The Inland Empire is home to some of the worst air pollution in the nation, and though we are seeing some slow improvement in air quality here, Riverside County remains part of one of the country’s top 25 most air polluted regions. Prop 23, which is on the statewide ballot next week, would put the brakes on clean energy development in California, and would be a huge setback in our progress toward cleaner air and a world-leading clean energy economy.

Texas oil companies – including Valero, Tesoro and Koch Industries – are the principal backers of Prop 23. Why? Our move to a clean energy economy is a direct threat to their industry, whose product is gasoline, whose byproduct is dirty air and damaged health and whose simple equation is the more gasoline they sell in California, the greater their profits.

In the run-up to the election, the Los Angeles Times https:> waterboarded some statistics, and elicited a confession that … wait for it … California corporations don’t pay enough in taxes.

An editorial followedhttps: la-ed-1026-taxes-20101026,0,6229319.story?track=”rss”>, which seems redundant.

The basis of this pseudoanalysis seems to be this truism: voters don’t like "corporations." With that as a premise, any analysis will do.

It is like Ronald Reagan talking to us from the Great Beyond – a slate card called "Continuing the Republican Revolution", put out by Orange County consultant Scott Hart, starts out: "President Ronald Reagan will be forever remembered on his upcoming 100th birthday. God bless him, and God bless America."

But President Reagan must have changed parties, because the positions on ballot measures encouraged on this card, complete with the Republican National Committee blue and red elephant logo, are exactly the opposite of the official GOP positions.

A trio of some of the wealthiest men from Hollywood and Wall Street has unveiled a self-congratulatory video aimed at defeating the California Jobs Initiative, Proposition 23.

At the roll-out, actor-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hollywood director James Cameron, and billionaire hedge fund manager Thomas Steyer smugly reminisced about making movies, riding motorcycles, travelling the world together, and their personal environmental epiphanies. This enlightenment apparently has not inspired them to give up their own carbon-intensive lifestyles which reportedly include multiple mansions, fleets of gas-guzzling exotic cars, private jets, yachts, and of course, motorcycles.

The state monthly job numbers released last Friday show
California falling further behind the nation in employment growth. The
California unemployment rate throughout the Great Recession has been well above
the national rate, and at 12.4%, the  current state unemployment rate continues to be above the
national rate of 9.6%. However, the main storyline of last week’s job numbers
is California’s payroll job losses.

Overall, the nation lost a net 95,000 payroll jobs in
September 2010. Of this amount, California accounted for a loss of 63,600 net
payroll jobs, far above any other state. New York suffered the second largest
loss at 37,600 jobs. In contrast, several states showed net job gains,
including North Carolina (+10,100 jobs), 

Of course, Jerry Brown would take the deal offered by Matt
Lauer to pull his "negative ads." Brown benefits from such a deal.

Today Show host
Matt Lauer, conducting an interview session with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
and governor hopefuls Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman at the Women’s Conference, brought
a rather sedate session to life by proposing the two candidates pull "negative"
campaign ads.

As President Obama and lame duck Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have
learned the hard way, complete overhauls or transformations are rare in
American politics. Incrementalism is the general rule even here in California
despite our reputation for exporting revolutionary
ideas.  California has been in
acute crisis mode for the better part of the last two decades as made stark in
two new books, Remaking
California and California
Crackup.  That’s a
generation-load of opportunity gone to waste.  Pundits Mark Paul and Joe Mathews close their
reform-blueprint book, California Crackup, with a reminder of the scroll on
display in the state capitol: "Bring Me Men to Match My Mountains!"  It is call to arms for all reformers.

In November 2008, Barack Obama outpolled John McCain in 12
of 29 assembly seats that are currently held by a Republican.

At the early beginning of this election cycle – with Obama’s
popularity in this state above 60 percent – I predicted that the Democratic
Assembly leadership would make a serious effort to increase their numbers and
maybe be able to pick up the three seats needed for a super two-thirds
majority.

November 2010, I predicted, was going to be one of the most
competitive election cycles in the battle for assembly seats than this state
has seen in more than a decade.

In case you haven’t noticed, cities and other governments across California are in competition to see which ones can bankrupt themselves first by heaping ungodly cash on ex-bureaucrats. And it’s a pretty exciting race. https:>

Now, pension payouts never used to be a big whoop when it came to budget expenses of governments. No more. Your creative government-elected officials have sure seen to that.