NEWS & COMMENTARY

May 6, 2008

I get a lot of questions about Prop 98, and 99.   "What about rent control?"  people ask me.  "Won't Prop 98 abolish rent control?" No.  It won't.  It phases it out.  If you live in a rent control unit, you're safer if Prop 98 passes than not.  Why?  Because you're not protected from the local or state or federal government using eminent domain to take the property you call home, to convert it to something that is of 'greater' benefit to the public.  

The best piece that I've read on 98 and 99, I love because it's straight and simple.  It's clear, and it's based on fundamental principles.  It's a short op-ed published today in the Sierra Sun:

My Turn: Prop 98 protects private property rights 

By Don Casler

May 5, 2008

The campaigns for Propositions 98 and 99 on the June 3 ballot are getting heated, and it would be no surprise if most California voters are confused by the two eminent domain-related measures. Link

May 5, 2008

Cinco de Mayo: RNHA Commemorates Cinco de Mayo

The Republican National Hispanic Assembly (RNHA) commemorates “Cinco de Mayo” for the historical event it represents. On May 5, 1862, a band of Mexican freedom fighters, which were outnumbered by an overwhelming force of European soldiers, fought the battle of Puebla . They defeated the European troops and eventually won independence from Spain in 1867. link

March 21, 2008:  David Mamet, welcome brother.

One of my favorite movies I watched this past year is The Lives of Others.   It is gripping, moving, stirring, haunting, loving, tender and poetic.   Irony upon irony, the dark oppressive tyranny of socialism, collectivism, stateism, all that our liberal leaders and their fans and enablers push us toward and romanticize, it exposes, in a story who's three main characters are an actress, (artist), a writer and playwright (artist) and a dedicated secret police official (statist).   If only all of our most talented artists could heed the lessons of this story... (link)

March 4, 2008

I was so lucky to be a witness to the convergence of so many accomplished  scientists and concerned leaders at the 2008 Conference on Climate Change, in NYC.

One of the attendees and speakers who impressed me profoundly, was Hon Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic.   He knows tyranny.  He was humble in his address, but the truths he spoke were explosive, if only a person will dare to hear or read his words and consider an alternative point of view, to that which marches forward with great stride and force and peril to our ability to live free of tyranny...You can read his message here( http://www.nzcpr.com/guest88.pdf) and here:

From Climate Alarmism to Climate Realism

Speech by Hon Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic

A MUST READ:  It is a primer on the essense of the issue of "climate change" and politics sweeping our country and the world.

Energy Keepers Energy Killers: The New Civil Rights Battle

by Roy Innis, Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

It's easy to understand how fundamentally important clean, reliable, affordable energy is to our ability to live free, eat well, be comfortable, have heat and cooling, and be able to commute, and to travel, to see our families who live across the state, country and world, especially now with gas prices in some areas at over $4.00 a gallon.   People are curtailing their travel for leisure, eliminating expenses not vital or basic, and a large growing number of  low income families are not making ends meet.   Their dollars are not going far enough for basic needs. (link) 

3-11-08

I got this great email today from my cousin Lupe.   It's making the rounds around all my cousins, and their families, which is exciting to me.  It's great to know that people are talking about taxes. 

Just some interesting information about how much Federal Tax you paid then and pay now:  

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html Check the figures yourself!


Taxes under Clinton 1999                Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $8,400           Single making 30K -- tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $14,000         Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $23,250         Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K - tax $16,800       Married making 60K - tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $21,000       Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $38,750      Married making 125K - tax $31,250

If you want to know just how effective the mainstream media is, it is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is "sticking it to them" and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever.  If a Democrat is elected both of them say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts.  A good portion of the people who fall into the categories above can't wait for that to happen. 

This is like the movie "The Sting" with Paul Newman-you scam somebody out of some money and they don't even know what happened.  Now this is effective, if dishonet, marketing, but maybe a better word is "brain washing."  (author unknown, but check the figures yourself at the link above)

I was so excited to meet Sr. Villa.  He reminded me of my grandfather, Pablo Montelongo, although my grandfather was a soldier who fought alongside Nava Villa's father, Pancho Villa, and they were all from Durango, Mexico, like my grandfather, and my dad.  I've always held this fancy of being a modern day warrior, an adelita, like the adelitas of the Mexican Revolution.  They cooked, carried and fired arms, and they stayed by their men...My cause as adelita is as a warrior for liberty and freedom...

Ernesto Nava Villa, son of Pancho Villa, 92, and me. Oct 20, 2007

September 30, 2007

Memo to Republicans: Reach out to minorities or lose

By Leslie Sanchez

The gaggle of Republicans vying for the GOP presidential nomination certainly represent the party's varying ideological shades. As a group, they aren't radiating “bold colors,” as Ronald Reagan famously advised was an important quality for a national leader. But they do reflect the many divergent groups within the broader Republican coalition.

The Republican Party has a problem with minorities

That coalition – when it holds together – has won five national elections since carrying Reagan to office in 1980. When it split, as it did in 1992, it allowed the Democrats to win the White House. (read the article here)

September 20, 2007

DIARY OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL EXTREMIST

The second of 2 Parts penned exclusively for The Flashreport

Yesterday, I wrote about the celebrations taking place this week surrounding the 20th Anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, and what it means to all of us in California.

We can't simply laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, because that's what the extremists want. Maybe they don't see the humor, but by dismissing these things as merely silly we implicitly accept their larger and dangerous purpose.

Just when you think that all of the left's political inanities have been exposed and expunged (Communism, Keynesian economics, socialized medicine, new math, look-say reading methods bilingual education, etc.) along comes global warming. (More)

September 19, 2007

AN "INCONVENIENT TRUTH" ABOUT THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL
Or... SORRY TO RAIN ON THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
The first of two parts...authored exclusively for The Flashreport

Global Warming is hot news in California these days, and cool politics as well. With Governor Schwarzenegger all but insisting this questionable scientific scare even exists, and Attorney General Jerry Brown slapped down trying to sue auto makers for raising the planet's temperature, it seems as if we are just now entering the dawning of the age of climate issue politics.

But, the truth is far scarier, for this specious so-called “reasoning” has been around for a long time. More

Saturday, September 15, 2007

WSJ--Opinion Journal  on line

Hot Topic  (yup, it's like the forest fires we get now in the West as a result of radical enviromentalists driving dangerous policies that cause historically high temp inferno blazes)

Hispanics and the GOP
How to lose elections in one Lou Dobbs lesson.

Saturday, September 15, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Between 1996 and 2004, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote doubled to more than 40%, only to fall in last year's midterm election to less than 30%. The most recent polls show Hispanics breaking for Democrats over Republicans by 51% to 21%. What gives?

To understand this remarkable erosion of Latino support for Republicans, look no further than the most recent Presidential debates. While GOP candidates debated the urgency of erecting a fence from California to Texas along the Mexican border, Democrats debated in Spanish on Univision.

To reverse current trends, the GOP need not resort to ethnic pandering, which is the left's metier. But Republicans would help their cause tremendously if the party at the very least adopted a welcoming stance toward Latino newcomers.

(read the rest of the story here)

Ruben Navarrette pens comentary on a variety of topics, but I especially anticipate his columns that address being Latino and politics... Here are few recent articles by him, that resonate for me: 

Sept. 12 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
The puzzle of the Latino identity : I've long thought that someone should make a documentary on the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the Latino experience in the United States.

Sept. 9 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Calderon's messages on immigration : Americans and Mexicans have more in common than you might imagine, and that's not necessarily a positive thing. People in both countries respond to illegal immigration into the United States in ways that are dishonest, insulting and counterproductive, and they spend too much time blaming each other for situations they helped create.

Sept. 5 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
A fair deal for Mexico's truckers : I've hit a fork in the road in my thinking concerning the unrelenting campaign by the Teamsters to deny Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways.

September 6, 2007

Take the Hit From a Bad Mortgage

S.F. Examiner Conmentary

by Martha Montelongo

 It's never a pretty picture when investments go bad. So it is with so-called subprime mortgages made to borrowers with imperfect credit.

Losses are mounting, and some lenders are looking for a bailout. Government should say no.

Some investors seeking a higher return lend to homebuyers with credit problems who aren't eligible for conventional mortgages.  (read more)

June 21, 2007

Government Retirement Benefits Reform Initiative Filed
Would Save Hundreds of Billions and End Pension Fund Abuses

SACRAMENTO -- The California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility today filed with the Attorney General's office a pension and retiree health care initiative that would save state and local government agencies hundreds of billions of dollars in retiree benefit costs and would end the expensive abuses which have increased costs and run up huge deficits for public defined benefit pension plans.

(more)

The Fable of Chicken Little: "The Sky is Falling! The sky is falling!" The stupid chicken ran around scaring everyone who naively and blindly listened to her, into trusting the  Fox to show them the way to safety! 

Class, do you remember that story?  Hope you didn't fall for Hollywood's recent attempt to make Little out to be a hero... If so, tisk, tisk... there may be hope for you, but you're pathetic.

Here's a movie and a report to see you through the fear mongering your government is using to scare you into handing over your wallet and your welfare in the name of saving the planet: Don't be chicken-- check it out:

An inconvenient truth, or convenient fiction?   

Fundraiser's timing questioned

S.F. lawmaker holds event a day before panel he chairs will deal with billions in spending.

By Jim Sanders - Bee Capitol Bureau

Last Updated 12:15 am PDT Thursday, May 31, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A3

"Assemblyman Mark Leno, the head of the powerful Appropriations Committee, denied the fundraiser would influence his decisions on legislation."

"Assemblyman Mark Leno sparked ethical questions Wednesday by holding a $1,000-per-person fundraising event just one day before the committee he chairs decides the fate of more than 600 bills totaling $8 billion in spending."  (More)

Dan Walters: Misleading term-limit words OK'd
By Dan Walters - Bee Columnist
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Sacramentan Al Reeder was attending a community celebration one weekend in April when a man approached him "with an armload of papers, asking if I would like to sign a petition."

The petition for which signatures were being sought was, Reeder learned, an initiative measure regarding legislative term limits, and the signature gatherer "stressed the idea that term limits for politicians would be decreased from 14 years to 12 years." Reeder says he was aware that such a measure was being proposed and asked some questions, but the man, he says, expressed ignorance about the details. Reeder didn't sign.

As an unusual but powerful business-labor-political coalition called the Committee for Term Limits and Legislative Reform gathers signatures, money and -- it hopes -- momentum to alter the state's 17-year-old term limit law, it is fundamentally misleading voters about its effect. (More)

Bob Suhr: Keep term limits as they are

Santa Cruz Sentinel

Sunday, May 13, 2007

It would appear that the public has finally found out the real reason for the early presidential primary in February 2008. Without it, Senate President Don Perata, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Santa Cruz County's John Laird, chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, will have been termed out of office in 2008, along with another 31 incumbent legislators. However, this primary will include an initiative, and if passed by the voters, will extend their terms in office — Nunez and Laird's for six more years, and Perata's for four more years.

The beauty of this initiative for these government careerists is the public face indicates that it is being promoted by the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Teachers' Association. The legislators, thus, did not have to appear to be submitting their own term-limits measure.

This certainly indicates that the present term-limits program in California is working, for neither one of those special interest groups would promote an initiative that would reduce its power or influence. (continued)

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Ballot Deceit
The Press Enterprise Editorial Page
Friday, May 11, 2007

California voters depend on clear, objective language to judge the merits of ballot initiatives. That principle is enshrined in state law. So Attorney General Jerry Brown has a legal responsibility to use unbiased wording to summarize a measure that would amend California's term-limits law, slated for the February 2008 ballot.

U.S. Term Limits, a national term-limits advocacy group, sued Brown on May 3 over the ballot language, alleging the attorney general wrote an "intentionally inaccurate and misleading" summary of the measure. It's tough to disagree. (continued)
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Term-limit summary's misleading
By Dan Walters - Bee Columnist
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

California's legislative term limits have been a mixed blessing at best. A cogent argument can be made for changing them to allow lawmakers to serve longer in one legislative house, rather than jumping back and forth.

Why, then, would legislative leaders and business and labor groups promoting a term limit overhaul mislead voters about what their ballot measure would do? Even more important, why would Attorney General Jerry Brown go along with that trickery by writing an official summary of the measure that echoes the misleading propaganda?

Voters, apparently disgusted by a corruption scandal in the Capitol, enacted term limits in 1990, restricting legislators to three two-year terms in the Assembly and two four-year terms in the Senate, for a maximum of 14 years in legislative office. (continued)

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U.S. TERM LIMITS FILES LAWSUIT OVER MISLEADING AND BIASED TITLE AND SUMMARY FOR PERATA/NUNEZ INITIATIVE TO WEAKEN TERM LIMITS

Wednesday, May 9, 2007 (check this out)

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Nannygate

Sunday, April 15, 2007

From cell phones to cigarettes, it's a scandal how many laws on the state Legislature's list for 2007 would tell you how to live your life. It will take more than a spoonful of sugar to make these intrusions palatable.

There's this:

The Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

And there's this:

The Declaration of Dependence: "We hold these truths to be generally agreed upon, that all men are regarded not exactly equal (some being more in need than others), that they are permitted by their Government to exercise some rights, but, more importantly, are required by their Government to conform to certain behaviors to achieve freedom from Want, freedom from Responsibility and freedom from Unhappiness."

Our assumptions dictate our conclusions. If we assume people's rights come from government, we logically can conclude it's OK for government to decide everything people must and must not do. 

But if we assume people's rights are unalienable and God-given (as the Declaration of Independence says), we end up with a far different conclusion. We logically can conclude government may do only what it legitimately is authorized to do (as the Declaration and Constitution say). (Click here to read more)

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Blood on the hands of US Drug users

Mexico's War

April 11, 2007  WSJ Opinion Journal's Political Diary

George W. Bush went to the U.S.-Mexican frontier to highlight his proposal for immigration reform this week. But on the other side of the border, a different U.S.-Mexico issue is getting most of the headline ink.

Since taking office in December, Mexico's new President Felipe Calderon has launched an all-out assault against the nation's organized crime networks, which supply U.S. narcotics demand. Given the money to be made under prohibition, it's not surprising that the drug cartels are not yielding easily. Rather, they've been fighting back with increasingly extreme terror tactics and threatening to turn Mexico upside down.

The month of March was one of the bloodiest on record for the country's "war on drugs." According to the Dallas Morning News, more than 50 people were killed in drug violence in a single week -- and not in only in notoriously rough cities like Tijuana but in traditionally stable locales such as Monterrey in the state of Nuevo Leon, which saw the brutal killing of a police officer, a police commander and numerous civilians. April hasn't started off too well either. On Good Friday, a reporter for the Mexican television station Televisa, who had just finished a radio interview in Acapulco, was shot in the back three times and killed. According to Reuters, local Mexican media also reported 12 other execution-style killings in Mexico on Good Friday. The killers have grown more vicious in their messages to would-be snitches, leaving behind severed heads, corpses with ice picks driven through them and most recently a Veracruz victim who had been castrated.

It's worth noting that lowly policemen, hundreds of whom are reported to have been handing in resignations around the country, are not the only targets. Last month Mr. Calderon confirmed that he and his family have been receiving serious death threats since he launched his "war." Nevertheless, Mr. Calderon says he's not giving in and that the war could last longer than his six-year term. If so, it looks like an awful lot of Mexicans are going to die for the cause of stopping Americans from using drugs.

                                                                                 -- Mary Anastasia O'Grady
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A Powerful One-Two Punch Against Legislature by US Term Limits

 by Jon Fleischman- Publisher

3-22-2007 10:53 am

"...Activist Anita Anderson has submitted another initiative to the Attorney General's office. The new proposed initiative is aimed squarely at one of the Legislature's key perks - gifts to legislators. Anderson 's first initiative would eliminate tax-free per diem for legislators. The new proposal is a sweeping ban on gifts to legislators from lobbyists, lobbying firms, or from "any entity that, during the previous twelve months, has employed a lobbyist or retained a lobbying firm or is a member of a trade association that employs a lobbyist or lobbying firm." That means no more junkets to Hawaii , golfing trips to Pebble Beach , or tickets to Kings basketball games or the Academy Awards." (Read the Flashreport Blog Entry here)

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California Focus: Perata locks out diversity of thought

Correa, 2 other senators punished for daring to fraternize with moderates

By MARTHA MONTELONGO

Orange County Register

Thursday, March 22, 2007

The political party of "tolerance and diversity" is not so tolerant or diverse when it comes to Latino legislators and their views about economic policies that affect small businesses.

March 5, state Senate President Don Perata, D-Oakland, locked three senators out of their offices, one for the entire day, to teach them a lesson. Perata refused to comment but Democratic aides let it be known to reporters that the lockout was intended to punish the three lawmakers for disobeying the leader's unwritten but well-known rule forbidding fraternizing with what has come to be known as the "moderate Democrat" caucus, aka the Mod Squad. The three sanctioned senators, all Latinos, were part of this moderate group when they served in the Assembly. (More)

3-19-07:

A proposed bill to change term limits would allow elected officials to serve for 12 years in the same seat in the Assembly or in the Senate, and would restart the clock for all of the incumbent legislators who under present law, are termed out of their currently held seats.  It would shut the doors on a crop of new and hopeful candidates who have been waiting for their turn to serve in office. 

Currently, elected officials may serve three 2 year terms in the assembly, and 2 four year terms in the Senate. 

The proposed bill, looks certain to pass both CA state houses, and to be signed by the Governor.  Proponents argue that it would stop the "musical  chairs" politicians engage in as a result of the existing term limits.  Opponents however point out the myraid of problems with changing the term limit laws from what they are now. 

The diversity we have acheived in the legislature is the result of term limits.  The term limits Initiative passed by the voters in 1990 opened the doors to an exponential growth in the number of minority and women legislators never before realized in the state of CA.  Ethnic diversity however, is insignificant if diversity of ideas is to be stamped out by allowing the ruling faction of the two dominant parties to lock down district office seats for 12 plus stretches at a time.  Senate Pro Tem Perata could essentially hold his seat until having served a total of 26 years!  Assembly Speaker Nunez could serve for 18 years in his leadership position. 

These two leaders demonstrate their iron fisted way of steering policy and agenda items by embarrassing and punishing their house members who express individual leadership, into submission. 

Term Limits Target of Measure:  Musical Chairs could diminish (So would opportunity and diversity of ideas and opinions)

WSJ Political Diary--Subscription E-Mail News Daily Publication

March 15, 2007

Term Limits vs. Perk Limits

California's legislature is getting ready to water down the state's 16-year-old term limit law by allowing members to serve up to 12 years in either house and by "grandfathering" in the existing Assembly and Senate leadership, allowing members, in effect, to restart the clock on their service.

Term-limit advocates can't do anything to block this incumbent-protection scheme from being placed before voters on February's primary ballot. But they believe they can defeat the proposal partly by promoting a countermeasure to stir up old populist resentment of legislative perks. The measure would strip away a legislator's cherished tax-free $153-a-day allowances for lodging and meal expenses incurred while the legislature is in session. The per diems add up to more than $30,000 a year for a typical solon.

Anita Anderson, a San Francisco political activist, says she believes the payments are a rip-off since often the legislature is gaveled into session and then immediately adjourned just so members can claim reimbursement for that day's "expenses." Ms. Anderson says she plans to publicize examples of per diem abuses if the legislature persists in trying to weaken term limits.

It's not as if state lawmakers will be able to plead poverty if the per diems vanish. They already earn $113,098 a year plus such perks as a state-leased car. That makes Golden State solons among the best paid in the country. Legislators I spoke to say they look forward to weaker terms limit that would enable them to stay in office a few more years. However, they should also consider how much less comfortable legislative life might be if they have to brown-bag their lunches and sleep on a friend's couch when convening in Sacramento.

                                                                                                   -- John Fund

How can letting Perata stay in his position for another 12 years help CA when he rules with a hammer and uses ruthless tactics to assure he controls the policy agenda?

Capitol divided over lawmakers' lockout Some see Perata's plan as display of strength to impose party discipline

By Steven Harmon and Steve Geissinger Oakland Tribune 03/19/2007

SACRAMENTO — It's been panned as a childish prank against fellow party lawmakers, a potential opening to a coup, even as an indication of Senate leader Don Perata's jitters over an apparently renewed probe into possible charges of political corruption.

But the Senate president pro tem's move this week to lock three Southern California members of his party out of their offices for a day was also seen as a show of strength, a shot across the bow of would-be moderate spoilers, and as striking a blow for liberals intent on passing strong environmental, health care and civil

justice bills this year. (More)

Big Sister, Big Brother Anyone? 

3-9-2007

I don't know what's up, if it's just some sort of convergence of consciousness, or someone put out a memo itemizing the stupid ideas that have been proposed in the last couple of months in Sacramento, but in the last two days, there are three news articles about law officials who are incompetent at dealing with the matters of un funded government employee pensions, prisons overflowing and felons being released, and California being financially broke and instead want to micro manage us!

Lawmakers in Sacramento busy themselves conceiving laws to regulate us ordinary-mind-our-own-business-citizens to death, to save us from ourselves, and they use our hard-earned money, forcibly expropriated by a shameless burden of taxes, fees and more "fees" for their ridiculous notions, with impunity.

1.Moving Ever Toward the Nanny State

SF Gate Friday March 9, 2007

WHEN REVIEWING the list of 2,760 bills introduced thus far in this legislative session, I am reminded of the old saying, "No man's life, liberty or property is safe while the Legislature is in session." (Mark Twain said that) Link

2. Sacramento baby-sitters

It's times like these when we long for the days when serving in the state Legislature was a part-time job. With too much time on its hands, the Democratic majority seems to be whittling wood instead of carving meaningful policy. (Continued)

3. Big mother is watching with new laws in mind

Democratic proposals to regulate behavior draw Republican scorn.

The mother of all special elections in CA is afoot 

3-6-07

The Democratic led Legislature has passed the bill to move the Presidential Primary up to February 8th.  It's sponsor, State Senator Calderon's statement concerning the reasoning and justification for its cost to CA taxpayers is jawdroppingly brazen and candid:  “The expense would be well worth the billions of federal budget dollars that potentially could come back to California by choosing a candidate sympathetic to our needs.”

You have to believe that our problems and issues are only resolvable with money from Washington, and not the direct result of waste and misappropriations, and poor and constrictive policy which drives manufacturing and small business from CA or deters its growth and vibrancy. 

Wouldn't it be something if Senator Calderon said his reason for wanting power and influence over DC was to lower the amount of tax dollars that are taken from California and our vibrant spirit and enterprise?  Wow!  What if he said he wanted us to have influence over the next president so that we could effect change in DC such that we could keep more of our hard earned income, in State, in our personal budgets and households, and our small businesses?   We've got a better shot at that if we don't move up our presidential primary.  Afterall, our voters have elected this type of legislator, who I'll bet never meets a tax increase or a fee for the average Jose, he doesn't like.

He loves to spend it, and the power--that's why he sees sugarplums in his head, at the thought of the Legislators having more influence in Washington. 

As for the cost of this special election, the first of two primaries in '08 we will have in CA, the second in June for State and local office elections,it is projected at nearly $90 million dollars.  Calderon's response to concerns regarding the cost to the local counties is arrogant and unsettling: " [He] pointed out that the Legislature did reimburse counties for their costs associated with the 2005 special election and expressed confidence that “we will do the right thing again.” 

Senator, can we get that in writing, as in a bill signed by the Governor?  And can you tell us how we will pay for it, not counting the billions that could "potentially" come to us from the Nation's taxpayers' money in Washington DC?  After all, you guys all promised that you'd take care of redistricting, but you killed that initiative last year in the legislature, and you can't seem to abide by our wishes to limit terms in office to keep you from becoming permanent and to encourage public service from the public sector, not professional career politicians, thank you. 

The most audacious thing about Calderon's statement is what he doesn't say, that their primary intention for this 'special' and super expensive primary, has everything to do with their self serving, self agrandizing aim to expand their amassed power in the Legislature by extending their terms in their currently held offices. 

This special election primary will allow them to put their measure to extend their terms in their currently held offices, on the ballot, and if passed, will allow many of the currently termed out officials to file in time to run for yet another term in June.  

SPECIAL REPORT

New Study Details Devastating Effects of

Eminent Domain Abuse on African Americans

Arlington, Va. - “Eminent domain has become what the founding fathers sought to prevent: a tool that takes from the poor and the politically weak to give to the rich and politically powerful,” concludes Dr. Mindy Fullilove in her new report released today titled, “ Eminent Domain & African Americans: What is the Price of the Commons? ” The report is available at http://www.castlecoalition.org/publications/index.html .

COMMENTARY

Thomas Sowell writes about tragedy of socialized medicine where it is now practiced, in Canada and England . I remember a reporter with Canada 's equivalent of our PBS interviewing me on health care, a few years ago. When I said people with fatal disease have to wait three to six months for care that is timely, and they die where they most likely could have lived, had they not had to wait so long...

His response was the same as that which politicians and supporters of Universal Socialized Medicine all know, but don't like to talk about or admit, that it is necessary to sacrifice very sick people to die for having to wait too long, as a trade off for the greater benefit of all people getting free basic health care. 

 So don't get cancer, or leukemia or heart disease, or liver disease, or any condition that requires urgent medical intervention and surgery to save your life. Because at that point you are a martyr who is collateral damage for a system that kills efficiency and strangles innovation, and throws us backward. 

Socialized medicine anyone?

By Walter E. Williams
February 14, 2007

Problems with our health-care system are leading some to fall prey to proposals calling for a nationalized single-payer health care system like Canada's or Britain's. There are a few things we might consider before falling for these proposals.
London's Observer on March 3, 2002, carried a story saying an "unpublished report shows some patients are now having to wait more than eight months for treatment, during which time many of their cancers become incurable." Another story said, "According to a World Health Organization report to be published later this year, around 10,000 British people die unnecessarily from cancer each year -- 3 times as many as are killed on our roads."
(more)

February 14, 2007

Schwarzenegger's Folly

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants all Californians to have medical insurance. So he's going to force them to have it.

Schwarzenegger abandoned his opposition to mandated employer-based health insurance and embraced the idea as his own. "Everyone in California must have insurance. If you can't afford it, the state will help you buy it, but you must be insured," Schwarzenegger said last month .

Of course, his "solution" won't solve the problem. By making medical care look cheap to people, expanded insurance will push prices up even faster. Everyone will end up paying more. But politicians benefit because the costs will be hidden.

(more)

The Most Expensive Special Election in the History of California, brought to you by the politicos who want to undo the will of CA voters for term limits 

February 2, 2007

Legislative leaders, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate Pro Tem Don Perata, led the fight to defeat the redistricting initiative which was on the special election ballot in November of 2005. They slammed it and Governor Schwarzenegger, for wasting the taxpayers' money.  It cost taxpayers between $45 and $60 million dollars. Nunez and Perata assured the voters that the special election was unnesseary and that they planned to deal with redistricting through the Legislature and that it would be a priority. 

The same two leaders, Nunez and Perata, killed redistricting during  the next  legislative session, in 2006.

Now we're supposed to believe that this time, they'll really give us redistricting, if we just let them hold another special election, so that they can extend their time to rule over us, although they're not calling it a special election. They're calling it the California Presidential Primary for '08.

It needs to be called the Politicos' $90 Million Dollar Special Election to Extend Term Limits 2008 Primary.

This will be the most expensive special election in CA history, and its most significant purpose, whether admitted to or not, is to pass a bill to weaken and undermine our term limit laws just in time so that Perata and Nunez and a number of other politicos who are termed out, can then run for re-election in Primary II, of 2008.

The cost of this special election is projected at $90 Million Dollars!  For that price, we would get more Nunez, more Perata and more of the rest of the politicians who want to "serve" longer, and disregard the will of the people of California.  Now that's an expensive special election.

February 1, 2007: 

We are Dreamin if we believe the Special Election for February of 2008 is anything but a ploy to undermine the will of CA voters for Term Limits

Bill Bradley prefaced his commentary on the CA Legislature's fast track moving of the '08 presidential primary in CA back up to February to again, with a YouTube video post of The Mamas and the Papas singing California Dreamin.... He thinks everything's peachy, or dreamy, I should say.

It seems Bradley thinks getting around term limits is just one of several motives for the gang of legislators ushering this change through, despite the costs (estimated between $80 and $90 million, and the fact that we've done this before, three times in the last 11 years and it has never worked well for us.

I don't buy it, that we'll be kingmaker; forget about it. As for friends of State Politicos making money on campaign business, nope. The candidates will swoop in to raise cash, but they'll play in a smaller market where they can get more bang for their buck.  California is too expensive compared to the traction the presidential candidates can get if they spend their money in other less expensive markets.

I think the early primary promoters are highly motivated by the prospects of undermining their term limits, which we imposed on them by ballot initiative, and this promise that they bait us with, to include important and meaningful district reform is just so touching, it makes me want 'a cry....but I don't buy it!

Fabian Nunez, and Don Perata were key in killing meaningful redistricting reform in 2006, after they killed the redistricting initiative on the ballot for the special election in 2005.

Bradley's take on the politicos' move is that this election maneuver will bring clout and influence. We'll see. I think the primary motive behind any redistricting these proponents would actually carry out, would surely be to lock-in, even further, the holds the parties have now on their respective districts.

Presently, districts are so secure and cut up with such surgical precision to insure their voter profile consistency, that in the November 2004 elections, of 153 CA Legislative seats not one changed parties. Last November, in 2006, there was an upset. Oh my God, one Congressional seat and one State Senate seat turned over.

Very important too, is to have this term limits-ah-hem, re-districting reform bill pass in February '08, just in time so that we can have a second primary election in June.

Termed out politicians including Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, and Senate Pro Tem Don Perata will be able to turn around and run for re-election after all.

That's the dream anyway, but they're down playing how angry we're going to get over their wasting $90 million dollars so they could run again! Um Um... That's not going to sit right with a whole lot of people... But go ahead.. Dream on ...Listen to the pleasant voices .......Check out the Mamas and the Papas singing. California Dreamin...

January 11, 2007

    How do we do Universal Health Care the right way, without mugging the small business owner and the most productive income earners and producers  in the State of California, and without destroying our state economy?  

     Pacific Research Institute, like everyone else, naively thought the Governor shared these considerations, and they published an impressive report outlining for him, and his administration, what a stellar plan should look like.   

Unfortunately, the Governor threw common sense and sound economic principles overboard and came up with a statist plan instead. 

Here are the highlights for how to make healthcare in California healthy, and at the bottom, there is a link to the full report. 

The right way to do it:

1. Repeal the California “Sick Tax”. California is one of the last states that continues to tax residents for their out-of-pocket health spending. Since January 2004, the federal government has allowed every working age American to deposit pre-tax dollars into a Health Savings Account (HSA)– “401(k)s for your health.” This money is never taxed as long as you spend it on health care – the key word being “you.” Patients, not government bureaucrats or health plan employees decide how it’s spent. Californians need the same tax break from their state government.

2. Health Opportunity Accounts (HOAs) for Medi-Cal. California has some innovative
Med-Cal programs, but the state has not signaled a willingness to take advantage of HOAs
– basically HSAs for Medicaid. The federal government recently authorized these as pilot projects for 10 states seeking to empower Medicaid beneficiaries to make good health decisions. Let’s make sure California is one of them.

3. Free Low-Cost Medical Clinics to Compete. In other states, entrepreneurs are opening hundreds of convenient “storefront” medical clinics where straightforward, transparent pricing makes health care more accessible and affordable. In California, excessive regulation of nurse practitioners prevents these innovators from competing – and denies important choices to California patients.

4. Free Health Insurers to Compete. California’s excessive regulation of health insurance increases prices by about 30 percent, contributing greatly to the increasing numbers of uninsured in our state, especially among the middle class, who could and likely would buy health insurance if it were more price competitive.

5. Design a “California Connector” to Increase Choice in Health Insurance. The federal tax code connects health insurance to employment – something Americans would likely not tolerate for any other area of their private lives. Massachusetts has recently instituted a “Commonwealth Connector,” or Health Insurance Exchange, into which employers’ contributions can be credited to a worker’s choice of individual health insurance. The Massachusetts plan has many drawbacks, including a significant tax increase, also called a “mandate” or “pay or play,” but a narrowly defined “Connector” that allows uninsured, employed, Californians to use pre-tax dollars to pay premiums has significant merit.

(Read the full report or excerpts of it here)

Yikes!!!! The Emperor Has No Clothes is the children's story that comes to mind... I realized that a while ago, and faced redicule for saying so, and I feel vindicated, but I'm sorry that it's true, because the consequences are bad news. 

Opinion

The governor gives up on the market

His health-care plan would regulate, centralize, restrict choice and add taxes

Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan, which unbelievably promises to lower costs and increase coverage, is an exercise in Orwellian logic.

"Fixing health care requires changes from all of us," said Kim Belshe, the governor's Health and Human Services secretary. The key word is "requires," which is a concept anathema to the free market, but ever-present in government, which by nature restricts, rather than frees. (Read on here)

Musings on Mexico, U.S. Welfare, Immigration and Drug Policies:

How do we deal with our immigration problem? 

    Why doesn't Congress address at least one of the major causes of illegal immigration?  We give lots of U.S.$ to Mexico in the form of aid.  We should demand transformation of their political economic policy in real and measurable ways that would benefit both us and Mexico. 

      The major pull, in our country, as root of our runaway problem with immigration are jobs, but a major problem that taxes our economy, in for form of runaway and unaccountable government tax and spending, is our welfare state policies.   In one generation, we have diluted our fundamental work ethics, personal responsibility and accountability and have succumb to a complacency for big government as our nanny government and we go along with the extortion by a thousand taxes, levies, universal acess fees and charges, in exchange for a false sense of security that all of our basic needs will be taken care of if we can't make ends meet on our own.  It is our expectation that when we haven't got the money to send our child to college, they can apply for a scholarship, and or financial aid, and when we can't cover our medical expenses, because protectionist laws impede the sale and availability of portable, affordable, catastrophic health insurance and tax free medical savings accounts, we'll get bailed out by the government.  

So naturally, since we've all (as a majority) bought into the welfare state of government, and abdicated our once strong moral ethic of personal responsibility, we as a people, cannot stomach denying  those who live and work among us, the same.  It feels so un- American.  Those political agents whose paradigm for social order is defined by more and bigger government prey on the generosity inherent in the body and culture of US Citizens, who by and large, are people of goodwill.

      Politicians avoid controversy.  They don't want to incur the wrath of populist journalists, special interest groups who benefit from political power over numbers of ethnic voters with ties to and influence over other voters, and corporate employers who rely on cheap or affordable labor. It's politically volatile to say no to welfare for illegal immigrants.   You'd have to be willing to fight for reducing and reforming welfare across the board and encourage free market solutions where you unleashed and empowered competition so citizen recipients of welfare programs could become consumers with competitive choices.  Oh, but that requires relinqushing a lot of hands on power and turning down the fine wining and dining and special deals and lucrative partnerships that are perks of keeping industries protected from competition.   

      But there are things they can do, that would be effective at steming the push from Mexico for illegal immigration to the U.S.   Our political leaders can demand for there to be financial transparency, secure property rights and divestiture of nationalized industries of our southern bordering neighbor, in exchange for the financial aid we already allocate.  

      Our feckless political leaders here in our country could do two good works simultaneously by attaching conditions of political economic reform to dollars we send to Mexico thus helping the Mexican people to have opportunity and access to capital, and by enlightening our own citizens on fundamental policy matters that are as important for economic prosperity as a foundation is to a house. 

      Our political leaders are far too remiss in affirming such fundamental policy matters to our own citizens, so much so, that a majority of people in this country could not tell you why we prosper when other Counties don't, and if the only people from whom they get their social studies courses are Bono of U2 or Hollywood celebrities or their sycophants, then the same uninformed people most likely believes we prosper at the expense and on the backs of other countries, that we're rich because they're poor—hense, we are generous yet we are beaten down with guilt. 

      Another matter with respect to immigration is a necessary reform of our illegal drug policies.  The debate has to be engaged.  Do we legalize drugs?  Or do we campaign to educate the public on the impact of drugs on our own citizens, families, children, careers?  Or both?  Smoking is way down.  And the evidence shows this has more to do with education and consumer demand for being cool, “in” and being healthy.  The education campaign has been the most effective.  People with the highest incomes and education have been the most likely to quit smoking.  The poorest and the lowest income earners remain the highest proportion of smokers and therefore the highest payers of the windfall profit taxes collected by do-gooder nanny state governments. 

      We hear more about smoking and drinking on public service announcements than we do about illicit drugs.  Few U.S. citizens even know that Mexico is now the largest exporter of cocaine to the U.S. beating out Columbia .  We don't hear about the tyranny this habit bears down on the people of Mexico . 

      Another point I want to address is to counter Heather MacDonald's most recent essay dismissing the conservative values of Latinos as myth.  I will continue this point further in a subsequent post.