Nooses were found on the Cal State Fullerton campus this week. Attached to a display decrying intolerance.
Campus police are investigating the incident but they’re not referring to it as a crime. There does not appear to be much information about who placed the nooses.

Campus police say they are investigating last week’s incident as a “somewhat offensive” act but not a crime.

“It’s a freedom of speech area and it wasn’t directed toward any particular group,” said campus police Lt. Fred Molina. “But we want to find who’s doing this and why.”

“A somewhat offensive act.” Wow. I don’t even know where to begin with that. There are a few things that could have made it more offensive. But putting at least 4 (from the picture accompanying the article) nooses in front of an exhibit promoting tolerance is extremely offensive.
According to the article, this is the third such act across college campuses this year alone.

The campus community held a rally denouncing racism and intolerance on Wednesday.

I didn’t have the time yesterday to mention that the Legislative Analyst’s Office has confirmed what everyone had feared for a while, that California is staring a $10 billion dollar budget deficit in the face and there’s seemingly no political will to address the structural fiscal problems underlying the projected deficit and do something about it.  All of the top legislative leaders had something to say about the LAO report, and I didn’t see a ton of leadership there.  Arnold and the Republicans focused on major budget cuts while making vague and insufficient nods toward “serious discussions” on budget reform.  Speaker Nuñez was pretty vague himself though he held the line on a cut-only approach, and Senator Perata had perhaps the strongest response, though it’s perhaps too focused on the past:

“Since last May, I have talked about California’s flawed and unbalanced fiscal structure. Today’s LAO report is another sobering reminder that quick fixes will not provide a long-term solution to the state’s budget woes.

“I once again call on the Governor and my fellow legislative leaders to begin a serious discussion about how to build a structurally balanced budget.

“There is an ongoing gap between state expenditures and revenues that this Governor helped create by slashing Vehicle License Fees and refusing to balance that loss with revenue from another source. That alone accounts for $6 billion of this problem.

“An honest dialogue about closing the budget gap must include exploring all options.”

But the real strong medicine was delivered by the LAO’s Elizabeth Hill.

In releasing her five-year fiscal outlook Wednesday, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill said lawmakers face tough decisions for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

“All the easy solutions are gone,” she said.

Hill, the state’s top budget analyst, called for immediate cuts to “double up” savings for the current and upcoming fiscal years. She also offered solutions certain to meet political opposition, including raising taxes.

Her projections were worse than previously stated by the Schwarzenegger administration, which pegged the shortfall at $6 billion. Hill said the deficit has increased due to growing government expenses that have outpaced revenues in an economy weakened by the real estate slump.

Realistically, since you can’t deficit spend, it’s going to take a combination of revenues and cuts to balance the budget.  This problem is only likely to get worse.  The median home price in the state dropped $60,000 in a month.  That severely impacts property tax revenue.  And the state lost a Supreme Court case where they were trying to stop a payment of $200 million in interest to the teacher’s pension fund.  But those are just the short-term issues.  The problem is long-term.

Hill said the state’s structural imbalance has been around for years – a challenge state leaders have failed to address.

“We’ve been facing a problem every year since 2001-02,” Hill said. “And when you look out to 2012-13, we still do not have our expenditures and revenues in line.”

The state has confronted bigger fiscal crises before. In 2003-04, lawmakers were facing gaps as big as $38 billion. The state resorted to borrowing, which Hill said is exacerbating the current problem because cash is going to debt payments.

Borrowing at this point is almost immoral.  There’s going to be a need to maybe allow some painful cuts in exchange for long-term fixes in revenue structure.  Next year will be incredibly difficult.

( – promoted by Robert in Monterey)

NOTE: Cross-posted from Daily Kos.

Yesterday, I posted a diary about possible ballot petition fraud going on in Santa Barbara, California related to the Electoral College Initiative that seeks to split California’s electoral votes by congressional district.

There have been some developments, so I’ve decided to post an update.

After I had gotten the initial word out about this, I got a call from the reporter at the Daily Nexus (UC Santa Barbara’s student newspaper) about what had happened, and then a second call, and then I sat down for an interview.

So here’s what I learned: when the reporter went herself and asked a bunch of questions, the petition gatherers actually described the titles of the three other initiatives. However, when she sent more reporters to “play dumb” and not ask any questions, the petition gatherers said nothing. Hence, the push to get people to sign ballot initiatives they’re unaware of seems to be operating on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” basis.

When they sent yet another reporter to directly interview these petition gatherers, the gatherers got rather close-mouthed, wouldn’t give their names for the record, etc. But they did say that they were working for “APC” and gave a website for their company.
http://www.apcusa.co…

APC turns out to be Arno Political Consultants, a well-established conservative petition group founded by Mike Arno in 1979. Some of their  former and current clients include Wal-Mart, Phillip Morris, R. J. Reynolds, Procter & Gamble, Kodak, Occidental Petroleum, Mobil Oil, AT&T, and America Online.
http://en.wikipedia….
http://www.ballotped…
http://www.ballotped…

This petition firm has a long history of getting involved in similarly unethical behavior, such as:
– tricking college kids into registering as Republicans in Florida.
http://www.sptimes.c…

– telling California voters that the Electoral College Initiative was actually an anti-war ballot initiative.
http://www.mercuryne…

– telling Massachusetts voters that an anti-gay-marriage ballot initiative was actually an initiative to allow selling wine in grocery stores
http://www.massequal…

Most importantly, APD has been hired by David Gilliard, Ed Rollins, and Anne Dunsmore, the proponents of the Electoral College Initiative.
http://pqasb.pqarchi…

As for who those pleasant people are:
http://steveaudio.bl…

——————–

So, what’s the conclusion here?

One, I don’t know if APC tells its workers to commit fraud or doesn’t. All I can say is that they have done this kind of thing in the very recent past.

Two, this is not an issue of some third-party or fourth-party signature gatherers who don’t know who they’re working for, and who are unknown to the proponents of the initiative. These people know they’re working for APC, and APC has been hired by the proponents of the petition.

Three, given the fact that they seem to have a consistent policy of not telling people what they’re signing if they don’t ask, I don’t think this is accidental.