Covered California has awarded nearly $200 million in no-bid contracts to private companies - including a firm with ties to Peter Lee, the agency's executive director. Michael Blood of Associated Press has the story.
"California's health insurance exchange has awarded $184 million in contracts without the competitive bidding and oversight that is standard practice across state government, including deals that sent millions of dollars to a firm whose employees have long-standing ties to the agency's executive director...
"...contracts worth a total of $4.2 million went to a consulting firm, The Tori Group, whose founder has strong professional ties to agency Executive Director Peter Lee, while others were awarded to a subsidiary of a health care company he once headed.
"Awarding no-bid contracts is unusual in state government, where rules promote "open and fair competition" to give taxpayers the best deal and avoid ethical conflicts. The practice is generally reserved for emergencies or when no known competition exists.
"The no-bid contracts represent nearly $2 of every $10 awarded to outside companies by the agency..."
In today's Bee, Dan Walters looks at the election for Superintendent of Education which has developed into a proxy war between the public education establishment and school reform advocates.
"Tom Torlakson, a onetime teacher and state legislator, is being challenged by a generation-younger Marshall Tuck, a former charter school chain executive.
"However, their running debate over the direction of California’s 6 million-student public school system is merely one front – albeit an important one – in a years-long war over education policy, almost entirely within the Democratic Party.... fought in the Capitol over such issues as teacher employment rights, parental takeovers of ill-performing schools and testing, in the courts over a variety of civil rights lawsuits, and in the state Board of Education over implementation of Gov. Jerry Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula."
California's cap-and-trade system may not on the ballot in 2014, but oil companies and consumer groups are spending to make sure its impacts won't be forgotten. Jeremy White has the story at Capitol Alert.
"California’s cap-and-trade system will expand in January to encompass producers of transportation fuels like gasoline, compelling them to purchase permits for the carbon emissions they create. Prices at the pump will rise as a result, the oil industry has warned.
"... a group called the California Drivers Alliance, whose backers include the Western States Petroleum Association – an oil industry umbrella group – and an array of agricultural organizations, is funding mailers praising or condemning incumbent politicians on the issue. The California Drivers Alliance received seed money from the Western States Petroleum Association and is playing in “about a dozen” legislative districts, spokesman Jerry Azevedo said."
A slew of local officials are feeling the heat after being exposed for excessive water use. Lance Williams and Katharine Mieszkowski at the Center for Investgative Reporting posted an extensive report last week.
"[M]any of the local officials urging the public to save water during California’s crippling drought actually are profligate water users themselves, a CIR investigation has found.
Water bills obtained via the state’s Public Records Act show that in 2013, nearly half of the officials who supervise the state’s biggest water agencies used more water than the typical California household.
"And water officials tended not to cut back as the drought persisted. Even as their agencies scolded ratepayers on conservation, 60 percent of these officials used more water in 2013 than they had in 2012, records show."
But, not every official comes off in a bad light in the report - San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was one the most miserly water users.
"In July, he used 24 gallons per day – enough to wash a load of clothes. In March 2013, he used 12 gallons per day – the equivalent of one six-minute shower."
Sad to say, the buzzkills over at Gawker's Fortress America have debunked the drone-captured video purportedly showing a member of the ISIS terrorist group doing the nasty a Donkey.
"It sure looks like a guy doing sexual things to that donkey. And wouldn't that be a hoot! Islamist radical puritans caught hypocritically practicing bestiality! Heck, in a weird way, it could be interpreted to vindicate our creepy drone snoopin'..."
Using timestamps and other evidence from the footage, Gawker's Adam Weinstein concludes that the footage is from neither Syria nor Iraq, was filmed three years ago and didn't come from a drone.
"So what do we really have here? A 2011 video that's probably not from a drone of what may be an Afghan dude doing what may be a sexual act with what may be a donkey. Yet this video went stupid viral, and plenty like it have gone viral before... Propaganda that dehumanizes your adversary as bestial, it turns out, is highly shareable on social media."
