Tag Archives: California Senate

Just another brick in the wall

Posted on March 24, 2016 | Leave a comment

Wall for Mexico

While watching Ted Cruz doing a presser in Arizona at the border of the United States and Mexico, I just shook my head. That is my current reaction to anyone or anything mentioning the border. When two former Mexican presidents thought they would share their foul mouthed expression over Mexico paying for a wall I laughed. Dolia Estevez wrote about the most corrupt people in Mexico and you bet politicians were named, so much for being the beacon of light and truth that they believe they are when speaking of public policies.

I think I have finally come up with the best idea for the border wall. Well I don’t want to steal credit for the idea, my mother in law Lillian actually thought of this, and it’s a brilliant. What makes it even better is that Lillian herself was a legal immigrant to the United States and a naturalized citizen. She came up with the idea while talking with her son, my husband, about our local baseball team.

Years ago when our local baseball team, the Padres, were building their new stadium, they gave fans the option of sponsoring a brick that would make up the construction of the ball park. You could gift them or have a heartfelt saying put on it, whatever you wanted, within reason of course. I even bought one for my husband who has been huge fan. It is cool every opening day of the baseball season when we go look for the brick and sort of touch it, a kind of blessing for a great season.

When Donald Trump wanted Mexico to pay for the wall I thought that was an inspired idea but this one is even better because it won’t cost the America taxpayer anything. We could sell the bricks making up the wall to US citizens. And each family member who has lost a loved one to murder, rape, etc could add the name the of their dead loved one, like Kate’s folks could put her name on a brick and we could use these to build the wall. By the way, all the names would be facing the Mexican side. This will be a constant reminder of the costs of illegal immigration has on our country to those who would encourage the behavior.

And maybe seeing this giant wall with names of lost loved ones, lost hope, lives stopped, families changed forever, just maybe that would snap DC and Mexico out of their fog and give them a daily reminder of the true cost of illegal immigration to our nation.

H/T Mum

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Posted in CA Politics, Congress, Corruption, Immigration, Law Enforcement

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The Latest War on Women and Minorities

Posted on April 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

Every once in a while a piece of legislation is introduced here in California that just completely makes me flip my lid. Now it has happened again. The piece of legislation that is creating more Nanny State and less Manifest Destiny is SB 8 offered by  Bob Hertzberg of CA Senate District 18. This bill would tax services offered by small businesses. So just think, the myriad of Vaping and Hooka stores that have cropped in my neighborhood would now have to tax your experience. The small nail shop owner, the hairdresser you have been going to since you were in college, all of these services could potentially be taxed.

The worst part of the bill  is that Hertzberg actually believes this “would enhance the state’s business climate and, would incentivize entrepreneurship and business creation …” . Small businesses are the meat and potatoes of employment for our state and this would put an undue hardship on them and many would close. I spoke with a woman who has owned a small business for almost 30 years and she told me that she still hasn’t recovered from the recession after losing 1/3 of her business. This, she said, would put her out of business.

The Small Business Administration states that women own 30% of the small businesses in our state. Small business accounts for most of the private jobs in our state and 99.2% of jobs in the state are create by small business owners. And guess what? Those jobs are services such as industries in accommodation & food services; health care & social assistance; and professional, scientific, & technical services. SERVICES!! And minority owned small businesses account for 35.6 % of the businesses in our not so Golden State.

So explain to all of the small business owners, Bob, how this helps them be creative and willing to start new businesses or keep the ones they currently have going? This is another attempt by the greedy despots in Sacramento, who are operating with a surplus of our tax dollars this budget, to fill their coffers with more of our money for their pet projects. If this infuriates you as much as it did me, please call the autocrat Bob’s office in Sacramento and let him know, Phone:  (916) 651-4018.

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Posted in CA Politics, Taxes, Women

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Do Not Pass Go Ethics in California

Posted on October 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

Monopoly

 

At the end of this legislative session in California Governor Brown vetoed a few bills that, the legislature passed in Sacramento, which dealt with ethics. His reason was that he did not want to make the ethical practices the elected in Sacramento must follow to be made any more complex. Huh? Given that under his watch three separate Senators have been indicted on various federal and state charges ranging from voter fraud to gun running, how complicated are the current ethics rules?

This gave me pause as to how complicated it must be already for these guys given their current legal troubles, so I went looking for the complex ethics one must follow if ever elected in our great state. Listed below are some of the ethical behaviors expected of our great leaders serving the citizenry in Sacramento. This seems very doable; after all don’t we assume these people understand right from wrong? Yes, but if they need it spelled out, then so be it.

 

  • Each Senator shall conduct himself/herself so as to justify the high trust reposed in him/her by the people to promote confidence in the integrity of the Senate.

  • A Senator or officer or employee of the Senate shall not engage in unethical conduct or tolerate such conduct by others.
  • Each Senator and each officer or employee of the Senate has a responsibility to report any and apparent and substantial violation of the Standards.
  • Each Senator or officer or employee of the Senate has the right to consult with the Senate Committee on Legislative Ethics, or, at the option of the individual, the Senate Ombudsperson (see below) regarding the propriety of any conduct that may violate the Standards.
  • A Senator or officer or employee of the Senate shall not retaliate against a person who the reports possible violation of these Standards or against a person who the Senator, officer, or employee believes made such a report.
  • A Senator or an officer or employee of the Senate shall not discuss legislative business of any kind while attending or hosting an event at which campaign funds or contributions are solicited, provided, or discussed.

 

 Here is the ironic part of the story, so we have these 3 people indicted on various felony charges from both state and federal prosecutors and the California Senate leadership does nothing, and I mean nothing. Talk about standing by their men, Darrell Steinberg had nothing on Hilary Clinton.

Senator Rod Wright was indicted in September of 2010 and was eventually convicted and sentenced this year.  Leland Yee was indicted in March of this year and is still facing multiple federal charges including bribery and gun running. Senator Ron Calderon was indicted in February of 2014 and is still facing 24 counts also including bribery .None of these men lost their jobs. Period. They did not resign nor were they asked to resign; they actually took paid leave of absences on the taxpayer’s dime.

And what did the Senate do while these “boys” were off figuring out their legal strategy for staying out of prison rather than working on California’s pressing issues? Finally in July of this year they had a touchy feely class on ethics. I mean, they devoted a whole day to this work….see below explanation of said class.

On April 23, 2014, the State Senate devoted an entire day to a review and reflection of ethical issues and the Senate Standards of Conduct. The review of “Ethics in Principle and Practice” entailed separate group sessions for Senators only, and for Senate Office Chiefs of Staff, Office Directors and Committee Chief Consultants. Following those group sessions, the material was reviewed in individual office staff meetings.

The group sessions included a presentation on “Strengthening a Culture of Ethics” by Scott Raecker, CEO of the Josephson Institute of Ethics and executive director of Character Counts at Drake University. The nonprofit Josephson Institute in Los Angeles has worked with corporations, governmental agencies and professionals on strengthening standards of conduct in individual and institutional decision-making.

A separate segment involved a panel of local legal experts who presented a variety of hypothetical scenarios to facilitate discussion and dialogue on ethical and legal issues.

 

A day of reflection cost us greatly because every district these men represented went without representation the whole time they were committing illegal acts and afterwards because Darrell Steinberg and or Governor Brown would not do the right thing, the ethical thing which was to fire their butts.  You can find the little hypothetical situations they covered in this Ethics for Idiots class, oddly enough gun running issues or voter fraud were not covered.

So when the Governor says the ethics the folks have to follow in Sacramento are too complex, ask yourself if your child knows not to steal or to lie. Then ask yourself why a sitting Governor with the record numbers of indictments under his leadership would not want to shore up the ethical behavior of his team, hmmm?

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Posted in CA Politics, Corruption, Uncategorized

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Move Over Sopranos a New “Family” Rocks California

Posted on March 28, 2014 | 3 comments

Don Corleone

 

With the arrest of yet another California elected Senator Leland Yee, the California political elite seem to be the new stars of an episode of The Sopranos. First we have Senator Rod Wright convicted of 8 counts of voter fraud and perjury who by the way is still drawing his salary off the CA taxpayer and next we have Senator Ron Calderon who has been indicted federally on charges ranging from mail fraud, wire fraud, honest services fraud, bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering to aiding in the filing of false tax returns. He too is on “paid leave of absence’ from his day job as a California Senator. If anyone thought of  Senator Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg as a leader they can put that thought away now; all roads lead back to his leadership style which is kind of like that of Don Corleone.

Holding up the rear in California Senate Democrats who have fallen from grace is now Senator Kevin de Leon who is being investigated along with Calderon by the FBI on what the FBI called a “large scale healthcare fraud” case involving a person in Long Beach who was running a spinal surgery hospital named Michael Drobot. Coincidently again, Don Steinberg used to work for the firm that is representing Drobot in the corruption case against him upon which  Eric Weirich deputy commissioner  of the California Department  of Insurance called, “”the largest insurance fraud” in California history.

You can read the affidavit used on the Calderon case as it reads like a who’s who of the California Senate elite. It all gets really messy implicating Calderon’s brother who used to serve in the California Senate also ,as it alleges that the Calderon brothers  had setup a phony 501c4 called Californians for Diversity, (where was the IRS on this one), to have a fund for retirement. Their bribes were being transferred into the 501c4 account.

Each of these guys “serves” a very specific part of Californian as Yee “serves” San Francisco, Calderon and de Leon “serve” parts of Los Angeles. Rod Wright “serves” Long Beach and the Port of Long Beach. And coincidently Steinberg “serves” the very spot of all corruption itself, Sacramento. It figures right? And what role does Steinberg play in all of this? Are his hands clean? I am not sure as he crops up numerous times in the affidavit against Calderon. He is either the dumbest person on the planet, not knowing what was happening, although that seems unlikely, or he had some role in all of this. I have to believe that whether covertly or overtly Steinberg is being looked at very hard these days as he has proven to be delinquent in providing leadership for the California Senate.

I am always amazed at how different the political world is from real life. If Steinberg worked in the real world he would have lost his job and pension by now for at the least turning a blind eye to the corruption happening on his watch with his subordinates. Remember in the movie The Godfather when Michael is talking to Kay about his father he says, “My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.” Too true.

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Posted in Corruption

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