The California GOP is run by idiots



Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye
The GOP State Supreme Court basically told the Republican Party:  You made your own mess. 
Now you have to live with it. 



The GOP somehow manages to screw themselves

The Republican dominated California Supreme Court basically told the state GOP to take a hike.  They ruled that State Senate election maps drawn by a citizens commission will be used in this year's elections, despite a pending referendum to overturn them.

The issue came before the High Court after a Republican-backed group, Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting, filed more than 711,000 signatures with county elections offices in a referendum to overturn Senate maps drawn by a 14-member citizens commission.

Idiot GOP officials contend that the citizen's commission (that the GOP demanded be created) has drawn district lines giving Democrats a strong chance of gaining two additional seats in the Senate, enough to gain the two-thirds super-majority needed to raise taxes or fees.

The Head Moron of the California Republican Party is Chairman Tom Del Beccaro.  He told The Bee this week:   "If the current redistricting lines hold with regard to the Senate, the Republicans are going to have an enormously difficult time staying above the one-third threshold." 

Is there anyone home upstairs?

A Parade of Morons  -  I don't think there is any doubt.  The California GOP is run by fucking idiots.

• The GOP fought to take redistricting power away from the legislature.
• Then the party complains they have no say in drawing the district lines because the redistricting power was taken away from the legislature.

People this stupid deserve to get fucked over in life.  No wonder Republicans are a minority.

County elections offices face a Feb. 24 deadline for certifying FAIR's referendum signatures. Thus far, they have verified 57,761 of 80,127 signatures checked. If the percentage of valid signatures holds steady, 72 percent, the referendum would qualify for the ballot.
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(Sacramento Bee)

Democrats target GOP House Seats

Leftist Democratic Socialists zero in on two Republican districts


The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee elevated Dr. Ami Bera of Sacramento County and former astronaut Jose Hernandez of San Joaquin County to the highest priority in the party's bid to reclaim the House reports the Sacramento Bee.

Bera and Hernandez joined 16 other top-ranked Democrats on the party's designated first team of challengers, dubbed "Red to Blue" candidates for their potential to take back Republican seats.

Bera is mounting his second challenge against Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River, in a newly redrawn district that's centered in eastern Sacramento County. Democratic presidential candidates carried the newly redrawn and renumbered 7th Congressional District in both 2004 and 2008.

Hernandez is challenging Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Atwater, to represent a district that includes Stanislaus County and portions of southern San Joaquin County. The population of the newly redrawn and renumbered 10th Congressional District is 40 percent Latino.

The Republicans, moreover, maintain their own means of marketing candidates. The GOP campaign organization includes a "Patriot Program" to help targeted incumbents raise money, as well as a "Young Guns" program whose participants include 24-year-old San Joaquin County resident Ricky Gill, now challenging Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton.

Bera reported raising $1.1 million last year and had $918,873 on hand as of Dec. 31. A spokesman for Lungren's campaign could not be reached to discuss campaign fundraising. Denham, who moved to Turlock, will report having raised about $900,000 last year.
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(Sacramento Bee)

California House seats are up for grabs



GOP Congressman Wall Herger of Chico was one of several
who has announced his retirement.


 'Musical chairs, except with switchblades'



The retirement of Rep. Jerry Lewis, dean of the California House GOP, marks the sixth and most significant departure from Congress in the wake of a new redistricting plan, portending a dramatic shake-up of the state's delegation.

California, after a decade in which only one seat flipped between Democrats and Republicans, now faces an election with about 12 competitive races. And some predict at least nine California newcomers could arrive in Washington in the next Congress reports the Los Angeles Times.

Lewis, of Redlands, is the third veteran Republican to leave, and his departure is likely to weaken the state's clout in Congress, where seniority still counts.  Three Democrats are also retiring.

The parties dispute how many seats they could gain or lose in the next election — Democrats now outnumber Republicans 34 to 19. One independent analyst predicts a Democratic pickup of two to three seats.

Retiring Congressmen

• Jerry Lewis  (R) of Redlands
• Wally Herger  (R) of Chico
• Elton Gallegly  (R) of Simi Valley
• Dennis Cardoza  (D) of Atwater
• Lynn Woolsey  (D) of Petaluma
• Bob Filner  (D) of Chula Vista

House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-San Dimas) has yet to say whether he will run for reelection in a new district or retire.

Forced into the same districts for the primary

• Howard Berman of Valley Village, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, faces a tough race against fellow Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks in a new San Fernando Valley district.
• Laura Richardson of Long Beach and Janice Hahn of San Pedro are running against each other in a new southeast Los Angeles County district.

"Redistricting is always the political version of musical chairs, except with switchblades,'' director of USC's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics Dan Schnur said. "But the last redistricting was done by the Legislature, which was specifically motivated to protect incumbents in both parties.''

For more on this story

Back Door "Green" Tax Increase



Green Taxes . . . the newest scam from Socialists.


Governor Brown to raid a $1 Billion "Greenhouse Gas Fund" to pay for social programs

• Money earmarked to "create jobs and deliver public health, economic and environmental benefits."

Jerry Brown, Leftist Governor of the People's Republic of California, has found a new pot of money to help him fill a $9-billion hole in his proposed budget: $1 billion from auctioning credits to allow California companies to emit greenhouse gases.

Let's bottom line this.  Leftists in both parties have no real interest in "Greenhouse Gasses."  If they did then only caps on gasses would be in the law.  No, this is all about brand new taxes that do not stop the gasses but do pour billions into government treasuries that can then be spent on Big Government programs.

But business groups are already denouncing Brown's plan as a back-door tax increase that they intend to challenge in court if the proposal is approved as part of the state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 reports the Los Angeles Times.

"At a time when the public is concerned about jobs and the economy, the budget proposes a new tax on California businesses for climate change activities," said Dorothy Rothrock, vice president of the California Manufacturers and Technology Assn. "The anticipated $1 billion is not windfall revenue. The funds will be paid by California employers suffering the worst recession since the Great Depression."

The so called cap-and-trade system is a critical piece of AB 32, California's landmark legislation aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Modeled on a European program, it sets a cap on emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases for each industrial polluter or electric power plant. Facilities can exceed their cap only if they buy credits of other plants that have extra ones after reducing their own releases into the atmosphere.

The first auction, tentatively set for August, is projected to raise as much as $1 billion, which would be earmarked to "create jobs and deliver public health, economic and environmental benefits" as part of the state's effort to curb global warming, the governor's office said.

(For more on this story)

Unions, Hospitals, Casinos fund campaign to increase taxes

A $7 Billion tax increase
$1,200,000 raised by Democrats in two weeks from special interest groups to raise taxes


Socialist Democrat Governor Jerry Brown's campaign to raise taxes has raised more than $1.2 million in two weeks, according to the campaign's first financial filing with the California secretary of state's office.

Special interest groups looking to suck on the public teat or wanting favors from government are lining up to give Democrats money to raise taxes.

The sum was raised from just nine donations, the largest of which, $500,000, came from an arm of the California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. The state building trades union donated $250,000 through its political action committee, Members' Voice of the State Building Trades reports the Sacramento Bee.

The contributions are the first large donations following Brown's announcement this month of a ballot measure to temporarily raise the state sales tax and higher income taxes on California's highest-earners, raising about $7 billion annually for five years.

"Our interest is that there be a budget that, you know, is halfway balanced," Duane Dauner, president of the California Hospital Association, said this morning. "This is an overall effort to be supportive of balancing revenues and expenses so we can, in fact, get the state back on track."

Blue Shield of California donated $100,000 to the effort, and California gambling tribes combined to give more than $300,000

(Sacramento Bee)