U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, a George H.W. Bush appointment, weighed in with some stuff yesterday.  The CMA remains in effect for now.  My analysis over at The Opine Editorials.

Some letters in today's Los Angeles Times address the paper's editorial I discussed in this posting, about how a California school district is sexualizing children in the name of promoting "LGBT" causes.  Tracy Jensen of Alameda, a member of the Alameda Unified School District Board of Education, takes the editorial board to task, then goes on to write:

You correctly point out that the curriculum will teach second-graders that same-gender parents exist.

Yes, but what make them different from mere friends?

Children will learn that those parents are part of loving families, along with single parents, adoptive parents and biracial parents.

Define "loving".  And there's a difference between same-sex couples who obtain children and  those other households (except for some single parents) – they are, by design, depriving the children of a mother or a father.  "Biracial" parents can naturally make babies.  No same-sex couple can do that.

Given that the lessons actually do not contain descriptive sexual information and do include attention to values, I am puzzled how you could support teaching students "not to belittle others" but call it inappropriate to teach respect for LGBT students, staff and parents.

Whose values?  Jensen apparently misses that the problem that should be addressed is bullying, not personal distaste for homosexual behavior.

Sam Chaidez of Mission Hills got it:

Teaching students to respect one another without exception is sufficient to prevent bullying of any kind, be it based on race, religion, physical features, language or countless other reasons.

Exactly.  I blog a lot about fighting the push towards marriage neutering, but I do not hate or personally disrespect people for their sexual orientation.  In my personal and professional life, I treat people equally based on their behavior in interacting with me.  That's the decent thing to do.

This isn't about Adam and Steve being able to exchange vows on the beach in front of their family and friends. This is about the rest of us not being able to have our say that the kind of union that produces children and provides them with both a mother and a father is uniquely beneficial to society and is the ideal. The activists are trying to prevent us from even having a word that distinguishes this relationship from others. It is time we stopped allowing ourselves to be politically, socially, and legally bullied by a tiny minority with a seemingly pathological need for affirmation from everyone else, and their demand that we reorder all of society in an attempt to make them feel more comfortable, regardless of how it makes the rest of us feel.  See my latest posting at The Opine Editorials.  Also see my previous installment on this blog.

How is the extreme Left ever going to take over everything without guns and with weak bones?  The vegans have to really be doing a number on their bones without milk.

I will stick to my promise to stop eating animals when they stop eating each other and stop eating us.

More than ever, California’s Prop 13 is being attacked by politicians, Big Labor, and news media types.

Fortunately, Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, is doing what he can to speak up against these attacks.  He recently published "Prop. 13: Will It Be the Victim of Its Own Success?"

In order to "solve" California's massive budget crisis, the tax-and-spend lobby and left-leaning academics are again suggesting that we revise Proposition 13, which changed the state's tax structure in 1978 by lowering property tax rates and limiting annual increases.

Ironically, these new efforts to change the highly popular initiative are based, not on the argument that Proposition 13 has failed California, but on the grounds that Proposition 13 is working precisely as intended.

California's budget problem is a result of unrestrained overspending coupled with unstable sources of revenue.

The state government workforce has grown significantly faster than state population.  The state budget has grown faster than inflation and population.  The spending has been too high for too long.

He goes on to write that Prop 13 has actually been the government's friend.

While income tax and sales tax revenue are way down by double digit percentages, property tax revenues have simply flattened out, notwithstanding dramatic drops in market value. True, some counties will see slightly larger drops in revenue than others, but some counties will actually see increases in property tax revenue. There are few places in all of America which can make that claim.

So while Big Government promoters bemoan Prop 13 for not allowing them to boost property taxes faster, the fact is that Prop 13 has actually helped keep tax money coming in.

Here is the real irony. Our sales tax and income tax system has evolved over many years in ways dictated by our political elite and smartest policy advisors. Thus, the volatility that we now complain about has been brought to us by people who are oh so much smarter than the rest of us. Proposition 13, on the other hand, was sponsored by two relatively simple men, Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann, who were seeking, first and foremost, just to protect homeowners.

The increased spending advocates constantly bemoan that there is a 2/3rds requirement to raise taxes.  Yet, this has hardly prevented "necessary" tax increases, or even the huge tax increase worked out earlier this year.  Los Angeles County voters recently agreed to a half-cent sales tax increase, bringing the countywide sales tax to 9.75% as of today, with some cities as high as 10.75%.  Certain cities have recently been able to pass parcel taxes for their schools.

We have a high statewide rates for our sales tax, gas tax, personal income tax, and business tax.  We have utility taxes.  We have various sin taxes.  We have a lottery.

Yes, our property tax rates are moderate in comparison to other states, but the taxes are based on property values, and property values tend to be higher in California, so the tax revenue is still high.

We have enough taxes.  We have high enough taxes.  Even San Francisco rejected the recent attempt to extend recent tax increases for two more years.

Our problem is spending.  California resisted the welfare reform of the 1990s, and now has a widely disproportionate percentage of the welfare cases nationally.  We have millions of unskilled, poor, dependent illegal aliens and their children in our schools in our justice and correctional systems, using our infrastructure and utilities.  We have a ridiculous higher education system funded by taxes, consisting of ubiquitous community colleges, state universities, and many University of California sites.  We have taught the poor, the elderly, the sick, the pregnant, children, and students of all ages to be dependent on state programs.  We pay too much per prisoner in comparison to other states.  We have the highest paid teachers in the nation.

We need to cut waste, cut fraud, stop guaranteeing unreasonable benefit and retirement packages for government employees, stop doing things that should be left up to the private sector, and stop encouraging the dependent to come here from other states and countries to become de facto wards of our government.

Unfortunately, Big Labor - especially government employee unions - have the legislature on a leash, and can spend scores of millions of dollars on media campaigns.  Big Labor gets its funding from compulsory membership and compulsory dues, meaning workers need to jump through hoops to (supposedly) keep their money from being used as part of the political machinery perpetuating a system that is geared towards increasing the number of dues payers (government employees) and increasing the dues they pay via pay increases.

I would very much prefer California to be split, with the portion in which I reside becoming a "right to work" state, with Prop 13 and the 2/3rds requirement intact, a part-time unicameral legislature, and a restriction on any new bonds that bonds will only be used to fund major public works projects.

The California Marriage Amendment is likely to stay in effect while a federal court considers whether or not it violates the federal Constitution.  Of course it doesn't, but you can read my analysis of the story over at The Opine Editorials, where there are also other lively discussions of interest.  If you don't have that site bookmarked, you really should.

Politics attracts the egotistical, the arrogant, narcissists, opportunists, and compromisers.  Politicians often think they are better than everyone else, and getting elected confirms that thought in their mind.  They think they are special, and that God or fate or luck or whatever is smiling on them.

This is one big reasons the founders of our union adopted a Constitution that separates powers, has checks and balances, and limits government.  This system was designed to prevent any one power-hungry person with an entitlement mentality from gaining too much influence over our union.

Now, not all politicians are like that, but many are, or allow themselves to become that way.

When it comes to male politicians, add in the fact that there are women who are attracted by power, which politicians do have, and fame and money, which politicians can find more easily than the average Joe.  Many of these types of women are willing to "trade" sex for access to these men, or to allow themselves to think they are falling in love with a man they see as special.

What you have here is a recipe for infidelity on the part of politicians.  But what is the infidelity rate in the general population compared to elected officials?  I suspect either a lot of elected officials aren't getting caught or their infidelity rate may actually be less than the general population - if only because of a lack of privacy.

Some people say infidelity by elected officials doesn't matter.  Many of these people cite European politicians who are "open" about their infidelity, and public acceptance of it.   Other people say it only matters if that politician has previously championed "traditional values".

I don't care how they do it in Europe.  America was started by people who weren't happy with Europe, and over the years, we filled up with people who weren't happy with how things were in Europe or people from places once controlled by Europe who aren't happy with the way things are in those places.  We are NOT Europe.  And violation of personal vows by an elected official in a public institution (marriage) should matter, because character matters.

Sure, if I have the choice between a Governor who consistently supports limited government and one who consistently pushes for increased statism and they are both cads, I'm going to choose the former.  But we're not limited to those options.  Surely we can find people of character and get them elected.

Previously: Breaking Marital Vows

Posting will likely be minimal into Wednesday, due to some commitments.  Check out my featured posts in the column on the right, and scroll down for more and for other blogs of note.  Also, you can find me and many other limited government folks on Facebook and on Twitter.

With race relations, that is?

Apparently not.  We're still getting stories like this one.

There are just too many people who make a living focusing on the "divide".  Meanwhile, the rest of us, regardless of skin color, work together, play together, and this kind of divisive thinking isn't a factor.

I do not excuse the breaking of marital vows.  But have you listened to the marital vows?  Having sex with someone other than your spouse is just one of many, many ways people break marital vows every day.  Again, I do not excuse cheating on your spouse, but we don't really know what has gone on behind closed doors.  Sometimes... SOMETIMES... not necessarily in any particular case in the news lately... the spouse being cheated on has already broken the marital vows in some serious ways - even if none of those ways included sex with someone else.

Unfortunately, we often find out about sexual contact with someone else, because there are so many people involved.  And because we, as a society, are obsessed with sex.  That's why there are strip bars, prostitutes, "adult" media, and the term "sexual harassment", when there are so many other ways to harass someone that are not given their own name.

Some people cheat because they are lousy people.  Some people cheat because they react poorly to being wronged.  Either way, cheating is wrong.  But sometimes, the other spouse is also to blame - even if it is just for picking the wrong person to marry.

We need politicians who do not have something to hide, something distracting them or that can be used to blackmail them.  We need politicians who can be true to their family obligations.

Are they really so hard to find?

The rich are often demonized for political gain.  But most "rich" people should be admired for what they have accomplished and what they do for society.  I discuss this in a classic Playful Walrus entry.

Dan Weikel and Shelby Grad bring us some good news in this LATimes.com blog entry.

Felony charges have been filed and an arrest warrant issued for a well-known Orange County political activist suspected of committing election and voter registration fraud, the California secretary of State's office announced Wednesday.

Investigators in the agency's election-fraud unit said Nativo ["Larry"] V. Lopez, 57, of Santa Ana leased office space in Boyle Heights and registered to vote using that address although he lived with his family in Orange County. They also say Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Assn., cast an illegal ballot in L.A. in the 2008 presidential primary.

I'm shocked.  Shocked!

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office, which is working with the secretary of State, charged Lopez with four felonies: fraudulent voter registration, fraudulent document filing, perjury and fraudulent voting. A warrant was issued for his arrest and bail was set at $10,000. The offenses carry penalties of up to three years in prison.

Oh please please please let that happen.  Larry is a "community organizer" racist victicrat who wishes he was the brown Al Sharpton.  He defends things like cockfighting on "cultural" grounds.  He advocates shamnesty and supports socialist causes.

"Rosalio Munoz" wrote on June 25, 2009 at 08:18 AM, taking the usual Larry Lopez route:

This smells of racism.

Yes - whenever you are proven wrong or are busted doing something wrong, cry racism.

"Very simple" wrote on June 25, 2009 at 10:48 AM:

As a 3rd-generation Angeleno and Latino, people like Nativo are disgusting. When my grandparents immigrated here legally, they waited their turn and did it the proper way. They also made a point to learn English and try to assimilate as much as possible.

What's better for the student in education - private institutions, or the "government option"?

What's better for the taxpayer in education - private institutions, or the "government option"?

What if private school tuition was taxed to pay more for public schools (in addition to other taxes)?

Why is health insurance any different?  Will "universal" health insurance really be any better than universal education has turned out to be?

Sorry, marriage neutering advocates.  Governor Sanford's infidelity does not justify marriage neutering - even if he cheated as often as JFK.  That he, or anyone else, is bad at keeping their vows in no way necessitates that we neuter marriage, any more than a track sprinter being busted for steroids means motorcycles should be allowed in a foot race.

That Sanford violated the sanctity of marriage does not mean we should water down marriage into oblivion.  Would you say it is okay for a cop to beat a suspect who injured himself, since he was already injured?

And there are many marriage defenders who have kept their vows.  It just doesn't make headlines.

So go ahead and take glee in your mocking of Sanford because he has stated the truth about marriage and yet hasn't been true to marriage.  It still doesn't make a brideless or groomless pairing marriage.

Alana Semuels of the Los Angeles Times has the article.

Two months ago, more than 300 people were employed at the site making engine parts for trucks and heavy machinery for Gregg Industries, which is owned by Neenah Enterprises Inc. in Wisconsin.

But a settlement with the South Coast Air Quality Management District required Gregg to spend $5 million on factory improvements, so the company decided instead to leave the state. Company spokesman Adan Ortega Jr. said Gregg didn't want to make the payment in the difficult economic climate.

Gregg is part of the parade of companies marching out of California. The state lost 79,000 manufacturing jobs between 2003 and 2007, while seven other states with a meaningful percentage of U.S. manufacturing gained 62,000, according to a report scheduled to be released today by the Milken Institute.

What is causing this?

The report blames the state's onerous regulations and high taxes in particular for pushing businesses elsewhere.

But isn't the whole country losing manufacturing jobs?

The state is shedding manufacturing jobs at a faster pace than the nation as a whole, the report said. Though many jobs left the country in the 2002 recession, states such as Arizona, Nevada and Oregon saw an increase in manufacturing employment in 2003.

It isn't just the number and restrictiveness of the regulations.

Part of the problem, Wong said, is that regulations change so often in California that it's difficult for companies to plan. The state enacted an average of 15 changes in labor law each year from 1992 to 2002, four times more than state legislatures averaged nationwide.

It's hard enough to hit the target.  Hitting it while it is moving is that much more difficult.

California also often requires projects to be approved in many different jurisdictions, so that a plan vetted by the state could be sidetracked by the county, Wong said.

It's one thing after another.  In California, in addition to the usual federal, state, and local (County and City) laws, codes, and regulations, there are many for various special districts and commissioners such as the aforementioned AQMD, the Water Quality Control Board, the Coastal Commission, and so forth.

California GDP grew last year despite the global financial crisis, said Brian McGowan, the state's deputy secretary for economic development and commerce. And green-energy jobs in the state have grown at a rate 10 times faster than total job growth since 2005.

You mean taxpayer supported or taxpayer subsidized jobs?  Those don't count.

To evaluate a state's business climate, he said, companies should focus on workforce skill, availability of capital and overall quality of life, rather than just on taxes and regulatory costs.

Well, yes, and when they see the land prices, artificial water and energy shortages, crime rates, graffiti, and the third-world unskilled, uneducated workforce with an entitlement mentality, they are further encouraged to leave or to expand elsewhere instead of here.

To prevent more departures, the study recommends creating incentives for innovation, assisting companies in obtaining capital, investing in workforce development and establishing an office to streamline the regulatory process.

The last one is the key.  The other suggestions are likely to involve more government control and more centralized planning, which is the problem in the first place.  Enough with the convolution system of rewards and punishment.  Let property ownership and free enterprise work.