Day: October 15, 2007

Schwarzenegger Ran Against ‘Car Tax’ in 2003, Now Raises Driver Fees

Jon Ponder

One of the central issues in Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2003 campaign to recall Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, was a phony claim that Davis wanted to raise the California “car tax.” In reality:

Raising fees on driving is a dead certain way to tick off Californians of every political stripe.

[The Vehicle License Fee had been] passed and signed into law under Davis’s predecessor, Republican Pete Wilson, and took effect only under emergency cash fall contingencies so that certain vital state governmental programs could continue.

(The fact that the revenue shortfalls were a result of Enron’s pillaging of California’s energy market — a plunder that many believe was conceived by Ken Lay and Vice Pres. Dick Cheney — is another story.)

Four years later, look who’s raising fees on California drivers now:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday signed into law a controversial increase in motorists’ fees that is intended to raise millions to develop alternative fuel and clean-air technology.

Consumer advocates condemned the bill for putting the costs on the backs of motorists rather than oil companies…

AB 118 … increases the fees charged to car owners in order to raise $210 million for new energy subsidies and clean-air programs.

The governor denied through a representative that he was being inconsistent in approving increases in the smog abatement and vehicle registration fees after initially winning election on a vow to kill an increase in the vehicle license fee.

Since his reelection last year, Schwarzenegger has done an excellent job of appearing in the news only when necessary and avoiding using cutsey catch-phrases (“girly men,” “I’ll be back,” etc.) when speaking in public, and has thus managed to be less annoying to independents and moderate Democrats. Conversely, however, while he has coddled California’s liberal majorities, he has become persona non grata within his own party.

It’s hard to discern a political advantage with this move. Raising fees on driving is a dead certain way to tick off Californians of every political stripe.

Stop Tossing Out Catalogs

Trish

We like to bring you ideas on how to tread a little more lightly upon the earth. The web site, catalogchoice.org, can help by keeping catalogs you don’t want out of your mailbox, recycle bin, or — yikes! — trash.

You register your name and primary mailing address (which are only used to match up your catalog solicitations), then identify which catalogs you don’t want from a searchable list.

After about 10 weeks, viola: no more catalogs. If any do come through after that, catalogchoice will follow up with the merchant for you.

The service is free — and quite reputable.

Catalog Choice is a sponsored project of the Ecology Center. It is endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and funded by the Overbrook Foundation, the Merck Family Fund, and the Kendeda Fund.

And in case you’re feeling sorry for the nice folks who keep thoughtfully sending you these gifts in the mail, rest assured that they would prefer their catalogs go to people who actually want them. You’re doing them a favor by getting off their mailing list.

Florida Lite: Now With 50% Less Bush

Trish

That Florida is a different — and better — place with 50 percent less Bush was made plain in an editorial in the Palm Beach Post.

I doubt such sentiments would have appeared while Jeb was still brutishly steering the ship of state in Tallahassee. But a new story by reporter, author, and Jeb critic S.V. Date (pronounced dah-TAY), whose wife Mary Beth was recently hired into Gov. Crist’s Office of Policy and Budget, has people talking. Freely.

It seems that consultant Donna Arduin, Jeb fan and beneficiary of Florida tax dollars, is still ripping into the public till like a grizzly bear that found a bag of marshmallows in your backpack.

House Speaker Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, The Post reported this week, still spends $10,000 of the public’s money each month for the services of Donna Arduin’s consulting firm. Originally, that contract was supposed to end June 1. Ms. Arduin served as the former governor’s budget director, and is a keeper of the Jeb-is-wonderful flame.

If Donna Arduin’s job is to keep pushing Jeb Bush’s ideas, there’s no market for them

As he began his last year in office, Mr. Bush was denying that he cared about his legacy. In fact, he was installing loyalists who would continue his policies after he left.

When he became speaker, Rep. Rubio found jobs for 18 of Mr. Bush’s former aides. Putting Ms. Arduin on the payroll naturally followed. The question now is what she actually does to earn the money… Her only known contribution this year was the idea that Florida abolish the property tax and replace it with a sales tax that could have been as high as 13 percent…

Maybe the fact that she doesn’t do anything is a good thing. But, then, why pay her? Asked for specifics about what Ms. Arduin does these days, Rep. Rubio responded with platitudes. If her job is to keep pushing Jeb Bush’s ideas, there’s no market for them.

Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing. After eight years of Jeb, I’d almost forgotten that.

Al Qaeda in Iraq Said to Be Defeated

Jon Ponder

This appears to be credible:

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq [AQI] in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.

Of course, it could be White House propaganda to seed good news into the media, however one of the reporters, Thomas Ricks, is the author of “Fiasco,” a book on the Bush administration’s disastrous war planning.

And while the defeat of bin Laden’s franchise group in Iraq is good news for Iraqis and U.S. troops, it is not necessarily a positive development for war advocates, including Pres. George W. Bush who has used AQI as a bogeyman to prolong the fight — as he did in July, addressing a pro-war group in South Carolina:

“It’s hard to argue that Al Qaeda in Iraq is separate from bin Laden’s Al Qaeda when the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq took an oath of allegiance to Osama bin Laden,” Mr. Bush said, referring to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a leader of the affiliated group in Iraq who was killed last year.

Mr. Bush called the two similarly named groups “an alliance of killers,” and said, “No enemy is more ruthless in Iraq than Al Qaeda”…

“We’ll stay on the hunt, we’ll deny them safe haven, and we will defeat them where they have made their stand,” he said. “However difficult the fight is in Iraq, we must win it. And we can win it.”

It is possible that news about the defeat of AQI is the first step in a strategy by the administration to declare victory in Iraq and get out.

Larry Craig to File Appeal Today

Jon Ponder

Associated Press:

Sen. Larry Craig says he will file an appeal Monday over a judge’s refusal to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea stemming from his arrest in an airport bathroom sex sting.

In an interview Sunday with KTVB-TV, Craig repeated he will not resign his post in the Senate and said he will continue to work his legal options.

“It is my right to do what I’m doing,” said Craig, an Idaho Republican. “I’ve already provided for Idaho certainty that Idaho needed — I’m not running for re-election. I’m no longer in the way. I am pursuing my constitutional rights.”