Author: Papa Giorgio
The California [Taxpayer Funded] Bullet Train vs. Private Business
West Coast Blog has this story about the final cost — so far — of the California boondoggle known as the Bullet Train:
Bullet Train From SF to LA Doesn’t Cost $33.6 Billion Anymore… Try $100 Billion!
Ok, so that headline may sound like Dr Evil from the Austin Powers movies. How many of you actually read it in the Dr Evil voice? But even though it wasn’t Dr Evil speaking the headline, it sure feels like he is controlling the budget for high-speed rail project in California.
The high-speed rail project was approved to build a bullet train, very similar to those in Europe and parts of Asia, to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles. It would cut the traveling time between the two cities from 5-6 hours (by car) down to 2 Hours 40 Minutes. When it was passed 3 years ago, the estimated cost was $33.6 Billion broken down as follows:
$15 Billion – Federal Government
$5 Billion – Local Government
$10 Billion – Private Investors
Remainder – California
But in the last 3 years, the California High-Speed Rail authority has had problems raising money from private investors. Surprise? Not only has the project had trouble finding investors, the estimated date of completion of 2020 has been pushed back to 2033. This delay in time has caused the majority of the cost increases and estimated costs are now expected at $100 Billion. FYI: the entire California state budget is only $86 Billion.
Take note the almost instantaneous ballooning effect of the total cost via government meddling, here is the L.A. Times giving the most recent total cost update:
As the price tag for California’s bullet train has soared to nearly $100 billion, a central argument for forging ahead with the controversial project is an even loftier figure: the $171 billion that promoters recently estimated will be needed for new roads and airports if no high-speed rail is built….
….The bullet train is aimed at meeting future transportation needs of the state….
Newsflash! People are leaving California, not coming to it!
Another L.A.Times story says this:
…When the first business plan surfaced, it projected a $34-billion cost. By 2009, the estimate had jumped to $43 billion, in part because the authority included future inflation in the estimated cost of building the system over the next decade.
In August, the authority released two planning documents that signaled even higher costs. The cost of building only the first two segments in the Central Valley had jumped in price by as much as 100%, not including future inflation…
And HotAir points out the death knell for this type of liberal thinking:
CA auditor warns bullet train project financing “increasingly risky”
Few people probably noticed the absence of “high-speed rail” from Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech last night. The issue took a prominent position in SOTU speeches in 2011, when Obama dedicated five paragraphs to pushing it, and in 2010, when Obama promoted the high-speed rail project in Florida that Governor Rick Scott killed. Last night’s mentions: zero.
Perhaps the White House didn’t have a good answer as to why their pet rail project in California has become so expensive and bloated that the state auditor issued a warning hours before the SOTU began about its financing becoming so “increasingly risky” that state lawmakers should consider whether to proceed (via Andrew Malcolm):
In the latest in a series of cautionary reports by outside agencies and groups, the auditor’s report finds that the California High-Speed Rail Authority has made some progress in addressing planning and fiscal concerns but still has important work to do to ensure that the project can be built as promised.
“The program’s overall financial situation has become increasingly risky, in part because the authority has not provided viable funding alternatives in the event its planned funding does not materialize,” the auditor’s report says.
The authority has secured $12.5 billion for the first leg — from Los Angeles to San Francisco — of what is planned to be an 80-mile network, according to the report says. But it notes the projected cost of that phase has risen to between $98.1 billion and $117.6 billion.
The auditor warns that the state has no clear way to raise the $105 billion in funding necessary to complete the project, but that’s just half of the problem:
“The success or failure of the program” depends on obtaining up to $105 billion in additional funding, which has not been identified, the report says. It also finds that cost estimates for the initial phase do not include operating or maintenance outlays, which the auditor estimates could total $97 billion between 2025 and 2060.
Use EBT Cards In Strip Clubs? GOP: No | Dems: Yes
(Language Warning)
This from Sweetness & Light:
….this update from CBS News:
House bans welfare recipients’ money from strip clubs, liquor stores
[…]
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that prohibits welfare recipients from using their government subsidy in strip clubs, liquor stores and casinos.
The measure easily received the necessary support of two-thirds of House members, with 395 voting in favor and only 27 opposing.
So this was a very bi-partisan vote. Funny how CBS doesn’t use the word. But we thought bi-partisanship was wonderful.
House Republicans introduced and promoted the proposal as a way to eliminate government wasteful spending. It has passed the House before, and they re-introduced it again hoping it will become part of a bill to extend the payroll tax credit, which both the House and Senate is expected to debate this month.
The Senate has not agreed to take up the measure….
This is an old debate that is wrapped up well by state Senator Bob Dutton (31st Dis., California), in his post…
Democrats Kill Bill to Limit Welfare Recipients From Purchasing Alcohol/Tobacco with EBT Cards (4-2011):
An effort by Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga) to move California closer to making sure that those who receive welfare use those taxpayer funds as effectively and efficiently as possible was killed by Democrats during a hearing of the Senate Human Services Committee this week.
Senate Bill 417 would have prohibited those who receive welfare from using their Electronic Benefits Card (EBT) for the purchase of alcohol or tobacco products. Currently, those with EBT cards receive both their food stamps and welfare money, called CalWORKS benefits, on the ETB card. While current law does not allow recipients to use their food stamp portion of their benefits to purchase alcohol or tobacco, they can buy those items with the CalWORKS funds.
“You would think a simple common sense reform like trying to make sure taxpayer money is not used for the purchase of alcohol and tobacco would find bi-partisan support,” Senator Dutton said.
Abuses of the EBT card has received national attention over the last year, after the Los Angeles Times reported how millions of dollars of taxpayer money was being withdrawn with EBT cards from Indian Gaming Casinos, strip clubs, cruise ships, and Las Vegas. While the Governor issued an Executive Order to stop the use of EBT cards at these locations, it did not address stopping the purchase of alcohol or tobacco.
“These funds are designed to help the neediest in California meet their basic requirements of providing food, clothing and shelter,” Senator Dutton said. “I doubt there’s not a taxpayer in this state who believes purchasing alcohol or tobacco with welfare money constitutes a basic need and should be allowed.”
I also wrote on this topic after the L.A. Times broke the story, which states:
The Capitol Casino, which occupies a pair of small rooms a few blocks from the legislative chambers in Sacramento, appears on the social services website showing where clients can get money. Each room has an ATM: one is so close to a poker table that a player with long arms could lean back and withdraw cash without leaving his chair; the other is a few steps from the blackjack table.
At the Casino Royale on the outskirts of Sacramento, the first thing patrons pass as they walk to the gaming floor is the ATM with a sign next to it saying, “Exceed your ATM daily limit here!!”….
What is the liberal response? Here it is:
BREAKING: World Net Daily`s Joseph Farah Already Leading the `Birther` Charge Against Marco Rubio ~ Misguided Interpretation of the Constitution
The Hill reports the following:
Conservative Joseph Farah on Tuesday evening predicted that “10 percent of the Republican vote” would fail to get behind Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as the hypothetical vice presidential nominee because they will believe the circumstances of his birth make him ineligible.
Farah has been one of the most prominent and persistent voices of the so-called “birther” movement, which argues that President Obama is not eligible to be president of the United States due to doubts about his birthplace and the citizenship of his parents.
Farah’s objection to Rubio might serve as a rallying cry to voters convinced that Obama’s presidency is illegal according to the rules set out in the Constitution.
“Rubio is not eligible,” Farah told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “He’ll lose 10 percent of the Republican vote because he is not a natural-born citizen. We’ve been through this with Obama now for four years.
Rubio was born in Miami in 1971. Farah’s argument against Rubio’s “natural born” status relies on a strict definition also used by Farah and others who raised doubts over Obama’s eligibility. The strict definition requires that both parents be legal citizens at the time of the birth.
Rubio’s parents became naturalized citizens in 1975, but were permanent legal residents of the United States when Rubio was born, according to Rubio’s office. Rubio’s official biography has already been scrutinized, due to questions over the date his parents arrived in the United States as Cuban exiles.
Farah’s website, World Net Daily, is now reporting on the potential controversy under the category “Certifigate.” The website first raised the question in May, but Farah raising the issue in a national television appearance could be a signal of things to come should Rubio appear on the Republican presidential ticket later this year.
And via The Daily Caller:
Host Sean Hannity said Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is more likely to share the ticket if Romney wins the GOP nomination. But Farah declared that Rubio would not be eligible.
HANNITY: I think that’s taken. It’s got to be Rubio. That’s my guess.
BOB BECKEL: If it’s not, somebody’s lost their mind.
FARAH: Rubio is not eligible.
HANNITY: Whoa, what do you mean, ‘Rubio’s not –
FARAH: He’ll lose 10 percent of the Republican vote because he is not a natural-born citizen. We’ve been through this with Obama now for four years.
HANNITY: I don’t believe that. I don’t think that’s going to work.
World Net Daily took the mantel of birtherism from the Democratic attacks against Obama, now they will lead the way against Marco Rubio:
MIAMI, Fla. – Some national news media are declaring that U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is a natural-born citizen and thus eligible for the presidency or vice presidency, even though Rubio’s constitutional eligibility remains unclear and the popular Florida Republican has himself downplayed any interest in running on a White House ticket.
In a Daily Caller piece today titled “Coming soon: Rubio ‘birthers,’” journalist Matt Lewis warns, “There is already a movement afoot (led by some on the fringe) to disqualify him from serving as president (which would presumably disqualify him from serving as vice president). That’s right – some are arguing that Rubio is not eligible because he is not a ‘natural-born citizen.’”
Lewis explains the logic by citing a May 22 WND report examining the issue, which noted, “While the Constitution does not define ‘natural-born citizen,’ there is strong evidence that the Founding Fathers understood it to mean someone born of two American citizens.”
Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller thinks those questioning Marco Rubio’s natural-born citizenship are racists or misguided adherents to the Constitution.
That report examined both Rubio and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, both of whose parents were legal U.S. residents but not legal U.S. citizens when the future politicians were born.
“Who knows how big this thing will get?” asks Lewis. “Maybe it’s just a small fringe movement – but it is a ‘thing.’ The good news here, of course, is that the rise of Rubio birthers proves that birthers are not merely partisan hypocrites who solely attack Democrats like Obama. They are, instead, either consistent racists – or consistently misguided adherents to the Constitution. But hey – at least they aren’t partisan hacks.”
Michael Medved took a call from a birther who used the same line of thinking that Joseph Farah applies to the constitution, Medved uses the callers own source to explain why Obama (and now Marco Rubio) are eligible:
The `Hero` of Sean Penn, Harry Belafonte, Oliver Stone, Kevin Spacey, and Danny Glover Chasing Jews from Venezuela
Via The Blaze
I have written quite a bit in the past about Venezuela… an ex-coworker was from there and I got lots of inside info during that time, click graphic for the older posts:
Joe Scarborough Brings to the Forefront Medias Incompetence in Comparing Negative Ads Between Obama and Republicans
Via NewsBusters:
Ezra Takes the CBC to Task! Political Correctness Is To Blame for the Deaths of These girls (UPDATED w/ Fox Interview)
Laser Guided Bullet? Thanks to Sandia National Laboratories!
Muppets Go Partisan, They Probably Prefer Self Admitted Socialists and Marxists At MSNBC
Lawrence O’Donnell admitting he is a socialist:
Rachel Maddow admits she is to the left of Marxist Mao:
The LEFT Legislating Progressive Mores on Christian Organizations ~ Obama-Care and the HHS Mandate
How the Left legislates Their Morality, via The Blaze:
The Church’s vocal arguments against the Obama administration are centered upon a Health and Human Services Department requirement that employers must include contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in health-care coverage. While this requirement doesn’t apply to houses of worship, it will force Catholic colleges, hospitals and other Christian groups to provide these drugs despite their faith-based opposition to them.
Liberals Causing Liberals to `Face-Palm` ~ Priceless!
Via NewsBusters and MRCTV:
ELEANOR CLIFT: The capital gains has not always been at 15 percent. You know, when Reagan came to town, the marginal rates were very high, and he got money as a movie actor, so he wanted to bring those down which he did. When the Bushes came into office, they wanted to reduce capital gains because a lot of their money came from investment income. The 15 percent, [Camera pans to Zuckerman doing double facepalm], the 15 percent we arrived at when W. Bush was in office, and it has not always been that low.
Got that? Reagan and Bush only cut taxes to help themselves. It had nothing to do with stimulating the economy.
I agree with Mort [to the right].
The Inquisitions Bush`s Fault? Almost ~ The Tale of Two Books
NPR has a left leaning bias, we all know that and I have proven it in the past. So reviews of a book they laud connecting the fanciful imaginations of the progressive in regards to history and Bush is a dream come true. In two reviews of the book/topic with the author of the book, God’s Jury, you can see a creeping bias, much like the pre-war Germany propaganda, has on the cover a “hooked nosed” Pope designating (implicitly or explicitly) the secular leftist hatred for anything Christian.
Cullen Murphey’s Cover:
WWII Propaganda:
Modern Islamo-Nazi Depiction:
Some NPR stories on the book/author:
1) The Inquisition: Alive And Well After 800 Years
2) The Inquisition: A Model For Modern Interrogators
NewsBusters has this in what they call a Liberal Two-Fer:
…NPR promoted it this way:
Murphy’s new book God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World traces the history of the Inquisitions — there were several — and draws parallels between some of the interrogation techniques used in previous centuries with the ones used today.
“A few years ago, the intelligence agencies had some transcripts released … of interrogations that were done at Guantanamo, and the interrogations done by the Inquisition were surprisingly similar and just as detailed,” he tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “[They were] virtually verbatim.”
“Many people in the Bush administration were insisting [it] was not torture at all. The Inquisition was actually very clear on the matter. It obviously was torture. That’s why they were using it.”
Murphy’s own website summarizes the book this way:
The Inquisition pioneered surveillance and censorship and “scientific” interrogation. As time went on, its methods and mindset spread far beyond the Church to become tools of secular persecution. Traveling from freshly opened Vatican archives to the detention camps of Guantánamo to the filing cabinets of the Third Reich, Murphy traces the Inquisition and its legacy.
Surprise, surprise! Murphy sought out a blurb by leftist New Yorker writer Jane Mayer, one of the most prominent Bush-trashing journalists (and a favorite of Terry Gross):
“From Torquemada to Guantanamo and beyond, Cullen Murphy finds the ‘inquisitorial impulse’ alive, and only too well, in our world. His engaging romp through the secret Vatican archives shows that the distance between the Dark Ages and Modernity is shockingly short.”
—Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side.
This book is at odds with the most renown scholar and author of the book, The Spanish Inquisition, Henry Kamen. Take note of the difference in tone and most probably scholarship — as this interview shows… his [Cullen Murphey] connections are so general that any religion or government can be connected to this event. These generalities are not to connect a historical event to a modern one but in progressive fashion the goal of stoking emotions rather than basing something in fact/history is the prime mover.
From an Amazon book reviewer and author of Author of “Mission,” an African novel set in Kenya:
Henry Kamen’s The Spanish Inquisition is an amazing experience. It is a highly detailed, supremely scholarly and ultimately enlightening account of an historical phenomenon whose identity and reputation have become iconic. So much has been written about it, so many words have been spoken that one might think that there is not too much new to be learned. But this is precisely where Kamen’s book really comes into its own, for it reveals the popular understanding of the Inquisition as little more than myth.
He explodes the notion that the busy-bodies of inquisitors had their nose in everyone’s business. It was actually quite a rare event for someone to be called before it. And in addition, if you lived away from a small number of population centres, the chances were that that you would hardly even have known of its existence. 
Also exploded is the myth of large numbers of heretics being burned at the stake. Yes, it happened, but in nowhere near the numbers that popular misconceptions might claim. Indeed, the more common practice was to burn the convicted in effigy, since the accused had fled sometimes years before the judgment, or they might have died in prison while waiting for the case to reach its conclusion. The intention is not to suggest that the inquisition’s methods were anything but brutal, but merely to point out that perceptions of how commonly they were applied are often false.
Henry Kamen skilfully describes how the focus of interest changed over the years. Initially the main targets were conversos, converts to Christianity, families that were once Jewish or Muslim who converted to Christianity during the decades that preceded the completion in 1492 of Ferdinand and Isabella’s reconquest. Protestants were targeted occasionally in the following centuries, but it was the families of former Jews that remained the prime target, sometimes being subjected to enquiry several generations after their adoption of their new faith. A focus on converts to Christianity gave rise to a distinction between Old and New Christianity, an adherent of the former being able to demonstrate no evidence of there having been other faiths in the family history.
What consistently runs through arguments surrounding Old and New Christianity, a distinction that was also described as pure blood versus impure blood, is that at its heart this apparent assertion of religious conformity was no more than raw xenophobia and racism. Henry Kamen makes a lot of the contradiction here, since Spain at the time was the most “international” of nations, having already secured an extensive empire and sent educated and wealthy Spaniards overseas to administer it. In addition, of course, Spain was emerging from a long period when Muslims, Jews and Christians lived competitively, perhaps, but also peacefully under Moorish rule. It is worth reminding oneself regularly that the desire and requirement for religious conformity during the reconquest was imposed from above.
Completing Henry Kamen’s The Spanish Inquisition prompts the reader to reflect on which other major historical reputations might be based on reconstructed myth. One is also prompted to speculate on the future of an increasingly integrated Europe, a continent forcibly divided for half a century where xenophobia and religious intolerance might be closer to the surface than most of us would want to admit.
One of my favorite quotes comes from a debate between Dinesh D’Souza and the late atheist Christopher Hitchens:
✦ Atheists regimes killed more people in a week than the inquisition could kill in three-centuries
And another reviewer:
The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen is a balanced overview of this sad part of Spanish History. At 300 plus pages the author shows the motivation behind the Spanish Inquisition and that this inquisition was just that, “Spanish.” By sourcing Inquisition, Spanish, and other documentation author Kamen traces the roots and history of the Spanish Inquisition. He shows how this was a tool of the unified Spanish Crown that resulted in its own fear of it past and inability, at times, to deal with contemporary Spain, which came to be at the end of the Muslim domination of Spain and rise of the Protestant Reformation in the rest of Europe. The author does not gloss over the suffering it caused to both Jewish and Muslim converts to Christianity, but shows that overall people were better treated by “The Holy Office” aka the Spanish Inquisition than the secular courts. Remember, heresy was a secular crime, punishable only by the secular authorities. And while those Jews and Muslims who did not convert might be considered heathens they could not be heretics. So, those who suffered at its hands were Catholics. The author also shows that, for its time, the Spanish Inquisition acted rationally. For example, when the great witchcraft scare was dominating Europe and its colonies (lets not forget the Salem Witch Trials) for its part the Spanish Inquisition so this phenomena as mental illness or an overactive imagination. In other words Witch hunting stopped dead in its tracks when it got to Spain. Henry Kamen does not gloss over the torture or burnings of the inquisition’s victims, but does show that for all of Europe, Catholic and Protestant, this was not uncommon for most crimes. And, many of the victims of the Spanish Inquisition were burnt and punished in effigy. Kamen shows how the Spanish Crown used the Inquisition to deal with its fear of an Andulus (former Muslim rulers of Spain) Fifth column and the rise of Protestantism in Western Europe. Remember Spain controlled a good part of the present day Netherlands and Belgium as well as Parts of Germany. So some Lutheran ideas did make their way to Spain. But, Kamen also shows that much of Spain, mainly the rural areas, was never even touched by the Inquisition. And that the Inquisition never had whole hearted support from the crown, those in positions of power, and the common folk. It was not the Gestapo like machine painted by many of its critics. But, criticized it should be and author Kamen shows the sad effects of the Inquisition not only on its victims, but on Spain itself. The author concludes by showing that people’s view of the Spanish Inquisition is not based on the historical data available but on the imaginations of those who have not reviewed or studied this data. Overall a great work of history is this book.
A great video by a fellow arm-chair apologists is a good introduction to the topic: