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.''

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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.

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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)

Union Thugs vs. Idiot Administrators

Thinking is not allowed in the People's Republic.
The police Labor Union thugs in Stockton put up billboards to frighten the public.  The union also bought a home next to the city manager to intimidate him. 

Both police unions and administrators think only in terms of government workers to solve any problem


By Gary;

Stockton, California has a 20% unemployment rate, has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country.

As cash-strapped cities up and down the state demand concessions from employees, the police union in nearly bankrupt Stockton is fighting hard to keep the fiscal crisis from breaking its contract.  The police union also bought the house next to City Manager Bob Deis in an attempt to intimidate him.

The 315-member police force is down more than 25% from its highest staffing levels in 2008; and the city forced wage and benefit reductions on officers while trying to close a deficit of more than $20 million.

The union is suing the city, challenging its declaration of a fiscal emergency that allows it to break employees' contracts. If the union wins, the city — which is already flirting with bankruptcy — could owe up to $10 million in back wages. City leaders declined to comment on pending litigation reports the Los Angeles Times.

"Everybody knows that revenues in cities are down because of the recession. But in Stockton, it is more than that," said Officer Steve Leonesio, the union president. "The city spent money they didn't have on a sports arena and downtown structures and then when it all hit rock bottom they went after public safety. We're sticking up for what is right."

REAL CHANGE  -  Everyone from city administrators to government workers refuse to think outside the box.  Both sides only think in terms of unionized government workers as the be all and end all of policy.

But where is it written that only unionized police can maintain law and order?

Every large community has thousands of residents with experience as former or retired law enforcement officers or ex-military.  If the city budget will not allow the hiring of police then why not flood the streets with a part-time volunteer police force?

There is no logical reason on earth why an retired ex-Marine with 20 years of service could not volunteer 10 to 20 hours a week to help police the city he lives in.  Many in the community would love the opportunity to help. 

Naturally logic has nothing to do with modern 21st century government.  In the minds of administrators only government workers can do anything . . . and the unions would oppose it because they would net get any dues money.

So goes down the drain the People's Republic of California.

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A part-time volunteer police.
A 1922 volunteer posse in Arizona was used to hunt down criminals.  Except for labor unions, there is
no reason on earth why many cities could not make massive use of volunteer police.

Indian casino tribes give $275,000 to increase taxes

The Indian Casinos have their lips firmly planted in Jerry Brown's ass.

I say fuck the Indians.  If the Indian Casinos want to screw me over and raise my taxes then I will take my gambling dollars to Nevada.

California gambling tribes have given $275,000 toward Gov. Jerry Brown's new 2012 ballot initiative to raise taxes on sales and the wealthy, the first known major contribution to his effort reports the Sacramento Bee.

The California Tribal Business Alliance and two of its member tribes have written checks to help Brown's cause, said the group's political director, David Quintana.

The Alliance gave $75,000, while the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians and Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians each gave $100,000.

Brown's initiative would raise the sales tax by a half-cent and increase income taxes starting at $250,000 for individuals to raise an estimated $7 billion in the first fiscal year. Both would expire at the end of 2016.

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An increase in high paid government workers

Everyone from illegal aliens to government workers to corporations have their
snouts deep in the trough of taxpayer money.

A World Gone Mad
A 9% increase in government workers earning more than $100,000.


The insane government spending goes on and on.

The 3,800 employees who earned at least $100,000 annually last year made up 10 percent of the Sacramento region's city and county workers, but ate 25 percent of payroll.

Their ranks increased by about 80, while the number of city and county workers earning less than $100,000 fell by almost 3,000, according to a Sacramento Bee review of new data from the state controller's office.

The city and county of Sacramento collectively increased the total amount paid to six-figure employees by $23 million, or 9 percent, while cutting 1,800 workers from their payrolls.

The number of county of Sacramento employees under 30 – most of them low earners – fell by 50 percent, to 900, from 2007 to 2010, according to actuarial documents from the county retirement system. During the same period, the number of workers over 30 declined by just 4 percent.

"Workers that were able to stay had higher seniority and are at the higher wage scale," said Chris Andis, a spokeswoman for the county of Sacramento.

At the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, workers did get raises, partly to offset a deal that increased workers' contributions to their pensions, sheriff's spokesman Jason Ramos said.

The number of six-figure earners in the Sheriff's Department grew by 25 percent from 2009 to 2010, even though the department employed 400 fewer workers.  The Sacramento Police Department, 173 employees earned six-figures in 2010, up by 15 from the year earlier.

(Sacramento Bee)

A part-time legislature for California?

Bakersfield Assemblywoman Shannon Grove filed a constitutional amendment to return
the legislature to a part-time status.

A part-time legislature would slash lawmaker's pay down to $1,500 a month

California's Legislature would become part-time under a constitutional amendment proposed Friday by a Republican lawmaker and the head of a political watchdog group.

The measure calls for the nation's most populous state to meet three months per year – and for lawmakers' pay to be cut from $7,940 per month to $1,500 per month – or $18,000 annually reports the Sacramento Bee.

Republican Assemblywoman Shannon Grove of Bakersfield is teaming with Ted Costa of People's Advocate in hopes of gathering 807,615 voter signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

The proposal was filed Friday with the state attorney general's office, a first step toward launching a campaign.

BRAVO to Grove for proposing real reform.

The State Legislature was a part-time body until 1966.  Going back to that system is a major reform of a totally corrupt system.

Today the legislature is filled with full time political hacks who mostly have near zero job skills out in the real world where normal people live.

These hacks float from one full time office to another to earn a living.  To keep sucking on the public tit they will sell their souls to the Devil for the campaign money needed to hold office.

What the people back home want has little meaning in their lives.  Hacks are devoted to keeping the special interests happy.

A part-time legislator would go to Sacramento for a few weeks to make laws and pass a budget.  With their job over they would return to their districts and work for a living like everyone else.

This is a reform that is long overdue.

How it would work

- - - Have lawmakers meet for 30 days in January each year, recess, then reconvene in May for 60 days.

- - - Allow the governor to call special sessions to address extraordinary issues, but limit them to 15 days.

- - - Not allow legislators to accept state employment or appointment to a state post while serving in the Capitol or for five years afterward.

- - - Require the Legislature to adopt a balanced, two-year budget by June 15 of each odd-numbered year – and to forfeit salary and per diem for each day it is late.

Now comes the hard part.  Will Republicans back reform or will they leave Grove to twist slowly in the wind. 

I suspect the GOP will totally ignore Grove.  The past record of the liberal leaning GOP shows no real interest in reform.  Any reform will come from the bottom up.  The Republican Party, except for Grove, is nearly worthless.

(Sacramento Bee)


A part-time legislature will pass when pigs fly.  Every corrupt business and union will do everything
in their power to prevent them losing control of their pet legislators.

Democrat in foreclosure on $1.15 million home



Sacramento area Democratic Assemblywoman Alyson Huber is in default on her home which is just the position she has put the state of California in.


Foreclosure
Doing to California what she has done to herself

Democratic Assemblywoman Alyson Huber is in default on a million-dollar mortgage in El Dorado Hills as she copes with a contentious divorce, political redistricting and a rocky real estate market.

The tangled fiscal chain of events could complicate her efforts to seek re-election in a neighboring Assembly district, where she will run because a state commission redrew her current district to tilt strongly Republican.

Huber, 39, has announced that she is moving to Rancho Cordova to seek a final two-year term from a newly drawn district, stretching from Citrus Heights to south of Wilton, that she thinks she can win.

Huber is leaving behind two El Dorado Hills homes: a five-bedroom, 4,900-square-foot residence on Terracina Drive that she plans to rent out, and a four-bedroom, 4,000-square foot home on Breese Circle with pool, spa and golf course view that was $21,100 in arrears when a default notice was filed Oct. 12.

A timeline of Huber's troubles encompasses much of 2011, from January, when she left her husband, to the mortgage default in October.

"I pay all my bills," Alyson Huber said. "I believe in honoring my commitments. But I've been put in an impossible situation. I cannot, as a single mom with two children, pay my mortgage and pay my ex-husband's mortgage."

The Breese Circle home initially was listed at $1.15 million, but the asking price has fallen gradually to $725,000, records show. Alyson Huber said a short-sale offer on the house was made about a month ago. Lenders are weighing whether to accept it, she said.

(Sacramento Bee)

Democrats crack down on Medical Marijuana

Democrat officials are using $1,000 a day fines to close down medical marijuana stores.

In the almost totally Democratic city of Sacramento Democrat officials are working overtime to close down every possible medical marijuana store.  It would appear that personal freedom and property rights have no meaning to the Democratic Party.

Eight marijuana stores – from as many as 99 dispensaries that opened – are left. Dozens have closed in recent weeks amid fears of federal prosecution and aggressive actions by the county that include litigation and fines for building code violations.

The city of Sacramento has frozen permit applications for existing dispensaries, but has allowed most to stay. Sacramento County's crackdown in the unincorporated areas, by contrast, is having a dramatic effect on California's quickly shrinking medical marijuana industry, reports the Sacramento Bee.

"There is a high rate of people closing voluntarily," Rush said. "They didn't want to cause trouble for their landlords or they're closing to get a chance to figure out how to come back in compliance."


The Green Temple Cannabis Collective in south Sacramento is among stores selling medical marijuana that are closing. The United Food and Commercial Workers union, which sought to organize medical pot employees, estimates that California has lost up to 5,000 jobs as dispensaries have closed.


In San Diego, nearly two-thirds of some 220 dispensaries have shut down amid threatened federal property seizures and city lawsuits.

Three well-known San Francisco dispensaries closed after receiving warning letters from U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag. California's oldest dispensary, the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, is fighting to stay in business and preparing to pull its cannabis products after a federal suit to seize the property. The dispensary offers other services, including magnetic massage therapy, physician evaluations and counseling.

"We need to move the marijuana very shortly. I don't want to get the landlord in any more trouble," said operator Lynette Shaw.

In Sacramento County, many marijuana stores had stayed open even as the county collected $91,000 in fines against businesses operating in violation of zoning codes. Two months ago, the county began threatening $1,000 daily fines against property owners for building code violations for unpermitted work that converted rental space to dispensaries.

Faced with monthly penalties of $30,000, "the property owners all of a sudden got interested in evicting their tenants," said Steve Pedretti, the county's director of building and code enforcement.

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Dianne Feinstein picks up a GOP challenger

With less than a year to go until the November 2012 election, a GOP challenger to Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has emerged reports the Sacramento Bee.

Elizabeth Emken, a longtime advocate for children with autism and 2010 congressional candidate, has decided to run against the incumbent Democrat next year, announcing her candidacy on her campaign website and the conservative blog Flashreport.org.

"She's definitely in and we're putting together the campaign now," campaign consultant Tim Clark said in an interview.

Emken, 48, most recently served as vice president of governmental relations for Autism Speaks, a national nonprofit organization that bills itself as the cause's largest U.S. advocacy group. The Danville Republican, whose 19-year-old son is autistic, previously worked as a legislative consultant and board member for Cure Autism Now, another nonprofit advocacy group that merged with Autism Speaks in 2007. Clark said she also worked in what he called an "efficiency manager" role for IBM Corporation.

"I'm running for U.S. Senate because my children need me to," Emken, who Clark declined to make available for an interview, wrote in a guest post on FlashReport, which first reported the news of her bid. "The massive government debt, the lack of resolve to control spending, and excessive government regulation threaten to fundamentally change the American way of life. I'm not going to let that happen, at least not without a fight."

Emken loaned her 2010 campaign for the 11th Congressional District $300,000, according to federal campaign records, but placed last in the four-way GOP primary with 16.7 percent of the votes cast Clark said he expects Emken, who has launched a campaign website and opened a federal committee to raise money for her new bid, to focus on cultivating a "broad based group of donors" instead of tapping into personal funds to fuel her bid.

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