Tag: California
Another Beautiful California Day – Democrats Roll to Victory In the Golden State
The weather is generally so nice in California that one local wag made a habit of abbreviating his sentiments every morning as he took in the pleasant coolness at daybreak. “A.B.C.D.,” Glen Wilcox, my mother’s husband, would say — shorthand for, “Another Beautiful California Day.”
While the rest of the country reels from the results of an election bought and paid for by right-wing billionaires who spent hundreds of millions of dollars running ads in red states that shifted attention away from the Republicans’ dismal approval ratings and record of obstruction and ran instead against Pres. Obama — here in California, waking on Nov. 5 is just another beautiful day for Democrats.
Upon winning an unprecedented fourth term, Gov. Jerry Brown told reporters, “The world looks pretty troubled out there. The country is facing a lot of uncertainty. But here in California, where they called us a failed state, we’re now showing the way.”
We’re Number One! But Did the Voters Cheat?
A recent pronouncement that Florida is the scariest of all 50 states leaves us conflicted. I mean, hey, we’re number one at something! But looking closely at the criteria used, you can’t help but find the competition rigged.
Realtors awarded this distinction, based on 15 things that incite fear, and placed Florida first in three categories: hurricanes, tornados, and shark attacks.
Here at the real estate search site Estately we know there are hundreds of worries when choosing where to buy a home, so to help house hunters make a more informed decision we’ve mapped out where Americans’ darkest fears are most readily found.
But do realtors know their natural disasters? If they did, they’d give Missouri the first place ranking for tornados. Joplin, anyone? Instead, Missouri was given first place in meth labs, an enterprise usually associated with Alaska, or since Breaking Bad, New Mexico.
Earthquakes didn’t make the list. If they had, Oklahoma, which thanks to fracking recently surpassed California in temblors, would excel. Mud slides, another California specialty, were also not even counted. The nearest California got to a category header was number two — for spiders. And number six for dentists.
Getting Out the Pot-Head Vote
Cannabis clubs in San Jose are offering free pot and discounts to patients who go to the polls Tuesday and vote in several contested races. The Silicon Valley Cannabis Coalition is organizing the Weed for Votes program as an effort to increase voter turnout at Tuesday’s election.
— Los Angeles Times.
GOP Donor Handicaps Kashkari’s Chances at California Governorship
I have a better chance of being pope than he has of being governor.
— GOP donor Mark Chapin Johnson, quoted by the Los Angeles Times, on California gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari (R).
Limbaugh’s Radio Station Plummets to 39th in Los Angeles Market
Via Eric Boehlert at Media Matters:
According to recently released ratings from Nielsen Audio, Limbaugh’s California flagship station, KEIB, now ranks 39th in the Los Angeles market, attracting an anemic .5 ratings share. (A ratings share represents the percent of those listening to radio in the market who are tuned into a particular station.)
The tumble to 39th place represents yet another downward lurch — in March the station logged in at 37th place. Note that there are a total of 45 rated stations in the Los Angeles market, which means Limbaugh’s KEIB station (the call letters mirror Limbaugh’s motto, “Excellence in Broadcasting”) has nearly reached the ratings basement.
And yes, Limbaugh’s syndicator, Clear Channel-owned Premier Networks, pays the talker $50 million a year.
The April ratings come in the wake of a disastrous winter for Limbaugh in key California markets. As Media Matters recently noted, Clear Channel moved Limbaugh off his longtime Los Angeles home, KFI, and made him the centerpiece of an all-conservative talk radio lineup on KEIB, where Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are also heard.
As of April, KEIB not only ranks 39th in the Los Angeles market, but it trails 12 non-English stations and four college outlets. Meanwhile, 10th-rated KFI’s ratings remain strong in the wake of Limbaugh’s departure from the station. In the past, stations that lost Rush from their lineup often saw steep declines in listenership. He served as the programming tent pole. No more.
On Fox, Issa Walks Back His Apology for Cutting off Ranking Member’s Microphone
Congress-watchers cannot recall another incident in which a committee chairman silenced a ranking member by turning off the member’s microphone — but it happened Wednesday when GOP Rep. Darrell Issa of California, chair of the House Oversight Committee, cut off the microphone as Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, was speaking.
But when the time came for apologies, in today’s topsy-turvy tea party world, it was Issa who claimed to have been insulted.
California Population Surpasses 38 Million
38,332,521
Population of California at the end of 2013, according to the Census Bureau — up from 37,999,878 in July 2012.
Obamacare Enrollments Surging in States Run by Democrats
Here is a story that was featured on the front page above the fold in the Los Angeles Times yesterday but that has gotten little to no coverage anywhere else in the “liberal media”:
Despite the disastrous rollout of the federal government’s healthcare website, enrollment is surging in many states as tens of thousands of consumers sign up for insurance plans made available by President Obama’s health law.
A number of states that use their own systems, including California, are on track to hit enrollment targets for 2014 because of a sharp increase in November, according to state officials.
“What we are seeing is incredible momentum,” said Peter Lee, director of Covered California, the nation’s largest state insurance marketplace, which accounted for a third of all enrollments nationally in October. California — which enrolled about 31,000 people in health plans last month — nearly doubled that in the first two weeks of this month.
Several other states, including Connecticut and Kentucky, are outpacing their enrollment estimates, even as states that depend on the federal website lag far behind. In Minnesota, enrollment in the second half of October ran at triple the rate of the first half, officials said. Washington state is also on track to easily exceed its October enrollment figure, officials said.
