You can’t really argue with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political success. In 2002 the California Republican Party, still suffering from the anti-immigrant fervor cooked up by former Gov. Pete Wilson, failed to win any statewide offices for the first time since 1882. Yet just one year later Schwarzenegger led a recall effort against the fiscally reckless and managerially incompetent Democratic governor, Gray Davis, beating out the nearest Democratic challenger for the newly vacated position by a margin of more than 2 to 1. Even as Republicans nationwide took a drubbing in the 2006 elections, losing both houses of Congress and the majority of governorships for the first time in 12 years, the bodybuilder-turned-actor, running in an increasingly blue state, smashed Democrat Phil Angelides by a ridiculous 17 percentage points. (For more on how Angelides still managed to push California closer to fiscal disaster, see Jon Entine’s “The Next Catastrophe,” page 20.)
That the Austrian Oak pulled out such a victory just two years after calling Democrats “girly-men” at the Republican National Convention, and only 12 months after having his pet special-election ballot initiative package decisively repudiated at the polls, cemented Schwarzenegger’s persona as a masterfully adaptive politician, able to bend in the direction of the Golden State’s famously eccentric electorate in a way that his fellow state Republicans, with their emphases on immigration and abortion, could not.
Three years after knee-capping Schwarzenegger with an investigation of his tendency to paw unwilling women, the Los Angeles Times was arguing that the U.S. Constitution should be amended so that the foreign-born governor might one day become president. Time magazine put Arnold and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on its cover in June 2007, offering their cosmopolitan Republicanism as the only hopeful future for a party increasingly dominated, and dragged down by, social conservatives. These “socially liberal Republicans who have flourished in Democratic political cultures,” the magazine enthused, are “doing big things that Washington has failed to do.”
Chief among the things Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg have accomplished is winning elections. Republicans took an even worse drubbing in November 2008 than in November 2006, and as I write are neck deep in a civil war over the party’s future, with cultural conservatives rallying behind controversial Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to represent what is now the largest voting bloc remaining inside Ronald Reagan’s diminished big tent. To the less-than-casual observer who has a distaste for social conservatism (i.e., the average journalist), the only way forward for the Grand Old Party in the 21st century is a kind of moderate Schwarzeneggerism. “Pragmatic Republicans like [Florida Gov. Charlie] Crist, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, Indiana governor Mitch Daniels and even conservative Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal,” Time’s Tim Padgett wrote after the 2008 elections, “will likely be the phoenixes that rise from the GOP ashes of 2008.”
If that’s true, Republicans may be worse off than we thought. It’s not that Schwarzenegger is wrong about de-emphasizing or even rejecting elements of social conservatism. Expending political energy on making sure same-sex couples cannot be legally recognized as married, as Republicans continue to do with short-term success in California and elsewhere, is both bad policy (by consciously restricting the freedom of a disfavored minority) and lousy politics. The under-30 generation does not much comprehend political animus toward gays and ethnic minorities. As a result, voters between the ages of 18 and 29 are abandoning Republicanism in near-record numbers. Forget the youthful, cross-cultural Barack Obama; the 18-to-29 vote went 63 percent Democrat to 34 percent Republican for the House of Representatives. If Republicans aren’t careful, they’ll go the way of newspapers, becoming something only old people are interested in.
The promise of coastal Republicans in Name Only like Schwarzenegger, at least for the limited-government proponents (including me) who have invested hope in him over the years, was supposed to be that the descriptor socially liberal would be followed by another very important phrase: fiscally conservative. And that’s where the Milton Friedman–quoting governor has been an unalloyed disaster.
Schwarzenegger blew into office decrying California’s bloated budget, vowing to “blow up the boxes” of Sacramento’s bureaucracy, and promising to never again let the Golden State go near Gray Davis’ record-setting $38 billion deficit. Five years into the Schwarzenegger era, the budget has ballooned from $100 billion to $145 billion, and the state’s legislative analyst announced in November that California was facing a deficit of $28 billion. Bond market ratings assess the state as a bigger lending risk than Slovakia. And those bureaucratic boxes have remained largely intact.
How does Schwarzenegger defend this sorry record? In part, by blaming Republicans. “I think the important thing for the Republican Party is now to also look at other issues that are very important for this country and not to get stuck in ideology,” he said on CNN five days after the election. “Let’s go and talk about health care reform. Let’s go and…fund programs if they’re necessary programs and not get stuck just on the fiscal responsibility.”
What are some of these “necessary programs”? How about a $9.9 billion bond for a long-dreamed-of high-speed rail project between Los Angeles and San Francisco that is expected to cost at least $45 billion, which even supporters such as the Los Angeles Times editorial board think will require “many billions more” in subsidies? Then there’s the $3 billion bond from 2004 to put California bureaucrats in the stem cell research business, mostly as a poke in the eye of George W. Bush.
How to pay for all this during what the governor has declared a “financial emergency”? Partly by rattling the tin cup outside the White House. Schwarzenegger was one of the first governors to hit up Washington for some of that fat bailout money gushing from the Oval Office.
But the spending splurge also requires new taxes, according to the governor: a “temporary” 1.5-percentage-point increase in the 7.25 percent sales tax, an increase in the number of services covered by the sales tax, higher taxes for alcohol and oil production, and so on. Many analysts believe that the governor who quickly fulfilled his recall-campaign promise to cut the state’s vehicle license fees will soon resort to restoring those charges to at least Gray Davis levels.
Even on social issues, where Schwarzenegger’s more libertarian approach was supposed to avoid the Republican trap of freedom constricting politics, the governor instead has embraced the freedom-constricting policies of the left. To cite one particularly ironic example, in 2004 he signed a law requiring every California employer with more than 50 workers to force upon its managers state-approved sexual harassment training.
Republicans in 2009 are in a mess of their own making. If they interpret the Democrats’ sweeping victory as a clarion call to foray further into religiously inspired, Terry Schiavo–style politics that uses government as a lever to manipulate and control other people’s lives, then they will deserve their exile from power.
But it will take more than just eschewing cultural conservatism and adopting the Democrats’ interventionist economic approach to refresh the Republican brand. There is room right now for an opposition party that emphasizes what the governing party does not: freedom, as both the ultimate goal and the means to achieve it.
Back when he was taping testimonials for Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, Arnold Schwarzenegger looked like the kind of person who would indeed choose freedom if given a chance to govern. Instead, he punted on the radical, government-reducing reforms offered to him by his own box-exploding California Performance Review and learned to love—or at least perpetuate—the very bureaucracy he was elected to confront. That’s not a blueprint for 21st-century Republicanism. It’s just George W. Bush’s big-government conservatism with a Hollywood face.
The U.S. Department of Commerce has suggested that Amante and his colleagues at the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency build their proposed toll-road extension through the master-planned community instead of through San Onofre State Beach to the south.
But don't mention the Talega alternative to Amante while he's standing near the approximately 200 homes that his agency said would have to be razed.
“Beyond the value of the actual structures, there are families that live in there. Those are constituents. I have to tell them, 'I have to bulldoze your home.' And when they say, 'Why?' to me, I have to tell them, 'Because most people think we are going to have to anal rape the pocket mouse, state park, a world class surf spot, and an ancient Indian burial ground for an east west toll road that will not fix our north south traffic problem ” said Amante, chairman of the transportation agency's board.
Amante's preferred path would lengthen state Route 241 by 16 miles – from Oso Parkway in Rancho Santa Margarita to Basilone Road at Camp Pendleton. It pits some of California's highest priorities against one another, including traffic relief versus habitat conservation and new housing developments versus popular surfing and camping sites.
Supporters and opponents of the tollway extension both say they want to preserve or improve the region's quality of life, but they disagree on basic facts of the project and don't appear ready to compromise. Any proposed solution probably will become mired in litigation or political gridlock.
The transportation agency has spent two decades and about $200 million planning and promoting its tollway strategy, but the Commerce Department rejected the agency's favored corridor last month. Its board members will consider the next move during a meeting Thursday, including whether to sue the Commerce Department or pick an alternative alignment.
“We will not falter in our mission,” reads a full-page ad the agency has been running in regional newspapers. Its board comprises elected officials from Orange County.
The agency faces extra pressure to succeed because in some recent months, toll payments on its existing roads have dipped by more than 10 percent year over year.
Amante, who also is mayor pro tem of Tustin, linked the downturn to the recession. He said that doesn't relieve him of his duty to plan for continued growth in southern Orange County.
Over the years, tollway leaders – along with some federal officials – have looked at dozens of ways to extend state Route 241. They have to contend with potential barriers such as wetlands, hilly terrain, the 1,200-acre Donna O'Neill Land Conservancy, and housing and business developments.
The transportation agency winnowed the list of routes to eight, then weeded out alignments that it thought would damage existing and proposed neighborhoods or cause too much environmental harm. In 2006, it officially selected a $1.3 billion route that would cross through the San Onofre park.
Among the spiked alternatives is one that would brush the edge of Talega, where the median home price tops $600,000. That 8.7-mile route was highlighted by the Commerce Department as “available and reasonable.” It would relieve congestion on Interstate 5 by more than 50 percent and reduce arterial delays by 17 percent, federal officials said.
But that route doesn't connect directly to I-5, and tollway leaders said it would provide less than half the traffic relief as their preferred corridor.
Tollway opponents concede that something should be done to improve traffic flow on I-5. An average of nearly 300,000 vehicles use the freeway at Oso Parkway each weekday, about twice the count at Nobel Drive in La Jolla, according to 2007 figures from the California Department of Transportation.
Toll-road officials said that without changes by 2025, it will take an hour to drive about 16 miles on I-5 from the San Diego-Orange county line to Mission Viejo during peak weekday traffic. They said their desired 241 extension would cut travel time on the interstate by more than half.
On the environmental end, the transportation agency's leaders say building a four-to six-lane highway through the land conservancy and state park is the least ecologically damaging choice. They emphasize mitigation features such as wildlife crossings and efforts to avoid impinging on the famous Trestles surf spot.
But in February, the California Coastal Commission rejected the San Onofre alignment.
“It would be difficult to imagine a more environmentally damaging . . . location for the proposed toll road” and one that's more inconsistent with provisions of the Coastal Act, the commission's staff report said.
It said several alternative routes might pass muster with coastal protection rules, and it highlighted the possibility of widening I-5.
The I-5 option is supported by the Save San Onofre Coalition, an alliance of conservationists and surfers that wants to preserve the state park. About 2.5 million visitors camp, surf, sunbathe and hike there each year.
“We are not just interested in stopping this toll road through San Onofre. We are interested in advancing a solution that will solve the traffic problem,” said attorney Joel Reynolds of the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles, which is part of the coalition.
The transportation agency said expanding I-5 is too costly – at least $3.7 billion, by its estimate – and too disruptive to nearby residents. Making room for a wider freeway would require condemning 1,200 homes and businesses, tollway officials said.
They also hammer the point that there's no foreseeable state funding for major I-5 upgrades.
Reynolds dismissed those objections. “They haven't looked at alternatives in any serious way,” he said. “They decided where they wanted the road to go, and everything they have done since then has been set up to rationalize (their) own preferred alternative.”
The Save San Onofre Coalition said careful planning and better design for an expanded I-5 could reduce the eminent-domain number to about 70 homes and businesses.
“This alternative is equally or more effective than the toll road in resolving traffic congestion, without the huge and permanent loss of irreplaceable environmental and recreational resources,” Vermont-based Smart Mobility Inc. said in a January 2008 analysis of widening I-5.
But in October, the Federal Highway Administration said that based on the project's cost and benefits, tollway officials were correct in eliminating the I-5 option.
Despite the competing studies, San Clemente businesswoman Melinda Stone remains firm in her support of the transportation agency's Route 241 plan. She said residents won't back a corridor that takes out homes “when there are so many alternate routes that go through the wilderness.”
On the opposing side, Mark Rauscher of the Surfrider Foundation said efforts to protect the state park won't wane even if the tollway battle continues for years.
The purpose of this cache is not that it's difficult. It's to bring you to a place that's one of the oldest surf spots in Southern California.,San Onofre surf and state beach aka "old mans". Grab the cache, sign the log, and then make sure to walk out to the bluff to check out the surf. It's not like Hawaii's Bonzai pipeline, but I'm sure that some of the locals have felt like they're pipeliners at times.
Why do societies fail? With lessons from the Norse of Iron Age Greenland, deforested Easter Island and present-day Montana, Jared Diamond talks about the signs that collapse is near, and how -- if we see it in time -- we can prevent it.
So this is Christmas And what have you done Another year over And a new one just begun And so this is Christmas I hope you have fun The near and the dear ones The old and the young
A very merry Christmas And a happy New Year Let's hope it's a good one Without any fear
And so this is Christmas War is over For weak and for strong If you want it For rich and the poor ones War is over The world is so wrong Now And so Happy Christmas War is over For black and for white If you want it For yellow and red ones War is over Let's stop all the fight Now
A very merry Christmas And a happy New Year Let's hope it's a good one Without any fear
And so this is Christmas War is over And what have we done If you want it Another year over War is over And a new one just begun Now And so Happy Christmas War is over I hope you have fun If you want it The near and the dear one War is over The old and the young Now
A very merry Christmas And a happy New Year Let's hope it's a good one Without any fear
California transit systems destroyed by General Motors included those in the East Bay, San Jose, Fresno, Stockton, Sacramento, San Diego and the biggest, Los Angeles. Los Angeles / Orange County Area
The Los Angeles system consisted of two companies, Los Angeles Railway, with 1042 yellow streetcars, and Pacific Electric, with 437 red electric cars. At least one line was quad tracked for express train service. Pacific Electric had a subway thru downtown Los Angeles. [Figures from PUC Special Study TR-23, 1944].
General Motors has admitted that "GM made ... investments in American City Lines in 1943." Soon, American City Lines was buying stock in Los Angeles Railway. By May 1, 1945, they owned 59% of the outstanding stock. The same month, the Los Angeles Railway announced plans to scrap most of the streetcar lines [Source: Moody's]. Pacific Electric was acquired in 1953. By then, a number of lines had already been acquired and destroyed via Pacific City Lines [Source: Hearings before the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly: American Ground Transport, 1974]. The Hollywood Blvd. line was destroyed in 1954 and the Glendale-Burbank line in 1955, both using the subway under downtown LA.
Kerosene was poured on the streetcars and electric trains and they were burned, except a few placed in museums. Nothing was left of the transit system which had comprised 1479 streetcars and train cars. There were also trolley buses by LA Railway.
San Diego
On March 12, 1949, General Motors was convicted for monopoly and violating antitrust laws by a federal court. It was fined merely $5000. The fine was not enough to dissuade GM, because the destructions continued using more elaborate "fronts." For example, the selling of the San Diego streetcar system in 1948 (when GM was under indictment), with 104 streetcars, was "to J. L. Haugh, Oakland, for an undisclosed amount" [Moody's Public Utilities Manuals]. Who is this person? The Key System president installed by GM! Previous to that, he was an executive at Pacific City Lines. San Diego's streetcars, which were the new PCC type - still being used to this day in San Francisco - were scrapped in 1949.
That's not all for J. L. Haugh. In 1953, Jesse L. Haugh "acquired" the Pacific Electric. The real financiers of the takeover were again hidden from the public at the time, but became known later by congressional investigation.
The last year that dividends were paid on Key System stock was in 1947. This meant that the owners of the Key System stock who were not automobile interests, and who owned 36% of the stock, were, in effect, plundered. Stockholders of the Los Angeles Railway, 41% of which was not owned by automobile interests, were also plundered.
It also meant that what was once a private company, making profit and paying taxes, eventually became both government owned and government subsidized, after GM destroyed both its efficiency and its customer base. This process was repeated in other of GM's transit operations in California. The transit companies also had owned much of the property under their tracks, and paid property taxes which roads never paid.
Taxpayers to this day are burdened with subsidizing bus systems. To a much greater extent, they are burdened with subsidizing automobiles whose numbers are far greater than if the electric systems - with streetcars, trains and trolly buses - had remained intact.
The destruction of transit in the East Bay and across the Bay Bridge was, unfortunately, typical for California's other large metropolitan areas. The only large city in California where GM did not destroy the transit system was San Francisco. This was because it was not able to do a takeover: San Francisco's transit system was owned by the City. Of course, GM was savvy enough to not directly buy these transit systems. They used "front" companies, funneling the money through them, and when they achieved control, it was the end for the transit system. All without the public's knowledge...
HEY GM WE WANT OUR RED CAR BACK!!! And I don't think GM's fine of $5000 is going to cut it... DISNEY STYLE MONORAIL ANYONE????
ESTP - "Promotor". Action! When present, things begin to happen. Fiercely competitive. Entrepreneur. Often uses shock effect to get attention. Negotiator par excellence. 4.3% of total population.
Content, emotionally stable, outgoing, social, group oriented, finisher, does not like to be alone, open, decisive, likes external praise, likes to be center of attention, always joking, adjusts easily, likes crowds, self confident, neutral moods, good at getting people to have fun, disorganized, messy, talented at presentation, can be easily annoyed...
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