On Monday, Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, and more than 20 other Republican lawmakers announced the introduction of theAffordable Gas for California Families Act,legislation to exempt transportation fuels and natural gas from the California Air Resource Board’scap-and-trade program.

“We struck a nerve!” Patterson told me. Patterson said he was surprised at the media response, and how many in the media did not know the gas tax is starting Jan. 1 – next month.

Patterson is working on issues like… Read More

California, the state obsessed with being first at everything, is aiming to add another first to its record books — Not content to be the first state in the country to tax the air we breathe, California will be the first in the nation to impose a cap and trade tax on transportation fuels.

In response, Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, and Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, and more than 20 other Republican lawmakers, announced Monday, the introduction of theAffordable Gas for California Families Act,legislation to exempt transportation fuels and natural gas from the California Air Resource Board’scap-and-trade program.

The move afoot by the radical left to strip Americans of their cars under the guise of environmentalism, knows no bounds.

With the second highest gas taxes in the country, and a flailing cap and trade program, whose only trading partner is Quebec,California is already paying the price.

While the rest of the country is currently enjoying lower gas prices, Californians will be faced with a hefty new… Read More

Someone recently asked me what Cap and Trade and Carbon Trading is. The simple answer is the State of California is taxing the air we breathe. However, it is also one of the biggest taxing schemes perpetrated on Americans, Californians, and businesses.

The beginning

Carbon trading is actually emissions trading by businesses forced into these “agreements.”

When California’sGlobal Warming Solutions Act,AB 32, was passed in 2006, it was sold to the public as a necessary step to reduce dangerous carbon emissions. California politicians gloated over being the first state to enact such an aggressive policy.

The state’s unemployment rate was very low at the time at only4.8 percent. It… Read More

Wow, what an election night. Hope makes a comeback… but not entirely in California.

As exciting as the nationwide races were, my favorite race was local: Mayor Kevin Johnson’s Strong Mayor initiative, Measure L, went down in defeat, 57-43 percent. Slam Dunk.

Despite the Sacramento media running months of constant free advertising for the measure, Measure L, which would have concentrated power in the Mayor, Chicago-style, and dramatically reduce the other council members’ powers, Sacramento voters voted “no.”

By midnight when I finally gave up and went to bed, the measure appeared to be defeated 57.31 percent to 42.69 percent. Unless more ballots magically appear, the fourth Strong Mayor initiative should be cooked… until Mayor Johnson resurrects it again for a fifth time.

GOP Takes US Senate

But… Read More

In some California parallel universe, the new Senate President Kevin de Leόn, announced last week during his flagrant swearing-in ceremony, “Reliance is the ‘American Way.’”

“Isn’t it time we shatter the great American myth about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps?” De Leonasked the crowd.The audience broke into rousing applause. De Leon continued, “It’s a fantasy. It’s simply not true.”

De Leon’s “extravagant bash” was held at the Disney Concert Hall… Read More

Sacramento Bee News Columnist Marcos Breton wrote a love letterSunday Oct. 11, to outgoing Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg: “An argument could be made that Darrell Steinberg is the most accomplished politician Sacramento has produced in nearly a century,” Breton said.

With a legacy of special interest legislation, a delayed statewide water bond full of pork and wasteful spending, support of the $100 billion High-Speed Rail bungle, his dubious law firm connections, his mental health millionaire’s tax, the special interest bill he helped pass for… Read More

We’ve all heard about the 6-states initiative, and the State of Jefferson secession proposal, however, there are really two Californias:

There is the liberal elite state, run by the environmental oligarchy, which makes our political policy; and There is everyone else – the upper working middle class, the very middle class, the working class, the working poor, and those living in abject poverty.

Santa Barbara County is a microcosm of the two Californias –

the North County, which is primarily working class and relatively poor, with a large Hispanic population; and the South County, which is relatively wealthy, white, with high-paying white collar, jobs, high tech jobs, and academia.

As if the divide isn’t enough already, Measure P, put on the ballot bythe Water GuardiansofSanta Barbara County, is masquerading as a ban on hydraulic fracturing, while the initiative would actually result in shutting down the onshore oil and gas industry in Santa Barbara County, according to COLAB President Andy Caldwell.… Read More

On the eve of the United Nations climate summit summitthis week, Gov.Jerry Brownsigned six bills to make California the biggest electric vehicle market in the nation. Brown’s goal is to have 1.5 million zero-emission cars on the road by 2025.

The new laws expand the number of clean air vehicles with access to carpool and toll lanes from 55,000 to 70,000, regardless of how many occupants ride in the vehicles.

However, what Brown did not focus on are the electric car subsidies being extended to low income residents, under the administration of the Air Resources Board.Criticsof the increasingly subsidized green political movement say this is simply more taxpayer funded… Read More