California GOP tells Hispanics to get lost

GOP Ontario Mayor Paul Leon

The Republican Party is run by idiots

The state GOP claims they want Hispanics, but totally ignores the Hispanic Republican

Mayor of Ontario in a State Senate special election.

Is it racism? or are Republicans just fucking morons? 

Pick one or both as the GOP refuses to back the elected Hispanic Republican Mayor of Ontario.

This is a chance to pick up a vacant State Senate seat and demonstrate that the California Republican Party and their allies are serious about backing Latino candidates.   It is a golden opportunity for the state's GOP, but after all the hot air about wanting Republican Hispanics the party is ignoring their own candidate.

Ontario Mayor Paul Leon, the Republican Party's candidate in the special election to succeed Democrat Gloria Negrete-McLeod, has yet to benefit from the same kind of support his Democratic opponent, Assemblywoman Norma Torres, has received. Campaign finance records show Torres is enjoying financial support from Democratic lawmakers up and down the state, combined with support from several business and labor interests.

Leon, by comparison, has generally drawn support from Republicans holding office in the Inland Empire and local business figures reports the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

Torres has collected nearly $548,000 worth of contributions, compared with the nearly $245,000 that Leon has raised.


Paul Leon for CA State Senate
Paul Leon is currently the Mayor of Ontario, CA. He is also a staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment. We MUST get this man elected to the State Senate to prevent a super-majority of those who desire to trample on the Constitutional rights of all Californian's...and beyond. 

Leon also has no financial support from the independent expenditure committee that are becoming an increasingly important - if not universally beloved - part of American politics.

Torres, by contrast, has been the beneficiary of $395,500 in outside spending support for the primary and general election campaigns.

Leon said he has received welcome support from new state GOP Chairman Jim Brulte as well as state Sen. Bob Huff, R-Walnut, and Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills. Leon acknowledged, however, his frustration that his support from Republican interests up and down the state does not match the support Democrats have given to Torres.

To many, the Republican Party's poor showing in last year's elections has demonstrated an imperative to motivate Latino and Asian-American candidates and voters. Leon said Republicans have talked about changing the face of their party, but have yet to match those words with action.

"I think it explains itself. There's no proof in the pudding," Leon said.

Leon is a moderate Republican who may be best known in the Inland Empire for his advocacy for local control of L.A./Ontario International Airport, currently managed by a Los Angeles city agency, rather than any positions that can easily be described as "liberal" or "conservative." He said the fundraising situation in the campaign does not change his support for the Republican platform.

"I'm not bitter about any of this. I came into this race with my eyes wide open, that this was a high probability that I would taking this on alone," Leon said. "It has been me and my friends that believe in me. "

A district map from the primary.

Bullet train bidder has history of cost overruns

By Christopher Cadelago
U-T San Diego


The lowest-bidding partnership for the first segment of California’s high-speed rail line includes a firm with a history of cost overruns and costly lawsuits.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority on Friday announced that the American joint venture of Tutor Perini/Zachry/Parsons was the “best apparent value” with a low bid of $985 million – below the $1.09 billion bid by the next-lowest bidder.

On construction projects in California, the lowest bidder has a strong advantage in the eventual selection process. Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for the authority, declined to comment on bidders as the matter is finding its way to the authority’s board of directors.

“Five world-class teams competed for this opportunity, and the process is ongoing,” Wilcox said.

The first segment of the estimated $68 billion system is proposed to run 28 miles from Madera to Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley.

According to an August report by The Bay Citizen, sister site of California Watch, 11 major projects in the San Francisco Bay Area completed by Tutor in the last dozen years cost local governments $765 million more than they expected, or 40 percent above the initial bids.

A company spokesman did not return a message seeking comment. CEO Ron Tutor said in the August report that attacks against him were unfounded and overruns were caused by contracting agencies changing the projects in midstream.

At San Francisco International Airport, the city alleged in a 2002 lawsuit that the company purposely bid low to win a $626 million expansion contract, then charged $980 million for the job. Tutor said there wasn’t “a single fact” justifying the city’s position but eventually agreed to pay $19 million to settle.

The company’s list of projects includes an extension of Bay Area Rapid Transit to the San Francisco airport, the Alameda Corridor rail line and the San Diego Convention Center.

In 1993, the Port of San Diego paid the company $17 million to settle a $53 million lawsuit over the convention center project. In the lawsuit, the company blamed port-hired construction managers for delays that cost the company money.

Kevin Williams, a former San Francisco contracting officer who has testified in court against Tutor, said his experience with the company goes back decades.

“Tom Bradley, the late mayor of Los Angeles, said it best: Ron Tutor was the change-order artist, the king, and he’s proven himself to be just that,” Williams told U-T San Diego on Monday.

Williams said Tutor “is going to make up the difference somehow by lowballing. That is as old as history itself in the construction industry.”

Kevin Dayton, president and chief executive of Labor Issues Solutions and a critic of the bullet train project, said the rail authority is going to have to monitor change-order requests very closely.

“People are always accusing each other in the construction industry of pulling the change-order racket: winning the low bid and then piling up costs afterward,” said Dayton, a former lobbyist for Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. “Sometimes, it is a matter of architectural errors, but everyone always blames everybody else for it, saying, ‘The drawings were bad; the engineering was bad, et cetera.’ ”

Dayton also questioned whether the four losing teams – who are eligible to be paid a $2 million stipend to cover their costs for seeking the contract – might now be required to sign statements agreeing not to publicly challenge the process.

The next-lowest bidder was Dragados/Samsung/Pulice. Officials there could not be reached for comment.

In a statement posted on its website before the announcement, the team said with a combined value of $8 billion in executed design-build projects in the last five years, it offers the authority and building communities “a proven successful record of compliance, execution and on time delivery of complex infrastructure projects all over the world.”

Five teams submitted proposals to design and build the first segment. The proposals were evaluated and ranked based 70 percent on cost and the remainder for technical merit. Officials said factors such as an understanding of the project, schedule capability, approach and safety were part of the technical scoring.

The lowest-bidding partnership – Tutor Perini Corp. of Sylmar, Zachry Construction Corp. of Texas and Parsons Corp. of Pasadena – received the highest overall score of 90.55 out of 100.

The trio received a perfect 70 percent for its price proposal and received the lowest score – 20.55 – for its technical proposal.

Rail officials say they expect to present a contract to their board of directors in the coming weeks. The agency’s cost estimate for the first segment was $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion.

If they are unable to award the contract to the best-value bidder, they may proceed with the next most highly ranked, officials said.


This story resulted from a partnership among California news organizations following the state's high-speed rail program, including The Fresno Bee, The Sacramento Bee, California Watch, The Bakersfield Californian, The Orange County Register, the San Francisco Chronicle, The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise, U-T San Diego, KQED, the Merced Sun-Star, The Tribune of San Luis Obispo and The Modesto Bee.

(From California Watch.org)

In an empty agricultural Central Valley the corrupt Bullet Train plows through the most expensive and heavily populated areas.

California oil production drops nearly 50%

Vintage Petroleum has been aggressively pursuing leases from Ventura County
landowners, including Limoneira in Santa Paula.

Oil production in California dropped by nearly half from 1985 to 2010

• Socialist Democrats are doing everything possible to abolish oil related jobs and the taxes those jobs pay into the State Treasury.
• Marxists all over the world fail to understand that when business booms more taxes are paid to government.  Democrat Marxists would rather sit around reading chapters of Das Kapital to each other than encourage business and job creation.

The Ventura County Star  -  Anticipating that new drilling techniques will make it possible to tap vast oil reserves thought to be unrecoverable, a Los Angeles-based oil company has been aggressively securing mineral rights beneath thousands of acres of Ventura County land.

But the Democrat legislature in the People's Republic is trying to end new oil production.

Documents filed with the Ventura County Recorder’s Office show that Vintage Petroleum, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, has entered into 192 lease agreements over the past six months in deals involving at least 9,000 acres.
Most of the leases, largely on rural land in the Santa Paula-Fillmore area, were recorded during the last week of March.

“They’re making a big play,” said attorney Stuart Nielson, whose A to Z law firm in Oxnard has represented several of the lessors.

Oil drilling might generate tax money
to pay the state's bills so it must be stopped.

Nielson said the pace of oil-leasing activity is unlike anything Ventura County — once a more prolific oil-producing area — has seen in decades. Most of the oil rights involved have long been dormant.

Other major oil companies are also seeking to exploit potential new opportunities, but Vintage is by far the major player in Ventura County. Elsewhere in the state, Denver-based Venoco has been aggressively testing ways to successfully drill into California shale oil reserves. Venoco holds drilling rights to more than 200,000 acres in the San Joaquin Valley and in coastal areas between Santa Barbara and Monterey.

Driving the interest is the expectation that hydraulic fracturing and other new drilling technologies will allow the industry to unlock oil reserves, estimated at as much as 15 billion barrels, captured in the Monterey Shale formation. The formation underlies 1,750 square miles in Central and Southern California, including much of Ventura County.

“The question in California is whether the geology is compatible with large-scale production from the Monterey,” said Tupper Hull, spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association. “There’s certainly a lot of interest on the part of our members in exploring and determining whether it’s cost-effective.”

Occidental is one of the major industry players in that exploration. It bills itself as the state’s top acreage holder among petroleum companies, with 2.1 million acres.

In its 2012 annual report, Occidental told shareholders that it spent $2.3 billion last year for domestic oil and gas properties in California, Texas and North Dakota. The report described Occidental’s corporate strategy as “deploying capital to fully develop areas where reserves are known to exist and increase production from mature fields by applying appropriate technology.”

The People's Republic puts every barrier possible in the way of oil drilling and many other businesses.
.
AB 288 (Levine; D-San Rafael) De Facto Moratorium on Hydraulic Fracturing — This new bill imposes a de facto moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing in the state, driving up fuel and energy prices and harming the job market in these sectors, by basing approval of notices for well operations on a public health and safety standard that is impossible to meet.
.
AB 649 (Nazarian; D-Studio City) Moratorium on Hydraulic Fracturing — Substantially hinders oil and gas production in the state, driving up fuel and energy prices and harming the job market in these sectors, by prohibiting hydraulic fracturing and the use of fresh water in hydraulic fracturing until CalEPA re-authorizes the practice under a new regulatory scheme, if at all, in 2019.

UC Santa Barbara geology professor Dave Valentine said the shale is unusual in that it tends “to both produce oil and trap oil.”

And the oil trapped in the shale does not flow like a liquid, he said. “It’s pretty unpleasant, goopy, tarry stuff.”

The ability to economically produce from the shale will depend on the efficacy of new drilling techniques, including horizontal drilling, steam flooding and water flooding. But foremost among the new technologies is hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, in which a mixture of water, chemicals and sand is injected at very high pressure to crack rock and stimulate the release of oil and natural gas.

“Shale does not give up the oil in large volumes without hydraulic fracturing,” Hull said.

Crude oil production in California dropped by nearly half from 1985 to 2010, the California Energy Commission reports. The advent of hydraulic fracturing, however, is only part of the reason for hope within the industry of reinvigorating production.


Read more:   Ventura County Star

No oil drilling in the People's Republic
In 1994 the California legislature codified the ban on new oil field leases by passing the California Coastal Sanctuary Act, which prohibited new leasing of state offshore tracts.

More Bullet Train Corruption in California

High Speed Rail officials changed the rules to select the contractor with the lowest safety and engineering rating

• Political hacks select an artificially low bid to keep the money train belching out cash for unions and businesses.  The cost overruns come later.

High-speed rail officials for the People's Republic of California acknowledged Thursday that they changed their rules for selecting a builder for the bullet train’s first phase in the Central Valley, making it possible for a consortium led by Sylmar-based Tutor Perini to be ranked as the top candidate despite receiving the lowest technical rating.

 

The California High Speed Rail Authority announced last week that the Tutor Perini-Zachary-Parsons joint venture was the top-rated contender among five bidders seeking to build the initial 29 miles of track between Madera and Fresno.

 

While it offered the lowest price at $985.1 million, the Tutor Perini team’s technical score ranked last. Ferrovial and Acciona, two Spanish firms with significant high-speed rail experience, had the highest technical mark but bid almost $1.4 billion. The rail agency board is expected to select a contractor in coming months after additional negotiations reports the Los Angeles Times.

 

The technical score is based on safety measures, engineering, scheduling, quality of design, project approach and solutions to possible construction problems.

California's High-Speed Rail Boondoggle
An Interview With CFEC's Eric Christen

Under that process, the Tutor Perini consortium and another team by Skanska, a Swedish company, would have been eliminated after the first round, leaving groups led by Colorado-based Kiewit and two teams led by Spanish firms, Dragados and Ferrovial.

 

The High Spped Rail Board adopted the two-step process, which the agency’s staff said would create competition and obtain quality technical proposals for the first 200-mph rail system to be constructed in the United States.

The agency changed the evaluation process in July, according to an agency spokesman. The official did not provide details of the internal process used to alter the criteria. But he said the state potentially will save hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the decision to change the evaluation criteria.

 

But Elizabeth Goldstein Alexis of Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design, a group critical of the bullet train project, disagreed and argued that the change in evaluation criteria has invalidated the bidding process. “This is not a non-substantive change,” she said. “I don’t see any indication that the board approved this.”

 

In the end, the state placed far more weight on price than the technical evaluation (safety and engineering), which is contrary to best practices suggested by some construction industry groups. The Design Build Institute of America advises public agencies to put greater emphasis on technical merit to avoid later problems on a project.

The technical proposals could be critical. Building the first section will require a massive engineering feat on a tight schedule that includes cutting a 1.7-mile trench through Fresno, erecting a 1.2-mile viaduct and three major bridges and using giant hydraulic jacks to create a tunnel beneath California 180 in the Fresno area.

 

Tutor Perini is one of the largest contractors in the country. Critics have complained the firm tends to bid low to win contracts and then seeks change orders and contract amendments that increase costs.

Senator Kevin de León - Jackass of the Day

Bend over and spread your cheeks - The Democrats have a tax for you.

Yet more Democratic taxes on the voters

• Senator Kevin de León wins the "Jackass of the Day" award for his new $2 a pack tax on cigarettes.
• de León screws his own voters while sucking up to the SEIU which is looking to wallow in tons of new tax dollars.

A Leftist Senator in the People's Republic of California is proposing a new $2-a-pack increase in cigarette taxes to pay for health-care programs.

State Senator Kevin de León (Socialist Democrat - Los Angeles) has amended his Senate Bill 768 to serve as the vehicle for the tax hike.

The estimated $1.2 billion in annual revenues from the increase would go to yet-to-be-specified health programs and causes, including promoting access to care and tobacco-related health services.
.
"The underlying direction will be absolutely on extending health care access," said Greg Hayes, de León's communications director reports the Sacramento Bee.



The bill is backed by a coalition that includes longtime proponents of increasing cigarette taxes, such as the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society, as well as Service Employees International Union and the advocacy group Health Access California, Hayes said.

All of these groups cannot wait to latch on to the public teat and suck on the new stream of sweet, sweet tax money.

Anti-smoking advocates have struggled to persuade lawmakers and voters to raise California's 87-cent cigarette tax, even as per-pack tax rates have risen in states across the nation. By a narrow margin, voters rejected a ballot measure in June 2012 that would have enacted a $1-a-pack hike for cancer research and other programs. Efforts in the Legislature have repeatedly fallen short of the two-thirds vote needed to win approval.

Hayes said the senator hopes that Democrats' supermajority control in both houses and the fact that huge numbers of voters are fucking idiots will lead to a different outcome this year.

"It's not going to be a small challenge, but right now this body is one of the reasons that we face deficits," Hayes said. "It's because we are completely upside down in health care costs related to tobacco."  Bend over taxpayers.  The Socialists are coming.

Jackass of the Day
Leftist nutcase Socialist State Senator Kevin de León wants to screw over his
own constituents and voters all over the state with new taxes.

 

Porn movies are driven out of Los Angeles

Porn film permits have dropped dramatically in L.A. County

• The new "Condom Police" Law will force the porn industry to re-locate out of state or to Mexico.
• Democrats drive yet more jobs out of the People's Republic of California.

 

Film permits requested by the porn industry have all but ceased in Los Angeles County as producers decide how to work around much opposed law that requires actors to wear condoms during shoots.

Film LA, the non profit organization that processes permits for motion picture, television and commercial production across Los Angeles, has seen applications for permits from the adult film industry plummet to only two so far this year.

In previous years, an estimated 500 film permits are requested by the adult film industry annually reports the Contra Costa Times.

"Most production companies have ceased shooting in LA County," said Diane Duke, chief executive officer of the Canoga-Park based Free Speech Coalition, the trade organization for the adult film industry. "They have other options in other states and communities."

In March, calls and inquiries from the adult film industry bombarded the city of Camarillo asking if there was a condom ordinance there.

As a result, the City Council placed a moratorium on adult film shoots for 45 days until it could decide, possibly later this month, what it will and won't allow.

"All I can say is a number of inquires led us to be concerned that we should look at this and decide if this is something we want to do," Don Davis, assistant city attorney for Camarillo, said of the adult film industry's sudden interest.

The decline in film permit applications and the porn industry's interest in Camarillo is an example of the ripple effect of Measure B, the ordinance that Los Angeles County voters passed in November that requires actors involved in explicit shoots to wear condoms. The law also requires adult film studios to apply for public health permits and for the county Department of Public Health to lead inspection and enforcement efforts. Health permits need to be attached to FilmLA applications.

As quickly as the ordinance passed, producers at many adult film studios threatened to leave the San Fernando Valley, where most pornographic movies have long been made, and, if possible, the state.

"Whether it's Camarillo or another California city that is in the news because of Measure B, we strongly believe that the law is wrong, which is why we are challenging it," said Steven Hirsch, founder and co-chairman of Universal City-based Vivid Entertainment. Hirsch and others have said the industry is watching and waiting for the outcome of a lawsuit filed by Vivid against Angeles County. The suit calls Measure B unconstitutional, saying it violates actors' rights to free speech and expression.

Arguments are set to begin next month in U.S. District Court.

"We now need the court to rule on our case," Hirsch said.

Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, said it's too early to tell if the industry is moving out. But the region will feel an economic impact if studios and production companies leave. Waldman said VICA was opposed to Measure B because it meant an estimated loss of 10,000 production jobs that the adult film industry attracts, including makeup, lighting, carpentry, transportation, food service, payroll processing, Web design and actors. The adult film industry has been estimated to generate between $1 billion to $11 billion a year.

"I think the industry is still trying to figure out what it's doing," Waldman said. "I think it's going to be a trickle effect, but one day we'll all ask, where did all this money go?"

He said the industry likely wants to stay in Los Angeles because it already has a built-in infrastructure and relationship with the San Fernando Valley. But the law may eventually squeeze filmmakers out.

"At some point they would have to make the decision to move to another state," Waldman said. "I think it's coming."

Democrat Party Condom Police
Democrat run Los Angeles will send condom inspectors to the sets of porn movie shoots to make sure the condoms are properly installed and snug with no leakage. Moron Democrats want to get a firm grip on both our wallets and deployed condoms.

Democrats (and many Republicans) are frightened to death that someone, somewhere might be enjoying their lives without the permission of the all-powerful Big Brother State.

More Jerry Brown Delta Water Tunnel Corruption



There is not enough corruption with an aqueduct.
Just pouring water into a simple concrete lined ditch (an aqueduct) does not leave much room for stealing billions of tax dollars and lining the pockets for campaign contributors.  But a massive tunnel system drilled under the Sacramento River Delta would cost a shit load of taxpayer cash. 

"Corruptus in Extremis"  -  Everyone wants to latch on to the Delta tunnel project and suck on that sweet, sweet tax money.

• As usual, costs are going crazy so unions and business can get their share in the killing of the Delta.

Caltrans spokesman Dennis Keaton said feasibility studies indicate the Highway 160 realignments would cost $65 million to $75 million. Adding turn lanes to highways 4 and 12 is estimated to cost $199 million. These estimates do not include land acquisition and environmental mitigation.

Jeffrey Michael, an economist at University of the Pacific, cited the proposed roadwork as another example of costs that have not been figured into the final price tag for the tunnel project, at least in the documents released to the public reports the Sacramento Bee.

The leading example, Michael said, is debt service on the bonds issued to build the project. He estimates this at $1.1 billion annually for decades – enough to triple the ultimate cost of the project.

Another is natural gas wells. The Delta is a productive natural gas region strewn with wells, many of which are active and some that are not.

Any well bore in the path of the tunnels is not only a physical obstacle to construction but a potential safety hazard.

Documents obtained by The Bee show the state's intent is to simply buy out and cap any well that turns out to be in the way. This would involve negotiating with landowners and gas companies over wells that, in some cases, produce gas worth millions of dollars annually.

"There are a host of big questions, and they shouldn't avoid them until this point in the process," Michael said. "They are always kicked down the road because we don't have an exact project design yet and other sorts of statements. I don't think those are good excuses."

"In principal, we want to minimize the impact to the roadways, and keep the roadway so that it provides the same function as it did before," said Terry Erlewine, general manager of the State Water Contractors, a statewide association whose member utilities are among those that would pay the bills.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/07/5322193/state-water-tunnel-plans-call.html#storylink=cpy

Walnut Grove farmer Daniel Wilson, who relies on Highway 160 to get his cherries, pears and corn from field to packing shed and then to market, opposes the tunneling project, partly because some of it would take up his farmland. "I can't see anything but total disruption of that for 10 to 15 years," he said of the proposed construction.

Scenic status an issue 

The planning documents, which include draft construction schedules, indicate Highway 160 would be moved off the levee during the first two to three years of construction. This phase includes raising the levee next to each intake to protect it from floods and sea level rise, building fish screens up to 2,400 feet long in the river, and water intake structures. Each highway detour would be about a mile long.

After this initial construction period, the highway would be moved back onto the new levee, and traffic would pass through the intake site while construction continues on other facilities, such as pumps, pipelines and sediment collection ponds. Finishing each intake is estimated to take six years.

Construction would result in a dramatic increase in heavy truck trips on the highway to transport concrete, dirt for levee construction, steel beams and pumping equipment on roads already in poor condition from present traffic loads.

Corruption
Like High Speed Rail, the Delta Tunnel is a giant
payoff to unions and businessmen who fund the
political hack class of California. 

This worries farmers like Daniel Wilson, who relies on Highway 160 to get his cherries, pears and corn from field to packing shed and then to market. Wilson opposes the tunneling project, in part, because some of its facilities would supplant farmland he owns.

"We run a trucking company during our harvest season," Wilson said. "I can't see anything but total disruption of that for 10 to 15 years. It's hard to imagine that you wouldn't destroy the whole road system."

When traffic is returned on top of the rebuilt levee segments, the retooled highway path would be 150 to 200 feet farther from the river, and as much as 20 feet higher, according to the documents.

It is unclear whether a river view would remain for travelers, or whether the new water intakes would be compatible with a scenic highway designation.

Highway 160 was named a state scenic highway in 1969 by virtue of its "historic Delta agricultural areas and small towns along the Sacramento River," according to the Caltrans roster of scenic routes.

State law does not forbid development along scenic highways. But the designation does require preservation of scenic views and exclusion of incompatible land uses, such as gravel pits, concrete plants and billboards.

"It's a feather in your cap, locally, to be able to say you've got a very scenic road in your county," said Dennis Cadd, Caltrans coordinator of the scenic highway program. "So anything that's out of character with those natural features would be considered an intrusion to the scenic resources of that corridor."

Caltrans has authority under state law to revoke a scenic highway designation. But this would be a controversial move and has never been done, Cadd said.

Erlewine said the water contractors would seek to minimize harm to the scenic qualities of the area.

"In general, we would want to maintain the character as much as possible," he said. "That's one of the reasons we ended up going to the tunnel originally is to try to minimize visual impacts and land impacts from the project."

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/07/5322193/state-water-tunnel-plans-call.html#storylink=cpy

California Highway 160 through the Delta is a beautiful drive.



Raving Insanity
Jerry Brown and the corrupt California Ruling Class says sending Sacramento Delta water south to water golf courses and front lawns in Los Angeles will not harm the Delta.  Right.  If you believe that I have some worthless swampland in Florida to sell you. 

32 Democrat job killing bills

The California Legislature is called to order.

Democrats live in a Socialist Big Government Fantasyland

• Socialist Democrats introduce bill after bill to jack up taxes.

The California Chamber of Commerce released its annual list of “job killer” bills, calling attention to the negative impact that 32 proposed measures would have on California’s job climate and economic recovery if they were to become law.

“California policy makers should keep their focus on the number one issues affecting their constituents – economic recovery and job creation,” said CalChamber President and CEO Allan Zaremberg.

 

“Each of these proposed Job Killer bills would increase uncertainty for employers and investors and lead to higher costs of doing business, which will undermine the economic health of the state. Employers are already feeling the pinch of higher health care premiums, higher workers' compensation premiums, increased unemployment insurances taxes, and general tax increases. In this environment, it is critical that we keep all other costs of doing business in check. Individually these bills are bad but cumulatively they are worse.”

 

Legislation included on the “job killer” list released today will change throughout the year as bills are amended or new language is introduced.

The 2013 “job killer” list follows:

 

Costly Workplace Mandates

 

AB 5 (Ammiano; D-San Francisco) Increased Exposure to Frivolous Litigation — Imposes costly and unreasonable mandates on employers that could jeopardize the health and safety of others by creating a new protected classification of employees and customers who are or are perceived to be homeless, low income, suffering from a mental disability, or physical disability, and establishing a private right of action for such individuals that includes statutory damages, punitive damages, and attorney’s fees.

 

AB 10 (Alejo; D-Salinas) Automatic Minimum Wage Increase — Unfairly increases California employers’ cost of doing business by raising the minimum wage $1.25 over the next three years and thereafter indexing the minimum wage based on inflation, which fails to take into account the current economic status of the state or other fees and costs employers are required to pay.

 

AB 1138 (Chau; D-Alhambra) Massive Exposure to Civil Penalties and Liability — Inappropriately increases civil cases and civil penalties on employers by permitting civil action against those employers who fail to conspicuously post a list of every employee covered under an employer’s workers’ compensation insurance policy and to retain this list for five years.

 

SB 404 (Jackson; D-Santa Barbara) Expansion of Discrimination Litigation — Makes it virtually impossible for employers to manage their employees and exposes them to a higher risk of litigation by expanding the Fair Employment and Housing Act to include a protected classification for any person who is, perceived, or associated with a family caregiver.

 

SB 626 (Beall; D–San Jose) Massive Workers’ Compensation Cost Increase — Unravels many of the employer cost-saving provisions in last year’s workers’ compensation reform package and results in employers paying nearly $1 billion in benefit increases to injured workers without an expectation that the increases will be fully offset by system savings.

 

SB 761 (DeSaulnier; D-Concord) Paid Family Leave Protection — Creates a new burden on small businesses and additional opportunities for frivolous litigation by transforming the paid family leave program, which is used as a wage replacement for an employee who is taking a separate leave of absence, into an additional paid protected leave.

 

Economic Development Barriers

 

AB 59 (Bonta; D-Alameda) Split Roll Parcel Tax — Potentially increases the tax burden on businesses by permitting local agencies to assess a higher parcel tax on commercial property than residential property overturning an appellate decision that determined such taxes were unconstitutional.

 

AB 188 (Ammiano; D-San Francisco) Split Roll Change of Ownership — Unfairly targets commercial property by redefining “change of ownership” so that such property is more frequently reassessed, which will ultimately lead to higher property taxes that will be passed onto tenants, consumers, and potentially employees.

 

AB 288 (Levine; D-San Rafael) De Facto Moratorium on Hydraulic Fracturing — Imposes a de facto moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing in the state, driving up fuel and energy prices and harming the job market in these sectors, by basing approval of notices for well operations on a public health and safety standard that is impossible to meet.

 

AB 649 (Nazarian; D-Studio City) Moratorium on Hydraulic Fracturing — Substantially hinders oil and gas production in the state, driving up fuel and energy prices and harming the job market in these sectors, by prohibiting hydraulic fracturing and the use of fresh water in hydraulic fracturing until CalEPA re-authorizes the practice under a new regulatory scheme, if at all, in 2019.

 

AB 769 (Skinner; D-Berkeley) Creates Inequity in the Tax Structure — Harms struggling small businesses and start-ups by repealing the Net Operating Loss (NOL) carry back deduction, a lifeline that helps employers stay afloat, retain employees, and continue investing in their businesses in an economic downturn.

 

 

 

AB 823 (Eggman; D-Stockton) Infrastructure — Adds additional costs and hurdles to critically needed new infrastructure and development projects by imposing unreasonable mitigation requirements.

 

AB 906 (Pan; D-Sacramento) Independent Contractors — Harms businesses that contract with the state by prohibiting the state from contracting for personal services unless specifically authorized by the Legislature and even then, significantly limits the duration of the contract.

 

AB 953 (Ammiano; D-San Francisco) Increases CEQA Litigation — Invites more litigation over CEQA projects by overturning a recent court decision and allowing project opponents to challenge EIRs that don’t adequately evaluate and mitigate impacts related to conditions and physical features in the environment like sea-level rise and fault-lines.

 

AB 1164 (Lowenthal; D-Long Beach) Inappropriate Wage Liens — Creates a dangerous and unfair precedent in the wage and hour arena by allowing employees to file liens on an employer’s personal property or real property where the work was performed, based on an alleged but unproven wage claim, that will take priority over other existing liens.

 

AB 1301 (Bloom; D-Santa Monica) Moratorium on Hydraulic Fracturing — Substantially hinders oil and gas production in the state, driving up fuel and energy prices and harming the job market in these sectors, by imposing a moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing until the Legislature re-authorizes it through subsequent legislation that limits the conditions under which it can be conducted.

 

AB 1323 (Mitchell; D-Los Angeles) Moratorium on Hydraulic Fracturing — Substantially hinders oil and gas production in the state, driving up fuel and energy prices and harming the job market in these sectors, by prohibiting hydraulic fracturing and the use of fresh water in hydraulic fracturing until CalEPA re-authorizes the practice under a new regulatory scheme, if at all, in 2019.

 

 

 

 

ACA 3 (Campos; D-San Jose) Lowers Vote Requirement for Tax Increases — Adds complexity and uncertainty to the current tax structure and pressure to increase taxes on commercial, industrial and residential property owners to support public safety services by giving local government new authority to enact a special tax, including parcel taxes, by lowering the vote threshold from two-thirds to only fifty-five percent.

 

SB 241 (Evans; D-Santa Rosa) Fuel Price Increase — Drives up fuel prices for businesses and consumers by imposing a severance tax at the 9.9% of the gross value of each barrel of oil severed, thereby discouraging production of such oil and gas in this state.

 

SB 365 (Wolk; D-Davis) Limitations on Tax Credits — Creates uncertainty for California employers making long-term investment decisions by requiring tax incentives end 10 years after its effective date.

 

SB 622 (Monning; D-Carmel) Targeted Tax — Threatens jobs in beverage, retail and restaurant industries by arbitrarily and unfairly targeting certain beverages for a new tax in order to fund Children’s health programs.

 

SB 686 (Jackson; D-Santa Barbara) Safety Recalls — Exposes car dealers and rental car companies to significant liability and precludes them from renting, leasing, loaning, or selling a car despite the lack of actual knowledge that the car was subject to a recall, that may or may not pose any imminent harm to the consumer or renter.

 

SB 691 (Hancock; D-Berkeley) Dramatically Increases Pollution Penalties — Dramatically increases existing strict-liability penalties for nuisance-based, non-vehicular air-quality violations, and expands applicability of those penalties to a wide range of businesses previously not subject to the penalties without adequately defining what types and levels of pollution would trigger those penalties.

 

SCA 3 (Leno; D-San Francisco) Lowers Vote Requirement for Tax Increases — Adds complexity and uncertainty to the current tax structure and pressure to increase taxes on commercial, industrial and residential property owners for education programs by giving school districts and community colleges new authority to enact a parcel tax from two-thirds to fifty-five percent.

 

SCA 4 (Liu; D-La Cañada Flintridge) Lowers Vote Requirement for Tax Increases — Adds complexity and uncertainty to the current tax structure and pressure to increase taxes on commercial, industrial and residential property owners for local transportation projects by giving local government new authority to enact special taxes, including parcel taxes, by lowering the vote threshold from two-thirds to fifty-five percent.

 

SCA 7 (Wolk; D-Davis) Lowers Vote Requirement for Tax Increases — Adds complexity and uncertainty to the current tax structure and pressure to increase taxes on commercial, industrial and residential property owners to finance library construction by giving local government new authority to enact special taxes, including parcel taxes, by lowering the vote threshold from two-thirds to fifty-five percent.

 

SCA 8 (Corbett; D-San Leandro) Lowers Vote Requirement for Tax Increases – Adds complexity and uncertainty to the current tax structure and pressure to increase taxes on commercial, industrial and residential property owners for transportation projects by giving local government new authority to enact special taxes, including parcel taxes, by lowering the vote threshold from two-thirds to fifty-five percent.

 

SCA 9 (Corbett; D-San Leandro) Lowers Vote Requirement for Tax Increases — Adds complexity and uncertainty to the current tax structure and pressure to increase taxes on commercial, industrial and residential property owners to finance community and economic development projects by giving local government new authority to enact special taxes, including parcel taxes, by lowering the vote threshold from two-thirds to fifty-five percent.

 

SCA 11 (Hancock; D-Oakland) Lowers Vote Requirement for Tax Increases — Adds complexity and uncertainty to the current tax structure and pressure to increase taxes on commercial, industrial and residential property owners by giving local government new authority to enact special taxes, including parcel taxes, by lowering the vote threshold from two-thirds to fifty-five percent.

 

Expensive, Unnecessary Regulations

 

SB 529 (Leno; D-San Francisco) Disposable Fast-Food Container Ban — Places an unworkable ban on disposable food services containers or single-use carryout bags, unless they can meet an increasing recycling threshold that will reach 75% on July 1, 2020.

 

SB 617 (Evans; D-Santa Rosa) Comprehensive CEQA Expansion — Inappropriately expands CEQA, slowing development and growth in the state, by increasing CEQA notice filing and publication requirements, inviting more litigation over CEQA projects by overturning a recent court decision and allowing project opponents to challenge EIRs that don’t adequately evaluate and mitigate impacts related to conditions and physical features in the environment like sea-level rise and fault-lines, and eliminating several existing CEQA exemptions.

 

SB 747 (DeSaulnier; D-Concord) Unnecessary New Regulatory Scheme — Establishes a new, duplicative, and burdensome program that requires the Department of Public Health to regulate manufacturers of consumer products that the Department determines contribute to a significant public health epidemic, (ie: obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease) and allows the department to restrict or prohibit the sale of such products.

(California Chamber of Commerce)

The Great Liar Abel Maldonado Runs for Governor

California GOP Corruption
Under the corrupt leadership of GOP State Senator Abel Maldonado and GOP Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (and backed by other Republicans) party primaries were abolished in California and only the top two vote getters were allowed on the general election ballots.
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Four opposition parties from both the Left and the Right were effectively banned from the November ballot - The American Independent Party, the Green Party, the Peace and Freedom Party and the Libertarian Party.  Maldonado not only wanted opposition parties banned, but independent candidates also.  In addition all write-in votes were made illegal.
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Both Republican and Democrat leaders were happy to eliminate ballot opposition.

Abel Maldonado moves toward Governor run

• Maldonado lied to the voters when he broke his no new taxes pledge and supported a monster tax increase.
• GOP Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rewarded Maldonado with 30 pieces of silver and an appointment as Lt. Governor.

The Great Liar and tax increaser Abel Maldonado (Republican - Santa Maria) took his first formal step to run against Democratic Comrade Governor Jerry Brown, promising a lively 2014 gubernatorial contest pitting "the son of immigrant field workers versus the son of Sacramento."

Maldonado, who as lieutenant governor was California's highest-ranking Latino Republican in more than a century, formed a campaign committee Thursday, allowing him to begin raising money for what is likely to be a high-dollar race says the San Francisco Chronicle.

The 45-year-old former farmworker from Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County) also has hired a team of nationally known veteran GOP strategists - a clear sign that he intends to mount an aggressive campaign against Brown, who will be 75 by the next election. Brown is widely expected to run for another term, though he hasn't formally declared his intention to do so.

Maldonado's senior strategist, John Weaver, was chief adviser to the 2012 presidential campaign of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and the 2000 presidential campaign of Arizona Sen. John McCain. Fred Davis, creator of the infamous "Demon Sheep" TV ad for Senate candidate Carly Fiorina in 2010, will be Maldonado's media and advertising consultant.

Maldonado has tapped Vince Harris to direct his bilingual and Internet outreach, as Harris did for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in his 2012 campaign.


Taxpayer Protection Pledge Plays Major Role at CA GOP Convention
2009 video of the Great Liar Maldonado and his support for huge tax increases.

On Thursday, Maldonado spoke like a candidate who is confident of shifting his own party's profile, while taking on the incumbent Democratic governor and son of the late Gov. Edmund "Pat" Brown in a solidly blue state.

"I believe it's time for the (Republican) party to go in a different direction," said Maldonado. In California, where GOP voter registration has fallen below 29 percent, he said, "we need a new way" that calls for "bold ideas" and for the party to be "inclusive and optimistic and inspiring."

While some people in his party will resist the change, he said, "To those I say: 'You will like irrelevance even less.' "

Leftist Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker John Pérez (Socialist Democrat - Los Angeles) dismissed Maldonado as "an electoral loser," a reference to his unsuccessful bid to unseat Rep. Lois Capps of Santa Barbara in November and his loss in 2010 to former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in the lieutenant governor's race.


Read more:   San Francisco Chronicle

Abel Maldonado's 30 pieces of silver.
GOP State Senator Abel Maldonado lied to the voters and raised their taxes. The Republican Party has rewarded his lies and betrayal four times in a row with their votes for office.  The question of the day is, "Does the GOP believe in anything."

Bullet train to go right through a high school

Bullet train draws a bull's eye on downtown Bakersfield

• The train could run through the 174-bed Bakersfield Homeless Center, Bakersfield High School and dozens of buildings.

The insanity of the People's Republic's Bullet Train goes on and on.  Up and down the empty agricultural Central Valley the government hacks have chosen the most densely populated and expensive areas to run the tracks.

California High Speed Rail officials have released a preliminary track alignment through Bakersfield that would steer clear of several notable local sites but would require the bulldozing of others.

The rail authority's alignment alternatives for Bakersfield have raised considerable concern locally. One option would require demolition of a building at Bakersfield High. Churches and businesses would also be negatively impacted by different scenarios, as would city-owned facilities.

In late 2011, the rail authority proposed a new option that staff said would lessen the impact on the city. But that "hybrid" route also caused concern because it would run through the 174-bed Bakersfield Homeless Center on East Truxtun Avenue, as well as new housing proposed at Mill Creek, parking for the downtown convention center and other properties reports the Bakersfield Californian.

A spokeswoman for Mercy Hospital said the preliminary alignment released Tuesday would affect the medical center.

Bakersfield City Manager Alan Tandy and the Kern Council of Governments had argued in favor of delaying a decision on route alternatives through the county. Noting that there is no money to build the project's initial phase all the way south from Merced to Bakersfield anyway, they proposed a tentative alignment following the existing BNSF railroad. That would leave options open but avoid placing a stigma on properties that would be affected by any final alignment.

Wasco city manager Dan Allen noted that the City Council has passed a resolution opposed to the project.



 

In an empty agricultural Central Valley government hacks run the train through the most expensive and densely populated areas.

SHOCK  - Trains Stop!
No one appears to notice that trains make stops.  The Bullet Train will not be rushing at ultra-speed from Los Angeles to San Francisco.  What no one talks about is trains make stops to drop off an pick up passengers and their luggage.
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There will be multiple stops for the train such as Burbank, Palmdale, Bakersfield, Fresno and San Jose.  Each stop will require 30 to 45 minutes to load and unload everyone involved.  A trip with five stops at different stations could add perhaps 3 hours or more to the trip.  You might be able to drive there faster in your car.