It looks like I have enough signatures to make the ballot. Thanks to all those who have helped. You know who you are. I won’t tell Barbara! … 5:01 P.M.
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Impatient for results of Gawker Kaus Oppo Research Project. Would save me from having to hire someone to tell me the dirt on me. But they are taking their sweet time. … Note to Nick Denton: Is it that I don’t attract enough hits? Sorry! You will have to get Julia Allison to run for Senate. … 3:35 P.M.
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Government of the unions, by the unions, and … : Are low and middle-income L.A. residents about to be hit with a big–up to 28%–utility rate increase in order to create questionable “green” jobs for government employee unions? Bill Boyarsky at LAObserved:
It is unclear how this money would be spent. David Zahniser and Phil Willon reported in the Times that the money “would help pay for new environmental initiatives, including more aggressive conservation programs and a solar initiative designed to create 16,000 jobs.” What kind of jobs? The presence of union officials at the mayor’s side is a pretty good sign that they would be union jobs at the Department of Water and Power, whose employees are being spared the layoffs ripping through the rest of city government.
Villaraigosa said the Water and Power Department would hire “green doctors” to evaluate the energy efficiency of homes. The “doctor” would also help residents buy energy efficient lightbulbs and refrigerators. in my opinion, the guy at the hardware stores knows enough about energy efficient bulbs, and Costco will be glad to sell me an energy efficient refrigerator without the city’s help.
Update: Ex-Daily News editor Ron Kaye is all over this issue. He says the plan resembles an earlier, rejected ballot measure in that it
requires the DWP to own and maintain all major rooftop solar installations in the city to create even more IBEW jobs even though it dramatically increases costs to the public, stifles the growing private solar industry …
As a Dem who thinks we need effective, “affirmative government,” I stand in solidarity with Willie Brown:
Over the years, however, the civil service system has changed from one that protects jobs to one that runs the show.
The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less than private sector workers in exchange for an understanding that they had job security for life.
But we politicians, pushed by our friends in labor, gradually expanded pay and benefits to private-sector levels while keeping the job protections and layering on incredibly generous retirement packages that pay ex-workers almost as much as current workers. …[snip]
Either we do something about it at the ballot box, or a judge will do something about in Bankruptcy Court.
Brown can say that because he’s no longer running for office. He notes: “Talking about this is politically unpopular and potentially even career suicide for most officeholders.” [E.A.] … On the other hand, if you don’t have a career …. 3:48 P.M.
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Jill Stewart: Meg Whitman used to be a hottie, could use a makeover. … Stewart cites late ex-Chief Justice Rose Bird’s epic glam redo. But did that help Bird (who lost her retention election)? I don’t think so. … 3:27 P.M.
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Made first call to try to get into the Democratic state convention on April 16-18. Left message. … They’re charging $60 for Arianna but only $20 for Los Lobos. … 3:22 P.M.
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Ricochet, a new podcast featuring Rob Long, Scott Immergut and Mark Steyn, among others, interviews me here. Fun! If only one of them were a Democrat. … 3:07 P.M.
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Pelosi is deciding which members of her caucus “will be given absolution to vote no” on health care? I didn’t know she had that luxury. … Do Dem leaders really have votes to spare, or is this a story ordered up by a NYT editor on clever conceptual grounds disconnected from actual vote-counting reality? … 1:33 P.M.
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Delighted to have you back as a daily read – just disappointed you arent running for office in Australia
Hello back & good luck.
Not quite barackobama.com yet, huh Mickey? Don’t worry, you’ll get there!
You should start building an email list so that worse comes to worst you can sell it to some other candidate down the road.
If I’m the first, or among the first, to comment, I feel honored. Do follow the advice of Harry Truman: Give your opponents the truth (like you do on your blog) and they’ll think you’re giving them hell. Their whining and sniveling will be music to my ears, and, I assume, a good many California ears as well.
Colin Clive would be proud!
Looking forward to following your campaign. . .good luck and Godspeed!
Glad to see you in your OWN blog. I”m adding you to my blogroll along with a photo of you in some totally objectionable pose. 🙂
Actually, I am adding you, and you are now on my daily reads.
Sorry for the parochial tangent, but the guy at the hardware store is probably a poor source of conservation information. I believe there may be more hucksterism and misinformation about energy efficiency floating around than solid data and advice. Badly sighted panels, ridiculously expensive replacement windows that will never pay for themselves, geothermal units costing thousands installed in leaky houses. lousy quality replacement bulbs that turn people off the idea forever, and it goes on. Somebody slapping a “New! Green!” tag on it does not make it so. There’s good stuff out there, but you need a lot of research or a good guide to keep from wasting your money. No opinion on whether those guides should be union; I don’t know enough about their pay and performance standards.
Though I am on the other end of the country, I’m looking forward to a scrappy race. Good luck.
So which is it? http://www.kausfile.com or http://www.kausfiles.com? Why both?
I’m tickled that you’re running. YADIVF. Still, NY Times quoted you as saying you expected to raise issues, but not to win. Here’s another idea you might consider: WIN, dammit. I’m still kicking myself after seeing Scott Brown campaign in my town here in MA before he went viral for not seeing the potential. Seriously, go for it. Channel Machiavelli, and aim high.
Go Mickey.
Hope you stay on BloggingHeads.tv!
You can win.
If you want to.
Ah, he’s back. Whew! I was afraid politics was about to devour another promising talent.
<blockquote cite="Ricochet, a new podcast featuring Rob Long, Scott Immergut and Mark Steyn, among others, interviews me here. Fun! If only one of them were a Democrat. "
If only there had been a single Democrat in that studio…
All my adult life, I’ve sought a Democrat for whom I could in good conscience vote (I’ve lived all my adult life in California, you see). You’d be about as close as I’ve ever come (heck, it was a long time before I even knew that you’re a Dem). I am concerned that you have supported the Democrats’ efforts on health care “reform,” though; could be a deal breaker. At any rate, best of luck on the nomination. We need more citizens of your caliber in the fray.
Say, next time you attack unions?
Why not separate public sector unions from private?
After all, all contracts get renegotiated. Private unions are how workers keep from getting screwed separately.
Public ‘unions’ , on the other hand, are just one branch of government doing kabuki to screw the rest of us.
THANK YOU, PATRIOT. You will have my vote and support in the primary.
Pelosi probably had more votes in bag. Blue Dog chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (S.D.), for ex., voted no last fall and yesterday. But I heard her in an interview earlier last fall say that only about 12-14 Blue Dogs were firmly against that bill, including the public option (which Senate didn’t). And I believe I remember her speaking in the third-person about those 12-14. But once the Stupak Dems switched, Pelosi didn’t need to risk Dems losing the seats of Herseth Sandlin and other conservative-district Dems like Heath Shuler, Rick Boucher, Glenn Nye, etc.
Glad you have a new blog! Could you do us a favor and add numbers to the comments? It makes it easier to refer to an earlier comment when we can do so by number. Obviously, we can also reference the commentor by name, but the commentor could have multiple posts, or it could be a long thread where the previous comment is difficult to find.
Anyway, I want to agree with “bruce” above regarding unions. And more specifically, do you think you could hold up one example of a union you DO support? One of the most common charges against you is that you hate all unions, and I do not know whether or not that is true. You’ve attacked the auto unions in the private sector, and the teachers unions and public utility unions in the public sector. To make the generalization that you are against all unions isn’t a crazy leap at this point, so you might as well state your position rather than let your opponents continue writing your narrative for you.
Best of luck in your campagin, I’m sorry I am not in CA and can’t vote for you.
I think the rabbit went into the hat when you referred to “potentially useful treatments.”
I hope the idea is to restrict treatments that are not potentially useful to an objective observer, but cost a huge proportion of our national medical bill.
Luckily, this does not appear to be one of your core campaign planks!
Hey, Mickey, in the End of Equality you talked about setting up a neo-WPA. Why don’t you ever talk about that now? I thought that was one of your core beliefs.
The night is young …
The New Deal was about things that would make life better for most people. You and Brooks may be right, the seam has played out. Even the Health Care Bill only makes things better for a relatively few people while raising cost and perhaps having a negative impact on service quality for most people. FDR was adamant that Social Security was a supplement, not means tested, paid for by all employed people and not a replacement for other pensions or savings. He understood if the program ever stopped being a universal one it would not last. I think a fundamental error in the Health Bill was not stopping it at the level of what used to be called “Major Medical” and extending it to everything. The “everything” coverage in the bill is what is driving cost up way to fast in Massachusetts. Most people should pay for ordinary care on a cash and carry basis or with part covered by private insurance. The poor should be covered fully but even they should have a small if really only token “co-pay.” Emergency Room usage went up not down in the Bay State after Mass Care because too many people figured they were covered and the State would pick the charges. That mind set has to be changed. The other problem in the Bay State is that the major hospitals — mainly non profits or University Teaching Hospitals — have hit the State with in business would be called “price fixing.”
The big long term problem for the Democratic Party is that it is become the bag man for a growing set of interests: public employees, the Trial Lawyers, and many other small interest groups. It does not and no longer is even interested in the greatest good for the greatest number, it is about protecting and expanding the increasingly almost feudal rights of its major backers. It has also in California for sure, lost any sense of fiscal or financial well being. The financial shape of California is terrible. Even worse most current and new programs coming out of the legislature are biased against encouraging business in general and always have a job killing provision in the name of some vague philosophical good deed or emotion.