Brown's pollster Jim Moore is taking the temperature
of California voters, laying out just what Jerry Brown
will have to do in order to sell a painful budget at
the polls.
From the LA Times' George Skelton: "He'll need, based on polling, to: Persuade voters that stanching the red ink in Sacramento
is necessary to rebuild the California economy and
create jobs....Convince people that the tax money is
needed to protect their top program priority, K-12 schools....Show the electorate that the tax revenue
won't be wasted, especially on state workers' pay and
pensions....Offer Republicans a juicy bone, such as a tight cap on spending that
would last as long as the taxes existed...."
"But assuming there is a special election in June,
Brown's road map to success can be gleaned from a voter
survey conducted by veteran Democratic pollster Jim
Moore. So far, Brown is following the arduous path
laid out by the polling."
Arnold Schwarzenegger's 11th-hour decision to commute the prison sentence of a political
crony shows the inconsistency of the former governor and
the unfairness of the process, notes the LAT's Jack Dolan.
"In one year alone, Schwarzenegger cast aside decisions by the state's
parole board to free 29 such inmates who had served long prison sentences.
They, like former state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez's son Esteban, participated in crimes that left
a victim dead but did not deliver the fatal blows.
"And like the younger Nuñez, 11 of those inmates had no previous criminal record,
according to orders from the governor's office in 2009, the most recent year for which records are publicly
available."
Everything you wanted to know about Darrell Issa and
then some: A 7,800-word profile of new chair of the House Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform, including his spotty personal past and his business
dealings. Ryan Lizza reports in the New Yorker.
"The company, Quantum Enterprises, assembled electronics
such as bug zappers, FM power boosters, and CB radio
parts for other companies. It was struggling when Issa
made his investment, but not as badly as one of its
clients, Steal Stopper International, which made car
alarms. Issa acquired Steal Stopper in February, 1982, began to run the company himself, and turned it around.
That year, he sold two hundred thousand car alarms
to Ford, and was planning to sell Ford a million the
following year. He also was negotiating a major contract
with Toyota."
"At 2:35 A.M. on September 7, 1982, the phone rang in Issa’s house. The Quantum and Steal Stopper office and factory
was on fire. Issa got dressed and drove the seven miles
from his house, in Oakwood Village, to his workplace,
in Maple Heights. He arrived by 3 A.M., to find blue flames shooting from holes in the roof."
Brown's five-year scenario for economic recovery may be too optimistic, in part because the state's raw numbers aggravate
an already bad situation.
From the Bee's Dan Walters: "As dour as that sounds, it may be more optimistic
than the likely reality. California's population, and thus its potential work force, are
continuing to grow. The state needs roughly 200,000 new jobs a year to soak up that work-force growth, so even were it to regain those million-plus lost jobs by 2016, it could still have a high jobless rate."
"Nevertheless, Brown has opted for a five-year recovery time frame. That explains why he wants
a five-year extension on about $8 billion a year in temporary tax increases that were enacted two years ago and are now expiring."
The governor's attempt to eliminate hundreds of redevelopment
agencies is one of the most controversial pieces of his budget
blueprint. The Ventura County Star's Timm Herdt follows
the money.
"The owner, Seaview
Apartments LLC of Westlake Village, last year paid
$93,530 in property taxes.
Of that, about $8,000 went toward special assessments, such as paying off
voter-approved school-construction bonds. All of the rest — $85,298.12 — went
to a single government entity: the Port Hueneme Redevelopment Agency."
"Not a penny went to the schools the tenants’ children attend. Not a
nickel to the city that employs the police officers
who patrol the streets. Not
a dime to the county that runs the health clinic three
miles away. Not a dollar
to the fire district that responds to 911 calls."
And from our "Size Matters" file, just when you thought there was no more room
in Starbucks' nomenclature for yet another concoction,
we find a drink that puts the Big Gulp to shame -- a 31-ounce monster called the Trenta.
"The new size will be available only for iced coffee,
iced
tea and iced tea lemonade drinks in the United States.
The Trenta is 7 ounces
larger than Starbucks' "Venti" cup for iced drinks,
which currently
is its largest size on offer."
"Drinks in
the Trenta size will cost 50 cents more than similar Venti-sized
iced drinks, the company said. Seattle-based
Starbucks tested the new size in several U.S. markets
last year, saying it was
responding to customer demand for larger cold beverages."
"The Trenta size will debut Tuesday in 14 states,
including Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Hawaii
and Arizona, and will
appear in California on Feb. 1."
Trenta is Italian slang for "I have to pee..."
