Randy

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Archives for the ‘California Legislature’ Category

‘Sexting,’ new tax threat, and stupid California voters

Tuesday, November 15, 2011, 6:59 pm |

Among everything that caught my eye today and stirred my soul with joy or moral anger, here are three important news stories for families in California and beyond to understand.

Exit the “sexting” schools
Every 7th grader knew what ‘sexting’ meant
Every seventh-grader at a Yolo County middle school raised their hands when asked if they knew what sexting meant. Sexting involves sending, receiving or forwarding sexually suggestive or explicit messages or photos through text message, the Internet or other electronic media.

When I saw this story about children in public schools near Sacramento, I knew it was yet another reason to rescue your children from the immoral peer pressure in California’s government system. See more reasons and develop a rescue plan at our special website, RescueYourChild.com. And while you’re at it, if you’ve given your child a cell phone, make it a real basic one with no texting or internet or picture sharing.

Will tax-and-fee-hike Democrats achieve a 2/3rds supermajority?
It’s wait and see to determine whether enough voter signatures have been gathered to qualify a California ballot referendum to reject unfair state senate districts. If successful, the referendum would head off statewide tax-and-fee-hikes by denying Democrats a 2/3rds legislative majority that they’re likely to get under the gerrymandered maps produced by the liberal-dominated California Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Between Thursday and Sunday, 710,924 RAW signatures were turned in to elections officials in 57 California counties. However, the “Fair Districts” campaign needed at least 750,000 raw signatures to feel reasonably certain of qualifying. Referendums or statutory initiatives that qualify for the ballot through the “full check” process of counting signatures do so with at least a 70% validity rate, yielding at least 504,760 VALID signatures. Many fall short of 70%. And you don’t get higher than 70% unless you use a top-notch signature-gathering firm that pre-validates signatures. Doing the math, 710,924 raw signatures x 70% = 497,646 valid signatures, which would fail to qualify. May this one’s validity rate be somehow higher!

This teaches a hard lesson. To succeed at a California ballot initiative or referendum, you must first have rock-solid language that will legally accomplish all you’ve intended because it is written to withstand a judge’s “misinterpretation.” Second, you must raise major funds (at least $1 million) and plan to raise these funds early, or else you fail to qualify. Look at the SB 48 referendum drive over the summer. Organizers said they gathered less than 500,000 RAW signatures, falling short 250,000 or more raw signatures that were needed to successfully qualify. Without funds for professional signature gathering, that effort gathered far fewer signatures than the Fair Districts referendum drive, which, sadly, might not qualify at all.

However, if somehow the Fair Districts referendum campaign has an unexpected high validity rate and indeed qualifies for the ballot, we will all have a much better chance of stopping burdensome tax and fee increases upon California families. The California Constitution now requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature to raise either taxes or fees. So, with the help of the gerrymandered maps of the “citizens commission,” Democrat politicians — hungry for more “revenues” because they refuse to cut the wasteful, fraudulent habits of the government unions or the bureaucracy — are trying to win at least two more seats in each house in next year’s election. The absence of a Fair Districts victory would give the Democrats a greater chance of achieving a 2/3rds veto-proof supermajority, empowering them to impose tax-and-fee hikes willy-nilly on both families and job-providing businesses.

Read more: 710,924 Signatures for Overturning Senate Map. And Yet…
See the fact: SaveCalifornia.com’s 2009 Waste Report

Californians, stop voting stupid
If you know the real value of something and the seller agrees to sell it at his cost, you have an idea of what honest government looks like. Honest government does not make a “profit” off its owners, the People, which would be tantamount to an employee stealing from its owner.

But if a seller hides the real value of a product or service, jacks up his “costs” to astronomical levels, and then deceives you into buying his lie so you get poorer in the process, you understand why California’s state government is corrupt and many local governments too.

Instead of cutting massive structural waste that people can’t see, corrupt city officials and government unions are deceitfully saying police and fire services, library services, water, storm drain, and trash services, you name it, won’t be provided unless taxes and fees are hiked, or expensive bonds are approved. Don’t believe it and always vote against the deception of higher taxes/more bonds, which is the unjustified taking of more money from We the People.

Unfortunately, because most California voters are either ignorant or stupid about this (can you say public school “education”?), 40 of 53 tax hikes, fee hikes, and bond-raising schemes were passed last week by voters in California cities, counties, and government school districts.

The voters’ lack of critical thinking has encouraged Democrat Governor Jerry Brown. If he doesn’t achieve a 2/3rds supermajority of Democrat legislators next year to raise taxes and fees, Brown believes he might persuade ignorant or stupid voters to approve it on the ballot.

ACTION: Take a personal pledge to oppose all proposed tax hikes, fee hikes, and bond borrowing schemes, which give more of your hard-earned money to those who habitually waste money.

Read more about Jerry Brown’s tax-hike dreams

“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.”
Samuel Adams, “Father of the American Revolution,” in 1775

ALERT: The 4 worst bills on Jerry Brown’s desk

Friday, September 9, 2011, 12:33 pm |

Today (Friday, Sept. 9) is the last day of the California Legislature’s regular session.

Because Democrats control both houses and the Governor’s office, I’ve expected and then seen, to my horror, dozens of anti-family, tyrannical bills pass this year due to the foolish imaginations of the dominating Democrat legislators.

This is why, in the last several years, only the governor could stop bad bills. “Republican” Arnold Schwarzenegger, frequently lobbied by conservative Californians, vetoed most of the anti-family bills his first term. But upon his reelection in 2006, he revealed his immoral heart and started signing bad bills, even bills that he vetoed his first term.

Now, with Democrat Jerry Brown back in the governor’s office, he’s already signed SB 48, mandating blatant homosexual-bisexual-transsexual indoctrination of children without parental consent. Yet Brown’s vetoed other bills that would have imposed new state mandates, coerced more people into costly unions, and limited the power of voter initiatives.

So, it’s worth “testing” Jerry Brown on the worst bills on his desk. With your calls, emails, and faxes, will he veto them? 

SaveCalifornia.com has identified the four worst bills — all authored by Democrats — and urges you to take action:

AB 499 allows school staff, nurses, and others to push the risky HPV vaccine upon girls as young as 12 years old, without parental consent
1. The Gardasil or Cervarix vaccine can harm or kill. The CDC reports there have already been 18,727 reports of adverse events, including 68 deaths.
2. Giving to pre-teen girls is equivalent to telling them to have teenage sex, resulting in disease, pregnancy, abortion, emotional damage, moral ruin, etc.
3. Tramples parental rights because no parental consent is required.
4. Paves way for more anti-parent laws.
5. These injections of minor girls will eventually be paid for by the state (the taxpayers), even though there is no money in the state budget.
CDC: 68 deaths | CalCatholic.com article | AB 499 text

SB 651 would eliminate requirement that homosexual “domestic partners” live together (opens door to fraud); allows minors to become “domestic partners” (roping kids into homosexual lifestyles)
The purpose of SB 651 is to erase any and all legal distinctions between man-woman marriage and homosexual partners. According to the author, San Francisco Democrat Mark Leno, “This bill will remedy those final inequities, including the denial of long-term care insurance to domestic partners who are state employees and requirements related to age and whether couples live at the same residence. As we inch ever closer to equality, the only way to ensure fair treatment is to allow all loving couples the right to marry. Separate is seldom, if ever, equal,” he said.”
“San Diego Gay & Lesbian News”  | SB 651 text 

AB 101 unionizes in-home childcare, forcing it in many cases
According to the Sacramento Bee, “The measure would allow small-business owners who provide child care in their own homes or the child’s home and – this is key – who care for children who receive state child care subsidies to unionize. The child-care providers targeted for unionization, many of them unlicensed grandmothers and other relatives or neighbors, would not be forced to join a union. However, if the child they care for receives state subsidies, they would have to pay union dues whether they joined the union or not…If the bill is approved, like IHSS it will inevitably increase state costs at a time California is broke. Citing costs, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed several previous baby sitter unionization bills. Given California’s precarious financial situation, increased costs alone should be enough to sideline AB 101 this year.”
Sacramento Bee: Democrats make last-minute push to unionize California child-care workers
Editorial: Baby sitter bill deserves some adult supervision

SB 397 permits online voter registration
There is already voter fraud happening by all the vote-by-mail shenanigans (dead people voting, illegal aliens voting). Can you imagine the fraud if Jerry Brown signs online voter registration? Can you imagine entering in your existing address under another name and thus vote twice or more? There is no reliable way for election officials to ferret out fraud, especially registrations that are close to an election.
SB 397 text | Senate floor analysis | Criticism of similar Michigan proposal

Contact Brown by phone, fax, email

Phone (916) 445-2841
Fax (916) 558-3160
Brown’s contact form

When the godly are in authority, the people rejoice.
But when the wicked are in power, they groan.
Proverbs 29:2 NLT

Grasp this good news for California families

Friday, July 1, 2011, 6:03 am |

Too many pro-family Californians have become cynical that anything good can happen in Sacramento. I don’t blame you. With anti-family, socialist Democrats in charge, and foolish voters who didn’t understand the benefits of partisan primaries or the protection that a 2/3rds vote on the budget offered, many California conservatives have lost hope. But when reality proclaims good news, you’ve got to take notice and be glad.

Because no Republican state legislator voted for tax or fee hikes, Jerry Brown and the Democrats failed to achieve a 2/3rds vote to get what they were pushing hard for — a multi-year “extension” of the 2009 tax increases: sales tax hike, income tax hike, car tax hike, and a major reduction in the child tax credit. All combined, the average California family would have lost nearly $1,000 per year. The good news is none of this materialized thanks to friends of SaveCalifornia.com and many others who encouraged the Republicans to hold firm and say no to more taxes.

Starting July 1, here is how your California state taxes and fees will have changed. As you can see, it’s mostly good news and mostly victories for taxpaying families and individuals:

1. Sales tax down 1 full percentage point
2. Car tax (vehicle license fee) nearly cut in half
3. The 2009 income tax hike expired Dec. 31, 2010
4. The 2009 slashing of the dependent tax credit from $309 to $99 expired Dec. 31, 2010
(Remember, the Democrats were trying hard to extend all these taxes, but they failed.)
5. Car tax is going up $12 (but that’s a likely lawsuit under Prop. 26 to strike it down)
6. $150 fee for residents in CalFire zones (another likely lawsuit under Prop. 26)
7. Sales tax enforced for Amazon.com and other businesses that have affiliates, workers, offices, property in California (as a result, Amazon.com, Christianbook.com and others have ended their California affiliate programs; so, California online businesses have been harmed, but you can still make tax-free online purchases from most online sellers that are outside California)
 
We’ve done further analysis of ABx1_28, the so-called “Amazon tax,” passed by the Democrat legislators and signed by Democrat Governor Jerry Brown. And we must correct our initial view that it will subject all online purchases to sales tax. Actually, hardly any new online sales tax will come from the new online sales tax law. Why? Because it only applies to online sellers that have workers, affiliates, offices, or property in California.

And already, online companies are taking steps to avoid the new tax, which enables their customers avoid the new tax. And in the 48 hours after the “Amazon tax” was signed, Amazon.com, Overstock.com, Christianbook.com and other out-of-state online sellers have sent notices to more than 25,000 California small businesses notifying them that they can no longer be affiliates.

Therefore, when Californians purchase from an out-of-state online seller, you are not likely to be charged sales tax because those sellers have severed ties with their California affiliates, and thus no longer have a “physical presence” in the state. They will have successfully skirted the new law and consumers will be “safe.”

So what’s the effect of the new online sales tax law? More than 25,000 small businesses in California will be harmed or eliminated, the economy will be further harmed, and the state government will end up losing revenue, not gaining it. This is the stupidity of Jerry Brown and the Democrat legislators. But consumers won’t likely pay any more tax online than they’ve already been paying.
 
Also, if you are a California affiliate of an online seller and your sales prices add up to no more than $10,000 a year in sales, you are exempt from the new sales tax law.
 
As the Los Angeles Times reports:
 
That’s because the new requirement applies only to online sellers based out of state that have some connection to California, such as workers, warehouses or offices here.
 
California’s new law was drafted to circumvent a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that sellers can’t be forced to collect sales taxes unless they have a physical presence in the state.
 
The new statute would establish that presence in two ways: when sellers pay commissions to other Internet sites in California, known as affiliates, that refer buyers; and when sellers have a related company operating in the state.
 
Understand more:
 
ABx1_28 | Analysis of Russ Fox, E.A. | Los Angeles Times | PCMag.com | CNET.com

Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established;
and by knowledge the rooms shall be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.
Proverbs 24:3-4 (NASB)