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Why Flash is Right on Redistricting
By JOHN SEILER As CalWatchDog.com’s John Hrabe has detailed in a series of articles, the California redistricting process was corrupted from the get-go. The California “Citizens” Redistricting Commission, which was supposed to produce un-gerrymandered districts, instread was riddled with partisan gamesmanship. No wonder Commissioner Mike Ward charged, in an exclusive interview with CalWatchDog.com, that the commission “broke the law.” In response, Jon Fleischman of Flashreport has called for a referendum to overturn the 2011 gerrymandering. Fleischman just was attacked by by CalBuzz, “Why Fleischman Is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong on Redistricting.” CalBuzz wrote: The hissy fit pitched by our pal Jon Fleischman this week over at Flashreport, where he thundered about the over-arching, Save the Unfortunately, CalBuzz uses that annoying cross-out style. And the comparison to Jayson Blair is inapt. Blair was a liberal reporter at the liberal New York Times who plagiarized and fabricated stories, as Wikipedia explained. It was done in the New York Times tradition of their notorious Stalinist reporter, Walter Duranty. By contrast, Fleischman was just giving an opinion CalBuzz doesn’t like. GOP IrrelevanceCalBuzz mentions how the only power left for Republicans in the Legislature, if can maintain more than one-third of the seats in at least one house, is to prevent tax increases. So Democrats are salivating like Pavlov’s Dog about raising taxes ad libitum. But as I have been noting here on CalWatchDog.com, what already is developing is a split in the Democratic Party between the wild spenders and those more fiscally prudent. I likened it to the split in the Democratic Party in the old “Solid South” before the 1970s. Because, once Democrats actually do control two-thirds of the Legislature, they will assume 100 percent of the blame for every economic calamity in the state. No more saying, “If the Republicans would just let us raise taxes on those greedy capitalist rich people, we could establish paradise!” GOP LatinosAnother development might be that, to win back at least that one-third of seats needed to be relevant, Republicans finally would get serious about nourishing some Latino political talent. So far, their main entrants have been Mike Villines and Abel Maldonado, who did the bidding of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwazenegger in the 2009 tax-increase debacle, then were defeated in statewide elections in 2010. Republicans are noticing that neighboring states are governed by small-government, tax-averse Republican Latinos, Gov. Brian Sandoval in Nevada and Gov. Susana Martinez in New Mexico. Certainly, similar candidates could be found in California, especially with the ridiculous Arnold out of office and spending most of his time in divorce court. AbeCalBuzz also brings up Lincoln: If we recall our U.S. history, the whole notion of using tax dollars for the government to help build and sustain the private sector goes back to the administration of Abraham Lincoln, who we heard had something to do with starting the Republican party. The Republican-dominated Congress passed a series of measures that transformed the nation’s economic landscape for all time. The weakness of the northern Democratic minority and the defection of southern lawmakers enabled Republicans to enact a legislative agenda that significantly expanded the role and financial reach of the government and helped to create a national economy that dwarfed its predecessor both in scale and in wealth. You could look it up. The italicized part is from the new book, “America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a New Nation,” by David Goldfield. But this isn’t 1861. As Goldfield also notes, “When Lincoln took office, the main role of the federal government was to deliver the mail.” The war changed that.
The day now is Aug. 12 nationally, as shown in the graph. But as Joseph Perkins wrote yesterday on CalWatchDog.com, Cost of Government Day is even later in California, falling on Aug. 18. August 18 is the 230th day of the year. That means you work for the government 63 percent of the time. Didn’t the Civil War abolish slavery? Wasn’t there something called an Emancipation Proclamation? House DividedIn famous “House Divided” speech, Lincoln said, “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” California today is 63 percent slave and 37 percent free. And note on the graph that Cost of Government Day declined somewhat during the presidencies of Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Bill Clinton, but grew sharply under both Republican Presidents Bush and has spiked under Democratic President Obama. It’s ridiculous to think that Lincoln would want government to be this big — and want it to grow even bigger. Redistricting always is a problem. But it’s an especially sticky one now because the weight of government is so big in America that the underlying foundation — the private economy — is being crushed. Unemployment remains stuck above 9 percent at the national level. And according to new numbers released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment rose again in July in California, back up to 12 percent. Government is so gargantuan in the Golden State that jobs are dying or moving elsewhere. Whatever happens with redistricting, what’s needed is a California Emancipation Proclamation — for California taxpayers.
Tags: Calbuzz, Cost of Government Day, John Seiler, Jon Fleischman, redistricting Comments(2) |
May 25, 2013
CalBuzz got it mostly right on Lincoln and the early Republicans, only their conclusion is wrong. The US economy thrived after the war in spite of Lincoln and the Republicans not because of Lincoln and the Republicans.
The early republicans were for high tariffs, crony capitalism, expansive federal regulation, large government central planning, deficits, screwing the democrats, subversion of civil rights and jailing journalist among many other nasty traits. Simply think of them as the Bush administration and you get the drift. The democrats of that day were aligned with Jefferson’s vision of government. Progressivism had yet to ruin the democrat party.
After prosecuting the illegal war to prevent southern independence, the Republican influence essentially neutered states rights. The official end of states rights came with the Federal Reserve and the Income tax. The tyrant and racist Lincoln never lived to see his dream of an all white America (blacks colonized back to Africa) come to fruition but would be proud of our current form of government today.
The Republicans in this state will always be tripped up by the social conservatives whose irrelevant issues alienate moderate voters. The Republicans in this state will always be tripped up by ‘moderates’ like Fiorinna and Whitman who refuse to question the premises of the Democrat ideologues. The Republicans in this state will always be tripped up by issues like Prop 23 where their inability to even criticize the Glow-bull Warming hoax was replaced by a mewling plea to not kill jobs. Meanwhile the Warmunists were showing computer animation of tidal waves and cursing the Evil Oil Companies. The Republicans in this state will always be tripped up by their inability to debate the Mexican leftists and point out to Latinos that these leftists want to emulate the system they fled in Mexico. Until the Reps drop abortion and gay marriage and become a true political opposition you can draw the redistricting maps any way you want and it will not matter.