links for 2010-08-23

Sacramento’s politicians are preparing to mine for more private sector gold.

With California facing a $20 billion deficit, the majority party liberals are offering a solution that takes us back to the virus called the e-tax, or online sales taxes. Democrats – and a few Republicans – are reviving this “creative” tax plan that targets ‘out-of-state’ online retailers.

As it stands currently, only brick and mortar retail sales are taxed inside of California.

If this budget solution compromise makes it into this year’s proposal (again) companies like Overstock.com, Amazon.com and even eBay.com will be forced to collect, determine and pay for the statewide sales taxes rate card if they place their Internet ads on websites that hold place inside of California.
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Great all we need are taxes on my online books from Amazon and e-Bay stuff.

Thanks Dems and RINO Arnold

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer doesn't seem to think much of her rival Carly Fiorina’s proposal for congressional term limits that ensure that no member stays longer than 12 years in each house.

The chances of passage of the proposal are slim considering that it would require a constitutional amendment. But don't expect political realities to keep Fiorina from bringing it up on the campaign trail since she already seizes every opportunity she can to remind voters how long Boxer has been in office.

Fiorina has pledged to serve a maximum of two six-year terms in the Senate if she is elected.

After a discussion on transportation policy with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at City Hall on Monday, Boxer said she believed the “founders had faith in the voters" to make decisions about how long a politician should stick around.
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Of course, as a career politician you would oppose term limits. Pass the Constitutional amendment.

The Avatar director was determined to expose journalists, such as myself, who thought it was important to ask questions about climate change orthodoxy and the radical "solutions" being proposed.

Cameron said was itching to debate the issue and show skeptical journalists and scientists that they were wrong.

“I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads," he said in an interview.

Well, a few weeks ago Mr. Cameron seemed to honor his word.

And then, yesterday, just one day before the debate, his representatives sent an email that Mr. "shoot it out " Cameron no longer wanted to take part. The debate was cancelled.

James Cameron's behavior raises some very important questions.

Does he genuinely believe in man made climate change? If he believes it is a danger to humanity surely he should be debating the issue every chance he gets ?

Or is it just a pose?

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Oh Hollywood – symbolism over substance.

Ted Olson and his anti-Prop 8 media machine have been aggressively leveraging his past associations with conservative legal causes in support of his newfound support for the invention of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. In so doing, they’ve tried to obscure the fact that the position that the Constitution can and should be interpreted to invalidate traditional marriage laws can’t possibly be reconciled with the conservative legal principles that Olson used to purport to stand for. (I’m not addressing here the very different question whether a conservative can soundly support legislative revision of marriage laws to include same-sex couples.)

For anyone who has wondered what really accounts for Olson’s new position, I pass along these excerpts from a New York Times article last week on the influence of Lady Booth Olson, Olson’s wife since 2006:
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Well, his arguments are NOT conservative and should NOT be considered such.

Carly Fiorina stirred up a flurry of controversy, first as CEO of HP, and now as the Republican candidate running to unseat Barbara Boxer, the U.S. Senator from California. We're pleased to announce our interview with Ms. Fiorina this Tuesday on behalf of the BlogHer community. So that begs the question: what should we ask?

I have a brief time with Ms. Fiorina to discuss her candidacy, but long enough to cover a handful of topics. Remember this: Whatever your personal feelings are regarding this race, BlogHer is politically neutral and "omnipartisan," welcoming all. (Leading or defamatory questions won't make the cut.) We do encourage tough inquiries; so pose your questions in the comments area below, and we'll put together a final list on Monday.

Your questions could help shape the debate in the final months of one of the most important races in the country. Don't be shy. Ask away!
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Please go and ask away!

Erick Erickson thinks that Jane Mayer's New Yorker profile of the billionaire Koch brothers is part of a coordinated effort by Obama and left-wing journalists to discredit the Koch family and their efforts in funding pro-libertarian groups and developing the Tea Party movement.

I'm not sure about Erickson's speculation, but it's hard not to notice that Mayer's article paints an grim portrait of the Koch brothers without actually reporting anything objectionable that they might have done.
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Read it all including the comments where Nate Silver makes a rare appearance.

These free media opportunities are not going to remain opportunities forever. Either it's not going to be free or this particular media isn't going to exist.

Oh: The reluctance of the Money Guys to embrace the internet as a legitimate, and potentially professional, communication medium is creating these moral hazards: If a guy who's not making any kind of money at all is offered three hundred bucks to write a post he might have (might have) written anyway, it's really increasing the chances he's going to sell himself on the idea that it's okay to do so.
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Read it all

The battlegrounds in the fight to control the House of Representatives have become clearer as both major parties have made most key decisions about where to put their money and other efforts leading up to the Nov. 2 elections. In California — where incumbent-friendly districts wipe out most prospects for real contests in general elections — the lists so far are short. But the contests promise to make up in intensity what they lack in numbers.

In addition to McNerney, a Pleasanton resident who ousted GOP Rep. Richard W. Pombo four years ago, congressional Republicans have decided to go after Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), who first won the then-Republican seat in 1996. The Democrats' top two targets are Bono Mack and former California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, who represents a congressional district in the Sacramento area.
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When reapportionment occurs in 2012, the Congressional Districts will become much more competitive – with a better outcome for the GOP

Is it deja vu all over again for Democrats?

Some neutral observers and senior strategists within the party have begun to believe that the national political environment is not only similar to what they saw in 1994 — when Democrats lost control of the House and Senate — but could in fact be worse by Election Day.

A quick look at the broadest atmospheric indicators designed to measure which way the national winds are blowing — the generic ballot and presidential approval — affirms the sense that the political environment looks every bit as gloomy for Democrats today as it did 16 years ago.
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American voters want balanced and little government in their lives. The Dems have provided none of the above.

Melanie Morgan, founder of Move America Forward, the nation’s largest pro-troop organization, led about a dozen conservative activists who protested at the Venice home of Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans at a Saturday afternoon fundraiser for California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown.

Morgan reports the pro-American protesters, “blocked the entrance of hundreds of wealthy Democrat liberals, including Sally Kellerman and Cindy Asner, ex-wife of Ed Asner.” Protesters laid down on the sidewalk outside the entrance gate where guests had to step over them.
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Can hardly wait for the video…..

Striking populist themes in a blistering attack on Boxer, Fiorina said her Democratic rival has become corrupted by power and has hastened the state's decline.

"I've crossed every region of California and I have found islands of despair," the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive told hundreds of delegates Saturday at the state Republican convention in San Diego. "In our beautiful state, there is a steady, grinding injustice where the failed policies of Washington's ruling class have smothered hopes in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people — losing jobs, losing homes, destroying businesses, and worse … sapping the life and the strength and the dreams out of working families in every corner and every county."
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Read it all

Even beyond that, though, it’s simply dishonest. Plenty of bloggers get involved in election campaigns, and they make those connections clear by disclosing them o their blogs. Deliberately failing to do that — and to market one’s blog as a paid outlet for politicians — puts people into Armstrong Williams territory. It saps credibility and damages the ability of the blogosphere to effect political change in the long run.
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I agree Ed and have never contemplated taking any payments from political campaigns outside some minor advertising.

Katie Couric once described bloggers as journalists who gnaw at new information “like piranhas in a pool.” But increasingly, many bloggers are also secretly feeding on cash from political campaigns, in a form of partisan payola that erases the line between journalism and paid endorsement.

“It’s standard operating procedure” to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that “at least half the bloggers that are out there” on the Republican side “are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales.”

In California, where former eBay executive Meg Whitman beat businessman Steve Poizner in a bitterly fought primary battle in the campaign for governor, it sometimes seemed as if there was a bidding war for bloggers.
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This story is sort of old news as I had some links in December 2009.

Here ya go: http://flapsblog.com/2009/12/10/links-for-2009-12-10/

Housing will eventually recover from its great swoon. But many real estate experts now believe that home ownership will never again yield rewards like those enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century, when houses not only provided shelter but also a plump nest egg.
The wealth generated by housing in those decades, particularly on the coasts, did more than assure the owners a comfortable retirement. It powered the economy, paying for the education of children and grandchildren, keeping the cruise ships and golf courses full and the restaurants humming.

More than likely, that era is gone for good.
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Then, the economy is REALLY in trouble.

Too much government spending and too little employment in the private sector will hamper recovery as well.

If the California real estate market crashes any further it will be a depression in the making that nobody has seen before.