Bill Maher rubs California’s prosperity in the GOP’s face: ‘Scoreboard, b*tches!’

With California en route to becoming the world’s fifth-biggest economy — “Thanks, England!” he quipped — Bill Maher closed Real Time on Friday by gloating over the economic failures gripping other states thanks to their own governors.

“After Arnold [Schwarzenegger] left office, we eliminated what scientists would call variables — in this case, the Republicans,” he explained. “Democrats from governor on down control every office and voting body in this state. So we can really study what happens when liberal policies are tried unimpeded. And the only thing I have to say to Republicans about that is: scoreboard, b*tches.”

While the GOP argued that “cap-and-trade” policies would lead to a surge in utility prices, Maher argued, the fact was that California boasted some of the country’s most affordable electric bills.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/bill-maher-rubs-californias-prosperity-in-the-gops-face-scoreboard-btches/



Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Why Voters Might "Respectfully Disagree" With Clinton's Declaration of Victory

Meanwhile with Clinton trailing Trump nationally, polling group wonders: 'Are Democrats on track to nominate the wrong candidate?'

The Bernie Sanders campaign struck back at Hillary Clinton on Thursday for her statement that the Democratic presidential nominating process was "already done," pointing to not only the nine remaining contests, but also poll after poll showing Sanders outperforming Clinton in hypothetical match-ups against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. 

Clinton told CNN on Thursday: "I will be the nominee for my party. That is already done, in effect. There is no way that I won't be."

But Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs, in a strongly worded statement issued late Thursday afternoon, begged to differ.

"In the past three weeks voters in Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon respectfully disagreed with Secretary Clinton," Briggs said. "We expect voters in the remaining nine contests also will disagree. And with almost every national and state poll showing Sen. Sanders doing much, much better than Secretary Clinton against Donald Trump, it is clear that millions of Americans have growing doubts about the Clinton campaign."

A new Rasmussen poll published Friday finds Sanders ahead of Trump, 45-41 percent, but Trump ahead of Clinton, 42-37 percent.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/05/20/why-voters-might-respectfully-disagree-clintons-declaration-victory?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=google_plus&utm_source=socialnetwork

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Ed Lee Is 2 LEGIT 2 QUIT

EDITORIAL: One law for us, another for you

EDITORIAL: One law for us, another for you

California’s legislative hypocrisy a failure of democracy

The California state Senate voted 28-8 Wednesday to exempt itself from the pointless gun-control laws that apply to the rest of the populace. Legislators apparently think they alone are worthy to pack heat on the streets for personal protection, and the masses ought to wait until the police arrive.

This is just one of many bills Golden State politicians used this legislative session to set themselves apart from the little people, the ones who pay their inflated salaries. Annual compensation for legislators averages about $140,000, not counting luxurious perks such as taxpayer-funded cars and free gasoline. By comparison, the average Californian earns $50,000 a year, and the unemployment rate is 11.9 percent - far above the national average. Exact salaries for state assemblymen and senators are obscured by the use of a “per diem” payment scheme that shelters a significant chunk of income from taxation.

Attempts by a handful of reformers to require politicians to provide a full annual disclosure of the benefits received from the public treasury have been rebuffed. Currently, government officials must file a statement of economic interests revealing income from any source other than a local, state or federal government agency. Gifts worth more than $50 also must be disclosed, but lawmakers rejected a bill that would have prohibited acceptance of concert and sporting event tickets, gift cards, spa treatments, golf outings and other benefits from lobbyists trying to buy votes.

Bills of this nature never meet an honest fate in which roll-call votes put members on the record as favoring or opposing each idea. Instead, reform measures are held in committee to die quietly as legislative deadlines pass. As of last week, it’s effectively impossible for a bill to become law if it hasn’t already passed in at least one of the chambers.

Such a silent death sentence was imposed on a bill that would have eliminated the practice of allowing select public employees to avoid paying red-light-camera tickets and escape any consequence for using toll roads without paying. The current system grants free rides to politicians, court workers, police officers, city council members, social workers, meter maids and their spouses. The bill failed even after a compromise amendment deleted the requirement to pay red-light-camera tickets.

The arrogance of the political class is certainly not limited to California. Federal law prohibits private companies from pestering the public with unwanted telemarketing calls from businesses, but Congress exempted “political organizations” - i.e., themselves - from its provisions. In Sacramento, an attempt failed to establish a special Do Not Call list for people who don’t want to listen to automated calls from California pols.

Left coast politicians lack all shame regarding their self-enrichment at public expense. Even though their outrageous conduct has sunk a once-prosperous state $10 billion in debt, the public seems not to care. In November, voters recycled Jerry Brown as governor even though Gov. Moonbeam’s disastrous tenure during the 1970s enabled the compensation packages for a unionized public sector that are busting the budget today. When California finally goes bankrupt, voters need only look in the mirror when wondering who deserves the blame.

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Los Angeles Central Registry Case Revealed

LA County defends child abuse listing


By David G. Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau
3:39 PM PDT, October 5, 2010

Washington…A lawyer for Los Angeles County told the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday that the failure to remove a wrongly accused couple from California's index of reported child abusers was the state's responsibility, not the county's.


I do not think so.  The County received funding, through state budget appropriations to execute this function as a sub-receipient to federal funding.

"It's the state's data base," said attorney Timothy Coates. "There are no state standards and no specific criteria for removing someone from the list. We don't have any procedures on how to go about that."
The case of Craig and Wendy Humphries has highlighted the difficulty of getting off the state index once a person's name has been reported to Sacramento for abusing a child. The state's law requires many agencies and employees, including schools, police and child care workers, to report instances of suspected child abuse.

Not only that, the state entered into contractual agreement upon acceptance of the federal SACWIS and other grants.  The state is the recipient.  The county would be the sub-recipient according to federal guidelines.  No immunity for either.

More than 800,000 names are on California's index, and employers consult the list before hiring people to work with children.

The Humphries were reported to state authorities in 2001 based on the word of his teenage daughter, but a juvenile court judge later pronounced them innocent of the charges. They have been fighting in court for several years to clear their names.



In January of 2009, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals described their "nightmarish encounter" with the California system and ruled that both the state and county were liable for violating their constitutional rights. "There is no effective procedure for the Humphries to challenge this listing," the appeals court said.

Here is the decision:


9th Circuit Opinion in Humphries v Los Angeles County

Humphries v. L.A. County

But the lawyers for the county appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the county should not be liable for this state program. "Where the state law requires a local entity to do something," Coates said, "it's essentially the state making the decision."

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted, the state of California did not appeal the decision, but the Humphries remain on the state index.

Here are the transcripts for the oral arguments of October 5, 2010:


U.S. Supreme Court Transcript for LA County v. Humphries

Justice Bennen asks a very powerful question as it is a reflection of the national ignorance of child welfare fraud.

JUSTICE BREYER: -- against State. I mean, 

here you have a statute and the statute doesn't have any method to get out off -- get out of it, even when you should. Their claim is this is a State matter, the State's responsible, it's unconstitutional, go sue the State and tell the State to do it. Now that's a - what's wrong with that position?

2001 was a free-for-all in child welfare funding.  Fraud was rampant.  The main argument as to why a name is not expunged from the central registry is that, if the state and the county removed a person's name from the central registry, it would be an admission of liability in violations of due process.  See, without trial, charge, plea, verdict, or even knowing about it, you are placed on the central registry within a 48 hour period and rarely notified of the action.

By failing to remove a person's name from the central registry, the only recourse after exhausting all administrative avenues would be to bring an instant action.  That takes money and knowledge.  In 2001, the number of attorneys willing to take on any issues dealing with child welfare, was countable on one hand, if lucky.

Child welfare is an entitlement program, funded through Social Security.  This means, through the poverty means test, the person placed on the central registry was poor.  Poor people have no legal representation because state funded legal aid organizations are restricted from taking cases which will generate financial gain and would loose funding if it bit the hand that fed them, meaning a conflict of interest.

Incorporate the cost factor of litigation into the equation, meaning that the governmental entities would motion up on every minutia to the minimum cost of $200 an hour to the plaintiff, the person whose name was placed on the central registry, and you have a mutational algorithm to protect the racketeering enterprise.

"Every day for the last nine years the (Humphries) have suffered a violation of their due process rights," said Washington attorney Andrew Pincus.

Well of course they have suffered.  That is just a tactic to wear out a challenger.

Despite the county's battle in the courts, an official of Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services said that reported child abusers can appeal the listing. Michael Watrobski, chief grievance review manager, said the state told local reporting agencies in May of 2008 that they should offer appeals, and he said his office has heard 313 such challenges this year.

Watrobski said in an interview that he did not understand the county's legal argument in the courts. "I have no idea. I really don't understand that," he said.

After the Supreme Court argument, the lawyer for Los Angeles County was asked about Watrobski's office and his assertion that appeals have been heard for more than two years. "That's news to me. I have never heard that," Coates said.

Officials Arrested in California City

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The mayor and ex-city manager of the Los Angeles suburb of Bell were among eight current and former city officials arrested Tuesday in a corruption scandal that authorities said cost the city more than $5 million in excessive salaries and illegal personal loans.
The district attorney's office said several former and current City Council members were taken into custody along with ex-city manager Robert Rizzo and Mayor Oscar Hernandez.
''This, needless to say, is corruption on steroids,'' District Attorney Steve Cooley said at a news conference, standing next to a display of pictures of the suspects.
The district attorney, state attorney general and others have been investigating officials in the small working-class city since it was disclosed this summer that they were paying themselves huge salaries.
Rizzo, who was making nearly $800,000 a year, was booked on 53 counts of misappropriation of public funds and conflict of interest.
The investigations involve allegations of corruption, misuse of public funds and voter fraud in the city where one in six of the 40,000 residents live in poverty.
A message left at Rizzo's Huntington Beach home was not immediately returned.
Others arrested were former assistant city manager Angela Spaccia, Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo, council members George Mirabal and Luis Artiga, and former council members George Cole and Victor Bello.
Former Police Chief Randy Adams, who was also scrutinized in the salary scandal, was not taken into custody.
Cooley, who knew Adams when he was the police chief in Glendale, said there was no evidence he committed any crimes.
''Being paid excessive salaries is not a crime,'' Cooley said. ''Illegally obtaining those salaries is a crime.''
Prosecutors allege the suspects misappropriated more than $5.5 million, including making illegal personal loans.
The complaint also said Rizzo made $4.3 million by paying himself through different employment contracts that were not approved by the City Council, and that council members paid themselves a combined $1.25 million for what Cooley called ''phantom meetings'' of various city boards and agencies.
Rizzo also was accused of giving $1.9 million in loans to himself, Spaccia, Hernandez, Artiga and dozens of others, authorities said.
Most of the arrests went smoothly, though police used a battering ram at the home of Hernandez before he opened the door.
The suspects were booked into county facilities and will be kept away from other inmates for their protection, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said.
The arrests were the latest twist in a scandal that emerged in July with the disclosure that Rizzo was paid almost twice the salary of President Barack Obama.
It also was revealed that Adams was making $457,000 a year, and Spaccia was paid $376,288. Four of the five City Council members paid themselves nearly $100,000 a year for their part-time service.
Rizzo, Adams and Spaccia resigned and the council members reduced their salaries to about $8,000 following the disclosures and angry public reaction.
The four council members are currently the target of a recall.
Last week, Attorney General Jerry Brown sued eight current and former officials of Bell, accusing them of defrauding taxpayers by granting themselves salaries he said were far higher than warranted for the jobs they were doing.
Cooley said the investigation was not over and more charges could be filed.
''They used the taxes of the hardworking citizens of Bell as their own piggy bank, which they looted,'' he said.