Martha Montelongo

Zombiefied Drug Trade by Bill Bonner

2012-02-02T13:19:00.000-08:00

“But one night, I’m in bed and these guys in combat gear bust down the door and point rifles at me and my wife. It was a SWAT team of some sort. And then my son came home. They asked him what he was doing there. He told them he lived there. So they arrested him too…

“Of course, the door wasn’t even locked. They could have just turned the doorknob. But I guess that wouldn’t have been so exciting…

“They let me out of jail in a matter of hours…but only after signing a paper saying we wouldn’t sue the police for false arrest, etc. If I didn’t sign the paper they said the arrest would be on my son’s record for life…”

Zombiefied Drug Trade by Bill Bonner

Opinion: Why we should regulate sugar like alcohol - CNN.com

2012-02-01T14:13:00.000-08:00

Do you see how meddling busy body Govt knows no way to change your behavior or influence your behavior other than to tax you, or criminalize your behavior?

Maybe if we got literate informed critical thinkers for the billions of $ we spend on public Ed, more people would choose to monitor their own sugar intake, if they chose to.

Instead, all of our choices for sugar pleasures will be going up if these control freaks have their way. And this will change our behavior how?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Researchers seeing similar effects from too much sugar and too much alcohol
Alcohol is simply the distillation of sugar, she says, and sugar should be taxed and regulated
Schmidt: We may be thinking about obesity and chronic disease in the wrong way
She says tackling obesity and chronic disease will be hard, but concerned people can do plenty

Opinion: Why we should regulate sugar like alcohol - CNN.com

A New Pot Legalization Proposal in California Gets Good Poll Numbers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

2012-02-01T13:57:00.000-08:00

Brian Doherty | February 1, 2012

The folks behind a proposed California ballot initiative called "Regulate Marijuana Like Wine" have issued the results of a poll they commissioned with some good news for those who want to see marijuana lose its criminality in the state:

A recent poll reveals that California voters, by a 62% to 35% margin, with 3% unsure, support a ballot initiative to regulate marijuana like wine.

The statewide poll, by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates, Inc. surveyed 800 likely voters and found that 80% of the respondents agreed to the statement, "State and federal drug laws are outdated and have failed, therefore, we need to take a new approach that makes sense for today."...

Click link below to read the whole article:
A New Pot Legalization Proposal in California Gets Good Poll Numbers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

Boondoggle Projects Threaten California with Third World Status

2012-02-01T12:38:00.000-08:00

Gov. Jerry Brown has an interesting definition of “third world.”

In an interview with a San Francisco radio station last week, Brown said California would become “a Third World country” unless the state builds a ghastly $100 billion high-speed rail line that’s been fraught with mismanagement, cost overruns and shaky ridership projections.

It’s an odd claim, considering many third-world nations are characterized by crumbling infrastructure, failed boondoggle projects and constant budgetary trouble. In much of the third-world, a new leader will pour massive amounts of a nation’s fortune into a single prestige project, only to have it fail when poor planning, bureaucratic incompetence and malfeasance slowly eat up all the funds.

By this definition, California seems currently on track to become America’s third-world state. Just like high-speed rail, the same spending lobby is promoting a nearly $1 billion per year tax hike so that a politically appointed panel can dole out favors to cronies. The $1 billion in new taxes under Proposition 29 goes into a lockbox that only this politically-influenced commission can access. Not even in cases of waste or abuse can the Governor or the Legislature make any changes! Proposition 29 sounds like it was plucked straight from the playbook of some Latin American dictator or Middle Eastern sheikh.

Jerry Brown ought to find the nearest dictionary. Pouring money into boondoggle projects while neglecting vital services like education and public safety is the surest way for California to join the third-world. Until California can figure out how to pay for what it already has, voters need to say no to more new spending.

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, with special guests Arun Ramanathan on teacher quality & Diane Goldstein on drug wars in LA County and what does Obama snack on?

2012-01-31T16:20:00.000-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
Jan 31, 2012: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com.

Arun Ramanathan from Education Trust West speaks to us about a recent report they just published on the findings of a two- year-long study of data from the second largest school district in the nation, revealing profound inequities in access to effective teaching. In Learning Denied: The Case for Equitable Access to Effective Teaching in California’s Largest School District, The Education Trust—West finds that low-income students and students of color in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) are less likely to be taught by the district’s top teachers – the very teachers capable of closing the district’s achievement gaps. These inequities are exacerbated by teacher mobility patterns and quality-blind layoffs.

YouTube Ignores LAPD Cop's First Place Question for Obama About Legalizing Marijuana
WASHINGTON, DC -- "Yesterday YouTube ignored a question advocating marijuana legalization from a retired LAPD deputy chief of police (watch that video at the link above) that won twice as many votes as any other video question in the White House's "Your Interview with the President" competition on the Google-owned site. They did, however, find the time to get the president on record about late night snacking, singing and dancing, celebrating wedding anniversaries and playing tennis."
Retired LAPD deputy chief of police Stephen Downing asks President Obama about the growing support for marijuana legalization among voters. Stephen is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which anyone can join for free at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com.

I invited Chief Downing to join us but he was already booked, but we do have Diane Goldstein, also a retired law enforcement officer with LAPD and member of LEAP, to speak with us on this slight to American Voters' pressing concerns, and the assault on the state passed laws to legalize Medical Marijuana in Los Angeles, CA.

More links to hot stories:

Gadfly Radio is moving to a new home, on KKZZ 1400 AM in Ventura, CA, Starting Feb 7th

Ballot Measure Titles and Summaries Should not be Written by Attorneys General

by Joel Fox
A couple of months ago, at a discussion on the initiative process at a Zocalo Public Square meeting in Los Angeles, the panelists were asked what one thing they would change with the initiative process...

California To Run Out Of Cash In One Month, Controller Warns

'Drop Dead CRA Day' Will Celebrate L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency's Demise (With Special Kool-Aid) - Los Angeles News - The Informer

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929, on FB instant chat or Twitter.  I am a stand for liberty, integrity, empowerment, and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

Gadfly Radio is moving to a new home, on KKZZ 1400 AM in Ventura, CA, Starting Feb 7th

2012-01-31T15:55:00.001-08:00

We move from 8 pm PT to 1 pm PT and we will be able to listen live on the web via 1400 AM KKZZ or you may subscribe to our podcasts which you'll be able to find at Http://GadflyRadio.com and via iTunes.

The subscription to listen via podcast feeds will be up and running next week, by Tuesday or Wednesday.

We're excited about the move and we are very grateful to our hosts at LATalkRadio.com for the time they've had us on their network, and we are most grateful to our followers and listeners.

Thank you!

We love being here with you.

Ballot Measure Titles and Summaries Should not be Written by Attorneys General: Fox&Hounds

2012-01-31T14:55:00.000-08:00

By Joel Fox
Editor of Fox & Hounds and President of the Small Business Action Committee
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

A couple of months ago, at a discussion on the initiative process at a Zocalo Public Square meeting in Los Angeles, the panelists were asked what one thing they would change with the initiative process. As a panelist, my answer: Take away the power to write the initiative title and summary from the attorney general’s office.

Now come two newspaper columns that highlight the mislabeling of initiatives by the current Attorney General, Kamala Harris. John Diaz, editorial page editor of the San Francisco Chronicle simply used the word “unfair” to describe some of the titles and summaries written by Harris. Columnist Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee argued that Harris’s titles and summaries “fixed the game” to sway political outcomes.

Click here to read the article.

EconomicPolicyJournal.com: California To Run Out Of Cash In One Month, Controller Warns

2012-01-31T14:29:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, January 31, 2012
California To Run Out Of Cash In One Month, Controller Warns

California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today, reports the Sacramento Bee.

Lawmakers previously believed the state had enough cash to last through the fiscal year that ends in June.

Chiang said additional cash management solutions are needed because state tax revenues are $2.6 billion less than what Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers assumed in their optimistic budget last year. Meanwhile, Chiang said, the state is spending $2.6 billion more than state leaders planned on.

Bottom line: Who needs a Greek financial crisis to worry about, when you have California? They'll patch California together.

click here to read more.

'Drop Dead CRA Day' Will Celebrate L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency's Demise (With Special Kool-Aid) - Los Angeles News - The Informer

2012-01-31T14:22:00.000-08:00

A pack of veteran L.A. City Hall gadflies will have a little fun, this Wednesday, with Governor Jerry Brown's big bloody butchering of California's redevelopment agencies (RDAs) -- and the notorious L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency, in particular.

Miki Jackson (No. 1 enemy of the slimy Community College Board) and John Walsh (Hollywood density-watcher with the most wonderfully terrible necktie collection this side of City Councilman Tom LaBonge) are holding "Drop Dead CRA Day"...

... on the morning of February 1. The celebration will be staged during the public-comment period for the day's L.A. City Council meeting. Full event details here..

Couple Abused at LAX for Tweets | CalWatchDog

2012-01-31T14:17:00.000-08:00

And note that the government spies on Twitter, as it does on Facebook. Big Brother not only is watching you, he’s reading everything you write.

Welcome to 1984 — in 2012. --John Seiler

Couple Abused at LAX for Tweets | CalWatchDog

Mandatory "National Service" for New York Times Columnists - Forbes

2012-01-31T14:07:00.000-08:00

Mark Perry over at Carpe Diem tweets "How About Mandatory "National Service" for New York Times Columnists?" Here here!

David Brooks, who always appeared to be a nice and reasonable gentleman, seems to have lost his marbles. In his most recent New York Times column he calls for young people (or perhaps all Americans) to be “forced” into a “national service program.”

Writing about Charles Murray’s new book that details differences between the middle/upper class and lower classes on employment, out of wedlock births, and even obesity, David Brooks writes, “I doubt Murray would agree, but we need a National Service Program. We need a program that would force members of the upper tribe and the lower tribe to live together, if only for a few years . . . If we could jam the tribes together, we’d have a better elite and a better mass.

”

Mandatory "National Service" for New York Times Columnists - Forbes

Judge refuses to halt demise of California redevelopment agencies - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

2012-01-29T21:44:00.000-08:00

By Peter Hecht
phecht@sacbee.com
Published: Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012 - 12:00 am | Page 3A

A Sacramento Superior Court judge Friday refused to stave off the elimination of more than 400 local California redevelopment agencies, rejecting arguments that the Legislature violated the state constitution by cutting off their funding.

Judge Lloyd G. Connelly's ruling on two lawsuits by 12 cities means the agencies stand to be dissolved by Wednesday. His refusal to grant a stay in the cases handed another victory to Gov. Jerry Brown, who has counted on the elimination of redevelopment agencies to deliver more money for schools and public safety.
Read more here: Judge refuses to halt demise of California redevelopment agencies - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Greenhut Dissects State of the Union | CalWatchDog

2012-01-26T00:28:00.000-08:00

This threat is not just financial. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, a Democrat, told Vanity Fair that “Our police and firefighters will earn more in retirement than they did when they were working.” He continued, “It’s staggering. When did we go from giving people sick leave to letting them accumulate it and cash it in for hundreds of thousands of dollars when they are done working? There’s a corruption here. It’s not just a financial corruption. It’s a corruption of the attitude of public service.”

Greenhut Dissects State of the Union | CalWatchDog

Anthony Krinsky's Education Blog: "The Experiment" A brief review

2012-01-24T21:47:00.000-08:00

More on The Documentary, The Experiment Produced by Ben Limoine Anthony Krinsky's Education Blog: "The Experiment" A brief review

A Tale of Two Missions & Kids Aren't Cars - National School Choice Week

2012-01-24T16:53:00.000-08:00

A Tale of Two Missions & Kids Aren't Cars- National School Choice Week

WHEN
January 26, 2012 at 7:00 PM

WHERE
Orthodox Union (OU) West
9831 W Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90035

Hosted by Anthony Krinsky and Martha Montelongo

Click here to register to attend or to find other events happening in your area you can attend, to learn more about School Choice and what you can do to advance it.

Google map and directions

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, with Special guest, Ben Limoine, on Nat'l School Choice Week, and the New Orleans Miracle

2012-01-24T16:46:00.000-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
Jan 24, 2012: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com. Special Guest Ben Limoine of Fleurish Productions and Producer of the film documenting the transformation of New Orleans schools after Katrina in the film called The Experiment.

This week is National School Choice Week, and we'll talk with Ben about what that means and about his film, The Experiment and what is so special about New Orleans schools today, post Hurricane Katrina? The movie is available right now on Starz, and Netflix for on demand viewing!

Related Links:

Editorial: Superintendent Deasy, LAUSD board member Galatzan to attend town hall - LA Daily News

Gov. Jerry Brown said in this week's State of the State address that K-12 education will lose nearly $5 billion next year if voters don't approve his tax measures in November. And in response to the budget pressures, LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy has called for putting $270-a-year parcel tax on the ballot.

Whistle-blowing teachers to open a charter school - Los Angeles Times

They lost their jobs during a cheating scandal at Crescendo schools. Former union chief and charter foe A.J. Duffy will lead them.

Whitney Tilson's School Reform Blog: At his charter school, ex-UTLA head would target tenure

The longtime anti-charter crusader wants to make it harder for teachers to earn tenure protections and wants to lengthen that process.

He even wants to require teachers to demonstrate that they remain effective in the classroom if they want to keep their tenure protections.

And if a tenured teacher becomes ineffective, he wants to streamline dismissals.

The process now in place can stretch out for several years, even with substantial evidence of gross misconduct.

Some union leaders, notably Duffy, have defended this "due process" as a necessary protection against administrative abuses.

"I would make it 10 days if I could," Duffy now says of the length of the dismissal process.

And what does Duffy's [predecessor]... think of his [A.J. Duffy's] new direction? Not much -- LOL!

Former UTLA President John Perez said he wished Duffy well but said he could not endorse Duffy's new direction. Charter school operators, he said, are laying the groundwork for using public-school funds at private schools through so-called vouchers.They're also opening the door for corporations "who want to destroy public education by getting their hands on the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend on public education in this country," Perez said.

Golden Missed Opportunity by Larry Sand - City Journal

School choice is on the move everywhere—except California.

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929 on on FB instant chat or Twitter.

  I am a stand for liberty, integrity, empowerment, and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

1/16 Aaron Smith - News Talk 1370 WSPD | Where Toledo Comes To Talk

2012-01-19T17:49:00.000-08:00

I love listening to Brian Wilson over at 1370 WSPD. I just realized I can listen on my iphone live via I heart radio, which is great, because I'm all caught up with his latest podcasts, and today i wanted to listen in live while I rode my bike to run errands. Here's a favorite recent interview on education. 1/16 Brian talks homeschooling with Mises contributor, Aaron Smith.

1/16 Aaron Smith - News Talk 1370 WSPD | Where Toledo Comes To Talk

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, with Special guests Bob Bowdon on Ed & Joel Fox Pension Reform

2012-01-17T18:03:00.000-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
Jan 17, 2012: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com. Bob Bowdon is the founder of ChoiceMedia.TV and the producer and director of the film The Cartel. Joel Fox is the Editor at Fox & Hounds political daily.

We'll visit with Bob Bowdon about the second annual National School Choice Week coming up next week, from Jan 22nd to the 28th. Bob is going to be involved speaking, reporting, and filming at events all across the USA. He's got a lot of exciting information to share.

We're going to speak with Joel about two op-eds he recently published in Fox & Hounds, and one of them was also published in CA Political Review. We'll speak with Joel Fox about Initiatives Weapon of Choice in Policy Wars published today, and a precursor article, Public Employment Retirement Costs Are At “Tipping Point” published earlier this month.

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929 on on FB instant chat or Twitter.

  I am a stand for liberty, integrity, empowerment, and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

Martin Luther King, Economic Equality And The 2012 Election :: Fox&Hounds

2012-01-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

"More important is the dissatisfaction among some Latino and African American Democrats that the current progressive regime. Writing recently in the Los Angeles Business Journal, Roderick Wright, a Democratic state senator from south Los Angeles argues draconian environmental laws have seriously undermined job creation in his heavily minority, working-class districts...

Sadly the GOP has done little to address these failings. Republican pandering to nativist constituencies will contain Latino willingness to hear the party’s message. Old links to racist groups (in the case of Ron Paul) [Ron Paul has strongly denounced such comments and opinions]or possession of a tin ear (Newt Gingrich) does neither the GOP nor the more important cause of political competition a great service.

A hard focus on economic growth and opportunity by minorities might not win accolades from the mainstream press, academia or top party cadres. Yet if we wish to see Dr. King’s real dream extended beyond a relatively small number of the gifted few, minority voters should start challenging Obama’s and the other candidates’ economic agenda — or they can expect their support and their futures to again be taken for granted..."

Martin Luther King, Economic Equality And The 2012 Election :: Fox&Hounds

L.A.’s Best Educators Aren’t Teaching Students Who Need Them Most | Education Trust

2012-01-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

In Learning Denied: The Case for Equitable Access to Effective Teaching in California’s Largest School District, The Education Trust—West finds that low-income students and students of color in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) are less likely to be taught by the district’s top teachers – the very teachers capable of closing the district’s achievement gaps. These inequities are exacerbated by teacher mobility patterns and quality-blind layoffs.

L.A.’s Best Educators Aren’t Teaching Students Who Need Them Most | Education Trust

David Seaman, Critic of NDAA & SOPA, Dismissed by Business Insider After NBC News Complaints - International Business Times

2012-01-16T21:31:00.000-08:00

This guy, who's story I posted just below this post, paid with his job, for speaking up for Liberty, for trying to warn Americans to resist.
David Seaman, Critic of NDAA & SOPA, Dismissed by Business Insider After NBC News Complaints - International Business Times

Rush Limbaugh's NDAA Rage, SOPA, And Congressional Treason - YouTube

2012-01-16T21:30:00.000-08:00

"I love shoes, designer clothes, hot cars and cool sunglasses, but I don't think it's cool to not watch out for my personal freedom to call my government out for wrong doing and injustice. Govt does good, but they're also the ones who spied on MLK, among other deeds that were not OK. WAKE UP AMERICA! THIS IS HOTTER THAN JIMMY CHOO, AND IT'S NOT DRAMA, IT'S REAL..."

Rush Limbaugh's NDAA Rage, SOPA, And Congressional Treason - YouTube

Lessons from Spain’s bullet train: The numbers are lies, and it’s all about politics, not economics | Calwhine.com

2012-01-16T10:51:00.000-08:00

"Even the enthusiastic Spanish officials are curious about the logic of starting in the sparsely populated middle of California. The environmental benefits won’t be realized, they said, if the cities along the first line don’t have enough people to generate ridership.

“You need to have either Los Angeles or San Francisco,” said Pedro Pérez del Campo, environmental policy director for ADIF, Spain’s Administrator for Railway Infrastructures. “They should build it where it will have an impact so that people will support it.”

What’s so funny about this article is how it so conflicts with the message that the Brown administration tried like hell to sell last week, to wit: All the problems we’re seeing have to do with poor management, because the concept is just so, so awesome and can make lots and lots of money."

Lessons from Spain’s bullet train: The numbers are lies, and it’s all about politics, not economics | Calwhine.com

Nuclear Arms Charge Against Iran Is No Slam Dunk: Robert Kelley - Bloomberg

2012-01-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

Nuclear Arms Charge Against Iran Is No Slam Dunk: Robert Kelly:

"I am speaking up about this now because, as a member of the IAEA’s Iraq Action Team in 2003, I learned firsthand how withholding the facts can lead to bloodshed. Having known the details then, though I was not allowed to speak, I feel a certain shared responsibility for the war that killed more than 4,000 Americans and more than 100,000 Iraqis. A private citizen today, I hope to help ensure the facts are clear before the U.S. takes further steps that could lead, intentionally or otherwise, to a new conflagration, this time in Iran."

Nuclear Arms Charge Against Iran Is No Slam Dunk: Robert Kelley - Bloomberg

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, with Special guest, Chris Reed, Journalist, Political Pundit, Honorary Gadfly!

2012-01-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
Jan 10, 2012: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com. Chris Reed, author, blogger, pundit at CalWhine.com joins us to talk about CA's budget, the $9 Billion Dollar Choo-choo train Jerry wants even though, as Dan Walter's writes, we're buried under a mountain of debt.

We'll talk with Chris about his latest posts at CalWhine.com, in addition to his most recent on the Bullet Train, and the impact on the people of California. He opines on Education, on Public Employee Pensions and Benefits, on junk science driving public policy in CA, via AB32, and more.

Steven Greenhut has a piece out now at California City Journal, Crony Capitalism RebukedCalifornia’s supreme court strikes a blow for property rights and fiscal sanity. He concludes by stating that Redevelopment agencies are fighting now, to bring back Redevelopment, and he poses a poignant question to the minority party in CA: Will Republicans side with property rights and limited government at the local level, or again stand up for these misguided and destructive bureaucratic bodies?

On Education, we'll talk with Chris Reed, John Seiler and Ben Boychuk about Larry Sand's op-ed about "air time," a little known scheme in California and 20 other states that allows teachers and other public employees to pad their pensions at taxpayers’ expense. We didn't get to it last week.

Sand has an new piece out today also at UnionWatch.org, called More Pension Truths and Why You Should be Very Angry, which we may or may not get to on the program, but which you ought to know about.

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929 on on FB instant chat or Twitter.

  I am a stand for liberty, integrity, empowerment, and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

Dan Walters: California's 'wall of debt' is really a mountain -But he wants a bullet train that will top $9 Billion!!!!

2012-01-10T13:06:00.000-08:00

Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee

"...Brown's budget cites the $33 billion in on- and off-the-books debt run up in recent years to cover the state's operational shortfalls..."

"...But those numbers, as large as they may appear, are only the foothills of the debt mountain that state and local governments have amassed in recent years..."

"...California voters have approved nearly $130 billion in active general obligation bonds, of which $73 billion are still outstanding and $33 billion remain unissued, according to the state treasurer's office, and even if no more are sold, it will cost the state nearly $135 billion to repay them over the next 30 years..."

"...Other bond issues that lack dedicated revenues and therefore must be repaid from the state treasury will cost another $20 billion..."

There's also Redevelopment Debt: "...more than $100 billion in debt that must be repaid, mostly from property taxes that otherwise would finance local services. With interest, it may be $200 billion..."

Federal Govt loans to $10 billion dollars in loans from the Feds to CA for Unemployment Insurance.

Unfunded Public Employee Pension debt: According to Brown, "...$45.2 billion and retiree health care at $59.9 billion, but independent estimates of the pension gap have ranged as high as a half-trillion dollars, depending on assumption of future investment earnings..."

BUT HE WANTS the CHOO CHOO TRAIN THAT WILL SERVE PRIMARILY MIDDLE CLASS RIDERS WHO CAN FEEL "GOOD" ABOUT THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT, AND WHO THINK IT'S COOL TO RIDE A SHINY TRAIN. Who cares if it's costs are now estimated to be more than $9 Billion Dollars. LET THE POOR EAT CAKE

Read more here: Dan Walters: California's 'wall of debt' is really a mountain - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee

Crony Capitalism Rebuked by Steven Greenhut - City Journal

2012-01-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

The redevelopment agencies are fighting to return, but unlike last year, when most Republicans opposed the effort to dissolve the agencies, 2012 may see a minority party doing the right thing. A number of assembly Republicans who refused to support Brown’s anti-RDA legislation claimed that they did so because the package of bills would just resuscitate the RDAs. Well, the state supreme court has now killed that argument. Will Republicans side with property rights and limited government at the local level, or again stand up for these misguided and destructive bureaucratic bodies?

Crony Capitalism Rebuked by Steven Greenhut - City Journal

Pension Puffery

2012-01-09T11:01:00.000-08:00

...One of my pet peeves in the ongoing debates over public pension reform is the way partisans on each side try to pitch half-truths and myths to support their arguments. The other side seldom believes any of these, but they help rally the allies on the speaker's side. Sometimes the press naively re-circulates these fallacies, which leaves the general public even more confused about what to believe. There's an old saying in politics that if you tell the same lie long enough, the public will eventually believe it — and that apparently is the mentality of lobbyists on both sides. In an effort to start the new year with a clean slate for public debate, I'd like to set the record straight on a dozen of the most glaring fallacies and silly slogans.

This is a lengthy column, so readers can click on to any one of these topics to jump to that subject:

1. "The pension mess was caused by greedy people (from the other side), not us."
2. "There's no crisis. The stock market will recover and then there is no problem."
3. "The solution is to replace pensions with 401(k) plans, like the private sector."
4. "Experts consider 80 percent to be a healthy pension funding ratio."
5. "Only 15 percent of pension costs is paid by employers. Investment income pays the lion's share."
6. "My pension contract is protected by the Constitution and can't be violated."
7. "States are already fixing the problem with reasonable pension reforms."
8. "The solution is collective bargaining. There is no need for drastic legislation."
9. "This is a $3 trillion problem when you measure it using honest (risk-free) math."
10. "We earned more than 8 percent in the last 25 years, and will do so again."
11. "The average public pension is $23,000."
12. The $100,000 pension club.

Click here to go to the article, Pension Puffery at Governing.com

Doug Kaplan: Beware of unintended consequences if redevelopment is revived - San Jose Mercury News

2012-01-09T10:48:00.000-08:00

...The Legislature created the redevelopment program in the early 1950s for the sole purpose of "eradicating blight" in struggling urban areas such as San Francisco's Western Addition. Convinced that this monumental task could not "be accomplished by private enterprise alone," Sacramento lawmakers gave local officials the authority to establish powerful public agencies endowed with extraordinary abilities to borrow, tax and seize private property through eminent domain.

It didn't take long for local officials to realize that they could use their new powers to do much more than rebuild blighted neighborhoods. Soon, nearly 400 cities and counties in California, including some of the most affluent suburbs in the country, were using their new redevelopment agencies to toss people out of their homes and businesses in order to build tax-generating auto malls, hotels, shopping centers and big-box stores on prime -- not blighted --commercial sites. This was the first perversion of legislative intent...

Click here to read more of Doug Kaplan: Beware of unintended consequences if redevelopment is revived - San Jose Mercury News

Obama Says Bill Breaks With Our Values, Signs It Anyway - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic

2012-01-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

For many liberals, the ACLU fulfills a role akin to a canary in a coal mine: it's beyond the capacity of the average citizen to monitor every piece of legislation that might impact civil liberties, but when the organization starts freaking out it's taken as a credible signal that our rights are in peril. As America turned its calendars from 2011 to 2012, we witnessed that kind of moment. "President Obama's action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law," said Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU's executive director. "The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield." Warnings are seldom so dire.

Obama Says Bill Breaks With Our Values, Signs It Anyway - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic

Marijuana | Barack Obama | Obama's foolish war on marijuana | The Daily Caller

2012-01-06T11:21:00.000-08:00

If the Obama administration recognizes arrests are not going to solve the problem, then why are we spending $14 billion a year on marijuana-related arrests? Why are people being sentenced to life in prison for marijuana-related crimes? And more importantly, why did Obama direct the Justice Department to target dispensaries a week after these petitions received the minimum amount of signatures necessary to receive a response?

The fact is, marijuana is less deleterious to the human body than alcohol. In fact, there are no scientific studies that conclusively prove that marijuana poses real health risks to humans. To the contrary, 16 states have recognized its medical benefits and legalized it for medicinal use. By hiding behind the “science” that doesn’t exist, the Obama administration is trying to brush off the 74,000 Americans who signed the petition to legalize marijuana and the 70% of voters who would like to see medicinal marijuana legalized. This administration’s marijuana stance makes neither scientific nor political sense.

Marijuana | Barack Obama | Obama's foolish war on marijuana | The Daily Caller

10 IMPLICIT fallacies justifying government pensions - Richard Rider - Open Salon

2012-01-06T00:48:00.000-08:00

Sometimes explicit but often IMPLICIT in government employee demands for high pensions are many, many fallacies:

10 IMPLICIT fallacies justifying government pensions - Richard Rider - Open Salon

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, with Special guest, Steve Greenhut on Redevelopment--Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead!

2012-01-03T16:07:00.000-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
Jan 3, 2012: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com. Steven Greenhut, the Editor in Chief at CalWatchDog, joins us to discuss the latest and hottest stories in CA politics, but especially, we want to talk about the how California's RDAs [were] Hoisted on [Their] Own Petard.

Steve's most recent book, Plunder, about Public Employee Union Benefits and Pensions are bankrupting the nation, is well known and regarded by serious reformers in the field, across the political spectrum nationwide.

But Greenhut also did a compelling and comprehensive book on RDAs or Redevelopment Associations, called Abuse of Power: How the Government Misuses Eminent Domain. Did he ever think he'd see this program be dissolved in California? How did it happen? The title of his report says it all in one sentence. We'll have a chance to hear him talk about it in detail.

Every week we cover an important story concerning education and the struggle to transform it into an effective institution. This week we touch on two stories.

One is very subtly described as State Sponsored Thievery Continues in Plain Sight, in an op-ed by Larry Sand, published today at UnionWatch.org.

The other story is regarding Parents across Southern California Demanding CTA apologize for fear mongering and intimidation tactics used against families who want to organize for reform, and demands that the CTA retract denigrating statements dismissing parents' interests, intentions and good will. Linda Serrato of the Parent Revolution joins us to talk about this story.

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929 on on FB instant chat or Twitter.

  I am a stand for liberty, integrity, empowerment, and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

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State Sponsored Thievery Continues in Plain Sight « Union Watch

2012-01-03T13:40:00.000-08:00

"Teachers and other public employees use “air time” to pick your pocket. The California State Teachers Retirement System tries calming words. David Crane tells the truth and loses yet another job."

Saying that the state teachers’ retirement system is underfunded is the understatement of this or any year and now, CalSTRS is giving us specifics. On December 27th, it said,

“Recent media reports have suggested that to solve the unfunded liability the state will have to increase CalSTRS funding by $3.8 billion a year for 30 years for a total of more than $114 billion. Although this is an accurate statement based on current projections, achieving adequate funding can occur several ways that would be phased in over time. The CalSTRS $56 billion funding shortfall can be managed, but it will require gradual and predictable increases in contributions.”

Our Growing Police State

2011-12-30T15:21:00.000-08:00

Today, Afghanistan provides 90+% of the world's heroin while the largest military action in the 21st Century takes place in that country; the opium poppies in many cases grow right up to the razor wire of American bases. A de facto civil war is taking place between the government and the narcotraficantes in Mexico that has cost 36,000 lives. Today the street prices of cocaine and heroin are at historic lows. It would seem that the War on Drugs is truly lost and that our government simply doesn't care. And yet over $20 Billion/year is spent on the War on Drugs; most of it on law enforcement. This seems to be a very poor return on the investment.

Articles: Our Growing Police State

RDAs Hoisted On Own Petard | CalWatchDog

2011-12-30T13:41:00.000-08:00

Some of my favorite quotes from this op-ed by Steven Greenhut:

"The CRA, the League of California Cities and the foolhardy Republicans, such as Sen. Bob Huff were outsmarted. They were so arrogant that they tripped over their own clever plans. They passed Prop. 22, which then forbade the one mechanism that would have saved redevelopment from the ash bin of history."

"Philanthropist Howard Ahmanson is best known in the liberal media for funding religious-right causes, but one of Ahmanson’s biggest interests for years was fighting redevelopment, for reasons of faith and justice. He supported two other heroes, Assemblywoman Beth Gaines and her husband, Sen. Ted Gaines, who both defied their parties and voted with the Democrats to end redevelopment."

It takes a big man or woman to give credit where it is due, regardless of how much you would normally disagree with the man or woman you are acknowledging. Here's a quote that does just that:

I can’t end without tipping my hat to Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic Legislature. I almost never agree with anything they do, of course. And I don’t for one minute argue that the state’s Democrats ended redevelopment because of any concern for property owners or property rights. But they did indeed do the right thing. They stuck with it. I don’t believe that we would have this great victory had the eminent-domain-supporting Meg Whitman become governor. Brown’s analysis of redevelopment did indeed show a remarkable understanding of more than the fiscal problems with it. This victory makes many of his other bad policies almost tolerable.

To read the post, go to: RDAs Hoisted On Own Petard | CalWatchDog

Gadfly Radio Tonight: It's the Holidays but the news doesn't stop so neither do we!

2011-12-27T16:53:00.000-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
Dec 27, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and special guest, Joel Mathis.

Joel Mathis is a writer and stay-at-home dad living in Philadelphia. He co-authors—with Ben Boychuk—a weekly political column for Scripps Howard News Service, his own weekly column for Philadelphia Magazine's website, and is a regular contributor toMacworld.com. Visit his blog at www.joelmathis.blogspot.com.

While everyone is on holiday, a pernicious, many would call sinister bill has passed both houses and awaits the President's signature. the National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA is decried by watchdogs from all walks of the political spectrum, who believe in and defend civil liberty and civil rights. What is it and why should you care?

The Great CA Redistricting Sting: California's redistricting of political districts turns out to be worse than even the Pro-Publica report suggested last week in How Democrats Fooled California's Redistricting ... - ProPublica

The taxpayer supported Teacher’s Union Jobs Program, popularly known as California's K-12 Public Education System fails to adequately prepare more than 60 percent of all CA college bound kids,
despite billions of tax dollars spent on the K-12 public education. "The remedial numbers are staggering, given that the Cal State system admits only freshmen who graduated in the top one-third of their high-school class. About 27,300 freshmen in the 2010 entering class of about 42,700 needed remedial work in math, English or both."

Larry Sand of The CA Teachers Empowerment Network wrote a piece today in which he argues that "there are those among us who think that teachers unions, collective bargaining and peer assistance review are the way to a better education for kids. They look like earthlings, but in fact are extraterrestrials." Indeed, there are a rising chorus of voices that all vilify, denigrate, and dismiss with conspiratorial overtures, all organizations focused on reform that incorporate accountability with measurable results and integrity. We'll touch on several of the targets of these attacks, and we'll stick to addressing the attacks on Democrats, liberal Democrats, just to be more than fair and balanced.

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929 on on FB instant chat or Twitter.

The Nation and the National Defense Authorization Act | World Socialist Web Site - ‎17 hours ago‎ | By Tom Carter and Barry Grey

A comment by Robert Scheer published December 15 on the Nation magazine's web site dealing with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) demonstrates that the left-liberal layers for whom the magazine speaks are ...

NDAA closer to becoming a reality in the United States | Examiner.com - ‎Dec 25, 2011‎

There is a growing concern in the Tri-Cities of East Tennessee over the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) because it contains provisions allowing Americans to be detained without trial, and even transferred to foreign prisons and is ever closer ...

An egregious violation of due process | Washington Post - ‎

Congress sent the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to President Obama with provisions making possible the indefinite detention of US citizens suspected of terrorist activities, without due process, in instances authorized by the president ...

  I am a stand for liberty, integrity, empowerment, and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

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More Proof Dems Manipulated Redistricting | CalWatchDog

2011-12-22T15:31:00.000-08:00

More Proof Dems Manipulated Redistricting | CalWatchDog

The Debates and Gary Johnson | Cato @ Liberty

2011-12-20T21:30:00.000-08:00

And yet the Republican party and the big media have excluded the candidate with the second-most experience as governor. And so I wonder again, how does the establishment exclude a Republican governor who got elected twice—and served his full terms—in a Democratic-leaning swing state, had a successful record, vetoed more bills than all other governors combined, proposed the boldest policies in the country on both school choice and drug policy reform, and then left the state with a budget surplus? TThe Debates and Gary Johnson | Cato @ Liberty

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, Special Guest, Yolie Flores, former L.A.U.S.D. School Board Member, catalyst for reform

2011-12-20T17:09:00.000-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
Dec 20, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com welcome special guest Yolie Flores of Communities for Teaching Excellence, on the web at 4TeachingExcellence.org.

We'll speak with Flores about:

her decision to leave the L.A.U.S.D. School Board,
her decision to not endorse a candidate to fill her seat.
The organization Communities for Teaching Excellence, she now heads up
What does she make of the latest contract agreement between the L.A.U.S.D. Superintendent and the UTLA teacher's union?
What does she make of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

formally referred to as THE LAUSD-UTLA LOCAL SCHOOL STABILIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT INITIATIVE OF 2011?

We'll cover the latest hot talk from around the state of CA. John Seiler has a new report up on Mexico: U.S. Govt. Destroying Mexico | CalWatchDog,

and we'll talk with Ben Boychuk on the latest published on CA City Journal and his latest Head to Head weekly column with Pia Lopez: To boost the economy should Congress extend the holiday on payroll taxes?

Related Links:

The Huntington Park campus newspaper infamously ripped into Flores when she began to push for change, very clearly echoing the hurt expressed by their teacher(s), who understandably don't want to shoulder the blame for the high school's terrible standing.
But Flores won't back down in her conviction that enough is enough. Now, she tells the Times: "This school has been waiting for decades, and people say wait a little longer. To me, it's a stall tactic. I'm tired of waiting."--Huntington Park High School Becomes Guinea Pig for Radical LAUSD Reform: 50 Percent of Teachers to Get the Boot --LAWeekly, By Simone Wilson Tue., May 10 2011

School Reformer Yolie Flores Departs LAUSD to Fight From Outside - Page 1 - News - Los Angeles - LA Weekly She forced through the most radical idea in recent lausd history. So why’s she leaving for a Bill Gates start-up? By Jason S. Mandell Thursday, Mar 10 2011

Supt. John Deasy asks LAUSD board members to stay impartial on school control - Los Angeles Times October 01, 2011|By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

UTLA signs contract with LAUSD that holds teachers accountable for student performance - LA Daily News By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, 12/15/2011 05:15:30 PM PST, Updated: 12/15/2011 05:16:47 PM PST

The UTLA characterizes the tentative agreement as a solution that "will stabilize schools by stopping the giveaway of sites to outside operators and limiting reconsitution."
As Howard Blume reports in this morning's Los Angeles Times, the agreement, in negotiation for several months, "virtually [ends] the two-year policy that allowed [under the 2009 LAUSD School Board ruling on Public School Choice] charter operators and others to take over low-performing and new campuses." --Unleashing the power of the professional": LAUSD brings back local control - California's Children 11-30-2011

The demands of the "Don't Hold Us Back" coalition, which includes the California Charter School Association (CCSA) went completely unheeded. Insiders will tell you that their protests could be dismissed as harmless "theatrics." The continuance of school board management is simply a continuance of union rule. While reformers have done a poor job organizing themselves, the results show that their efforts were wholly insufficient. --Anthony Krinsky's Education Blog: UTLA members rubber-stamp 6 more years of union rule Dec 16, 2011

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Million-Dollar Nurses Show California’s Struggle to Cut Payroll - Businessweek

2011-12-19T13:46:00.000-08:00

Million-Dollar Nurses Show California’s Struggle to Cut Payroll - Businessweek

Scandal and insanity at Penn State, Durban and the IPCC: Climate fraud proves insanity of extending Kyoto, renewable subsidies and economic mayhem

2011-12-19T12:54:00.000-08:00

PaulDriessen

In a repeat of Copenhagen, on the eve of the Durban climatechange gabfest, someone released another hordeof emailsfrom alarmistclimate researchers,including Dr. Michael Mann, whose infamous “hockey stick” was headlined in the 2001IPCC report to justify the Kyoto agreement and demands that nations slashfossil fuel use and economic growth.

Meanwhile, back on Dr. Mann’s campus, Pennsylvania StateUniversity was confronting the sordid Jerry Sandusky affair. Sports Illustrated summarized the AugeanStables task in an article titled “Missteps at every turn: Efforts to clean upPenn State reveal how deep the institutional problems lie.”

As SI noted, a keyjudge in the case, Pennsylvania’s governor, Penn State’s new athletic directorand even the attorney appointed to head up a “full and complete” internalinvestigation all have deep and longstanding ties to the university and/or itsbig-money football team. Noting these and other “blatant conflicts ofinterest,” the magazine quoted new PSU president Rodney Erickson as saying,“Penn State is committed to transparency tothe fullest extent possible” [emphasis added] – in view of relevantfinancial, personal and other considerations, and special exemptions that PennState enjoys from disclosure laws.

SI ended thearticle by asking, “Is Penn State cleaning house? Or simply rearranging thefurniture?”

The same question applies to Dr. Mann. In the wake ofClimategate 2009, Penn State hurriedly exoneratedhim and his department of any wrongdoing, as did NOAA and the National ScienceFoundation. The blatant whitewashes reflect the desperation of organizations intenton preserving their money train and perpetuating the Hollywood façade of manmadecatastrophic climate change.

All three organizations are at the forefront of fraudulent climatealarmism and its agenda of “radically transforming” the energy and economicfoundations of modern nations. As IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri has said, climatechange is “just a part of” the effort “to bring about major structural changes”in “unsustainable” economic growth, development and lifestyles.

The agenda involves slashing carbon dioxide levels to 80%below 1990 levels. That would carry the United States back to emission levelslast seen during the American Civil War – devastating the economy.

Together these institutions receive billions of dollars inannual government grants that foster one line of thinking on “global climatedisruption” – another term concocted to spin weather and climate events as unprecedenteddisasters resulting from hydrocarbon energy use. Delegates from all threeinstitutions get to attend annual climate confabs at exotic 5-star resorts, topromote “the cause” of ending mankind’s “addiction” to fossil fuels andestablishing “global governance” under UN auspices.

For all these institutions, full-blown independentinvestigations – with adverse witnesses, cross-examination, and access to dataand records denied to previous investigators – could result in lost income,prestige, and power over public policy decisions. Honest, replicable, trulypeer-reviewed, robustly debated science into the causes, effects and extent ofclimate change would do likewise.

For Penn State, global warming represents a significant cashcow. As meteorologist Art Horn hasnoted, the university received a whopping $470,000,000 in federal grantsand contracts between 2010 and 2011. Neither Mann nor Penn State is saying howmuch went to climate research. But since the US government spent over $106billion on climate research money between 2003 and 2010, PSU undoubtedlyreceived a hefty portion for promoting the official alarmist viewpoint.

No wonder they refused to turn over raw data and computercodes to other scientists, IPCC reviewers and even investigators – claiming thesewere private property, even though taxpayers paid for them and the resultsgenerated are being used to justify endless energy, job and economy-killingpublic policies.

At the tip of the policy iceberg are EPA’s (postponed) CO2 “endangerment”regulations, its boiler and refinery rules, its reams of restrictions oncoal-fired power plants, the agency’s opposition to hydraulic shale fracturingand the Keystone XL pipeline, and its new automobile mileage rules, which willraise the cost of cars, reduce crash-worthiness and result in thousands ofadditional deaths in accidents. Mann’s deceptive models and hockey sticks arealso being used to justify a $100-billion-a-year“climate change reparation and mitigation” fund for poor nations, to befinanced directly by FRCs (formerly rich countries) or via “climate taxes”imposed on international air travel and imported and exported products.

Also benefitting from the corrupt Climate Armageddonresearch machine are crony capitalists and climate profiteers too numerous tocount: the renewable energy and carbon trading firms that depend on climatescares to maintain renewable energy, “green job,” carbon trading, and similar mandatesand schemes.

As Competitive Enterprise Institute analyst Bill Frezza has observed,the US Department of Energy invested$529 million in taxpayer-subsidized loan guarantees to build NorthAmerica’s largest lithium ion automotive battery plant … to supply a Finnishelectric car manufacturer backed by Al Gore’s venture capital fund … to ship 40(!) cars to the USA to date … so that they can be purchased by“environment-motivated” millionaires like Leonardo DeCaprio, who receive $7,500tax credits for buying the cars.

Add in billions for wind turbines and solar panels … billionsto persuade the poorest nations on Planet Earth to endure “sustainable”lifestyles, rather than modernize through reliable, affordable and, yes,hydrocarbon energy … and billions for IPCC and other UN bureaucrats, who insistthat drought and flood, cold and heat, storm and sea level events are no longerdue to natural forces, but to mankind’s use of fossil fuels – and we’re talkingserious money.

Global warming alarmism could ultimately cause the globaleconomy trillions of dollars.

Meanwhile, what about average workers and families? They getnone of these perks, sinecures, subsidies and handouts. Instead, they get topay taxes to support the bureaucrats, pseudo scientists and activists. They getto pay soaring energy bills that subsidize wind, solar and climate schemes,while driving families into fuel poverty. They get to lose their jobs, ascompanies faced with skyrocketing energy bills lay people off, close theirdoors or ship jobs off to overseas factories that have cheap energy and cheaplabor, because China, India, et cetera do not and will not operate under Kyoto-stylerestrictions.

What about families in destitute African countries, where90% of the people still don’t have electricity – because radicalenvironmentalists, IPCC and World Bank operatives, and Obama Administration bureaucratscollude to delay or prevent the construction of coal and even gas-fired powerplants?

It’s remotely possible that we face a genuine manmade climatecrisis. It’s highly likely that mankind will continue to confront naturalclimate changes that compel adaptation through ingenuity and technology.

However, Climategate 1 and 2, TheDelinquent Teenager and other exposés make it clear that the climate crisiscabal deliberately altered data, misrepresented and withheld crucialinformation, squelched inquiry and debate, and presented a one-sided narrative,so as to protect their revenues and reputations, and drive an anti-hydrocarbonagenda. Until truly convincing evidence is presented, vetted and fully debated– that fossil fuels are causing catastrophic warming and climate disruption –Kyoto and its proposed successors should be terminated, and the frenzied rushto kill fossil fuels and embrace renewables should be ended.

Penn State needs to conduct a real investigation, by honestindependent analysts who have no ties to the university or the climate crisisconsortium. Its trustees took bold, decisive action on the Sandusky scandal.They need to do the same thing with Professor Mann, his department andcolleagues.

Far too much is at stake – for the university, United Statesand world at large – to permit Penn State (or the IPCC and White House) tomerely rearrange the furniture.

PaulDriessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrowand author of Eco-Imperialism: Greenpower - Black death.

Non-Partisan Analyst Exposes California High Speed Train’s Flawed Finances

2011-12-15T15:01:00.000-08:00

As often happens when pipe-dreams collide with reality, the California High Speed Train project has just experienced its second major set-back in just the last month. After cost projections for the train-to-nowhere were doubled just a few weeks ago, a new report from the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office found that the high-speed rail plan “does not comply with key provisions of a ballot measure that voters approved,” according to the Los Angeles Times. The audit found that high speed rail officials must “must complete an environmental review and identify a corridor, a usable segment, all sources of committed funds and a schedule for the receipt of financing,” before any of the $9 billion that voters approved in 2008 can be requested, the Times reported.

Of course, none of these major failures were among the selling points when this boondoggle was pitched to voters three years ago. Similarly, no such prognostications of rapidly inflating costs and rapidly deflating benefits are being pitched with a similar ballot box boondoggle, the so-called California Cancer Research Act. This project, funded by a nearly $1 billion annual tax hike, duplicates existing programs, but still adds a brand new $16 million bureaucracy to California’s already bloated public sector. What’s worse is that this project’s spending continues year after year, regardless of whether the state can afford it or not.

At a time when California is facing record level deficits, doubling down on the out-of-control spending that drove the state into the ground is surely not the way to go. Like working families across the nation, California bureaucrats should learn to live within their means.

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, Special Guests, Ben Chavis on School Boards, & Jack Dean on Public Pension Costs

2011-12-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
Dec 13, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com.

Special guests tonight are Dr. Ben Chavis, author of Crazy Like a Fox , of American Indian Public Charter School fame, on the critical role of School Boards in support of the current prevailing paradigm that is our K-12 Public Education System, and Jack Dean of Pension Tsunami on the significant increase in the level of the public's awareness to the dangerous current system of public policy formulas for wages, benefits and pensions for our Public Employees or Public Sector workers, including a look at the most recent Field Poll, Gallup Poll and political developments in San Jose, San Diego, and other happenings in CA.

I love Whitney Tilson's write up on his blog, about Ben Chavis. Here's an excerpt:

His schools are grades 6-12 and his first group of 27 seniors graduated last year -- and 100% went to four-year colleges. He's grown AIPCS from one school to five and all of them got API scores above 900 from the CA Dept of Education (scores range from 200 to 1000 with a statewide goal for all schools of 800; needless to say, nearly all other Oakland schools are nowhere near 900, much less 800). He told me his black and Latino kids are outscoring white and Asian kids -- so much so that leaders of the Chinese community in Oakland asked him to open a school in their community -- and it's his lowest-scoring school (so far anyway)! His brash, in-your-face style would make any reasonable person uncomfortable, but great leaders often have this trait (think Patton). Here's what I know: if I had to send my kids to an inner-city school, I'd want them at one of his schools (if there weren't a KIPP nearby of course; interestingly, critics level some similar charges against KIPP as they do against Chavis: the discipline is too harsh -- oh boo hoo hoo...).

John Seiler's latest hot piece up at CalWatchDog is another must read: New Chart: More Spending Impossible | CalWatchDog
And it's a must discuss too!

Related links are a sampling from Pension Tsunami's posts for Today, Dec 13, 2011:

The State Worker: Poll: Government workers favor lower pensions for new hires

PPIC POLL: Big majority support Brown’s tax increase plan | SignOnSanDiego.com

San Jose Needs to Continue Bargaining on Pension Reform (editorial - San Jose Mercury News)

Poll Finds Little Love for Big Gov; 64% of People Surveyed Said Big Government Is Biggest Threat to the Country (M.J. Lee / Politico)

PENSION PULSE: Most Misunderstood Asset Class Today? (blog - Leo Kolivakis)

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929 on on FB instant chat or Twitter.

  I am a stand for liberty, integrity, empowerment, and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

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Obama’s Kansas speech: some suspect facts - The Washington Post

2011-12-08T12:42:00.000-08:00

"...Finally, Obama blames the Bush tax cuts for “massive deficits.” It is certainly true that the Bush tax cuts helped blow a hole in the budget. But they did not do it all by themselves. We looked at length at this issue earlier this year, assisted by new Congressional Budget Office data.

The data showed that the biggest contributor to the disappearance of projected surpluses was increased spending, which accounted for 36.5 percent of the decline in the nation’s fiscal position, followed by incorrect CBO estimates, which accounted for 28 percent. The Bush tax cuts (along with some Obama tax cuts) were responsible for just 24 percent..."
Obama’s Kansas speech: some suspect facts - The Washington Post

Disloyal Opposition » Blog Archive » You can keep your not-so-new nationalism - Viewing the state with disdain, no matter who is in charge

2011-12-08T12:07:00.000-08:00

..."So, when Barack Obama tramps back to Osawatomie to deliberately echo TR’s speech and views, color me nauseated. “[I]n America, we are greater together – when everyone engages in fair play, everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share. … [A]s a nation, we have always come together, through our government, to help create the conditions where both workers and businesses can succeed.”

Once again, the appeal to tribal identity, the call to submerge individual interests in the name of the greater good of the group — as identified by the speaker. And if you don’t agree with the speaker’s very specific idea of what’s good and right? Well, Teddy Roosevelt called you a “reactionary”; Obama, in our psychologized age, insists you and your co-dissidents have “collective amnesia.”

But we live in an age that’s not just psychologized, but fact-checked, and even the Washington Post called bullshit on much of Barry’s supporting evidence for his exhumed not-so-new nationalism..."

Disloyal Opposition » Blog Archive » You can keep your not-so-new nationalism - Viewing the state with disdain, no matter who is in charge

San Jose Council Approves Pension Ballot Measure | PublicCEO

2011-12-08T11:57:00.000-08:00

San Jose Council Approves Pension Ballot Measure | PublicCEO

Field Poll: California public pension system - Field Poll Surveys, Data and Crosstabs

2011-12-08T00:26:00.000-08:00

Field Poll: California public pension system - Field Poll Surveys, Data and Crosstabs

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler. Steve Greenhut, maybe, and Oscar Cruz of Families in Schools

2011-12-06T16:17:00.001-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
Dec 6, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com. Steven Greenhut, the Editor in Chief at CalWatchDog, may be joining us to discuss his latest posted commentary at CalWatchDog, addressing Gov. Brown's open letter to the CA Voters issued on Monday, Dec 5th, what Brown says and Steve's interpretation of what it says and means to all of us.

We'll welcome Oscar E. Cruz, the President and CEO of Families in Schools, a partner with other groups such as 4Teaching Excellence in Los Angeles, committed to causing reform and transformation in what is known today as public education. He'll give us a brief sharing of who they are, what they cause, who is impacted, how they measure their results and how can listeners learn more about them.

Related link:
The Small Business Action Committee joined with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and the California Taxpayers Association to file the initiative, which will re-establish the Gann Spending Limit of 1979. Although still in effect, the Gann Limit, named after proponent Paul Gann, was made ineffective by subsequent measures. Since that time, dramatic increases in spending have constantly put the state budget under water. The updated spending limit will stop the problem of unbalanced budgets.

We'll talk with our listeners and panel about the future of Gadfly Radio, moving forward, what we stand for, and what we want to be accountable for in our communication.

Last time Steven was with us, I wrote the following about who Steve is, as he occurs for me, and it's so spot on, I want to repeat it, in case you missed it. Steve Greenhut writes about policy on various news and think tank websites, on various issues, and they are all related and stem from a unifying set of core values and unwavering principles through which he analyzes and communicates. His work is instrumental to help raise public awareness and consciousness of truths v how the public is manipulated by slick and effective media campaigns and public relations by those in positions of power over our "free" society. His bias is for championing the individual, the underdog, the entrepreneur who respects others' rights as well as his own. A truthsayer and a truth teller with a lot of heart, soul, wit and irony, he is self described curmudgeon. He is a lover of liberty and I feel lucky to have him on our side.

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929 on on FB instant chat or Twitter.

  I am a stand for liberty, integrity, empowerment, and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

Guilty plea by former redevelopment chief | SignOnSanDiego.com

2011-12-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

I missed this one. It's a news story from Nov, but it's just as timely today. These criminals get one year max when they engage in embezzled funds, much appropriated from taxpayers, and property deals that include property forcibly expropriated via threat of eminent domain, from poor and middle class property owners.

Guilty plea by former redevelopment chief | SignOnSanDiego.com

The American Conservative -- His-Panic

2011-12-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

The American Conservative -- His-Panic

Dan Walters: Tangled political web could trap California cities on redevelopment - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee

2011-12-05T10:23:00.000-08:00

Dan Walters: Tangled political web could trap California cities on redevelopment - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee

Probe examines LAPD's use of airport security funds - latimes.com

2011-12-05T10:17:00.000-08:00

Probe examines LAPD's use of airport security funds - latimes.com

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler and Special Guest, Steve Greenhut on CA's Prospects for Liberty and Prosperity

2011-11-29T13:45:00.000-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
November 29, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com. We welcome back Steven Greenhut, the Editor in Chief at CalWatchDog, for his take on the many current political, social and economic situations playing out in CA and the US.

Steve writes about policy on various news and think tank websites, on various issues, yet they are all related and stem from a unifying set of core values and unwavering principles through which he analyzes and writes. His work is instrumental to help raise public awareness and consciousness of the facts v how the public is swayed by conventional media and the public relations campaigns of the ruling classes of our "free" society. His bias is for championing the individual, the underdog, the entrepreneur who respects others' rights as well as his own. A truthsayer and a truth teller with a lot of heart, soul, wit and irony, he is self described curmudgeon. A lover of liberty, I feel lucky to have him on our side.

Related Links:

Can't Live by Scenery Alone by Steven Greenhut - City Journal

Archive of Greenhut's latest blog posts and articles at CalWatchDog

Steven Greenhut's archive of articles in City Journal

Steven Greenhut, Author of "PLUNDER!: How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives, and Bankrupting the Nation" Speaks to the Lincoln Club - December 10, 2009 - YouTube Video 9 minutes

Steven Greenhut: Archives at LewRockwell.com

Hard Times Generation: Families living in cars - 60 Minutes - CBS News
Whitney Tilson refers to this news story which features some amazingly poised, mature, intelligent and articulate homeless children who live in cars, on the street, to admonish Republicans to take back their country from extremist whom he presumes don't care about these children because they are extremists who want to slash programs and oppose raising taxes on the wealthy.

Getting Serious About Ron Paul by Steven Greenhut

A Right Denied | The Critical Need for Genuine School Reform, a project founded by Whitney Tilson

California at or near the bottom in so many ways - Orange Punch : The Orange County Register

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929 on on FB instant chat or Twitter.

  I am a stand for liberty, integrity, empowerment, and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

Reckless Spending Initiative Just Perpetuates California’s Dysfunction

2011-11-23T12:43:00.001-08:00

By Martha Montelongo

The big “news” from Sacramento this week is that the state budget is in trouble again. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, the state is going to come up $4 billion short of revenue projections this year. Now, massive cuts are on the table, including lopping off a full week of the school year.

But this week’s news wasn’t surprising: anyone who’s paid any attention to California’s budget drama already knew the $4 billion wasn’t going to show up. The state Legislature needed to pass a budget to start collecting their paychecks again, so they conjured up an extra $4 billion in projected revenue at the last second to meet the virtually useless requirement that they pass a “'balanced” budget. The budget – and the magical $4 billion – was just the latest way to kick the can down the road and refusing to deal with our state’s biggest budget problem: wasteful spending.

Decades of reckless overspending have put California in the dire position it’s in today. A Politicians and bureaucrats have fed at the public trough for years and years, larding up the state’s budget with perks, entitlements and wasteful spending programs. Making things worse, special interests have duped voters into creating countless new programs and spending mandates through the initiative process. The special interests pitch voters on the benefits of programs like stem cell researchor high speed rail, while very intentionally the neglecting to mention the rampant spending and bureaucracy these measures lock in, or the impact on our ability to pay for existing critical programs like education or public safety.

The latest ballot measure boondoggle is the so-called California Cancer Research Act, a ballot measure that’s going before voters this June. This measure would raises taxes by nearly $1 billion a year, just to duplicate programs that already exist. What’s worse, it mandates a whole new bureaucracy that can spend $16 million a year on overhead and $117 million every year on new buildings and facilities. This spending continues year after year, regardless of whether California can afford it or not.

Even worse, this new massive spending program is overseen by a new bureaucracy run by political appointees. But that isn’t surprising either: the measure is being pushed by a longtime career politician who used to run the state Senate. Who could be surprised that former legislator was the one to come up with a new spending program run by political appointees?

But the massive spending and bureaucracy in this boondoggle ballot measure is just the tip of the iceberg. Though this measure requires Californians to pay billions of dollars in new taxes, it doesn’t actually require the money to be spent in California! Our state already suffers from the worst business climate and some of the highest unemployment and tax rates in the nation, and now we’re being asked to pay more just to ship that money out of state? Of all the asinine policy prescriptions for the state, shipping California’s money across state lines has to rank near the top.

This measure has all the trappings of other projects sold to voters as magical cures to myriad woes that quickly devolved into good old-fashioned California money pits. Like high-speed rail and stem-cell research – or even the measure created First 5 LA, there is virtually no accountability and no guarantees that the new spending program has to deliver results. The fact is that this measure is just like the state’s lottery, where voters may never really know how much of the money goes into actual research not bureaucracy.

Our state didn’t find itself in our budget crisis overnight. Rather, California’s newfound standing as America’s Greece is the result of one boondoggle spending program piled on top of another. Politicians, in the thrall of the myriad special interests that run Sacramento, are only too happy to raise your taxes and spend more of your money. The only solution is restore fiscal discipline and sanity so that the state can begin to extract itself from the mess it’s in. Saying no to the latest ballot measure boondoggle next June ballot and this measure is a good place to start.

San José Mayor Issues Statement on Retirement Reform Ballot Measure | PublicCEO

2011-11-23T12:28:00.000-08:00

San José Mayor Issues Statement on Retirement Reform Ballot Measure | PublicCEO

Dan Walters: School advocates talk more dollars than sense - Press-Telegram

2011-11-22T18:31:00.000-08:00

11/16/2011

...The California Budget Project, a liberal group that advocates for more spending, continues the money obsession with a new report contending that public education is being woefully underfinanced.

The CBP calls it "a decade of disinvestment" that has "left public systems and programs ill-equipped to cope with the ongoing impact of the Great Recession and the challenges of a growing population and an ever-more-competitive global economy."

The report, citing data from the National Education Association and federal agencies, declares that California is 46th among the states in per-pupil spending at $8,908 per year, nearly $3,000 under the national average; 47th in school spending as a percentage of personal income; 50th in the number of students per teacher, and so forth.

It's a selective array of data, perhaps chosen to support a proposed tax increase for schools. It does not, for example, include the fact that California teachers are very nearly the highest-paid in the nation.

Moreover, it paints a much darker picture than data from other sources.

The Census Bureau, for instance, surveys all forms of school spending and pegs California's per-pupil number at $11,588, just $662 under the national average and 27th-highest in the nation, not 46th.

And it's much higher in some big-city school systems, such as Los Angeles Unified, which has more than 600,000 students, spends $14,100 per pupil and has about a 50 percent high-school dropout rate...
Read more here.

Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha & CalWatchDog, we have CA City Journal's Ben Boychuk & Special Guest Larry Sand of CA Teacher's Empowerment Network

2011-11-22T17:22:00.001-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
November 22, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal welcome Larry Sand, President of California Teachers Empowerment Network CTEN .

We'll talk with Larry Sand about two very important stories related to CA's critical financial situation and the crippling effect of an unsustainable public sector union group that swallows up more than 40 percent of the state's revenue and yet produces mediocre and worse results--the K-12 Public Education Establishment is the most powerful and organized, institution and public sector union bar none.

They have the most state of the art public relations agencies at their service and win and secure the hearts and minds, and pockets books of an uninformed and trusting loving public.

We'll talk with Larry about his article published today at Union Watch--A Project of the CA Public Policy Center, called California’s Looming Fiscal Disaster: Sunlight and an Informed Public are the Best Disinfectants

And we'll also talk about a very illuminating battle playing out in Los Angeles Unified concerning The Stull Act and JANE DOE, et al, v. JOHN DEASY, et al, a lawsuit filed by a group of anonymous parents along with Skid Row educator the Rev. Alice Callaghan against LAUSD and its two big employee unions, United Teachers of L.A. and the Associated Administrators of L.A.

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929.

  I am a stand for liberty, integrity, empowerment, and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

California’s Looming Fiscal Disaster: Sunlight and an Informed Public are the Best Disinfectants

2011-11-22T14:48:00.000-08:00

Union Watch | by Larry Sand | November 22, 2011

With the state and various cities on the brink of insolvency, it’s imperative that the electorate become more informed and demand that school districts and teachers unions do their negotiating in public.
This past Sunday’s Los Angeles Times above-the-fold headline screamed “Voters back tax hikes for schools.” It was déja-vu all over again. As I wrote in September,

“… a poll which is biased and does not take into account the knowledge of the people being polled is misleading and dangerous. The public is led to believe that the responders are perceptive and knowledgeable, when in reality so many are not.”

(And I could have added that a poll that misleads or misinforms its respondents is the most dangerous of all; I’ll address that shortly.)

Click here to read more.

Tune in tonight at 8p.m. PT or catch us on the podcast for tonight's Gadfly Radio show, when Larry Sand is our guest and we discuss this story posted here below, and The Stull Act and Jane Does v. Deasy et al or intimidated parents who fear reprisal for suing for transparency, integrity, accountability and results v. the public education cartel of LAUSD and its two big employee unions, United Teachers of L.A. and the Associated Administrators of L.A.

Mercedes exec busted by Ala. law

2011-11-22T12:54:00.000-08:00

Show me your legal I.D. or go to jail. Ask yourself, what if nobody notices you're missing? What if there is nobody to call collect to come help you? What if no one is able to help you, to get your papers from home or the hotel? Is this being a Free Society?

By TIM MAK | 11/22/11 6:30 AM EST

A German car executive is among the latest to be charged under the Alabama law targeting illegal immigrants after he was stopped by police and could not produce proper identification.

The 46-year-old Mercedes-Benz manager was stopped last week for not having a tag on his rental vehicle, the AP reports. Since he only had a German identification card, and not his passport or driver’s license, he was arrested and charged under the immigration law that some have called the strictest in the country.

Read more: Click here.

Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha & CalWatchDog's John Seiler, and Special Guest Former CA Senator Gloria Romero on "You Have Choice!"

2011-11-15T14:08:00.001-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
November 15, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo is joined by John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com and they welcome back Former State Senator and Former State Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, Director of California's chapter of Democrats for Education Reform You can find them on Facebook at CA Democrats for Education Reform's Facebook Page I've subscribed to their text feed for the latest updates.

We'll talk with Romero about the initiative called You Have Choice! What is it? Who is behind it? Who should know about it? Why do we need this program? What's at stake? What is possible?
Ben Boychuk who can't make it tonight has submitted his own list of questions to ask Romero, including her thoughts on vouchers as part of a support for parental choice, and more.

This program focuses greatly on public policy and sound economic policy. Education makes up the largest percentage of public sector spending in CA, and yet we rank near the bottom in reading and math, and have done so for decades, with little improvement. The National Education Association claims CA spends near the bottom of all 50 states on Education. In 2010, the OCReg had CA per pupil spending on Education at 23rd. It dropped in one year, as a result of cutbacks, but is 42nd out of 50 accurate, and does this number reflect the amount of tax revenue collected and spent via bonds voters continue to eagerly pass because of their deep commitment to public education? And could we do better with less money?

John Seiler last year in August reported that LAUSD for example, spent $30,000 per student.

Other related stories and links from the CalWatchDog.com Blog and website:

Chiang: State Revenues Crashing John Seiler, Nov 15, 2011

Michigan $100K Club Fraction of CA’s John Seiler, Nov 15, 2011

CA Credit Lines Drawn Down 85 Percent Chris Street, Nov 14, 2011

LAO: CA Govt. Pensions ‘Generous’ John Seiler, Nov 11, 2011

Building State Schools Creates Jobs? Katie Grimes, Nov 10, 2011

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929 or tweet me at mmontelongo or instant message me at Facebook

I am a stand for liberty, freedom and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

Disrupting Class by Larry Sand - City Journal

2011-11-15T13:16:00.000-08:00

The "beta" what? You probably say that if you're younger than 27 years old. Even then, you'd have to be one of those kids with powerful memories of your first three years alive. By 1987, they were a disappearing option in the world of video rentals. VHS beat Betamax because of better marketing. Problem with Larry's choice for comparison, is that the Betamax was actually a better format, quality and picture than the victor, the VHS.

But Larry Sand's point is very well taken here. If you have kids, grand kids or friends with kids that are stuck in failing public schools, this is a great model, and viable option about which you need to know!

Disrupting Class by Larry Sand - City Journal

Terry Moe on His New Book “Special Interest” | Choice Media TV | education reform homepage

2011-11-15T13:12:00.000-08:00

To understand the hopelessness of public education as it exists today, controlled and dominated by the teacher's unions and their very effective marketing and political tactics and maneuvers you want to read Terry Moe's book, "Special Interest."

Steven Brills book, "Class Warfare" was superb at outlining the problem, and at chronicling it's upward spiral and ascent to domination, and also at chronicling the evolution of the reform movement from within the two party political system, but predominantly from the within the ranks of Democrats who want reform and recognized the elephant in their living room--and I don't mean the GOP's elephant--I mean the Teacher's Unions.

Moe, unlike Brill, doesn't give in to the unions at the end of his book. He ends with hope and optimism, and a vision of one facet of viable solutions as a powerful anecdote: hybrid schools that utilize technology to solve the shortage of quality teachers, and to reverse our dismal rank, world wide--barley 40th...

Terry Moe on His New Book “Special Interest” | Choice Media TV | education reform homepage

The Politics Of Public Sector Unions | CalWatchDog

2011-11-14T22:21:00.000-08:00

Instead of paring back union benefits and rooting out various abuses, ranging from those double-dipping DROP programs (Defined Retirement Option Plan) to “airtime” benefits that allow employees to buy additional retirement credits at a fraction of the cost to the taxpayer, the state Legislature continues to, at best, nibble around the edges of reform and even in some cases expand benefits, in the case of those cancer and heart-attack presumptions for public safety workers. Once, when asked what it is he ultimately wants for his members, a union president retorted, “more.” But despite lean times – in a state where unemployment averages above 12 percent, and where those numbers often exceed 20 percent in rural locales – the unions continue to implement more aspects of their benefit-expanding agenda.

The Politics Of Public Sector Unions | CalWatchDog

US Poverty Stats: Where the Feds Are At Fault

2011-11-13T13:08:00.000-08:00

Now, dear reader, we ask ourselves: how could the most sophisticated, most dynamic, best capitalized, high tech enhanced capitalism in history produce such an outcome?

The answer is simple: capitalism doesn’t give you what you want. It gives you what you deserve. And it usually does so with such a long delay that few people connect cause with effect.

Instead, they rant and rave. They blame the rich. They call for more regulation. More distribution. More handouts, subsidies, and bailouts.

They demand that the feds ‘do something!’…not realizing that the feds — more than anyone else — are responsible for their misery:

Read more: US Poverty Stats: Where the Feds Are At Fault http://dailyreckoning.com/us-poverty-stats-where-the-feds-are-at-fault/#ixzz1dcblVbUy
US Poverty Stats: Where the Feds Are At Fault

Vive La Revolution!

2011-11-13T12:58:00.000-08:00

Bill Bonner is so ahead of the curve that even though this is a month old, it's dead on:

The guy has a legitimate beef!

It wasn’t his fault that the Nixon administration cut the link to gold in 1971. It wasn’t his fault the Chinese produced things better and cheaper. It wasn’t his fault that the feds kept stimulating the economy…and encouraging him to go deeper and deeper into debt at artificially low interest rates. And it certainly wasn’t he who caused the housing bubble to blow up…or who caused it in the first place.

But one thing you can depend on. Not many people will do the hard work of connecting the kneebone of this disaster to the legbone that caused it. And he won’t want to make the sacrifices necessary to protect himself from it either. (Our advice: cut expenses to almost zero…save money…buy gold…become a bankruptcy lawyer.) Instead, he’ll join the revolution.

Read more: Vive La Revolution!

Former CA State Senate Majority Leader and Current Director of CA Democrats for Education Reform will join us on Gadfly Radio next Tuesday night, to talk about You Have Choice

2011-11-10T20:54:00.001-08:00

Next Tuesday night, Nov 15, 2011, Gloria Romero, Former CA Senate Majority Leader and Current Director of CA Democrats for Education Reform, joins us to talk about You Have Choice.

Is Your Child in a Failing School? Find out!

Thanks to recently passed laws, California must now reveal the names of 1000 of its lowest performing schools!These 1000 schools, year after year, failed to show acceptable improvement. And year after year, the “edu-crats” who ran the schools refused to turn these schools around. Our children were simply left to fail.This is shameful.It is unacceptable that only 14% of our 4th grade Latino and African-American students can read at grade level, and only 10% of these 8th graders can do math at grade level.

In years past, parents had no rights to change these results: they were simply stuck behind five numbers: zip code. Until now, students were “zoned” for a school and told they had attend the school in their same zip code - even when it was failing! Parents were denied the right to give their children better opportunities by enrolling them in a higher performing school.

In this great nation, we have the freedom to shop in any shopping mall or eat at any restaurant. We can choose our doctors, lawyers, and even places of worship. But in education, children are assigned to schools based on their zip code - even when school officials KNOW that the school has been failing year after year.

Those days are over with the passage of California’s “Open Enrollment Law”.The state must now reveal the names of these 1000 failing schools.The school district must notify all parents of children enrolled in these schools that the school is on the Open Enrollment list, and tell parents they have a choice to stay enrolled or transfer to a better performing school.

This is the law now in California. You have rights. You have choice.

Click here to go to the site, which will help you use the Open Enrollment law.

On the Facebook Page for You Have Choice, above in the "notes" section you will find three documents:1. How to find out if your child's school is on the Open Enrollment list.2. How to find a better school for your child to attend.3. How to transfer to a better school.Follow the directions for each document very carefully. Any comments or questions post on our Wall, and we will respond as quickly as possible.You Have Choice! Use it!

ANOTHER BILLION DOLLAR BOONDOGGLE –

2011-11-10T10:24:00.001-08:00

Voters beware the Salesmen who come with hat in hand, pitching shiny or miraculous services and benefits for a bargain bottom price and the promise of a profit--Your Wallets and blank checks are their target.

With a ballooning price tag and doubts about federal funding, it is increasingly obvious that voters were sold a bill of goods by the backers of California’s high-speed train to nowhere...

“More grim news on $99 billion high-speed rail plan, as showdown looms”--San Jose Mercury News

“…the price tag for this risky transit gamble is now nearly $100 billion—more than twice the original estimate,”--FoxandHoundDaily.com

George Runner, a member of California’s Board of Equalization and a former state Senator, in a post on an influential California political blog on Tuesday--“The new number is greater than California’s entire annual state budget. To fund the entire project today, every Californian, including men, women and children, would need to write a check for more than $2500.”

When backers of high speed rail pitched the idea to California voters in 2008, they told Californians this project would pay for itself and even turn a profit in a few years. Today, three years and $60+ billion in higher cost projections later, it’s pretty clear backers weren’t being straight with California voters.

A similar dynamic exists with another measure, this one on the June 2012 ballot.

The so called California Cancer Research Act would increase taxes by nearly a billion dollars on Californians, to pay for another new government spending program and brand new bureaucracy to oversee it.

The CCRA’s backers – including one career politician who is behind the measure – are making a bunch of promises about the measure’s benefits.

Sound familiar?

Whether it’s high-speed trains or the latest tax and spend program with big-time benefits promised, Californians should have learned one thing about ballot measures by now: the promises are almost always too good to be true.

Election Night 2011: A Mixed Bag for Conservatives - Guy Benson

2011-11-09T00:18:00.000-08:00

Trolling for news about San Diego, wanting to read about Carl D'Maio's race, I found this. A mixed bag indeed. Not a conservative, but we do share some fundamental agreement around public employees, their power, costs, impact and threat to a healthy economy and a free society. Election Night 2011: A Mixed Bag for Conservatives - Guy Benson

Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha & CalWatchDog's John Seiler, CA City Journal's Ben Boychuk & Special Guest Marcia Friz of Fix Pensions First

2011-11-08T18:02:00.000-08:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
November 8, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com. We welcome back Marcia Fritz of Fix Pensions First .We'll talk with Fritz on the Hot Button role of Public-Sector Pension reform initiatives and the mayoral candidate races today, in two major cities in CA--San Diego and San Francisco. We'll talk with Marcia about the reform measures just recently proposed by Gov Jerry Brown, and we'll ask her about the two initiatives that California Pension Reform just filed with the CA Attorney General, reported in the OC Register on November 2, 2011 as Aggressive pension reforms closer to ballot box. Do they go far enough?

We also want to chat with Fritz about their recently updated publication of the California-$100,000-a-Year-at a-Minimum-Pension-Club. It's grown 99% in the past two years ($100K pension club soars 99% in two years)!

Related Links:

San Francisco’s Pension Crisis
by Judith Miller
San Francisco’s Pension Crisis: Will the liberal city’s residents, worried about retirement costs’ “crowding out” services, embrace reform?
November 7, 2011

$100K pension club soars 99% in two years
by John Seiler,
CalWatchDog.com, November 3rd, 2011
Municipal Bond Credit Is Imploding By CHRIS STREET at CalWatchDog.com, NOV. 7, 2011

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929.

  I am a stand for liberty, freedom and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!   Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

$100K pension club soars 99% in two years - OC Watchdog : The Orange County Register

2011-11-08T01:46:00.000-08:00

"...Here are our regular disclaimers:

We know that the average CalPERS pensioner collects $27,564 a year.
We know that the 12,199 public retirees in the $100K club are just a tiny fraction of the 536,234 retirees in CalPERS — about 2.3 percent.
But we also know that this percentage is growing by leaps and bounds every year, as illustrated above.
And we know that more and more public employees are paying more and more into their retirement funds — but that many cities and special districts still pay the employee contribution, as well as the employer contribution, nonetheless..."
$100K pension club soars 99% in two years - OC Watchdog : The Orange County Register

Rural Rebellion Brewing | CalWatchDog

2011-11-03T14:32:00.000-07:00

OCT. 31, 2011

The nearly five-hour drive from the Sacramento area to Yreka, in Siskiyou County by the Oregon border, was a reminder not just of the immense size and beauty of California, but of the vast regional and cultural differences one finds within our 37 million-population state.

Sacramento is Government Central, a land of overly pensioned bureaucrats and restaurant discounts for state workers. But way up in the North State, one finds a small but hard-edged rural populace that views state and federal officials as the main obstacles to their quality of life.

Their latest battle is to stop the destruction of four hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River — an action driven by environmentalists and the Obama administration. Most locals say the dam-busting will undermine their property rights and ruin the local farming and ranch economy, which is all that’s left since environmental regulators destroyed the logging and mining industries.

Rural Rebellion Brewing | CalWatchDog

MetroFarm

2011-11-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

MEDICAL MARIJUANA MAYHEM!

Food Chain Radio Show #750 • November 5, 2011

••••••

Which government should be in control: Local or Federal?

••••••••

Marijuana was made illegal in 1937. Today, you may not legally consume any part of the plant, unless you have sneezed more than once since birth, in which case you are now eligible to consume the plant as medical marijuana.

•••••••

Thus, we have an interesting dilemma for all concerned: How does one obtain legal medical marijuana from an illegal marijuana farm?

••••

The good folks in Mendocino County, California crafted what they believed was a reasonable, home-grown solution to the dilemma by simply normalizing the farming of medical marijuana. Nearly 100 farmers agreed to participate in a county program that allowed for a maximum of 99 plants per farm. Each farmer paid the county sheriff $50 per plant to superintend production and enforce environmental rules and security procedures.

•••••••

When the Mendocino County Sheriff took control of medical marijuana farming, business blossomed for farmers like Matthew Cohen, whose Northstone Organics featured home deliveries to surrounding communities. Everybody was happy: Mendocino County made money; farmers made money; and those in need had their need satisfied. Other counties looked on the success of Mendocino County and began to make their own plans to take control of medical marijuana farming.

•••••••

Just when everyone was getting down to the business of living happily ever after, heavily armed agents of the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency brought a battering ram to Matthew Cohen’s front door, and chain saws to his medical marijuana garden. Said U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, “We are making this announcement… to put to rest the notion that large medical marijuana businesses can shelter themselves under state law and operate without fear of federal enforcement.”

MetroFarm

Voter-Approved First 5 LA Program Spends $200 Million of Taxpayers Money without Oversight

2011-11-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

By Stephen Kruiser

As the Los Angeles Times reports, a recent independent audit of the First 5 LA Commission revealed massive problems with the agency, including lack of accountability, spending oversight or competitive bidding. First 5 LA is part of a statewide program created in 1998 by Prop 10, a measure which was supposed to use funds from a tobacco tax to promote health and education of young children. According to the audit, it’s not exactly fulfilling its mission. From the Times:

An audit by Harvey M. Rose of San Francisco found First 5 LA's commission was unable to monitor money that was being spent "since monthly programmatic expenditures are not presented relative to a budget." Auditors also concluded the agency was overstaffed while under-spending on programs for children.

So, First 5 LA is spending too much on public employees and not enough on kids. Not to mention doling out $200 million without a competitive bidding process and operating with such a lack of oversight that there’s no way to determine if the agency has signed agreements "for inappropriate purposes or with unqualified vendors or grantees”. Sounds like standard operating procedure in California, which has seen similar accountability and oversight problems with other initiative-created agencies as well.

And yet, former pro Tem and career politician Don Perata is pushing another measure – the so-called California Cancer Research Act – to create yet another unaccountable bureaucracy with six political appointees that can spend nearly a billion each year, including millions on staff salaries and pensions and overhead. With huge budget problems and public pension costs spiraling out of control, the last thing California needs is another big-spending bureaucracy with no oversight or accountability.

The measure is slated for the June 2012 ballot in California.

Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha & CalWatchDog's John Seiler, CA City Journal's Ben Boychuk, an Encore with Special Guest Anthony Krinsky on The "Don't Hold Us Back Coalition"

2011-11-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
November 1, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com. And back for an encore, and because this topic spans across so many issues that plague our Country's current sorry state of affairs, we welcome back special guest Anthony Krinsky, the publisher of Anthony Krinsky's Education Blog.

We'll talk with Krinsky on "The Don't Hold Us Back Coalition" pushing hard for real substantive reforms in L.A.U.S.D. Moreover, we'll talk with Krinsky about issues he raised last week and which we'll explore further including what the piece he posted by Ned Ryun, about Conservatives and the Tea Party means to him, and how he believes it plays out in the Education reform movement and its shortcomings?

From CalWatchDog, we'll talk with John about GM pulling its advertising from John and Ken on KFI. I got an email recently from a group called Cuentame, and it included a video of its Director or President Alex Caballero asserting that they were not backing down and that their intention to have John and Ken removed from the airwaves.

I bet there are a lot of groups that would love to have John and Ken removed, and many of them are in Sacramento, either as elected officials, lobbyists and or union bosses, all doing the work of backing the all powerful and in charge public employee army ruling CA.

This all mighty coalition includes the California Teacher's Union, the Prison Guards Union, CA law enforcement unions, the SEIU, and more. John and Ken lead the way to fight against police abuse of power and corruption.

John and Ken are powerful, influential voices for transparency and the rights and needs of free enterprising small businesses and wanna-be small businesses, if only those enterprising individuals can scale the ever growing snare of costs, fees, red tape, and cronyism.

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929.

  I am a stand for liberty, freedom and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.  

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.   It's a pleasure to share this program with  CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!  Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.   Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

Democrats for Ed Reform--CA join the "Don't Hold Us Back" Coalition

2011-11-01T03:10:00.000-07:00

Here's their PrOctober 31, 2011

Dear Education Partner,

Democrats for Education Reform has joined the efforts of the “Don’t Hold Us Back” campaign to ensure every child receives the quality public school education they deserve.
While the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Academic Performance Index has improved in recent years, proficiency levels continue to disappoint: only 47 percent of students are proficient in English language arts and 52 percent in math. Today, 54% of its schools are low-performing and nearly half of 700,000 students do not graduate high school on time. We are unequivocally failing our students.

Although, reform efforts over the last few years such as Public School Choice, the Teacher Effectiveness Taskforce, and the implementation of Pilot Schools have effected positive change, it is not enough.

Education is the cornerstone of every great society. We succeed when LAUSD succeeds.

LAUSD is currently negotiating with UTLA on a new District/Teacher contract that would serve as an obstacle to effective teaching. It does not address the pressing issues of teacher evaluation, accountability and autonomy. Parents want greater autonomy and accountability in the classroom. Parents need to be engaged, empowered and offered choices to provide the best education for their children.

On Tuesday November 1st, LAUSD & UTLA have an opportunity to create real systemic change.

It is time for both parties to move forward at a pace that reflects the urgency we feel to improve our schools.

DFER is calling on LAUSD and UTLA leadership to complete negotiations on a new contract focused on the needs of our children at a pace that matches the urgency of the teachers who want it, the students who deserve it and the parents who expect it.

We strongly urge you to contact the office of the Superintendent, LAUSD Board Members and UTLA President today!

School District
Superintendent John Deasy
213-241-7000, john.deasy@lausd.net

LAUSD Board President Mónica García
213-241-6180, monica.garcia@lausd.net

Board Member Tamar Galatzan
213-241-6386, tamar.galatzan@lausd.net

Board Member Bennet Kayser
213-241-5555, bennett.kayser@lausd.net

Board Member Marguerite LaMotte
213-241-6382, marguerite.lamotte@lausd.net

Board Member Nury Martinez
213-241-6388, nury.martinez@lausd.net

Board Member Richard Vladovic
213-241-6385, richard.vladovic@lausd.net

Board Member Steve Zimmer
213-241-6387, steve.zimmer@lausd.net

Teachers Los Angeles
UTLA President Warren Fletcher
213-368-6267, wfletcher@utla.net

UTLA/NEA Vice President Mary Jan (M.J.) Roberts
213-368-6227, mjroberts@utla.net

UTLA/AFT Vice President Betty Forrester
213-368-6250, bforrester@utla.net

UTLA Elementary Vice President Juan Ramirez
213-368-6236, jramirez@utla.net

UTLA Secondary Vice President Gregg Solkovits
213-368-6237, gsolkovits@utla.net

UTLA Treasurer Arlene Inouye
213-368-6218, ainouye@utla.net

UTLA Secretary David Lyell
213-368-6244, dlyell@utla.net

Sincerely,

Democrats for Education Reform
Monica Aleman\\ Deputy Director

TEXT

Anthony Krinsky blogs, 'Don't Hold Us Back' Coalition Widens

2011-10-28T00:12:00.001-07:00

"There is more encouraging news from the 'Don't Hold Us Back' coalition."He's got two links to hot stories on the coalition and the widening. And then he writes, "I'm anxious to see if they have the resolve to stand up to the teacher unions and help Los Angeleans distinguish friends from foe when the UTLA widens their "protest," strikes, and shuts down the schools.I am also anxious to see..." Click to read the post.

Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha & CalWatchDog's John Seiler, CA City Journal's Ben Boychuk & Special Guest Anthony Krinsky on UTLA's "Big Business Interests" to Occupy L.A.

2011-10-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
October 25, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com, welcome Special Guest Anthony Krinsky, the publisher of Anthony Krinsky's Education Blog. We'll talk with Anthony about his recent blog post and the questions he raises and discusses in this post:

LAUSD Occupation is big business for the UTLA

This blog is cross-posted in the Echo Park Patch.
http://echopark.patch.com/blog_posts/lausd-occupation-is-big-business-for-the-utla

We'll also discuss a previous post on his blog concerning an alliance between Republicans and the Teacher's Union, concerning No Child Left Behind's renewal and the elimination of accountability standards. Rand Paul is leading the charge for the elimination of these requirements, but will these help the Education Reformers or will it set the movement back?

Rand Paul (R) embraces the NEA/AFT position on ESEA
Why is Rand Paul begging for legislators to invite under-performing NEA teachers to testify against basic testing that costs around $15 per student per year but which tells us whether teachers are doing anything useful with the $700 billion we spend every year on public education?  Why is Rand Paul casting deciding votes with the National Education Association to scrap the best (and arguably only) good laws that the Department of Education has ever promulgated: RTT and the accountability provisions of NCLB?

We'll check in with John on the latest hottest stories posted at CalWatchDog.com including:

Govt. Union Boss in Top 1%
John Seiler Oct 25, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street crowd is protesting against the high pay of the top 1 percent in income in America. They say they’re part of the “99%ers” — all the working people who keep the country going.Our friend Larry Sand points out that California’s government worker unions, especially the teachers’ unions, are joining the bandwagon, claiming to represent the 99 percent. He writes:It’s almost Halloween and the California Teachers Association, a rich and powerful outfit, is in costume as one of the “99%ers” – protesters who claim to be have-nots.A couple of weeks ago United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten made sympathetic statements about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Now the California Teachers Association has jumped in with a full endorsement and suggestions on its website as to how teachers and others can get involved in OWS activities.Well, guess what? (click on the link at the title to read the full article)

Politics Still Beats Down Police Reform
OCT. 24, 2011By TORI RICHARDS
A mentally ill homeless man was beaten into a coma that proved fatal by six Fullerton police officers as he screamed, “Help, dad!”Fresno police repeatedly punched a homeless man in the head while he was face down with his arms behind his back.Three BART officers in Oakland detained an unruly passenger, who was then fatally shot in the back.When the victims’ families, the media and civil rights groups tried to discover whether these officers committed any previous acts of excessive force — or even to obtain their names — a gulf of silence ensued.
Welcome to five years after Copley Press v. The Superior Court of San Diego.

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929.

I am a stand for liberty, freedom and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.

It's a pleasure to share this program with CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!

Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.

Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

Is freedom in America a myth or a reality?

2011-10-20T12:16:00.001-07:00

"As this column will, 'It Is Dangerous To Be Right When the Government Is Wrong' tells stories that generally do not have happy endings. Most of the time, freedom loses. But these arguments I will make come from my heart as well as my head; and they should resonate in your heart and head. Every day, in many a way, seen and unseen, liberty is lost. It is the purpose of this column to address the seen and the unseen, to argue for the primacy of the individual over the state and to help foment a reawakening of the natural human thirst for freedom.Let me spend some time with you in the privacy of your own thoughts. Let me take you on a wild ride through the annals of freedom in America. As you read the pages of these forthcoming columns, ask yourself if, at each turn, we are closer to freedom or slavery, if the majesty of the law really means what it says, and why – why – it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. You'll be educated and agitated, but you won't be disappointed.--Judge Andrew Napolitano Click to read this column by Judge Andrew Napolitano.

Which Republican [Presidential] Candidate Is More Conservative?

2011-10-20T11:16:00.001-07:00

"The problem with American conservatism, as Lew Rockwell of the Ludwig von Mises Institute has explained, is that it hates the left more than the state, loves the past more than liberty, feels a greater attachment to nationalism than to the idea of self-determination, believes brute force is the answer to all social problems, and thinks it is better to impose truth rather than risk losing one soul to heresy. It has never understood the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society. It has never seen the state as the enemy of what conservatives purport to favor. It has always looked to presidential power as the saving grace of what is right and true about America. Ronald Reagan’s claim that “the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism” is bogus. The two ideologies are poles apart. It would be more accurate to say that the very heart and soul of conservatism — given conservatives’ support for the welfare state, the regulatory state, the nanny state, the police state, and the warfare state — is not discernibly different from that of modern-day liberalism.Which Republican [Presidential] candidate is more conservative? When it comes to the key issues of liberty, property, and peace, they (except, of course, for Ron Paul) are all statist and interventionist to the core. Click here to read the commentary.

Book Review: It Is Dangerous To Be Right When the Government Is Wrong Judge Andrew Napolitano answers the challenges of liberty. by John Hayward

2011-10-20T11:00:00.001-07:00

Published in Human Events10/18/2011Judge Andrew Napolitano begins his new book, It is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government is Wrong, with a telling anecdote about Nikita Khrushchev’s disastrous command to grow corn in Siberia. The principle of positivism, which states laws are valid because they were duly enacted, slammed into the eternal laws of a universe that is not much interested in seeing corn grow upon frozen tundra. The resulting carnage was horrifying, and modern politicians have learned absolutely nothing from it.Napolitano aims to correct that. His book is a witty, erudite, fast-paced primer in libertarian philosophy - from the writings of Locke and Paine, through the modern headlines that would make them nauseous. Rarely will you find a book that exposes the liberal State’s utter contempt for the Constitution with more precision and clarity.Click to read the review at Human Events

Wagging the Dog with Iran’s Maxwell Smart

2011-10-20T10:54:00.001-07:00

Posted on 10/13/2011 by Juan (on his blog: Informed Comment) I personally do not understand how the corporate media in the US can report the following things about Manssor Arbabsiar and then go on to repeat with a straight face the US government charges that he was part of a high-level Iranian government assassination plot.It seems pretty obvious that Arbabsiar is very possibly clinically insane.Here are the top 10 reasons that he cannot be Iran’s answer to 007:Click here to read the post.

The Fed's De Facto Dollar Devaluation -Letters to the WSJ

2011-10-20T10:51:00.001-07:00

...Seemingly without concern for these [market-distorting] effects, Mr. Bernanke is trying to force people out of cash and into other asset classes in an attempt to raise their prices and create the illusion of increased wealth. In other words, what Mr. Bernanke is really doing is debasing the dollar. Click to read article.

Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha & CalWatchDog's John Seiler, CA City Journal's Ben Boychuk & Special Guests Steven Greenhut, and Mark Cabaniss

2011-10-18T16:44:00.000-07:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
October 18, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com, welcome CalWatchDog's editor in chief Steven Greenhut, and former public defender and DA Mark Cabaniss.

We'll ask Steve about the news, from bad to worse concerning California's fiscal crisis, and the battle over what to do about it.

We'll ask Mark what he thinks about District Attorney Raukaukus's choice to only charge two of the six officers involved in the murder, and what he makes of the charges the DA did hand down.

KFI's John and Ken host the number one drive time show in the country, second to New York City market in numbers, and first in monetized market share. Love 'em or hate 'em, if you're in radio, you wish you had their numbers.

They're populist and some of their political rants and perspectives line up well with the principles of liberty, sound fiscal policy and limited government that doesn't infringe on a healthy entrepreneurial class, the middle class, the small business class.

Some of their ideas are reactionary. But that's another topic. Tomorrow, Wednesday, Oct 19th, they are going to Fullerton, CA to support the recall of three sitting City Council members who make up the majority of the City of Fullerton's City Council, and their reason is spot on for all the latter perspectives about their populism.

The issue that brought this recall into being was the police brutality against and murder of Kelly Thomas, a 37 year old 135 pound schizophrenic homeless man who also happened to be son of a former Orange County deputy sheriff and a loving caring father. The reason this case was not buried under the rug as so many police brutality cases and sometimes even the murder of a detained person or prisoner are, was the forming of an alliance between Kelly Thomas's father and the writers of a local and popular blog called Friends for Fullerton's Future.

Guest, Mark Cabaniss, who lives in the Sacramento area in Northern CA, is a former DA and a public defender. He has written on this case on at least three separate occasions and his pieces have been published at CalWatchDog, Friends For Fullerton's Future Blog, the Greater LongBeach.com online news publication, and other publications. You can find a compilation of his works on this issue here.
Each of the different op-eds he wrote on this case appeared is various different publications but are only listed here one time.

Tonight we'll ask Mark to explain to us what he thinks about District Attorney Raukaukus's choice to only charge two of the six officers involved in the murder, and what he makes of the charges the DA did hand down. L.A. Times Blog reported the D.A.'s charges like this:

Two Fullerton police officers have been criminally charged in the violent confrontation that left a homeless man dead, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas announced Wednesday.

Officer Manuel Ramos has been charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in connection with the beating of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas, a homeless schizophrenic man. Officer Jay Cicinelli has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and excessive use of force.

Are the charges fair? Can the public expect justice be served? Yes or no, and why?

Special guest, Steven Greenhut, studies, writes and speaks about public policy. In addition to being editor and chief of, and regular contributor to CalWatchDog.com, he regularly contributes columns to online and hard copy publications, including the Opinion section of the O.C. Register, and the hard copy of City Journal. He has authored two powerful books on abuse of the public trust in public policy: Abuse of Power: How the Government Misuses Eminent Domain , and his most current, Plunder: How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation .

We'll talk with Steve about as much as we can and have time for, concerning the ongoing battle between citizens who want to reign in the costs, power and burdens of the Public Sector in California, and those who defend the status quo, and are pushing to up the costs of sustaining the current paradigm onto the tax payers, in terms of raising taxes, and reforming or diluting Proposition 13, raising fees, and further restricting citizens in cities or municipalities from enacting reforms at the local level to cut down the costs of their public sector services, employees, benefits and retirement pay.

Steve lived in Southern California until recently, and worked as an editor for the Opinion Section of the Orange County Register and their blog. He wrote a lot on police practices during his tenure at the O.C. Register and has much insight to share with us on the issue of the Kelly Thomas case, the DA's charges, and the policy, politics and practices that enable police and sheriff Departments to develop into a culture of abusive practices.

Other related links:
Outlook goes from bad to worse for CalSTRS under proposed accounting standards: By Dale Kasler

California's big public pension funds are already short tens of billions of dollars. An organization of accountants is about to make the picture look even worse.A proposed change to pension accounting standards could give more ammunition to conservatives seeking to reduce pension benefits for public sector workers. Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to issue a wide-ranging proposal to overhaul pensions sometime soon.

Departing DeVore Zings Union Ally Spitzer Silencing Local Gov’t Truth-Teller

Merging cities: ‘Out of the mainstream’?

De-Development Nightmare Haunts CA Biz

Convicting an officer is a tough challenge, experts say: Jurors are usually sympathetic toward police officers and even when prosecutors get a conviction, the sentence may be reduced.

Baca says he was out of touch with county's jails: The Los Angeles County sheriff said he failed to implement important reforms that could have minimized brutality. He also said his command staff has at times left him in the dark about jail conditions.

30 jailers punished for inmate beatings, report says: Sheriff's Department watchdog releases study on inmate abuse. Sheriff Baca plans to install more video cameras in jail to document misconduct.

L.A. County deputy says he was forced to beat mentally ill inmate: The rookie, top recruit in his class, resigned after the incident, which he said was covered up. The deputy's supervisor was allegedly threatened by the young man's uncle, a sheriff's detective.

L.A. County jail guards aid drug trading, sources say: Inmates pay to get narcotics and other contraband through deputies. Baca says guards' financial hardships are usually involved.

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929.

I am a stand for liberty, freedom and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.

It's a pleasure to share this program with CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!

Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.

Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

Why a Revolutionary Spirit is Targeting "Wall Street Greed"

2011-10-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

"We read reports on the worldwide demonstrations in The Washington Post, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. Nowhere was there the slightest hint at the real problem. Nobody’s interested in the real problem...

The press talks about how the rich got richer. Here’s The Washington Post: ...

...People who complain about “greedy” executives and rich people miss the point. People — rich and poor — are always greedy. But they don’t always have a monetary system that encourages debt and favors investors over working people. This money system was created in 1971 by the Nixon Administration, which probably didn’t know what it was doing…and it was later perfected by subsequent Federal Reserve chairmen...

In addition to stretching the gap between rich and poor, the non-gold monetary system had one other notable consequence. It undermined the working classes’ ability to compete in the modern world. This it did by moving more and more production to the emerging markets..."

Click to read this article at The Daily Reckoning

Bloomberg Businessweek's Weak Assault on Prop. 13 - Public Sector Inc. Forum

2011-10-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

"Christopher Palmeri's long feature at Bloomberg Businessweek attempts to trace U.S. decline to Californians' fateful decision in 1978 to cap the unchecked growth of property taxes...But Palmeri and his sources downplay or ignore two of the biggest reasons for California's perpetual budget crisis. Proposition 13 "effectively shifted the financing of portions of local government services and education from the property-tax base to the more volatile income- and sales-tax bases," Standard & Poor's said in a Sept. 8 report. True. Yet Palmeri fails to mention how the state ran budget surpluses until 2002, and local governments were so flush with revenue until 2007 that they would routinely vote to increase pension and health benefits for public employees, sometimes even retroactively..."

Bloomberg Businessweek's Weak Assault on Prop. 13 - Public Sector Inc. Forum

Click to go to PublicSectorInc to read this article by Ben Boychuk.

Two new ‘Education’ Attacks on Prop. 13 | CalWatchDog

2011-10-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

The tax obesessives just won’t leave Proposition 13 alone. The 1978 tax limitation measure prevents excessive tax increases on property.

The latest assaults come from two sources. The first is the California Budget Project (for Massive Tax Increases). A new study claims school spending has crashed for a decade: ...

The second source is Bloomberg.com, the news source run by far-left multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Having boosted taxes to slam New York City, where he’s been mayor the past decade, his aim now is to hit California.

According to Forbes, Bloomberg’s current net worth is $18.1 billion. If this guy is concerned about New York City and California budget problems, why doesn’t he solve them by donating a couple billion of his fortune to solving the problems?

Instead, on Bloomberg.com, his columnist Christopher Palmeri attacks middle-class taxpayers: ...

Click to read this article at CalWatchDog

Mark Cabaniss, attorney who has been both a former prosecutor and public defender, joins Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog next Tuesday night to discuss OC DA Raukaukas's Charges of only 2 of the Fullerton Six Police Officers invoved in the Fatal beating of Kelly Thomas

2011-10-14T02:38:00.000-07:00

Has OC DA Raukaukas handed down charges that make it very possible for both men to get off with little if any time behind bars? Are the charges lenient? Did he set up the charges with an easy escape hatch for the officers? What are very possible and probable outcomes given these charges?

Below are essays Mark Cabaniss was inspired to write, given the grotesqueness of this case of Police criminal abuse of power. They were published at CalWatchDog, and picked up by the Friends for Fullerton's Future Blog and the Greater Long Beach Newspaper Publication.

OC DA’s POLICY OF PRE-EMPTIVE SURRENDER

Monday, September 12th, 2011 By MARK CABANISS

It is getting close to decision time for Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas in the Kelly Thomas case, in which six Fullerton police officers are accused of beating Thomas to death. While the investigation is still not completed and must be b...

THE KELLY THOMAS CASE: INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER OR FELONY MURDER?

By Mark Cabaniss | August 31, 2011, 5:34 pm

An involuntary manslaughter charge depends on the assertion that the police were lawfully arresting someone. But if they beat Thomas after he lost consciousness, it was no longer a lawful arrest. Felony murder---death arising from a felony---could be based on Thomas' death arising from battery with serious bodily injury, mayhem or torture, as examples.There does not have to be any intent to kill.

TO END POLICE ABUSE, PUNISH ABUSERS

Tuesday, AUGUST 16, 2011 By MARK CABANISS

Let us be clear: Kelly Thomas’ death was not a “tragedy’ during a “confrontation,” or an “altercation"; it was a gang killing in which six men beat to death a small, mentally ill man who was completely unconscious as the final death blows fell.

Facing Cuts, a City Repeals Its Domestic Violence Law - NYTimes.com

2011-10-11T23:59:00.000-07:00

By A. G. SULZBERGER
Published: October 11, 2011

TOPEKA, Kan. — The startling vote came up at a City Council meeting here on Tuesday, provoked by a run-of-the-mill budget dispute over services that had spun out of control: decriminalize domestic violence...

"...Eighteen people have been arrested on domestic violence charges since September and released without charges because no agency is accepting new cases. That has raised concerns among advocates for victims of domestic violence, some of whom gathered Tuesday outside government buildings to express outrage over the gamesmanship..."

"...'To have public officials pointing fingers while victims of domestic violence are trying to figure out who will protect them is just stunning,' said Joyce Grover, executive director of the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence.

Though Kansas and its capital city have fared better than much of the country in this struggling economy, they are not immune to fiscal strains. The district attorney’s budget of $3.5 million was cut by 10 percent, which would force about a dozen layoffs. Meanwhile the office is dealing with what Mr. Taylor describes as a 'recent uptick in violent crime,' which he attributed to increased gang activity...."

An increase in gang activity? What do gangs engage in? Drugs? What if drugs were legalized and our approach to drug abuse was to offer treatment to addicts when they chose to seek treatment, because their life was not working so well for them? Why not stop spending millions to fight a losing war on drugs, creating gangs, gangsters, turf wars, and drying up our resources to help victims of crimes that are not drug related?

Click to read the article.

Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha & CalWatchDog's John Seiler, CA City Journal's Ben Boychuk & Special Guests Bob Bowdon & John Moorlach

2011-10-11T16:18:00.000-07:00

Gadfly Radio Tonight, at 8 PM PT

To Listen Live, Click here, on Channel 2:

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929
October 11, 2011: Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com, welcome John Moorlach, Vice Chairman of The Orange County Board of Supervisors.

Also joining us is Bob Bowdon, the Director of the Cinema film, The Cartel--a movie about the public school unions and their establishment and the rule they hold over public schools in New Jersey. He's got a new project on Education called ChoiceMedia.TV and CA is one of the states on his radar.

We'll get John Moorlach's assessment of the debt crisis in various O.C. Cities, in light of the City of Santa Ana talking bankruptcy. He's been doing some research on how other cities and counties in CA stack up. We'll get a teaser about his statewide research and findings too.

Related Links:

John Moorlach is a blogger. You can visit his blog at John Moorlach's PostingsFocused & Understandable Government that Works.

The Cartel, was a game changer film in the realm of public education reform.

ChoiceMedia.TV

Governor Jerry Brown has just signed several of the hundreds of bills that were passed by California's most public-sector-union dominated legislature, but he proves to be even more beholden to the union cartel than the legislature. We'll touch on a few of the most egregious bills he signed and one he vetoed.

He signed:

AB144, which bans open carry by law abiding citizens.
John Seiler writes that by signing AB 499, Gov. Brown Undermines Parental Rights, allowing 12 year old minors to be administered Gardasil, the HPV immunization injection without their parent' consent or even knowledge.

He Vetoed:

SB 914. In Brown’s Attack On Civil Liberties, Steven Greenhut discusses Brown's veto of SB 914, written by Mark Leno, D-San Francisco and sponsored by the ACLU.

"This measure would [have] overturn[ed] a California Supreme Court decision that held that police officers can lawfully search the cellphones of people who they arrest," Brown said in a statement on why he shot down the bill. "The courts are better suited to resolve the complex and case-specific issues relating to constitutional search-and-seizures protections."

We'll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929.

I am a stand for liberty, freedom and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.

It's a pleasure to share this program with CalWatchDog's team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!

Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.

Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

iTunes

U.S. debt crisis: U.S. debt crisis a perfect storm - mcall.com

2011-10-11T14:28:00.000-07:00

A comment by a reader called Taxed1 on the site where this article is posted said this:

The average household cannot relate to these big figures unless you lop off eight zeroes from the debt-ridden U.S. budget. Here's from a recent E-mail.
Household Budget in proportion to U.S. Budget
Annual Family Income: $21,700
Money the family spent $38,200
New debt on credit card $16,500
Outstanding balance on car $142,710
Budget cuts $ 385

Scary, is it not? All of us, not just the Tea Party, should be concerned with the debt run up over the past three years under Obama. Any household budget like this would be insolvent or in bankruptcy. If we do not cut spending, we will be in a situation similar to Greece.

Click to read the article.

Occupy Wall Street: Contempt Of Political Class - Forbes

2011-10-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

More lead-footed “Keynesian” dogmatists than Skidelsky are horrified that the right is rallying to monetary reform and, especially, to the gold standard. TheWashington Post’s Steve Pearlstein, The New York Times’ Paul Krugman, ThinkProgress’ Matt Yglesias and Marie Diamond, The Washington Monthly‘s Steve Benen and Michael O’Hare and The Roosevelt Institute’s Mike Konczal, Prof. Barry Eichengreen and Thomas Frank all have noted (with alarm), that, in the words of Krugman, “Gold bugs have taken over the GOP.”

"No contortions are needed to cross Keynes’s bridge between the profiteer-hating #OWS and the sober reformers gathered in monetary conclave by Heritage Foundation. The official website of Occupy Wall Street contains an entire forum dedicated to the gold standard. While by no means unanimous (please read it, and comment on it, here), a theme emerges that elegantly is summarized by one of the activist/commentators there: 'Gold and silver. Been honest money since the dawn of time. The only money that’s ever worked….'"

Click here to go to article at Forbes.

Newt Gingrich | Gary Johnson | GOP Debates | The Daily Caller

2011-10-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

Speaking of media, why is Gary Johnson not invited to speak at the Presidential Debate tonight, and why is Wash Post/Bloomberg so blatantly biased? Wish Wall St Protesters would protest Wash Post/Bloomberg!

Pull Quotes: The “elite media” shouldn’t decide the next GOP nominee, Gingrich says. “Fairness requires Gov. Johnson to be included in tomorrow’s debate,” Gingrich wrote on Twitter Monday. “I encourage Wash Post/Bloomberg to invite him.”

In an email to The Daily Caller, Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said, “When it comes to picking the leader of the free world, we are better off trusting the judgment of the American people, not the whims of the elite media.”

Columnist Fred Barnes on Sunday wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the importance of primary debates to candidates like Johnson — and how devastating it is for them not to be included.

“The biggest beneficiaries of increased viewership are the also-rans,” Barnes wrote. “The debates keep them in the race. At no cost, they get the attention of millions more voters than they ever could on their own.”

Johnson’s campaign has been pushing for inclusion, calling debate qualifications arbitrary.

Click to go to Newt Gingrich | Gary Johnson | GOP Debates | The Daily Caller

Legalize heroin | Practical Ethics | University of Oxford

2011-10-11T01:01:00.000-07:00

I found this piece very interesting, and I'm posting here, comments that followed the article. They were all very thoughtful and serious. No one was flippant or rude. I have really come around on this issue. I have gone from thinking it was immoral and dangerous to consider legalization of drugs, to coming to understand the war on drugs as the bigger threat and assault on the public's safety and health.

Here's an excerpt:

The “war on drugs” is dangerous indeed; it has failed, and failed dramatically. A new report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy concludes that that “political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won.”

Here are a few comments that followed the post:

I, for one, would be happy to put drug dealers out of business and channel money from illegal drug trade to harm reduction, education, and treatment.
Reply
Phallusaurus says:
October 4, 2011 at 8:40 pm

> heroin sure is a health risk, even if legalized

Much, much lesser risk. Most health problems come from the fact that it’s cut: sometimes it’s a harmless cut, sometimes you inject yourself with something nasty, and sometimes you die from an overdose since that new stuff you got was undercut.

I actually think, under legalization, heroin users can make a living almost as normally as a tobacco smoker can. Hell, I know people who do, they just abuse diamorphine (synonym for heroin) in prescription form.
Reply

TLR says:
September 29, 2011 at 1:28 pm

I like Dr. Paul’s approach in decriminalizing drugs and treating it as a sickness instead of a legal matter. The $ from the war on drugs could then be spent on rehab. or drug prevention.

Click here to read to the article.

The Fascist Threat by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

2011-10-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

"...Fascism is the system of government that cartelizes the private sector, centrally plans the economy to subsidize producers, exalts the police State as the source of order, denies fundamental rights and liberties to individuals, and makes the executive State the unlimited master of society.
...Buried in the report is another fact that has much more profound significance. It concerns median household income in real terms..."

"...What the data have revealed is devastating. Since 1999, median household income has fallen 7.1 percent. Since 1989, median family income is largely flat. And since 1973 and the end of the gold standard, it has hardly risen at all. The great wealth generating machine that was once America is failing.

No longer can one generation expect to live a better life than the previous one. The fascist economic model has killed what was once called the American dream. And the truth is, of course, even worse than the statistic reveals..."

Click to read the post in full.

Wall Street Couldn't Have Done It Alone by Sheldon Richman

2011-10-10T14:11:00.000-07:00

The spreading Occupy Wall Street movement, despite a vague worldview and agenda, properly senses that something is dreadfully wrong in America. The protesters vent their anger at the big financial institutions in New York’s money district (as well as other big cities) for the housing and financial bubble, the resulting Great Recession, the virtual nonrecovery, the threat of a second recession, and the long-term unemployment — which averages over 9 percent but hits certain groups and areas far more severely than others.

The protest is understandable, even laudable, but there’s something the protesters need to know:

Click to read the article

GMOs: A Horror Flick that isn't a flick, it's a real life horror in the making--The fact that we proceed when we are seeing dangerous results already is insane.

2011-10-09T15:04:00.001-07:00

GMOs Supporters's argue in support of their actions and policy goes like this: "The enhancement of desired traits has traditionally been undertaken through breeding, but conventional plant breeding methods can be very time consuming and are often not very accurate. Genetic engineering, on the other hand, can create plants with the exact desired trait very rapidly and with great accuracy."Remind...s me of horror flicks where the mad scientist, in a lustful quest for super powers creates monstrous results that threaten humanity. I got the quote I cite above from a website that is sympathetic to GMOs. I list it only because it's important to know their arguments. They minimize the threats, dangers, concerns and lack of data.The arguments to support GMOs, that they help to improve farming for the poor, ignores safe ways to empower the poor to farm effectively and efficiently without contamination of our food supply. Click here to go to Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?(Released April 2000) by Deborah B. Whitman. A video a friend posted on his FB wall and told me about is called Pinky Presents: Islands at Risk: GMO in Hawaii and you can view it on YouTubehere.

Jon Stewart on Mitt Romney's Biggest Problem

2011-10-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

| Lauren Lipsay | Rolling Stone

"...presumed de facto front-runner" Mitt Romney must really be getting "hurt where [his] feelings should be." After all, the former Massachusetts governor has had his eyes on the White House since 2007, and "looks like the guy you'd cast as president in a movie." The only obstacle to Romney's candidacy, according to Stewart? Mitt Romney, and his history of flip-flopping. Watch the Daily Show host hit Mitt where it hurts: his past positions.

Jon Stewart on Mitt Romney's Biggest Problem | Lauren Lipsay | Rolling Stone

The Gospel is Not a Political Programme | Blogs | NCRegister.com

2011-10-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

“Heresy” comes from the Greek word referring to the drawing out of thread on a whole weave, so that a piece of the garment falls off and the whole thing is ruined. That’s what heretics and ideologues (but I repeat myself) always do: take a piece of the Gospel and use it to attack the whole. If somebody tells you Jesus was a capitalist or a socialist, a liberal or a conservative, a nationalist or a globalist, a member of this party or a member of that one, you are talking to a heretic.

Click here to read the post

Gary Johnson on Fed Crackdown on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries: DOJ Has Better Things To Do

2011-10-07T14:27:00.000-07:00

October 7, 2011, Santa Fe, NM — Responding to an announced Department of Justice "crackdown" on California medical marijuana dispensaries, former New Mexico Governor and presidential candidate Gary Johnson today warned that Americans who believe in states rights should be "extremely disturbed" by what he calls an "assault" on businesses operating legally under state law.

In a statement released Friday morning, Johnson said, "With weapons being allowed to `walk' to drug cartels in Mexico and Solyndra walking with $500 million of taxpayers' money, I would think DOJ and the Administration have better things to do than mount an assault on medical marijuana dispensaries in California that are legal under state law. Regardless of one's view of medical marijuana, Americans who believe in states' rights should be extremely disturbed that the federal government is in the process of shutting down businesses, threatening criminal charges, and confiscating the property of small businesses operating under good faith according to state law.

"We have a drug war along the border that has taken tens of thousands of lives, and the federal government is spending its time and resources declaring war on small businesses whose only `crime' is trying to dispense medical relief in a regulated, taxed, and legal manner. If there is a conflict between state law and federal law, maybe it's time for the feds to just admit that their law is just wrong, and let the states decide for themselves how they want to handle the issue of medical marijuana."

According to news reports, the Department of Justice has issued warnings to medicinal marijuana dispensaries, operating under California law, demanding that they shut down within 45 days or face not only confiscation of their property, but also criminal charges.

Learn more about Gov. Johnson at http://www.garyjohnson2012.com and become a fan at www.Facebook.com/GovGaryJohnson

Martha Montelongo

Zombiefied Drug Trade by Bill Bonner

Opinion: Why we should regulate sugar like alcohol - CNN.com

A New Pot Legalization Proposal in California Gets Good Poll Numbers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

Boondoggle Projects Threaten California with Third World Status

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, with special guests Arun Ramanathan on teacher quality & Diane Goldstein on drug wars in LA County and what does Obama snack on?

Gadfly Radio is moving to a new home, on KKZZ 1400 AM in Ventura, CA, Starting Feb 7th

Ballot Measure Titles and Summaries Should not be Written by Attorneys General: Fox&Hounds

EconomicPolicyJournal.com: California To Run Out Of Cash In One Month, Controller Warns

'Drop Dead CRA Day' Will Celebrate L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency's Demise (With Special Kool-Aid) - Los Angeles News - The Informer

Couple Abused at LAX for Tweets | CalWatchDog

Mandatory "National Service" for New York Times Columnists - Forbes

Judge refuses to halt demise of California redevelopment agencies - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Greenhut Dissects State of the Union | CalWatchDog

Anthony Krinsky's Education Blog: "The Experiment" A brief review

A Tale of Two Missions & Kids Aren't Cars - National School Choice Week

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, with Special guest, Ben Limoine, on Nat'l School Choice Week, and the New Orleans Miracle

1/16 Aaron Smith - News Talk 1370 WSPD | Where Toledo Comes To Talk

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, with Special guests Bob Bowdon on Ed & Joel Fox Pension Reform

Martin Luther King, Economic Equality And The 2012 Election :: Fox&Hounds

L.A.’s Best Educators Aren’t Teaching Students Who Need Them Most | Education Trust

David Seaman, Critic of NDAA & SOPA, Dismissed by Business Insider After NBC News Complaints - International Business Times

Rush Limbaugh's NDAA Rage, SOPA, And Congressional Treason - YouTube

Lessons from Spain’s bullet train: The numbers are lies, and it’s all about politics, not economics | Calwhine.com

Nuclear Arms Charge Against Iran Is No Slam Dunk: Robert Kelley - Bloomberg

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, with Special guest, Chris Reed, Journalist, Political Pundit, Honorary Gadfly!

Dan Walters: California's 'wall of debt' is really a mountain -But he wants a bullet train that will top $9 Billion!!!!

Crony Capitalism Rebuked by Steven Greenhut - City Journal

Pension Puffery

Doug Kaplan: Beware of unintended consequences if redevelopment is revived - San Jose Mercury News

Obama Says Bill Breaks With Our Values, Signs It Anyway - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic

Marijuana | Barack Obama | Obama's foolish war on marijuana | The Daily Caller

10 IMPLICIT fallacies justifying government pensions - Richard Rider - Open Salon

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, with Special guest, Steve Greenhut on Redevelopment--Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead!

State Sponsored Thievery Continues in Plain Sight « Union Watch

Our Growing Police State

RDAs Hoisted On Own Petard | CalWatchDog

Gadfly Radio Tonight: It's the Holidays but the news doesn't stop so neither do we!

Related links to the NDAA: The NDAA Repeals More Rights

The Nation and the National Defense Authorization Act | World Socialist Web Site - ‎17 hours ago‎ | By Tom Carter and Barry Grey

A comment by Robert Scheer published December 15 on the Nation magazine's web site dealing with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) demonstrates that the left-liberal layers for whom the magazine speaks are ...

NDAA closer to becoming a reality in the United States | Examiner.com - ‎Dec 25, 2011‎

An egregious violation of due process | Washington Post - ‎

Related links to The CA Redistricting Sting: More Proof Dems Manipulated Redistricting

More Proof Dems Manipulated Redistricting | CalWatchDog

The Debates and Gary Johnson | Cato @ Liberty

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, Special Guest, Yolie Flores, former L.A.U.S.D. School Board Member, catalyst for reform

Million-Dollar Nurses Show California’s Struggle to Cut Payroll - Businessweek

Scandal and insanity at Penn State, Durban and the IPCC: Climate fraud proves insanity of extending Kyoto, renewable subsidies and economic mayhem

Non-Partisan Analyst Exposes California High Speed Train’s Flawed Finances

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler, Special Guests, Ben Chavis on School Boards, & Jack Dean on Public Pension Costs

Obama’s Kansas speech: some suspect facts - The Washington Post

Disloyal Opposition » Blog Archive » You can keep your not-so-new nationalism - Viewing the state with disdain, no matter who is in charge

San Jose Council Approves Pension Ballot Measure | PublicCEO

Field Poll: California public pension system - Field Poll Surveys, Data and Crosstabs

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler. Steve Greenhut, maybe, and Oscar Cruz of Families in Schools

Guilty plea by former redevelopment chief | SignOnSanDiego.com

The American Conservative -- His-Panic

Dan Walters: Tangled political web could trap California cities on redevelopment - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee

Probe examines LAPD's use of airport security funds - latimes.com

Gadfly Radio with Martha and CalWatchDog: Tonight, Ben Boychuk, John Seiler and Special Guest, Steve Greenhut on CA's Prospects for Liberty and Prosperity

Reckless Spending Initiative Just Perpetuates California’s Dysfunction

San José Mayor Issues Statement on Retirement Reform Ballot Measure | PublicCEO

Dan Walters: School advocates talk more dollars than sense - Press-Telegram

Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha & CalWatchDog, we have CA City Journal's Ben Boychuk & Special Guest Larry Sand of CA Teacher's Empowerment Network

California’s Looming Fiscal Disaster: Sunlight and an Informed Public are the Best Disinfectants

Mercedes exec busted by Ala. law

Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha & CalWatchDog's John Seiler, and Special Guest Former CA Senator Gloria Romero on "You Have Choice!"

Disrupting Class by Larry Sand - City Journal

Terry Moe on His New Book “Special Interest” | Choice Media TV | education reform homepage

The Politics Of Public Sector Unions | CalWatchDog

US Poverty Stats: Where the Feds Are At Fault

Vive La Revolution!

Former CA State Senate Majority Leader and Current Director of CA Democrats for Education Reform will join us on Gadfly Radio next Tuesday night, to talk about You Have Choice

ANOTHER BILLION DOLLAR BOONDOGGLE –

Election Night 2011: A Mixed Bag for Conservatives - Guy Benson

Tonight on Gadfly Radio w/ Martha & CalWatchDog's John Seiler, CA City Journal's Ben Boychuk & Special Guest Marcia Friz of Fix Pensions First

$100K pension club soars 99% in two years - OC Watchdog : The Orange County Register

Rural Rebellion Brewing | CalWatchDog

MetroFarm