5 months or so to Election Day 2020 - A prophecy

What will happen between now and then?

The Democrat Party Deep State, along with the "NeverTrump" GOPee quislings, are going to:

1) Inflame civil unrest
2) Stoke racial tension and violence
3) Commit mail-in and non-citizen ballot fraud
4) Increase technological censorship of patriots 5) Extend the pandemic panic, when it is utterly unwaranted given the damage it will do to must of us 6) Hurt economy with #5 above 7) Stage fake "White Supremacist" terror events 9) Weaponize their media further than they already have.

Election Guide, November 2018 edition

As I stated back in June 2018, I wonder if I should bother, given the four recently changed aspects of voting I mentioned last time around for the June primary, to wit:

1.  The “Top Two Open Primary”, or legally the Nonpartisan Blanket Primary, which means that the top two contenders face off against each other in the General Election of November, regardless of Party.

2.  Mass voting by mail, with the potential for outright fraud, with “late discovery” manufactured and mailed in ballots and everything else,

3.  A moribund California Republican Party, which could not get to be the #2 primary winner in all too many races, and

4.  For State ballot Propositions, the full and complete “TEXT OF PROPOSED LAW” is no longer there in the Official Voter Information Guide.

But civic duty is still civic duty!  So on I go…..

YOUR CONGRESS(WO)MAN, STATE ASSEMBLY, STATE SENATOR, OR EVEN BOARD OF EQUALIZATION (EXCISE TAX) MEMBER: 

This image says it all:

Now you are probably thinking, “But Curmudgeon, here you are just telling us to Vote 100% Republican or Die, and all of the Democrats are now Commiecrats, and yadda yadda yadda…”

Well, in California that really is the case and the choices really are that stark. In California, the “Blue Dog”, “Boll Weevil”, or “Joe Six-pack” moderate Democrats, that might exist in other Midwestern, Southern or Eastern states, are *extinct*.

Even if you think “Make America Great Again” is a trite and corny slogan, what is their response to it? Either “America Was Never Great”, or worse “Make California Mexico Again”. I am not kidding.

Is the Republican Party’s new flamboyant standard bearer, Donald Trump, uncouth? Sure, but I really don’t care, because that bar was already lowered two decades ago.  And for once, a Republican confronted by a media slanted against him *fights back*. As Abe Lincoln said of the loutish Hiram Ulysses Grant, “I can’t spare that man—he fights!”

I prefer Uncouth Patriots to false Polite Traitors. I take that back-- they NOT even polite Traitors anymore—witness the actual “AntiF(irst)A(mendment)” Mob Violence many of them have been encouraging and stirring up, from foaming at the mouth Maxine Waters to smarmy Charles Schumer. A Republican Congress candidate in the East Bay area was actually physically attacked and beaten up.

GOVERNOR:  John Cox, or Perdition. The choice is that stark.

His sadly favored by the polls opponent, Gavin Newsom, first as mayor of San Francisco and then as Lieutenant Governor, epitomizes all that is wrong and incoherent with California politics. He presided over a city that in the name of ecology bans plastic straws, yet neglects the ecology of basic sanitation, to the point where many city blocks *smell of human poop* from the defecation of homeless people.

I am not joking—try driving to an event or shopping in Union Square, looking for parking in the nearby Tenderloin District, and walking back to Union Square with block after block of this wafting odor, watching your step along the way. Or ride the mass transit into Downtown San Francisco, come up from the Market Street BART or MUNI subway routes, and smell it and watch your step for block after block. Sometimes you will even see people in the act of pooping and peeing. Someone even created a computer phone application to report the poop, “SnapCrap”.

And the solution to impoverished homeless people who cannot afford a place to sleep in that city? Not rounding up and incarceration of any of the poopers, nope, not that.  As Lieutenant Governor, Gavin Newsom offers “Sanctuary” (Sic) to more impoverished and uneducated people, who are not citizens nor legal aliens, making the housing crunch all the more severe. All. For. Votes.

Originally, in the June Primary, I had preferred Travis Allen over John Cox, and I feared that John Cox was another wealthy dilettante from another state who has not seen how legislation works its way through “the Bill Mill” (or often does not). However, John Cox is hammering hard upon the real issues, and Travis Allen is earnestly and loyally stumping for Mr. Cox. I am pleased with this Republican Team Spirit, no matter how uphill the fight.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR:  Ed Hernandez, Older and lesser of the two Evils

Between DEM Party Stalinist apparatchik Eleni Kounalakis, and DEM Party Trotskyite Ed Hernandez, it is a matter of which one is less nauseous. Like Gavin Newsom, BOTH epitomize all that is wrong and incoherent with California politics.  

However, consider their ages. With Leftists, Youth (or the lack of it) matters. Eleni Kounalakis is 51, and with her war chest and the nod of the Party bosses, she could well entrench herself politically for years to come. 

Ed Hernandez is 61 and ten years older, has much less Party and money backing, and he might actually rub the wrong way all of the special interests that have made their Faustian bargains with the ruling Demunist Party. Like the people who supported the geriatric dissenter Bernie Sanders for President over the entrenched and younger Party apparatchik Hillary Clinton, I say that if you must vote for one of the two, vote for Hernandez instead. 

SECRETARY OF STATE: Mark Meuser.

An actual election law attorney will be very helpful here, and he is one.

CONTROLLER:  Konstantinos Roditis

TREASURER:  Greg Conlon

Greg Conlon has tried for this office before, and lost before, to John Chiang in 2014 and to Phil Angelides in 2002 before that. He has also tried for the US Senate, the State Senate, and the State Assembly. A “happy warrior”, who gets back up when he is knocked down.  Let’s give him one last hurrah.

ATTORNEY GENERAL:  Steven C. Bailey 

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER: Steve Poizner

Another veteran of the California Political Psychic Wars, like Greg Conlon for Treasurer above.

U.S. SENATOR:   Dianne Feinstein, although I know it’s hard to stomach.

“And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said, “Stick to the Devil you know….””—Rudyard Kipling

Like the Lieutenant Governor contest above, it is hard to be happy with either DEM Party Stalinist apparatchik Dianne Feinstein, or DEM Party Trotskyite Kevin DeLeon.  

Moreover, it is VERY tempting to punish Dianne Feinstein for her disgusting stunt with respect to Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh’s hearing was made into even more of a Kangaroo Court and even more of an accusation by false hearsay than the hearing for Clarence Thomas was, and I did not think that was possible. False and utterly bogus accusations not just going back to younger adult times, but to adolescent minor times. I am waiting for the Demunists to try to destroy a judge based upon alleged grade school bratty behavior next.

However, again AGE is the decisive factor.

The “Very Old Guard” Dianne Feinstein is 85 years old. There is even a chance, however unlikely, that a Governor John Cox could appoint her successor when finally she steps down, or more likely, finally makes that trip across the River Styx.

Meanwhile, her opponent Kevin DeLeon is only 51.

Better to have the Senator senile, no matter how revolting her final actions have become.

CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT, YES OR NO REFERENDUM OR PLEBISCITE:

The principle here is:  Does the judge act as an Umpire or Referee in the Game of Politics, or as a sleazy semi-permanent Player who can never be called out? With that principle in mind:

Carol Corrigan:  YES, keep her.

Leondra R. Kruger:  NO, dump her.

SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION: Marshall Tuck

His leading opponent, Tony K. Thurmond, is endorsed by Senator Kamala Harris and all the teacher unions. I will leave it at that.

On a related note, Kamala Harris is a worse Senator than even Barbara Boxer was, or Dianne Feinstein has become. At least the two old witches won their election campaigns fair and square and did their homework when pushing their agendas, however loathsome. Kamala Harris gained her first political appointments, and then election campaign backing, by taking off her clothes and spreading her legs and acting as a “sugar baby” mistress for DEM party “sugar daddy” chieftains, most notably state Party Chairman Willie Brown. I am not joking and I am not just writing that because I like to trash leftist Dems. She literally *slept* her way to the top of the California political heap.

NOVEMBER BALLOT PROPOSITIONS:

Prop 1 - Unaffordable Housing Bonds: NO.  

Bonds, meaning DEBT, are only appropriate when an actual capital intensive but long lasting public project (like a freeway, a dam, a community center) is to be built. And there is a bit of that in this.

However, government housing projects, where people live but have no sense of community, have a wretched and unhappy track record. As the old and sweetly sad reggae song went,

 “I remember, when we used to sit, in a Government Yard {British and Jamaican speak for housing project}, in Trenchtown….No Woman, No {as in don’t} Cry….”

But most of this initiative isn’t even that. It is in large part borrowing for tenant assistance programs, so they can better rent existing housing stock. And the rest of you already trying to rent housing who don’t qualify for those? You get to pay off the bonds and you get your rental market bid up!

Prop 2 – Bonds for Homeless Shelters: NO.  

On one level this *is* seductively tempting. Mentally ill Homeless pooping on the streets? Why not build places with toilets for them to be placed where they can defecate and maybe get the help that they need? And this is an initiative with bonds funding actual construction capital projects.

However, the money to pay off those bonds will come from an existing tax which is currently used to fund mental health services for those very same unfortunate people.  This measure will take some money out of mental health services and use it instead to pay off housing bonds.  Result: fewer mental health services.

Prop 3 – Bonds for Parks, AGAIN???  NO, in fact hell NO.

First, even if you like parkland watershed bonds like this, WE JUST PASSED AN INITIATIVE JUST LIKE THIS ONE LAST JUNE. Are you telling me that all those projects were already finished in a few months?

Second, nothing is more annoying than a proposition that claims to have “water supply” provisions, that does not build a single dam to store it. Acquiring more watershed park area is not truly increasing supply.

Third, the State cannot maintain the vast parkland area it already has. It probably should be selling off the parks that hardly anyone enjoys, or which have no known endangered species, and making them productive ranches or something similar again.

Fourth, Bonds, meaning DEBT, are only appropriate when an actual capital intensive but long lasting project, like a Dam, HINT HINT, is to be built. Borrowing for current maintenance of existing parks is folly.

Fifth, too many initiatives like this were approved in the past, LIKE THE ONE LAST JUNE, and we are still paying those off. Vote NO. 

Meanwhile, Governor Brown has already signed legislation aiming towards year-round water restrictions of 55 gallons per person per day – about the per capita water usage of Uganda – effective in two years, even if you’re bailing floodwaters out of your living room one future winter day because the dams were not built to trap and catch them.

Prop 4 – For the Children’s Sake Don’t: NO.  

This bond initiative, unlike other sham bond initiatives, is actually building new public goods, so there is THAT in its favor. This will mean about $1.5 billion in additional debt (about $260 per household in interest and principal) for construction of children’s hospital facilities.

However, there is an Elephant in the Room. How much of those overcrowded children’s hospitals are due to illegal alien mothers making that “anchor baby dash” to birth on American soil so they can definitely stay?  

Prop 5 – Encouraging “empty nesters” to downsize: YES.  

Proposition 13 capped property taxes at one percent of your home’s purchase price, plus two percent per year.  One problem: old people held on to bigger homes they no longer needed in order to keep their lower property tax.  Prop. 60 partially improved this, allowing seniors (older than 55) to keep their lower assessment if they moved into a smaller home.  This measure says they can keep it wherever they are moving, even if they move into one of those “Mello-Roos” special property tax assessment areas which were established as an end run around Proposition 13 of 1978. 

Prop 6 – Stop Paying Through the Nozzle: YES.  

If I saw lots of new road projects being built with the higher gasoline taxes recently imposed (thinking of the proposition passed last June attempting to restrict gas taxes to just road construction and maintenance), I could vote NO here. But I don’t. I see a useless “high speed” (sic) choo-choo getting a new lease on life.

And the existing taxes are only scheduled to soar ever higher.  When fully phased in and combined with previous taxes, you’ll be paying $2 per gallon in taxes before you buy your first drop of gas.  Californians already have the secondhighest state taxes per gallon for gas (only PA exceeding, and PA does not have environmental fuel blend costs on top of that), but we’re always at the bottom in per capita spending for roads.  That isn’t the fault of taxpayers for not paying enough taxes.

Prop 7 – Let’s change “Daylight Savings Time”: YES.  

If you are tired of the utterly pointless “spring-ahead-fall-back” ritual, this prop’s for you.  Initially it was six months of spring forward and six months of fall back, but lately it has been nearly eight months of spring forward and just over four months of fall back, ostensibly to “save” more of that precious daylight. This initiative would allow the legislature to adopt daylight savings time in California year-round.  And let’s just do that. I would rather go to work in the dark than come home in it.

Prop 8 – Price controls for Dialysis: NO.  

This is price control for dialysis – it purports to limit dialysis prices to 115 percent of costs.  Dialysis prices – in fact, all health care prices – are far too high. But does this initiative increase dialysis supply, or decrease dialysis demand? No and no. It is the same Commiecrat Rent Control Mentality (read on for Prop 10 below).  This proposition assures that any new investments in dialysis care won’t be made in California – leaving patients with fewer options to get treatment.  That’s why this measure, which promises to help kidney patients, is opposed by the National Kidney Foundation.

Prop 9 – (Not forgetting it; the courts struck it off the ballot).

Prop 10 – Allowing Local Rent Control again: NO.  

The Demunist repertoire of terrible ideas rise again.  We have not heard much of bad ideas like rent control for over two decades. That is because back in 1995, when Republican Pete Wilson was still Governor and enough Republicans could still win legislative office, The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act was passed, which nullified local rent control initiatives and laws, on the grounds that cities and counties that passed such laws were only dumping housing problems onto adjacent cities and counties. Such laws can now only happen by state legislature level action, effectively locking them into a Political Crypt. 

What this initiative does is open the locked political crypt again, remove the wooden stakes, and allow Local Rent Control Vampires to once again rise. Keep the wooden stakes firmly in place and the crypt locked.

I live in an area with Slavic immigrants. Among them, there is an old Soviet-era saying, “What good is a free bus ticket in a city with no buses?”  The same is true of rent.  Rent controls are very effective at drying up the supply of rental housing in any community where they’re imposed. Those currently renting do very well, but they hold on to their old apartments and landlords stop building new ones.  Presto: nothing to rent – but at a very affordable price.

Prop 11 – Breaks for Ambulance workers: ???  

The argument for this is that California’s idiotic labor laws forbid ambulance crews from responding to an accident during lunch and other breaks.  However, how enforced is this actually and how many emergency personnel actually do not drop what they are doing if true tragedy strikes?

Prop 12 – Tiny Houses for Food: NO.  

Here’s the latest from the “animals are people too” crowd.  Back in 2008, Californians foolishly passed an initiative forbidding caging livestock and poultry in spaces smaller than their behavioral preferences, because, after all, who wants a grumpy steak?  Among other things, California egg production dropped, prices surged 33 percent and it still sucks to be a chicken.  This makes matters worse by imposing square footage requirements – think of it as a “Tiny House” mandate for your dinner, paid by you. Remember that the same people pushing this want you to eat like you live under Pol Pot.

For What It's Worth: California Primary Voting Guide

Election time again, although I wonder if I should bother. In the past, I always thought that if I did not vote, then I had no right to complain about the aftermath. However, FOUR recently changed aspects of voting have changed my thoughts on this:

1. The “Top Two Open Primary”, or legally the Nonpartisan Blanket Primary, which means that the top two contenders face off against each other in the General Election of November.

This system is vulnerable to chicanery and “sabotage voting”, and a well-entrenched incumbent can effectively “pick” his or her opponent for the November election, by covertly lending “Support” to whom said incumbent will easily defeat in the General Election. The corrupt weasel Governor Evin Edwards of Louisiana (another state that has such a wretched primary process) did this in 1991, allowing an otherwise inconsequential creep named David Duke his 15 minutes of fame.

We need Real Primaries again, where Republicans pick a primary Republican, Democrats pick a primary Democrat, and other parties pick whoever they pick for their party primaries.

2. Voting by mail.

The potential for outright fraud, with “late discovery” manufactured and mailed in ballots and everything else, is significant here. As if “Motor Voter”, also known as the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which made in-person registration less likely and also opened the door to more voter fraud, was not bad enough.

3. A moribund California Republican Party....

....which could not even bring itself to get a nominee on the ballot for my State Assembly district and my House of Representatives Congressional District. If I had known about this in advance and it was not too costly (in terms of either money or time) to do so, I would have thrown my own name on the ballot, even with no chance of winning, just for giggles. Maybe when I can retire—if I am still in this state and have not given up on California altogether and moved to Reno—I will see what I can do if I have time to throw at it.

On the other hand, in several races, more than one Republican is running for that office, dividing their minority party’s primary vote and insuring that it is Democrat vs. Democrat in the General Election of November, given the “Top Two” Open Primary mess described above. Moreover, in the Governor’s race, rather than champion an experienced Assemblyman or State Senator who has come up from the trenches, they chose another wealthy dilettante from another state (See Governor Endorsement below).

For many points of view, there will need to be a “Pre-Primary” in order to pick the champion of said point of view in the Official Primary. The California Republican Party could have decided which one of theirs to officially endorse in the “Political Party Endorsements” section of the Official Voter Information Guide, but could not get itself together to even do *that*.

4. For State ballot Propositions, the full and complete “TEXT OF PROPOSED LAW” is no longer there in the Official Voter Information Guide.

This former staple of ballot initiative Propositions, with the changes to (and strikeouts of) existing laws as was appropriate and necessary, is no longer presented with the summary of each ballot initiative Proposition in the Official Voter Information Guide we receive, and you have to send away for it.

While for many initiatives this is not necessary, as the initiative is simple and summed up well by the Legislative Analyst Summary and by the Official Arguments For And Against said initiative, in some cases it really does---and still no doubt will—pay to “read the fine print”, or the exact Text Of the Proposed Law, as the case may be. I sense the proverbial wool will be pulled over our eyes as a result, and perhaps we should just NOT have ballot initiatives or Propositions anymore and just go back to our representatives in the State Assembly and State Senate as was originally intended in the California Constitution, before the whole Populist idea of Initiative and Referendum plebiscites began in the late 19th and early 20th century, but that was a long time ago. We probably should repeal the 17th Amendment and no longer have direct election of Senators too, which would cause more things to be resolved at the state and local levels, but that is a done deal.

As a result, the temptation to not bother with this is strong. On the other hand, Nick has a tradition to uphold! So on I go…..

GOVERNOR: Travis Allen

Of the two major Republican candidates with an actual chance on the ballot, Mr. Allen’s stances against so much of what has ruined California are refreshing, and he is in the State Assembly 72nd District, so he understands how “The Bill Mill” in Sacramento actually works, or does not work.

Unfortunately, it appears that rather than pick Mr. Allen, the Establishment of the California Republican Party, such as it is, has decided to endorse John Cox, another wealthy dilettante from another state who has not seen how legislation works its way through “the Bill Mill” (or often does not).

And what is truly sad about this is that, had the California GOP united behind one candidate, a Republican Governor might actually finish second in the “Top Two” Primary and be a possibility, given the FOUR major contenders running in the Dem lineup dividing up their vote:

1. The utterly smarmy Gavin Newsom (Dem-Stalinist)

2. The Reconquista 5th columnist Antonio Villaraigosa (Dem-Trotskyite)

3. The slightly better Delaine Eastin, whose record as State Superintendent of Schools was lackluster at best

4. The somewhat better John Chiang, but as a former State Controller and now Treasurer, he really ought to know better about California’s rickety finances.

Leave it to the California GOP Establishment to insure defeat. But we might as well show our support for Travis Allen and make it clear to them that we do not need another wealthy dilettante parachuting into California, and what we really need is a candidate coming up from the State Assembly or State Senate, who knows how hard it can be to be a minority party, and how laws are created.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: David R. Hernandez. NOT to be confused with Democrat Ed Hernandez who is also on the ballot.

Sadly, the Dems are lined up behind Eleni Kounalakis, while the Republicans appear to have an “Amateur Hour” going on here, with 5 different and not well known contenders, so as with the Governor’s race above, this is probably a done deal. Still, I think Mr. David R. Hernandez, NOT Ed Hernandez, is the best of the lot. His webpage here, and his Facebook here. 

Anyone with a slogan “Make California Great Again” is awesome, anyone Mexican American who has not been demagogued on the immigration issue is awesome, and anyone who brought himself up by the proverbial bootstraps from humble origins is awesome.

SECRETARY OF STATE: Mark Meuser.

An actual election law attorney will be very helpful here, and he is one.

CONTROLLER: Konstantinos Roditis

TREASURER: Greg Conlon

Greg Conlon has tried for this office before, and lost before, to John Chiang in 2014 and to Phil Angelides in 2002 before that. He has also tried for the US Senate, the State Senate, and the State Assembly. A “happy warrior”, who gets back up when he is knocked down. Let’s give him one last hurrah. Although I will say that another Republican contending on the ballot, Jack Guerrero, seems like a nice younger fellow, and I wish him luck after Greg Conlon retires.

ATTORNEY GENERAL: Eric Early.

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER: Steve Poizner

Another veteran of the California Political Psychic Wars, like Greg Conlon for Treasurer above.

U.S. SENATOR: Erin Cruz

Again it looks like “Amateur Hour” of multiple candidates from the GOP here. I wonder why GOP veterans, like Mr. Greg Conlon and Mr. Steve Poizner above, didn’t throw their hats in the ring here! And what is truly sad about this is that, had the CA GOP united behind one candidate, a Republican Governor might actually finish second in the “Top Two” Primary and be a possibility, given the two major contenders running in the Dem lineup dividing up their vote:

1. The “Very Old Guard” Dianne Feinstein (Dem-Stalinist)

2. Another Reconquista 5th columnist Kevin DeLeon (Dem-Trotskyite)

Anyway, of the amateurs, I find Ms. Cruz most appealing, and NOT because of her relative youth and beauty. She was a Tea Party activist back in 2010, and I heard her speak there first. I like her stances. And, when the Dirty Dems falsely claim that anyone with sensible border policies is somehow anti-Latino, then it is good to have a telegenic Latina lady advocating them.

SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION: Marshall Tuck

His leading opponent, Tony K. Thurmond, is endorsed by Kamala Harris and all the teacher unions. I will leave it at that.

BALLOT PROPOSITIONS:

PROPOSITION 68: Bonds for Parks - NO, in fact hell NO.

First, nothing is more annoying than a proposition that claims to have “water supply” provisions, that does not build a single dam to store it. Acquiring more watershed park area is not truly increasing supply.

Second, the State cannot maintain the vast parkland area it already has. It probably should be selling off the parks that hardly anyone enjoys, or which have no known endangered species, and making them productive ranches or something similar again.

Third, Bonds, meaning DEBT, are only appropriate when an actual capital intensive but long lasting project, like a Dam, HINT HINT, is to be built. Borrowing for current maintenance of existing parks is folly.

Fourth, too many initiatives like this were approved in the past, and we are still paying those off. Vote NO.

PROPOSITION 69: Promising to spend New Transportation Revenues for Transportation Projects – NO.

In the past, I would have voted YES. In fact, in the past, WE HAVE voted YES on initiatives like this. But it turned out those initiatives were toothless, and so is this one. Moreover, in the past, initiatives like this were “bait and switch”, where voters were promised freeway and other road improvements, but instead, were given light rail showpieces that didn’t go where most commuters needed to go. Worse, will the “high-speed” (sic) choo-choo, that won’t be high speed as it is going from SF to LA via Bakersfield, Tehachapi, Lancaster, and Palmdale, get bailed out from this?

PROPOSITION 70: Legislative Supermajority for Carbon Tax Fund spending – YES.

Sometimes, in his own special wacky way, Governor Brown takes on elements within his own Democrat Party. And this initiative is one of those times.

I like the idea of a “rainy day fund”, and a supermajority requirement for new spending, even if Governor “Moonbeam” Brown is behind this, and the carbon tax is based upon speculatively flawed “Climate Science” computer models that have been wrong for two decades now. (I remember the climate models that said water vapor from jet planes, and sulfur dioxides (besides causing “acid rain”), would block out sunlight and cause a New Ice Age).

Governor Brown has long wanted to create a “rainy day fund”, given that California’s “progressive” tax system, as burdensome as it is on most of us, still depends upon a handful of key industries and wealthy citizens for the majority of its revenue. If software apps and motion pics have a bad year, so does the state in terms of revenue. And the state economy is much less diversified than it used to be. Of course, this begs the question of how this “rainy day fund” would actually work: Money in the bank earning miniscule interest? Buying up and paying off the billions in bonds California has outstanding?

Anyway, Republican Assemblyman Chad Mayes, although he no doubt thinks the carbon tax is flawed and horrid, decided that, if there IS to be such a tax, then let it finance Governor Brown’s “Rainy Day Fund”. And so he and Governor Brown both wrote the argument for the initiative in the Voter Guide. And I LIKE IT! Let’s sequester the money from this tax and use it to buy back California bonds.

And the opposition to this initiative? Various “environmental” leftist lobbies that want the money for their pet projects.

PROPOSITION 71: Delays Effective Date For Ballot Measures – flip a coin???

Given that so many initiatives are subject to court fights after they are approved, and given the increased delays (and fraud risks) of more voting by mail, I suppose this initiative may be OK. Or may not matter. If you have a good argument for voting YES or NO, let me know.

PROPOSITION 72: Less Property Tax Assessment of “Rain Capture” systems – YES.

While “rain capture” systems are a piss-poor substitute for real dam building, they still have their place, and we should not jack up property tax assessments on people who install them.

Victor Davis Hanson: Goodnight, California

This bears repeating entirely. A once Golden State is slowly rotting. The Liberal coastal elites are still too pampered and don't see it, but those of us inland can see the warning signs all too well .....

* * * * *

I offer another chronicle, a 14-hour tour of the skeleton I once knew as California.

8:00 AM

I finally got around to retrieving the car seat that someone threw out in front of the vineyard near my mailbox. (Don’t try waiting dumpers out — as if it is not your responsibility to clean up California roadsides.)

An acquaintance had also emailed and reminded me that not far away there was a mound of used drip hose on the roadside. That mess proved to be quite large, maybe 1,000 feet of corroded and ripped up plastic hose. I suppose no scavenger thinks it can be recycled. I promise to haul it away this week. One must be prompt: even a small pile attracts dumpers like honey to bees. They are an ingenious and industrious lot (sort of like the cunning and work ethic of those who planted IEDs during the Iraq War). My cousin’s pile across the road has grown to Mt. Rushmore proportions. Do freelance dumpers make good money promising to take away their neighborhood’s mattresses and trash without paying the $20 or so county dumping fee? And does their success depend on fools like me, who are expected to keep roadsides tidy by cleaning up past trash to make room for future refuse?


9:00 AM

My relative has sold her 20 acres to a successful almond grower; that was the last parcel other than my own left of my great great grandmother’s farm. All that remains is the original house I live in and 40 acres. Almost all the small farming neighbors I grew up with — of Armenian, Punjabi, German, or Japanese descent — are long gone. Goodbye, diversity. And their children either sold the parcels and moved away (the poorer seem to head to the foothills, the middle class go out of state, the better off flee to the coast) or rent them out. Most of the surrounding countryside, piece-by-piece, is being reconstituted into vast almond groves. I plan to rent out mine next year for such conversion.

Almonds can net far more per acre than raisins and do not require much more water and require almost no labor. Tree fruit, given its expenses and risks, can lose your farm. The last vestiges of small, agrarian farming in these parts died sometime in the 1990s. Oddly, or perhaps predictably, the land to the naked eye looks better in the sense that the power of corporate capital and savvy scientific expertise has resulted in picture-perfect orchards. The old agrarian idea that 40 acres also grows a unique family, not just food, is — how do we say it? No longer operative?

10:00 AM

I drive on the 99 freeway past Kingsburg on the way to Visalia. It is a road-warrior maze of construction and detours. The construction hazards are of the sort that would earn any private contractor a lawsuit. (How do you sue Caltrans — and why is it that four or five men always seem to be standing around one who is working?) Only recently has the state decided to upgrade the fossilized two-lane 99 into an interstate freeway of three lanes. But the construction is slow and seemingly endless. Could we not have a simple state rule: “no high-speed rail corridors until the 101, 99, and I-5 are three-lane freeways, and the neglected Amtrak line achieves profitable ridership?” It is almost as if California answers back: “I am too bewildered by your premodern challenges, so I will take psychological refuge in my postmodern fantasies.”

12:00 Noon

I try to drive by the Reedley DMV on the way home to switch a car registration. Appointments take a long waiting period, but the line of the show-ups is still far out the door and well into the parking lot. I pass. The state announced that it was surprised that “unexpectedly” (the catch adverb of the Obama era) nearly 500,000 illegal aliens have already been processed with new driver’s licenses. The lines at the office suggest that many DMVs simply have transmogrified into illegal alien license-processing centers.

The last time I had visited the office, I noticed the customers were also dealing with fines, tickets, or fix-it citations as part of the process. I thought, how will they pay for all that, given that “living in the shadows” and ignoring summonses and threats is far easier than paying what the state wants? And then, presto, the governor just announced a wish that the poor should be given “ticket amnesty.” So much for Sacramento’s idea of fining California drivers into becoming a reliable revenue source for a broke state, given that it has affected far more drivers than the shrinking and hated middle class that could supposedly afford the new sky-high tickets.

It reminds me of Obamacare: after my accident last May, I had lots of procedures and hours in waiting rooms. I discovered something listening to the desk people deal with Obamacare signups: a vast number apparently have not regularly paid the monthly or quarterly premiums. An even larger group has no idea what a deductible is, or that it actually applies to themselves. And some had no notion of a copayment. The reality of all three sends many into a near frenzy, reminiscent of the idea that a driver’s license means keeping up with registration, smog rules, and paying outstanding warrants — until the state provides the expected amnesties.

2:00 PM

I’m at the local supermarket two miles away. Three observations: many of the shoppers seem to be here for the air conditioning (the forecast is for 105 degrees by 5 PM). No one in the Bay Area, whose green agenda has led to the highest power rates in the country, seems to have thought that all of California does not enjoy 65-75 degree coastal corridor weather. My latest PG&E bill reminds me to apply for income-adjusted reduced rates — if I qualify. I don’t, so keep the air conditioner off all day.

Obesity among the shoppers seems epidemic and no one is talking about it. It is striking how young the overweight are! Almost all our small towns now have new state/federal dialysis clinics. Is this not a state emergency? Cannot the state at least offer public health warnings to the immigrant community that while diabetes is alarming among the population at large, it is becoming epidemic among new arrivals from Latin America and Mexico?

Stories that 25 percent of all state hospital admittances suffer from high blood sugar levels circulate. I argue in a friendly way with a customer in line about the new “green” Coke. He claims it is diet, but tastes like regular Coke. I remind him that it is so only because the artificial sweetener has been energized by some cane sugar and it is not so diet after all. (He is buying eight six-packs in fear of shortages.)

I don’t understand the EBT system. How is it that customers ahead of me pull out not one, but often go through three or four cards before they cobble together enough plastic credit for the full tab? Where does one acquire multiple cards?

4:00 PM

I am talking ag pumps at home with some farmers. The water table here has gone from 40 feet in 2011 to 82 feet now — the result of four years of constant pumping combined with below-average rain and snow runoff, and the complete cut-off of contracted surface water from the Kings River watershed (don’t ask why). I lowered one 15-hp submersible to 100 feet (the well is only 160, which used to be called “deep” when the water table was 40 feet). “Lowering” means less water pumped, more energy costs, a waiting list for the pump people, and sky-high service charges. The renter promises to lower the other one, whose pump is pumping air, now well above the sinking water table. My house well is only 140 feet deep. I just lowered the pump to a 110-foot draw, and decided to get on the “waiting list” for a new domestic well. (Prices for drilling by the foot have increased fivefold, and are said to go up monthly).

If the drought continues, one will see two unimaginable things by next spring: thousands of abandoned older homes out in the countryside from Merced to Bakersfield, and tens of thousands of acres on the West Side (water table ca. 1,000 feet and dropping) will go fallow if they are row-crops. And if orchards and vineyards, a mass die-off will follow of trees and vines. (Note that Silicon Valley’s Crystal Springs reservoir on freeway 280 is “full.” No Bay Area green activist is arguing either that the deliveries through massive conduits should be stopped at the San Joaquin River to be diverted for fish restoration, or that the entire project is unnatural and a scar on Yosemite Park, warranting shutting down the huge transfer system in favor of recycling waste water for showers and gardens.)

5:00 PM

I’m on a PG&E off-peak rate schedule, so I’m waiting until evening to turn on the air conditioner. It is 104 degrees outside and 96 degrees inside the house. As a youth, we used a tiny window, inefficient air conditioner far more in the 1960s and 1970s than I ever do now with central air. Given power rates, the idea of a cool home in the valley is so 1970s.

6:00 PM

I take another walk around the farm. Good — no one has yet shot the majestic pair of red tail hawks yet, who greet me on their accustomed pole. But I do notice someone has forced open the cyclone fence around the neighbor’s vacant house. It was put up to stop the serial vandalizing. (What do you do after stealing copper wire? Go for the sheet rock? Pipes? Windows? Shingles?)

7:00 PM

A friend calls and mentions that local JCs had a spate of car vandalizations. This time targets are catalytic converters (for precious metal salvage?). I get the impression that today’s Gothic looter and Vandal is more ingenious than the state’s work force. Note the new California: the citizen is responsible for picking up trash or keeping a car running clean with a converter. The idea that a bankrupt state would create a task force to go after such thievery is absurd. I appreciate California logic: don’t dare suggest that massive new commitments to ensure social parity for millions of new arrivals through increased state legal, medical, criminal justice, and educational programs ever come at the expense of investments in roads, bridges, reservoirs, airports, or public facilities — or even the accustomed state services that one took for granted in 1970. To do so is nativist, racist, and xenophobic. What an illiberal state we’ve become.

8:00 PM

I’m on the upstairs balcony looking out over miles of lush countryside. It’s quite scenic, something in between verdant Tuscany and the aridness of Sicily. I can hear the ag pumps of the surrounding farms everywhere churning 24/7. In a normal year they would never be turned on, as river water irrigated the fields and recharged the water table.

Then come two sirens. Will the power go off? Quite often, someone after too much to drink goes airborne and hits a power pole on these rural roads. I got back inside in case things go dark to review the mail. The local irrigation district has not delivered water in four years (what do ditch tenders do when canals and ditches are empty?) and now wants a tax hike to keep up with increased expenses. In fact, half the mail seems to be drought information from various agencies. What was so awful about building just two or three one million acre-foot reservoirs, or raising Shasta Dam? We could begin today. When the taps at Facebook or the Google toilets go dry, will the state again invest in water storage?

10:00 PM

I turn on the local news and channel surf for 10 minutes. How well we take refuge in the absurd. This litany blares out: Bruce Jenner’s new sexual identity, the latest racial controversy, this time over the crashing of a private pool party and the police reaction, the Obama’s new stretch Air Force One jumbo jet, Marco Rubio’s one ticket every four years, Miley Cyrus’s bisexuality. I suppose if one cannot grasp, much less deal with, $19 trillion in debt, a foreign policy in shambles, the largest state in the union on the cusp of a disastrous drought, a Potemkin health care system, zero interest on passbook savings, and the end of all federal immigration law, then the trivial must become existential.

Goodnight, once great state…

Election Time Again

CONGRESS, STATE ASSEMBLY, STATE SENATE:

In elections past, I could just say “Vote Republican or Die!” However, now, with the new “jungle primary” system, you may have two Democrats running against each other in many places. So use your best damage control judgment.


GOVERNOR: Neel Kashkari

This is probably futile, as Governor Brown is too entrenched. And in fairness, “Governor Moonbeam” has not been as bad as I had feared. Still, I will protest vote for Mr. Kashkari on these issues:
1. Judicial Appointees (see “California Supreme Court Judges” section below)
2. The “high speed rail” (sic) boondoggle
3. Neel Kashkari hasn’t signed onto a “Transgender Bathroom Bill” or other such nonsense.
4. The 2nd Amendment
5. Prison realignment / early prisoner releasing (see also Proposition 47 below)
6. “Cap and Trade” Tax Increase and other “Climate Change” fraudulent “science” (no, fudging data to make it fit your computer model is NOT science), in order to bilk us proles filling up our gas tanks
7. Pension reform of state workers

What is sad is that apparently back in the Republican Primary, the GOP Establishment pushed Mr. Kashkari over the Tea Party favorite, Tim Donnelly, because Mr. Donnelly dared address the Elephant In California’s Room—the illegal alien problem. And the GOP Establishment is too afraid, or perhaps too greedy for cheap gardeners and maids, and doesn’t want to address that.


LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: Ron Nehring

For the same reasons as Governor above, plus Gavin Newsom’s truly smarmy character.



SECRETARY OF STATE: Pete Peterson

The Issue: Voter IDs.

The Democrat Dishonesty here, claiming “discrimination”, is enough to make any sensible person disgusted. Although I suppose we are discriminating against key voting blocs such as Non-Americans, Deceased Americans, Fictional Americans, Canine Americans and Feline Americans. All important Democrat voter groups.

On a lighter note, I am reminded of the classic 1980’s teenage movie “The Breakfast Club”, where, when the Jock high school character asks the Nerd high school character why he has a fake ID, since the Nerd is shunned by the “in” crowd at school and can’t drink and party with them anyway, the Nerd replies, “So I can vote!” As a kid in the 1980’s, I understood that well.


CONTROLLER: Ashley Swearengin

While her opponent, Betty Yee, has done nothing particularly Demunistic or Commiecratic, Ms. Swearengin deserves massive kudos for her financial acumen as Mayor of Fresno, keeping the City Of Fresno in the black—at a time when most San Joaquin Valley cities and towns were and still are on the skids.


TREASURER: Greg Conlon

Given the term limits rules, California politicos have to play “musical chairs”. Current Controller John Chiang is now trying to make the jump to Treasurer.

However, Greg Conlon has championed realistic pension reform, something badly overdue in the state government.

ATTORNEY GENERAL: Ronald Gold

Current Attorney General Kamala (Commie-lah) Harris has a hostility to self-defense and a propensity to coddle criminals if they are the right color, and it is nauseating. We are lucky not to have a Ferguson, Missouri incident in this state yet.

And lest you think Ronald Gold is just another crusty conservative Republican, he has actually talked about legalizing pot, on the grounds that the Prohibition laws we now have are not realistic.


INSURANCE COMMISSIONER: Ted Gaines

A former State Assemblyman and now State Senator in my area, and all around good guy. He also opposes Propositions 45 and 46 (see below).


CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT JUDGES:

This issue has not been discussed much, but this up or down, yes or no plebiscite is probably *the most important matter* on this ballot, given the Left’s propensity to appoint judicial tyrants who impose their whims upon us all. We must remove judges who read into the Constitution what blatantly does not exist, and read out of the Constitution what blatantly *does* exist. Hence, I have this bolded.

Where I do fault Governor Brown, it is mostly *here*. Brown’s appointments have been abysmal.

We must restore the Rule of Law, rather than continue the Rule Of Whims that we have had ever since the overturning of Proposition 8. Even if you DO think homosexual relationships deserve the *exact* same legal status as a marriage, then such matters are to be hashed out in the legislatures, not imposed by tyrants in black robes. The Constitution is utterly silent on this matter. There is NO reference to sexual orientation whatsoever in the Constitution. Not even so much as "I'm a little bi-curious..."

However, the Tenth Amendment tells us that the powers not delegated to the United States federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. That means this issue needs to be hashed out in the legislatures, not subject to Roe-style hijacking.

See also: http://www.judgevoterguide.com for judges in your local area. Meanwhile, for the state as a whole:


Justice Goodwin Liu: NO!!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps the most nauseating and Rose Bird like justice we have now is Goodwin Liu, appointed by Jerry Brown after the Republicans in the US Senate blocked Obama from appointing him to a Federal Bench. Ever wonder why we can’t get a death row murderer the execution he so righteously deserves? You can thank Goodwin Liu and his ilk for that. See also Affirmative Racism and forced School Busing.

“Liu's criticism of Judge John Roberts and especially his statement during Samuel Alito's Supreme Court nomination: "Judge Alito's record envisions an America where police may shoot and kill an unarmed boy to stop him from running away with a stolen purse; where federal agents may point guns at ordinary citizens during a raid, even after no sign of resistance, where a black man may be sentenced to death by an all-white jury for killing a white man, absent [an] analysis showing discrimination, is not the America we know. Nor is it the America we aspire to be"[25] was targeted by Senate Republicans as proof of his lack of judicial temperament and partisanship. Liu later apologized and said that his words were "unduly harsh".[26]

Enough said. Kick this tyrant in black robes out.


Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar: NO!

Goodwin Liu’s understudy.


Justice Kathryn Mickle Weredegar: YES

Has been there since the days of Governor Dukemejian, and she has not let the Power Of The Bench go to her head.


COUNTY COURT JUDGES:

For Santa Clara County:

Justice, California State Court of Appeal; District 6
Miguel Marquez–  NO
Adrienne M. Grover–  NO
Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian–  YES
Franklin D. Elia–  YES
Eugene Milton Premo–  YES

Judge – Superior Court; County of Santa Clara; Office 24
Matthew S. Harris-- YES
Diane Ritchie-- YES

For Sonoma County:
Justice, California State Court of Appeal; District 1, Division 1
Jim Humes–  NO
Kathleen M. Banke– YES

Justice, California State Court of Appeal; District 1, Division 2
Therese M. Stewart–  NO
J. Anthony Kline–  NO

Justice, California State Court of Appeal; District 1, Division 3
Stuart R. Pollak–  NO
Martin J. Jenkins–  YES

Justice, California State Court of Appeal; District 1, Division 4
Ignazio John Ruvolo–  YES

Justice, California State Court of Appeal; District 1, Division 5
Terence L. Bruiniers–  YES
Mark B. Simons–  YES


For Sacramento County:

Justice, California State Court of Appeal; District 3
Vance W. Raye–  YES
Louis Mauro–  YES
Andrea Lynn Hoch–  YES
William J. Murray, Jr.–  YES
Jonathan K. Renner–  NO
Elena J. Duarte–  NO
Ronald B. Robie– YES


SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION: Marshall Tuck

Mr. Tuck may be talking a Big Reform Talk, and we shall see how well he walks the School Reform walk. Still he is much better than Teacher Union Stooge Tom Torlakson.


STATE BALLOT INITIATIVES: 
I am increasingly of the mind to get rid of these, since they seem to be very prone to manipulation and take the onus away from our elected state representatives to actually legislate as they should. However, since they do in fact exist, here we go:


Prop 1 – Water Bond: YES, albeit qualified.

This is a long way from a perfect measure, but it’s as good as it gets in California these days: a $7.545 Billion water bond that spends $2.7 billion of that bond for new water storage!!! In other words, Real Dams! This is much better than the “bait and switch” of the so called “water bonds” of the last decade or more, which were environmental initiatives in disguise. However, the latter still exist in this initiative.

The rest of the bond? It consists of:
--$725 million for water recycling and possible desalination—sort of useful.
--$810 million for “regional water projects”—sort of nebulous, as the wording of the initiative includes environmental gimmicks, but the wording also includes rainwater capture and wastewater reuse. See “Text Of Proposed Law, Chapter 7, sections 79740 to 79747”
--$1,495 million (or $1.495 Billion) for “Watershed protection and restoration”-- wildlife programs in disguise
--$1,420 million (or $1.42 Billion) for “Water Quality”—environmental gimmicks in disguise.
--$395 million for flood protection—perhaps worthy, but not increasing water supply!

If that sounds breathtakingly underwhelming, remember that’s $2.7 billion more than the multi-billions of dollars of “water bonds” that were nothing but wildlife programs in disguise that we’ve spent in recent decades.

Sadly, this initiative doesn’t overhaul the environmental laws that vastly inflate costs and it squanders a great deal more that won’t be used for storage, but it is a step away from the lunacy of the Watermelon Left (or “Green” Left) that adamantly opposes it (see “Arguments” section) and this alone merits support.

While I tend to regret bond financing because it is more debt rather than pay as you go, and the actual costs turn out to be about double the actual price tag, at least this initiative finally *builds more dams*, something long overdue,. So I must say YES, albeit a qualified YES.


Prop 2 – The Rainy Day Fund, a.k.a., Stop Us Before We Screw Up Again: YES.

This repeals much of Prop 58, a vat of Schwarzenegger snake-oil sold to voters as the panacea to the state’s budget woes. It wasn’t. Prop 58 promised an iron-clad reserve, but in reality, the governor could suspend it any time he wanted. He did.

What I like most about Prop 2 is that to raid the required budget reserve, both the governor AND the legislature must agree and then, only for a specifically declared emergency. In a nutshell, it requires the legislature and governor to do what they did voluntarily during the Governor Deukmejian era in the 1980s. Still plenty of loopholes, but better than what we have today.

The opposition to this initiative is coming from the school boards who like the spending straitjacket we were put into by Proposition 98 of 1988. Prop 98 means that a minimum percentage of the state budget *must* go to Education spending—regardless if California has a natural disaster that year, regardless if a serious crisis happens in this state’s economy, no matter what. I oppose spending mandate “budgetary straitjackets” in general.

NOTE: I do, however, support mandates that *additional*revenues get spent in certain ways. For example, since the California Lotto was sold to us as “for the schools”, then by gum, the revenues from it should go *to the schools*, and not get raided for other government programs. Since fuel taxes were sold to us as “for roads and transit”, then by gum, the revenues from them should go *to the roads and transit*, and not get raided for other government programs. Surplus from the Lotto? Then dole out more prizes. Surplus from fuel taxes? Then lower the fuel taxes. You get the idea.


Prop 45 – Price Controlling Health Insurance, a.k.a., If You Thought Obamacare Was Bad: NO!!!

This is a trial lawyers’ measure that give the state insurance commissioner the power to set health care rates. Sound good? Doctors and other health care providers are already opting out of Obamacare because of artificially low rates; this compounds the problem for California. The good news it you’ll have cheap health insurance. The bad news is you won’t have a lot of providers accepting it.

This kind of mentality was what led to California’s Car Insurance Fiasco of 1988, where people thought they could just *price control* car insurance without addressing why car insurance was and is so costly in the first place. Price controls are indeed the Demunist mentality at its most Commiecratic. And surprise, surprise, one of the major backers of this terrible proposition is “Pee Wee Harvey” Rosenfeld, who also brought us the Car Insurance Price Control Fiasco that was Proposition 103 in 1988.


Prop 46 – Trial Lawyering Health Care, a.k.a., If You Thought Prop 45 Was Bad: NO!!!

Another trial lawyers’ measure that quadruples the amount they can get for pain and suffering awards. Prop. 45 means lower provider reimbursements and Prop. 46 means higher provider costs. It also requires drug testing for doctors, which is a stupid idea but I appreciate the poetic justice in making THEM pee into little cups for a change. Anyway, it won’t matter because your doctor will be out of state.

Prop 47 – Decriminalizing Property Crime, a.k.a., Rose Bird’s Revenge: NO!!!

We have gone overboard on drug-related offenses, which makes *part* of the Proposition a good idea.

However, this Proposition can only be described as a drug-induced hallucination, in the way that it *decriminalizes* many crimes against property. Sorry, property rights matter. Robbery, Burglary, Theft and Grand Larceny are serious “strike” crimes and deserve serious time. This initiative reduces many grand-theft crimes to misdemeanors and would release an estimated 10,000 incarcerated criminals back on the streets. Basically, it is a burglar’s get-out-of-jail free card. Good news for alarm companies and the handful of 60’s radicals nostalgic for Rose Bird – bad news for the rest of us. Hide the silver.

But this Proposition, along with recent moves by Governor Brown and the Legislature, is part of a disturbing trend: the watering down of the “three strikes” felony laws. When the Brown Administration boasts of keeping within the budget, even while building the “high speed rail” (sic), keep in mind that they are achieving this by moving some state inmates down to County Jails, and letting some County Jail inmates out early. This will come back to bite us all in the future.


Prop 48 – More Indian Gaming: NEUTRAL / Undecided.

Argument For: This ratifies Indian Gaming compacts for two tribes in economically depressed regions of the state that would allow those two tribes to open a casino near a major highway. This will be an economic boon to the struggling local communities there.

Arguments Against:
1. Opponents see this as a gateway to letting *any* tribe move its casino wherever it wants.
2. Is encouraging more games of chance just encouraging more of a “something for nothing” mentality in general???

Observations:
1. One of the big contributors to the NO campaign is—surprise surprise—ANOTHER Indian Casino! Gee, I thought the gaming tribes were supposed to share revenues with the non-gaming tribes, because not every tribe is lucky enough to be near the main highway.
2. Let us once and for all debunk the notion that somehow those lofty “Native Americans” have deep respect for the land more than any of the rest of us: “We found the bones of our sacred ancestors on that parcel when they were building the freeway by it—so naturally we put a casino on top of them!” :-D

How to REALLY win Hispanic votes

Allan Wall nails it:

OK, here's an interesting result from a California State Senate special election in a district that is 60% Hispanic, in which Republican Andy Vidak beat Hispanic Democrat Leticia Perez.

According to Breitbart, "Vidak, a working class candidate, resonated with working class Hispanics in the district who also saw how coastal California elites were not putting their bread-and-butter interests first." 

Breitbart also reported that: "Vidak ran broadly on "the bifurcation of California: the coastal liberal elites versus the Valley folks." On a more local level, Vidak's theme of "fish versus farmer" resonated with Democrats in a District where the unemployment rate is 15% and as high as 30% in some communities in the District." 

Rather than allowing hysteria about the Hispanic vote to provoke them to pander to the leftist Hispanic establishment, some astute Republicans might be able to use local issues to win elections. They could at least try to campaign against amnesty on the grounds that it hurts employment prospects among American citizens. It's worth a try.

THIS is how the GOP wins Hispanic votes.

Not by "Hispandering" amnesties that import a larger underclass that will vote Commiecrat, but by engaging those Mexican Americans who actually *run businesses*--as farmers, as restaurateurs, as contractors, as oil and gas drillers, as truckers, as "Jose' the Plumber". All of whom are being hurt--badly--by the Eco-Fiend Left in this state.

The "Green" Demunists in California have been shutting down agribusiness, "fracking" for oil and natural gas, road improvements, irrigation water and hydro power.

Wake up, GOP, and turn the "Brown Businesses" against the "Green" Eco-Fiends, who are really "Watermelons", "Green" outside, but Pinko Red inside.

How is allowing more illegal aliens in going to help the actual Mexican American and other Latin American CITIZENS who have always been here?

Update (08/02/13): Maybe not. Vidak is already pandering, too.

The Frogman's Prophecies

A great blog post from "The Dissident Frogman", a French expat, now in America, about what we have done to ourselves in this most recent election:

Now that a slight majority of American voters have caught the French, I will share visions of the times ahead with those who are still immune to this ghastly Western Occidental disease, and with the infected themselves.

Hear ye, hear ye, Great American Tribe: thou hast lost thy ways and hast forged thyself chains of iron. Hear the Revelations of the prophet Frogman, he who wandered through the barren wasteland of Europa under a wooden yoke and witnessed the terrible plight and dreadful blight that will now descend upon thee:

TO THE GLOATERS crowing over the comments sections of every conservative and Republican websites: burn through every gallons of that sweet euphoria as quickly and fully as you can, for it will very soon become stale and leave only the putrid taste of rot in your mouth. I know you, for I’ve seen your peers and walk among them in the Land of the Frenchmen. Tomorrow, the effects of your plebiscite will pierce through the exhilaration of your victory, and they will crush you as much as they afflict those you mock today.

Just as they did in France, the policies you champion will affect everyone’s standards of living, directly and indirectly. If you are wealthy today, your wealth will dwindle tomorrow. If you are already poor or believe yourself so, you will never rise and prosper.

Soon, just as the French did, you will realize that you’ve elected yourself servants of an unaccountable oligarchy courted by a small intelligentsia to which you will never belong, from which you will never profit and of which you can never get rid. Then, you will join the legions of what the French call les déçus de la Gauche, or "the Left’s disappointed"—Indeed, even in Left wing France, the Left never fails to disappoint its followers for it is made of and thrives on fallacy and deceit.

Just as the French, when you realize that the effects of the political model you tout today cascade and accumulate to the point where you have effectively handed that oligarchy a permanent majority that begins to feed on its pawns—you—it will be too late and your loss will be complete.

Understand this: I am not a US citizen nor a resident in the USA, so this is not the bitter retort of a sore looser. This is a prophecy from a foreigner who has seen your future because he lives in it: you, my friend, who laugh today will cry twice as much tomorrow.

TO THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF LIBERTARIANISM, whether followers of the cranky Dr. Ron "The Bane of the Fed" or hipsters swapping commodity traders’ jokes on Zero Hedge as they wink-wink-nod-nod "wait for the Titanic to sink". You who decided against opposing the Eurobama Project rather than banking on the Romney & Ryan ticket who, despite all its shortcomings (whether real, perceived or invented) would nevertheless have been far more receptive to most Libertarian ideals and would have been easier to steer in the directions you favor than the Chicago Machinist will ever be, here is an enigma:

Have you ever heard about the French Libertarian Party?

Me neither. True, there’s a couple of pretenders to the title, but they are merely social clubs, where every now and then attendants get a tingling in the pants by quoting good old Ludwig Von Mises and Claude Frédéric Bastiat between connoisseurs. Their true distinctive feature when compared to the other French is that they won’t even bother entertaining any delusion of grandeur or relevance—they know they have no place in the French political process, and no chance to ever gain one.

So hear this, Friends of Gary the Third Party and other Principled Abstentionists: by choosing ideological purity over strategic thinking, you’ve effectively hedged your own political future in the one competing force that is most capable of propelling you into irrelevance and oblivion—as we say in France: Bravo!

Just as in France, once a majority of the US population—no matter how slim—has tasted the poisonous fruits of the State, they will demand the keys to the cornucopia and regard with disdain, scorn or hostility any soul brave or foolish enough to call it unsustainable and propose to lock the larder. The fact that you are right will not matter at all. Just as they do in France, the people will ask for more and tout de suite, never realizing or willing to acknowledge that they are effectively cannibalizing themselves and their offspring—as we’ve been saying in France for quite a while: Après moi le Déluge!

Thank in no small part to you, Obama now has more time to multiply the locusts, thus depleting your future ranks. You shall keep fancying yourselves as The Smart Ones, when compared to those Neanderthaloid Conservatives and Liberal Zombies, until one of you wonders aloud why the lights went off in the Libertarian cave, and hears only the echo in answer.

Understand this: I am not a US citizen nor a resident in the USA, so this is not the bitter retort of a sore looser. This is a prophecy from a foreigner who has seen your future because he lives in it: you, my friend, who didn’t oppose Obama today will be politically extinct tomorrow.

TO THE REPUBLICANS, INDEPENDENTS AND, YES, DEMOCRATS—after all, between Lot and his family, even in Sodom there were a few righteous—who saw that great Evil roaming the land, pledged to do anything in their power to stop him but ultimately couldn’t muster a big enough army.

Some of you believe that shifting demographics have now relegated the American Right to a permanent minority status, and that to regain the initiative, you must disown the "Right-wing nut jobs" and "move to the center". That notion would be stupid and self-defeating enough at face value, even if it wasn’t echoed by a slew of Left wing pundits, who smelled the blood and see your doubts as a unique opportunity to demolish you further.

For the results of such a ‘strategic’ move, one needs only to turn, once again, to France.

Look at the French Right. See it? Look harder, as it is now very difficult to distinguish from the Left. Back in 1981, when the French elected their first officially Socialist president in a long time, and the French Right went on a losing streak, collapsing at the polls under what was then dubbed la vague rose ("the pink wave". Rose in French meaning both the color pink and the rose flower, emblem of the French Socialists) they figured, quite cynically, that they had to give the voters whatever they demanded—and moved left. They are now only nominatively Right wing, yet are consistently chided and scorned by the French press as right-wingers, ultra conservative and free market fundamentalists.

In other words, the French "Right" is now always wrong, and only has herself to blame.

I am not going to lecture you on what Republicans and conservatives should or shouldn’t do—if you want patronizing political advice, ask any of the other 60 millions+ French, they’ll happily oblige—but in light of the rapid destruction of the French Right, I’ll just state the obvious: what you need to change isn’t your principles, it’s the narrative.

Some of you believe that societal collapse or civil war are coming soon hereafter, and advocate stocking supplies and ammunitions for the conflict they see ahead.

Truly, there isn’t such things as too much food and weapons, and yes, collapse and conflict could come to America. Yet it is not written.

The various flavors of Social Democrats who run Europe (into the ground, admittedly), and share so many features and aspirations with Obama have learned the mistakes of the less subtle autocrats who preceded them. If France can teach you one thing, it’s that Obama will never bleed you dry or push you beyond the threshold of revolt, only to the nearest edge of it: you are now more likely to bleed from a thousand cuts over a thousand years than to get a quick, if violent, resolution to the relentless assaults against your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness—snarky Libertarians who opted to let Obama squat in the Oval Office unopposed on the deluded notion that "it doesn’t matter" and will bring the fall of Leviathan sooner, may want to take notice.

Even the French have not yet managed to completely plunder and ruin their comparatively much weaker economy, and the good Lord knows they’ve been trying for the best of the last 80 years or so.

Just like in France, the rates of taxes, duties and fees unleashed upon the good folks of the US of A will not only augment, they will also metastasize over an incredibly varied and ever expanding range of products and services, in addition to your income and profits. You will suffocate under an unrelenting onslaught of new regulations, red tape and audits by a growing army of government agencies and bureaucrats all tasked with the mission of controlling that nothing passes through their nets, and punishing you ruthlessly for anything that does.

And still: you will live through it, and you will live well enough—for a given value of "well"—to never really have a legally and morally unquestionable motive to rise up in arms and go full scale de oppresso liber on the tyrant. This will not be, as many of you imagine when they think about France, North Korea only with more cheese, wine and broads who don’t shave their armpits. Instead, you will find yourself in a multi-generations limbo of "too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards"—as, ironically, a Libertarian once said.

Just like in France, this will turn you into a depressed, cynical and pessimistic people, until they finally manage to kill your spirit whole, and nearly everybody is on the dole.

That’s when they’ve won. They do not need to kill you, they just have to break you.

Understand this: I am not a US citizen nor a resident in the USA, so this is not the bitter augury of a sore looser. This is a prophecy from a foreigner who has seen one of your possible futures while living in it.

Yet you, my friend, are all that’s needed to change that destiny.

If, as some say, this is all about demographics, then look at demographics and rejoice: no matter the color of your collar, you are the the productive class, the entrepreneurial class, the creative class—quite literally, the working class—the likes and numbers of which France has never seen. You are guided by family morals and work ethics that are long gone in France, assuming they’ve ever existed here. And you are living under the cover of the most formidable declaration and system of self-governance, one that simply never existed in France.

Thus the only future I can predict is the one where you go French and surrender. You, and only you can turn this debacle around and me into a false prophet.

Sadly, some among you seem to have all but given up. Reading through your reactions in the comments at PJ Media, Breitbart, Hotair and others, I see cries that "the Republic is dead", and even claims—shocking claims, for this Americanophile—to burn the flag because "it doesn’t mean anything anymore".

Old Glory doesn’t mean anything, simply because you woke up last Wednesday to a measly 4 millions popular votes difference? A battle of nearly 121 million voters finds you outnumbered by four and hear, hear: the Republic is dead and the war is lost?

Try and tell that to those Americans who found themselves outnumbered and outgunned by far more disadvantageous enemy ratios, whether in a forest in the Ardennes, a hill in Korea, a valley in Vietnam or a mountain in Afghanistan. Try and tell them you’re considering giving up and burning the flag in despair.

Even though I am just a French, I am quite certain I can predict their reaction.

Once again, you don’t need a lecture from this Frenchman, but it seems to me that some of you, in the emotion of that unexpected electoral defeat, forgot this simple fact: America is always outnumbered.

This unique nation, founded not on feudal or religious fault lines but on a radical philosophy of individual freedom isn’t the norm in this world: it is an anomaly. If you needed a quick and simple reminder on the basis for American exceptionalism, there you go.

America is always outnumbered and, until the rest of the world sees the guiding light and builds shining cities on America’s model—if that day ever comes—America will always be outnumbered.

Yet it doesn’t matter: America’s strength isn’t in numbers, it’s in her soul.

Hear this final prophecy America: only one man can kill the Republic, and it isn’t Barack Obama. The one man who will kill your Republic is the one man who will last give up and renounce it.

Don’t you dare be that man.

 

It's not 1980 anymore

Many patriots are left asking, "How could this happen? Surely people remember the Jimmuh Cartur disasters? How could another liberal fool get elected twice?"

However, the sad truth is that the American electorate has changed. Some of this is merely a new generation, or maybe two, coming of age without memory of The wretchedly liberal late 1970's. As one comment I ran across on Yahoo! News put it: "Dude, I wasn't even *born* when Jimmy Carter was president...."

For months, conservatives have been likening the conditions of the 2012 presidential race to that which saw the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. The American Spectator's own Jeffrey Lord proclaimed that President Obama could be beaten handily“because the past four years really have been Jimmy Carter's second term.”

Victor Davis Hanson of National Review Online put it this way: "What does 1980 tell us about 2012? Barack Obama, like Carter, can run neither on his dismal four-year stewardship of the economy nor on his collapsing Middle East policy."

Hanson went on to write: "The winner probably won't be decided by old video clips, gaffes, or even campaign money, but by turnout and the October debates --depending on whether incumbent Obama comes across as a petulant Carter and challenger Romney appears an upbeat Reagan. As in 1980, voters want a better president -- but they first have to be assured he's on the ballot."

This goes even more so for California. I remember joking on a chat board, Yelp.com, that the Jerry Brown for Governor campaign theme song should be "You're No Good" by Linda Rondstadt, and again, a good many younger readers did not understand what I was getting at.

Well, Obama did come across as petulant in the debates while Romney was upbeat. And yet it wasn't enough. At the end of the day, despite Obama's dismal economic record and an ineffectual Middle East policy, his well-oiled organization turned out his vote and Romney could not. Romney could not break through in key states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan nor could he put Ohio and Florida back in the Republican column.

And yet Obama didn't win on turnout alone. He won because America has changed. We're not in 1980 anymore.
(...)
At the dawn of the '80s, a critical mass of the American population knew what life was like in the Great Depression and WWII, understood the evils of Soviet communism and did not take kindly to American diplomats being held hostage. But when we have an education establishment that is skeptical of the use of American power and weans high school students on Howard Zinn's communist A People's History of the United States, should it come as a surprise that many shrug when an American ambassador is murdered? Still, Romney had not one but two chances to expose the folly of the Obama Administration's insistence the attacks in Benghazi were a result of a YouTube video, not a terrorist attack and twice he failed to do so.

In 1980, Americans would not tolerate rising unemployment. In 2012, not only is high unemployment accepted as a fact of life but receiving food stamps is encouraged. There was also no concept of gay marriage in 1980. In 2012, Obama endorsed gay marriage (albeit sooner than he wanted to on account of the loose lips of Joe Biden). Nor was it conceivable in 1980 that a sitting Commander-in-Chief's re-election campaign could have put out a commercial featuring a woman likening support for the President to the loss of her virginity. Thirty-two years ago, being wealthy and successful was considered something to aspire to and be proud of. Today, it is a source of bitterness, envy, resentment and, in some quarters, the very epitome of evil.

In the final analysis, it must also be remembered that a significant segment of the electorate was emotionally vested in Barack Obama in a way it never was with Carter -- and I'm not just talking about the mainstream media. Obama received a near unanimous vote from African-Americans and a substantial majority of Hispanics as well as people under 30 (especially women). That doesn't necessarily mean we've entered the permanent Democratic majority which Ruy Teixeira and John Judis wrote of a decade ago. It is certainly possible that America could again elect a conservative Republican President. But conservatives must recognize that the American electorate has changed and that 1980 has come and gone, never to return.
 

Moreover, demographics have changed. And NO, Hispandering with an amnesty or phony "comprehensive immigration reform", or a "DREAM" (sic) Act, won't change the voting trends. People with a favorable view of big government will vote for the Democrats, even the full blown Commierats. Victor Davis Hanson proves:

As far as the grand bargain, the Dream Act, comprehensive immigration reform, or whatever the rubric of the day that a clueless Republican establishment employs: just imagine the opposite to learn the truth. If the Republicans were to agree to amnesty for, say, two million who were brought here as children and are in school or in the military, do you really think the “Latino community” in response would celebrate and then also agree to deport those who did not qualify? Or do you imagine the deal would at least result in deportation for those entirely on public assistance or with a criminal record? Did the Reagan-era Simpson-Mazzoli Act amnesty lead to 1) an end to calls for amnesty, 2) closing the border, 3) a surge in Latino support for Republicans, or 4) none of the above?

Does a conservative message of lower taxes, less government, and fewer regulations really appeal to Latinos en masse, who define La Familia values as something that includes a big and paternalistic government, along the Spanish/European model? 

(...) 

So family values are defined somewhat differently from the Republican silk-stocking view that Latinos are natural Republicans — if only (fill in the blanks). Again, I would like the Democrats to introduce the Dream Act, and then watch whether closed borders, E-Verify, and deportation of criminals were part of the deal. That is not to say one should not talk in softer tones and be magnanimous; but one is fooling oneself if one believes a cheap Dream Act endorsement would mean anything.
(...)
The truth is that the present system of illegal immigration is quite logical and thrives because too many are invested in it, well aside from corporate employers. California is a permanently blue state. Latino leaders, many of whom can no longer speak Spanish, represent a vast underclass of illegal aliens whose numbers warp all statistics on Latino achievement and become a permanent argument for set-asides, more government help, higher taxes (think: who just voted for California’s higher taxes?), affirmative action, and changing demography. Why simply give that up, and join a party of the melting-pot, up-by-the bootstraps, self-reliant, shrink-the-government types? To go to Parlier or Orange Cove is to drive through a maze of federal/state clinics and government facilities, many eponymously named by those who secured the government funding for them. No, I am sorry: I don’t see a natural Hispanic constituency for what Mitt Romney was trying to offer.

VDH concludes that once again, the Demunist Commiecrats played their class warfare card and the Republicans did not effectively respond:

I also confess that stupid ads like Lena Dunham’s sex-equals-voting-for-Obama ad and stupider ones like the African-American garbage collector, who said Romney never talked to him at the curb, worked. 

I sense the same misinformation about the “wealthy” and the “job creators:” Just think the opposite and the truth emerges. Most in the top brackets voted for Obama; eight out of the ten wealthiest counties did at least. Many of the people I know in Silicon Valley, who this year passed on the signs and bumper stickers, nonetheless voted for Obama. The fact is that the Democratic Party, to generalize, is largely now the subsidized lower classes who pay no federal income tax and receive a growing array of federal largess coupled with, on the other end, a technocratic blue-state elite making over $200,000 annually. If taxes go up under Obama, at least theirs will, too. Another truth: the Republican Party is basically made up of a shrinking middle class and upper middle class, flanked on both ends by Democrats who, for various reasons, on one end, either do not appreciate their success or, on the other, hate them for their hoity-toity, un-PC tastes and culture. Yet how strange that the two ends of the Democratic coalition have so little to do with each other — a partnership based on cynical opportunism on both sides. All that is missing are the Roman tribunes, or perhaps the wealthy demagogi.

What Lost the Election?

Marco Rubio would not have won the Latino vote this year. A ticket of Condoleezza Rice and Herman Cain would not have won the black vote. Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley would not have won the Asian vote. Obama, in brilliant fashion, marketed himself as the above-the-fray great healer and our post-racial future, while his surrogates waged the most vicious race-, class-, and gender- divisive campaign in history. More likely, what lost the race for Romney — a decent and strong candidate — was instead the failure of the white working classes to turn out to vote en masse.

Why so? I was in Michigan, near the Ohio border, for all of September, and each night was stunned by the variations in the class warfare ads, mostly brilliant and effective in painting Romney as your kill-Detroit, wet-suited, jet-ski-setting, multi-home employer — a veritable John Kerry, John Edwards, or Ted Kennedy — and “us” as a disabled, homeless, starving, and out-of-work collective victim as a result. Millions, who did not prefer Obama, just stayed home and thought that they would pass on voting for the guy who had too much money and gave them their pink slips. In 2004 they saw Kerry as the wet-suited wind surfer; in 2012 it was Romney.