Election Law has the roundup. He expects the election to be delayed.
Unless the Justice Department grants preclearance of the consolidation of precincts in Monterey county and changes in voting laws that are allowing Props. 53 and 54 to be on the same ballot as the recall, or unless the state changes the laws to go back to the old laws (i.e., no consolidation and no inclusion of the propositions on the ballot), it looks like the court will order the recall election to be delayed.
Read the whole thing.
This week, Cruz Bustamante suggested price controls on gasoline and, as the Bee reported, "experts" jumped all over him. Do you remember or have you read about the gas lines of 1974? I remember them. People sat in lines for hours for a turn to buy gas. Even numbered plates could buy on one day and odd numbered plates could buy on another day. We didn't drive much and I remember my mother filling up in odd places whenever she saw a short line on those occasions when we did drive.
I recently read an amazing factoid in Basic Economics A Citizen's Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell (a fine book recommended to me by Prestopundit). In the year of the shortage, we used only 3% less gas than the year before and more gas than any other year before that. Some shortage, huh?
Because prices were limited, no one curtailed their driving (we didn't drive a lot but we didn't drive a lot before that) and demand remained high, while supply, although not at any REAL shortage levels, was less than that demand and there was an artificially imposed shortage. It also turns out by limiting profits, stations cut expenses. Hence the development of self-serve and the limiting of operating huors. SO even if there was enough gas, stations were only open a few hours a day and if you wanted your share of the cheap gas, you had to wait on line.
For a shorter look at price controls and shortages, Sowell has a very readable article here.
Maybe the other side has a good argument in favor of price controls. All I ever here from the politcians though is "we're paying too much. We can make it cheaper so we should."
In an entry that includes a nice mention of this site, Hugh Hewitt hits an issue that I have been grappling with. Are we talking about all the right things? I've been turning this over in my mind each morning as I review the day's news and try to figure out ehat to present to you. Although I hit the recall story early and have been fortunate enough to ride it to a point where my blog is noticed by people I respect, 6 weeks before the election, I'm running out of stories. The Oui story bores me and has been done to death and once you point out that Mecha may not be as benign as Cruz suggests, that story is done too. What am I missing, I wonder, as blogging slows to a trickle.
Hewitt also spotted this problem and suggests the answer to the question:
But now the criticism: The underlying story of the recall remains largely unexplored by all media, new and old. That story turns on these questions: Is the California legislature churning out a large number of new and very radical statutes, judging by the standards at work in the other 49 states? Does the California legislature appear to have even a minimal grasp on economics, or does it seem to act as though there is no such thing as a business climate? Do special interests dominate Sacramento to an extent unparalled in other state legislatures, with the result that enormously unbalanced legislation is arriving on Gray's desk (and has been for five years) without the ordinary moderations enforced by two-party rule? These and similar questions should be the foundation uponb which all recall reporting is done, but no serious look at them has occured in any of the state's major media.
Now I may not be able to properly address these questions but I think it is the direction in which we should all be heading.
My esteemed colleague, xrlq, regularly points out that Prop 187 is not anti-immigrant but anti-illegal immigrant. He has recently noted in the comments that a recall candidate's support for 187 is not a negative since illegal immigrants can't vote. He has also noted quite correctly that 187 passed overwhelmingly. With all those clear and correct facts, there doesn't seem to be a counter-argument against 187. Yet, I enter the fray.
There are so many illegal immigrants in CA that most everyone knows someone who is here illegally. This is particularly true in heavily immigrant communities like the Hispanic community. However, I have run into the problem in the Filipino community and the Irish and English immigrant communities. So, while illegal immigrants don't vote, their friends and neighbors do. Their friends and neighbors are not as likely to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants, particularly when it often seems random who is there illegally or illegally.
So how do you explain the fact that 187 passed overwhelmingly? There are people who vote regularly and that group is heavily skewed in favor of those who pay taxes and feel they are supporting others and against those who might receive services or, in this case, are close to those who would need services. Prop 187 drew votes from the former group and only produced the angry backlash afterwards. I don't think it would have the same result today.
The San Francisco Chronicle has an interesting piece today asserting that when you look at all the taxes and fees, California is not the most taxed state. It is, instead 19th. However, there are two assertions that seem internally inconsistent:
While on average California taxes are only moderately high, they are near-stratospheric for the wealthy, who pay a marginal personal income tax rate of 9.3 percent, one of the most lofty in the nation. Montana is highest, with a top rate of 11 percent.
and then this:
For one thing, California was indeed at the top of the tax list before voters approved Proposition 13. After the proposition became law, California quickly fell from high-tax to medium-tax status.
Now, the resulting mix of taxes feeds the perception that Californians are overburdened.
Because of Proposition 13, state residents pay relatively high sales and income taxes, and relatively low property taxes. That means that they have their noses rubbed in the first two taxes every time they go to the store or cash a paycheck. But they see their property tax bills only once a year.
Now, it seems to me, that wealthy Californians own property and the wealthier you are, the more property you own. In fact, many in CA are wealthy simply because the equity in their property has grown so quickly. I could not afford to buy my house if I were looking to buy today as our paper equity has almost doubled. So the logical conclusion in my mind is that the burden is not disproportionately on the wealthy but on the middle class, particularly those who don't own their first home yet. They pay so much in income tax and don't have the home deductions to decrease their burden that it's difficult to set aside the money for the down payment on a first home.
To put this post in context, allow me to tell a story. In the 2000 election, before the Florida debacle, when we were in the final runup to the vote, my husband kept repeating "wait for the October suprise." My husband is good at picking a catchphrase and repeating it until it is stuck in your head 3 years later. The surprise he referred to was some negative information about Bush that would be released on the eve of the election by the Democrats, timed so the story would have enough time to take hold in the voters' minds but not enough time for a good defense.
I was skeptical. I am often skeptical of the Calblog husband. After all, he swears every year that the Steelers will go to the Super Bowl and win it. The day he predicted came and passed and I was feeling a little smug. Then, the next day, the story of Bush's drunk driving arrest came out. And, lo and behold, apparently the man who discovered the news knew about it much earlier. So I listen to the Calblog husband about the election surprise.
Now Davis tends not to work like that. He tends to release information earlier and use it in frequent campaign ads. This is a different election, though. There's a shorter time frame, Arnold seems particularly able to explan away and resist attacks, and there's a fair amount of anti-Davis feeling that may well deepen if he starts the attack ads.
So I am expecting a September surprise. Something particularly negative about Arnold that will raise its ugly head right before the election. What I can't figure out is what it might be. Surely we have had negative information on Arnold already that exceeds anything I have ever read about other candidates. What else is out there?
Things I don't like about McClintock:
His support for Prop 187. Of course, if I wanted to find a candidate that opposes 187, I'd have to go with Bustamante. Not an option.
He won't be in the voter information pamphlet. Link via Prestopundit. He won't be in there because someone on his campaign made a mistake. Lovely. The Bill Simon excuse. If you can't control your campaign staff, should I trust you with the government?
Of course, compared with the concern I have that Schwarzenegger will raise taxes even further, these are, to me, minor.
Amid speculation that Hilary is running for President, she is denying it. What are the meetings about?
I think she is positioning to be name the VP candidate. Senator, VP, Prez. Sounds like the Hilary resume-building plan.
I read this book and commented that it made Hepburn seem peculiar. Liz Smith liked it even less.
YOU CAN read the boring and self-referential Scott Berg memoir on Miss Hepburn, but why not instead read Town & Country this month, carrying its vintage Kate conversation with her pal, the late director George Cukor. (You may have gathered I don't approve of the vain and narcissistic Mr. Berg and I don't believe for one minute Kate "collaborated" with him on his self-indulgent little book.) .
Here's today's description of Mecha:
Like nearly all Latino students, Bustamante joined the campus wing of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or MEChA, the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, which is a national organization that then sought to enroll more Mexican Americans in college and rallied for farm workers' rights.
Political opponents in recent days have portrayed the group, which still exists, as militant and racist because it advocated the formation of a Chicano nation. The group's literature in 1969 referred to "the brutal 'gringo' invasion of our territories" and the "foreigner ... who exploits our riches and destroys our culture." The same literature also identifies education and cultural preservation as its aims, and students involved at the time say they did not seek a separate political state, only economic independence and equality.
Is there any doubt that the LA Times is downplaying the separatist nature of the group. After all, it was a group that enrolled Mexican Americans in college and advocated farm workers' rights. Its critics say that it is racist and militant.
Check out Prestopundit's coverage of the Mecha issue, particularly the links here.
Blogging will be light today but I am looking forward to the weekend. I plan to wake up early and blog like a fiend then sleep the afternoon away. Subject to a sudden demand for my attention from the twins, who have been acting like teenagers and avoiding their parents lately. The Calblog husband is looking forward to some time at the poker clubs over the long weekend.
SoCalLawyer is still posting so it looks like the baby isn't here yet. There's still time to get in on the Baby Pool.
Keep your eye on Election Law today for late breaking lawsuit news. There's yet another hearing in yet another case today.
Finally, look for me to be adding some recall candidate profiles over at damnum absque injuria over the weekend.
Via Angry Clam, this interview with Tom McClintock in Human Events. Money quote:
Let me go down the list here real quick. Conforming the state’s prevailing wage laws to the federal Davis-Bacon act would save about $1 billion in construction. Conforming our workers’ compensation laws to Arizona’s would save about $2.5 billion to state and local governments. It is not hard to find waste in a government’s budget that spends as much as California and produces as little. . . . There are a lot [of specific programs] that can be simply abolished. For example, the state of California is alone in the nation in maintaining two separate tax agencies for the purpose of collecting taxes. They maintain duplicate offices in some 16 major cities in California. I have long advocated consolidation. The State Architect’s Office duplicates—at enormous expense—what local planning departments would do anyway. The State Fire Marshall’s Office duplicates what local Fire Departments would be doing anyway. We have a range of state agencies that simply duplicate federal functions. Those are the agencies that I would first abolish, including the entire structure of corporate welfare in this state.
Well, highly unikely and certainly not here, but it makes for a good headline.
In Los Angeles, on September 13, to decide whether to adopt the highly creative and surprisingly controversial "No on Recall, Yes on Bustamante." option.
This week's edition is here. I didn't get an entry in and apparantly, neither did new blogs like Fresh Potatoes. Hint, hint.
Next week's Carnival will be here. Go send an entry!
I won't link to the website that sent me this spammail. Offered for sale are:
1. Heroin, in liquid and crystal form.
2. Rocket fuel and Tomohawk rockets (serious enquiries only).
3. Other rockets (Air-to-Air), orders in batches of 10.
4. New shipment of cocaine has arrived, buy 9 grams and get 10th for free.
5. We also offer gay-slaves for sale, we offer only such service on the NET,
you can choose the one you like, then get straight to business.
6. Fake currencies, such as Euros and US dollars, prices would match competition.
7. Also, as always, we offer widest range of child pornography and exclusive lolita galleries, to keep out clients busy.
Everyone is welcome, be it in States or any other place worldwide.
ATTENTION. Clearance offer. Buy 30 grams of heroin, get 5 free.
Prepay your batch of rockets (air-to-air) and recieve a portable rocket-lacuncher for free.
I can only hope that if I clicked on the link, there'd be a site telling me to repent but I won't click.
FOX News is reporting on the television that a new KABC poll taken yesterday shows Arnold 16 points ahead of Cruz. I am having no luck finding this poll online yet.
5 days before the twins start 7th grade at the local high school, there's been a murder on school grounds. Now, the murder apparently has nothing to do with the high school and I'd like to pay it no more than a moment's attention. Unfortunately, I suspect this could become an ISSUE in this town.
It was removed this morning, quickly and painlessly. It was taken inside the building.
While I might be open to the argument that the Ten Commandments is a historical document, up there with the Mayflower Compact, the interviews with the protesters provide substantial evidence to me that those who want the monument there want to establish Christianity as the state religion. On those grounds, I'd remove it.
Arnold tries to explain that the money he takes isn't from special interests. Only the money Cruz takes is special interest. Link via California Insider. It's worth reading his take.
It was clear to me once I got my first invitation that money may not buy me a promise from Arnold but it certainly would buy me access. I had thoughht Arnold was going to self-fund the election when he first announced. He said he wasn't going to take money from special interests because he didn't need it. He had enough money.
While fundraising may spare Arnold from cries that he bought the election, the approach that gives greater access to those who give the maximum amount just trades one problem for the other. If I were advising him (and nobody listens to me so I'm not holding my breath), I would have told him to say "I don't need the money but I understand the people want to participate in this election so I will accept their donations. However, so everyone has a voice the maximum I will accept is $00" (or $5 or $500).
I took the morning off from blogging and now I have decided to take the whole day off. See you tomorrow!
I admit it. I was amused by this:
"It's like one newspaper pointed out, Bustamante is (Gov.) Gray Davis with a receding hairline and a mustache. It's the same person. Same philosophy," the Republican actor said on "The Roger Hedgecock Show" in San Diego.
Town Hall links to an article of liberal positions taken by Maria Shriver, also Mrs. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I doubt the article's conclusion: that you can judge Arnold by his wife's position. You could never judge either me or myhusband by the other's positions. I am generally more liberal than he is but there are distinct positions on which I am more conservative.
While on vacation, we visited a copper mine in British Columbia, just north of Vancouver. We took a guided tour through a tunnel that had been used for transporting the copper out. The tour was designed mostly as a train ride with a bit of walking at the end. The train was broken so we walked along the tracks seeing the sites along the way.
At the end of the line, there was the broken train. The girls looked at it and declared it spooky. Picking up on that, I said it was like a Scooby Doo episode. There'd be a ghost that would start the train moving but in the end, the gang would find out that it was a guy in a mask scaring the tourists away because he wanted the copper to himself.
The guide looked at me funny. Unsure of how much she had heard, I said we were discussing Scooby Doo. As it turned out, she was surprised because they had just finished filming the Scooby Doo II movie there and, hold onto your hats, the plot was like the one I had just described. (Was there any other plot possible?) At the end, I asked, was it a guy in a mask? No, she reported, it was a girl in a mask.
Worth taking a look this morning:
Prestopundit has put up a lot of stuff since 8:30 last night.
Kaus takes on the Times poll.
I saw the latter before I went to Prestopundit where it's the top post so there's no need to . . . aw heck, hat tip Prestopundit.
Arnold has added Mike Murphy, John McCain's campaign manager, to his team. Didn't McCain lose?
The Angry Clam is particularly angry:
The fact is that Arnold's candidacy is moribund and, barring a dramatic turnaround, doomed to a third place or lower finish. McClintock, on the other hand, is on the rise, and the Clam will predict here and now that McClintock will overtake Arnold in the polls no later than September 15.
And then he plans to repeat the line that all Arnold supporters have been screaming, just like all the Riordan supporters did: it's time to get behind the candidate with the best shot (i.e. closest in the polls) of beating the Democrats. And once again, it won't be the liberal Republican. The Clam will also make another prediction: the same Arnold supports who've bitched and moaned about McClintock people like myself costing Arnold the election will turn around and cost Tom the election.
Liberal Republicans' motto, after all, is "If I can't have it, no one can!"
Though I thnk this is so irrelevant, I'd rather not report it, you will hear it elsewhere and I get a fair number of Google searches on Arnold's nazi father. So let's get it out there and dispose of it. New information has surfaced that his father was a member of the Nazi brownshirts. Here's what you need to know about Arnold though.
"We know what the SA and the Nazi Party stood for," [Rabbi Marvin Hier] said. "Arnold knows this, and he's not proud of the fact that his father was a member of the Nazi Party and that his father was a member of the SA. This is a matter of deep embarrassment, but Arnold cannot be judged by his father."
Arnold Schwarzenegger has donated nearly $750,000 to the center, raised millions more, and helped the organization fight anti-Semitism. Born two years after World War II ended, he long ago distanced himself from his late father's views and in 1991 he received the Wiesenthal Center's National Leadership Award.
Fox News has a story about a Chicago 12-year-old that is starting medical school. I was no where near a whiz kid but I was smarter than the average bear. I finished my high school credits and was eligible for college when I was 15. I stayed another year in high school and took college and AP courses. Then I finished college in three years anyway and was ready to graduate at 19. I stayed another semester that time.
It was a small problem in elementary and junior high when I was younger than my classmates. It was a larger problem when I finally graduated and had to function as an adult when I was a teenager and one with very little more than booklearning.
I don't know what I would have done differently because school was often boring if I didn't move ahead. However, it seems to me that we need a better way to develop our smarter minds than moving them away from their peer groups.
Here in LA, they have programs with additional activities for the smarter children but what about the couple of kids who even outshine those. They seem to be society's best asset and yet no special attention is paid.
My daughters generally fall into the high average categories and aren't even in the highest group that get the after school gifted program. They seem happier and more street smart than I ever was.
It would be nice if all the polls agree. They don't. Real Clear Politics has got a chart of the polls so you can see the differences. There are theories out there on why the poll numbers yield such different results:
If the poll is wrong, it’s because telephone polling itself has become problematic in the age of cell phones, call-waiting and answering machines, and because this race, with its unique format and multi-candidate field, is going to be extremely difficult to assess.
Could the LA Times's omission of the replacement candidates have affected their results? After all, of the five polls that have come out thus far, the LA Times has had the lowest pro-recall numbers, and it's the only one that's not mentioned Arnold, Cruz Bustamante, etc.
Then there was the Susan Estrich explanation on Fox News. "This state is 45% registered Democrat so of course Bustamante is going to win." (paraphrased).
It's going to be an interesting fall.
Want to give blogging a whirl? Absinthe & Cookies is looking for guestbloggers.
Sigh. I woke up and turned on the news and there, across the screen, was the news that Bustamante has opened up a 13 point lead. Here's the LA Times poll.
Bustamante 35%
Schwarzenegger 22%
McClintock 12%
Ueberroth 7%
Simon 6%
I hate to read too much into a poll when 1. the poll numbers change so frequently and 2. the respondents in this poll have said they may change their vote. That said, Schwarzenegger has yet to make a move and McClintock has moved into the double digits. With Simon out, McClintock will pick up more support.
I wholeheartedly agree with the view that Republicans are splitting the vote. I question the conventional wisdom that it ought to be Arnold.
At Mass tonight, we had a speaker from the US China Catholic Bureau. It was interesting to hear from someone who, although he is based in Missouri, works closely with priests and other members of the church there. There are an estimated 12 million Catholics there, with 2600 priests and 2400 seminarians. He wasn't very clear about the differences between the patriotic church and the underground church because he was emphasizing the similarities. Although the US press differentiates very clearly, he says in many parts of the country they are closely intertwined.
He also referred us to a website from China that was bilingual but when I visited, the English service was suspended.
The shortages will continue at least another week. Fellow Bearflagger Infinite Monkeys is a group blog with a bird's-eye reporter in Arizona. Scroll down for many reports including the said tale of not having enough gas to visit Mom.
Mercury News has a piece on wealthy candidates who could not buy their way into the governor's mansion.
I was going to blog this but fellow Bearflagger e-Claire already has so head on over there. No I am not kidding and I fear that the proponent isn't either.
According to Novak, Trump gave Arnold what for on Prop 13. Money quote:
Trump told Schwarzenegger that he holds substantial real estate in California and that increasing state property taxes advocated by Buffett would be devastating to him personally and to the state's economy. "If you kill Proposition 13," Trump added, "you kill Schwarzenegger for governor." Buffett has called for the repeal of Prop. 13, a limit on property taxes approved by California voters in 1978.
Scwarzenegger and Bustamante have issued statements. Scwarzenegger did not comment on the effect on his own campaign. He said Simon called him personally and it was a difficult decision for Simon and his wife Cindy. Bustamante said he never considered Simon a serious candidate so it didn't matter. Nice guy.
McClintock says he's still in.
David Dreier is co-chairman of Arnold's campaign. He is on Fox now, ducking the question of why Simon didn't throw his support to Arnold. Dreier said that Arnold is a conservative, a fiscal conservative. Dreier ducked the questions on Arnold's social positions. Dreier also denied asking Simon and McClintock to withdraw. He did so in true political fashion. "I have not called Simon" "I have not called McClintock." "No calls have come in to Simon." Calls to campaign aides were not mentioned.
For someone "new to politics," Arnold certainly has set up his own political Establishment very quickly.
Intersting grouping of articles over at Rough & Tumble this morning. First, a big Davis donor who geve $50K to the anti-recall campaign has now switched sides and joined Schwarzenegger. Then, the Oakland Tribune reports on the fundraising summaries of each of the candidates. Both Arnold and Ueberroth have over $2 million. However, the richest candidate is Davis himself.
The California Assembly has approved a bill that bans the sale of soda in schools. Those readers who abhor the nanny state should realize that the PTA was heavily in favor of this bill and urged parents to write in support. How many who would oppose such a ban knew about it and wrote?
The "official" announcement is soon. The Insider had it earlier this morning and Fox News is reporting the same thing. Previously, he had indicated that he will throw his support to Arnold. Will he still do so after a week of campaigning on how awful Arnold is?
I expect he will. He'll state that he talked with Arnold and got reassurances that Arnold won't raise taxes. This rationale gives a good backstory to his withdrawal from the race. Maybe some people won't go looking for the backroom deal. It also gives Arnold a boost after the recent attention to his "never say never" time.
UPDATE: CNN has the story here. The Simon people seem to be going out of their way to announce the withdrawal before the announcement. Is that so more of us will watch the announcement? Unlikely on a Saturday morning, but who knows?
UPDATE: I have now seen the short video announcement. He cites "too many Republicans" and states that "the recall belongs to the people".
This news doesn't look good for the Bush Administration:
Approval from the NSC, the report says, was arranged through the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which "influenced, through the collaboration process, the information that EPA communicated to the public through its early press releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones."
For example, the inspector general found, EPA was convinced to omit guidance for cleaning indoor spaces and tips on potential health effects from airborne dust containing asbestos, lead, glass fibers and concrete.
Warning: this news likely to change by morning.
The Insider reports that the LA Times poll shows the recall lead narrowing. See above warning.
The Insider also reports that the Lincoln Club of Orange County has also endorsed Arnold. Another group interested in a R in office. If Arnold sweeps to victory, I won't be crying on the morning of 10/8. I just can't shake the feeling that he's a pig in a poke.
The Angry Clam brings us a pro-McClintock letter from Lyn Nofziger:
McClintock must overcome two problems if he is to be elected. One is money.
If he can raise enough money (and I assure you he will use it wisely), McClintock will be a serious contender.
The other problem is the gossip that he can’t win because of the money problem. With your help he can overcome that.
You may recall that 37 years ago the “experts” were saying the same thing about Ronald Reagan. He couldn’t win.
But Reagan did back then exactly what Tom McClintock is doing today. He went around the state from one city to the next, speaking in plain terms that people could relate to, about how he would fix the problems created by a then Democrat incumbent Pat Brown.
Finally, Mulatto Boy gets a hat tip with this link to Michelle Malkin's expose of Cruz "N-word" Bustamante's racist ties.
UPDATE: Raoul Contreras Lowery also takes on Cruz' membership.
I have been invited to an event at Ventura Farms Gardens. A BBQ from 4-6 costs $500 per person. The 6:00 p.m. Private dinner in the Conservatory with Arnold Schwarzenegger is $21,200 per couple. No mention of the lead pipe or Ms. Scarlett.
No, I am not going so don't start up in the comments.
That's what Xrlq is calling it. Posting may be short and sweet here but I've left tidbits in a variety of places. My longest posts are residing on Dean's World but please stop by SoCal Law Blog and participate in the baby pool while we await Jeff's return.
Three parts of 187 are now law. Government Code 53059.65 requires reporting of illegal immigrants, Penal Code 113 and 114 provide penalties for forging citizenship documents and welfare and Institutions Code 10001.5 prevents illegal immigrants from receiving the benefits of public social services. All statutes can be found here.
Dan Walters gives us a snapshot of the recall election, said snapshot only good for 24 hours. What to watch for:
The tipping point may be the first days of September. By then, we should know whether Davis is, in fact, doomed and whether the situation will evolve in the last month into a more or less conventional political contest between the two leaders, with every other contender reduced to also-ran status.
On another front, Mickey Kaus suggests that the tabloids may go easy on Arnold.
The Alabama Supreme Court Justice now making the rounds for his refusal to remove the Ten Commandments monument is no stranger to the limelight.
In 2002, he made headlines when he awarded custody of three children to an allegedly abusive father simply because the mother was a lesbian and wrote an opinion that said that homosexuality is a "detestable and an abominable sin...a crime in Alabama, a crime against nature, an inherent evil."
He's also claimed that September 11 was the result of the erosion of religious rights.
The installation of the monument was as controversial as its removal now is.
Now I'm all for religion but I have an aversion to religion that devolves into superstition. I do not believe that removing a monument to the Ten Commandments will diss the Lord.
Fellow Bearflagger Lex Communis gives us a collection of articles that ought to remind us that tolerance goes both ways. Unfortunately, I suspect it will bring out those who defend the intolerance of the far left.
It is the day that Sobig is supposed to strike:
The virus, dubbed SoBig.F, has programmed the computers it has infected to automatically download potentially malicious instructions from a machine thought to be controlled by the person who wrote the virus, computer security experts said
Already, he is failing to follow through:
Gov. Gray Davis, who vowed three weeks ago to quickly appoint a commission to help tackle the state's budget problems, has yet to name anyone to the panel, angering some lawmakers who voted for this year's spending plan based on his assurances.
Some Assembly Democrats said they had been told the panel on structural budget reform would be named at the beginning of this month.
But of course, that's the fault of the recall, not him:
Some political observers said they weren't surprised that Davis hadn't appointed members to the panel, noting he is distracted by the Oct. 7 recall election.
"He is fighting for his political life," said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute for Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. "He doesn't have time to be deliberative about these problems.
Of course, last I checked, the recall was a political reality when he made the promise.
Bill O"Reilly lets loose with everything that's wrong with our state government but offers no solutions.
Diane Feinstein and Gray Daivs appeared together today. Feinstein is skipping the second question on the ballot and Davis doesn't know how he'll vote on the second question. They do agree on one thing:
Davis and Feinstein focused their energy on criticizing Arnold Schwarzenegger for his violent movies . . .
But talk quickly turned to the subject of the recall when a reporter asked Feinstein whether Schwarzenegger is glorifying using assault weapons by featuring them in his action movies.
"Of course it glorifies those weapons, absolutely,'' Feinstein said. "I'm one who believes that there is too much violence in movies, and that violence begets violence.''
Raise your hand if anyone thinks this point is going to change a single vote in this state.
Ok, I apparently missed whatever caused this, but Susan Estrich does not like Arianna Huffington. (Via Drudge)
Somebody and I hope they'll identify themselves noted that Schwarzenegger's campaign seems based on the principles of Tony Robbins, that positive thinking, goal setting, infomercial guy. Certainly the excerpts of Arnold's press conference seem to suggest such a thing.
I will never attack. I will never talk about anyone. I will just think about our program and our mission ... Why worry about someone else? It's not my style. Let everyone talk, let everyone make their statements, let everyone make their apologies, where they were wrong the last five years and all those things. I only pay attention to one thing, and this is that I will be your next governor on Oct. 7.
Mr. Earthling got a job! I'll tell you all to drop by and congratulate him but I couldn't get the comment screen to let me post.
The first thing that entered into my head after reading the ballot description for Proposition 53, which mandates that a set percentage of the state budget be spent on infrastructure projects, was "what a stupid idea". The notion of setting a percentage of the budget aside for a specific purpose struck me as wrong the last time we voted on it, and it still bothers me today; it may help the cause being promoted, but it makes the budget process more difficult, and the increase in the decree of difficulty gets larger every time another slice is set aside.
But that doesn't cause me to look any more favorably on the following errors in the argument against the measure (and the companion rebuttal to the argument for the measure) that will appear in the voter's guide:
the way [Proposition 53] is written, the state has to increase spending on public works even if there is a deficit and no additional money is available. So, that will mean either new taxes or huge cuts in education, health care, and other important public works projects.
The measure specifies that every year over the course of a decade, the amount transferred to the specific fund for infrastructure will increase, until it hits a level at which it will be capped. But that increase will be postponed if revenue isn't increasing:
Notwithstanding subdivision (a), if the total General Fund revenues for a fiscal year are estimated by the Department of Finance to not increase by at least 4 percent, after adjusting for inflation, compared to the revenues for the prior fiscal year, the increase in the percentage amount to be transferred in the budget year, as otherwise specified in paragraphs (2) to (8) inclusive, of subdivision (a) shall be delayed by one fiscal year.
Additionally, the entire process of reserving money for infrastructure won't start until this condition is met:
Notwithstanding paragraph (1) of subdivision (a), the initial annual transfer to the infrastructure fund shall not occur until General Fund revenues for a fiscal year are estimated by the Department of Finance to increase by at least 4 percent, after adjusting for inflation, compared to the revenues for the prior fiscal year.
In short: if revenues are increasing, the amount spent on infrastructure must increase. Otherwise, it isn't required to. That doesn't completely contradict Mr. O'Connell's gloomy scenario (as it is possible to postulate a situation in which revenue is increasing but there is a deficit and no additional money is available), but it is extremely difficult to reconcile with it.
If you knew the state had a big deficit and the budget was out of balance, would you vote for a bill to increase future state spending by billions of dollars? You probably wouldn't. But the legislature did just that when it put Proposition 53 on the ballot. Why? Because the Legislature had to pass Proposition 53 and give out pork projects in order to get the two-thirds vote needed to end a 77-day budget stalemate.
Proposition 53 was placed on the ballot by Assembly Constitutional Amendment 11 (in the 2001-2002 session). According to the bill history at the Assembly's website, the bill was introduced on June 5, 2001; passed by the State Senate on September 1, 2002; and passed by the State Assembly on August 31, 2002. The constitutional deadline for a budget is July 1; even if the amendment was passed as part of an attempt to end a budget stalemate, it clearly wasn't a 77-day budget stalemate (and I don't remember last summer's budget stalemate stretching into September in any event). Nor is there any evidence that its passage had anything to do with a budget stalemate.
Mr. O'Connell may perhaps be forgiven his overzealous exaggeration based on the fact that he was the only State Senator to vote against it