Déjà Vu: A Late Hit in a Gubernatorial Race
A late campaign hit with Gloria Allred as part of it … I’ve lived through this before during the Schwarzenegger 2003 gubernatorial campaign. As in that instance, it will take a few days to play out and see what is behind the revelation. But like the 2003 media circus over Schwarzenegger’s interaction with some women during his movie career, the late hit raises many questions.
The one thing that is unclear in housekeeper Nicandra Diaz-Santillan’s story is her statement that she revealed to Meg Whitman and her husband in 2009 that she was not here legally while at the same time Diaz-Santillan’s lawyer, Allred, charges that Whitman and her husband knew all along of her status. That doesn’t compute.
If Whitman and the hiring agency checked all Diaz-Santillan’s papers and they appeared in order there was nothing else Whitman need do.
Blow Up This Box Before It’s Built
You
can tell when the substantive arguments run out of gas – the name-calling
begins.
That’s
happening now in the debate over the California Health Benefit Exchange,
proposed by SB
900 and AB
1602, which would create a brand new bureaucracy with extraordinary powers
to implement a new entitlement program.
Far
from spreading "fear-mongering falsehoods," the California Chamber of
Commerce and former state Director of Finance Michael Genest are flagging
legitimate concerns about how this Exchange will function: its
accountability to the Legislature and the Governor, and its ability to obligate
new state spending without any recourse by elected officials.
Green Chemistry Regulations Focused on Chemicals & Products of Highest Concern
In his Fox & Hounds Daily blog post Sept. 22, Jim Conran, president of Consumers Union, asks a critical and important question about California’s emerging Safer Consumer Products initiative. Will consumers and businesses actually be better off as a result of this groundbreaking new approach?
He couldn’t be more right in his reasoning that California is taking a significant step forward in the way consumer products are designed and manufactured. And we agree fully with his case for a common-sense regulatory approach as it unfolds in coming years. The fundamental goal of our initiative is to reduce or eliminate harmful chemical ingredients in consumer products where there is the greatest exposure and harm.
In his concerns, however, about the state’s proposed regulatory process to bring about a shift to safer products, Mr. Conran overlooks one thing: The state’s regulation is designed to accomplish precisely the pinpoint approach that he seeks.
Stuck in the Weed – No on Prop. 19
Many Californians agree that the decades-long "war on drugs" has been a
failure. We’ve spent billions of dollars to incarcerate thousands of
inmates for drug offenses. And public opinion about marijuana use is
shifting. Wouldn’t California be better served by regulating and taxing
marijuana? No, not if Proposition 19 is the answer because it creates many more serious problems than it portends to solve.
Prop 19. is titled the "Regulate, Control & Tax Cannabis Act of 2010,"
yet the initiative fails to do any of those three things. Prop. 19 does
not set forth a statewide regulatory framework for legalization.
Instead, it leaves it up to the local governments to set their own
standards. The result will be a patchwork of conflicting laws that will
create a whole new set of legal nightmares for law enforcement
officials and our courts.
Among the many other concerns about Prop. 19 are: