California Propositions

Prop 19: Legalizing Pot -- Symbolic YES.

I say symbolic because even if this initiative passes, it will not happen. It will immediately get tied up in litigation, both state and federal, that will go on for years. So as a result, both the nightmare scenarios outlined by opponents and the alleged increased revenues and decreased Mexican drug cartel activity outlined by proponents simply are not going to happen, at least not anytime soon.

I actually have respect for those who vote NO. My nephew told me that he thinks society has enough problems with alcohol, and do we really want to have a larger pot problem? From someone who has had a drinking problem, and who watched his pothead father graduate to methamphetamine, this is not a frivolous point.

The proposed law also provides that "no person shall be discriminated against or denied any right or privilege" for pot use, inviting a lawsuit every time an employer tries to require a drug test, for example.

There is also the obvious question: Do we really want a legally dumbed down society to the point where "the munchies" are the topic of discussion? I rather regret most of the times I spent getting stoned, they being in adolescent angst and all that.

Nevertheless, I am of the mind to vote YES, simply because with "medicinal" marijuana, we already have a fairly large exception by which thousands of people in this state are toking away, and probably passing it on to the non-afflicted. Our current anti-marijuana enforcement efforts are tantamount to telling Katie to bar the door after all the horses have already left the stables. To have such an unenforceable law is to invite contempt for the law in general.

As for the concerns that marijuana leads its users on to harder drugs, here there is an undeniable element of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who seek out marijuana tend to get it from those involved with the manufacture or sale of other illegal substances, such as methamphetamine. If it were legally grown and sold, as tobacco is, that would not be the case.

Finally, I am increasingly of the mind that we should "Legalize It, Then Demonize It", much as has been done with tobacco. And smoking tobacco has declined among the American population, relative to previous generations. Youth are still more likely to smoke than older adults, but that was true with prior generations as well. There is a very simple reason for this. Cigarettes and alcohol, for teenagers who wish to seem more grown up, are easy and false outward symbols of maturity, whereas genuine adult recognition and earned achievement are much harder to come by. (Nope, "Joe Camel" had nothing to do with youth smoking, "The Marlboro Man", however, probably did.)

I am reminded of the Wickersham Commission of 1929-1931, which, while acknowledging that Prohibition was very problematic and ineffective, would not urge its repeal.

Franklin P. Adams, a columnist for the now defunct New York World newspaper (from which the term "World Series" comes, as the newspaper was the original sponsor of the American Baseball Championship Game) wrote a ditty that mocked the government's report:

Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can't stop what it's meant to stop.
We like it.
It's left a trail of graft and slime,
It don't prohibit worth a dime,
It's filled our land with vice and crime.
Nevertheless, we're for it.

And this kind of ditty is as appropriate now as it was in 1931.

Prop 20: Congressional Redistricting. (Symbolic?) YES.

Prop 20 extends the redistricting reform applied to State Senate and Assembly districts by previously passed Prop 11 to Congressional districts. Congressional districts are currently drawn by politicians in the Legislature. This measure would take control of Congressional redistricting away from the Legislature, giving it instead to a citizens commission.

Prop. 20 would end political gerrymandering. It’s widely agreed by good government advocates that politicians draw districts for political advantage, creating safe seats for incumbent politicians and protecting the majority party’s position of dominance.

This finishes the work we began in 2008 to get redistricting decisions away from self-interested state legislators and into the hands of a bi-partisan commission, to reduce the gerrymandering rampant in California politics. The original initiative was just for California state districts - this simply adds the Congressional ones.

I suspect this might face legal challenges, so it *might* be symbolic.

I really would like to see districts that respected municipal and county boundaries, trying to keep first counties, then cities, then neighborhood districts, together as much as possible, and were not bizarrely drawn. Obviously, a mega county like LA will have many representatives in it, but let us try to have districts that don't carve up established municipalities, established neighborhoods, or ZIP Codes.

Have you ever used Wikipedia to see what your Congressional District looks like on a map? You might be surprised, infuriated, or amused. My own district looks like this, and it is actually one of the less bizarre ones.

Most other California districts, like this, and this, and this, and this, have no respect for city or county boundaries whatsoever. But the real champ of gerrymandering is this one. To "represent" certain liberal coastal enclaves, it is 200 miles long and in some places only 200 yards wide!

And what do those districts have in Common, except for mine? DEMOCRATS. Suppose the districts were drawn more with realistic city and county boundaries in mind. Might California be a little more balanced? I think so.

Meanwhile, it is time to boycott "The League Of Women Voters", who claim this:

"Tucked into the proposed law are problems that would make it harder to protect California's diverse neighborhoods."

In other words, The League Of Women Voters favors the kinds of ethnic Bantustan districts that allow corrupt creeps like Maxine "Kill Whitey and Free OJ" Waters to continue to get re-elected time and time again. Shame on you, League of Women Voters. Non-partisan, my fanny. Not anymore anyway.

Prop 21: Robbing Drivers To Pay Parks - NO.

Right now, state park users pay a nominal fee that helps pay for upkeep, assuring that those who use our state parks help pay for them. This measure ends shifts the cost to the rest of us by imposing an $18 per car tax increase whether we use the parks or not. Stealing money from highway travelers used to be called "highway robbery." Now it's called "Proposition 21."

Moreover, there is no guarantee that there will not be "bait and switch". Funds raised ostensibly for parks still may not be used to fix the parks, but may instead be raided by wasteful spending politicians to squander on other unrelated pet projects.

Frankly, in a time of budgetary woes, it may be time to reconsider and sell off those parks which have very low use, which have to be plowed or grazed by Cattle periodically to prevent wildfires, and lack facilities for campers. Coe State Park, in the Diablo Ranges east of San Jose, comes to mind. Originally one ranch gifted to the State, it has annexed most neighboring ranches and grown many times its original size, but it still lacks the most basic of park facilities and is inaccessible to most Californians.

Prop 22: State Hands Off Local Government Tax Money - YES.

Prop 22 is designed to protect local funds from being borrowed by the state government. In recent years, as the state has faced massive budget shortfalls, Sacramento politicians have partially made up for these shortfalls by borrowing funds from local government treasuries. Funds borrowed included money that local governments would otherwise have been available for services including transportation and public safety.

Sacramento politicians have raided their treasuries resulting in layoffs of police officers and fire fighters and hindering plans for transit projects that were supposed to be paid for with gas tax revenue. Instead, the Sacramento political class robbed local governments, forcing others to pay for their reckless spending and misplaced priorities. Prop 22 protects local funds from further raids by the state government ensuring funds are used for those local projects they were intended for, and not to bail out state level politicians.

This takes a giant leap toward restoring local government independence and protecting our transportation taxes by prohibiting state raids on local and transportation funds. Local governments are hardly paragons of virtue, but local tax revenues should remain local.

Many people whose opinions I respect oppose this initiative, on the grounds that it will make it harder for state authorities to defund local "redevelopment agencies" who abuse their eminent domain powers. But I think that is a problem of property rights, not of local control.

Prop 23: End The Man-Made Global Warming Hoax - YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In 2006, Sacramento's rocket-scientists enacted AB 32, imposing draconian restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions (yes, that's the stuff you exhale).

They promised to save the planet from alleged "man made global warming" and open a cornucopia of new "green" jobs. Since then, California's unemployment rate has shot far beyond the national unemployment rate and the earth has continued to warm and cool as it has for billions of years.

Prop 23 merely holds the "Environmentalists" to their promise: it suspends AB 32 until unemployment stabilizes at or below its pre-AB 32 level. For this the leftist propagandists call it "anti-science".

Gee, it sure is "science" when the global warming "scientists" have been caught red-handed adjusting / fabricating data to fit the "computer models". If the data doesn't fit the models, make it fit! And when they get caught doing this for decades, they merely assert that "the science is settled!" that much louder.

It has become fashionable to re-label "global warming" as "Climate Change" to account for lower than normal temperatures and Little Ice Ages in recent decades. And that in a sense is true--over time the climate is always slowly changing. But those of us who remember the 1970's claims that industrial man, by stirring up sun-blocking particulate matter and putting more water vapor into the atmosphere, was going to cause a "New Ice Age", are skeptical.

Solar orbital cycles, sunspots, volcanic eruptions, natural ocean current shifts, and massive natural non-industrial sources of Carbon Dioxide, water vapor, and methane, all of which dwarf man's output, could not be reached for comment.

I am evenly split over whether these "scientists" and the politicians who trumpet them are sinister liars, or whether they are sincere "true believers" just looking for a "religion for the Godless." But either way, they do have motives: more research grant money at best, crypto-totalitarians looking to take away our mobility and therefore freedom at worst, and those looking for another excuse to tax us somewhere in between.

The disgusting propaganda opposing this initiative makes me ill. For starters, we have the vilification of two "Texas" oil companies, Valero and Tesoro. Gee, Valero and Tesoro between them operate four major refineries in the State of California, oilfields in the Bakersfield area, and have hundreds of service station franchises here. Outsiders? Really? Because they have their HQ's in Texas? To escape the punitive and business bashing California State Taxes, who wouldn't? Meanwhile, the aforementioned and exposed climate change hoaxers seem to come from around the world.

On a related note, it is time to boycott "The American Lung Association", who claim this initiative "causes pollution", even though this initiative doesn't lower a single standard for emissions of *real* pollutants (such as nitric oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons, the stuff that actually makes up "smog"). Carbon Dioxide is NOT a pollutant. Plants like it.

Shame on you, American Lung Association. From here on, any Christmas Seals, Easter Seals, or other American Lung Association fundraising letters featuring the poor asthmatic kids go right in the trash. Not one red cent to a corrupted organization. Not. One. Red. Cent.

Prop 24: The So-Called "Tax Fairness Act" - NO!!!!!!!!

Prop 24 repeals recently enacted changes in the tax code that were designed to somewhat ease the tax burden on California businesses.

Prop 24 raises taxes on California in three ways. First, Prop 24 ends a practice called “elective single sales factor” that allows businesses to choose between basing their tax burden on sales or property and payroll, giving them the ability to use whichever formula results in a lower obligation.

Second, Prop 24 ends a tax credit designed for research and development that allows companies to shift tax credits between profitable and unprofitable operations. Because research units do not usually earn profits directly, the ability to shift credits between units assists research and development units.

Finally, this proposition ends the practices of “net operating loss carryback,” a tax procedure that allows businesses to use previous tax years operating losses to reduce their liability in a current profitable year.

Various Democrats in the state are calling these "corporate tax giveaways". Giveaways? As if those revenues are theirs to give? Really, the Soviet Politboro-like arrogance of these people is something to behold. And that is why I call those various Democrats, "Commiecrats" or "Demunists".

Ultimately the reality is that for the most part the businesses don't end up paying the business taxes - we do. And when that can't happen, the businesses flee the state and are accused of "exporting jobs".

Business taxes can only be paid in three ways:
1. by us as consumers (through higher prices),
2. by us as employees (through lower wages) and
3. by us as investors (through lower earnings on our 401k's).

Proposition 24 is a jobs tax that will make unemployment worse when the ranks of the jobless are already at record highs. California’s business taxes are currently one of the highest in the nation and California has been ranked by numerous studies as one of the worst places to do business. Imposing billions in new taxes on employers would make the state an even more inhospitable environment for jobs and economic growth, increasing the exodus of jobs out of California and discouraging new investment.

Prop 25: Simple majority for new budgets - NO
Prop 25 allows a budget to be passed with a simple majority rather than the currently required 2/3 vote. The proposition also eliminates the power of referendum on the budget and budget related bills, making budgets take effect immediately upon passage with no opportunity for voters to stop implementation.

If the Legislature fails to pass a budget on time, Prop. 25 requires that legislators forfeit their salaries and living expense allowance. That is a nice gimmick to sell the proposition, but the fact is that all too many state politicians have independent fortunes beyond their salaries anyway. Governator Ah-nold served without pay for years.

Now in fairness, this initiative does not directly make it easier for the Powers That Be to raise taxes--that would still require a 2/3 vote (unless that tax is relabeled a "fee"; see Proposition 26 below). However, this initiative does make it easier for the Powers That Be to spend money--and raising taxes follows that, surely as night follows day.

Prop 25 also does not place any restrictions on what can be included in a budget related bill, so politicians could also more easily pass other legislation currently requiring a super majority simply by inserting it into budget related bills. Super majorities are currently required for the passage of taxes, placing bond proposals on the ballot, and for imposing new environmental regulations on the Delta.

So in other words, while this Proposition does not directly challenge the 2/3 rule for new taxes, it is a stalking horse for ultimately overturning that rule. Their ultimate goal is removing the ‘super majority’ vote on the budget and raising your taxes.

Prop 26: Subjecting New Fees to 2/3 vote - YES

Prop 26 requires that new state fees be passed with a 2/3 vote of the Legislature and establishes the right of citizens to approve, either by two-thirds or majority, local taxes. California currently requires new taxes to be approved with a 2/3 vote of the Legislature, but only requires a simple majority vote to pass levies defined as “fees.” This has encouraged politicians to define new taxes as “fees” to ease passage. Prop 26, with limited exceptions, imposes the same requirements now applied to taxes to fees.

Under the Sinclair Paint vs. California Board of Equalization Court decision (1997), virtually any tax may be increased by majority vote as long as it is called a "fee," gutting the 2/3 vote requirement in the state constitution to raise taxes.

Surprise, surprise, surprise, over the last decade there have been many more fees. Billions in hidden taxes may be imposed on Californians simply by redefining them as "fees".

The proliferation of fees have added to California’s high tax anti-business climate. Closing this legal loophole by making the passage of fees no easier than the passage of taxes would protect jobs and California taxpayers. Prop. 26 rescinds the Sinclair Paint decision, restores the Constitution, and calls a tax a tax--as it should be.

Prop 27: Abolishing Citizens Redistricting Panel - NO!!!!

Prop 27 rolls back the previously passed Prop 11. which took the power to draw Legislative districts away from the Legislature and gave the responsibility to a newly formed Citizens Redistricting Commission, consisting of four Democrats, four Republicans, and three independents. It hasn't even been fully implemented yet, and already the gerrymandering forces want to undo it! Prop 27 would once again allow legislators to draw their own districts, and includes a “poison pill” provision that would kill Prop 20 if Prop 27 passes with more votes.

November 2010: The Spirit of 1994--Only Greater!

At first, I thought to myself that I have to blog more than just a theme of "Defeat the Demunists, Crush the Commiecrats, Vote Tea Party Republican or die!" It couldn't be *that* simple, could it?

But really, this time, it IS that simple. It's even simpler than that. Too many of us have been had. Too many of us, without realizing it, voted in the most Soviet leaning and frankly un-American government in American History. The old school "Boll Weevils" and "Blue Dogs" in the Democrat Party, who used to prudently curb the excesses of the leftist Democrats, are just about extinct. More sectors of the American economy, from auto manufacturing to banking to insurance to medicine, have been nationalized, expropriated, or otherwise commandeered in peacetime than ever before, in just two short years. By contrast, the governmental excesses of the "New Deal" took 12 years and the necessity of a World War to get that severe, and the excesses of that were rolled back.

When I was a student at Berkeley, I used to shudder at the thought of a large enough number of the pseudo-academic "professors" ever getting into positions to make public policy. Well, over the last few years, a large enough number have--and the results are not pleasing. I am reminded of why I chose NOT to go into academia, as one dissenting professor who did sadly but humorously relates.

Domestically, those who decried the deficits spent by the previous administration in eight years, decided to spend several times that amount in eight months. And for what? For a "fiscal stimulus" given the Orwellian name of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" (ARRA), that spends nearly a trillion dollars, as of now just a bit more than the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts put together, a "Stimulus" that was for the most part nothing more than welfare payments. Here and there we do get another freeway lane.

But I can tell you what happened to much of California's ARRA money: it has kept the state running for the last four months. Until recently, California had no budget agreed upon, meaning that for July, August, September and October, no state monies could be appropriated. Yet the Department of Health Care Services kept on paying out the state's "Medi-CAL" programs, and how much of that went to illegal aliens and their children I wonder, with ARRA federal money. And there are many more California State agencies, bureaus, and departments.

So we have an unsustainable federal program, paying for unsustainable state programs. In decades past, Federal "Fiscal Stimulus" at least built real things, and gave us awesome Hoover and Grand Coulee Dams, Interstate Highways and rockets to the Moon. Today? It gives us environmental impact reports for projects that enviro-weenies will only block, that will realistically serve no one, and will never get built. The proposed "high speed rail" boondoggle is a case in point.

Moreover, this unprecedented spending binge has not worked because it cannot work: government cannot inject dollars into the economy until it has first taken those dollars out of the economy, either by taxation, by currency devaluation/inflation, or by borrowing from the very pool of capital that would otherwise been available to investors in real productive enterprise.

This is NOT stimulus, it is redistribution of wealth from producers to parasites, and it clearly does not create real jobs. It creates a further dependence upon government that cannot be sustained.

Meanwhile, the investors and entrepreneurs, who could get the economy going again, are sitting it out and biding their time. And why shouldn't they? The more the Obama Administration castigates insurers, businesses and doctors, the more it raises taxes on whatever profits they manage to earn, the more those who create wealth are sitting out, neither hiring nor lending. The result is that traditional self-interested profit-makers are locking up trillions of dollars in unspent talent, rather than using it to take risks and either lose money due to new red tape or see much of their profit largely confiscated through higher taxes.

And while the economy rots, the Obamunists want to condone the entry of more illegal aliens, even as entry level job wages plummet and teens find it harder to work than in the past. I was shocked when my teenage nieces told me that entry level jobs, which were there for the asking when I was their age, were not so easy to come by.

Then again, perhaps there is another theme to all of this: "We Need The Spirit of 1994--Only Greater!" After all, the Clinton administration initially went quite Leftist in 1993 and 1994.

But after the Great Political Upchuck of 1994, Bill Clinton realized this wasn't going to work. He sacked the most leftist of his advisers (does anybody remember the radical Ms. Achtenberg, Mr. Cisneros, Ms. Elders, Mr. Reich, Ms. Shalala? All of whom had to leave under clouds of scandal and disgust) and Billy Jeff put in pragmatic types as replacements. In the end, although loathsome to many Conservatives on a personal level, Billy Jeff did a couple of downright Conservative acts: (1) welfare curtailment and reform, and (2) cutting the capital gains tax rates in half, from 28/20% short/long to 15/10%, fueling the investment boom of the mid to late 1990s. The Obamunists have undone the former under ARRA, which extends unemployment and other benefits indefinitely, and the Obamunists are poised to undo the latter next year.

But Bill Clinton wasn't all about Leftist Marxism. Bill Clinton was all about--Bill Clinton.

Unfortunately, in President Obama, I see a much more leftist ideologue. This was best evidenced last summer in Cairo, when President Obama prostrated himself and America before Islam--in light of all that is going on in *that* religion--and falsely claimed certain historical achievements on the part of Islam — all the while outlining Western Civilization's shortcomings.

And he did this sort of thing at home too. Remember the condescending Pennsylvania "bitter clingers" speech, and the psychoanalysis of his own grandmother--who lovingly raised him while his father abandoned him and his bimbo mother went from academic fad to academic fad--accusing Grandma of alleged “typical white person” sort of racism? Remember his mentors such as the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright, and Weather Underground veteran Bill Ayers?

When I heard the put-America-down rhetoric of Obama and his minions, I thought "Where had I heard that before? Oh my God, it can't be that he really absorbed and believed the Commie leftover pap from cretins like Frantz Fanon or Herbert Marcuse or the still living Communist scumbag Noam Chumpsky???

Evidently, yes. This is the "progressive" (sic) thought of unrealistic political ideals. The failure of the West to achieve the super ideal, despite the otherwise astonishing progress that has been made in the human condition, becomes the warrant for a hatred of Western culture that oozes from "progressive" politics, and that is eager to make the West the arch-villain responsible for global failure and suffering. As Obama and other Leftist cultural elites wallow in this masochistic guilt, the enemies of the West — first communism, and now jihadism — understand that this self-loathing is the sign of cultural decay, the dying spasms of a civilization that no longer has faith in the goodness of its foundational beliefs, and so no longer will fight for itself.

And all this crap, at home and abroad, led to the Tea Party Movement. This movement has taken up with the Republican Party, and in fact has in more than a few primaries purged the "Grand Old Party" of those Republicans who won't fight back hard enough, purged those Republicans who will "go along to get along", purged those who are RINOs (Republicans In Name Only).

We aren't going quietly into a future of decline, appeasement, surrender, and a diminished future.

And we're tired of being called (blank)ist and (blank)ophobic or otherwise smeared for refusing to accept the decay.

I won't say *all* Democrat candidates are treasonous commie leftovers at this time, but to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, "I believe nine out of every ten are, and I will inquire closely in the case of the tenth. The nuttiest Bible-Thumper Republican is much better than the average Democrat."

Perhaps one day the "Boll Weevils" and "Blue Dogs" will make a comeback, but for now, they are nearly extinct.

OK, on to the candidates and propositions.

GOVERNOR: Meg Whitman

There is a theme song for Jerry Brown. Or, on a more sinister note, there is another one...

Meg wasn't my primary choice, but the dishonest smears against her, by that political whore Gloria Allred (how aptly named), have made me a fan.

Moreover, do we really want to return to Jerry Brown's "era-of-limits" - "small-is-beautiful" - "don't build things and people won't come", new-age nonsense? Do we really want criminal coddling judges like Rose Bird and Cruz Reynoso appointed again? Have we forgotten what that was like?

And I laugh at claims like "Meg is trying to buy the election." Boo hoo hoo. The only worse thing than buying an election is acting like it's an entitled birthright for a formerly young punk but now elderly member of an elite political family.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: Abel Maldonado

I have to laugh at Gavin Newsom's sleazy attacks against Abel Maldonado on the Tax Increasing issue. Yes, RINO Abel did sign onto a tax increase as part of a budget deal. However, for Gavin Newsom to make an issue out of that--is the cast iron pot calling the copper tea kettle a little burnt at the bottom.

And Gavin Newsom? Mr. Sanctuary City for the murderers? This smarmy clown? For real?

SECRETARY OF STATE: Damon Dunn

Four words: Photo Identification for voting. Damon Dunn supports, Debra Bowen opposes. Voter fraud anyone?

As for the boo-hoo-hoo nonsense about "minority voters being disenfranchised", Damon Dunn, who is African American and grew up modestly, might have something to say about that.

CONTROLLER: Tony Strickland

His opponent, John Chiang, tried to pretend he was above the Governor during the budget battle. Sorry, but the office of Controller isn't.

TREASURER: Mimi Walters

Good lord, is that corrupt fossil Bill Lockyer still shambling through the Capitol halls? Is he still pushing his shakedown lawsuits of automakers and gun manufacturing businesses? Since he is no longer Attorney General, no, thank goodness. But he is still as anti-self defense, and hence anti-freedom, as ever. And he has played "Musical Chairs" with state executive offices for too long.

ATTORNEY GENERAL: Steve Cooley

From a "Sanctuary City" for those who go on to murder, to an unwillingness to push the death penalty on the scum who deserve it, his opponent, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, is a Bolshevik Bimbo in a city infamous for Bolshevik Bimbos like Boxer and Pelosi.

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER: Mike Villines

And again, the Democrat Iron Pot calls the Republican copper tea kettle a little burnt at the bottom! Assemblyman Mike Villines, like Abel Maldonado, did go wobbly and sign off on a tax increase as part of a budget deal. For this, sleazy Democrat Assemblyman Dave Jones, who never met a tax increase he didn't like, is trying to make hay. Please California don't fall for this.

US SENATOR: Carly Fiorina

I don't care if her tenure at Hewlett Packard was not so hot, *anyone* would be better than the (bleep bleep) Barbara Boxer. I will refrain from cursing, but she really makes the blood boil. And who can forget this clip?

What is really nauseating is listening to Boxer harp about how at HP Fiorina "exported" jobs. And Ma'am Boxer really doesn't get that her taxation and her mandates and her lawsuits and her business bashing drove the jobs out, does she? Wow.

India progressed only when it adopted free markets. People do not outsource 1-800 numbers to socialist "paradises", like Hugo Chavez's bandito Venezuela. The sad truth is, thanks to Barbara Boxer and her ilk, it is now better to do business in India than it is here.

Cheap labor, you say? Which begs the question of who drove up the cost of labor? Who did that? Boxer did. Taxation is a big part of the cost of labor.

When Boxer and her ilk have made business into something to be excessively taxed for their welfare state, they should not expect the businessmen and women to remain here. They should not expect them to stay in America and lose their money for the purpose of becoming the fodder of National Health Care. They should not expect them to produce, when production of goods and services is punished with ever higher statist demands. Do not ask, "Who is exporting the jobs?", Ma'am--You are.

JUDGES: CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT:

My criteria here is how they voted to uphold or overturn Proposition 22 of 2000, which defined marriage by statute as only between a man and a woman, and how they voted on Proposition 8, which had to Amend the California Constitution after Judicial Piracy overturned Proposition 22.

I DON'T CARE if you think "Gay Marriage" is a good idea; there is NOTHING in the Constitution about it. The ultimate legal status of homosexual relationships (and yes, such relationships do merit some legal status) should be decided by the people, or by their elected representatives in the Legislature. I want The Rule Of Law, not The Rule Of The Anus. I want a representative republic, not judicial tyranny.

Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye: YES

She wasn't there during the Gay Marriage brouhaha, but she would have voted to stop judicial tyranny. She was appointed to the Municipal Court by Deukmejian, the Superior Court by Pete Wilson and the Appellate Court by Schwarzenegger. She is opposed by the "Green" (Watermelon) Party, which means she must be good.

Ming W. Chin: YES

In the 4-3 decision on Proposition 22, he was one of the three trying to stop judicial tyranny. Likewise for Proposition 8, where fortunately he was in the majority.

Carlos R. Moreno: NO!!!

He is one of the judges who struck down Prop 22 and voted to do the same to Prop 8. He voted against the right to self defense, and against Prop 21 of 2000, which had tougher penalties on gang related crime.

JUDGES: LOCAL AND REGIONAL:

This is a helpful site you can use, and this is another one. I do not always agree with them, they make the perfect the enemy of the good (see their votes on Ming Chin and Tani Cantil-Sakauye), but they are helpful.

SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION: Larry Aceves

Two words: Charter Schools. Groups of concerned parents form a public school for their children's particular needs. My ex-wife taught at one that focused on English immersion for Slavic immigrants. They work well and bring about better results. Larry Aceves supports them, Tom Torlakson, a teachers union stooge, blocks them.

STATE PROPOSITIONS: This post is getting really long, and those will come next time.

Happy Halloween

But don't eat too much junk food, drink too much alcohol, or think about Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer, because otherwise you will be sick....

Seriously, liberal killjoys take the fun out of Halloween and make me sick...

Twas the night before elections
And all through the town
Tempers were flaring,
Emotions up and down.

I, in my bathrobe,
With a cat in my lap
Had shut off the TV,
Tired of political clap-trap.

When all of a sudden
There arose such a noise
I peered out my window
To see Obama and his boys.

They had come for my wallet
They wanted my pay
To give to the others
Who had not worked a day!

He snatched up my money
And quick as a wink
Jumped back on his bandwagon
As I gagged from the stink.

He then rallied his henchmen
Who were pulling his cart,
as they were determined
To tear my country apart!

'On Fannie, on Freddie,
On Biden and Ayers!
On Acorn, On Pelosi'
He screamed at the pairs!

They took off for his cause
And as they flew out of sight
I heard him laugh at the nation
Who wouldn't stand up and fight!

So I leave you to think
On this one final note—
IF YOU DON'T WANT SOCIALISM
GET OUT AND VOTE !!!!

GOD BLESS AMERICA, OUR ONLY HOPE!

YES on Measure D--City of Arden Arcade

GO ARDEN ARCADE. Neighborhoods that have incorporated have taken control of their destinies and improved conditions for their residents, as Citrus Heights (1997), Elk Grove (2000), and Rancho Cordova (2003) have done. No doubt, tough economic times will continue, but if a new city can bring a sense of law and certainty to the community, there will be an economic revival to the area that will improve the condition of the neighborhood and increased revenues will follow, just as happened with Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, and Rancho Cordova.

Nor would this shortchange the County for business tax revenue, so long as the County makes a hard (but fair) "revenue neutrality" payments bargain. For years, the area has subsidized much of the county anyway, but will be paying a neutrality agreement for years down the road to make sure that Arden Arcade does not leave the county short.

Sacramento County is just about the only county in the state with such a large urbanized population in unincorporated areas. The counties make perfect sense for implementing state programs, for the courts, and for local services in unincorporated areas that are just sparsely populated farms and ranches. It's only when the unincorporated areas turn into densely populated cities and suburbs that the county government becomes too unwieldy and not responsive enough.

Empirically, I remember Citrus Heights when nearly all of what was Birdcage Walk and much of Sunrise Mall was vacant and boarded up. Now that shopping area is thriving. This in an area that was "built out" with little or no vacant space, just like Arden Arcade. That tends to happen when you have neighborhood officials just a little way down Greenback Lane who give a damn, as opposed to county supervisors who, no matter how well intentioned, are busy enough with the courts and other countywide services.

It is amusing that both sides in the Arden Arcade incorporation debate claim to agree that Arden Arcade should not be annexed by the City of Sacramento. Given how poorly run Sacramento (city) proper is, understandably so. NOBODY in Arden Arcade wants to be part of "KJ's Kingdom," Although that is better than formerly "Fargo's Folly", formerly "Serna's Stalinism", formerly "Rudin's Red Square".

Yet the county is finding it more and more difficult to provide urban services, something that counties really aren't designed to do.So in other words, it is a matter of time before either Arden Arcade incorporates, or it gets annexed by the City of Sacramento. Perhaps Mike Duveneck and his "Stay Sacramento" (county) group ought to be honest and re-name themselves "Join Sacramento" (city).

As for the implication from the Sacramento (Soviet) News And Review that Sacramento (the region) is "cracking up", it was never united to begin with. The proposals for a Sacramento city-county merger were voted down because such a megacity would be even more unwieldy and far more unelectable and unaccountable than what the region has now. Far better to have local cities, no matter how balkanized they are, that have to respond to the local citizens. Neighborhoods that have incorporated have taken control of their destinies and improved conditions for their residents. Citrus Heights (1997), Elk Grove (2000), and Rancho Cordova (2003) are all more pleasant now than they were before incorporation.

Above all, I am disgusted with the rather lame arguments and claims of incorporation opponents! When you go to the "Stay Sacramento" website, all they do is cite how incorporated cities like Bell and Maywood, down in LA County, are badly run. Gee, that happens when a city is full of illegal aliens, who are either too busy trying to make an underground living and are accustomed to rampant corruption, rather than USA citizens who are more likely to give a damn and much less likely to accept rampant corruption. Other lame arguments against Measure D include the following:

"No City of Arden Arcade. Less government means less government."

I hear otherwise right-thinking citizens who parrot this as a reason to oppose Arden Arcade incorporation, forgetting entirely that *more local* government is less government. Federalism wept.

"Arden-Arcade is a really stupid name for a city."

As opposed to Elk Grove? Or Rancho Cordova? Or Citrus Heights? If the adjacent neighborhood of Carmichael had joined in, they could have called the whole new city "Carmichael."

"There are too many people lined up to run for office if D passes. It makes one suspicious that the whole thing is a power grab."

And they are volunteers with tiny stipends. How dangerous for people to care about their neighborhood and want to improve it by incorporating!

"Pro Measure D people use scare tactics that Sacramento City wants to gobble up and incorporate Arden-Arcade. This is bogus, since both residents of Sacramento and Arden-Arcade would have to support that... which won't happen."

That is absolutely FALSE. Voter approval of annexation is not required. State law allows a city to annex portions of the county upon a mere vote of the council and petition to LAFCo that includes a revenue neutrality study (which is already done).

In fact, Sacramento City Councilman Steve Cohn proposed to the city council that they allow residents to vote on annexation, and the only reason it didn't happen is because the City Council struck down that idea, fearing more conservative Arden Arcadians would upset their lefty liberal city.

But what if they took a second look at Arden Arcade's two major (if run-down) shopping centers and one major (if run-down) Auto Row, from a neighborhood that contributes more to County coffers than it takes in, and decided to make a revenue grab, as liberals are wont to do? I guess that is why Sac proper studies annexation (See here). See also here, from pages 2-125 forward.

"Arden-Arcade is too small to run it's own services (unlike Rancho or Citrus Heights), without raising taxes for residents & businesses. It can get along just fine staying part of Sacramento County."

It has about as many people as Citrus Heights, two major (if run-down) shopping malls, and one major (if run-down) "Auto Row". The LAFCO study proved not only it would go well without raising existing taxes (which is why the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association endorsed incorporation Measure D). The LAFCO economic report indicates that Arden Arcade is fiscally viable without raising taxes. They wouldn't have approved it for the ballot if that were not the case. LAFCO in fact is notoriously skeptical of incorporation, or of creating any new agency in general.

Why Obamacare must be repealed

Thomas Sowell has it-this is arbitrary tyranny:

For all its sweeping and scary provisions, ObamaCare is not nearly as important as the way it was passed. If legislation can become laws passed without either the public or the Congress knowing what is in those laws, then the fundamental principle of a free, self-governing people is completely undermined.

Some members of Congress who voted for ObamaCare, and who are now telling us that they realize this legislation has flaws which they intend to correct, are missing the point.

The very reason for holding hearings on pending legislation, listening to witnesses on all sides of the issue, and having Congressional debates that will be reported and commented on in the media, is so that problems can be explored and alternatives considered before the legislation is voted into law.

Rushing ObamaCare into law too fast for anyone to have read it served no other purpose than to prevent this very process from taking place. The rush to pass this law that would not take effect until after the next two elections simply cut the voters out of the loop-- and that is painfully close to ruling by decree.

Other actions and proposals by this administration likewise represent moves in the direction of arbitrary rule, worthy of a banana republic, with only a mocking facade of freedom.

These include threats against people who simply choose to express opinions counter to administration policy, such as a warning to an insurance company that there would be "zero tolerance" for "misinformation" when the insurance company said that ObamaCare would create costs that force up premiums.

Zero tolerance for the right of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution?

This warning comes from an administration with arbitrary powers that can impose ruinous costs on a given business.

Those who are constantly telling us that our economic problems are caused by not enough "regulation" never distinguish between regulation which simply enforces known rules, as contrasted with regulation that gives arbitrary powers to the government to force others to knuckle under to demands that have nothing to do with the ostensible purposes of the regulation.

As more businesses reveal that they are considering no longer buying health insurance for their employees, as a result of higher costs resulting from ObamaCare legislation, the administration has announced that it can grant waivers that reduce these costs.

But the power to grant waivers is the power to withhold waivers-- an arbitrary power that can impose millions of dollars in costs on businesses that the administration doesn't like.

Recent proposals from the Obama administration to force disclosure of the names of people who sponsor election ads would likewise open all who disagree with Obama to retaliation by the government itself, as well as by community activists and others.

History tells us where giving government one arbitrary power after another leads. It is like going into a Venus fly-trap, which is easy to enter and nearly impossible to get out of.

And yes, there is a rationing board, a "Death Panel", if you will. So certain treatments will not be available for you, even if you *can* afford them, if the Obamunists deem it not societally useful.

Voter Fraud? Will the Demunists Cheat November 2nd?

Michelle Malkin worries, and not without reason.

Iowahawk: Beltway Adventure

For those of us old enough to remember "Zork" style computer games on monochrome screens.

A Bogus "Nannygate" Smearing Meg Whitman

So Gloria Allred (how aptly named) is up to her usual stunts.  But once and hopefully not future Governor Moonbeam needed help, and here she comes, with Meg's illegal alien ex-maid.

Oh puhleeze. Meg Whitman Found Out Her Maid Was Illegal And Very Properly Fired Her, So It's Like A Big Scandal We Should All Be Upset About Or Something!!! OMG! Unfortunately for the illegal and Allred even the Lamestream media had to admit that the illegal lied when she applied for the job, and Whitman fired her when she admitted that. Falsifying information and providing a fake S.S. number are crimes, just like being here illegally.

Whitman played it straight. But hey, that's the beauty of the Catch-22. If Whitman had been super diligent in investigating her maid's background, then she would be--gasp--racial profiling.

This is the Demunist trick of damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if -you-don't. Small wonder businesses flee the state, and now the nation in droves.

Evil Republicans! Your candidates comply with the law when apprised of being out of compliance with it!!

Why can't you just flout the law all the time like the Demunists do? The media will cover for you, right? Oh, wait.....

Expect multiple stories of mass Republican jaywalking and sidewalk-spitting to follow. Rumor has it that Meg Whitman, at night, in her pajamas, drinks directly out of the milk carton without using a glass and puts it back in the fridge.

Victor Davis Hanson: 5 Reasons Why Liberalism Is Doomed

As is "democratic socialism". Europe and the "blue states" in America are slowly decaying. This bears repeating:

1) Policing the police. There is no check on an omnipotent government. We see that already with the hundreds of tax cheats in Congress and the White House, and the embarrassments of a Tim Geithner or Tom Daschle. Who oversees industry when industry is run by government? Another agency? Do you sue in federal court to stop state industry pollution, when the payout will hamper the ability to pay the federal court staff itself? When I take brush to the dump, I am careful to tarp the pickup bed (I know the dangers of, and fine for, flying debris). When I am behind a municipal garbage truck, I both expect to be splattered by flying garbage and know there is no punishment for the driver; he is tenured and his agency part of the same system as the sheriff’s.

When I see a Greyhound bus driver drive erratically, I expect he can be sued or cited by government. When a municipal bus driver recently almost hit me at a crosswalk — its driver smoking and text messaging all at once — I knew there was little redress. What is the transportation agency worried about — losing market share when it is a monopoly? Government is necessary, but the least is better than the most.

The new technocracy also finds mechanisms to live capitalistically while ordering socialism for others. Hypocrisy leads to endemic cynicism. A look at the careers of a Charles Rangel, Maxine Waters, or Chris Dodd, or the tax ethics of a John Kerry, suggest that our statist overseers simply feel exempt from the law in Animal Farm fashion. At the most extreme, one gets the Soviet nomenklatura, while in a less pernicious form the expense-account cheating EU bureaucrat.....

2) Demography. When one demands cradle to grave care, a classical (now scoffed at) reason for childbearing (to change diapers for those who might one day change your own in gratitude) is destroyed. And if there is no struggle to create income and savings (the state provides all needs; the state ensures against all risks; the state takes away most income; the state gobbles most inheritance), why worry about transcendence or passing anything along to children — or why children at all?

Agnosticism leads to a shrinking population and vice versa. If the state is the god, and defines happiness as social justice in the material sense, then the here and now is all that matters. The state defines morality as the greatest good for the greatest number — as it sees it.

Lost is a sense of individual tragedy, self-sacrifice, personal accountability for sin and transgression, and appreciation for a larger world beyond and after this one. A society that does not believe in a hereafter will be sorely disappointed that the state never quite satisfies its appetites. We see that hedonism well enough from Greece to California. “Never enough” (Numquam satis) is the new de facto motto.

3) Defense. It is far harder for a socialist state to defend itself — unless it is a tyrannical authoritarian one in the Hitlerian or Stalinist model. For a European socialist, why spend collective income on defense, when it might better go to more entitlements and redistribution? Just as everyone is "equal" at home, and social pathology "is a result only of deprivation and exploitation" that can be remedied by material redistribution, so too abroad all nations are of equal merit, with the more aggressive simply in need of a global version of Social Security, ObamaCare, or a 70% tax on wealthy nations to transfer "ill-gotten" funds to poorer ones. Evil is not intrinsic, but results from exploitation that can be remedied without deterrence.

4) Land of the Lotus Eaters? When most of us have public-sector, tenured DMV-like jobs, what is the incentive to do well at work? To increase efficiency to serve the state that always seems to pay our salaries regardless of our office’s productivity or the state’s financial health? To help the public who has the same attitude at work as we do (one statist can spot another a mile away)?

There is no good, no bad, just everything and everyone the same. We see that now in a socialization of culture, quite apart from government — in everything from degraded titles and honorifics to block-style socialist apartment buildings. (One does not have to go to Eastern Europe to see the ugly cinder block urban apartments; there are plenty in a France, Italy, or Greece or urban renewal in our large cities.) State-supported art, literature, and music are usually bland, about what you expect when art serves ideology or, like Dutch-supported art, is designed to provide employment regardless of merit. Our society becomes like tee ball, with good intentions replacing runs scored.

When I enter a state Athenian bank, I see 10 Greek employees literally doing nothing other than serving coffee to each other or stamping forms, and long lines of petulant customer clerks who are thinking, “Damn, they are doing to me what I do to them too at my own state job!”

5. Mediocrity. To ensure equality, socialism must take the top down. That is far easier than bringing the bottom up. In schools, that means far more invested in remediation than in honors. That prime directive translates into 15 valedictorians rather than one. In our fairer worlds, 75% receive As rather than 20%. We are heading to a society where we are degreed and certified — and all know very little. What would be the point of erudition when it would mean that recall, speech, writing, and reference would be beyond the majority’s comprehension and therefore of no social utility? Why have a Tolstoy when at the ministry of education a committee can issue novels with far better themes of diversity and gender equity?

Only in things less important like sports does pure merit still count.

Another September 11th to remember

On the 9th anniversary of 09/11/01, it might be good to remember another September 11th in world history:

On September 11-12, 1683, the jihad broke and ran from the Gates of Vienna, leaving 20,000 dead, and all their cannon behind.


After the battle, von Starhemberg emerged from the battered and starving city and kissed Jan Sobieski, calling him his "savior." For his failure, Kara Mustafa Pasha was executed in Belgrade on 25 December by order of the commander of the Janissaries. He was strangled with a silk rope pulled by several men on each end.

Barbara Boxer, Carly Fiorina, and "Outsourcing Jobs"

I was disappointed with Carly's performance in the first senatorial debate against the Bolshevik Barbara Boxer. Then again, I was disappointed with Carly's winning the primary.
And of course, Barbara Boxer brought up the canard about Carly Fiorina "exporting jobs" when she was running Hewlett-Packard.
And the wench Boxer really doesn’t get that her taxation and her mandates and her lawsuits drove businesses out of this land, does she? Wow.

Businesses leave our shores for cheap labor, the commiecrats say? Which begs the question of who drove up the cost of labor?

Who did that? THEY did.

Leftists, when you have made business into something to be excessively taxed for your welfare state, do not expect the businessmen and women to remain here. Do not expect them to stay in America and lose their money for the purpose of becoming the fodder of National Health Care. Do not expect them to produce, when production of goods and services is punished with ever higher statist demands. Do not ask, “Who is exporting the jobs?” You are.
You may notice the corporations *are not* going to Venezuela, where bandito commie leftover Hugo Chavez will steal from them, or to Afghanistan, where they might get blown up, or to Outer Mongolia, where there isn't any infrastructure to support industry.
Industry goes where the dealing is good. Either improve the situation for them here, or be prepared to watch them leave.
A huge part of why they leave, and of the cost of labor, is taxation. Deal with it. Tax a corporation? When it can't pass on the costs in higher prices, it moves. Even the Eurosocialists, who have high individual taxes up the wazoo, have low corporate ones.
If you want to have some protectionism to keep businesses here, then argue for that and accept the higher costs of products at home, and possible retaliation abroad.

Or go unionize workers over there.
But quit pretending that adding to the costs of doing business *here*, such as:
--business bashing "windfall profits" taxes (sorry, profit is GOOD)
--"Affirmative Action" (sorry, soft racism *is* bad)
--or the Global Warming carbon tax fraud (sorry, Carbon Dioxide is GOOD for plants)
--or higher taxation in general
doesn't encourage them to leave. Because it does. Period.

It is amusing to see Leftists chide patriots for "living in the 1950's" (culturally), when they definitely live in the 1950's economically--and which forces do people have more control over? Hint: not economic ones. The very businesses the Left thinks are omnipotent--all the while hating them--are at the mercy of economic forces too.

Joel Kotkin: The Golden State's War On Itself

While Joel Kotkin does correctly skewer the "progressive" eco-fiend leftists who have stifled development and parasitic unions that have bled public coffers dry, he skips over the immigration problem.

The changes Mr. Kotkin recommends, including abolishing the idiotic climate change laws, pension reform and deficit reduction are allnecessary conditions for recovery.

But necessary conditions are not sufficient. As another commenter noted, it is cowardice to ignore the tremendous social and economic cost of mass immigration from Latin America.

From the NR article "Catching Up to Mexico" by Alex Alexiev,

"In short, we are witnessing a highly advanced and prosperous state, long endowed with superior human capital, turning into the exact opposite in just one generation. What can be done to stop this race to the bottom? The answer is simple: California and Washington need to enforce existing immigration law. Unfortunately, it is difficult to convince the public that this is necessary, so deeply entrenched are myths about illegal immigration.

One myth is that because America is a country of immigrants and has successfully absorbed waves of immigration in the past, it can absorb this wave. But the argument neglects two key differences between past waves and the current influx. First, the immigrant population is more than double today what it was following the most massive previous immigration wave (that of the late 19th century). Second, and much more important, as scholars from the Manhattan Institute have shown, earlier immigrants were much more likely to bring with them useful skills. Some Hispanic immigrants certainly do integrate, but most do not. Research has shown that even after 20 years in the country, most illegal aliens (the overwhelming majority of whom are Hispanic) and their children remain poor, unskilled, and culturally isolated — they constitute a new permanent underclass."

Obama's Immigration Speech: Empty Platitudes

President Obama *could* be cutting through the red tape that is halting oil spill cleanup and plugging efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. But what is he making a speech for now? Amnesty for illegal aliens! Oh, I mean, "An Earned Path To Citizenship."

Like illegal aliens, who saw how they were allowed to stay anyway, will bother to comply with an "earned path to citizenship"? Especially when ACORN and other liberal groups will register them to vote anyway, and when bilingualism allows them not to learn English anyway, and when President Obama will allow the "unscrupulous employers" he talks about to get away with hiring them anyway?

And if they don't comply and don't earn their path, what then? Is any advocate of 'legalization' suggesting jail or deportation? Ineligibility for benefits and educational opportunities? A fine for not paying the fine? A sternly worded letter? What incentive is there for current criminals to take this magical yellow brick road of legalization? We've already been told that any sort of incarceration and then deportation is inhumane. And we've been told that enforcement of existing laws is impossible. But if this new, new monstrosity is passed, magically this will be enforceable?

Drew M. at AOSHQ nails it:

Obama just said something to the effect of 'illegal immigration makes a mockery of those going through the legal process'. Um, so the answer is to jump the illegals ahead of those playing by the rules? I guess my pants aren't sufficiently creased to understand that thinking.

Remember when Obama was considered a great orator? Why was that again?

My God, this is a speech filled with warmed over ideas, straw-men and catchphrases. At least it's being delivered in a low energy, stumbling manner.

I can only hope that this is Obama's "Malaise" speech, revealing the inept policies and empty rhetoric of this Administration. It certainly abounds with enough Obamunist Straw Men.

He says we're missing out on more Einsteins with our current laws. Yeah, that's what we're getting on the southern border. Millions of Alberto Einsteins. Of course, the liberal dupes will call the previous statement "hate speech". Like I am supposed to pretend that at this very minute, a truckload of people, each carrying a knife and a couple pounds of cocaine, are *not* making their way somewhere across the Mexican border.

I suppose he could be talking about the H-1B indentured servants for the tech industries. These are skilled and far better than illiterates (often in Spanish, let alone English) from south of the border.

However, what is happening in technology industries is the upper-class and white-collar version of what is happening in construction and agribusiness. In the tech field, the discouraged mostly white middle class workers have their potential wages bid down by H-1B's and so they leave technology and go work in accounting, finance, business, or now, given the liberal expansion, governmental bureaucracy. New immigrants from Asia, not culturally fluent in Americanisms or well spoken in English, can't follow them there.

In construction, manufacturing and agribusiness, the discouraged mostly black lower class workers have their potential wages bid down by illegals and so they leave that work and head off to welfare and drug dealing.

"Crime along the border is down", the Obamunist says. "It's more secure today than 20 years ago." Wow, news to those of us who live in Cali, let alone Arizona. All that was missing after that statement was a sitcom audience laugh track.

"Illegal immigration makes a mockery of those going through the legal process." Yes it does--and the answer is to make a further mockery of the legal process???

And then he brings up Straw Woman Emma Lazarus. Let us paraphrase it for the 21st century liberals:

Give me your criminals, your pushers, your huddled slavers yearning to run brothels, the wretched refuse of your failed state. I'll give them welfare checks!

In the absence of sensible border controls, that's exactly what we will be getting.

And, speaking of Emma Lazarus, let's remember what Ellis Island -- the Temple of the Immigrant -- really was. It was a processing center, holding facility, temporary jail, and quarantine. If you didn't qualify, you got sent home. Your name was processed through a bureaucrat who only spoke English. If you had any number of diseases, you were locked up until they could either send you home, you died, or you were no longer communicable. Ditto for Angel Island here on the West Coast.

And the biggest straw man of all -- "doing the jobs we won't"! The Obamunist actually has a self-fulfilling point here. If you go to Oak Park or Del Paso Heights around Sacramento here, or any other California ghetto for that matter, and offer the able-bodied high-school dropouts minimum wage plus room, board, and transportation to and from the farms and fruit orchards of "Apple Hill", let alone the orange groves in the San Joaquin Valley for the season, away from the drive by shootings and the violence, they're going to sneer at you. They already get room, board, and some spending money (as well as any drug money they can hustle) for sitting around with their friends and family. They're making a rational economic decision. And you can thank the very same Barack Obama and his fellow travelers for that.

The problem I have with those who spout off about "jobs spoiled Americans won't do" is that when they say that, they are sneering at those of us who *have* worked to get skills and/or education to do more than pick fruit. If they really *believed* that rhetoric, they would be changing welfare benefits and shaming the ghetto underclass so that their rational economic decision is not to sit around the ghetto getting high all day.

(And of course, it's called "racist" to ask able bodied African American Oak Park dwellers to move a short drive out of town to pick fruit, but it's somehow not racist to expect illegally-entrant Mexicans to move a thousand miles or more to pick said fruit).

With the liberals here, the game is "heads they win, tails we lose". They carp about the need for "a living wage", and then they import a massive underclass to drive the wages down. And to vote for more liberal Democrats.

Pete Stark: Pro-Illegal Alien Traitor

Is there any way to un-elect this sack of human waste? Sadly, he gets re-elected time and time again by overwhelming margins. He has mouthed off many times before, and gotten away with it.

Perhaps this is because there is no little or no local press coverage of him at all. The lamestream media don’t report on his creepy statements, and they only barely touched – and quickly dropped - his residency issue, so he just blends in and now has major seniority in Congress. (He was actually next in line to be Chair of the Appropriations Committee when John Murtha kicked off, but his fellow Democrats wouldn’t allow Pelosi to promote him, believe it or not, because of his arrogant actions towards them!)

But now YouTube has him mocking a concerned border patriot:

“Who you gonna kill today?”

This mocking goes on for a few minutes, you think he's done and he continues mocking saying "we'll go down there and you design the wall....We'll start a ladder company"...This is unbelievable.

I know the Bay Area is weenie liberal, but his district (CA-13) is NOT San Francisco, NOT Berkeley, and it’s NOT the Oakland ghettoes. It's the Bay Area, so weenie liberals are the norm. However, Fremont, Hayward, San Leandro and Alameda are *suburban*. They aren’t exactly conservative hotbeds, but they *are not* Berkeley or San Francisco.

If he was like any other Bay Area Democrat, ho hum, nothing new. However, George Miller (CA-07) isn't like this guy, John Garamendi (CA-10) isn't like this guy, Jerry McNerney (CA-11) isn't like this guy, Jackie Speier (CA-12) isn't like this guy, Anna Eshoo (CA-14) isn’t like this guy, Mike Honda (CA-15) isn’t like this guy, Zoe Lofgren (CA-16) isn’t like this guy.

Even Barbara Lee (CA-09) doesn’t mouth off like the creep Stark does, and she’s in a fine district to do so. It *would* make sense if Stark was in Berkeley or Oaktown.

Nancy Pelosi (CA-08) IS like this guy, but hey, that's San Fransicko for you.

Dianne Feinstein said she'd only tax the super-rich....

Guess what? That threshold is dropping daily...

“You could go lower, too — why not $200,000?” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). “With the debt and deficit we have, you can’t make promises to people. This is a very serious situation.”

Millions of dual career couples easily pass that new, and lower, dollar per year mark.
And that's not going to be a high enough threshold either. They won't be able to get a budget for FY 2011 done:

The Democrats in Congress believe what Rep. Gerry Connolly told the LA Times, which is that no member of Congress ever lost an election because of a failure to pass a budget. They don’t want to be on the hook for the hard decisions that must come in FY2011, which is either to drastically reduce spending from the binge levels of the last three Democratic Congresses, or to raise taxes to cover it. Spending cuts won’t change voter perception of this Congress at this late date — and tax hikes will make it worse.

And remember, Dianne Feinstein is the more reasonable, more honest and more sane of the two Wicked Witches that make up California's "representation" in the US Senate.

2012 can't come soon enough....

The Estate Tax and the Liberal Mentality

The New York Times waxes indignant about how the estate tax is kaputt for 2010. Never mind that it returns with a vengeance in 2011.

“The ultrawealthy in this country will still be able to pass on enormous wealth to the next generation,” said Chuck Collins, who studies income inequality and has worked with billionaires like Warren E. Buffett and Bill Gates to promote an estate tax. Mr. Collins argues that the tax is a “recycling program for economic opportunity.”

Oh really? A brief history of the National Estate Tax.

Let's understand how the estate tax works. It is a tax on *assets*, not on *income*. There are literally millions of people and businesses who are asset rich, assets painfully acquired over many years nay decades, but still of modest income. Farmers, ranchers, owners of many rental properties, owners of a restaurant or a restraurant franchise, to name a few examples.

Oh, but the Leftists "don't want rich heirs sitting on their asses, and then able to pass that on to their idiot children", in the words of one such Leftist whose name escapes me.

For starters, you simply *cannot* sit on your tush when you inherit a farm or a restuarant (which in more expensive California, a single farm, family restaurant, or apartment building easily passes the proposed 2011 asset dollar limits). Or several rental homes or an apartment complex. You have to manage it. Which is a full time job.

Oh, but the guy or gal might be wealthy enough to hire someone else to run it? That's called giving someone a *management* job! Not a bad thing.

Many of these inherited businesses are family businesses which employ dozens, perhaps hundreds of people, but which throw off modest cash flow. All of a sudden the patriarch dies and the business is inherited by his children, who are now hit with a big tax bill just because daddy died. Sometimes, they can't pay that bill without selling assets, laying people off or selling the business outright. Does that seem fair?

Even if you do think it's fair, when they sell, a productive taxpaying asset is at least temporarily and often permanently taken out of action, and the acquirer usually takes the opportunity to eliminate duplicate positions and there are layoffs. Not good for the economy.

Never mind that income from the inherited asset STILL must be taxed and still is. That is, if you don't break up the productive asset. Instead, out of some communistic notion of "fairness" a productive asset is broken up, reducing its income stream. The only people getting rich from that are the real estate agents and the lawyers. The former might get rich anyway should the heirs sell it on their own.

And the same people who advocate this kind of punitive taxation THEN turn around and complain about "big corporations who gobble up family farms and family businesses"--the very assets families are forced to sell in estate tax!

Oh but some heirs are idle, like the Kennedy brats? So what? Notice how the fortune Old Joe Kennedy built is about run out. If an inheritor is productive with his or her money, it serves him or her; if not, it destroys him or her. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted them. Did it? Or did they corrupt their money?

I don't envy worthless heirs; their wealth is not mine and frankly, I am not sure I would have done any better with it. I don't think that it should have been "redistributed" to load the world with fifty little parasites instead of one big one, or worse still, larding up a parasite government that pays out thousands of ghetto people to be idle.
Meanwhile, their Demunist uberlords use legal talent to set up tax-exempt "foundations" with their estates, which turn around and hire *their* idiot children. But the liberal rank and file doesn't seem to mind that.