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Katy Grimes

Administrative Judicial Council Enriches Staff, Wastes Billions, While Depriving Trial Courts

A scorchingreport from California State Auditor Elaine Howle found that the Administrative Office of the Courts, now called the Judicial Council, spent $386 million over four years on statewide services that nearly half of California’s 58 trial courts don’t use – including $186 million on contractors and consultants.

Remember that the Administrative Office of the Courts was responsible for the debacle of the failed $2 BILLION Californiacourts computer system, paid with money allotted for state trial court operations. Thisunbelievably high costwas spent on the faulty computer system while courtrooms closed, courthouse employees furloughed, and criminal and civil cases take record time to come to trial.

The AOC’s primary function is to provide services to the courts. However, rather than making immediate corrections as the State Auditor recommended, following the damning report, the Administrative… Read More

Katy Grimes

50 Shades of Brown: Gov. Jerry Brown and Democrat Party Rule

As Gov. Jerry Brown prepares to sign another climate change agreementwith “government leaders from around the world,” as his office announced, remember the recent agreement Brown got into with the scandalized Oregon Gov. Kitzhaber. “In October 2013,California Gov. Jerry Brown, together with the Governors of Oregon and Washington and the British Columbia Premier,signedthePacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy, “to align climate change policies and promote clean energy,’” I wrote in February.

The Pacific Coast Collaborative links with theWest Coast Infrastructure Exchange(WCX), a compact betweenCalifornia, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, formed in 2013 to promote “the type of new thinking necessary to solve the West Coast’s infrastructure crisis.” And the WCX is linked to… Read More

Katy Grimes

What’s It Going To Take For Voters To Hold Corrupt Democrat Politicians Accountable?

Hillary “Scandal” Clinton’s latest dust up with the law, no matter how egregious or illegal, will not cause her mind-numbingly stupid followers to disavow her. If she were a Republican, she’d be tossed to the curb like a snotty Kleenex.

We normal folks, the real people who work for a living and pay our own bills, keep asking ourselves “what’s it going to take?” Which scandal will take Hillary and Bill down? When will Barack Obama and his Executive Pen have gone too far? And what America-loathing racist statement will finally earn Michelle Obama the middle finger from Democrats?

These political freeloaders, and the many more like them, hide behind a façade of “public service.” However, they really are elitist Marxists, enjoying a lifestyle paid for by the public.

Badly Behaving Politicians

This sick fascination with badly behaving politicians is not limited to the Clintons and Obamas. Remember William Jefferson, the Louisiana congressman under investigation for bribery when the FBI found $90,000 in cash stashed in his freezer? He was reelected.

How about former New York Attorney General and Governor Eliot… Read More

Katy Grimes

Labor Kills Bill To Help Farm Workers

Labor unions are still running the show in the Democratically-controlled California Legislature. Despite hearing from more than 50 farmworkers on Wednesday, the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee denied the farmworkers the right to vote on their own labor negotiated contacts, even though this right is enjoyed by other union members in California.

Assemblyman Jim Patterson and Assemblywoman Shannon Grove presented… Read More

Katy Grimes

Sacramento’s Billion Dollar 
Budget Fairy Tale

Subtitle: The Fleecing of Sacramento’s Taxpayers

Sacramento’s City Manager John Shirey released the proposed 2015/2016 budget last week. It’s clear that this city manager, the mayor, and the city council members are cavalier with their spending of other people’s money.More is never enough. And the word “austerity” is not in their vocabularies.

The other important issue to note is even with his latest attempt to become a strong mayor squashed (again) by the voters last year, Mayor Kevin Johnson is the driving force anyway behind this… Read More

Katy Grimes

Gov. Brown Jumps-the-Shark on Climate Change Policy

California Gov. Jerry Brown issued an Executive Order Wednesday for a new target for greenhouse gas emissions cuts. Brown said it was critical to address what he called “an ever-growing threat” posed by global warming to California’s economy and well-being. Brown’s order goes even further than Pres. Obama’s radical proposals, but aligns with the European Union and United Nations proposals. Jerry Brown hasjumped-the-sharkon climate change (Origin of this phrase comes from a Happy Days episode where the Fonz jumped a shark on waterskis. Thus was labeled the lowest point of the show).

Senate Republican Minority Leader Bob Huff correctly replied to Brown’s latest edict:

“The state already has the nation’s most stringent goals. Before moving the goal post, we should be careful about the impact of increased energy costs. These higher costs will hurt the low income and working poor the hardest and will create an even greater divide between the haves and have nots. At what point does being on the leading edge of climate change and… Read More

Katy Grimes

UFW Inflates Membership Numbers – A Lie, or Premature Calculation?

The United Farm Workers labor union is either lying about how many members it really has, or is boastfully counting future farm worker members, while assuming it will win the fight over the workers.

Gerawan Farming employees are under assault by the United Farm Workers labor union, the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, and by Democratic politicians up and down the state.

The workers don’t want to be members of the UFW, and held an election in 2013 to officially decertify the labor union. But the ALRB locked up the workers’ ballots, refused to count them, and has instead assisted the UFW in its takeover attempt.

Gerawan Farming is a third-generation family farming operation, growing peaches and grapes in the Fresno area. The farming company is well known as a favored employer, and currently employees 5,000 workers. Gerawan has a history of paying the highest wages and compensation package in the industry, according to the many employees I’ve spoken with.

It is apparent the UFW labor union is trying to gain what they can no longer win through the secret ballot process and sincere labor negotiations with… Read More

Katy Grimes

Jerry Brown’s ‘Let Them Eat Cake’ Character

Legend has it that upon being informed that the citizens of France had no bread to eat, Marie Antoinette, Queen-consort of Louis XVI of France, exclaimed “let them eat cake.”

California Governor Jerry Brown recently had his own “let them eat cake” moment: At a press conference last week announcing the need for a 25 percent cut in water consumption, Brownsaid, “People should realize we are in a new era. The idea of your nice little green lawngetting watered every day, those days are past.”

Brown showed his “let them eat cake” character once again.

Brown-the-elite

Jerry Brown enjoys an upper-crust Bay Area lifestyle, and is dependent on the very water projects he loathes and has shut down. Brown was the original push behind canceling crucial water infrastructure projects in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and has been supportive of diverting desperately needed reservoir water for fish, rather than food production in the Central Valley.

There is no doubt California is in a drought; we’ve been in one for several years. And California has had many droughts in its history, including when Brown was… Read More

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