Two Democrats in State Senate election - Guess which party won?

"Corruptus in Extremis"

• Yet another phony and corrupt California election.  Some 57% of the voters in the San Francisco Bay Area district below are not Democrats, but the voters were force-fed a phony "choice" of two special interest funded Democrats on their ballot.

(Los Angeles Times)  -  In a battle between two Democrats, Orinda Mayor Steve Glazer was elected Tuesday to the state Senate in a special election over Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla of Concord for a seat representing the East Bay.

With 100% of precincts reporting, Glazer had 54.6% of the vote, compared with the 45.4% garnered by Bonilla.

"Our campaign struck a chord with voters frustrated by the gridlock and dysfunction in Sacramento," Glazer said when the results were in. "They want leaders who are more pragmatic than partisan, more focused on answers than ambition."

The contest proved one of the most expensive and acrimonious legislative battles in recent years, with more than $7 million spent by outside groups, in addition to the $2 million spent by the candidates themselves.

Glazer, a moderate Democrat and longtime political advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown, received outside help from the California Chamber of Commerce, while unions spent heavily for Bonilla. Glazer had angered labor by opposing strikes by public transit employees of BART, while Bonilla supports their right to strike.

The California Democratic Party had backed Bonilla. The party's executive director, Shawnda Westly, said Tuesday the party would not back down from  supporting candidates like Bonilla in the future.

"Her opponent claimed to be Democrat but ran a cynical campaign to appeal to Republican voters in a low-turnout election," Westly said in a statement. "We know that low-turnout elections favor Republicans. When Democratic voters show up and vote, Democrats win." 

The special election was held to fill a vacancy in the Senate created when Mark DeSaulnier was elected to Congress.

Read More . . . .

Back When Free Elections Existed
In the olden days when legislative districts were small just about anyone could afford to run for and win political office.  A candidate might spring for a few kegs of beer for the audience and then jump on a tree stump and give a speech.  The more or less sober voters would then select the candidate that supported their views.
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State Senate districts in neighboring Nevada have only 133,000 people. Today California State Senate districts have nearly 1,000,000 people making it insanely expensive to run for office.  So in California only millionaires or those willing to be bribed with campaign cash by Billionaire Special Interest Cartels win elections.
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California voters are only allowed a "choice" between two bought and paid for special interest funded candidates.  It is rule by oligarchy.
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The answer is much smaller state legislative districts and a part time legislature that meets for 90 days and the legislators are forced to return home to work for a living like the rest of us do.

Calif. loses another major corporation to Texas

Toyota and Kubota Flee to Texas

From Eric Dondero: 

A year ago former Texas Governor Rick Perry gleamed from ear-to-ear when he announced that California-based Toyota, headquartered in Torrance, was shifting its entire corporate operations to the Dallas suburb of Grapevine. 

Now this, from the DailyBreeze.com, "Tractor manufacturer Kubota follows Toyota out of Torrance to Texas, taking with it 180 jobs":

Torrance will lose 180 jobs when tractor manufacturer Kubota and its credit arm, a fixture in Southern California for 43 years, becomes the latest Japanese-owned subsidiary to leave the South Bay and move its American headquarters to Texas, the company announced Thursday. 

Much like Toyota, which made a similar announcement last year, Kubota Tractor Corp. and Kubota Credit Corp. are relocating to the Dallas suburb of Grapevine within the next 18 months. Company officials said the move will allow its administrative staff to be closer to its major markets and manufacturing, assembly and distribution facilities in Georgia and Kansas.

Editor's comment - Torrance mayor Pat Furray, a Democrat, has gotta be like the most unluckiest sap in all of California. 

Oh, and yes, we do know that's not a Kubota in the re-done YouTube video of the monster Kenny Chensney hit "She thinks my tractor's sexy." But it could be?


Thanks to The Libertarian Republican.net

Kenny Chesney- She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy

Kubota Tractor Corporation and Kubota Credit Corporation announced today that they will relocate their headquarters to Grapevine, Texas. The company is currently based in Torrance. (Chuck Bennett / Staff Photographer) 

Palmdale officials settle lawsuit, agree to voting by district

Palmdale City Councilman Fred Thompson
Thompson was elected to the Palmdale School Board and subsequently
appointed to the City of Palmdale Planning Commission.

Racism - The Wrong Race 

is on the City Council

• Latino "activists" somehow managed to find three "discriminated against" residents willing to put their names on a multi-million dollar racism lawsuit and share in the settlement.
• The fact that an African American is on the city council means nothing to so-called Latino "activists".  He is a member of the wrong race.  So who are the real racists?

(Los Angeles Times)  -  Palmdale officials Wednesday night announced that they have agreed to major changes in their elections system, settling a widely watched lawsuit over minority representation and the California Voting Rights Act.

Until now, Palmdale was a lone holdout in a string of lawsuits filed against cities that resisted district voting, which backers say helps minority groups gain elected office.

The city agreed to align its balloting to coincide with state and federal general elections, starting in November 2016. It also agreed to have voters choose elected officials by four geographic districts, including two with Latino majorities, rather than from the city as a whole.

Palmdale also will pay $4.5 million plus interest to lawyers (editor - follow the money!!!) for the three minority plaintiffs who argued that the city's at-large voting system deprived them of opportunities to elect representatives of their choice.

The current City Council members will continue to serve until the next election, when the balloting for mayor — elected at large every two years — also will be held. Council terms can be staggered after that, according to the agreement.

The settlement represents the end of a three-year court battle and a major victory for voting rights activists.

Most cities, school districts and other jurisdictions targeted under the state's voting rights law have switched rather than wage costly court battles. Santa Barbara and Whittier are among the most recent cities to agree to change from at-large to by-district elections.

Jurisdictions vulnerable to lawsuits under the act generally have significant minority populations but few or no minority elected officials. In Palmdale, minorities make up almost 75% of the population, but candidates of color rarely have won a seat on the City Council.

Councilman Fred Thompson, an African American, said his 2013 election proved the lawsuit was “both unnecessary and disingenuous.”

Mayor Pro Tem Mike Dispensa called on the state Legislature to make changes in the voting rights law.

“This lawsuit has never been about race or voting rights,” Mayor Jim Ledford said, adding it “always has been about money and politics.” Ledford produced a list of 25 voting rights cases across California that he said have cost taxpayers more than $13.8 million.

Read More . . . .

Palmdale is in the northern Mojave Desert of Los Angeles County. 

Obamacare California slashes spending

You Mean it's NOT free?

(Los Angeles Times)  -  After using most of $1 billion in federal start-up money, California's Obamacare exchange is preparing to go on a diet.

That financial reality is reflected in Covered California's proposed budget, to be released Wednesday, as well as a reduced forecast calling for 2016 enrollment of fewer than 1.5 million people.

The recalibration comes after tepid enrollment growth for California during the second year of the Affordable Care Act. The state ended open enrollment in February with 1.4 million people signed up, far short of its goal of 1.7 million.

Covered California can't draw on the state general funds, and its primary source of revenue is a $13.95 monthly fee tacked onto every individual policy sold.

"This budget marks a turning point for Covered California of moving from a start-up with federal support to demonstrating we can operate under our own steam for years to come," said Peter Lee, Covered California's executive director.

The budget details include proposals to:

• Spend $58 million less compared with the current fiscal year, a 15% reduction.
• Devote the largest portion, $121.5 million, to outreach, sales and marketing. That's down 33% from the current year.
• Maintain the monthly $13.95 fee for each individual policyholder, which would raise $233.2 million in revenue.
• The state also would draw on $100 million in federal money in reserves — the last of the start-up grant. No further federal funding is expected.

"Holding fees flat like they did is an important safeguard for the affordability of Covered California coverage," said Nicole Evans, a spokeswoman for the California Assn. of Health Plans.

"As the myriad of interest groups pressure the board to fund their projects, they need to stand firm in protecting premium prices and holding down the budget," she said.

Read More . . . .

Democrats to Remove “Alien” from Illegal Alien

Politically Correct Masturbation

• Democrat whore politicians get a sexual thrill every time they screw over an American and pander to the citizens of foreign nations.

(The Guardian)  -  The California State Senate approved a bill to remove the term “alien” from the California Labor Code on May 1. Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia), chair of the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, introduced SB 432 this past February. 

Currently, the term “alien” is used to refer to “any person not a citizen or national of the United States,” according to the Legal Information Institute of Cornell University Law School. The term “alien” has a long history in the U.S. and has been included in laws, such as the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which granted the early U.S. government the power to deport foreigners deemed dangerous to the country. Furthermore, the terms “illegal alien” and “unauthorized alien” are frequently used in U.S. laws and statutes.

Mendoza feels that the term holds a negative connotation and should no longer be used.

“The time has come for California to remove the term ‘alien’ from the state’s Labor Code,” Mendoza said in a press conference. “Alien is now commonly considered a derogatory term for a foreign-born person and has very negative connotations. SB 432 will modernize the Labor Code and removes the term ‘alien’ to describe a person who is not born in or a fully naturalized citizen of the United States.”

Mendoza added that the term “alien” can become problematic in the hiring process and troublesome for new immigrants looking for jobs.

“The word ‘alien’ and any law prescribing an order for the issuance of employment to ‘aliens,’ have no place in the laws of our state and, more importantly, should never be the basis of an employment hiring,” Mendoza said. “SB 432 will delete this outdated, discriminatory and unnecessary reference in state law.”

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor also finds the term “alien” offensive.

“To call them illegal aliens seemed and does seem insulting to me,” Sotomayor said in a speech about immigration at Yale Law School.

Read More . . . .

Neither the open borders Democrats or Republicans give a damn about protecting the jobs of American citizens.  Democrats want future voters and Republicans want cheap labor. 

The Democrat soda tax returns

Re-Distributing Your Wealth

"Right after liberal Democrats, the most dangerous 

politicians are country club Republicans."

Thomas Sowell

(Sacramento Business Journal)  -  Distributors of soda and other sugary drinks would be required to pay two pennies per ounce for diabetes programs under legislation by a Santa Monica Democrat.

As have previous incarnations of the bill, it pits health organizations against business groups. These include the California Chamber of Commerce, which has labeled the bill a job killer, and the California Restaurant Association, which calls it government overreach.

The bill’s author, Democrat Assemblyman Richard Bloom, highlights studies that show taxes on sweetened beverages lower consumption. 

In January 2014, the Mexican government slapped a tax on sodas. The action led to a 10 percent reduction of purchases, according a study from Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

A one-cent per ounce tax proposed in 2013 was estimated to bring in $1.8 billion to the state, but died in committee. A similar bill met the same fate in 2010. And legislation last year that would have required a warning label on soda akin to cigarettes died last year in committee.

Assembly Bill 1357 will be heard May 12 in an Assembly health committee.

Read More . . . .

Satellites Monitor California’s Sinking Central Valley

The Political Hacks are Clueless

• The drought threatens the entire economy of California. But the moronic bipartisan political hacks in Sacramento still have done nothing about building a string of desalination plants up and down the coast.
• Meanwhile. countless billions (billions with a "B") are pissed down a corrupt rat hole to build a "bullet" train to nowhere. 

(Wired Magazine)  -  CALIFORNIA IS RUNNING on groundwater right now. As the state has cut down on surface water deliveries from rivers and reservoirs, farmers and municipal water suppliers have reacted by sucking more and more out of Madre Earth. The state’s land, in response, is sinking lower and lower, day by day, year by year.

In times of crisis, turning to groundwater is understandable (it may even be unavoidable). But—as it stares down its inevitably dessicated future—California is finally waking up to the need to monitor and protect these reserves. To do that, the state’s Department of Water Resources is turning to new techniques using satellite data which, by measuring changes in the ground above, can keep an eye on water levels below. Essentially, if the Golden State is going to weather this disaster, it will need some help from up high.

Earlier this week Tom Farr, a geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, completed the first of many maps for the California Department of Water Resources with data collected by the European Sentinel-1 satellite. That map, of the state’s agriculture hub in the Central Valley, is part of a larger project to use NASA expertise to study—and try to help combat—California’s drought.

Subsidence in California's Central Valley

This animation shows, in exaggerated terms, how the surface of the southern Central Valley of California deformed from the period 2007 to 2011. Interferometric data from the Japanese ALOS PALSAR imaging radar was used to measure the deformation, shown in color overlaid on an ASTER image. The large subsidence "bowl" that developed over this time period was caused by withdrawal of groundwater, causing subsurface layers to compact. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar, or InSAR, can be used to monitor subsidence in order to prevent groundwater overdraft and irreversible compaction of aquifers. ALOS PALSAR data is copyright JAXA/METI and was provided by the GEO Supersites and the U.S. Government Research Consortium datapool at the Alaska Satellite Facility.

One of the ways California will use Farr’s maps is to identify groundwater trouble spots (the faster the land is sinking, the faster the water is being depleted). A new law signed last year by Governor Brown requires regional water agencies to devise groundwater sustainability plans. To do that, though, they’ll need good data. And, at the moment, good groundwater information is hard to find and expensive to gather.

The state can monitor groundwater directly by measuring water levels within wells—but digging new wells is expensive, and existing wells may be on private land. “The other problem,” Farr says, “is that you’re not sure what kind of aquifer they’re drilled into.” Aquifers can be confined, separated from the surface by an impermeable layer of dirt or rock, or unconfined, with water entering from the ground directly above. 

Well data can be hard to interpret as most wells penetrate more than one level in the aquifer system. So, not only is the water-level in the well hard to interpret in terms of groundwater volume, explains Farr, but they provide portals for water to move between different parts of the aquifer system—altering the very thing geologists seek to measure.

Read More . . . .

Overpumping Water in a Desert

In 1892 (above) Tulare Lake was once the biggest 

freshwater lake west of the Mississippi.​

What remains of Tulare Lake today after endless
overpumping of ground water in order to grow crops,
build cities and golf courses in a desert.

That sinking feeling
The sign reads, " San Joaquin Valley California Subsidence, 3M 1925 - 1977."  The Central Valley has been sinking from over pumping for a century.
(Water California.org)

Boeing Auction Marks End of Southern California’s Jet Age

Goodbye Jobs

• Still more good paying middle class jobs vanish in California.
• But don't worry.  They are still hiring at Burger King.

(Wall Street Journal)  -  Boeing Co. has started selling off giant equipment from its military-jet plant in Southern California, in an unusual factory auction that will close a chapter in the region’s history as a center of U.S. aerospace manufacturing.

For more than 20 years, the plant has produced the C-17 Globemaster III, a military transport jet capable of carrying 82 tons. But Boeing is ending production at its plant in Long Beach, Calif., because of a lack of international orders after the U.S. Air Force stopped buying the plane.

The C-17 is the last big jet still assembled in Southern California, whose aerospace industry dates back more than a century and, at the height of the Cold War, was home to 15 of the 25 biggest U.S. aerospace companies, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., a regional business group.

Boeing Leaves California
Nearly 3,000 employees are affected by the announcement, with a
little more than 2,200 of those C-17 jobs in Long Beach.

Many of those companies have merged or moved, although the area also has drawn big new names, including Elon Musk’s rocket venture Space Exploration Technologies Corp., and in 2012 still accounted for about a fifth of U.S. aerospace-industry revenue, according to consultants A.T. Kearney. Boeing also has moved some product support jobs to Long Beach as it scales back manufacturing.

Boeing plans to close its Long Beach plant this year and has tapped Heritage Global Partners Inc. to sell off the machines that make the Globemaster’s wings—which span 170 feet—its 174-foot-long fuselage and other parts.

Boeing’s Long Beach facility, which sits just south of Los Angeles, dates to 1941 when it was opened by the Douglas Aircraft Co. The plant, whose production area covers approximately 25 acres, has built planes including the B-17 bomber and MD-80 jetliner in addition to the C-17. Boeing took ownership in 1997 when it acquired McDonnell Douglas Corp.

Chicago-based Boeing has delivered 267 C-17s, about 80% to the U.S. Air Force, with the rest to international customers including Australia and India. The company announced plans in September 2013 to cease production amid shrinking defense spending world-wide.

Boeing said when it announced plans to end the C-17 that it expected to book a charge of less than $100 million, and would have to eliminate 3,000 positions connected with the program, including about 2,200 in California. A spokeswoman said Boeing has moved some of those people to other sites, and that retirements also have helped mitigate layoffs.

Read More . . . .

The view from underneath the Broetje Robotic Flexible Assembly
Cell. Boeing is closing an assembly plant in Long Beach.

All Tapped Out In A Tiny California Town

Annie and Lawyer Cooper, moved to Fairmead from Arkansas in the 1940s, have lived without running water in their home for almost a year.

California is Sucked Dry

• Bullet train spending goes on and on, but not one word comes out of Sacramento about building desalination plans up and down the coast.

(NPR)  -  Around the tiny rural community of Fairmead, Calif., about an hour north of Fresno on Highway 99, hundreds of one-story houses on small ranches stretch out for miles.

The ground is mostly brown, parched by California's recent drought. But beneath the surface, this mostly African-American community in the San Joaquin Valley has been going dry for years.

Fairmead used to be known for corn and cotton, but today the aging community is surrounded by large almond and pistachio orchards. Family homes in Fairmead with shallow private wells feet can't compete with agricultural wells sucking water out of the aquifer at 1,000 feet or deeper.

Jean Wilson moved to Fairmead 20 years ago to escape big-city life. It wasn't until last year that her private well started shooting out sand.

"I was the first one that actually went out of water," Wilson says. "I think about a year this month."

Wilson got so fed up with the lack of government help that she wrote to Gov. Jerry Brown.

"It's almost inhumane," she says she told him. "The biggest issue was, where can we go get water? You're telling me I can't have water. What are you saying?"

When no aid came, Wilson created a flyer offering to deliver water to her neighbors.

Annie Cooper and her husband found one of those flyers at a laundromat. Last June, their private well dried up when an almond farmer began drilling a well across the street from their country home.

Cooper says she was fixing dinner one day that month when she called her husband to show him the trickle from the tap.

"I said, 'There's hardly any coming out,' " she says. "The next hour so, that water was gone. We've been without it ever since."

The Cooper family moved to Fairmead from Arkansas in the 1940s, like many other African Americans. They hoped to farm small plots instead of settling in cities like Los Angeles and Oakland.

Thelma Williams moved to Fairmead in the 1990s from Southern California to retire on 40 acres of land. But life in Fairmead hasn't been easy: Williams has been without running water for seven years.

She can't afford to dig a new well, so she showers at her parents' home nearby and fills up eight five-gallon jugs to bring home.

For a while, the Madera County Farm Bureau provided drinking water to residents with dry wells, but that program has stopped. Now Madera County is working on a state-funded project to supply water to homeowners with dry wells. In time, qualified residents will receive a large tank for potable water that a truck service will fill every few weeks.

The county plans to deliver bottled water as soon as state funding arrives, and plans to have the first tanks installed sometime in late May.

But Wilson says the process is taking much to long.

"Why do we have to go through so much of this?" she says. "Let all of them get their water cut off, everybody's water cut off for one month and have one station for everybody to go get water, and see what happens."

Read More . . . .

Thelma Williams' Fairmead home has been without running water for seven years. She showers at her parents' home nearby and fills up eight five-gallon jugs to bring home.

Jerry Brown Lied, Moves Forward With Rape of Sacramento Delta

Jerry Brown - The Great Liar

• Jerry Brown and the corrupt campaign money giving businessmen and labor unions looking to get government contracts, never intended to protect the Sacramento Delta.  
• Promised protections are now being massively scaled back.  Look for even more reductions until the Delta becomes a dust bowl.

(AP) — California officials have dramatically scaled back the habitat restoration planned during construction of two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to send water to farms and millions of people.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Chuck Bonham told The Associated Press Wednesday that the project now calls for restoring 30,000 acres for wetland and wildlife habitat — down from 100,000 acres.

Governor Jerry Brown
(AP File Photo)

Bonham said the amount of land targeted for environmental improvements was revised because there was "too much complexity" in the original 50-year plan, given the need to get permits from federal wildlife agencies against a backdrop of uncertain future climate change impacts.

The original environmental improvements were projected to cost $8 billion, and officials said the new plans to be announced Thursday will cost about $300 million.

"We need to restore habitat in the Delta," Bonham said. "We've known that for a long time. There's no dispute there. Let's get going and do it."

The plan immediately prompted criticism from environmental and conservation groups.

Under development for eight years, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan calls for building two underground tunnels, 40 feet across and 30 miles long, to send water from the Sacramento River around the Delta. The water currently irrigates 3 million acres of farmland in the Central Valley and serves 25 million people as far south as San Diego. The projected cost of the tunnels is $15 million.

The plan, supported by Gov. Jerry Brown, is designed to stabilize water supplies for cities and farms south of the Delta. But it has drawn strong opposition from Delta farmers and environmentalists, who contend that the tunnels will allow salt water from San Francisco Bay to degrade the Delta's water quality and damage habitat for endangered salmon and tiny delta smelt.

State officials decided to split their plans for the Delta into two parts — the construction of the tunnels and efforts to restore wildlife habitat along waterways.

"Separating them doesn't change the science," said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta and a critic of the plan. "The tunnels are going to leave us with a permanent drought in the Delta."

Read More . . . .

Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Without a public vote, the Southern California water interests claim they want to build these massive water tunnels under the Sacramento Delta and not take any additional water.  
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Come on now.  You want to build new tunnels in order NOT to take more water.  
Do you think we are all fucking stupid?

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The Bessie Brady steamship on Owens Lake.
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Before Los Angeles sucked it into a dry dust bowl, Owens Lake served the communities of the eastern Sierras.  Now the L.A. water interests say they need the Sacramento Delta water.  They say "Don't worry about a thing."
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In Owens Valley on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Range, desert steamers once served the silver mining boom of the 1870’s. This curious maritime history began in 1872 when the first steamboat was christened on the saline waters of Owens Lake. The pioneer steamer, the Bessie Brady, proudly proclaimed to be "The Pioneer inland steamer of the Pacific Coast.” Though this was untrue, as steamers had already been used in Lake Tahoe in 1864, in Meadow Lake in 1866, and Donner Lake a few years later, the sight of a steamboat in the midst of Death Valley must have been a strange site.    
(legendsofamerica.com)

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Owens "Lake" Today.
Los Angeles drained the Eastern Sierra Nevada lake dry and created a dust bowl environmental disaster as part the city's endless quest to suck down every drop of water.  Now the political hacks are leering at the beautiful Sacramento River Delta.