Thursday, May 21, 2020

Newsom Pointing Finger in the Wrong Direction For Gas Prices


Gov. Gavin Newsom backs SF lawmaker's rent control bill - Curbed SF


California lawmakers are at it again in with more lawsuits in May 2020 against two multinational gasoline firms for allegedly manipulating California’s gas prices and costing consumers more at the pump.   
Governor Newsom and Attorney General Becerra have short memories as “their own Democratic” lawmakers already killed transparency of pricing at the pump.  The Governor and AG have already forgotten that a 2018 bill, SB 1074, sponsored by State Senator John Moorlach (R) from Costa Mesa and championed by the minority party in the State was effectively bottom drawered by their own ruling party. 
A few years ago, at an April 23, 2018 hearing before the State Senate Committee on Business, Professions, and Economic Development. I testified in support of Senate Bill 1074 (John Moorlach) called “Disclosure of government-imposed costs,” which would have required gas stations to post near each gas and diesel pump a list of cost factors, to include federal, state and local taxes, as well as costs associated with the state’s environmental rules and regulations.  
The Democrat-controlled committee was adamant they did not want the public to see all the costs included in the posted pump price, and killed the Bill that would make gas pricing transparent, from future consideration, and would have eliminated the need for an investigation in the first place. Today, we are hearing the same concerns that Senate Bill 1074 (Moorlach) would have remedied.  And the dance continues.
With the summer blend of fuel costs hitting the pumps, lawmakers are once again keeping residents blissfully ignorant of the many taxes and regulatory costs that drive up prices, while they are getting press about challenging why Californians continue to pay almost $1.00 more per gallon of fuel than the rest of the country. Some of the costs hidden in the all-in posted price of fuel at the pump are:
  • • Federal tax per gallon
  • • Excise tax per gallon
  • • State tax per gallon
  • • Local sales tax per gallon
  • • Cap and trade program compliance costs per gallon
  • • Low-carbon fuel standard program compliance costs per gallon
  • • Renewable fuels standard program compliance costs per gallon
  • • Refinery winter and summer reformatting costs per gallon
That is a lot of taxes and costs. The difference between those “fixed” governmental costs from taxes and environmental regulations would obviously explain the total costs the manufacturers of those fuels charge the vendors, who add their markup, and the actual price the consumer experiences at the pump. 
As the Cap & Trade and Low Carbon Fuel Standard Programs kick into higher gear in the coming years, more costs onto fuels are projected by 2030 which may add another dollar or two to the per-gallon fuel cost consumers will pay at the pump.
They are now fueling the idea, pun intended, that the oil companies are filling their pockets with the extra money California consumers experience at the pump.  The local media are unknowing co-conspirators in this ruse.
California boasts that it is a leader in all sorts of things. Well, California is the only state in contiguous America that imports most of its crude oil energy from foreign countries.  
Misguided Sacramento leaders have caused California to increase imports from foreign countries from 5 percent to 57 percent of total consumption. The imported crude oil costs California more than $60 million dollars a day, yes, every day,  being paid to oil-rich foreign countries, depriving Californians of jobs and business opportunities. 
The Governor perpetuates the continuous cost increases with his mission to markedly reduce in-State oil production even more and is seeking to permanently ban oil-shale fracking technology’s use which would INCREASE costly foreign crude oil imports to California to fill the gap of ever-declining California and Alaska production, further crippling the State, forcing the continuation of California as a remarkable national security risk for the USA.
As America recovers from the COVID-19 shelter-in-place mandates, California cannot rid itself from the continuing and state-prescribed high costs of energy that other states are not shackled with. California officials are doing nothing to expose those self-inflicted costs intentionally “dumped” onto the posted price at the fuel pumps to effectively and forever resolve the causes of the high energy costs that will severely limit the state’s potential for recovery.
The transparency bill SB 1074 from 2018 would have given motorists information on what is really going on. But for the Democratic supermajority in the Legislature, bliss is keeping Californians ignorant. As expected, the current vocal concerns of lawmakers will get discussed again and again, but action toward transparency to the public will be avoided. http://www.capoliticalreview.com/top-stories/newsom-pointing-finger-in-the-wrong-direction-for-gas-prices/

Thursday, December 26, 2019

California May Limit Using Jobs, School to Determine Insurance Rates?


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California is proposing to restrict auto insurance practices that regulators say benefit those who have more money, more education and are white.
The state Department of Insurance proposed regulations Monday that would prohibit insurance companies from using so-called “affinity groups” to discriminate based on educational attainment or income level, among other factors.
The bulk of drivers in the groups already fall into lower income categories, responded one insurance association, while another warned that the change could have the unintended effect of harming working-class Californians. The American Property Casualty Insurance Association said similar discount programs are offered in 48 states.

How Affinity Groups Can Help You Find Cheap Car Insurance


What’s an affinity group?

Several insurance companies have made a business out of marketing themselves to affinity groups. These groups can be employees of a certain company or members of professional, business and alumni associations, according to the Insurance Information Institute, an industry organization. Members of an affinity group who sign up with a specific car insurance company will receive a discount.
Affinity groups give insurers access to a pool of potential customers, who often are part of a demographic that the insurer judges to be “less risky” and therefore eligible for better rates. The organization may get a referral fee.
Geico, The Hartford, Liberty Mutual, MetLife and Nationwide are among the auto insurance companies that provide affinity-based policies. Geico’s affinity partners, for example, include alumni associations, colleges, business groups, educational organizations, fraternities and sororities, honor societies, military organizations and recreational groups. Members of groups such as the American Horticultural Therapy Association, Mensa and USA Water Ski can all get affinity discounts through the company.

You could save hundreds

The main reason you would consider buying insurance through a group is to find cheap car insurance. But how much can you save? Here are a couple of examples:
  • Among people who saved money by switching to a MetLife group car insurance policy in 2014, the average rate reduction was $500, according to the company.
  • The Hartford says its AARP group auto insurance plan saved the average new member $404 in 2014.
In addition to savings, insurers sometimes provide extra perks to people who buy policies through a group.
The Hartford’s AARP policy, for instance, includes such benefits as lifetime renewability and a rate that’s locked in for 12 months. Insurance companies also may have a dedicated customer service phone number for group members, or may offer to bill you through payroll deduction if you’re in an employer-sponsored group.

What to keep in mind

Affinity group discounts aren’t available everywhere because of some state insurance regulations. They can also controversial among consumer advocates. The California group Consumer Watchdog is waging a campaign against affinity-based insurance pricing in the state. It maintains that these discounts violate the state’s voter-approved requirement that insurers base rates solely on factors substantially related to the chance of a person making claims. They would argue that water skiing, for example, does not indicate that you’re a better driver.
Finally, just because you qualify for affinity-based rates with a company doesn’t mean that it offers the best deal. Another insurer’s regular rates may still be lower. It always pays to shop around for car insurance quoteshttps://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/insurance/auto/drivers-can-find-cheap-car-insurance-through-a-group/

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Michael Swift: "Gay Revolutionary"

From Gay Community News, Feb. 15-21, 1987
(reprinted from The Congressional Record, with preface restored)

In 1987, Michael Swift was asked to contribute an editorial piece to GCN, an important gay community magazine, although well to the left of most American gay and lesbian opinion. A decade later this text, printed in the Congressional Record is repeatedly cited, apparently verbatim, by the religious right as evidence of the "Gay Agenda". The video Gay Rights, Special Rights, put out by Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition cites it with ominous music and picture of children. But when the religious rights cites this text, they always omit, as does the Congressional record, the vital first line, which sets the context for the piece. In other words, every other version of this found on the net is part of the radical right's great lie about gay people. For a discussion of the whole "Gay vs. Religious Right" phenomenon see Chris Bull and John Gallagher: Perfect Enemies: The Religious Right, the Gay Movement, and the Politics of the 1990s, (New York: Crown, 1996)
This essay is an outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor.
We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us.
Women, you cry for freedom. You say you are no longer satisfied with men; they make you unhappy. We, connoisseurs of the masculine face, the masculine physique, shall take your men from you then. We will amuse them; we will instruct them; we will embrace them when they weep. Women, you say you wish to live with each other instead of with men. Then go and be with each other. We shall give your men pleasures they have never known because we are foremost men too, and only one man knows how to truly please another man; only one man can understand the depth and feeling, the mind and body of another man.
All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men.
All homosexuals must stand together as brothers; we must be united artistically, philosophically, socially, politically and financially. We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy.
If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.
We shall write poems of the love between men; we shall stage plays in which man openly caresses man; we shall make films about the love between heroic men which will replace the cheap, superficial, sentimental, insipid, juvenile, heterosexual infatuations presently dominating your cinema screens. We shall sculpt statues of beautiful young men, of bold athletes which will be placed in your parks, your squares, your plazas. The museums of the world will be filled only with paintings of graceful, naked lads.
Our writers and artists will make love between men fashionable and de rigueur, and we will succeed because we are adept at setting styles. We will eliminate heterosexual liaisons through usage of the devices of wit and ridicule, devices which we are skilled in employing.
We will unmask the powerful homosexuals who masquerade as heterosexuals. You will be shocked and frightened when you find that your presidents and their sons, your industrialists, your senators,your mayors, your generals, your athletes, your film stars, your television personalities, your civic leaders, your priests are not the safe, familiar, bourgeois, heterosexual figures you assumed them to be. We are everywhere; we have infiltrated your ranks. Be careful when you speak of homosexuals because we are always among you; we may be sitting across the desk from you; we may be sleeping in the same bed with you.
There will be no compromises. We are not middle-class weaklings. Highly intelligent, we are the natural aristocrats of the human race, and steely-minded aristocrats never settle for less. Those who oppose us will be exiled.
We shall raise vast private armies, as Mishima did, to defeat you. We shall conquer the world because warriors inspired by and banded together by homosexual love and honor are invincible as were the ancient Greek soldiers.
The family unit-spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy and violence--will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants.
All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men. We adhere to a cult of beauty, moral and esthetic. All that is ugly and vulgar and banal will be annihilated. Since we are alienated from middle-class heterosexual conventions, we are free to live our lives according to the dictates of the pure imagination. For us too much is not enough.
The exquisite society to emerge will be governed by an elite comprised of gay poets. One of the major requirements for a position of power in the new society of homoeroticism will be indulgence in the Greek passion. Any man contaminated with heterosexual lust will be automatically barred from a position of influence. All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men.
"We shall rewrite history, history filled and debased with your heterosexual lies and distortions. We shall portray the homosexuality of the great leaders and thinkers who have shaped the world. We will demonstrate that homosexuality and intelligence and imagination are inextricably linked, and that homosexuality is a requirement for true nobility, true beauty in a man.
"We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution.
Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Shouldn’t Women Be Able to Control Their Own Bodies?

The battle over abortion and birth control in the United States has been raging for nearly a century.  A cartoon in the May 1919 issue of Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Review shows a woman being crushed by a giant roll of paper labeled “Laws Controlling Women’s Bodies.”
“Woman’s body, woman’s choice” is the most common slogan pro-abortionists have used during the entire conflict.  Two variations are the indignant demand “What makes you religious fanatics think you can tell me what to do with my uterus?,” and the tiresome chant “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries!”
Interestingly, the first person to make the “woman’s body, woman’s choice” argument for abortion was the spiritual father of the “pro-choice” movement, the Marquis de Sade.  In 1797, he wrote:
The penalty against child-murdering mothers is an unexampled atrocity.  Who then has a greater right to dispose of the fruit than she who carries it in her womb? … To interfere with the usage a woman chooses to make of it is stupidity carried beyond any conceivable extreme.1
This is an unscientific and emotional response, and should be treated as such.

The Pro-Life Response

To begin with, it is impossible to reply directly to this slogan unless we have the user clarify what he or she means by it.  All we need to do is ask “Why do you consider the unborn child to be a part of the woman’s body?”
The usual response is momentary hesitation, followed by one of three possible answers;
(1)  The fetus (unborn child) relies on the mother completely for its existence;
(2) The fetus is inside her body, therefore it is part of her body; or
(3)  The fetus is a parasite.
You can give concise and effective answers to each of these.
(1)  The unborn child relies on the mother. When asked to clarify, most pro-abortionists will argue that the unborn baby is totally dependent upon the mother.  They are implying that this allows the mother the “right” to dispose of her baby.
These are separate arguments and should be treated as such.  Certainly a newborn baby is just as dependent upon its parents for all of its needs as one not yet born, and will quickly die if not cared for.  Does this mean that the newborn baby can be neglected or killed outright?
Unfortunately, many hard-hearted “intellectuals” have been arguing for decades that it is perfectly permissible to allow handicapped children to die, calling this “fourth-trimester abortion” or “post-natal abortion.”
For example, Nobel Prize winner Dr. Francis Crick, one of the co-discoverers of DNA, has claimed that “No newborn infant should be declared human until it has passed certain tests regarding its genetic endowment, and that if it fails these tests, it forfeits the right to live.”2  Hastings Center ethicist Joseph Fletcher has said that “It is ridiculous to give ethical approval to the positive ending of sub‑human life in utero, as we do in therapeutic abortions, but refuse to approve of positively ending a sub‑human life in extremis [after birth].”3
(2)  The unborn child is inside the mother
The second assertion is that the unborn child is inside his or her mother, and is therefore part of her body.
However, the unborn baby being inside the mother’s body no more makes him or her a part of her body than being inside a car makes one a part of the car, or being in a building makes one a part of that building.
Sometimes a pro-abortionist will try to combine these arguments, saying that the unborn child is inside the mother, depends on her completely, and is therefore part of her body.  We can reply by describing an analogous situation involving astronauts in space.  They are totally dependent upon their vessel for everything — their air, water, food, and all of their other needs.  If they should exit the vehicle unprotected, they would be nonviable, and would die in minutes.  This also holds true for a nonviable unborn baby.  Yet no thinking person would argue that the astronauts are only one component of their space vehicle, and, as such, are disposable!
Even the staff of Barack Obama, the most pro-abortion President in our nation’s history, recognizes the unborn child as a separate human being.  Pregnant women entering the White House must formally register their unborn children as separate visitors, with “Baby” as the first name, expected birth date, sex if known, and even “000-00-0000” as a Social Security number!4
This silly policy demonstrates the totally illogical and schizophrenic nature of pro-abortion “thinking.”
(3)  The unborn child as parasite
Pro-abortionists have a pressing need to dehumanize the unborn child in order to salve the guilt they feel when they support the practice of abortion or actually have one.  Sometimes they will resort to the “fetus as parasite” argument, going beyond dehumanization to paint the unborn child as some sort of disgusting wormlike abomination draining the blood and life force from its “host.”
Third-trimester abortionist Warren Hern insists in his book Abortion Practice that “The relationship between the gravid female and the feto-placental unit can be understood best as one of host and parasite.”5
When pro-abortionists insist that the unborn child is a parasite, they are acknowledging its separate nature, because parasites are never part of their host’s body.  They are biologically separate and distinct organisms.  Anyone denying this fact is simply being anti-scientific.
One way to clarify your point is to ask the pro-abortionist a question.  If they went to some underdeveloped part of the world and picked up a tapeworm because they ate some insufficiently cooked food, would they consider that parasite to be a part of their body?

Woman and Child:  Separate Bodies, Separate Natures

If an unborn baby were part of its mother’s body, it would share all of her biological characteristics.  After all, geneticists can positively identify the individual person from whom a cell came by examining its genetic structure.
In order to highlight the fact that the baby is a separate being, consider these facts, which not even the most ignorant pro-abortionist can deny:
  • All mothers are obviously female. About half of their children are male.  How can a human being be both male and female?
  • The mother and baby frequently have different blood types.
  • The baby can be a different race from the mother.
  • Every cell in the mother’s body has a set of chromosomal characteristics that is entirely distinct from every cell in the baby’s body.
  • When the unborn child anchors to the uterine wall, there is a concerted attack by white blood cells to defeat him, and he must defend himself. The mother’s immune system recognizes it as “non-self.”  Therefore, it is not part of her body.
  • The baby can die without the mother dying. The mother can die without the baby dying (the baby can be rescued if he is viable.)
  • The unborn baby initiates a process that culminates in its leaving the mother’s body. Challenge a pro-abortionist to name any other body organ that does this.

Conclusion

Pro-lifers agree that a woman does indeed have the right to control her own body.  However, the right to privacy and control over one’s body does not in any way imply the right to destroy another person’s body.  And a woman has already procreated when she has conceived.

Related:

Endnotes

  • The Marquis de Sade, quoted in “Yet another Effort, Frenchmen.” Juliette [New York City:  Grove Paperbacks, Inc.], 1968, pages 336, 782 and 783.  It is interesting to note that de Sade’s novels were replete with several recurring themes, one of the strongest of which was the pleasure which certain disturbed individuals derive from killing both pregnant women and unborn children.  In one of his grisly and deranged novels, he describes with great relish the skewering of a pregnant woman with a red hot iron rod driven through both her and her unborn baby, as described in Dr. Kenneth M. Mitzner.  “The Abortion Culture.”  Triumph, March 1973, pages 20 to 24.
  • Nobel Prize winner Dr. Francis Crick. Pacific News Service, January 1978.
  • Hastings Center ethicist Joseph Fletcher. “Four Indicators of Humanhood?:  The Enquiry Matures.”  Hastings Center Report, December 1974.
  • Steven Ertelt. “White House:  Abortion OK, but Visitors Must Register Unborn Children.”  LifeNews, May 8, 2012.
  • Abortionist Warren Hern. Abortion Practice.  B. Lippincott Company, 1984.https://www.hli.org/resources/shouldnt-women-able-control-bodies/

Monday, November 25, 2019

California Won't Buy Cars From GM, Chrysler or Toyota Because They Sided With Trump Over Emissions, As Obama Takes Victory Lap Over Auto Industry Rescue.


Obama should feel welcome, it’s Detroit and Michigan. In his visit to the North American International Auto Show today, he took a victory lap touting his administration’s bailout of General Motors GM +0% and Chrysler.
The decision to bail out General Motors and Chrysler, and aid their financing subsidiaries and suppliers through loan guarantees in 2009 in the teeth of the economic meltdown that gripped world markets, was hotly debated at the time and since. But given the 640,000 auto industry jobs created since then and the record sales by the industry in 2015, the President has room to crow.
"I think the president is well entitled to come to Detroit to celebrate the auto industry, because he made some very tough decisions that at the time were politically very unpopular," Steven Rattner, former “car czar” who advised the President on the bailout told mlive.com ahead of the President’s visit.


The state of California is taking aim at GM (GM), Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan and other automakers that are aligning with the Trump administration in its battle over emissions rules.
California issued a statement late Monday saying that as of January the state would only buy vehicles from automakers that recognize the California Air Resources Board's authority to set tough greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles. California also pledged only to do business with automakers that committed to stringent emissions reduction goals.
Separately, the state also said it will no longer buy sedans that are powered only by internal combustion engines, no matter who manufactures the car. It will buy only plug-in electric or hybrid sedans, although California would make an exception for certain public safety vehicles. That rule does not apply to SUV or truck purchases.
"Car makers that have chosen to be on the wrong side of history will be on the losing end of California's buying power," said California Governor Gavin Newsom in a statement. "In court, and in the marketplace, California is standing up to those who put short-term profits ahead of our health and our future."

Monday, November 18, 2019

Justice Gorsuch Condemns The Death And Suicide Cult And Condemns Assisted Suicide And Euthanasia as A Violation Of Basic Legal Tenets Of American law.


Image result for the future of assisted suicide and euthanasia summary




Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has written The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, a book that eloquently condemns assisted suicide and euthanasia as a violation of basic legal tenets of American law.
In the process of his criticism, he reasserted the value of life and the individual and sounded an alarm about the values of life and the individual that were at risk from the aggressive project to promote euthanasia and assisted suicide.
There is no doubt that Gorsuch provides the most thorough and compelling condemnation of assisted suicide and euthanasia yet.  He certainly puts a hole in the side of the ship of the cult of death.  His book provides a thorough overview of the ethical and legal issues raised by assisted suicide and euthanasia and a comprehensive argument against the legalization of these heinous acts.
Judge Gorsuch evaluates the ethical arguments for euthanasia and assisted suicide, lays out the evidence on how these projects result in a casual dismissal of the meaning of life in places where the new approach has been adopted like the Netherlands and Oregon, and makes a strong case for the malfeasance and immoral conduct these enabling laws create. 
Judge Gorsuch assesses the ethical and moral arguments of the advocates of a liberated approach to killing the useless eaters and the disabled when contrasted with the principle that intentional killing is always wrong.  

Judge Gorsuch is leery of killing depressed and hopeless individuals for the obvious reason: their depressed state is a pathological state in itself, deserving of treatment, not enablement.  Judge Gorsuch builds a robust argument against legalization when he confronts the ethical arguments for assisted suicide and euthanasia.  He explores evidence and case histories from the Netherlands and Oregon, where the practices have been legalized.  He analyzes libertarian and autonomy-based arguments for legalization as well as the impact of key U.S. Supreme Court decisions on the debate.  And he examines the history and evolution of laws and attitudes regarding assisted suicide and euthanasia in American society.
After assessing the strengths and weaknesses of arguments for assisted suicide and euthanasia, Gorsuch builds a reasonable and powerful moral and legal argument against legalization, one based on a principle that, surprisingly, has largely been overlooked in the debate — the idea that human life is intrinsically valuable and that intentional killing is always wrong.  At the same time, the argument Gorsuch develops leaves wide latitude for individual patient autonomy and the refusal of unwanted medical treatment and life-sustaining care, permitting intervention only in cases where an intention to kill is present.
Those on both sides of the assisted suicide question will find Gorsuch's analysis a thoughtful and stimulating contribution to the debate about one of the most controversial public policy issues of our day.  
I would add to Judge Gorsuch's presentation the essay by  Dr. Leo Alexander that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1949, an analysis of the reasons why the Nazi physicians were able to kill and maim individuals considered inferior or not deserving of consideration as human — for political, social, or ideological reasons.  Dr. Alexander, an American neurologist/psychiatrist, a Jew, educated in Vienna, investigator for the Nuremberg Tribunal that had Nazi physicians on trial for war crimes, asserts that the moral limits are violated when individuals and the society at large accept the idea that there are sub-humans who are expendable, unacceptable, inferior, or a burden or disabled so they cannot contribute.  If the status of those individuals is considered less than human, the easy step is to treat them as subhuman, candidates for abuse and extermination by the will of the state and its officials.
There is an ominous taint to the idea that the law and the government will enable killing people because they are sick or depressed, or disabled, or just old and willing to end it. 
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12458-2 Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 2006