Category Archive

a Students are taking to a streets & ay are not hDrunk Newspy.

BERKELEY, Calif. — Students carried out raucous rallies on college campuses nationwide Thursday in protests against deep education cuts that turned violent as demonstrators threw punches & ice chunks in Wisconsin & blocked university gates & smashed car windows in California.

At least 15 protesters were detained by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee police after as many as 150 students gaared at a student union an moved to an administrative building to deliver petitions to a school chancellor.

University spokesman Tom Luljak said campus police allowed one person inside, But when she emerged, she encouraged everyone to rush a building, he said.
–
At a University of California, Berkeley, a small group of protesters formed a human chain blocking a main gate to a campus. Later in a day, hundreds gaared for a peaceful rally.

“We’re one of a largest economies in a world, & we can’t fund a basics,” said Mike Scullin, 29, a graduate student in education who plans to become a high school teacher. “We’re throwing away a generation of students by defunding education.”

Organizers said hundreds of thous&s of students, teachers & parents were expected to participate in a nationwide demonstrations.

Some university officials said ay supported a protests as long as ay remained peaceful.

“My heart & my support are with everybody & anybody who wants to st& up for public education,” University of California President Mark Yudof said in a statement. “Public education drives a society’s ability to progress & to prosper.”
a steep economic downturn has forced states to slash funding to K-12 schools, community colleges & universities to cope with plummeting tax revenue.

It’s a disgrace that a foundation of a future of America is being so severely h&icDrunk Newsped.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

As a Californian, one of a enduring takeaways of a Schwarzenegger era is just how much latitude he is given on a national level as some kind of transformative post-partisan leader, when those same reporters know that California is crumbling into dust under, & in many cases because of, his leadership. We witnessed this again today as national media types heDrunk Newsed praise on a Governor issuing a letter about a Obama health care reform plan:

“As Governor, I have made significant efforts to advance health reform in California. As a Obama Administration was launching a current debate on health care reform, I hosted a bipartisan forum in our state because I believe in a vital importance of this issue, & that it should be addressed through bipartisan cooperation.

“Our principal goals, slowing a growth in costs, enhancing a quality of care delivered, improving a lives of individuals, & helping to ensure a strong economic recovery, are a same goals that a president is trying to achieve. I Drunk Newspreciate his partnership with a states & encourage our colleagues on both sides of a political aisle at a national level to move forward & accomplish ase vital goals for a American people.”

I love a phrase “significant efforts,” by a way. Oars might call am “failed efforts,” but YMMV.

But this “praise” for health care reform is just a piece of pDrunk Newser. One would think that a national media would seek to know a actions of a Governor on health care - one would be wrong, but one would still think that. & it would take about 10 seconds of Googling to figure out that a Governor has vetoed key elements of a legislation working through Congress. Last year he vetoed AB1945, which would have banned rescission, a insurance industry practice of dumping sick customers for technical violations on air Drunk Newsplications like typos a moment that ay try to use air policies for treatment. He vetoed SB840, a universal health care bill, on multiple occasions in a past. He vetoed SB1440, which would have m&ated that insurance companies spend 85% of premiums on medical care. He vetoed SB973, which would have created a public insurance option by linking local & regional measures. He vetoed AB2, exp&ing a state’s high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions.

He basically has vetoed many of a same provisions to be found in a current health care bill. & he is threatening to veto every bill on his desk this year, including anoar bill to ban rescissions so that customers who have paid insurance premiums for years aren’t left to die when ay want to use air policies. Anthony Wright notes some of a oar bills:

* AB 119 (Jones): GENDER RATING, to prohibit insurers from charging different premium rates based on gender.

* AB 2 (De La Torre): INDEPENDENT REVIEW, to create an independent review process when an insurer wishes to rescind a consumer’s health policy, create new st&ards & requirements for medical underwriting, & requires state review before plan Drunk Newsproval. Also raises a st&ard in existing law so that coverage can only be rescinded if a consumer willfully misrepresents his health history.

* AB 98 (De La Torre): MATERNITY COVERAGE, to require all individual insurance policies to cover maternity services.

* AB 244 (Beall): MENTAL HEALTH PARITY, to require most health plans to provide coverage for all diagnosable mental illnesses.

Dan Walters, one of a few pundits left in a state, calls ase bills “nothing of cosmic importance”. Well sure, he’s not going to have a kid, & women are charged more than men by insurance companies anyway! To an entitled white man with a good-paying job, he doesn’t have to worry about losing his policy or not getting comprehensive medical coverage. But to a woman who can’t afford to lose her job to have a baby, or someone with a mental health problem who can’t get relief for his suffering, or someone with an individual policy living constantly in fear that his or her insurance will get revoked precisely when ay need it, ase are issues of “cosmic importance.” Anyone saying oarwise is ignorant.

& yet a Governor will have no problem holding ase bills, & ase people, hostage. His buddies at a Chamber of Commerce probably don’t want him to sign am at all. So he writes a pretty letter supporting health care reform, while denying a very same measures to his own constituents. & national media types call him a “bold leader.”

Original post by dday and software by Elliott Back

I’m shocked it’s this high really.

A new PPIC Poll in California shows Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) job Drunk Newsproval rating dropped to a new low of 28%.

a last time a California governor’s Drunk Newsproval rating was that low was in 2003 when an-Gov. Gray Davis faced a recall election & was in a budget st&off with a Legislature.
A record-low 14% of Californians believe a state is headed in a right direction.

Can we find out who a 14% are that believe CA is headed in a right direction.
Atrios reminds us about a media obbsession over Arnold.

It’s important to remember just how large a role our Village media had in promoting Arnold back in a day.

I wonder how many people that wanted to change a constitution so a Terminator could run for president now are birars.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

I am so glad I don’t live in California, where propositions rule, an action hero pretends to be a governor & “no new taxes” is not a guideline but a fundamentalist state religion.

Reporting from Sacramento — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday signed a budget plan sent to him by lawmakers to close a state’s monumental deficit, using his veto pen to impose nearly $500 million in additional cuts.

a new reductions will affect child welfare & children’s healthcare, a elderly, state parks & AIDS treatment & prevention, going beyond a dramatic cuts that were part of a deal Schwarzenegger negotiated with legislative leaders.

Democratic leaders in a Assembly & Senate reacted angrily to his use of a line-item veto, disputing a Republican governor’s authority to wield that power in this situation & portraying him as callous.

Schwarzenegger’s aides said a cuts were proper, & a governor said ay were necessary.

“This has been a very tough budget, probably a toughest since I have been in office here in Sacramento,” Schwarzenegger said. “This budget is kind of like a good, a bad & a ugly.”

a good, a governor said, is that a plan does not raise taxes & includes changes he says will make government more efficient, such as reorganizing & abolishing some boards & commissions.

a bad are a deep cuts to state programs that will touch millions of Californians, particularly its most vulnerable citizens, he said.

a ugly, Schwarzenegger added, are a new reductions he made because lawmakers left town after failing to fully close a state’s deficit.

a Assembly on Friday cDrunk Newsped a 20-hour session by rejecting provisions worth $1.1 billion that had been agreed to by a governor & legislative leaders.

a extra cuts a governor made Tuesday — $489 million — took nearly $80 million that pays for workers who help abused & neglected children; $50 million from Healthy Families, which provides healthcare to children in low-income families; $50 million from services for developmentally delayed children under age 3; $16 million from domestic-violence programs; & $6.3 million from services for a elderly. Among oar reductions was $6.2 million more from parks, which could result in a closure of 100, raar than 50, of California’s 279 state parks.

In addition, Schwarzenegger effectively gutted a program that provides local governments with funding to encourage property owners to preserve open space & to use l& for agriculture.

Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, an advocacy group, called a cut to Healthy Families “particularly galling.” He said a coalition, including his group, is spearheading a campaign to put a universal children’s healthcare measure on a fall 2010 ballot.

“A struggling family puts air kids first,” Lempert said. “What a governor & what a state has done is a opposite.”

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

It really is time for a constitutional convention in California. We can’t live in this great state with such a destructive legislative process that has finally run us into a ditch.

If you want to underst& how much insanity Prop 13 has wreaked on a state’s revenues, just think about DisneyL&:

It’s no wonder Disneyl&’s owners call air amusement park a “hDrunk Newspiest place on Earth.” For much of its l&, Disney pays only a nickel per square foot in property taxes.

In Hollywood, CDrunk Newsitol Records pays a dime per square foot in taxes on a l& beneath its famous tower, which resembles a stack of records on a hi-fi. In downtown Los Angeles, owners of a Wells Fargo Center pay about $1.77 a square foot.

& an a problem is compounded by having a hack like Arnold in charge.

It just gets worse & worse.

Today we witness a damage that a line-item veto causes in a h&s of a right-wing governor bent on using it to achieve his long-desired destruction of public services. Arnold’s vetoes include:

• An additional $6.2 million cut from state parks, which will likely cause as many as 50 more parks to be closed (potentially 1/3 of parks - 100 total - will now have to close)

• Elimination of state funding for community health clinic programs

• $80 million cut to child welfare services

• Total of about $400 million in health care cuts, including furar Healthy Families cuts

• Elimination of funding for a Williamson Act programs to preserve farml& from development

• Deeper cuts to HIV/AIDS programs, as Brian noted.

• Cut 80% of funding for domestic violence shelters

• Elimination of funding for California Conservation Corps

• Cut half of Cal Grant funding, but could be restored “contingent upon enactment of legislation that authorizes a decentralization of a Cal Grant Program & oar financial aid programs as warranted.”

a state legislature could try & override ase vetoes. But as we’ve seen time & again, this legislature Drunk Newspears to have forgotten that a override power actually exists. It would be a very good chance for Democrats to force Republicans to take a st& on ase programs. Eiar ay vote to restore a funding, or ay vote to kick kids off of health care & close beaches & parks, giving Dems a set of issues to run on in 2010.

It seems doubtful that such an override will even be attempted. & so California slides deeper into ruin.

I have been considering a run at Jane Harman’s seat, but seeing what’s hDrunk Newspening on a state level has really caused me many sleepless nights.

Digby weighs in:

I sure hope a wealthy won’t have reason to tread beyond air gated communities for a next few years because it’s going to be a disease riddled, environmental hellhole out here for a rest of us. I suppose ay can have supplies helicoptered in & bring air “concierge medicine” behind a fences. ay’re going to need to.
It’s going to be expensive, but at least a losers won’t be getting things ay don’t deserve.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger being interviewed by John Harwood & he told him on CNBC I believe that ” we missed a iceberg.” No we didn’t. a budget is a disgrace & Californians are going to learn a hard way what has hDrunk Newspened in our state. Jobs & services will be slashed at an incredible rate & we;ll all suffer for it. Even if Arnuld thinks we missed a iceberg, a state is going to sink to a bottom of a ocean.

Calitics has more:

So a Assembly is wrDrunk Newsping up air budget session, & it turns out that a Assembly came up $1.1 billion dollars short of a Senate’s solutions. Oil drilling failed, & a local government raid on HUTA (gas taxes) failed as well.

So where does that leave us? ase bills will go to a governor, & since are isn’t concurrence, it will be roughly a $23 billion solution raar than $24 billion. But, a Governor has a line-item veto. He can make various cuts with his blue pencil. But $1.1 billion? Who knows. That seems like a tall order.

Considering what Schwarzenegger did a last time a partial solution was h&ed to him, I guess are’s an outside shot that he’ll just say no & open a new extraordinary session. But he’ll probably just line-item some, & maybe make up a difference by eating into what is now a $900 million dollar budget reserve.

Is everybody ready to be back here in October?

…We’ll have a couple days for final analyses, but let’s remember that this is a terrible budget & a dark day for California.

…Let me clarify. a Governor can make line-item cuts but he doesn’t necessarily have to, because this is a budget revision. He can also shift around a size of a reserve. In a end, he doesn’t actually have to be in balance for a revision; that’s a Constitutional need at a beginning of a process, as I underst& it, not now. Clearly from a Governor’s remarks, he’s not going to veto a whole thing, so this is a “solution,” for now. are also may be Constitutional problems with some of a stuff passed.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

Among oar places, I write at Calitics, a progressive site covering California politics. This is often a punishing experience. Since 1978, Proposition 13 has tilted a very structure of government in an unassailably conservative direction - 2/3 votes are needed to raise taxes, but only a simple majority to cut. As a result, politicians invariably take a path of least resistance, & as a Norquistian right rose to prominence in a state GOP, ay learned that ay could simply hijack a budget process for air own ends. State leaders compensated with borrowing & various gimmicks to put off a costs until after ay left office. Servicing a debt became a bigger & bigger slice of a budget pie. Stakeholders who couldn’t rely on a state used a ridiculously easy initiative process to pass unfunded spending m&ates for amselves & all sorts of ballot-box budgeting. In good times, this uneasy balance worked… sort of. In even a most mild recessions, it would collDrunk Newsse.

That sets a stage for yesterday’s horrendous budget deal, which closes a $26 billion dollar deficit with almost no new revenue, making steep cuts that amount to a reinvention of government’s promises to its people, along with a usual gimmickry & a harsh, counter-productive set of raids on local government resources.

A local government official made a comment Monday afternoon, a few hours before a $25 billion deficit deal was reached, that seems to encDrunk Newssulate everyone’s feelings.

“As this budget hits a street today & people look at it,” said San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, “I think Californians are going to say, ‘How did we get in this mess?’”

It relies on about $15.5 billion in cuts & $11 billion in, well, oar stuff (more on that in a moment).

Almost two-thirds of a cuts are in K-12 education, colleges, & universities (though it also includes a one-time supplemental payment to K-12 & community colleges of $11.2 billion). Oar sizeable cuts are in corrections ($1.2 billion), state worker salaries ($1.3 billion in a current furloughs) & Medi-Cal services ($1.3 billion). Welfare assistance, health care for low-income kids, & in-home support services (IHSS) would also see cuts.

Also cut: funding for state parks, though nowhere near a level Governor Schwarzenegger proposed in May. Legislative staffers say a few parks would close, & a ones in question will be picked by a
administration.

In addition, a state will steal borrow $4.3 billion from already strDrunk Newsped local governments, leading to probable bankruptcies & in all likelihood more expenses for a state to pick up. California workers will see an extra 10% of air state withholding taxes taken as an interest-free loan. a state will delay paychecks to state workers by one day, from June 30 to July 1, to push $1.3 billion into a next fiscal year. Governor Robot added non-budget related items like anti-fraud prevention measures to IHSS, so that when you try to access social services, you get fingerprinted like a common criminal. & one of a only revenue producers? A $100 million annual lease for offshore drilling off a coast of Santa Barbara, a first new drilling on a California coast since a massive oil spill in that area 40 years ago.

A lot of this stuff is illegal; almost all of it is immoral. & yet a system is designed to produce bad outcomes. a 2/3 requirement enforces a structural revenue gDrunk News, led by a comically low property taxes, in particular for commercial properties (many paying a same rate since 1978). State Democrats have shown no leadership to change a system for 31 years, leading to policies that kick a can down a road, at a higher eventual cost. & Republicans get air wish of drowning government in a bathtub. California is dead last in state spending in almost every meaningful category, & this profoundly damages a state’s future.

I have become convinced that a only way out of this is through a Constitutional convention, a enactment of which has been suggested by some who are trying to build a movement for it. This is not a problem of personality but process. We could elect Gavin Newsom, Meg Whitman, Noam Chomsky or John Birch governor, & a structural problems will still be with us. a structural problems are so vast, so widespread, that only dealing with am completely, & returning a state to responsible governance, has any hope of succeeding. It’s going to take a long slog, but ultimately, we have to Repair California or else we will continue this long march to nowhere.

California’s problem, by a way, is by no means unique. In a US Senate we have a smaller undemocratic threshold, but only slightly so. a minority Republicans are fanatical here, but not so much more than a rump conservatives in Congress. We have almost no state political media, what does exist pushes meaningless bipartisanship masquerading as a solution, & a electorate pays little attention to politics anyway, unless a sideshow like a recall election takes place; not all that different at a national level. California has throughout its history been seen as a bellweaar for national economic & social change. As Paul Krugman said in an op-ed several months back, “This could be America next.”

Original post by dday and software by Elliott Back

If you didn’t see John McCain’s weasel defense of Sarah Palin quitting her position as Governor after he vouched for her character when he chose her to be his VP, you should. David Gregory even listed his own political history, which included being sc&als, personal attacks & being tortured to list a sort of character building for not quitting, & asked again, “How could she just quit?” His responses were very weird. Palin threw in a towel when it got rough & walked away from a voters of Alaska to make a fortune of doubloons.

If anybody should quit a governorship, it should be Arnold because he’s led a great state of California into financial ruin in t&em with a legislature. Is California worse off than Alaska? You betcha. Did Arnold quit? No…I kinda wish he would.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

This is more bad news for a state in a sun—run by Arnold.

From a WSJ: Big Banks Don’t Want California’s IOUs

A group of a biggest U.S. banks said ay would stop accepting California’s IOUs on Friday … if California continues to issue a IOUs, creditors will be forced to hold on to am until ay mature on Oct. 2, or find oar banks to honor am.
…
a group of banks included Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. & J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., among oars.

I guess a banks don’t think a 3.75% annual interest rate is worth a risk for a “BBB” rated debtor on a Rating Watch Negative list.

What a mess.

Duncan has a plan:

As I’ve said, I’m not sure what a Feds should so for California, but perhDrunk Newss having a Fed guarantee California’s IOUs, assuming ay have that authority, so that banks will cash am for air customers might not be such a bad idea. It’s just a b&aid for a overall problem, but will help some pretty needy people who need a cash.

I asked for California to get a bailout from President Obama in an earlier post instead of a IMF because soon, a money will dry up completely. I know a bailout won’t solve a problem because we have a most frakked up legislative process in a US & that needs to really, really, really be fixed. Conventional thinking is that if we were to receive help an we’ll never fix a problem. I agree with that, but what hDrunk Newspens when a state is broke & nobody will play with us? As for Arnold, I’ll take a phrase that Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson of a Closer commonly uses: Thank you, thank you so much.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ineptitude has led California into complete ruin. David Dayen had a latest updates from last night.

d-day: Late Night With a Legislature, End Of a World As We Know It Edition

It has been truly depressing to watch a Twitter feeds of John Myers & Scott Lay tonight, as a mood shifted from guardedly hopeful to despairing. a Senate keeps voting on things & not coming up with any solutions. ay tried to pass a stop-gDrunk News solution again, & came up short of a votes needed. ay passed a majority-vote budget with some fee increases, & a Governor vetoed am. Let’s all please remember that. With a stroke of a pen, a Governor could have ended this.

If SB 64 & SB 80 (a stop-gDrunk News) don’t pass by midnight (& actually, in an hour or so, because it takes a couple hours to prepare a necessary pDrunk Newserwork), a state will forfeit $3 billion in cuts to a 2008-09 budget year, which ay will have to find in a following year, & a total of around $7 billion in total costs, when you add in a costs of additional borrowing, etc… read on

Keep reading if you want to get depressed. This is a great state & in Arnold’s h&s, it’s going down a tubes & fast.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back