a running commentary by our trusted california contributors...

[For National Issues Blogging at theOneRepublic's Blog tOR Blog]

[3/30/05 Wednesday]

[Hugh Hewitt - senior columnist] 12:01 am [link]
LAT & Bloggers: The Los Angeles Times has a writer, David Shaw, who has long assumed that you knew about him, and  --even greater error alert-- that you cared about his conclusions.  A couple of days ago he wrote about bloggers, and included a pair of the most unintentionally funniest lines I can remember:

"I'm not saying that all bloggers are lazy, careless or inaccurate. I'm sure many take as much pride in their work — their professionalism — as I do."

ReferenceTone noted the big problems at the Times a few posts back.  Could it be as simple as the fact that David Shaw is the paper's big gun? 

[3/29/05 Tuesday]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:07 am [link]
What May We Expect From the Governor? Commentator and attorney Carol Platt Liebau of California Republic led the pack of Sunday's LAT commentary on Governor Schwarzenegger. She argues that conservatives need direct democracy, at least for now, to govern effectively. Tony Quinn maintains that a deal the Governor might strike with legislators is more significant than the initiative itself, for it might produce an end to term limits. SF Mayor Gavin Newsome smells a fraud. The LAT's own editorial is closer to Newsome (though they support reapportionment). David Broder is impressed by the Governor's body-building career: ‘the most relaxed and least fretful man in the capital is the bodybuilder who tells himself, "I deserve to be the winner because I am the best."’ (His Washington Post colleague George Will got closer to the truth; see also this post.)

UPDATE: Post's Dan Balz: "The legislators have a spending "addiction," he said. The unions have won "sweetheart pension deals" from the state. Now, he said, their time is over. "There's always something wonderful about fighting for the right thing, when you know you're right and you know when you've got clear vision, as I always have about the end product," he said.

Citing sources as diverse as Thomas Aquinas, William James, and Conan the Barbarian, California historian Kevin Starr also probes the Governor’s mind. Among other themes, he finds “A paradoxical blend of free-market economics with a residual Euro-Catholic respect for government as social democracy and safety net.”

The governor came to view [Governor Hiram] Johnson, a reforming Progressive known for taking his case to the people, as all-time champion — the Mr. Universe of California government. And he was determined to emulate this champ's approach. But Johnson's progressive politics are not a natural fit with another keystone of the new governor's self-made intellect. As Schwarzenegger has noted in a PBS series, economist Milton Friedman's free-market theories helped spur his rise to wealth and Americanization. Friedman's recasting of Adam Smith dovetails with those parts the Austrian mind already embedded with the conservative theories of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and the other economists of the respected Austrian School. These thinkers produced some of the 20th century's most formidable theoretical resistance to socialist ideology, and set the stage for today's free marketeers.

For a penetrating analysis of Hiram Johnson see Scot Zentner’s essay in The California Republic. Conceding the eccentricity of his approach, Starr concludes “Still, it behooves us as Californians to think about the notions, however obliquely expressed, that guide the governor. Most of us, after all, seem to be thinking along similar lines.”

My argument for Schwarzenegger's significance was made here.

Most of this [State of the State address] is pleasing to conservatives, especially of the market-oriented type, and it certainly should be. If these proposals don't eliminate the administrative state in California, they go a long way toward putting it in the course of ultimate extinction. The key here is to demand much of his opponents, keep the Republicans unified, and make sure public attention is focused on the Democrats' enslavement to "special interests." If he gets his way, Governor Schwarzenegger will have done the cause of liberty boundless good.

Crucial to his success is what fills the Governor's soul. Is his speechwriter's phrase, "A time for choosing," a throw-away line for older conservatives, intended to recall Ronald Reagan's speech endorsing Barry Goldwater, or a recognition of a regime crisis, as it was for Reagan? [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[3/28/05 Monday]

[Mike Nevin - law enforcement officer, writer and columnist] 7:05 am [link]
Not In My Back Yard Sonoma County has a problem as illustrated by a recent article in the Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA). Thomas Earl Putney was recently paroled after Sonoma County prosecutors decided not to seek another commitment for him at Atascadero State Hospital, a place for sexually violent predators. According to the article

Thomas Earl Putney, 36, has been relocated twice [after a brief stint in Sonoma County and San Francisco] since he was released Feb. 28, most recently to Redwood City, and officials there want him moved again.Putney, who was convicted in 1991 of three counts of lewd and lascivious acts with minors, is one of several registered sex offenders who have been greeted by protests in Bay Area communities where they were released.

The state Department of Corrections typically returns parolees to the county in which the crimes were committed.

Sonoma County Assistant District Attorney Greg Jacobs said prosecutors would likely resist Putney's relocation to Sonoma County.

"I think we would urge the Department of Corrections not to release a sex offender here," Jacobs said. "Especially because this is where he committed the crimes."

Putney, like Ghilotti and Verse [other infamous parolees], was determined to be a sexually violent predator and kept in a state mental hospital after completing his prison term in 2003.
Detailed records about Putney's crimes weren't immediately available at Sonoma County Superior Court. But Redwood City police said Putney was arrested in Sonoma County in 1990 on charges of sodomy and oral copulation.
The victims were three children ages 2, 4 and 9 years old, the report said.

Does this mean that Sonoma County would be willing to accept future child-molesting parolees from other parts of the state? Not In My Back Yard isn't going to cut it. San Francisco and San Mateo Counties have children too. Are the children of other counties not as important as those fortunate enough to live in Sonoma County?

Believe me, I don't like the idea of a sexually violent predator ever seeing the light of day. I think this type of crime is so heinous that it meets the definition of a capital crime in my book. But this thinking is in direct contrast to the liberal-leaning ideology dominating this region of the Bay Area. Sorry folks, you can't have it both ways. When these guys get prosecuted they should get no deal, ever. We should fight for, at least, life without the possibility of parole when it comes to these vicious crimes. I hope the good people of Sonoma County would be willing to join the fight for tougher laws and stiffer sentences when it comes to protecting their kids. After all, it's their problem.

Important Info--California Megan's Law link: http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/intro.htm

[3/25/05 Friday]

[Jon Fleischman proprietor of FLASHREPORT daily political email] 7:45 am [link]
Drug companies want payroll protection from unions: In the FLASHREPORT SPOTLIGHT today is an interesting SacBee articleabout the trial lawyers and the pharmaceutical industry folks trying to work out their differences before they both have a field day.  I am hoping nothing gets worked out, personally, because one of the measures that the drug folks are looking to qualify would be a 'paycheck protection' measure that would keep unions from using mandatory dues for political purposes without express permission from each employee.  I think it may also take away from unions the ability to use government payroll systems to collect dues - they would have to actually bill their own members...  [email to subscribe to FLASHREPORT]

[3/24/05 Thursday]

[Eric Hogue - radio talk show host KTKZ - Sacramento] 12:43 am [link]
Stem Cell Research? BTW, where are the supporters of Proposition 71? The members of the "Stem Cell Research Committee" here in Sacramento; committee members of the 'stem cell research' initiative that will cost the taxpayers of California $3 billion dollars in principal taxes, $6 billion in interest and pay-offs to venture capitalists, are you supporting the life of Terri Schiavo?

I thought stem cells was the current 'miracle cure all', and that we are so close to having this research found successful, that we are willing to toss billions of tax dollars toward this unaccountable, progressive medical future.

Why aren't they fighting to keep Terri alive for research?   [Hogue Blog - email: onair@ktkz.com]

[3/23/05 Wednesday]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:02 am [link]
Berserk-ley Education: Rename Thomas Jefferson Elementary? “Parents, students and teachers at Berkeley's Thomas Jefferson Elementary School will soon vote on whether to rename their school because the nation's third president was a slave owner.” (Patrick Hoge, SFC) This tiresome exercise in Orwellian revisionism again undermines knowledge of America and the conditions of freedom. Abraham Lincoln had the best defense of the honor paid to Jefferson:

All honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be rebuke and stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.” (Letter to Henry Pierce, April 6, 1859)

May we all have Jefferson's "coolness" and "forecast." Even worse for the children attending the school will be the sort of history they are taught.

Jefferson Elementary School is not the first to go through such a process. In 1999, Columbus Elementary School in West Berkeley was rebuilt after it was found to be seismically unsafe, and it was renamed Rosa Parks Elementary School - but only after intense debate about whether Cesar Chavez was a better alternative.

Also, James Garfield Middle School was renamed after Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and Abraham Lincoln Elementary School was renamed for Malcolm X in the 1970s.

The Washington Times reviewed the naming of schools after Confederate war heroes--a different case than that posed by Jefferson or George Washington. [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[3/22/05 Tuesday]

[Eric Hogue - radio talk show host KTKZ - Sacramento] 12:08 am [link]
Nurses Continue Attack on Arnold I thought the CNA (California Nurses Union), one of six statewide nurses unions in California, was protesting the governor surrounding his executive order to delay the implemention of the 5:1 nurese ratio. Now that the CNA found a judge to support their legislative cash cow, we are learning the CNA will fight the governor on ALL of his public employee reform initiatives.

Despite winning a court victory this week in its fight against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to implementation a nurse staffing law, the Oakland-based California Nurses Association isn't letting up on its relentless campaign against the governor.

The 60,000-member union says it will expand its efforts and vigorously protest the governor's proposals to overhaul the state's pension system and change redistricting rules.

"We believe our new role is to work with other groups that are under attack, such as teachers," said Deborah Burger, president of the California Nurses Association. "It would be shortsighted for us to stop now.

So, Debra Burger - who stated on my show that she believe the governor was KILLING people in California with his nurses ratio delay - now says that it is the "nurses unions" ROLE to work with other 'other groups' to target the governor.

Nice to hear that the union dues nurses pay are being used to fight for the entire lot of public employee members.

This surely must be the Arnold Armageddon!  [Hogue Blog - email: onair@ktkz.com]

[3/21/05 Monday]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:16 am [link]
Criticism From a Non-Blogger This one in the LAT laudable self-criticism series from David Abel (evidently not a blogger), the opposite of the plea to print more scandal news “The question is why the public is so uninvolved, so uninterested in the political life of our city. I believe the chief culprit is our dumbed-down local media.”

Abel notes the superficiality of Times’ reporting on local issues and then observes:

Things are even worse in Sunday Opinion, where cartoons about the mayor's race consumed two full pages that could have been devoted to considered opinion in the lead-up to the primary. These amused, but where was any shade of insight about the complex political culture of this city? Where was reference to the demographic and political evolution of South Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, two distinct areas of our city that have elected state Assembly members with the support of constituents unaligned with the old political order? Absent, probably because the cartoonist is an itinerant scribbler parachuting in periodically from the East Coast.

It also doesn't help that The Times hired a new editorial and opinion editor without requiring that he live full time in Los Angeles

Abel may have struck paydirt with the following:

The consequence is a public deprived of the reportage and opinion essays it needs to overcome a collective indifference to the responsibilities of self-governance.

I wonder whether the LAT assumes it is a part of the elite that governs LA effectively and therefore encourages "collective indifference to the responsibilities of self-governance." It is one face of the Progressive attitude that combines public spiritedness with contempt for the public's ignorance.

Abel concludes that the Times has sacrificed reporting to its urge to entertain. By contrast, “A big-city newspaper achieves distinction as part of a region and a community's life by demonstrating the relevance of the place from which it hails to the larger national or global scene.” Note our criticisms (and occasional praise of the LAT) in Claremont's Media File. Ours track Abel's considerably. [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[3/18/05 Friday]

[Mike Nevin - law enforcement officer, writer and columnist] 12:05 am [link]
McCullough Update [see previous post here] Justice seems to have prevailed in Oakland. Hopefully his arrest record can be expunged, but more importantly, hopefully this brave man and his family stay safe.

A North Oakland man known for his crusade against neighborhood drug dealers won't face charges for shooting a 16-year-old neighbor, prosecutors said.

Patrick McCullough, 49, whom police had arrested on suspicion of felony assault after he shot Melvin McHenry in the arm and torso, appears to have acted in self-defense, said Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Jim Lee.

And because McCullough was standing in his yard when the shooting occurred, he cannot be charged with a weapons violation.

"This fact makes any possible weapons offense inapplicable," Lee said Wednesday.

McCullough, who has reported suspected drug dealers to police for 10 years and frequently tells the young men who gather on the sidewalk outside his home to beat it, said he fired in self-defense after Melvin and other youths surrounded him, yelled "there's the snitch" and hit him. He said he fired only because he heard Melvin call out for a pistol and then reach into a friend's waistband.

[Jon Fleischman proprietor of FLASHREPORT daily political email] 12:05 am [link]
Governor Chooses.. Poorly... For those who have not been following the issue, the Governor had weighed in on specific ballot measures in the areas of redistricting, education reform, and pension reform.  But he has been taking his time to study which of a two competing initiatives he would personally support in the area of budget reform. 

Well, yesterday, the Governor chose -- and with all due respect, I believe he chose poorly.  There were two different proposals, either of which would be a significant improvement over the status quo.  So let's make it clear - I am thrilled and excited that the Governor is backing either proposal -- the one he has chosen to back, among other things, restores the critical ability for the Chief Executive to make mid-year budget cuts in poor economic times. 

My disappointment comes from the fact that the measure he did not choose to support, backed by Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and my State Senator, John Campbell, would have really cut state spending much more substantially than the one that will move forward (Campbell announced that his measure will no longer move forward).  Also, the Coupal/Campbell measure would have tackled head-on the "Sinclair Paint" issue -- this is a current "break in the spending-restraint dam" that allows "fee increases" (ie...taxes) by majority vote of policy making bodies (legislatures, boards, city councils) if the money spent from the fee has a 'nexus' to the source of the fee (a good example would be the recent decision by the SF Board of Supes to throw a hefty 'fee' on every plastic shopping back in The City, and then use the money to pay for a recycling program -- all done on a majority vote of the Board). 

To throw some balance out there, I understand that there were some concerns by some that the Coupal/Campbell measure might have trouble passing California's "Single Subject" rule for initiatives.  Apparently some felt that "budget/spending reform" was too broad??  I dunno.  We may hear a little more about this -- but, frankly, it is time to move forward.  With decisions having been made, the proposal the Governor HAS decided to back contains some essential reforms, and is definitely worthy of all of our support.  Read more about this whole decision in Jim Hinch's OC Register story... [email to subscribe to FLASHREPORT]

[3/17/05 Thursday]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:16 am [link]
LA County Survey: Explaining the Racial Divide A poll by the Public Policy Institute of California of Los Angeles County residents reveals markedly different attitudes by blacks versus white, Asian, and Latinos toward a number of local government functions, such as parks, police, public schools, and streets (Michael Finnegan, LAT).

While Asians and Latinos tracked closely together, having few differences with whites, only 15% of blacks rated public schools or streets and roads as good or excellent. This is less than half the confidence the other groups found. Obviously, this reflects the different neighborhoods groups tend to live in. If credible non-governmental solutions come forward, they might unite, for example, the many white and black critics of public education. One finding the LAT report does not mention: One-third of all County residents hope to move out within the next five years. How many hope their neighbors move out was a question they evidently did not ask. See PPIC’s website for the complete poll. [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[3/16/05 Wednesday]

[Eric Hogue - radio talk show host KTKZ - Sacramento] 12:01 am [link]
Those Who Hate Arnold For all of the Anti-Arnold knuckle-draggers out there, a reminder from the New York Times...

Two years ago, before Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor in an unprecedented recall, Democrats in California were meeting for their state convention. Four months earlier, the party had swept every statewide office for the first time since 1882, beginning at the top of the ticket with the re-election of Gov. Gray Davis.

On Tuesday, Ms. Allan was among the dozens of people who crowded into the auditorium of an elementary school near the Nob Hill neighborhood in San Francisco where Phil Angelides, the Democratic state treasurer, became the first major candidate to announce his bid for governor in 2006.

It was a decidedly more humble event than the state convention two years ago, with Ms. Allan characterizing Democrats as "in recovery" from the shock of recent events. Mr. Davis was recalled in October 2003, the Democratic secretary of state resigned this month and a Republican - Mr. Schwarzenegger - has come to dominate California politics like no single elected official since Ronald Reagan was governor.

To those who have an Arnold Vendetta, take heed...your attitude matches the Democrats. [Hogue Blog - email: onair@ktkz.com]

[3/15/05 Tuesday]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:11 am