Apparently the $7.1 billion Proposition 1 water bond is going to win easily on November 4. Politicians already feel comfortable about using the money as leverage to help their political allies.

One California state legislator is already telling local elected officials in his district that they must favor unions in bidding for contracts on a water project. If they don’t follow the directive, Governor Brown won’t give them the $12.5 million (or even $15 million) allegedly reserved for them in Prop 1.

On October 14, Assemblymember Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville) was scheduled on the meeting agenda of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors to make a presentation about his legislative accomplishments in 2014. Alejo and his staff had prepared a 25-minute presentation with handouts and PowerPoint slides. (Watch video of the presentation – Item #8 on October 14, 2014.)

Assemblyman Alejo received glowing praise from the Board of Supervisors for his work in the legislature. He told them that Governor Brown had signed 22 of his 23 bills that passed in the 2013-2014 legislative… Read More

NOTE: Watching the video below is secondary to my comments here:

Liberals like Jon Stewart confuse “wealth privilege” with white privilege. If you have more money, life is better. It doesn’t matter what race you are. And it’s not unjust.

Think I’m wrong? Go tell blue collar and low income whites that they benefit from “white privilege.” And be ready to beat a hasty retreat for your own safety.

Such lower income whites find that not only do they possess no such privilege — they are actively discriminated AGAINST by their own governments!! Affirmative action and subtly designed racist quotas work to “keep them in their place.”

Conversely, if you are a well-to-do black, you are better off than a white person with the same income. For no matter how wealthy you are, government will still discriminate in favor of your black kids — in employment, school admissions and government contracting.

But you won’t hear about THAT in a Jon Stewart tirade. That working class white group is not his pampered demographic — liberal elitists plagued with “white guilt.”… Read More

The general counsel of theAgriculture Labor Relations Boardwent to court in April to impose a union contract on Gerawan Farming employees, without proper input from the farm workers, and without counting the ballots of a United Farm Workers union decertification election, held in November 2013.

And now, an attorney with the ALRB has filed a discrimination and harassment lawsuit against ALRB General Counsel Sylvia Torres-Guillen, and ALRB attorney Alegria de la Cruz.

The Plaintiff is… Read More

In California, the root cause of government waste, failed programs, high taxes, debt and deficits, regulatory abuse, civil rights abuse, and even corporate cronyism is public sector unions. Their agenda is intrinsically in conflict with the public at large because any government program, any government regulation, any tax and any new debt, benefits them regardless of the cost or benefit to society.

In California, public sector unions collect and spend over $1.0 billion per year in dues. Their combined political spending and lobbying easily exceeds a half-billion per two-year election cycle. They are by far the most powerful special interest in California. Businesses embrace cronyism because they have no choice. The unions rule. Businesses either make a deal with the unions who run the state and local agencies, so they can get a subsidy or favorable regulation, or they can fight an irresistible machine.

If you accept this premise, powerful allies are hard to find.

When searching for help in the cause of public sector union reform, one staunch and rising group are those individuals and organizations who characterize themselves as “free market.” Nearly all… 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

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an intellectual leader of the United States Senate for 24 years, often chided adversaries declaring “you are entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.” Nowhere is the effort to obscure facts more pronounced than in the California Capitol.

It is one thing for a legislator to say he or she likes Proposition 13 and has the best of intentions for its preservation, but it is quite another when they actually vote on various Proposition 13… Read More

The guy of course never had a chance, so I’ve largely ignored the Governor’s race, but this is completely despicable. Hands down one of the worst ads I’ve seen. Felony dumb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEZFdmwqG3Q

This may be an example of consultants — in the heat of battle, mixed with desperation — convincing a smart candidate to do something just plain dumb.

Carla Marinucci writes about it here.… Read More

Immediately following Gov. Jerry Brown signing the bill by Sen. Alex Padilla to ban the use of plastic bags at grocery stores and tax paper bags, now the progressive left is whining about the plastic bag industry initiating a referendum process for a vote of the people for the November 2016 election.

The Sacramento Bee editorial board compared the plastic bag industry to a chicken with its head curt off: “It would explain why it hasn’t figured out that the ubiquitous single-use plastic grocery bag has just suffered a killing blow. Its days are numbered.”

And the Bee editors are still calling these plastic bags, “single use bags.” Perhaps all of the people who insist these bags are “single use” are the people who throw them out after just one use, rather than use them a second or third use at the grocery store. Do they instead purchase… Read More