The OC Register has a strongly Libertarian bent and their political columnist, Stephen Greenhut, switched his registration this year from Republican to Libertarian after voting for Ron Paul in the Primaries. In today’s paper, Greenhut gives his closing arguments.  They focus on CA-46, Rohrabacher and Cook.  

As a libertarian, I agree with Republicans more often than with Democrats, but I do believe the GOP needs to get its clock cleaned after years of straying from its limited-government principles, pandering to the culturally meddlesome religious right and allowing neoconservatives to drive foreign policy. A Democratic win – especially if the party gains a filibuster-proof Senate majority – will be painful medicine, but the worse the sickness, the more unpalatable the cure.

This is tough stuff in this district, considering that Rohrabacher used to write for the Register. Greenhut did not make any endorsement, but found good things to say about Cook.

Cook is far more liberal than Rohrabacher, but she is intelligent, thoughtful and always game for a political debate. She supported the bailout, although she is not pleased with some aspects of it, and has built her campaign around energy themes.

I was a bit surprised by  

Gary Pritchard is running for California State Senate in the 33rd district.  The 33rd is located in Orange County, CA, birth place of Richard Nixon and home of John Wayne Airport and Ronald Reagan Federal Building.

The 33rd Senate District includes Anaheim, Anaheim Hills, Fullerton, Villa Park, Orange, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Woods, Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Aliso Viejo, Buena Park, Tustin, Silverado, Irvine, Santa Ana, Lake Forest, Coto de Caza and Foothill Ranch.

As you can see, the district is huge and covers a million people, more constituents than the State of Alaska.  And the local papers are not willing to even admit that Democratic Candidates exist.  Seriously, neither do the Republican candidates.

Republican absence kills UCI voter forum

October 8th, 2008, 4:45 pm · 1 Comment · posted by BRIAN JOSEPH, Sacramento Bureau Chief

UC Irvine planned to have a candidates forum this evening, but organizers had to cancel it when all of the Republican candidates said they couldn’t make it.

…

Quite a coincidence, huh? I’ve heard of Republicans in Illinois and Indiana ducking debates this year too. Maybe this is another example of how being Republican just ain’t a good thing this election year.

OC Register

The short article then went on to list every Republican who was invited and did not mention one Democratic candidate.  I posted the second comment to the story asking why didn’t they list the Democrats who agreed to come rather than just listing the Republicans.  My comment was removed or not approved.  It was polite and it was a very simple question.  But in admonishing the Republicans for not admitting that Democrats exist in Orange County they refused to admit their presence as well.  Talk about an uphill battle.

Local liberal blogger extraordinaire, Dan Chmielewski asked a very good question of the OC Register at the Liberal OC.  

Ever since Robert Novak was diagnosed with a brain tumor, the OC Register has been trying out a number of hard right columnists in spite of the growing purpleness of Orange County and the paper’s readership.  I’m on the record calling for them to add Paul Krugman of the New York Times as a worthy voice to the paper’s syndicated columnists.

In these trying times, wouldn’t it be good to hear from someone who’s beyond bright about economics?  Well, the Nobel committee this morning validated my rationale for my pitch to the Register by naming Krugam the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Liberal OC

So what was the response?  Steven Greenhut had this to say,

Steven Greenhut, on October 13th, 2008 at 9:17 am Said:

Although I am not the columns editor, I might point out that we have a free-market editorial page, so we’re not likely to run a lefty economist. Our running Krugman would be similar to you – who operates a Democratic blog – to start including bloggers who were Republican partisans.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think there is a huge difference between a Newspaper opinion section and a local blog?  Yes?

No wonder no one wants to run as a Democratic Candidate in this County.  It’s just so frustrating for local Candidates that have a D on the ballot.  Gary chose to run this race because no one else was going to.  He’s a community college teacher, musician and father but he also knew that he couldn’t stand the idea of people not having a choice when entering their voting booths or opening their absentee ballots.  

So we keep going, doing what we can when can.  I work full time as well and we are not financially well off.  Many came to our aid when we needed to raise money for Gary’s ballot statement but we are a spot again since the Republican Candidate did not put up her own Ballot Statement.  That means we out the Registrar of Voters at least another $7,400.  That’s about 40% of what we’ve managed to raise so far.  The Republican Candidate has at least $200,000 on hand and will probably not spend another dime as many have already declared her the victor in the election.

So here I am, asking again for your help.  I’ve dedicated myself to a handful of projects to work for, one of them being our Five year old daughter, who is the most important of these things in our life right now, the other is getting Proposition 8 defeated, saving some dogs from being put to sleep by fostering and adopting dogs taken from high kill shelters and raising money for Gary’s election.

So here is Emma and Charlotte:

if you have no desire to donate to Gary Pritchard’s campaign, donate to this rescue to help save more dogs from being euthanized.

and here is where you can donate to Non On Prop 8 if you decided you don’t want to help Gary Pritchard.  Do something if you haven’t yet.

But if you do want to help Gary, you can donate at his Act Blue site or email me and I will be happy to send you a self addressed donation envelope.

and our other woozle, Kona.  A sweet and much older Dachshund mix.

Because of the OC Register, I hate being alive.  I hope they’re happy.

In a column from last week that would have escaped me if Jesse from Pandagon hadn’t seen it, Hank Adler decides that the best way to attack Barack Obama’s spending plan is to remind everyone what professional athletes will lose out of the deal.

It was fortunate for Tiger that his most-recent U.S. Open win occurred in 2008. Under twin tax proposals from Obama to 1) remove the “cap” from Social Security taxes for individuals earning over $250,000, a plateau Tiger has long since surpassed in 2008, and 2) eliminate the “Bush” tax cuts, thereby raising the top marginal federal income tax rate to 39.6 percent, Tiger’s taxes on his winner’s check would have increased to approximately $776,000, a boost of almost $190,000. Instead of Tiger keeping 57 percent of his earnings and the government taking 43 percent, under the twin Obama tax proposals, Tiger’s federal and California taxes would have amounted to 57 percent of his winnings, leaving Tiger with just 43 percent.

I know when California families are deciding between air conditioning or meat, when they muse about using a rickshaw to get to work because gas is as out of reach as gold, they are actually upset because they know Tiger Woods is being deprived of $190,000 out of the eleventy billion in his bank account.  What, his new baby has to get silver-plated starter clubs now instead of the expected gold?  Can you look yourself in the eye and say that doesn’t eat you up inside?

Adler continues:

Prefer baseball to golf?

The New York Yankees have a 2008 payroll of approximately $208 million. Under the twin Obama tax proposals, the 24 Yankee players would be hit with an aggregate increase in federal income taxes of just over $22 million, with slugger Alex Rodriguez single-handedly getting dunned with $2.6 million in additional federal taxes.

The owner of the Yankees would owe an additional $7.5 million of federal taxes. Ticket prices would need to be increased by about $65 million so that the owner and players could have the same after-tax income as before. The increase in ticket prices would amount to an average $16 per ticket. Given that the least-expensive ticket in Yankee Stadium currently is $14, this would more than double the cost of a seat in the bleachers.

Adler hit upon the two most sympathetic characters in all of sports, maybe all of Christendom, to single out as martyrs: Alex Rodriguez and George Steinbrenner.  Incidentally, with the Yanks 7 1/2 games out of first, I don’t think anyone’s going to feel too bad about them losing money.  Then there’s the part where Steinbrenner is entitled to his after-tax earnings and simply must fleece the hardworking fans, because the Yankees have no other revenue streams to speak of.

You can go on to dispute Adler by mentioning the top-level tax rate in 1960 (it was 90%), the tax rates under Clinton which Obama would restore and how that affected business (the largest peacetime expansion in history), etc., etc.  But someone with the insight to use the plight of enormously wealthy ballplayers to rally the middle-class public to his cause isn’t really worth the time.  Only the mockery.

The Orange County Register is pretty despondent about Californians rejecting Prop 98, a deceptive little scheme using eminent domain as a stalking horse for the installation of a totally new system of property rights. A system where ownership is absolute and sacrosanct, the needs of the community be damned.  In the end, Californians rejected this ruse by about 61% of the vote.  So, the Register thinks you are an idiot, as they pretty much tell you with this headline:

“Editorial: Voters give away some of their rights”

Now, the Register isn’t your garden variety, James Dobsian, Right-wing paper. It’s “libertarian” in a Grover Norquist kind of way; they’d pretty much love to see the Orange County staff consist entirely of 3 cops and a security fence to keep the poor people away from the rich ones. They rarely editorialize in favor of propositions, as to the Register, all government action is bad. Every so often they get behind one, typically one that would gimp government some how.  Prop 98 was right up their alley.

And boy did you make a bad decision. The Gum-a-ment is going to take all of your stuff! Boogy, Boogy, Boogy.

Expect cities to become particularly aggressive in using these police powers in ways detailed in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo decision. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

The problem with this analysis? Kelo has been in effect since 2005, and the number of eminent domain proceedings hasn’t skyrocketed. We haven’t been just steamrolled with gentrification across the landscape and people wailing and gnashing their teeth.  The truth is that eminent domain is very rarely invoked. Statistics are a bit murky because typically these issues are resolved through settlements, but the number of eminent domain incidents is so low as to be statistically insignificant.

The Register will whine about now that they know they’ve won on 99, cities will run amok.  But they have no evidence or reason to suggest that, when boiled down, all you find is naked supposition.

Now, stoopit voters, would you please quit voting so we can get back to the business of plundering the state?

This morning, I’ve been leisurely perusing through The Register. I may not always agree with their opinions (OK, so it’s more like ALMOST NEVER, but whatever), but I like their local news and I like their columnists. Well anyways, I was reading Gordon Dillow’s column today and I was stopped in my tracks!

I was driving along an open stretch of Pacific Coast Highway the other day, at or just under the posted speed limit of 50 mph, and every hundred yards or so I was passing groups of two or three or a dozen bicyclists pedaling along in the bike lane. And that’s when it occurred to me:

I don’t want to share the road. More specifically, I don’t want to share a high-speed road with bicycle riders – not because it’s that big of a problem for me, but because it’s too dangerous for them.

Now in case you haven’t heard, “Share the Road” is the slogan that’s here to encourage motorists to be more aware of bike riders while on the road, and to cooperate with them. Now this sounds like a good idea, but is it really? Or are we just asking for accidents on places like PCH? Gordon Dillow thinks so, and I think he might be onto something.

Follow me after the flip for more…

So maybe bikes can share the road with cars on streets in residential neighborhoods and other areas where the speed limit is 35 miles per hour and less…

But on roads like sections of Pacific Coast Highway, where speed limits range up to 55 mph, it seems like utter madness to have 3,000- or 4,000-pound cars going 55 mph hurtle past 25-pound bikes going 15 mph – with nothing more substantial between them than a thin white stripe delineating the shoulder or the “bike lane.” It’s like allowing baby strollers on the freeway.

Yes, I know we’ve spent millions of dollars creating bike lanes – as opposed to separate, no-cars-allowed bike “paths” and “trails” – along our streets and highways. I also realize that in this day and age there are few things more politically incorrect than to suggest that cars be given preference over bicycles. After all, in the popular view, motor vehicles are pollution-spewing, gas-guzzling (and gasoline tax-paying) monsters, while bikes are benign, environmentally friendly little munchkins.

But the problem is that when monsters mix with munchkins, the munchkins are inevitably going to get stepped on – too often with tragic results.

Really? Munchkins? Stepped on? Tragic?

Consider the numbers. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2005 there were 115 “pedalcyclists” – that’s the NHTSA’s word – killed in traffic crashes in California, nine of them in Orange County. True, bicycle fatalities were only about 3 percent of the total 4,300 traffic-related fatalities in the state, but if you factor in such things as “fatalities per miles traveled,” it’s pretty clear that statistically it’s more dangerous to ride a bike on the roads than to drive a car.

Yep, when we look at the numbers, it just seems unavoidable. It really is dangerous to have bikes on the same lanes as cars. Now we can argue that all this danger is caused by the slower and lighter bikes trying to mingle with the faster and heavier cars. Or perhaps, we can argue that all this danger is caused by all these cars just going too fast…

But the point is that regardless of who is at fault in a car vs. bike collision, it’s the bicyclist who’s going to suffer, physically at least. Once again, no 25-pound bike is ever going to “win” in a collision with a 4,000-pound car – and yet we persist in trying to mix heavy, high-speed motor vehicles with light, low-speed bikes on high-volume, relatively high-speed roads.

And this is why cars and bikes just can’t get along on the same road. And perhaps, we should start taking this into consideration more often when we plan more bike lanes.

Perhaps we should follow Irvine’s example. The City of Irvine has 44.5 miles of off-road bike paths connecting to the 282 miles of on-road bike paths. In Irvine, bike riders have the chance to get off the road once they leave those quieter residential neighborhoods with the slower cars, and get onto these special paths just for bikes that take them to lovely parks and gorgeous nature preserves. Maybe Irvine is doing something right that other communities in Orange County, as well as other parts of California, should pay attention to.

And perhaps we should create more off-road bike paths besides busy highways like what is being done on SR-133/Laguna Canyon Road from Irvine to Laguna Beach. What Gordon Dillow saw recently on PCH also used to happen all the time on Laguna Canyon Road. And sometimes, that mix of speedy bikes and even speedier cars was quite a deadly one. But now, the bikes are getting their own lane. And most likely, this will make both the bike riders and the car drivers both happier and safer.

So perhaps when we’re considering new roads and new bike lanes, we should try to keep the two separated. And perhaps we should especially do this with highways where dozens upon dozens of cars speed by every day at 50 miles per hour. After all, shouldn’t we keep the good, brave bike riders safe and happy? : )

Here are today’s wild and wonderful OC stories that you just have to see to believe!

– TABOR for All? In yesterday’s OC Register, Rep. John Ken-doll Campbell offers us an “American Taxpayer Bill of Rights” to fix all the fiscal woes that those “tax and spend Democrats” are already creating:

The road back to fiscal sanity in Washington is likely to be a long slog, unless Republicans are willing to boldly recommit ourselves to the principles that earned us the reputation as the party of lower taxes and less government. Today the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of approximately 100 fiscal and social conservatives in the House, will do just that when we unveil the American Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

Unfortunately for Ken-doll Campbell, Dan Chmielewski ain’t buying any of this “TABOR talk”.

But Republicans are hardly the party of less government. The size of the California government rose under Ronald Reagan. It rose under Pete Wilson. And it’s risen under Arnold Schwarzenegger. The size of the Federal Government grew under Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

The president who actually reduced government: Bill Clinton, under the RE-GO initiative led by then VP Al Gore shrunk the size of the Federal Government to the lowest point since the Kennedy Administration.

Read the rest of what he has to say at The Liberal OC.

– And you say only Iowa and New Hampshire have town hall meetings? Nope, not true… ‘Cuz we’ll be having a series of them in Santa Ana over the next month. OK, OK, we won’t have anyone “famous”… We’ll just be talking with our city leaders about youth issues, business development, neighborhood concerns, and more. Ryan Gene has more about it at Orange Juice.

– Advantage Janet? In case you forgot, our Special Election for County Supervisor is still in court. However, there was an interesting turn of events inside the courthouse yesterday. Peggy Lowe has the latest in Total Buzz. And finally…

– “Do I stay or do I go?” Ellyn Pak talks about that grueling decision that thousands of Anaheim Hills and East Orange residents had to face as the threat of fire loomed over their neighborhoods in today’s OC Register.