Month: May 2018

Fact: On 5/4/18 the Labor Department announced that the jobless rate fell to 3.9% from 4.1% a month earlier, hitting the lowest level since December 2000.

On 5/5, this was the lead story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal out of Washington, D.C. with the headline “Jobless Rate At 17-Year Low.” This article was very objective detailing a multitude of grafts and statistics. It was positive referring to this record low unemployment as being “the result of a historically long jobs expansion that shows little evidence of slowing.” It detailed that employment rose in industries including manufacturing, health care, and accounting. There continues to be a plethora of positivity in this article, including that the “report suggested that there are more workers available for full time jobs than the main unemployment rate suggests.”

Now let’s shift gears to our local paper which typically finds it difficult, more like impossible, to say anything positive about Mr. Trump. First of all this story was in section C of the newspaper, albeit on the first page of section C., and it read more like a misplaced subjective opinion piece masquerading as news. The headline to the story was factual, “U.S. Jobless Rate Slides Below 4%,” but with a subtitle of “Usually good news, the reason is the labor force shrank for 2nd month.” It’s difficult to put a negative spin on such good economic news, but Jim Puzzanghera, the author who writes for California News Group (? Los  Angeles ) hammered away how this record unemployment rate was really not good news at all, and of course no credit was given to President Trump’s policies. Even though this downer of an article did mention that the unemployment rates for blacks and Latinos were at the lowest level since the Labor Department began tracking these figures in the early 1970s, there was no praise and no congrats for this accomplishment.
To me the contrast of these two articles, both supposedly reporting on the same data is astounding! It’s very hard, if not impossible, to conclude that this decline in the jobless rate is not a direct result of President Trump’s policies and the recent tax cuts. Kudos to the President and the Republicans, and a thumbs down to the obvious slant of Mr. Puzzanghera who does his best to try to convince his readers that this good news is really “bad!”

Two of my neighbors recently wrote letters to the governor of California. Because my daughter-in-law is an English teacher, they asked me to proof read them before they were mailed. They both consented to have them printed as is.

Dear Governor Brown,
I am a senior citizen living on a fixed income, and to set the record straight, I have voted for you multiple times including twice in the seventies. I have never written to you before, but today I received my vehicle registration renewal notice, and “shucks” was I surprised.
I drive a 2000 Chrysler that has eighty thousand miles on it. Although the number of times I drive decreases every year, I still need to drive to church, and occasionally to bingo. I also need to drive to the grocery store when my son doesn’t have the time to take me. He tells me just to use Uber, but it it’s too hi-tech for me. But back to my vehicle registration. I am beside myself, as the cost to register my car has gone up from $115 last year to $143 for this year. This despite the fact that I will be driving even less miles compared to last year. How can this be? I thought that you were supposed to be for those of us who are barely scraping by!

Respectfully,
Mabel

Dear Jerry,
In 2018 you referred to those who did not agree with the Democratic gas tax increase (SB 1) as “freeloaders,” and you snarkily stated something to the effect that those who used the roads had to pay for their upkeep. Jerry, are you aware of the fact that California already pays a little over $84,000 per mile for highway maintanence compared to the national average of $28,000 per mile, and ranks 46th in quality of urban highways. That is a sad but telling statistic. Could it possibly reflect on your leadership?
What is worse, however, is that you told us that the revenue generated from your tax increase would be for roads and infrastructure. That does not appear to be the case as on 4/26/18 the Transportation Agency announced the grant recipients for $2.6 billion of the $5.4 billion in annual gas tax and vehicle registration fee increases. Of the 28 projects awarded SB1 money, none involved road upkeep! $2.4 billion went to light-rail and electric bus networks! There was also $100 million for “active transportation” which involves bike lanes, sidewalks, and recreational trails. Jerry, it appears to me that these are the “freeloaders,” as, as best I can tell, the bikers and the walkers do not pay the increased gas tax or the increased vehicle registration fees!
I have not seen you or any of your Democratic colleagues on T.V. explaining why all of this money is not going to roads as you and they promised. Is it possible that you are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the “freeloaders?” If that is so, it is truly deplorable!
We Californians can only hope for an “Oops-moment” with the “repeal the gas tax” measure that will be on the ballot in November.

Sincerely,
A California Freeloader!

Ho-Hum! They are at it again. They, being the state of California, it’s attorney general, and its governor, and they are in the process of mounting their 32nd legal challenge to the Trump administration. As one of the chumps that lives here in California, I ask again, “Who is paying for all of these legal challenges?” Of course, I already know the answer . . . the taxpayers of California are paying the bill.
This particular legal challenge involves the EPA changing the proposed automobile mileage standards for 2022-2025. Using the typical liberal tactic of attacking the speaker, Governor Brown called the EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, “Outlaw Pruitt,” and accused him of “breaking the law.” (EPA officials declined to respond to the name-calling by the governor.)
Rather than suing and name-calling the issue is whether or not the EPA has the authority and legal standing to change the present mileage standards. Where did these standards originate? Are the present standards actually law, or are they merely some rules that were formulated by unelected bureaucrats?
In 2010 the EPA and the NHTSA established a National Program of new standards for gas mileage. As we all probably know the EPA is an independent agency of the federal government, and back in 2010 the chief of the EPA was Lisa Jackson, who was appointed by Barack Obama. The NHTSA is an agency of the Executive branch of the U.S. Government, a part of the Department of Transportation, and in 2010 the chief administrator was David Strickland, who for eight years prior was a Democratic Senior Counsel on a Senate Committee. I am not alleging any impropriety with Mrs. Jackson or Mr. Strickland, but both were appointed and neither was an elected official.
If these unelected officials can play a big part in 2010, why can’t different unelected officials formulate a new plan in 2018? Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
The educated response from California officials, Jerry Brown and Xavier Becerra, “Those #*%#&x* ; we don’t like dat; we don’t like dem!” Continue reading “They Are At It Again”

Let’s say for the sake of discussion that a family has four kids. It would seem obvious that in order to maintain a sense of fairness and order that the rules would have to be the same or at least very similar for all of the children. For instance when a child reaches middle school, he/she gets a cell phone so that he/she can inform the parents of where he/she is. Starting at age sixteen a child may get a driver’s license, providing that he/she can pay a predetermined portion of the auto-insurance. Each child’s curfew is set by the age of that child . . . for instance at age fifteen, the curfew is 9:00 and at age sixteen the curfew is 10:00, etc. Now let’s expand that to a family of ten children . . . all the more important to have the same rules for everybody. Now imagine if the family had fifty children . . . mind boggling, but all the more important that everyone play by the same rules. If one “independent” child decided to make his/her own rules, then the result would be chaos! Welcome to the U.S.A. family and the recalcitrant child, California.
The latest temper tantrum by the recalcitrant child involves the new E.P.A. standards for automobile gas mileage. Despite the fact that these new standards have not been officially announced by the E.P.A., the independent teenager is already protesting.
“I find this to be an outrageous intrusion,” said Diane Feinstein. “We will take this fight to the courts . . .” Obviously Ms. Feinstein is now in full campaign mode, even though the E.P.A. spokesperson has refused to comment on the details of the draft plan!
As a sidelight, Neil Gorsuch gained a lot of respect from me when he agreed with the four liberal justices in a ruling just last week. With this decision, Judge Gorsuch established himself as an independent thinker. In the recent past have any of the four liberal Supreme Court justices ever split from the other three, and voted with the conservative justices? “No, not that I am aware of.” This obviously says a lot about their ability to think independently. At some point is it possible that California could actually gain some respect from the rest of the family by considering a Trump administration proposal before reflexively objecting to it?
It seems pretty obvious that California feels strongly that it should be able to decide its own fate and follow its own rules in just about everything – no matter what the parents (Federal government) say. Would the state follow its own train of logic and allow me to follow my own set of rules? “No! That would lead to chaos.” What if my city, or my county wanted to follow its own set of rules, would the state of California say, “Okay, my obstreperous son, do what you want. It’s okay with me.”? or would it say, “Not a chance, as that would lead to chaos!”
If a state can choose which federal laws it chooses to obey, can a citizen, city, or county also choose to do the same?