Posts Tagged ‘Austin’
Saturday, March 5th, 2016
This nifty little map shows you where CHL/LTC owners are in Texas by zip code.
Hint: Everywhere.
Liberals in big cities should just get over their hyperventilating that a lawfully armed citizen might be somewhere near them, since the map shows it’s pretty much a constant certainty. Even the University of Texas at Austin, about which so hand-wringing over campus carry has been conducted, already shows 191 CHL/LTC holders in the 78705 area code.
(Hat tip: Stuf from Hsoi.)
Tags:Austin, Guns, Texas, University of Texas
Posted in Austin, Guns, Texas | No Comments »
Thursday, February 25th, 2016
Been too long since I did a Texas vs. California roundup, so here it is:
Dark Age California:
There are large areas of Central California that resemble life in rural Mexico. Within a radius of five miles I can go to stores and restaurants where English is rarely spoken and there is no racial or cultural diversity—a far cry from Jeb Bush’s notion of an “act of love” landscape.
With unemployment at 10% or more in the interior of the state, with the public schools near the bottom in the nation, and with generous entitlements, it is no accident that one in six in the nation who receive public assistance now live in California, where about a fifth of the population lives below the poverty line.
One in four Californians also were not born in the United States; more than one in four who enter the hospital for any cause are found upon admittance to suffer from Type II diabetes. The unspoken responsibility of California state government is to bring state-sponsored parity to new arrivals from Oaxaca, and to do so in ideological fashion that ensures open borders and more government. It is the work of a sort of secular church, and questioning its premises is career-ending blasphemy.
“California has come a long way to dig itself out of budget deficits, but the state remains on shaky ground due to nearly $400 billion in unfunded liabilities and debt from public pensions, retiree health care and bonds.” More: “It’s California’s debt and liabilities that are concerning financial analysts, particularly the state’s rapidly growing unfunded retiree health care costs, which grew more than 80 percent over the past decade. California has promised $74 billion more in health and dental benefits to current and retired state workers than the state has put aside.” (Hat tip: CalWatchdog.)
And new accounting rules make those unfunded liabilities harder to ignore.
The problem might not be quite as bad as it is did not CalPERS and CalSTARS insist on politically correct investments. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
San Francisco political officials indicted:
A retired city employee and a former city commissioner who are at the center of bribery allegations involving Mayor Ed Lee were charged with multiple felonies including bribery and money laundering, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon announced at a news conference Friday afternoon.
Also charged Friday was political consultant and former San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education President Keith Jackson, who pleaded guilty last year to racketeering charges.
The district attorney’s office charged recently retired Human Rights Commission employee Zula Jones, ex-HRC commissioner Nazly Mohajer and former political consultant Keith Jackson.
Remember that Zula Jones and Nazly Mohajer were fingered by Leeland Yee’s attorneys as being the go-betweens for bribing Lee. This brings up the question (yet again): Why hasn’t Lee himself been indicted?
And speaking of California government officials being indicted: “Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying to federal investigators, a stunning reversal for the longtime law enforcement leader who for years insisted he played no role in the misconduct that tarnished his agency.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Jerry Brown vetoes kangaroo court minimums for college sexual assault cases.
“Brown pushed for the giant pension fund CalPERS to lower its assumed investment return from 7.5% to 6.5%. Given that the world is headed towards deflation and that CalPERS earned only 2.4% for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2015, Brown’s request seemed entirely reasonable. Instead, the board approved a staff proposal to move to the 6.5% target over 10 years.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
CalPERS board President Rob Feckner, serving his twelfth term, casts deciding vote against proposal for term limits for board members. “Feckner was president of the California School Employees Association for four years and executive vice president of the California Labor Federation for five. Such a conflict of interest wouldn’t be tolerated with the president of other boards of directors. But with CalPERS, it’s par for the course.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
San Diego voters: We want pension reform! Union-stacked Public Employment Relations Board (PERB): Get stuffed, peasants! Result: Lawsuit. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
The middle class is fleeing California. “In 2006, 38 percent of middle-class households in California used more than 30 percent of their income to cover rent. Today, that figure is over 53 percent.”
California tech industries continue their exodus to Texas:
The tech industry in the Bay Area has become a victim of its own success – and state policies. Like many other California businesses, tech firms are relocating or expanding operations in others states – particularly Texas – at an alarming rate.
Some companies spend significant amounts of time and money finding and training the right workers, only to see them poached by a flashy startup within a number of months. The need for a more stable workforce was one of the main reasons cloud-computing company LiveOps Cloud moved from Silicon Valley to a suburb of Austin, Texas, CEO Vasili Triant told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Other reasons to move or expand out-of-state are government-created: high taxes, burdensome regulations, unaffordable housing due to excessive development fees and restrictive land-use policies. California’s highly-educated workforce is not so unique anymore, and its quality of life has been tarnished by regulatory and affordability issues. Texas, by contrast, has no personal income tax and no corporate income tax (though it does have a less-onerous gross margins tax), and is universally hailed for having one of the friendliest business climates in the nation.
Google, Facebook, Apple, Dropbox, Oracle and nearly two dozen other Bay Area tech companies have all built or expanded facilities in Texas just since 2014, the Chronicle reported. There have been more than 1,500 publicly reported California “disinvestment events” across all industries over the past seven years, according to a November report from Spectrum Location Solutions, an Irvine-based business relocation consulting firm, although it estimated the actual tally at as high as 9,000. A California business “can save 20 percent to 32 percent of labor costs by relocating a facility out of state,” Spectrum president Joe Vranich told us last year.
More on the theme:
Between 1997 and 2000, during the peak of the dot-com boom, the Bay Area was a net importer of Texans: About 1,500 more households moved into the region from Texas than vice versa, bringing an additional $191 million (2015 dollars) in taxable income into the region, according to IRS data, which tracks the movement of taxpaying residents.
The trend changed in the early 2000s, and Texas has been a net importer of Bay Area households ever since. Between 2009 and 2012, as the recession was winding down and the second tech boom was revving up, the region lost about 1,430 households to Texas, and nearly $390 million in taxable income.
Snip.
I had a guy working for me (in the Bay Area) making $200,000 a year, struggling to pay his bills,” company CEO Triant said. “In lots of places in the country you’re living high on the hog on $200,000. … As far as work life balance and employee morale, we have absolutely seen a remarkable increase since moving here; it’s night and day.”
The firm still keeps a small Bay Area office, and Triant speaks fondly of his hometown of San Diego and California in general.
But when it comes to building a company and running a business, he has found a new home in Texas. “I want my employees to be able to have a good quality of life, live in a city with low crime rates, good schools,” he said. “And that’s what we’re doing here.”
“It’s no coincidence that Texas and Florida have thrived while New York and California have not. High levels of taxes, spending, and regulations make it more difficult for entrepreneurs to be successful. When entrepreneurs cannot expand their businesses and hire new workers, everyone is hurt, not just the rich.”
In the course of verifying a Rep. Joe Straus campaign ad, Polifact confirms that Texas has grown twice as fast as the rest of the country.
The University of California, Berkeley, is running a $150 million deficit this year. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
UC Academic Senate rejects task force’s proposed retirement benefits plan that, keeping with Jerry Brown’s modest pension reforms, would pay them a measly $117,020 pension benefit. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
“What’s more important: High-speed rail or water? Proponents of a proposed ballot measure would force voters to choose just that. The measure would redirect $8 billion in unsold high-speed rail bonds and $2.7 billion from the 2014 water bond to fund new water storage projects.”
Speaking of water restrictions, looks like Californians will get to enjoy them for another year.
Sure, Covered California (California’s ObamaCare) may be incompetent. But it’s also corrupt. The state auditor “criticized the exchange for not sufficiently justifying its decision to award a number of large contracts without subjecting the contractors to competitive bidding.”
California is releasing many felons as part of a “mass forgiveness” program. Including a murderer who tied up a husband and wife and beat them to death with a pipe.
California adds Aloe Vera to list of cancer-causing substances. “The problem is that the 800+ chemicals listed in Proposition 65 are not devised to protect consumers, but rather serve as a cash cow for private trial lawyers to sue small business and reap the hefty settlement payout. Since 1986, nearly 20,000 lawsuits have been filed, adding up to over half a billion dollars in settlement payments by business owners.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
San Francisco’s planning process is designed for gridlock.
Bankrupt San Bernardino has reached a settlement with its firefighters union.
Heh. “The movement to emblazon state legislators with the logos of their donors has collected tens of thousands of signatures for its would-be ballot initiative.The measure, formally called the ‘Name All Sponsors California Accountability Reform (or NASCAR. Get it?) Initiative,’ would require all state legislators to wear the emblems or names of their 10 top donors every time they attend an official function.” The ballot initiative has already collected 40,000 signatures…
Huge soda pop collection is coming to the Dr Pepper museum in Waco.
Tags:Austin, Berkeley, California, CalPERs, CalSTARS, Crime, Democrats, Ed Lee, high speed rail, Keith Jackson, Lee Baca, LiveOps, Nazly Mohajer, pension crisis, Regulation, Rob Feckner, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions, Vance Ginn, Waco, waste, water, Welfare State, Zula Jones
Posted in Austin, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, February 24th, 2016
Travis County’s politicized District Attorney’s office loses yet again:
Texas’ highest criminal court on Wednesday dismissed the remaining felony charge against former Gov. Rick Perry in the abuse-of-power case that he blamed for his early exit from the Republican presidential race.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals tossed a charge of misuse of office that stemmed from Perry’s 2013 effort to force out the Travis County district attorney. And it upheld the decision of a lower court to dismiss a charge of coercion of a public official.
The 6-2 decision appears to mark the end of Perry’s 18-month legal saga — one that outlasted the end of his record-setting, 14-year tenure as governor and his short-lived second bid for the White House.
Snip.
“The case centered on Perry’s threat in 2013 to veto $7.5 million budgeted for the Travis County district attorney’s office if District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, a Democrat, didn’t resign after her drunken-driving arrest.”
The only corruption in this case was not Rick Perry using his constitutionally authorized veto power, but the Travis County DA’s nakedly partisan witch-hunt on behalf of a Democratic Party furious at how Perry consistently kicked their asses…
Tags:Austin, Democrats, Rick Perry, Rosemary Lehmberg, Travis County, Travis County Public Integrity Unit
Posted in Austin, Democrats | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2016
Early voting started in Texas Monday, which means I’m way behind on covering state and local races. Oh well, maybe later this week…
Hillary Clinton didn’t do as badly as expected in New Hampshire. She did worse.
Sanders’s margin of victory — 60 percent to 39 percent — was the largest ever by a Democrat who wasn’t a sitting president. It was a come-from-behind win: Eight months ago, Sanders was at 9 percent and Clinton held a 46-point advantage. And Sanders overperformed the polls. Only 1 of the last 15 polls had him above 60 percent; the Real Clear Politics average in New Hampshire had him at 54.5 percent going into the vote.
Then there are the crosstabs. The exit polling for Clinton was brutal. Sanders won men by 35 points; he won women by 11. He won voters under the age of 30 by 67 points. People expect that of Sanders and his children’s crusade. Clinton took home senior citizens, 54 percent to 45 percent. People expect that of Clinton’s boomers. But in the big band of middle-aged Democrats, ages 45 to 64 (who made up 42 percent of the electorate), Sanders beat Clinton 54 percent to 45 percent. He beat her among Democrats with a high school diploma or less; he beat her among Democrats with postgraduate degrees. Among people who’d voted in a Democratic primary before, Sanders won by 16 points; among first-time voters, he won by 57. He won self-identified “moderate” voters by 20 points.
Clinton made gun control a substantial part of her pitch in New Hampshire. Sanders won voters who own guns by 40 points. But he won voters who don’t own guns by 14. He even won voters who said that terrorism was their number one concern.
The biggest problem for Clinton, however, came in the candidate-perception categories. The second-most important quality voters said they wanted in a candidate was someone who “cares.” Sanders won these voters by 65 points. The most important quality people said they wanted was “honesty.” Sanders took those people home 92 to 6. Look at that again. When asked “Is Clinton honest and trustworthy?” 53 percent of all voters — not just Sanders voters, but everyone casting a Democratic ballot — said “no.”
Bernie Sanders has more than ten times the number of staffers on the ground in South Carolina than Clinton does.
Lefty at The Nation: “Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote.”
The topic is the Clintons, so it’s time for another glimpse of Good Maureen Dowd: “It turned out that female voters seem to be looking at Hillary as a candidate rather than as a historical imperative. And she’s coming up drastically short on trustworthiness.”
Ted Cruz is very electable. “Cruz is electable because he’s the real thing.” (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
People who were actually paying attention during the Gang of 8 fight scoff at Marco Rubio’s assertion Cruz favored amnesty. (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
Only top Obama Administration officials with high security clearances knew about Hillary’s secret email server. And LinkedIn.
The NRA is saying gun-indifferent Sanders beat hoplophobe Hillary. Hmmm…
Remember how the Obama Administration swore up and down ObamaCare wouldn’t go to illegal aliens? Guess what?
I think this is quite an effective Donald Trump ad, targeting how black Americans have been hurt by illegal alien crime. Rick Perry did quite well with an ad highlighting an illegal alien who murdered a Houston police officer in his race against Bill White in 2010. Too bad too many gutless Republicans have been hesitant about running such ads for fear of being branded racists, xenophobes, etc. by the media.
Muslim immigrants are killing Sweden.
Germany to take in a half million more Islamic “refugees” in 2016. It’s like Merkel wants to destroy her own party… (Hat tip: JihadWatch.)
Police in the UK arrest man for criticizing Syrian “refugees” in a Facebook post. (Hat tip: JihadWatch.)
Boom! Headshot! (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
Current law prohibits transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the U.S., and the military won’t do so until the law is changed, no matter what Obama may want.
“Scalia was not only finest writer ever to sit on the Court, he was one of the best rhetoricians in history.”
Dear naive young voters: socialism sucks in real life.
Behold the ideal government worker under socialism! Every bureaucrat his own Wally….
A look at China’s new stealth fighters.
China is also deploying missiles on a disputed island in the South China Sea.
Huge explosion at a military barracks in Turkey. Just occurred before I posted this, so details are scant.
The ACLU continues its long retreat from defending free speech. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Talk like Reagan.
Venezuela’s socialist government appears to have authorized the military to form an oil company.
Notes on the collapse of a tech startup. More than a grain of truth here. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
The Coen Brothers aren’t fans of cramming diversity for the sake of diversity into individual movies. “Not in the least!” Ethan answered. “It’s important to tell the story you’re telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity—or it might not.”
Science fiction writer has book rejected by Harper Voyager because robot characters dared to voice non-PC thoughts.
Because driving I-35 just didn’t suck enough already, enjoy being attacked by thrown rocks.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, ACLU, Antonin Scalia, Austin, Bernie Sanders, black, Border Controls, China, Coen Brothers, Crime, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrats, Elections, Facebook, Guantanamo Bay, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, I-35, Jihad, Marco Rubio, Maureen Dowd, Military, NRA, ObamaCare, polls, Republicans, Ronald Reagan, South China Sea, Ted Cruz, Thomas Sowell, Venezuela
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, ObamaCare | 1 Comment »
Monday, February 8th, 2016
I emptied the link bucket on Friday, but lo and behold, a whole new torrent of news has come rushing down the pipes:
You know all that “Ted Cruz is too unpopular to win” talk? Cruz is killing it with blue collar voters:
According to entrance polling, among the roughly half of all Republican voters without a college degree, Cruz won 30 percent of the vote, eclipsing Trump’s 28 percent. Marco Rubio was a distant third, winning the support of just 17 percent of voters without college degrees. Cruz did 5 points better among voters without college degrees than among college grads (30 percent to 25 percent), while, among all candidates included in the entrance polling (Cruz, Trump, Rubio, Ben Carson, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders), Rubio was the candidate who had the lowest portion of his support come from those without college degrees—he did 10 points worse among voters without college degrees than among college grads (17 to 27 percent).
According to the entrance polling, Cruz also fared better than Trump or Rubio among younger voters. Among voters under the age of 30, Cruz won 26 percent of the vote to Rubio’s 23 percent and Trump’s 20 percent. Among voters in their 30s and early 40s, Cruz won 30 percent of the vote to Trump’s 23 percent and Rubio’s 21 percent. (Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton got clobbered among younger voters, winning less than 30 percent of the vote among those under the age of 45.)
“A couple of days ago on the ONT we were reminded that Ted Cruz is only five months older than Marco Rubio. That’s one month for every case he’s won before the Supreme Court. So don’t let anyone tell you Cruz has no accomplishments.”
Five New Hampshire state reps who backed Rand Paul are now supporting Cruz.
Des Moines Register: “What happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period. Democracy, particularly at the local party level, can be slow, messy and obscure. But the refusal to undergo scrutiny or allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy.”
At least one Iowa delegate was unilaterally changed from Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton’s minions push polling Democrats in Nevada.
Hillary is bad at faking sincerity.
Gee, look how tremendously unpopular the name “Hillary” became after 1992.
“Marco Rubio Is Diminished by a Caustic Chris Christie.”
If you’re an Iraqi “refugee” who hasn’t had sex in months, do you: A.) Hire a prostitute, B.) Wank to porn, or C.) Rape a 10 year old boy in a public pool?
Meanwhile, in Belgium, seven men (including five “migrants”) danced and sang in Arabic as the took turns raping an unconscious 17 year old girl.
UK Muslim rape gang sentenced to collective 140 years in prison for raping a schoolgirl.
“In the Safe Spaces on Campus, No Jews Allowed.”
Obama Administration reinstates “catch and release” for illegal aliens. (Hat tip: Doug Ross.)
First confirmed case of Zika virus in Travis County. It’s funny how, just as with Enterovirus D-68, novel pathogens have a habit of showing up just when illegal alien populations do…
The effects of immigration on unemployment: “None of the net gain in employment over the entire 14-year period went to natives.”
The world’s most miserable economies: Socialist paradise Venezuela ranks first (which is to say last), followed by Argentina, South Africa, Greece and Ukraine. (Hat tip: NRO’s The Corner.)
Welfare mom complains about the free food and room service. (Hat tip: Doug Ross.)
Cherokee artist arrested for not being a real Cherokee artist. I look forward to the coming felony indictment of Elizabeth Warren…
For fans of the art of newspaper headline writing: “Former London Zoo meerkat expert fined for glassing monkey-handler in row over llama-keeper.”
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Austin, Border Controls, Chris Christie, Crime, Elections, Greece, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Illegal Aliens, Iowa, Jihad, LinkSwarm, Marco Rubio, Nevada, New Hampshire, Obama Scandals, Rand Paul, rape, Ted Cruz, Texas, Travis County, Venezuela, welfare, Welfare State, Zika virus
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Jihad, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Saturday, January 9th, 2016
One year after it occurred, John Daub goes over the day that changed his life, when he was forced to shoot and kill a large man breaking down his family’s front door.
From my perspective, the main thing I remember is hearing my wife screaming for me. Her words were saying there was someone at the door. But the way she said it — the sheer mortal terror in her voice — was something I had never heard out of her in the almost 20 years of our marriage.
If you’ve been following this blog, then you probably know that the home invader turned out to be an autistic man, and that Daub was eventually no-billed by a grand jury over the well-justified shooting. Daub’s writeup on the incident is well worth reading for it’s insight of real-life self defense scenario unfolds under pressure.
Tags:Austin, Crime, Guns, John Daub
Posted in Austin, Crime, Guns | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 10th, 2015
One of the more surprising results from last week’s election was Austin voters defeated a courthouse bond package.
Austin City Council Member Don Zimmerman, who led the opposition to the courthouse project, said the last-minute defeat of the bonds was an “absolute stunning result.”
“The corporate downtown special interest lobby spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this,” he said. His anti-courthouse campaign through the Travis County Taxpayers Union barely spent anything, he said. “I think a lot of people heard that and said, ‘Well why are hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent if it’s such a good idea?’”
He said part of the reason the bonds were rejected is that Austin-area voters are increasingly concerned about affordability and increasingly loathe to support tax increases.
Because I live outside the city limits and in Williamson County, I was only vaguely aware of the Courthouse bond issue. As long as I’ve been in the Austin area, I can’t recall another bond issue going down in flames like this one. Could the People’s Republic of Austin finally have had enough of tax increases?
“It is not that complicated,” said local attorney Mark Pulliam. “Travis County homeowners are sick of property tax increases.”
“Only pompous, out-of-touch downtown lawyers — like those who belong to the Austin Bar Association — would think that a 14-story high-rise costing more than The Austonian, and almost as much as the just-completed JW Marriott, the largest in the North America, made sense,” he told Watchdog.org.
The Watchdog piece suggests that the long overdue move to single City Council districts may have been a factor in defeating the bond issue.
Also, Travis County suburbs may finally have become populous enough to balance out the liberal central city for county elections like this one. Indeed, that’s what this map suggests.
Tags:Austin, Don Zimmerman, Elections, Texas
Posted in Austin, Texas | 1 Comment »
Monday, November 9th, 2015
I wanted to take a closer look at a few off-year election issues from last week, specifically the Proposition 6 “Right to Hunt and Fish” Amendment.
Really, if you wanted a “safe” vote for people favoring gun control to cast, opposing Prop 6, a constitutional amendment that wouldn’t change a single law in hunting-friendly Texas, seems ideal.
Just look at how the Houston Chronicle sneered at the amendment’s supporters in an editorial opposing it: “This amendment…is the most ridiculous on the ballot…[it’s] essentially a paean to the ‘black helicopter’ crowd that’s eager to harry and harass legitimate conservation efforts in Texas.”
And after all the sneering by smart set urban liberals, how did Prop 6 do? It won with over 81% of the vote. Evidently more than four-fifths of Texans are part of “the black helicopter crowd.”
That’s some fringe group.
My quick scan of county-by-county results shows not a single county in Texas voted against Prop 6. In the smaller counties, Prop 6 passed by a ratio of about 10-1.
A liberal data wonk sent out this tweet while voting was still going on.
(Here’s a non-Tweet version of that map.)
That’s your gun control vote right there: A white liberal urban core. Prop 6 passed Travis County, the deepest blue white liberal bastion in the state, by 44,128 in favor to 28,797.
When actual citizens get to vote, gun control loses every time.
If gun control loses in Austin, it’s hard to see where it wins outside San Francisco and New York City.
Tags:Austin, gun control, Guns, Texas, Texas Constitutional Amendment
Posted in Austin, Elections, Guns, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, November 2nd, 2015
California continues to suffer from drought while central Texas just suffered through torrential rains. Time for another Texas vs. California update:
Texas Adds 26,600 Jobs in September.
Texas and Florida rank at the top of education index for biggest states, while California ranks last.
The University of Texas is ranked the number one public university in America.
Meanwhile, at the University of California system: “The number of those making at least $500,000 annually grew by 14 percent in the last year, to 445, and the system’s administrative ranks have swelled by 60 percent over the last decade – far outpacing tenure-track faculty.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Another example of California’s perpetual trial lawyer enrichment act: “cumulative trauma” awards for employees after termination, even if they’ve never reported symptoms before. Shouldn’t every former member of the Raiders, Chargers and 49ers file a lawsuit?
Why CalPERS contributions are soaring. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
So now the California high speed rail boondoggle is going to cost $68 billion and require 36 miles of tunnels, including some dug right through an active tectonic fault. That’s ten times the length of tunnel Boston needed to dig for the Big Dig. And the cost is equivalent to the Gross Domestic Product of Sri Lanka. For a train line. It would probably be cheaper to buy cab rides for everyone traveling between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but that wouldn’t provide enough opportunities for graft…
“The parent company of the Orange County Register and Riverside Press-Enterprise filed for federal bankruptcy protection.”
Also filing for bankruptcy, yet another West coast grocery chain, Fresh & Easy.
Another bankruptcy filing: Fresno’s One Club Casino. California casinos are different from Nevada casinos, and I believe One Club is what is called a “card room”. Still, when you can’t make a profit off gambling…
California plastics company opens plant in Pflugerville. “Medway, founded in 1974, will also relocate its research and development laboratory to the new Pflugerville facility. Though Medway Plastics will continue operations in California, the company may consider relocating its headquarters to Pflugerville within the next five to eight years, the company said.”
Plans continue apace to build a Texas Gold Depository.
California Ballot initiatives weaponize emotion to centralize power.
Tags:Austin, bankruptcy, California, CalPERs, gambling, Medway, Orange County, Orange County Register, Pflugerville, Texas, Texas Gold Depository, University of Texas, Welfare State
Posted in Austin, Budget, Democrats, Texas, Welfare State | No Comments »