Archive for December, 2010
Jennifer Rubin asks the question.
A reader calls my attention to an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times by Bill Lockyer, the state’s Democratic treasurer, and Stephen Levy, the director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. The two argue that California’s not all that bad.
Read all of her piece.
Let’s see:
I am a native Californian and have lived here for over fifty years and have never seen economic conditions so grim.
The California Democratic Party has had control of the Legislature (except for some brief periods) for most of my life (6 decades). They have simply spent the state into insolvency.
Not so bad?
Ridiculous - it is worse.
Tags: California, California_Budget, Jennifer_Rubin
3 Comments »
Posted by Flap in Census, GOP
Utah gained one Congressional seat, adding 530,716 new residents since 2000, according to the 2010 census. Arches National Park, Moab, Utah. Photo By Flap
The 2010 census is out and the South and West are among the winning states.
Republican-leaning states will gain at least a half dozen House seats thanks to the 2010 census, which found the nation’s population growing more slowly than in past decades but still shifting to the South and West.
The Census Bureau announced Tuesday that the nation’s population on April 1 was 308,745,538, up from 281.4 million a decade ago. The growth rate for the past decade was 9.7 percent, the lowest since the Great Depression. The nation’s population grew by 13.2 percent from 1990 to 2000.
Michigan was the only state to lose population during the past decade. Nevada, with a 35 percent increase, was the fastest-growing state.
The new numbers are a boon for Republicans, with Texas leading the way among GOP-leaning states that will gain House seats, mostly at the Rust Belt’s expense. Following each once-a-decade census, the nation must reapportion the House’s 435 districts to make them roughly equal in population, with each state getting at least one seat.
That triggers an often contentious and partisan process in many states, which will draw new congressional district lines that can help or hurt either party.
In all, the census figures show a shift affecting 18 states taking effect when the 113th Congress takes office in 2013.
Texas will gain four new House seats, and Florida will gain two. Gaining one each are Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington.
But, a lot of growth was from immigration and how the new people are assimilated, population growth accommodated (infrastructure provided) or if they can be are issues that will soon come to the forefront with the next Congress beginning next month.
The Rose Institute has an excellent analysis here.
California has picked up 10 Congressional seats since 1970, growing from 43 in the 1970s to 53 today. Seven of those ten came in one decade alone (after the 1990 census). California gained two districts in 1980, seven in 1990, and another seat in 2000. One contributor to California’s population surge between 1980 and 1990 was the Reagan administration’s large military build-up. The military growth boosted the California economy, which attracted immigration from throughout the country. Between 1980 and 1990, California’s population increased by about 6 million people. Alone among the otherwise high-growth southwestern states, in the past ten years California’s growth slowed to the national average.
Tags: Census, GOP
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From PPP Polling: Conservative Favorability
The rest of the polling data, commentary and charts are here.It is clear that this race will be Sarah Palin’s to decide – one way or another.
My contention for some time is that Palin will NOT run if the economy improves slightly and President Obama’s poll numbers in key battleground states rebound.
Palin is a proven fundriaiser with excellent name identification, can afford to wait and assess her chances late next Spring. If Sarah runs, the chances that Mike Huckabee will run are very remote (Palin will dry up his campaign cash). She will clear the field except for Gingrich and Romney (who will self-fund again).
Newt Gingrich, however, has such personal baggage after he loses in Iowa and New Hampshire, he will be out.
Social conservatives in Iowa, South Carolina will propel Palin over Romney easily, while Mitt wins New Hampshire. Then, we come to Nevada, Florida and then Super Tuesday (Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah). The GOP Presidential Primary calendar is here.
I suspect Senator Marco Rubio will help Palin in Florida and Rudy Giuliani, plus Carly Fiorina in New York and California.
Unless Sarah self-implodes with a major GAFFE, I do not see a path on how Mitt Romney can beat her.
So, the race for the GOP Presidential nomination is really Sarah Palin’s to decide.
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Day By Day by Chris Muir
GOP Sentate Minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky will bear watching this next year. He has been duplicitous to the RIGHT before and seen as a RINO compromiser. Look at this Big Government Food Bill. There really is no reason to accommodate the Democrats on Harry Reid’s mistake.
A landmark food safety bill that aims to modernize America’s food inspection regimen appeared destined for the ash heap until the Senate rejuvenated it Sunday in one of the last acts of a busy lame-duck Congress.
The Senate approved the food bill Nov. 30, but a procedural mistake meant that its funding was tied to a now-scuttled omnibus spending bill. Without a funding mechanism in place by the time the new Congress takes its seat in January, the food safety law — the first major upgrade in the US inspections process in 70 years – would be a nonstarter.
Food safety advocates say they knew ultimate passage of the Food Safety and Modernization Act could go down to the wire given grumblings that it amounts to an unnecessary expansion of federal powers to regulate what goes on the American kitchen table
More Big Government from the Obama Administration and the GOP Senate makes accommodations?
I know one or two NEW Senators taking office in January who will hold McConnell and his leadership accountable to the Constitution and conservative principles: Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.
Calling Senator Jim DeMint as the new Republican leader?
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The Day By Day Archive Tags: Mitch_McConnell
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Mitt Romney's been looking weaker and weaker in our 2012 Presidential polling over the last couple months and it's pretty easy to identify the reason why: he has a major problem with conservatives and there's no evidence it's getting any better.
We've polled eight states, not including Massachusetts, since the 2010 election ended. Romney has the lowest favorability rating of the Republican top 4 with conservatives in every single one of those states except Michigan, where he probably benefits from his dad having been the Governor.
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Read it all
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Senate Democrats appear to have the nine Republican votes they need to ratify the New START nuclear treaty this week and give President Obama his third major victory of the lame-duck session.
Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) told reporters Monday afternoon that he would vote to ratify the treaty and also support a motion to end debate, which the Senate will consider Tuesday.
“I believe it’s something that’s important for our country and I believe it’s a good move forward,” Brown said after emerging from a classified briefing in the Old Senate Chamber.
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Good luck to those GOP Senators supporting this treaty in their next primary election.
The Tea Party will primary those non-lame duck GOP Senators who vote for START
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A lot has happened in the 32 years since Proposition 13 that will have to be taken into account. The landmark Serrano vs Priest decision, for example, will require that school districts aren’t wildly underfinanced in one community and lavishly funded in another. Proposition 98 will have to be handled. All kinds of state mandates that don’t include funding will have to be altered. See Hillel: on commentary.
California state government has plenty to do to fund and repair higher education, highways, state parks, state law enforcement, prisons, state courts, environmental protection, natural resources and the like, just as state government did before Proposition 13.
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And, who run local counties and city governments?
The public employee unions.
This plan would crash Cali Real Estate market
But three decades after the great transfer of power to Sacramento, it’s time to fight for power to local communities, for sanity in government finance and even, we dare say, for democracy.
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Tomorrow morning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will mark the winter solstice by taking an unprecedented step to expand government's reach into the Internet by attempting to regulate its inner workings. In doing so, the agency will circumvent Congress and disregard a recent court ruling.
How did the FCC get here?
For years, proponents of so-called "net neutrality" have been calling for strong regulation of broadband "on-ramps" to the Internet, like those provided by your local cable or phone companies. Rules are needed, the argument goes, to ensure that the Internet remains open and free, and to discourage broadband providers from thwarting consumer demand. That sounds good if you say it fast.
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Read it all
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It's official: the path has been cleared for Tuesday's historic vote at the Federal Communications Commission approving sweeping new "network neutrality" rules designed to ensure that the Internet remains an open platform that doesn't favor dominant telecommunications and cable companies.
Democratic FCC regulators Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn plan to "concur" on the proposal, meaning they support adoption but don't agree with every detail. Their backing gives FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski the three votes he needs on the five-member commission for passage.
Copps and Clyburn have been fighting for stronger provisions to better protect consumers and smaller competitors. Critics of the regulatory initiative, including the agency's two GOP members, dismiss it as unnecessary government intervention that seeks to correct marketplace problems that do not exist.
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Read it all. And, what will the GOP do to the regulations in January?
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Rob Stutzman: Meg Whitman Paid a High Price for Latino Distrust of GOP
Meg Whitman’s former lead spokesman is starting to speak up about the candidate’s losing race for governor. And he’s shouting about the need for Republicans to stop the demagoguery over illegal immigration.
Senior advisor Rob Stutzman isn’t exactly spilling his guts about the former EBay chief’s spectacular thumping. The billionaire lost to low-budget Jerry Brown by 54% to 41%, despite spending a record $160 million-plus, roughly $142 million of it her own money.
But the veteran Republican strategist is blaming the mini-landslide size of Whitman’s loss on some ugly dust-ups over illegal immigration that alienated Latinos from the GOP.
On Nov. 2, a record 22% of the California electorate was Latino. They voted heavily for Democrat Brown — somewhere between 64% and 80%, depending on which poll you believe.
Whatever the real figure, it should scare the GOP because Latinos are by far California’s fastest-growing voter group.
“Republicans need to understand that they live in suburbs with second-generation Mexican American neighbors whose parents came here and worked in agriculture and the service industries and are very proud” of their families’ success, Stutzman says.
“They sit around at cocktail parties and they listen on talk shows and hear their parents referred to as ‘illegals.’ And we wonder why these people don’t want to register as Republicans.”
Stutzman, 42, is no RINO — what right-wing ideologues deride as a Republican in Name Only — even if he did serve as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first communications director. His party credentials include communications jobs with former Atty. Gen. Dan Lundgren and state Senate Republicans. He also ran a successful 2000 initiative campaign to ban same-sex marriage.
Read it all.
The Truth is Meg Whitman’s campaign was one of the worst run I have ever seen. What a waste of money and people’s resources. Stutzman and Mike Murphy milked Meg Whitman for whatever they could get out of her and helped lead the California GOP to disaster in November.
The California Latino demographics have been something, he has just now discovered?
Ridiculous……
Tags: Rob_Stutzman
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Posted by Flap in Mike Pence
U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Representative Mike Pence (R-IN) speak to reporters during a news conference about their goal of permanently extending Bush-era tax rates at the U.S. Capitol in Washington December 2, 2010
My bet is he runs for Indiana Governor and then perhaps for President in 2016 or 2020 – if he so desires.
If Indiana Republican Rep. Mike Pence decides to run for president, he’ll announce his candidacy before the end of January.
A source close to Pence told POLITICO that the conservative congressman still hasn’t decided whether to run for president or if he’ll opt for a gubernatorial bid instead. But sitting Republican Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman’s announcement Monday that she won’t run for governor appears to be pushing Pence toward Indianapolis.
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