February 7, 2020 – Really Right

Carville Sounds off on the Democrat Party

By Chief

James Carville is a fiery guy even at the ripe old age of 75. Carville for those of you in Rio Linda, related to a Park brother, or just flat out dumb is most known for his prominence during the Clinton years, in addition to being one very ugly human being. Carville is most widely credited with getting Bill Clinton elected President, defending him during his impeachment, and is a very well know political commentator. Recently he gave an interview where he blew up the Democrat Party far worse than any other human being including our own Troll could ever do.

Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville went off on the current state of the party on Tuesday, asking why Tom Perez “is still the chair” of the Democratic National Committee.

“We gotta decide what we want to be,” the “Ragin’ Cajun” said on “The Beat” with Ari Melber on MSNBC. “Do we want to be an ideological cult, or do we want to have a majoritarian instinct — to be a majority party?”
James Carville tees off on state of Democratic Party: ‘Do we want to be an ideological cult?’

The truth is James is correct here and his warning needs to be heeded. The Party was so caught up in defeating Trump at all costs that it has given rise to a strange group of characters. To be fair he also criticized the GOP for this back during 2010 with the rise of the Tea Party. In a world of no compromise, strange battle lines are drawn.

Look at some of the absolutely nuts political positions the Democrats have taken up over the last 6 years. Contempt for the police, contempt for any district attorney, outright disrespect for any elected official they disagree with, allowing felons to vote – especially from a jail cell. Is anarchy what they want? Why are Stephon Clark, Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin idolized and the responding officers criminalized? Electeds are shouted down and harassed while they are out and about? What happened to civil disagreement?

Free education, free healthcare; no more handouts to corporations, close Wall St. So who pays for all this? Or better yet how do we as a country afford this? Who would want to work in a government regulated industry as opposed to a free market one?

Defund ICE, no border security, legalize drugs. Where does it end? So now it’s just a country with no rules or laws? Folks we need some modicum of security albeit not a police state to prevent crime/terror etc. from happening here.

“We’re, like, talking about people voting from jail cells,” Carville said at another point. “And not having a border.” –James Carville

Carville is on to something. It has been brewing in the Democrat Party for a while now and they have become an ideological, tribalistic cult. All of this came to a head this week. Schiff decried the impeachment acquittal, Pelosi ripped up the State of the Union Speech for all to see, AOC commented how Limbaugh didn’t deserve the Medal of Freedom since he is (allegedly in her view) a racist, the Iowa Caucus was a disaster, literally nothing went right for them. Worse yet, the public outcry from both sides has been worse. It is very sad, but the Party is kicking out the very voters who put Barack Obama in power.

Just think about it; if you work in a trade, you are a loser who didn’t go to college. Work for law enforcement and you must hate black/brown people. Don’t drive a hybrid/Tesla/etc….you must hate the environment. Make a decent living…you must be rich by stealing from poor people and need to pay more taxes. There are plenty more examples, I just do not wish to cite. These have slowly alienated your base little by little.

In reality it’s what the power brokers have always wanted; they want the Coasts, not fly over country. What do you think the talk of abolishing the Electoral College and going with the popular vote is about? In truth, under the current system, if you look at the Left Coast, New England, New York/Jersey, Illinois you have a solid block of support. You really only need a couple of other states to win the Presidency, the problem is you alienated your voters in these swing states.

In closing Carville was reacting to a poll showing about 29% of Seniors would vote for Biden vs only a token percentage for Sanders/Warren. Sanders/Warren do very well with young voters, but the older voters are far more likely to vote, and there is a very good chance if nominated, Sanders goes down early. In addition, 18% of the voters pick 52 of the 100 Senators.

Carville would go on to exclaim that Democrats need to be more concerned about taking power back in Washington, repeatedly stating that only 18 percent of the population controls 52 Senate seats.

“It matters who the candidate is, it matters what a party chooses to talk about!” Carville shouted. “I’m 75 years old. Why am I here doing this? Because I am scared to death, that’s why! Let’s get relevant here, people, for sure.”
James Carville Rages Over State of Democratic Party: ‘I’m Scared to Death!’

Just food for thought.

Chief

Is California Breaking California Law?

In October 2019, Garvin Newsom signed a two page bill (AB 749) into law but it looks to me that the state isn’t following it. I would like somebody that passed the bar to give me their take on my question.

While this law probably has no effect on most readers, it should be instructive to see how government really functions.

Before AB 749

Like many things, the bill is in response to a lawsuit. Below is the situation prior to the passage of AB 749.

Carmyn Fields, a former California Highway Patrol analyst, told a state Senate committee in June that she has been unable to find employment with another law enforcement agency since she reached a settlement agreement with CHP.

Fields sued the department after supervisors failed to take action when she reported her boss had repeatedly sexually harassed her. Her settlement agreement included a “no rehire” clause.

Now when she applies for other state law enforcement jobs, she has to disclose on the state application that she “agreed not to seek or accept subsequent employment with the state or any state agency.”
New California law bans ‘no-rehire’ clauses after worker lawsuits

Here is the language cited by Carmyn Fields in the Sacramento Bee article quoted above.

Have you ever entered into any written agreement with a state agency in which you agreed not to seek or accept subsequent employment with the state or any state agency?

Have you ever entered into any written agreement with a state agency involving an adverse action, rejection on probation, or AWOL termination, in which you agreed not to seek or accept subsequent employment with a particular state agency?

After AB 749

The law went into effect January 1, 2020. Here are descriptions of how it is supposed to work.

Under new Code of Civil Procedure section 1002.5 (AB 7 49), effective Jan. 1, a settlement agreement or severance agreement in an employment dispute cannot contain a provision prohibiting, preventing, or restricting an “aggrieved person” from obtaining future employment with the employer, parent company, subsidiary, division, affiliate, or contractor of the employer. The new law explicitly states that a “no rehire” provision is void as a matter of law and against public policy.

An employer may include a “no rehire” provision in a severance or separation agreement if the employee has not filed a claim against the employer. Also, an employer can include a “no rehire” provision in a settlement agreement if the employer has made a good faith determination that the settling employee engaged in sexual harassment or sexual assault.
Sara Boyns, Workplace Law: Limitations on no rehire provisions

Additionally, under AB 749, employers will need to review their standard settlement agreements to remove provisions that preclude an employee from being rehired by the employer or obtaining employment with an affiliate.
These 2020 laws look to level playing field for California workers

The bill summary written by the Legislative Counsel states:

This bill would prohibit an agreement to settle an employment dispute from containing a provision that prohibits, prevents, or otherwise restricts a settling party that is an aggrieved person, as defined, from working for the employer against which the aggrieved person has filed a claim or any parent company, subsidiary, division, affiliate, or contractor of the employer.

(AB 749 appears in its entirety at the end of this post.)

Legal Question

Given the above, why is the State of California still requiring every job applicant to answer the very questions that gave rise to AB 749?

The questions asked of Carmyn Fields, are still being asked in February 2020, six weeks after they were made illegal, allegedly.

Here is a screen shot from the California HR website from earlier this week.

Have you ever entered into any written agreement with a state agency in which you agreed not to seek or accept subsequent employment with the state or any state agency?

Have you ever entered into any written agreement with a state agency involving an adverse action, rejection on probation, or AWOL termination, in which you agreed not to seek or accept subsequent employment with a particular state agency?

Did I miss something or is the Human Resources department of the State of California violating the law?

Those with a J.D. at the end of your name, please opine.

Below is the bill in its entirety.

Crazy Water Solutions for California

Our rainfall this year seems to be less than needed which got me to thinking about drought again. Folks, why fix our water problems in California when you can make it other people’s problem? The truth is that we haven’t made any serious efforts to improve water storage in California since Jerry Brown’s dad was governor in the 1960’s. Sure the population has quadrupled since then but as Alfred E Newman says, “What, me worry?”

Oh, just to be technically correct, Arnold authorized one dam be dismantled in Northern California while San Francisco is clamoring to dismantle their primary water source, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir (photo above).

Meanwhile both Brown and Newsom want to kill the Delta by syphoning water in such a way to send it to Los Angeles. Please note that this will be an environmental disaster and not produce any increase in the water already being transferred to the south state. It is a water quality not quantity issue.

So instead of fighting the self-imposed red tape here in California, folks want to get water from other states.

Proposal one is get the water from the Columbia River. Like you really believe that Oregon and Washington will gladly part with their water and allow it piped across their states and dumped in Shasta Lake so it can be flushed down to the ocean. Here’s a few stories on just that. Oh, just wait until you see what’s next!

Speculation is high that Oregon has, for the first time, begun formal exploration into the feasibility of sending surplus water from the Columbia River south to thirsty California. The success of the recently announced giant wind farm has water export proponents salivating at the chance to tap just a small portion of the average 265,000 cubic feet of water per second that slips by Oregon, unused but for power generation, fish habitat and limited shipping.

Closed-door sessions have been held privately in recent months to discuss the very future of the Columbia River as we know it today. People have been asking for Oregon’s water for a long time. In 1990 Kenneth Hahn, an LA County Supervisor, formally requested water from Oregon via pipe to offset the severe water shortages they were experiencing. Then governor Neil Goldschmidt said no to the request, as did then Washington governor Booth Gardner.
Columbia River Water Next Export to California

It is estimated that Oregon could supply California with approximately 8 billion gallons of water each day without any deleterious effect on either the environment or shipping. That amount of water could easily end, forever, the shortages that have plagued Southern California for decades. At the same time, jobs and revenue would flow into Oregon in numbers never seen before. It is estimated that at least 7,000 new temporary jobs would be created to construct the pipe and that 125 permanent jobs would be created in maintaining the pipe and pumps needed to supply the water. Revenue for this water, at current California rates, could easily top six million dollars per day or more. “That is over two billion dollars of revenue per year for Oregon for something that costs Oregon nothing,” noted Branxton.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune

The idea that intrigues us the most is a pipeline from the Columbia River, which separates Oregon and Washington. It is the fourth-largest river in the nation and has the greatest flow of any American river draining into the Pacific. In other words, it carries a lot of water.
A water pipeline from Oregon to California?

But folks, why just pipe water across two states from the fourth largest river in the country when you could go for number one. America likes number one so why not get the water for California from the Mississippi River? No Kidding!!!

The largest eastern river, the Mississippi, has about 30 times the average annual flow of the Colorado, and the Columbia has close to 10 times. Water from these and other large rivers pours unused into the sea.

Thus, the West’s chronic water shortages result from a failure to appropriately redistribute our nation’s abundant total water resources.

We envision a major combined federal and private hallmark program for the nation – an Interstate Water System (IWS), which would rival in importance and transformative potential the Interstate Highway System, whose formation was championed by President Dwight Eisenhower. America already moves some water and stores it in man-made lakes, and the IWS would be designed to expand the country’s water-related infrastructure by crossing state boundaries to transport water from where America has an abundance of it to where it is needed. With modifications and expansions over time, no part of the U.S. need find itself short of water.

The IWS is practicable. Assume that an initial goal might be doubling the water flow, averaging about 20,000 cubic feet per second, to Colorado River system reservoirs. Pumping Mississippi River water to about 4,000-5,000 feet altitude would likely be needed to supply reservoirs Lake Mead (altitude 1,100 feet) and/or Lake Powell (altitude 3,600 feet). We estimate that fewer than 10 power plants of typical one-gigawatt size could provide the energy to move water halfway across the nation to double the flow of the Colorado River, while gravity-driven flow turning turbines below its reservoir lakes would eventually regenerate much of the input energy required.
A Bold Fix For The West’s Water Woes

Truthfully, I think Trump would support it if California and other western states asked but I just don’t see this happening.