Now, a decade after Schwarzenegger began his strong emphasis on green jobs, we have another powerful state leader on the bandwagon.

With Senate President Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, declaring his determination to bring a huge infusion of green jobs to California, it’s time to look at the most comprehensive assessment of green job claims in the Golden State.

It wasn’t from The Los Angeles Times or Sacramento Bee. It was from The New York Times in August 2011, and it’s fairly described as harshly dismissive of such claims.

In the Bay Area as in much of the country, the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned. President Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs statewide by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream. …

A study released in July by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide and only slightly more — 2.2 percent — in Silicon Valley. Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent.

Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show. Two years after it was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes, California has spent only a little over half that sum and has so far created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter, according to the State Department of Community Services and Development.

The weatherization program was initially delayed for seven months while the federal Department of Labor determined prevailing wage standards for the industry. Even after that issue was resolved, the program never really caught on.

Job-training programs for nonexistent jobs

The NYT also pointed out that when there are few green jobs, having ambitious green job training programs isn’t likely to turn out well:

Job training programs intended for the clean economy have also failed to generate big numbers. The Economic Development Department in California reports that $59 million in state, federal and private money dedicated to green jobs training and apprenticeship has led to only 719 job placements — the equivalent of an $82,000 subsidy for each one.

“The demand’s just not there to take this to scale,” said Fred Lucero, project manager at Richmond BUILD, which teaches students the basics of carpentry and electrical work in addition to specifically “green” trades like solar installation.

Richmond BUILD has found jobs for 159 of the 221 students who have entered its clean-energy program — but only 35 graduates are employed with solar and energy efficiency companies, with the balance doing more traditional building trades work.

When upbeat green job reports come out, they’re usually driven by ever-expanding definitions of what constitutes green jobs, as I noted recently in the U-T San Diego newspaper:

Thrift-shop clerks, bus drivers, janitors at solar power plants, professors who teach about the environment, cashiers at bicycle-repair shops and trash collectors are all characterized as green jobs by the Obama administration.

This is a fact that rarely seems to appear in California newspapers.

The peer review of the California Air Resources Board’s 2007 report on the economic impact of the law included criticism from a UCLA professor and other academics who faulted the air board for failing to acknowledge the law’s likely eventual impact on manufacturing, in particular. The air board has been more candid about the AB32 economic fallout since then. In 2009, officials warned of what is known as “leakage”:

Producers that face compliance costs may not be able to pass costs through to consumers because their competitors that do not face similar costs do not have to increase prices. … Industries in this category may include non-ferrous metals smelting, iron and steel-making, cement, and other energy and/or emissions intensive activities.

But the typical California coverage of AB32 rarely discusses this prospect. Instead, it often uncritically accepts the idea that green jobs created directly and indirectly by AB32 will be its primary economic effect.

‘Manufacturers are the canaries’

But the national media generally look at the law differently. Bloomberg news service offered the latest example with a Feb. 5 story:

California manufacturers from food processors to apparel makers are warning costs will skyrocket if state regulators proceed with a plan to reduce their allocations of free greenhouse gas emission credits.

Starting in 2018, some companies California considers to be at risk of losing business to competitors outside the state’s landmark emissions cap and trade market will receive up to 50 percent fewer free pollution credits. That means they will either have to buy more allowances at auction or invest in ways to cut carbon pollution even more.

California has the toughest greenhouse gas curbs in the U.S., seeking to cut discharges to 1990 levels by 2020. The pushback from industry comes as Governor Jerry Brown and other state Democratic leaders are looking to advance those climate change policies further even as business leaders warn that lack of a national and global carbon-emission market puts companies in the state at a competitive disadvantage.

“Manufacturers are the canaries,” said Dorothy Rothrock, president of the California Manufacturers & Technology Association. “All of the costs in this system are radiating up and concentrate in manufacturing. It’s cumulative and it’s not happening anywhere else like this. California is doing it to its manufacturers in a way that no other state is contemplating.”

NYT: ‘Risks for CA are enormous’

In 2012, The New York Times offered a similar take about California’s “grand experiment”:

 The outsize goals of California’s new law, known as A.B. 32, are to lower California’s emissions to what they were in 1990 by 2020 — a reduction of roughly 30 percent — and, more broadly, to show that the [cap and trade system of selling emission rights] works and can be replicated.

The risks for California are enormous … the program could hurt the state’s fragile economy by driving out refineries, cement makers, glass factories and other businesses. Some are concerned that companies will find a way to outmaneuver the system, causing the state to fall short of its emission reduction targets.

“The worst possible thing to happen is if it fails,” said Robert N. Stavins, a Harvard economist.

The contrast with California media is pronounced. A Los Angeles Times editorial about AB 32 from last summer, for example, doesn’t even mention the law’s economic risks. Nor does this story from November about how an Indian tribe is taking advantage of one of the law’s provisions.

But the Times did acknowledge concerns that AB 32 would force the cost of gasoline higher for motorists. The effects of higher energy costs on business were not mentioned, however.

Leondra Kruger has been confirmed to a seat on the Supreme Court of California, a position to which she was nominated by Governor Jerry Brown last month. Governor Brown previously appointed Goodwin Liu (confirmed in 2011) and Tino Cuellar (confirmed in August).

These appointments make the California Supreme Court a court of national interest, in part because a Democratic President would likely consider Brown’s picks if there is a future U.S. Supreme Court vacancy on his or her watch. Brown’s picks share diversity, elite credentials, and youth. Given that prior judicial experience is a big asset for those hoping to land on a Supreme Court shortlist — it’s not required, but it’s helpful — Brown’s nominations likely expand the set of candidates to be considered if or when there is a future SCOTUS vacancy under a Democratic president in the next few Presidential election cycles.

As the picture above suggests, Kruger has already handled big cases before SCOTUS, representing the Obama administration. If Kruger, Liu and Cuellar are intrigued by this possible promotion, that seems to make it more likely that individually or together they will stake out bold new stands on major issues. There’s a pent-up desire among millions of liberals for more Warren Court-style sweeping rulings addressing perceived issues of social justice. A Democratic president, even a center-left politician, would see appointing activist judges to the high court as an easy way to please big Dem constituencies.

Brown vs. Board of Education for 21st century?

This could bode very well for the reformers behind the Vergara vs. California case.

The trial court judge, Rolf Treu, likened state laws that funnel the worst teachers to the schools with the most troubled students to segregated schools that existed in the South before the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, one of the most monumental in U.S. Supreme Court history. The state is now appealing Treu’s finding that teacher protection laws are unconstitutional because of their negative effect on minority students, and the case is close to certain to end up before the California Supreme Court.

If I were a CTA or CFT lawyer, this dynamic would worry me a lot — especially after reading the Vergara editorial in the most influential journal of liberal opinion, the New York Times:

The ruling opens a new chapter in the equal education struggle. It also underscores a shameful problem that has cast a long shadow over the lives of children, not just in California but in the rest of the country as well.

The steepening drop in gasoline prices in recent weeks — spurred by soaring domestic energy production and Saudi discounts for crude oil at a time of faltering global demand — is set to provide the United States economy with a multibillion-dollar boost through the holiday season and beyond.

The windfall, experts say, comes at a critical moment, with the American economy on the upswing but facing headwinds from other quarters, including weaker exports because of slow growth overseas. Gas prices recently dropped below $3 a gallon for the first time since 2010, while crude oil prices have fallen by more than $25 a barrel since midsummer, settling on Thursday just above $74.

“If oil prices stay between $75 and $95 a barrel, we would see the kind of stimulus package that the Federal Reserve or Congress could never do,” said Douglas R. Oberhelman, the chief executive of Caterpillar, the multinational maker of heavy construction equipment.

The NYT article doesn’t talk about any raging debate over fracking’s safety. The newspaper has repeatedly acknowledged that the Obama administration considers fracking to be safe if properly regulated and has never given serious ink to the apocalyptic claims of fracking haters.

Which brings us to the Los Angeles Times. On Friday, the newspaper continued its absolutely bizarre tradition of raising safety concerns about fracking without noting that the greenest administration of all time thinks it’s safe. It comes in a story about L.A. City Council members agitating for a citywide fracking ban and finding resistance from city staffers who are skeptical that would be legal:

Councilmen Mike Bonin and Paul Koretz, who championed the ban, said in a letter Wednesday that they were “extremely disappointed” that the planning department had not drafted the rules as it was asked to do nearly nine months ago.

“Your report outlines interesting recommendations and important considerations,” Bonin and Koretz wrote to the deputy director of planning, Alan Bell.

“The council, however, asked for a draft ordinance establishing a fracking moratorium for its consideration, not a report without an ordinance attached,” the councilmen wrote. …

The Los Angeles City Council voted in February to start drafting rules that would prohibit hydraulic fracturing — commonly known as fracking — and other kinds of “well stimulation” techniques until adequate environmental safeguards are adopted by state and federal governments.

Does the LAT note that the federal government strongly believes it has “adequate environmental safeguards” in place? Nah. It has a pathetic tradition to continue. This is from CalWatchdog in May 2013:

Say what you will about The New York Times, but at least it’s not in denial about fracking the way The Los Angeles Times is.

Friday’s LAT coverage of new U.S. Interior Department rules for fracking on 756 million acres of public and Indian lands depicted the rules as being strongly objectionable to both enviros and the energy exploration industry.

The NYT coverage made the industry whining seem more pro forma and offered this essential point that the LAT couldn’t bring itself to point out:

“The 171-page proposal is the first significant regulation issued under the new interior secretary, Sally Jewell. Ms. Jewell worked in the oil industry in the late 1970s and proudly said that she fracked a few wells in Oklahoma.

“Ms. Jewell said in a conference call for reporters that the administration would continue to lease large tracts of public and Indian lands for oil and gas development and that it was critical that rules keep pace with technology.

“Anticipating criticism from environmental advocates, she said: ‘I know there are those who say fracking is dangerous and should be curtailed, full stop. That ignores the reality that it has been done for decades and has the potential for developing significant domestic resources and strengthening our economy and will be done for decades to come.’”

NYT quotes Obama Cabinet member; LAT quotes flack

The L.A. Times’ account put in the “fracking is safe and has been around forever” context by quoting an oil industry trade association spokesperson. The NYT quoted THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR!

Quite a gigantic difference. But than the LAT’s Neela Banerjee and Wes Venteicher and their editors can’t have Times’ readers knowing the Obama administration likes fracking, can they? It doesn’t fit the West L.A.-Marin County-NRDC narrative.

Pretty incredible how blatant the LAT bias is here. Can’t discomfit readers with a jarring truth.

Sorry, folks — you can just be wrong. Vergara reframes the way the public looks at schools in such a fundamentally anti-teacher union way that it’s going to make some of the most familiar teacher arguments seem idiotic. For example, the frequent CTA refrain that it is “fighting for children” is going to seem laughable (or Orwellian) to anyone who has read Vergara coverage.

To those in denial — to the folks I still meet who think the CTA’s noble talking points are truly reflective of how the CTA wields its power — I’m happy to present evidence that three of the four most influential liberal newspapers in America agree with me. (The other one — the Boston Globe — may also be down on teacher unions, but I couldn’t find evidence it had written a Vergara editorial.)

N.Y. Times: ‘a new chapter in equal education struggle’

When states are sued for providing inferior education to poor and minority children, the issue is usually money — disproportionately more money for white students, less for others. A California judge has now brought another deep-rooted inequity to light: poor teaching.

In an important decision issued on Tuesday, Judge Rolf M. Treu of the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that state laws governing the hiring, firing and job security of teachers violate the California Constitution and disproportionately saddle poor and minority children with ineffective teachers.

The ruling opens a new chapter in the equal education struggle. It also underscores a shameful problem that has cast a long shadow over the lives of children, not just in California but in the rest of the country as well.

The plaintiffs in the case, Vergara vs. California, are nine public school students who charged that state laws forced districts to give tenure to teachers, regardless of whether they can do the job, making it virtually impossible to fire even the worst of them.

In a blistering decision, Judge Treu agreed: ”The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience.”

Washington Post: ‘groundbreaking ruling’

A judge who struck down California’slaws on teacher tenure and layoffs said the decision was based solely on the legal aspects of the case but added that he was mindful of the intense political debate about these issues. It is “beyond question,” he wrote, that there will be further political discourse. We certainly hope so. The issues about education equality laid bare by this groundbreaking ruling cry out for new ways of thinking. …

Treu … found that job protections afforded to teachers violate the rights of minority and low-income students to an equal education because they are the ones disproportionately stuck with the incompetent teachers who are hard, if not impossible, to fire. Constitutional rights in education typically have been tied to equitable funding, so the judge entered new territory by declaring a basic right to an effective teacher.

The trial featured powerful testimony about the effect of incompetent teachers on students. “The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience,” the judge wrote.

Los Angeles Times:  Lawmakers ‘too deferential’ to CTA

California’s extraordinary protections for public school teachers were dealt a heavy blow Tuesday when a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled that the state’s tenure laws unconstitutionally deprive students of an adequate education. To this extent, the judge’s opinion was absolutely correct: The tenure laws are bad policy. In almost no other field of work is it remotely as hard to fire someone for incompetence, or for not doing the job at all. Lawmakers have been far too deferential to the powerful California Teachers Assn. over the years, and now they have been given a strong prod to change their ways.

I’m glad that this ruling has gotten as much coverage as it has. But it’s odd that no newspaper I could find on Nexis or Google had done an analysis piece about how this might affect the Dem coalition. How can all the party’s minority lawmakers stand proud with the CTA and CFT after this?

I truly am baffled by the absence of stories on this obvious angle. The intraparty fight pitting Asian lawmakers vs. Latino and black lawmakers over Prop. 209 has been covered by the Sacramento media. Why not this?

Now there’s fresh evidence of this from a U.S. neighbor that doesn’t exactly have a history of smart governance. Walter Russell Mead has the details:

“Mexico’s Senate voted [Tuesday] 95 to 28 in favor of an historic energy reform bill last night, setting the stage for a massive turnaround of the country’s oil and gas production. The bill is now headed to the lower house, which is expected to pass it later this week.  The reform, if passed, will be a defining victory for President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has already made a name for himself as a reformer in his first year in office.

“But this is much more than a boost to his legacy; it’s a chance for Mexico to really take advantage of its resource bounty. Mexico has large reserves of conventional onshore and offshore oil and gas, and the world’s sixth and eighth largest shale gas and shale oil reserves, respectively. …

“The reforms will be especially beneficial for Mexican shale exploration. Fracking was so successful in the US because of our relatively simple geology—geology Mexico shares—and our deep pool of firms willing to compete with one another to develop the technology and take the risks on unproven techniques and reserves—something Mexico lacks. But that could change if this bill goes through. These changes could help the country realize the Pemex CEO’s dream of becoming the world’s ‘new Middle East.'”

Will CA join the ‘phenomenon’ or not?

Mead concludes that …

“Mexico is poised to join the US and Canada as new major players in the global oil and gas market, and if these reforms are successful, it will make the shale boom a truly North American phenomenon.”

But will California join in this “North American phenomenon” or not? Maybe not, given the dishonest media coverage of fracking.

From last month, here’s the latest L.A. Times editorial on fracking to not even mention that the Obama administration has repeatedly signed off on fracking’s safety, seeing it as just another heavy industry that can be made safe with proper regulation.

The latest Sac Bee editorial on fracking, which came in September, is not available for free online, but it too never even mentions that the Obama administration has repeatedly signed off on fracking’s safety.

The latest San Francisco Chronicle editorial on fracking also never even mentions that the Obama administration has repeatedly signed off on fracking’s safety. It’s from last month.

Only one editorial from a prominent liberal paper even hinted at the Obama administration’s views of fracking. It was the San Jose Mercury-News piece posted Sept. 15.

“Some environmentalists won’t be happy unless there is a complete ban on fracking or a moratorium until the environmental impact review is complete. But studies by the Environmental Protection Agency have not linked fracking by oil companies to groundwater contamination.”

Both edit page, reporters in on LAT’s anti-fracking agenda

Boy, such context would sure by valuable in all coverage of California and fracking, dontcha think? But so would the comments of U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell at a May press conference, as reported by The New York Times.

“Anticipating criticism from environmental advocates, she said: ‘I know there are those who say fracking is dangerous and should be curtailed, full stop. That ignores the reality that it has been done for decades and has the potential for developing significant domestic resources and strengthening our economy and will be done for decades to come.’”

The Los Angeles Times also covered Jewell’s press conference. It didn’t mention Jewell’s strong support for fracking. Instead, it went to an oil-industry spokesman to make the claim that fracking is safe — not President Obama’s secretary of the interior.

So it’s not just the LAT editorial page with an agenda on fracking. It’s the newsroom, too.

Great, just great.

Mostly because of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s dithering and pandering,  nothing seems to be changing in the Empire State, where a fracking moratorium is looking more and more permanent.

But Europe is having second thoughts about its green energy policies.

First came the stories about the crushing economic burden facing Euro nations because of the forced shift to renewable energy. This, of course, has deep implications for California and its AB 32 experiment.

Now comes along another story with implications for the Golden State and its nascent efforts to regulate fracking and bring the Monterey Shale’s vast oil wealth into our economy. A once-deeply skeptical British government now says fracking is safe. This is from Reuters:

“The risks to public health from emissions caused by fracking for shale oil and gas are low as long as operations are properly run and regulated, the British government’s health agency said on Thursday.

“Public Health England (PHE) said in a review that any health impacts were likely to be minimal from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves the pumping of water and chemicals into dense shale formations deep underground.

“Environmental campaigners have staged large anti-fracking protests in Britain, arguing that it can pollute groundwater and cause earthquakes. …

“Since there is currently no fracking in Britain, the PHE report examined evidence from countries such as the United States, where it found that any risk to health was typically due to operational failure.

“The currently available evidence indicates that the potential risks to public health from exposure to emissions associated with the shale gas extraction process are low if operations are properly run and regulated,” said John Harrison, director of PHE’s center for radiation, chemical and environmental hazards.”

It’s just another dirty-but-manageable heavy industry

Which brings us to another angle with implications for California. British regulators consulted with U.S. regulators. And surprise, surprise, the Obama administration experts said what they’ve said for years: fracking is just another dirty heavy industry that can be made tolerable with basic regulations.

The angle for California here? The astounding newspaper blackout in the Golden State of the fact that the Obama administration considers fracking safe.

Here’s a look at egregious “analysis” by the Sac Bee’s Tom Knudson.

Here’s a look at the staggering breadth of Obama-fracking-view-omitters on the staff of the L.A. Times.

Here’s a look at the single most stunning example of California media disinformation on Obama and fracking, which contrasts how the L.A. Times covered a press conference on fracking with Obama’s commerce secretary with how the New York Times covered the same event.

Bias in reporting rarely is easier to document than this: The vast majority of CA reporters covering fracking never even mention that the administration of the greenest president in history thinks that it is safe.

Hey, newsrooms of California, isn’t that news?

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Of course. But here in California, where the incompetence of the media can scarcely be exaggerated, almost nobody is aware that the Golden State is no. 1 in economic misery.

This malpractice is nothing new. On the debate over whether California should encourage hydraulic fracturing of its massive oil reserves, the state media never note that the Obama administration considers fracking safe. On the debate over education policy, the state media never note that Gov. Brown’s prescription for education reform — local control — is the same flawed, status-quo-reinforcing policy choice that led to the two big education reform moments of the past 30 years. On AB 32, the state’s landmark 2006 climate-change law, the Los Angeles Times waited until March 2012 to note that it was a risk to California’s economic competitiveness to force its energy costs to be higher than rival states and nations. On this front, the L.A. Times trailed the New York Times by years.

So on the economy, why would the fact that California has the highest effective poverty rate in the nation be mentioned? If key details are routinely ignored on other big stories, why change the template on poverty and human misery?

The governor thinks he’s the bomb. Why won’t media push back?

Which brings me to my Sunday U-T San Diego editorial.

“… what one would never guess from his press clippings is that Brown presides over the state with by far the nation’s highest poverty rate. According to a 2012 Census report, once the cost of living is factored in, nearly one in four state residents — 23.5 percent — live below the poverty line. And according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measure that includes those who have given up looking for work, California has the second worst unemployment rate in the nation. More than one in six Californians who want to work full-time — 18.3 percent — can’t find such jobs.

“How anyone can look at this picture and conclude the Golden State has solved its economic miseries is baffling. Silicon Valley and the Bay Area are doing well. San Diego and Orange counties are much improved. But the Great Recession never ended in the Central Valley, Imperial County or the Inland Empire. Nor did it end for millions of Latino and African-American families in the minority neighborhoods that don’t reflect the tidy picture offered by the national media.

“Brown, alas, won’t acknowledge the depth of our economic woes. Such is his hubris that he’d rather enjoy the fawning than push back at the narrative of a booming, healthy California. Last month, he even gave a boastful interview to The Los Angeles Times that carried this headline: ‘Gov. Brown sees his ambitious agenda as a template for nation.'”

A normal newspaper would see a politician being this boastful and choose to point out the counter-narratives that undercut his claims. But not the L.A. Times’ reporting staff. Or its editorial page. Or its Sacramento columnist George Skelton.

What’s news vs. what’s not news: Aaauuugghh!

I have seen pack journalism my entire professional life. But I have never seen anything like the last few years out of Sacramento. I don’t think that the following four questions are only ones that would occur to a partisan individual. I think they’d occur to anyone who is reasonably well-informed.

Why isn’t it relevant that the Obama administration considers fracking safe?

Why aren’t Jerry Brown’s education policies placed in historical context?

Why did it take more than five years for a small part of the media to admit AB 32 was risky?

And on poverty, why isn’t the fact that California is worse off than Mississippi and West Virginia front-page news? Or back-page news? Or news at all?

I await sincere answers. But what do I expect, at least from Sacramento journalists? Snark.

Whether you support the status quo, the proposals from President Obama or President George W. Bush, or a crackdown on those living in the U.S. illegally, there are many reasons to take the issue very seriously, and to try to think through the implications of the decisions our elected leaders make and voters make through initiatives.

But not if you are the reporter covering immigration for the nation's most influential publication. She's pursuing a crusade, not attempting to explore a very complex issue.

“The campaign to win amnesty for illegal immigrants is 'a very substantial civil rights movement,' according to New York Times reporter Julia Preston, who, along with other progressive journalists, spoke about the issue to a Washington, D.C. audience on Friday.

“Preston is the New York Times’ primary immigration reporter — and the paper is cheering the push by progressives and employers to grant amnesty to 11 million illegal immigrants during an extended recession. The Gray Lady also backs the simultaneous campaign to double legal immigration, which would bring in 22 million additional immigrant workers and consumers by 2023.

“But, warned Preston, a 'popular resistance out in the country' has sprung up to oppose amnesty.

“A major part of her job is exposing and tracking the resistance, she said.

“'I have to write about… Where is the resistance? How strong is it? Is a popular resistance in this cycle or is it more of a political/ideological resistance?' she said.”

They have a 'civil right' to be in America

That's from Neil Munro of the Daily Caller. The next time someone tells you there's no liberal bias in the media, feel free to laugh until you break a rib.

What's amazing about the illegal immigration debate is that the same people who advocate amnesty of various kinds are often the same people who worry about income inequality. Incredibly enough, about the only journalist who ever regularly points out these issues are inextricably linked is quirky Los Angeles Democrat Mickey Kaus. Here's an example.

Mickey's thesis: Millions of Americans without college degrees struggle to find decent work, raise their kids and pay the bills. So what do American politicians and mainstream media want to do to change this picture? Make job prospects for these millions of Americans even more problematic by legally adding millions more low-skilled workers to the jobs market.

Kaus is onto something when he points out the contempt/indifference the elite media have for struggling poor people — or at least the ones who are citizens.

I am not remotely against increased legal immigration. I would be all for bringing in millions of well-educated, high-achieving new citizens — from Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, everywhere — through a merit-driven immigration system like Canada. But that's not what we're contemplating.

“Obama, for instance, has called for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to be safe and carefully monitored, but has never pushed for federal restrictions on it.”

You follow?

Obama. Never. Pushed. For. Federal. Restrictions. On. Fracking.

But the Sac Bee’s Tom Knudson won a Pulitzer, so let’s defer to him if he doesn’t think the view of the greenest president of all time is relevant to his opus on California and fracking.

Hey, Tom: How do you sleep at night? Pravda would be proud of you.

Far less green posturing, alarmism in Keystone State

But back to the National Journal article, which discusses the potential for a split among Democrats nationally over fracking. This passage makes we wish we could trade California’s dominant political class for Pennsylvania’s:

“At first glance, Pennsylvania’s Democratic gubernatorial primary next year looks like a prime opportunity for the party to swing left on natural gas. Fracking is a major issue in the state’s politics. Primaries are driven by the party’s base, which is friendly to environmental causes. And many of those voters live in or near Philadelphia, the one region of the state that hasn’t benefited economically from the natural-gas boom. On top of all that, two of the candidates, John Hanger and Katie McGinty, are former heads of the Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Department.

“But operatives connected to many of the campaigns predict the campaigns won’t veer left on natural gas. The politics of opposing fracking are complicated, even within the Democratic Party, they say, because most Democrats believe it brings jobs that are worth the environmental risk. ‘The flip side to appeasing the environmental lobby is that you open yourself up to getting roasted on killing jobs in Pennsylvania,’ said one Democrat working one of the campaigns.

“The front-runner in the race, Rep. Allyson Schwartz, has already publicly opposed the state party’s moratorium resolution. Few expect other contenders for the nomination, including Hanger, McGinty, State Treasurer Rob McCord, or businessman Tom Wolf, to take a stand in sharp opposition to the industry. The Democratic contenders will talk a lot about being sure to regulate the industry and levying larger taxes on it, said Chris Borick, a professor and pollster at Muhlenberg, but they won’t go further.”

High unemployment in CA = vast misery

That’s what Democrats who believe job creation is a good thing sound and act like.  But as I wrote Monday, the contrast with California’s Democrats could not be more pronounced:

“Nearly one in five adults in California who wants to work full time can’t find such a job. The state’s unemployment rate has been among the highest in the nation for four years. And just Friday, a new report said it had gone up to 8.7 percent in July, going against the broader U.S. trend.

“Why don’t these grim facts create a sense of urgency in Sacramento? Don’t Brown, Steinberg and Pérez understand how much human misery is reflected in these numbers? How this vast joblessness is very much linked to the fact that California has the highest poverty rate of any state?

“The Golden State’s unemployed do not deserve this cruel indifference. In the capitals of other megastates, there is a bipartisan desire to create jobs. In Albany, many Democrats seek to help New York’s banking, finance, manufacturing and garment companies. In Austin, many Democrats work to boost Texas’ energy, aeronautics, cattle and farming interests. In Tallahassee, many Democrats look to assist Florida’s tourism, international export and agriculture industries.”

And in Harrisburg, many Democrats back fracking, knowing it’s doing great things for Pennsylvania’s economy.

In California, alas, we’ve got very different priorities.

“Democrats are passionate only about preserving union jobs and creating subsidized jobs in ‘green’ industries.

“Why? How can a party that is supposed to be devoted to helping the downtrodden be so indifferent to the millions of Californians who want and need jobs? It’s mystifying — and sad.”