place where you would find the most wasted taxpayer money for Democratic pet projects. You wouldn’t be far from wrong in assuming that. Even when the city (along with the state department of transportation) spends federal funds on a worthwhile project, they will always find a way to spend large sums frivolously along with it.

And so it is with the highway improvements needed to repair the approaches to the Golden Gate Bridge. In 2009, the Obama administration used federal stimulus money to fund a major portion of the $1.045 billion project which widens, improves and adds seismic protections from Doyle Drive in the Presidio to the actual approaches to the bridge. So far, not too outrageous. State and federal highways have long benefited from government/private business cooperation and the project generally inures to the public benefit. In other words, people who paid the taxes which funded the projects generally got their money’s worth.

But government has a way of gilding the lily with little “additions” that drive the cost up with no discernible public benefit. San Francisco is the capital of the ecoweenie, feelgood, waste the taxpayers money nation, and it found a way. With the help of the EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Presidio Trust, the National Park Service and a couple of local busybody ecofreak organizations, the government spent over $205,000.00 to relocate (drum roll)—a bush. You see, the bush ended up smack dab in the footprint of the new roadway.

This poor little orphan bush had struggled mightily to hide behind other less honorable bushes and trees, so until the clearing began, nobody noticed that such an important bush existed in the way of the new approaches. Aha!, you say. Just another bush. But you would be wrong. It’s the beloved and rare arctoslaphylos franciscana commonly know to us commoners as the Franciscan manzanita. Wild Franciscan manzanita had been considered extinct, but somehow some sneaky manzanitas elsewhere had managed to produce this orphan.

The cost of the removal on top of all the studies to determine that the bush was indeed a Franciscan manzanita was approximately $100,000.00 alone. The total also included the replacement of the bush with a less endangered species somewhere along the side of the new roadway. On top of those costs, an additional $5,000.00 for each of three botanical gardens to house the progeny of the orphan has been set aside, plus another $1,500.00 for long-term storage of 300 seeds collected from the orphan (now the “mother”) bush. How a “mother” plant produces fertile seeds without a “father” remains unknown.

Now exactly what makes this wild bush so important and so unique? Simple. It’s “wild.” As opposed to the hundreds of Franciscan manzanitas that grow in domestic gardens and nurseries. As the wild manzanita began to disappear when patches of wilderness in San Francisco were covered over with urban development, manzanita fanciers collected them and grew them at home or in nurseries which provide decorative flora for gardeners and landscapers.

But the ecoweenies didn’t want to hurt the wild manzanita’s feelings, and got massive government machinery in motion to relocate the poor little orphan. Here are some interesting facts that I didn’t know, and perhaps you didn’t either. There is a hierarchy of flora. This “wild” manzanita got special attention because it popped up on its own with no human assistance. If it was grown in a botanical garden, however, it would be called “extinct in the wild” but would still have ecoweenie protection. The hundreds (perhaps thousands) of these bushes grown in residential yards and pots are simply called “domestic.”

So if you took the orphan bush, mixed it in with those in botanical gardens, and threw in a few hundred domestic manzanitas for good measure, could the “experts” tell which was which? The answer is “no.” They are absolutely, 100%, botanically identical. There are no hybrid Franciscan manzanitas, nor are there any genetically-altered Franciscan manzanitas. There are only Franciscan manzanitas, wild, domestic, or protected.

So after $205,000.00 plus, what have the ecoweenies actually protected? An orphan purebred Franciscan manzanita transplanted to a protected location to keep it from mixing its seeds with manzanitas which aren’t purebred Franciscan. There are different variations of the manzanita bush throughout California, and the orphan-savers don’t want those mongrel strains mixing with the noble Franciscan variety. I guess it’s OK to spend an extra quarter million on translocation (the ecoweenie word) rather than just planting it somewhere else.

Here’s the best part. The cost of a purebred Franciscan manzanita at reputable local nurseries is about $15.98. But then it wouldn’t be “wild” and therefore wouldn’t require several dozen overpaid bureaucrats to study it and move it. In fact, you could pay for the nursery’s bush and move it yourself in the back seat of your car or the bed of your truck.
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Survival Of The Flittiest

The San Francisco Chronicle has great news for Californians. We’re number one again. In the Golden State, where the lotus-eaters aren’t prepared for great catastrophes such as a failure of the arugula crop, a shortage of imported merlot, or a Republican presidency, the state has moved to the top of the list in one vital area.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, California shines as the state most prepared for global warming and the end of the world as we know it.

It is the most prepared state for drought and water shortages. That’s because it created a huge drought and massive water shortages for the dispensable folks here in the Central Valley in order to save a worthless fish and prepare for the big anthropogenic disaster to come. Discovering that the San Joaquin Valleyites weren’t dying from thirst, the ecoweenies figured those troublemakers outside the big cities must be surviving on cactus juice, or some such thing.

Since there isn’t a lot of cactus in San Francisco, but recognizing the threat of a water shortage when made-made global warming causes the world to sizzle, San Franciscans (and other urban eco-survivalists) are loading up on Evian, Perrier and other designer bottled waters. There won’t be enough water to grow crops, at least until the Delta smelt dies it own natural biological death, but who needs agriculture when there are all those wonderful canned items such as caviar and bean sprouts? They do grow in cans, don’t they?

The Natural Resources Defense Council (aka Ecoweenies ‘Я Us) also included proactive actions in determining which state was most prepared for rapid climate change. California is in the forefront of measures to fend off the need for eco-survival. It was top of the list in efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The eco-survivalists are preparing to drive the new hydrogen and electrical powered cars which the state government has mandated within the next few years. They would drive Stanley Steamers if they could, but there won’t be any water when the crisis hits. Anything solar, wind or pixie-dust powered is being carefully conserved by the ecoweenies.

The state is also a leader in gasoline so expensive that only a rare few can use their automobiles for anything but vital necessities like getting to the store to buy bottled water. In an excess of caution, the state has also banned coal-fired energy plants which haven’t been used in California in over a century. The state already sends millions of gallons of naturally occurring water every month into San Francisco Bay and out into the Pacific Ocean in order to avoid stressing the Delta smelt by allowing the water to flow into the aqueducts. But just to put an exclamation point on their eco-sensibility, the California Water Efficiency Bill requires a further reduction in the use of water flowing in the state by 20% by the year 2020.

Eco-survivalists are different from other survivalists in that they store water and organic food, but they don’t store guns and ammunition. In the event of a genuine (as opposed to artificial) water and food shortage caused by global warming, it is unclear how the eco-survivalists plan on holding onto their food and water in places such as Oakland and Los Angeles.

Note: I’ll be in Bakersfield most of the day, so I thought I would give you something to kick around in my absence until I return later in the day. Please feel free to discuss what you and your state are doing to advance eco-survival. If you are doing nothing, please explain.
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Left Coast Ecoweenie News

The left hand doesn’t know what the other left hand is doing in California. This past week, leftist multimillionaire Democratic contributor and “philanthropist” Susie Tompkins Buell of San Francisco decided to withhold her largess from the Obama administration since “the president has not been vocal enough on global warming.” Even though Buell is a close friend of Hillary Clinton’s, she didn’t think that the State Department’s current initiative on climate change was “enough.”

Yesterday, the State Department announced an international climate change initiative to reduce short-lived climate pollutants other than carbon dioxide. The initiative will initially cost $15 million. The United States will be joining Bangladesh, Mexico and Ghana in the effort, with moral support from Canada and Sweden. The US will provide $12 million, while the other five will make up the difference. Well, that’s nothing new. China, which is not a party to the initiative, will no doubt be glad to lend the money to the US to pay for the latest climate change fad. From the perspective of the other five, this sounds a lot like “we must do something right away, shouldn’t you?”

“Secretary Clinton today announces a climate and clean air initiative to reduce short-lived climate pollutants” read the State Department announcement. Which was quickly followed by Buell’s announcement that “I would just love to write my big check, or have a high-dollar dinner here on the president’s behalf, but I can’t. Mr. Obama has got to be a leader on the urgency of climate change.” Buell, who could afford to pay the combined share of Bangladesh, Mexico, and Ghana with bucks to spare for Canada and Sweden believes strongly that it is not her job. The money should be paid by the American government and paid for by extorting the taxpayers.

And then there’s that sovereignty thing. Buell doesn’t care who determines how much effort and money is needed to remedy the problem that most people have never heard of, as long as she doesn’t have to pay for it. And she does agree with Clinton about who the proper experts are to make these determinations. In Clinton’s words: “We will look to the United Nations. The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) lists sixteen major actions that could either be taken on black carbon or methane which could have quite striking effects with respect to global warming.” How can you trust a group that can’t even spell “program?”

The State Department uses all the right obfuscations to avoid demonstrating that its troops don’t have a clue as to what they’re talking about. But it sounds so good. “The Initiative is going to be aimed at action, at attracting high-level public support (Buell excluded, I suppose), mobilizing resources, catalyzing and helping to drive the implementation of national action plans, and broadly raising public awareness about the impact of action in these areas.” How’s that for totally meaningless?

The Obama administration says it expects the initial group of six countries to rapidly expand. I would have chosen “metastasize,” but that’s just me. “We are starting with about $15 million of funding to get this effort up and running.” And in a fit of wishful thinking, the Clinton announcement also said “$12 million of that will come from the US over two years, and Canada, and there will be, I am sure, also some funding coming from Sweden, although they are not at a phase of their budget process that they have been able to put an exact number down, but they certainly will be contributing, as will new partners and others.”

Isn’t it comforting to know that the American budget is in such good shape that we can front the first $12 million without hesitation? In fact, it’s in such good shape that the Democrats insist we don’t even need a budget. Need money for “temporary pollutants?” Just authorize it and it will take care of itself.

On a somewhat related ecoweenie note, we bought our first home near the Altamont Pass, east of San Francisco. At the time, it was a raceway and was used for occasional rock concerts. The most notorious was the Rolling Stones concert at which the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club was used as security and bodyguards, resulting in a murder or two. Today, it is one of the largest wind farms in California. I now live in the Tehachapi Mountains, near a more modest wind farm in the Tehachapi Pass. Both places share something in common. Raptors such as hawks and eagles are being chopped up willy-nilly by the 200 mph spinning blades of the wind turbines.

The Los Angeles Times reports: “The toll makes the Pine Tree site in the Tehachapi Mountains among the deadliest in California's wind farm industry. Activists say birds' behavior should be studied before erecting more sites.” The report goes on to say: “Those deaths give Pine Tree one of the highest avian mortality rates in California's wind farm industry. The death rate per turbine at the $425-million facility is three times higher than at California's Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, where about 67 golden eagles die each year. However, the Altamont Pass facility has 5,000 wind turbines — 55 times as many as Pine Tree.”

The most notable victims are the golden eagles, which are a protected species and one of two symbols of America (the other is the bald eagle). So why aren’t those ecoweenies getting massive federal help under the federal Endangered Species Act? Simple. Eagles don’t deliver votes. Eagles don’t community organize. Eagles don’t own wind farms, or any other federally-subsidized Obama-friendly project. Eagles don’t sit on corporate boards, voting to accept federal funds and tax-breaks while giving large contributions to the perpetual Obama campaign. And if eagles could reason and vote, they might just vote for their own self-preservation over inefficient but deadly green schemes.
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R.I.P. California

California rivals the federal government in the number and excesses of its multiple bureaucracies. Its legislature is the envy of left wing Democrats everywhere. It now has the perfect governor—Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown. It is still feeling the effects of the administration of blockhead governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

To paraphrase Hannibal Smith of the A Team, “they love it when a plan comes together.” The leaders and their faithful sheep have a plan that they think will make California green and wealthy. The citizens of Lotus Land have a nearly infinite capacity for self-delusion. Their plan is actually organized suicide by green pipedreams, regulation and taxation. The Rev. Jim Jones only needed to stay in California and wait another thirty years or so, and he could have been governor.

I’m going to list some of the most egregious excesses of California governance. But there’s method to my madness. Americans in general, and conservative Republicans specifically need an occasional reminder of what could happen to them in the other states if The One is re-elected president along with a Democratic Congress.

Those of us who live in the Central Valley are experiencing a double-whammy. California has been the breadbasket of America for nearly a century. But no more. The bureaucrats have decided that the preservation of an obscure species of fish that holds no known niche in the macro-ecosystem is more important than water for the amber waves of grain and jobs for agricultural workers. In the case of Delta Smelt vs. Human Existence, the useless fish wins. This has been a joint effort of the federal EPA and California fellow-traveling bureaucracies. California embraced the EPA restrictions and added a few of its own. No water, no crops. Simple, no?

At the same time the state, in conspiracy with the Obama administration, has decided to transform the state that was built by the automobile into the state that runs on rails. Exploiting the misery and unemployment brought about by the artificial Central Valley drought, the boys in Sacramento and the boys in DC are shoving a high-speed rail project down the throats of Californians. And they have cynically chosen the Central Valley city of Bakersfield as the first leg of the run.

The train is supposed to run from San Francisco to Los Angeles, but since the resistance to the project in those towns is minimal, they chose a starting place where objections to the project could be overcome by the desperate need for jobs. Clever, huh? And never mind California is essentially bankrupt. Federal funds are available, but the state must bear the largest share of the costs of the project, which in two years have escalated from $30 billion to $96 billion without a single track being laid.

Another California bureaucracy has a plan for all Californians. The California Air Resources Board has determined that 15% of all the cars on the California roads must be fully electric by 2025. The legislature and the two most recent governors think that’s just dandy. In a state where distances between routine destinations are measured in hours and minutes rather than in miles, the state has mandated automobiles which will travel no more than sixty to eighty miles before needing a time-consuming recharge. That’s fine for the denizens of San Francisco where nothing is more than five miles from anything else. But what about the rest of the state?

At least they’re requiring you to purchase an automobile which can be converted into a heat source (accompanying illustration). In the event the weather turns cold, just pull over, kick your car somewhere near the battery compartment, and you will generate a warm fire. Sometimes immediately, but in other cases it might take as long as a week for the blaze to get going, so be careful where you park.

The federal government imposed light bulb standards on all Americans. You are expected to buy a “green” light bulb which contains dangerous levels of mercury in order to use less energy. “Not good enough,” said California. Those not fortunate enough to live near a Wal-Mart will have to buy 60 watt bulbs that used to cost twenty or thirty cents, and replace them with a $3.00 bulb, manufactured in China The new 60 watt bulb actually puts out about 57 watts of ghastly light, while a 75 watt puts out about 63 watts. They also don’t fit right in your nicer lamps, and they look absolutely hideous in a chandelier. Just follow the greenie brick road, and don’t ask questions.

Then there’s law enforcement. Or maybe we should call it law observation. When rioters like the Occupy Movement or Oakland gangs celebrating a Raiders victory loot and pillage, the police are allowed to observe, but laying a hand on an out-of-control anarchist is police brutality. This is not the fault of the police. The governor sees assault and property damage as abstract concepts that don’t happen in his home. The big city mayors express open sympathy with the bums and thugs, give meaningless orders about protecting public property, then forbid the police to do anything “violent” to prevent the occupations. The police in Oakland are expected to react to thrown cement blocks, knives and Molotov cocktails with harsh words and mean looks.

As for border-hopping illegal aliens, welcome to California, land of the freebie and home of the goodies. Bop on over to your local DMV, get a license to drive (en Espanol), then drive around the building and register to vote yourself even more largess from the few remaining taxpayers in the state. If you're old enough, you can also apply for admission to the state's colleges and universities, paying in-state tuition denied to actual American citizens from the other states.

Criminals are welcome as well. The legislature is about to get rid of that pesky “three strikes” law that kept criminals in prison and out of the Occupy camps. It’s very humanitarian, allowing the rapists to have victims of the opposite sex which are unavailable to them in the Graybar Hotel.

I guess this is my way of saying that if you’re a conservative who doesn’t like any of the current Republican candidates for president, think carefully about sitting on your hands or voting for Barack Obama in the general election. Barack Obama and his merry band of socialists have a single goal: Make the rest of the United States just like California.
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California Doesn't Need Dead Voters

While Eric Holder is blocking voter ID requirements in South Carolina, Rahm Emmanuel is registering dead people in Chicago, and ACORN's successors are registering people randomly selected from the phone book or the Baseball Hall of Fame, California Democrats are guaranteeing their success the old-fashioned way. Redistricting.

While Holder in the DOJ is protecting “minority and poor” voters in South Carolina from the onerous burden of having to obtain a [free] state photo ID, he is perfectly fine with photo ID being required to get on an airplane, to buy cigarettes and booze, some OTC medications and to obtain a “get your food free” electronic debit card. Meanwhile, the Chicago mayor is working furiously to protect the additional right to vote guaranteed in the Constitution to the deceased. In St. Louis, Indianapolis and other places, persons with the same name as famous sports figures and cartoon characters must be protected from the racists who want them to prove who they are before voting. It makes me wonder if in Chicago dead sports figures or Mickey Mouse get two votes.

California, being the most creative of all the states in guaranteeing Democratic victories, has avoided such common methods of adding extra votes. In fact, given their current plan, they don’t even need to add phony votes. And why, you ask? Because the state has been so carefully gerrymandered that it makes strong Democratic majorities almost inevitable.

That’s nothing new, you say. Well, I mentioned that California is übercreative. Unlike other states where the majority political machine draws electoral districts, Democratic Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown and the entire Democratic Party are the beneficiaries of a “people’s initiative” which took the power to redistrict away from the legislature and placed it in the hands of a “non-partisan” commission comprised of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four independents.

The result is a redistricting map for Congressional and state elections which favors Democrats even more than the previous Democratic legislature’s gerrymander. The public was sold on the non-partisan nature of the commission, and Republicans cooperated because all indications were that they would pick up a few seats in the conservative Central Valley if the lines were drawn fairly. The road to electoral disaster is paved with good intentions.

Unknown to the public, various left wing and Democratic (redundancy?) organizations were preparing well in advance to skew the results of the commission hearings. ProPublica is the whistleblower that is now bringing the matter to the public’s attention and participating in a new initiative drive to abolish the commission and put redistricting into the hands of the courts. You might think that this is just sour grapes from the Republicans. But ResPublica is a non-profit investigative journalism group formed by liberal Democrats, even getting funding from George Soros surrogates. The only person in the watchdog journalism group who is not a Democrat or Independent is former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger. They obviously took their duty to be more important than their funding.

The commission held hearings throughout the state, not realizing that facts and opinions thought to be from “average citizens” were actually heavily-infiltrated by Democratic operatives. Each witness was, for obvious reasons, supposed to be a member of the local community where each successive hearing was held. ProPublica found a secret memo outlining the results of an earlier meeting of prominent California Democrats mapping out a strategy for misinforming the commission.

Part of the plan was to get Democratic and leftist allies to show up to testify in swing and weakly-Republican districts, purporting to be local citizens. The enabling legislation which pretended to put the voter initiative into operation fairly was written by the Democrat-controlled legislature. Oddly (?) it contained no requirements that those testifying before the commission prove that they were residents of the locale in which the hearing was being held. I wonder how that happened. Maybe they should have required valid state-issued photo ID.

The most egregious of the scams uncovered by ProPublica was a female witness who claimed to be a lifelong member of the Asian community in the San Gabriel Valley. In fact, ProPublica investigated and found that she is a paid Democratic lobbyist who spent most of her life in rural Idaho and at the time of the hearings lived (and still lives) in Sacramento.

As you can see, California is exceptionally creative. Why register dead people, convicted felons, names drawn from the telephone book, and sports figures when you can obtain electoral victories by meddling with an independent commission and producing what appears to be a nonpartisan, fairly-drawn electoral map? The result of the commission’s redistricting, even if drawn in good faith, was weighted far more heavily toward preserving or creating Democratic districts and breaking up Republican-leaning districts, all with a cover of non-partisanship and fairness. And it was based largely on false input from the “public.”

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Two States, But The Same Travesty

Justice delayed is justice denied. That is a thought which most Americans support. But usually, we think in terms of a criminal defendant or an aggrieved civil litigant when citing that dictum. On far too many occasions, the justice is denied to the victims of a violent crime and the people of the state in which the crime occurred. So it is with a pair of unrelated prosecutions--one in California, the other in Pennsylvania.

In California, the system-gamer is one Michael Morales. In 1981, Morales was convicted of murdering seventeen year old Terri Winchell. It was a particularly brutal and vile murder. Morales bludgeoned, knifed, strangled, raped, then finally snuffed out the life of a young woman. The evidence was clear. The conviction was quick and firm. The case was appealed on procedural grounds twice through 2005. Each time, after considerable legal maneuvering, rescheduling and unnecessarily lengthy deliberation, the appeals were denied at both the state and federal levels.

After twenty-four years of delay, none of which involved a scintilla of argument that Morales was innocent, a date was set for execution of the death sentence he had so richly earned. Not so fast, said Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel. With the needle of justice in preparation for insertion into Morales's worthless hide, a last-ditch appeal was filed in 2006. The latest fad among opponents of the death penalty was to challenge the ultimate penalty as "cruel and unusual" because it is "so painful." Nobody really believes that. But liberal federal judges are able to suspend disbelief with alacrity. Fogel found that there was (get this) less than a .001 percent chance that Morales might feel some pain as he shuffled off this mortal coil. But that was enough for Fogel to order a stay of execution.

Anyone who has had major surgery and undergone general anesthesia can tell you that the doctors could have cut them in half and sewed them back together backwards, and they wouldn't have felt a thing. The same type of general anesthesia is the first injection which a condemned prisoner is given. For the patient, any possible pain would be felt after coming out of the anesthesia. In Morales's case, there was no intention that he wake up. That's why it's called the death penalty.

God forbid that the man who tortured and raped his victim before killing her should feel the slightest bit of ephemeral pain before expiring. Yes, I know, we're supposed to be "better than the violent criminal." But for crying out loud, .001 percent chance that he might, possibly, maybe feel something for a brief and fleeting moment?

Problem solved in 2008 (or is it?). Taking up the identical issue from a Kentucky case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state's three-drug execution protocol. Lest there be any doubt, in 2009 the ultraliberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes California) upheld the protocol of the state of Arizona, which is identical to that of Kentucky's. So let's get on with the California execution, right? California's protocol has been scientifically proven to be as effective or more effective than that of Kentucky's or Arizona's. Nevertheless, the case will now be heard no earlier than September of this year. Thirty years of delayed justice and counting.

A new and different federal judge has gotten into the case. He wants to review the new, improved California protocols which are designed to be even more humane than the previous protocol. Of that, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation says: "California's execution protocol is equal to or better than those already approved by the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit. There is no legitimate bases for further delay. If the judges wanted these cases to go forward, they would go forward."

About the caption photo: The case in Pennsylvania is so horrific that it has taken me some time to compose myself before writing about it. You may remember my having written previously about the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (real name, Wesley Cook). Coincidentally, Abu-Jamal also commited his heinous murder in 1981. He was on the street watching as his brother was pulled over for a traffic violation. Waiting for the police officer to write a ticket while facing away from him, this son-of-a-b***h pulled out a concealed gun and shot the officer nearly point blank in the back, execution style. The officer managed to turn and return fire and shoot Abu-Jamal four times before dying. There were multiple witnesses. His own brother (William Cook) refused to testify for or against his brother.

Investigators found Abu-Jamal and his .38 in different locations, but matched the gun and bullets to the round pumped into Officer Daniel Faulkner, and established his ownership of the weapon. Eyewitnesses and later two hospital workers where Abu-Jamal was treated for the bullet wounds matched to Officer Faulkner's gun testified tht Abu-Jamal kept repeating "I shot the motherf****r, and I hope the motherf****r dies."

His guilt and the police/prosecution actions have been upheld on multiple occasions on appeal, only to have a new round of appeals start up, time and again. The last round, thirty years after conviction and sentencing, was aimed at the death penalty itself. By now even his cheering-section had given up on claiming he is entirely innocent, and instead claim he is the victim of a racist society which caused him to shoot the police officer.

Abu-Jamal was just too perfect a model of what limousine liberals, armchair revolutionaries and Hollywood perverts love to hold up as role models for the people. They just couldn't help loving that man of theirs. So he got plenty of legal and financial support to move his frivolous appeals along. He is a self-proclaimed Marxist, revolutionary, and former Black Panther defender of the poor and downtrodden black folks.

College students wear "Free Mumia" tee-shirts almost as often as they wear the one with their other murdering icon, Che Guevara. Among his better-known megafans are Hollywood folks like Danny Glover, Mike Ferrell, Sean Penn and Johnny Depp. That is not even close to being an exhaustive list. Of course the ACLU, the NAACP, and the Socialist Workers of America also yearn for the sight of the dreadlocked murderer outside a prison.

But here's why it took me awhile to calm down enough to write this article. Awhile back, after years on death row (often within days of execution), the appeals process had finally worn down the prosecution and the family of the slain police officer. The prosecution, along with the bereft widow and children, finally announced that they would no longer pursue the death penalty for Abu-Jamal. They just couldn't go through another decades-long appellate process that would affirm the death penalty he has dodged on appeal three times before.

In the Morales case, justice has been denied by delay. In the Abu-Jamal case it has been denied permanently. While this is truly an example of the legal dictum, there is one additional point that turns my stomach. American society has a large, depraved, and amoral segment that has no shame whatsoever. As soon as the prosecution announced its decision not to proceed with the death penalty, the murder fans cheered wildly and prepared for their next move. Not satisfied with having spared this scum's life, they are planning a rally and fundraisers to keep the process going until this lowlife walks out of prison a free man.

Their rallying cry has always been "Free Mumia." But they tie that to claiming a black man was convicted solely because of racism. Abu-Jamal himself hates mightily, and blames all of society's ills on racism. But here's the important part that makes this whole carnival freakshow so disgusting. Abu-Jamal's sentence was reversed multiple times, but always on procedure or the death penalty, never on guilt or innocence. Racism was involved, all right. It was nothing short of a racist execution of a white cop, a fact which Abu-Jamal himself has never denied in court. He has never said he was innocent, but has maintained all along that "they never proved it."
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Train To Nowhere Getting Pricier

Another pet project of President Obama's is getting more expensive by the day. Utilizing what is estimated to be 80% taxpayer money, the California high speed rail project has more than doubled in cost without a single rail being laid. Sold to the public as costing $43 billion, the revised estimate is now $98.5 billion (assuming 3% inflation during the 20 years of the project).

With delays, revisions, hearings, lawsuits and EIRs, it seems highly-unlikely that the project will find sane investors to come up with the 20% of the funding currently projected for the private sector. So far, the California legislature has shown no sign of simply canceling the project before it gets even more expensive. Cities from the green weenie belt of the San Francisco Peninsula to farmers and adjoining residents in the Central Valley have become ever more vocal in opposing the project. The segment in the Central Valley, scheduled to be constructed first, is a 130 mile stretch from Bakersfield to nowhere, and will cost $8.8 billion. Full disclosure: I now live in the vicinity of the first phase.

Your tax dollars at work: The project is a joint effort of the State of California and the federal government. High speed public transit is a hallmark of the Obama administration in Washington DC and the Brown administration in Sacramento. There was never a public outcry for such a project. Californians, who love their cars and the state's vastness, didn't rise up and demand that Uncle Sugar provide them with a high speed train from San Diego to San Francisco. But neither did they rise up in anger when the project was initially approved. Hmmmm. Bullet trains in California? Cool!

The NIMNYD (not in my neighborhood you don't) green weenies in Silicon Valley were the first to complain, not about cost, but the environmental damage which will be done to their toney neighborhoods by trains roaring past at 200 MPH. In the Central Valley where the first work will be done, the government attempted to bribe unemployed workers who were out of jobs because of other governmental meddling. "Look at all the jobs this will create!" If the project created 1000 jobs, it wouldn't even be a single-digit percentage of the jobs the government has destroyed in the former food basket of America. They also tried to sell the project as a green initiative public project, but still largely private enterprise. Remember that 80% figure.

Like all projects run by and funded by government, it isn't only the budget that has been revised. The project was originally scheduled to be complete and fully-operational by 2020. It is now expected to be finished by 2033. One successful lawsuit could raise the price and extend the date even farther. Even in the Central Valley, where they expected us hicks to take this without a murmur, the opposition has grown to epic proportions.

What would happen if the state did just cancel the project? Well, first of all the only jobs lost would be those who prepared and pushed the project. It would also mean that California would have to give up the $3.5 billion in federal stimulus funds set aside for the project so far. But since the first segment to nowhere will cost $8.8 billion, that's a net savings of $5.3 billion immediately. So why the rush? The $3.5 billion will be lost automatically if ground isn't broken for the project by October 1 of 2012. Kevin McCarthy, Republican House Whip from California's Kern County has introduced legislation to de-fund the project, but so far his bill is languishing in committee.

None of this stops the project proponents and management from pushing to start the Bakersfield phase, as Obama puts it, "right away." And what will we get for it? A nearly $9 billion (today) bill, and a 45 minute shortcut for Amtrak riders on the San Joaquin (Central Valley) line who will de-train, get on the bullet train, then get off again and get back on the slower Amtrak trains to complete the trip to San Francisco or Los Angeles.

And speaking of Amtrak, the high speed rail proponents insist that no matter what the cost, ridership alone will pay off the debt and keep the bullet trains running. In other words, exactly the same thing they said about Amtrak, which costs the American taxpayers billions of dollars annually in government subsidies to keep the trains rolling. From the get-go, analysts not employed by the project have said that the projected ridership on the high speed trains has been wildly overestimated.

"Boondoggle" doesn't begin to describe this latest big government change-your-lifestyle project. It's a financial mess. It's an environmental mess. And it's a mess that creates rather than vitiates human misery. Instead of forcing high speed trains on car-loving Californians, the government should be opening the valves on the California Water Project, revitalizing the greatest agricultural area in the world, and holding a massive farewell ceremony for the Delta smelt.
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So Long, Been Good To Know Ya

Moderate Democrats who have decided to hang up their spurs can't resist taking a parting shot at their peerless leader, Barack Hussein Obama. The latest is normally-quiet California Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-18th District), who seemed to be empowered by the freedom to speak his mind that incumbency and political necessity denied him. He let the current left-leaning Democratic Party have it, but aimed most of his ire at the Leader Who Doesn't Lead.

Rep. Cardoza will be leaving his position at the end of his term in 2012. He represents the area in and around Fresno. His district has been among the hardest hit by the collapse of the housing market and crippling government regulation of the agricultural Central Valley by use of the Endangered Species Act. Unemployment rates in California are about 12%, but certain areas within Rep. Cardoza's district have hit rates as high as 37%. Foreclosure notices are nearly double the rate for the state, brown burned-out fields that were once lush green agricultural powerhouses are ubiquitous, and the human misery index is off the charts.

Cardoza has had an easy time winning elections in the district as a moderate, or Blue Dog Democrat. He was first elected in 2002, and sailed through that and the next three election cycles. 2010, however, was a whole different story. In a district that has been heavily Democrat for decades, he barely squeaked by. His fellow Blue Dog in the adjacent district, Jim Costa, experienced the same difficulty. To add insult to injury, the two moderates have had their districts realigned by the California Redistricting Commission, and would both now be running in the same district.

Cardoza began his letter of resignation by pointing out that the President and his mouthpiece in California Nancy Pelosi have left no room in the Democratic tent for old-fashioned moderates. Cardoza had fought against Obamacare and railed about the pressure being put on Blue Dogs to go along with the economy-destroying socialized medical care bill. In the end, he caved. Both Cardoza and fellow Blue Dog Jim Costa voted against electing San Fran Nan House Minority Leader after the national drubbing the Democrats took in 2010. Both complained that Pelosi refused even to talk with them about anything which might slow the progressive agenda. Both begged Obama to rein in his EPA and allow farmers to get sufficient water to revitalize the Central Valley breadbasket.

Cardoza made multiple pleas for Obama to tour the Central Valley with him so he could see the devastation created by failed liberal government policies. Obama preferred fund-raisers in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and didn't respond to a single one of Cardoza's requests. In 2010, Cardoza pointed the finger at Obama, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke in regard to the governmentally-imposed drought. "I repeatedly called upon your departments to mitigate the devastating economic impacts of court decisions and environmental regulations that had altered water flow into the rich agricultural area."

Cardoza is joined in his anger and frustration by fellow moderates Dan Boren (D-Oklahoma) and Rep. Mike Ross (D-Arkansas), who have also announced they will not run for reelection in 2012. The Blue Dogs had previously held fifty-four Democratic seats, but after the 2010 elections, their number was reduced to twenty-five.

With these three resignations, the moderates (some of them members of Bill Clinton's defunct "third way" Democratic Leadership Council) will be down to twenty-two. Other Blue Dogs are making similar sounds. Interestingly, Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi have been gleefully trying to eviscerate the Republican Party for being dragged to the far right, without noticing how badly her Democratic drag to the far left is hurting her own party.

Of the housing crisis, Cardoza charged Obama with inaction and a failure to understand the needs of the unemployed and bankrupt citizens of the Central Valley. He accused Obama of being far more interested in making speeches and raising reelection money than tending to his job as Chief Executive. In a statement much harsher than would ordinarily be expected even from a maverick Democrat, Cardoza said: "Looking back on disappointments, I am dismayed by the Administration's failure to understand and effectively address the current housing foreclosure crisis. Home foreclosures are destroying communities and crushing our economy, and the Administration's inaction is infuriating."

Cardoza also bemoaned the hypocrisy of the progressive Democrat calls for civility in politics while attacking Republicans as racists, homophobes, haters of the poor, and even Nazis. A Democratic strategist who demanded anonymity reported to the Washington Post that "this [Cardoza's statement] is beyond odd, and clearly a reflection of Democrats' frustration with this president and his administration."

Warning of extreme partisanship in both parties, but particularly his own, Cardoza concluded with: "For our country to change course, voters must aggressively punish extreme partisanship and rhetoric when they cast their ballots." California is a lost cause for moderation for at least the foreseeable future, and it's sad to see an honorable member of the Democratic party throw up his hands in frustration and head for the exit. It is not a sure thing that a Republican will replace him during the 2012 election cycle, and any Democrat is certainly going to be to the left of Cardoza.
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California Does It Again

California is one of the states suffering from a huge illegal immigrant problem. California Democrats generally refuse to admit that there is such a problem, or even such a thing as an illegal immigrant. But on those rare occasions when they do admit both, their focus is always on businesses which hire illegals rather than the illegals themselves.

They are at least partially wrong philosophically, but punishing employers who hire illegals and taking steps to prevent further illegal immigrant hiring are excellent ideas. Cut off the potential of employment and you eliminate one of the major sources of illegal immigration. The broadest and most effective way of doing this is E-Verify. Legislation is pending before Congress to establish nationwide mandates requiring employers to utilize E-Verify.

In California, fifteen cities and counties have enacted mandatory E-Verify since 2007. The governmental agencies instituted the requirement from as little as using it solely for city/county employees to revocation of business licenses for private employers who do not use E-Verify. The cities are Mission Viejo, Temecula, Murrieta, Riverside, Santa Maria, Lake Elsinore, Wildemar, Lancaster, Palmdale, San Clemente, Escondido, Menifee, Hemet, San Juan Capistrano, Hesperia, Norco, Rancho Santa Margarita, and Simi Valley. San Bernardino County is the only entity to require E-Verify on a county-wide bases.

In addition, six other cities have drafted legislation requiring E-Verify and were ready to vote. Then the boom fell. Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown and the open borders Democrats who run the state passed a statewide law prohibiting governmental agencies at any level from mandating E-Verify. After all, what's the point of being an illegal immigrant getting in-state tuition, grants and scholarships if you can't get a job after graduation because of E-Verify?

Ted Wegener, who played a major role in getting E-Verify passed for San Bernardino County, says: "It is very disappointing when you spend all the time, you go to your elected representatives and you get them to do something, and then at the higher level they squash you." Wegener's group, the Inland Empire Conservative Activists, was on its way toward getting E-Verify passed for Riverside and Orange Counties as well.

The open borders crowd reached down and pulled up its usual arguments. Sara Sadhwani of the California Immigrant Policy Center said "while a handful of cities in California and a handful of states across the country have moved to mandate the use of this kind of program, it's very misguided." In other words, an effective means of drastically reducing the incentive for errant employers to hire illegals is "misguided."

Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Sunnyvale), introduced the bill to halt E-Verify because he believes it is an unnecessary burden on business. I'd like to know what "business" he is referring to. The burden is making sure that the company has at least one person (who could easily be an already-existing employee) who has access to a computer and a minimal knowledge of how to use the Internet. There are costs of E-Verify that are minimal compared to the private background checks any diligent private employer would use to determine the immigration and criminal status of a potential employee. But that doesn't stop Fong: "It is costly, time-consuming. It's unfair for big businesses and definitely for small businesses. Why make a flawed system mandatory?" Well, I guess we wouldn't want to be unfair, would we?

Naturally the supporters of the bill cited examples of how the E-Verify system "often" misidentifies U.S. citizens and legal immigrants. And of course they pulled out a poster girl named Jessica St. Pierre who was allegedly fired from her job because her name was not correctly entered into the E-Verify system. Anecdotal evidence aside, E-Verify claims to have an error rate of about 1%. Independent agencies make it more like 6% and dropping as data banks are constantly updated and improved. The concept that legitimate employees are being denied employment willy-nilly because of E-Verify is about as believable as Barack Obama's claim that his mother died because of a lack of medical insurance coverage.

I simply find it hard to believe that any reputable employer would fire a good employee after an E-Verify notification without first thoroughly checking the employee's own proof. If the employee is in fact a legal immigrant or American citizen, that's easily proven, and the information can be sent off to DHS and E-Verify for correction. A valued employee is unlikely to lose a job permanently because a clerk at a computer somewhere made an entry error.

Beside the alleged "financial burden on business," there are other costs to be considered and weighed against it. How about the cost of Medicaid and welfare programs for illegal immigrants? How about the loss in state tax revenues resulting from employers who hire illegals and pay them "under the table?" How about the cost of jobs lost for American citizens and legal immigrants? For that matter, how about the human cost of allowing unscrupulous employers to hire illegals and pay them less than minimum or comparable wages while putting them into working conditions that no citizen or legal immigrant would tolerate?

Brian Ambrose, who is an analyst in the Murrieta city manager's office, is perfectly happy with the voiding of his city's E-Verify ordinance. Says Ambrose: "We have not received a single phone call [reporting illegal immigrant hiring]--we did not believe there was ever a problem with illegal immigration here in Murrieta." Who is this mysterious "we?" The city manager system frequently ends up with the city manager's office being at odds with both the citizens of the city involved, and often misguiding the city councils which pass the ordinances. Concurrence is not causation. A lack of phone calls could mean a great many things, including the likelihood that illegal immigrants facing E-Verify knew the jig was up and it was time to get out of Dodge before they got caught.

So now, it's up to Congress. The left won't like it, but if the bill requiring E-Verify nationwide is passed, they can't complain that the states are interfering with the fed's sole power over immigration matters. Not unexpectedly, the E-Verify bill in the House of Representatives is being advanced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas). But I take pride in pointing out that the former mayor of Simi Valley and now longtime Republican Representative Elton Gallegly of California is the co-sponsor.
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Fishy Environmentalism At The High Court

The Pacific Legal Foundation has prepared its pleadings asking the United States Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Delta Smelt v. Human Reality. That's not the real title of the case, but it gets the point across. Calling it Environmentalism Gone Mad v. The Economy, Human Beings, Agriculture, et al seemed too melodramatic.

You can bring yourself back up to speed by reviewing my original article on the subject here: The Fish That Conquered California. When I wrote the original piece, I was still living in San Francisco. Since that time, I've been living right in the heart of the agricultural wasteland (and former agricultural Eden) that is the result of crazed environmentalism.

As part of the ongoing battle, hearings were recently held at the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power attempting to determine how to curb the power of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and EPA officials. The subcommittee was specifically addressing the issue of bureucratic-created droughts. No natural disaster has caused the greatest farmland in the world to dry up. It took green weenies, their government tools, a lot of addled politicians, and one useless fish to do that.

"Jobs President" Barack Obama has entirely ignored this cancer on the job market. California's unemployment rate is now officially at 12%+, making it the second worst in the nation. In farming towns in the formerly lush Central Valley, unemployment rates are more like 35% to a staggering 42%. Farmers have been put out of business, and thousands of workers have been put out of work. When the water restrictions protecting the previously-unheard of and totally environmentally-useless Delta smelt were first put into effect, the members of the Fresno Farm Bureau alone produced $7 billion in food. Today, that figure has shrunk by $2.3 billion.

Federal Judge Oliver Wanger was the trial judge who heard the original lawsuit filed by the local farmers. Wanger, retiring this month, was the former city attorney for the town of Mendota before being appointed to the California Superior Court for Fresno County and ultimately to the federal court by George W. Bush. Mendota's current unemployment rate is 39.5%. Wanger weighed all the facts, considered the law and precedent in a lengthy opinion, and ruled in favor of the farmers and against the green weenies and their lousy fish. The enviro-kooks then appealed to the Ninth Circuit, the most-reversed federal district court of appeals, and got the decision overturned.

Judge Wanger had ruled that federal scientists had completely ignored the balancing test of environmental matters versus human needs required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). "FWS and Reclamation have not complied with the NPA or the public policy underlying NEPA which favors protecting the balance between humans and the environment." In 2005, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service had already done a comprehensive study on the Delta smelt, and determined that it was not endangered by the water transfer facilities and machinery, and if endangered at all, it was a purely natural thing having nothing to do with the movement of water into the aqueducts. Not good enough for the green weenies.

Judge Wanger's opinion went on to say: "Federal defendants completely abdicated their responsibility to consider reasonable alternatives that would not only protect the species, but would minimize the adverse impact on humans and the human environment. The result is an issuance and implementation of a one-sided, single purpose rule that inflicts drastic consequences on California's water users, a situation NEPA prohibits." The Ninth Circuit decided instead that humans are irrelevant when it comes to strict enforcement of EPA regulations and the protection of useless fish.

If the Supreme Court grants certiorari (agrees to hear the case), there is a substantial chance that at long last, the protection of "endangered species" which play no significant role in the ecosystem may finally have to give way to human needs and even simple reality. If so, the pumps will be started up, the spigots will be opened again for the first time since early 2009, the water fill flow, the Delta smelt will or will not disappear (who cares?), jobs will return, and the American food basket will thrive again.

Author's Note: No Delta smelt were harmed during the preparation of this article--unfortunately.
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Falling-Out Among Thieves

The little guy you see peeping over the adult podium is California Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown. He is trying to "grow in office." He just made a move as part of the attempt to balance California's out-of-control budget deficit. It won't sit well with Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats.

Now don't make the mistake of thinking that he's cutting funds for the high-speed trains to nowhere, or the budget of the watchmen hired to close the water spigots while protecting the Delta smelt. Nor is he trimming back on the drop-dead date for all of us to drive electric cars. Nope. He's requesting a 10% cut in Medicaid spending, which the Obamatrons are using to deflect attention from the massive debt Obamacare will cause. California has long been in the forefront of runaway spending on Medicaid (which is called "Medi-Cal" in California).

This puts the Obamacrats in a very difficult position. Brown is known as a liberal, pro-labor, pro-green, giveaway Democrat. Brown was also known for a very long time as being in the forefront of the health care reform movement. But both California and national Democrats are already singing the blues about Brown's proposed cuts. As you would expect, they are saying that the cuts would be devastating to California's most vulnerable residents (like illegal immigrants and generational welfare recipients).

California Representative Dennis Cardoza (D) is most concerned with reductions in funding for benefits for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Like Democratic legislators, for instance. In fact, Cardoza already wrote a heart-rending letter to the Director of CMS (the federal Medicare/Medicaid Services, which administers Medi-Cal), in which he cried "if the proposed cuts in the Medi-Cal rate go through, I am deeply concerned that providers of services for the disabled will have no option other than to close their facilities."

On June 27, Brown wrote a letter to the President that is just now coming to light. Says Brown: "California has enacted huge and extraordinarily painful spending cuts to clos eout multibllion-dollar budget gap. We did our part to reduce state and federal Medicaid spending by eliminating optional benefits, reducing provider payments and requiring beneficiary cost sharing." However, Brown also made sure to tip Obama to the political danger of tying his requested cuts to the debt-ceiling debates.

Brown cannot unilaterally cut Medi-Cal spending, since it must first be approved by state administrators and the federal government (Medicaid is largely state-funded, but receives joint funds from the feds). So far, the CMS director has been in sync with Brown, but California state and federal Democratic legislators are coming unglued. California has a $27 billion budget deficit which is by far the worst of any of the states. Norman Williams, a spokesman for the California Department of Healthcare Services said that Medi-Cal is the second highest expenditure in the state budget, and that cutting it must be part of the closing of the budget gap.

The proposed plan would include 10% reduction in Medi-Cal payments to hospitals, physicians, nursing facilities and other providers. Brown claims this would cut $623 million from the state budget in 2011-2012 alone. 7,000 residents would be affected, but for those 7,000 residents there are nearly 1,000 facilities to serve them. I'm having a little problem worrying that some of those facilities might have to close. Those fighting to stop the cuts say that as many as 150 facilities are likely to close. 150 out of 1,000. Sounds like there might be a recession and a bankrupt state behind the closures.

Jim Gomez, a lobbyist for the nursing-home-on-the-taxpayer-dime group California Association of Health Facilities says: "Many of the residents have been in the five or six bed homes for years with the same fellow patients and caregivers. Forcing them to move into larger regional centers or skilled nursing facilities, as some have proposed, would be a huge change in their life." I don't want to be a wet blanket, but many conscientious, hard-working taxpayers are now finding themselves out of work and out of their homes. It's tough all over. But at least the Medi-Cal patients have somewhere to go, even if it isn't what they're used to.

And now cometh the threats of litigation. Gomez's group has already filed a lawsuit and begun discovery in a case suing the state of California for its 2009 rate freeze, so if CMS approves the new cuts, Gomez says they might just add that to the pending case.

Despite himself, Brown has made a logical and necessary move. But that puts Obama in a position he despises--having to make an actual hard decision. Does he support a big-state liberal Democratic governor, or does he tell him to take a hike? Opponents of the plan say that giving California a free ticket to make large cuts in its Medi-Cal program would create an open season for other states to follow California's lead. That's a lot of government-dependent voters who might think twice about voting for Obama and the Democrats in the next election if their decades-long free ride is diluted. Brown has three years to recover from the backlash, Obama just a little more than a year. What to do, what to do.

I haven't had this much fun watching Democrats try to outmaneuver each other since Brown took on Bill Clinton for the presidential nomination.
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