A diversion from California politics… h/t to Andy’s sister… … Read More

In just his first year on the Board of Parole Hearings, read the "greatest hits" of Commissioner Troy Arbaugh. This guy is up for a confirmation vote any day now in the State Senate. Call your Senator (and someone else’s Senator) and urge them to reject Arbaugh. I can’t imagine that it would be possible to have someone else nominated in his place who could possibly be as disposed to paroling murderers and kidnappers in such high numbers…

Nam Huynh was convicted of 2nd degree murder for shooting his estranged wife to death in Santa Clara County in 1988. The Governor declined to review the decision and Huynh was released. Robert Foreman, a career criminal and drug addict, was convicted of kidnapping while armed with a deadly weapon, 18 counts of robbery with a deadly weapon and three counts of robbery during a two week crime spree in Alameda County in 1980. The decision to release Foreman is pending review by the Governor. Salvador Gonzalez was convicted of 2nd … Read More

Two hundred thousand plus state employees may be eligible for Unemployment Insurance benefits. This is an issue that has Employment Development Department (EDD) lawyers in a tizzy. Clearly, the Governor-ordered furloughs are a reduction in pay, but the employees are being sent home on furlough days so their rate of pay stays the same. The loss is a loss of hours to work, which is one way of defining unemployment. In fact, EDD already has a program in place for workers who are furloughed or laid off from work on a temporary basis with a promise of future work with the same employer. Under this program the worker getting the benefits is not even required to look for another job. Do state employees on furlough qualify? No one seems to know. Another big question is whether salaried employees have the same eligibility as hourly employees. Most state employees are on salaries but with strict work hour requirements. As they say, developing…… Read More

In early June 2004, amidst a tough re-election campaign, a burgeoning financial disaster and daily criticisms for his responsibilities as captain of "Enron by the Sea," San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy returned fire on his main challenger, County Supervisor Ron Roberts. Claiming that the county’s pension problems were actually worse than the city’s, Murphy said that Roberts needed to "clean up his own house."

Murphy’s charge, in effect an "I may be bad, but so is he" defense, was viewed by most as an obvious attempt to grasp at straws. The City of San Diego, after all,was the daily headliner, having under-funded a huge retirement obligation, so as to pay ongoing costs and beef up employee salaries. Few watchers viewed the County as the problem, and if it was having some pension difficulties, it certainly hadn’t robbed Peter to pay Paul.

About one week after the Murphy claim, on June 15, 2004, county supervisors unanimously agreed to… Read More

Reading…..

To be fair, the huge majority — and most likely all — of his fellow GOP members signed on in support of Adams’ re-election before his budget vote (just as is the norm for most if not all of them to do for each other early on). However, it wasn’t noted that they had done so until after his controversial vote, thus leading to the erroneous assumption that they all endorsed him after the budget was passed.

That said, it isn’t significant that they endorsed a colleague, it is significant however what they do now that he has stood at complete odds with them on such a fundamental, core principle.

Unless I have missed it, his GOP colleagues have been relatively quiet on that issue. Poizner did drop out of an Adams event, while Schwarzenegger provided his support. But, what of Adams’ assembly colleagues?

The readers of this page — and the GOP in general — deserve an answer, regardless of the answer, from each of Adams’ fellow members. Either they continue to support him, regardless of his vote… Read More

… Read More

In response to the news that, after received a sizable government bailout, executives at AIG took what could only be described as massive bonuses, Congress responded by passing a tax written to hit these AIG executives with a 90% tax on those bonuses. It was a controversial vote, with conservatives split on the issue. Further down the blog, Congressman and FR blogger John Campbell talked about why he voted against this bill. I am now presenting a statement from Congressman Tom McClintock on why he voted for it…

Statement by Congressman Tom McClintock Regarding HR 1586 March 19, 2009… Read More

Anew project ACORN is engaging in: assisting the Obama Administration in the Census-taking. ACORN has now achieved the status of "national partner" with the U.S. Census Bureau, and will be working to help Obama find the necessary 1.4 million workers needed to take the census. Hopefully they will do this a lot better than they did registering voters in Ohio during the last election campaign, where I believe the news was 8 of their workers made a quick plea deal to falsifying registrations with a sympathetic prosecutor and promptly left the state. In responding tothe announcement, the ACORN spokesman also told the press "ACORN has never been charged with any crime." See http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/acorn_census_partner/2009/03/18/193218.html?s=al&promo_code=7C64-1

Liberal election lawyers are quick to point out that ACORN actually isn’t going to be running the Census, just staffing it.… Read More