The column set off a war of words over the difference between legalization and decriminalization, with critics panning the column as “misleading,” “irresponsible” and “an unsubstantiated hot take.”

But the column’s author, Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach, shot back on Tuesday in an interview with CalWatchdog, saying: “There is no war of words; the Democrats are lying about this.”

War of words

Allen’s critics have argued that California lawmakers (mostly, but not exclusively, Democrats) did not legalize child prostitution. Instead, child prostitution was decriminalized, in that minors could not be arrested and charged with prostitution or for loitering in public with the intent to commit prostitution. 

But Allen told CalWatchdog on Tuesday that decriminalization and legalization are the same thing. And in his column he argued that the new law makes it so that law enforcement can’t “interfere with minors engaging in prostitution.” 

Is there a difference?

At first glance, the difference between decriminalization and legalization may seem like the type of petty detail in a dispute between politicians that would frustrate the average constituent. 

But in practical terms, the difference in this instance is that while minors are immune from charges related to prostitution, customers and pimps are not. It is just as illegal as ever to purchase or sell sex with a minor, a fact noted by both The Sacramento Bee, which called Allen’s column “misleading,” and the conservative website Red State, which wrote Allen’s editorial was “an unsubstantiated hot take.” 

“Pimping is still illegal. Solicitation of sexual acts – whether from a minor or an adult – is still illegal. Statutory rape is still illegal,” Red State wrote. “So how is it that law enforcement can’t interfere?”

“Even so, Mitchell’s bill does allow for law enforcement to ‘interfere’ and for the minor to be adjudicated as dependent and brought into state custody,” Red State added.

Allen argued to CalWatchdog that under the new law, custody is only temporary. Allen added that legalization (or decriminalization) of child prostitution removed a tool for prosecutors, as the charges against minors were often pleaded down or dropped in exchange for testimony against pimps and others involved in the crime.

What’s the point?

In late September, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 1322, which made it no longer a crime for minors to engage in prostitution. The point was to treat minors engaged in prostitution as victims of crimes instead of criminals. 

The line of logic used by the bill’s sponsor, Senator Holly Mitchell, in a recent interview with KCRA, was that children under the age of 18 cannot legally consent to sex and therefore it’s rape. The Los Angeles Democrat also called Allen’s column “irresponsible.”

“You cannot consent to any kind of sexual experience if you’re under 18,” Mitchell said. “And so how then therefore could you be convicted of prostitution?” 

So what’s your solution?

When asked what more should be done to combat child prostitution, Allen said SB1322 was a step backwards. When asked again –  what specifically could be done to reduce child prostitution – Allen told CalWatchdog, “There’s always more that could be done,” and then repeated SB1322 was not the solution.

Whose law is it?

The Bee debunked claims made by Allen about certain opponents of the measure, as well as the claim that the law was “passed by the progressive Democrats,” when in fact moderate Democrats and a few Republicans supported the measure as well (though it was just a few Republicans).

“He includes a quote from Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley stating that decriminalizing child prostitution ‘opens up the door for traffickers to use these kids to commit crimes and exploit them even worse,'” The Bee wrote. “O’Malley initially opposed the bill, but ultimately signed on as one of the its highest-profile supporters.”

And then last week, when a video with similar claims was released by the “No” campaign, The Bee doubled down on its assessment that the commercial contains “inaccurate claims about school funding and omits information to mislead voters.”

Making no value judgement about the pending measure, while happily admitting that the fact-checker sites generally perform good work and a valuable public service, CalWatchdog decided to fact-check the fact-checkers.

Full disclosure: I grew up in Virginia and smoked from age 12 to 28. While I loved smoking, Newports especially, in the end I preferred playing soccer, walking up the stairs at a normal pace, falling asleep without violent coughing fits, waking up without puffy eyes, and yes, having money in my pocket. 

Ad transcript

Davina Keiser, a Long Beach Math Teacher says to the camera: “Good schools are important to my students, and California. That’s why voters passed a law to ensure that schools get 43 percent of any new tax revenue. I was astounded to learn that Prop. 56 was written intentionally to undermine that guarantee. Prop. 56 raises $1.4 billion a year in new taxes and gives most of that money to wealthy special interests, like insurance companies. But not one penny goes to improve our kids’ schools. That’s just bad math.”

As The Bee points out, “The words ‘cheats schools of $600 million a year’ appear on the screen.”

Since the three fact check stories are largely the same, we’ll analyze the most recent Bee story.

The Bee writes: “Similar to an earlier ad funded by the tobacco companies, the new commercial contains inaccurate claims about school funding and omits information to mislead voters. It is a stretch to say Proposition 56 ‘cheats schools of $600 million a year.’ Nothing in the measure reduces school funding from current levels. If the measure passes, the education budget doesn’t decrease.”

We agree that “cheat” is a stretch. Cheat implies there is intent on the part of the Yes campaign to either deceive voters or go outside the normal framework to achieve its objective. Since the proponents are going through the legal, democratic process and are not hiding the fact that the measure is exempt from education-funding requirements, “cheat” seems like normal political hyperbole. 

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a diversion of funds, or at least a diversion of potential funds. In 1988, voters passed Prop. 98, which Prop. 111 then amended the following election. These policies earmarked a certain amount of new revenue for education funding. While the number changes depending on many factors, it could be between 40 and 50 percent (we found conflicting numbers in our research, but this range should suffice).

Voters have the power to amend the Constitution to waive this requirement, as would be done in this case. But that doesn’t change the fact that we currently live in a world where a certain amount of all new funding is earmarked for education.

Even if everyone says it’s fine to do this, the money still won’t be going to education. If this wasn’t true, proponents wouldn’t have had to write the Prop 98 exemption into the Prop 56 language. 

For The Bee to write Prop. 56 would not cut funding is a red herring. The ad says “cheat,” not cut. And while “cheat” itself is misleading, there is an unquestionable loss of potential revenue. 

The Bee writes: “While Keiser says she was ‘astounded’ to learn that the measure works around Proposition 98, she shouldn’t be. It isn’t unusual. The last two increases in tobacco taxes approved by voters shielded the money from the Proposition 98 education funding guarantee.”

To be clear, you can’t fact check whether or not someone should or shouldn’t be astounded. But since The Bee speculated on Keiser’s level of astoundedness, we’ll speculate it’s possible she wasn’t aware of the prior measure’s exemptions. It’s even more possible that she’s just reading from a script.

To continue our speculation, we believe there is a significant percentage of voters who are unaware that prior tobacco taxes were exempt from Prop. 98. Again, we’re just speculating, but doesn’t it seem more logical than assuming every voter is fully-versed in budgetary minutiae and constitutional law?

In fact, Judge Michael Kinney agreed when he said in August that “Voters don’t know the numbers.” According to the Los Angeles Times, that was Kinney’s justification when he ruled the attorney general needed to be more specific in Prop. 56’s summary, to make clear to voters the connection between Prop. 98 and school funding.

The Bee is correct that the last two tobacco-tax ballot measures were exempt from Prop. 98. But the original tobacco excise tax, passed in 1959, has been contributing a certain amount to education funding since Prop. 98 was approved in 1988. So it’s not unprecedented. We can sympathize with Keiser or any other voter who doesn’t know all of this. 

The Bee writes: “It’s also wrong to say ‘not one penny’ of the funding goes to improve schools. The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that up to $20 million of the new tax revenue would to go the Department of Education for school programs to prevent the use of tobacco among young people.”

Anti-tobacco programs in school will do little to give teachers raises, reduce classroom sizes, improve academic performance, improve graduation rates, increase the number of kids going to college, or implement any other meaningful suggestion policy makers and advocates have for improving California’s schools.

While steadily increasing, only 23 percent of voters think California schools have improved over the last few years, while 30 percent say schools gotten worse (35 percent say it’s stayed the same, which could either be negative or positive), according to a recent poll from Policy Analysis and California Education/University of Southern California Rossier School of Education.

These programs may deter some kids from smoking and encourage others to quit (although it never worked on me), and maybe a tobacco opponent would make an argument that lowered-tobacco/nicotine usage actually improved a school, but it would be stretch. To claim it’s “wrong to say ‘not one penny’ of the funding goes to improve schools” is absurd, unless The Bee is being both narrow and creative in its understanding of improvement.

It’s possible that proponents aren’t as concerned with the loss of potential education funding because of another measure on the November ballot, Prop. 55, which would extend a temporary tax on personal incomes of $250,000 or more to education and health care funding. The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates this will generate between $4 billion and $9 billion per year until fiscal year 2030-31, with a little more than half going to education.

Tom Torlakson, the state superintendent of public instruction, co-wrote the ballot measure argument in favor of Prop. 55, arguing it would fund the hiring of more teachers, help with college affordability, help restore arts and music programs and help stave off cuts, among other things. “We can’t go back to the days of devastating cuts and teacher layoffs,” Torlakson and others wrote.

But despite the sky-is-falling argument on Prop. 55 (there would be a substantial loss of revenue if Prop. 55 fails), Torlakson wrote a letter in favor of Prop. 56, which, as the PolitiFact California fact-check noted, said: “Make no mistake, Proposition 56 will not divert a dime away from schools. Rather, it will raise revenues for school based tobacco prevention and intervention programs.”

The state’s top educator pleads with voters to bolster education funding to fight off “devastating cuts,” while he’s cavalier about the loss of a potential $600 million. There’s a chance the prospect of Prop. 55 passing helped him leave $600 million on the table.

The Bee writes: “This time around, Proposition 56 directs most of the tobacco tax revenue increase to Medi-Cal to raise reimbursement rates, which critics have long blamed for the state’s health care conundrum. Doctors say the financial reimbursements they receive for providing care to California’s most impoverished patients are too low to maintain a practice. The ‘wealthy special interests’ the ad refers to are doctors, clinics, hospitals, managed care plans and any other health-related group that get Medi-Cal payments because they provide services to eligible patients.”

There is big money at stake here. The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates Prop. 56 could generate between $1.27 billion and $1.61 billion in revenue next fiscal year.

The ad says “most of this money goes to wealthy special interest groups, like insurance companies.” Medi-Cal, the state’s health care program for low-income residents, would receive the bulk of the Prop. 56 revenue, after certain requirements and programs are paid for.

Depending on how the money is actually divvied up in the budget process will determine whether “most” of the funding goes to insurance companies, like managed-care plans, although other health care providers, like doctors, clinics and hospitals, will get their share as well. 

In February, the Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated that in 2016-17, 75 percent of Medi-Cal beneficiaries are enrolled in managed care. 

But not when it comes to efforts to roll back the newly enacted ban on single-use plastic bags:

The Attorney General of California has prepared the following title and summary of the chief purpose and points of the proposed measure:

REFERENDUM TO OVERTURN BAN ON SINGLE-USE PLASTIC BAGS. If signed by the required number of registered voters and timely filed with the Secretary of State, this petition will place on the statewide ballot a challenge to a state law previously approved by the Legislature and the Governor. The challenged law must then be approved by a majority of voters at the next statewide election to go into effect. The law prohibits grocery and certain other retail stores from providing single-use bags but permits sale of recycled paper bags and reusable bags.

That looks pretty neutral to me. Good for Kamala Harris.

Sac Bee spreads the green religion

Meanwhile, the propagandists are at it again, pretending that the case is overwhelming for the ban, instead of extremely mixed. This is from a sneering Sac Bee editorial:

It’s a true if gruesome fact that chickens that have been relieved of their heads sometimes run around for a while before they quite realize their irreversible predicament.

That appears to be happening to the plastic bag industry. It would explain why it hasn’t figured out that the ubiquitous single-use plastic grocery bag has just suffered a killing blow. Its days are numbered.

The very day the governor signed a statewide ban on single-use grocery bags, Sept. 30, the industry filed papers to start the process for a referendum. If it qualifies by gathering enough signatures, it will delay the July 2015 implementation of the ban until it can be decided by voters during the November 2016 election.

Then, the industry will spend many millions of dollars to try to trick Californians into thinking that it’s a good thing that billions of single-use plastic bags are clogging up our storm drains and rivers, tangling up in our native flora, filling up the oceans and doing God only knows what other environmental mischief.

The truth is not what Californians have been told

I defer to Jay Beeber’s assault on this green propaganda. This is from Reason’s website in 2012, when a bag ban was being considered in Los Angeles:

Proponents give three reasons for the bag ban. They claim it will reduce the amount of waste entering landfills, reduce litter on streets, and “help protect the environment.”

But banning free grocery bags will not achieve those lofty goals.

First, banning free plastic grocery bags won’t reduce waste. California’s Statewide Waste Characterization Study [pdf] shows that “Plastic Grocery and Other Merchandise Bags” consistently make up just 0.3 percent of the waste stream in the state. That’s three-tenths of 1 percent. In comparison, organic waste such as food and yard clippings makes up 32 percent while construction debris comprises about 30 percent. The effect of eliminating free grocery bags on the amount of waste generated in the city would be insignificant.

Second, despite misleading claims from environmental groups and the L.A. Bureau of Sanitation, banning free plastic grocery bags won’t do much to reduce litter in the public commons. Litter studies from across the country demonstrate that, on average, plastic retail bags make up about 1 percent to 2 percent of all litter.

Even that small amount of litter doesn’t decline when bans are enacted. In San Francisco, plastic bags comprised 0.6 percent of litter before the city banned plastic bags and 0.64 percent a year after the ban took effect [pdf, pg. 35]. Since plastic grocery bags make up less than 2 percent of roadside trash, banning them will affect neither the total amount of litter nor the cost of cleaning it up.

Third, banning free plastic grocery bags won’t reduce our consumption of foreign (or domestic) oil. L.A.’s Bureau of Sanitation claims [pdf] that “approximately 12 million barrels of oil go into the US supply of plastic bags.” But plastic bags made in the U.S. are not derived from oil; they’re made from a byproduct of domestic natural gas refinement. Manufacturing plastic grocery bags does not increase our need to import oil, and banning them in Los Angeles or anywhere else will not reduce US oil consumption.

Despite claims that plastics threaten our oceans and sea life, there is no evidence that free plastic grocery bags make up any significant portion of the plastic waste found on beaches or in the ocean. In fact, reports from environmental groups doing beach and ocean clean-ups show that plastic bags make up only about 2 percent of the debris.

The Bee acknowledges none of this. When you have a deep commitment to your faith, you don’t sweat the details. And, in the Bee’s case, you mock and taunt the heretics.

The instant media consensus after Thursday night’s first and only debate between Gov. Jerry Brown and Republican challenger Neel Kashkari was that the underdog GOP novice did better than expected but that no one got in a knockout punch.

But what about self-inflicted wounds? The governor shouldn’t get a pass for his bizarre claim that his 2012 reform measure ended pension spiking by public employees. It was just last month that the board of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System approved 99 ways for government workers to spike pensions above their base pay.

Who just made this point about CalPERS just two weeks ago? Dan Walters, the co-dean of the Sacramento press corp:

Among other things, the reform legislation sought to reduce “spiking” of pensions by restricting their calculation to regular pay.

This week, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, whose board is dominated by union representatives and union-friendly politicians, revealed a very generous interpretation of that provision.

It declared 99 forms of pay over and above regular salaries to be “pensionable.”

Read the whole column by Dan here.

Bee ‘fact-check’ ignores Brown’s huge favors for teachers unions

Media coverage of Thursday night’s debate also included this hysterical “fact check” from the Sacramento Bee on “Is Brown too close to teachers union?”

The Bee’s conclusion seems to be “no.”

It is true that the CTA gained broader influence in state politics after Brown, when he was governor before, signed the Rodda Act in 1975, requiring school districts to engage in collective bargaining. The CTA spent millions of dollars helping Brown win election in 2010 and remains a major supporter.

Yet despite their generally favorable relationship, Brown has irritated the union in the past with his advocacy for charter schools. He started two charter schools while mayor of Oakland and lobbied against legislation to unionize charter school teachers.

That is all the context offered. What truly awful journalism.

We are coming off a two-year period in which first the governor, at the behest of the CFT and CTA, got income and sales taxes raised with Prop 30, with the proceeds mostly going to school districts’ operating budgets — in other words, to make it much easier for union-controlled school boards to raise teacher compensation after years of tight budgets.

Then Brown changed school funding formulas in a way that delivered far more money to L.A. Unified, which is dominated by the single most powerful local union chapter in the state — United Teachers Los Angeles. The extra funds are supposed to go to help struggling students. But as the L.A. Daily News reported last month, the UTLA has explicitly said they should be used to give teachers a huge raise.

Concluding a second round of contract talks Wednesday, teachers union leaders released a statement … . United Teachers Los Angeles said district administrators explained that educators could receive either smaller class sizes or be “compensated fairly,” but not both.

“We don’t buy it,” the statement says.  “Millions of extra dollars have already flowed into the district as part of the state’s new funding formula.”

The teacher’s union wants a 17.6 percent pay raise, while district officials say they can only afford a 6.64 percent across-the-board raise and 2 percent bonus.

Oh, yeah, Jerry and the teachers unions aren’t tight because a decade ago Jerry wanted charters in Oakland!

LOL.

I have heard that some journos think my criticism is unfair and/or that I am a loopy ideologue. My response: However I feel (or however you feel) about fracking, isn’t it an obligation for California newspapers to relate how the, yunno, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT feels about its safety?

Of course it is.

This weekend, I revved up Nexis to see it the media blackout continues. I searched for stories that mentioned “California” and “fracking” from June 14, 2013, to June 14, 2014:

Times, Bee and Chronicle fracking coverage

I found 132 stories in the Los Angeles Times.

How many mentioned the Obama administration considered fracking safe?

One — a June 21, 2013 op-ed by Rock Zierman, CEO of the California Independent Petroleum Assn.

I found 124 stories in the Sacramento Bee.

How many mentioned the Obama administration considered fracking safe?

One — a March 30, 2014, op-ed by Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association.

The Bee ran a piece from McClatchy’s D.C. bureau in late November 2013 that didn’t even raise the question of fracking’s safety; it just pointed out how widely used it was and how it was transforming the economy of several states.

So I guess that one counts, giving the Bee two stories that give the Obama perspective on fracking safety.

I found 61 stories in the San Francisco Chronicle.

How many mentioned the Obama administration considered fracking safe?

Two, by staff reporter David R. Baker. Another Baker piece describes Obama as a fracking supporter.

So that gives the Chronicle three.

So there were 317 stories mentioning “California” and “fracking” for the past year, and only six mentioned that the Obama administration considers if safe — and two of those were op-eds from oil trade association executives and one was a wire story.

So only Baker’s three stories amount to staff-produced journalism on California and fracking from the state’s three most influential newspapers that noted the profoundly important fact that the greenest administration in U.S. history sides with those who say fracking is safe.

Draw your own conclusions. Sure looks like groupthink to me.

Green, please-the-Sierra-Club groupthink.

But it could also improve the public debate on the issue by finally forcing California’s pathetic media to acknowledge the Obama administration strongly supports fracking.

Not so far. Here’s the entirety of the Sac Bee’s story on Steyer’s hardball:

“Hours after Gov. Jerry Brown drew protests from environmental activists over his permissiveness on hydraulic fracturing, billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer called Saturday for legislation requiring a two-thirds vote of the electorate in any county before the controversial form of oil extraction can go forward in that area.

“The remarks reflect the expansion of Steyer’s effort to lobby the state Legislature on oil. He previously announced an effort to push for a tax on oil extraction in California, although such efforts failed to gain support in past years.

“‘In California, it takes a two-thirds vote by the Legislature to impose taxes, and in local communities it requires a two-thirds vote to impose taxes,’ Steyer told delegates at the California Democratic Party’s annual convention. ‘The business community has argued for years that this two-thirds vote is important to make sure they are not taken advantage of. Well, that exact same logic should apply when it comes to fracking.'”

Biggest green shills also hide Obama views

The Los Angeles Times story also had no mention of the president’s views.

It’s time to once again relate the story of the Times’ journalistic malpractice on this front. It doesn’t get more extreme or obvious. I’m amazed Patterico hasn’t jumped on it.

This is from what I wrote for CWD on May 18, 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.

…. END …

Back to March 2014.

Hey, Dan Walters — alleged contrarian? When are you going to point out how terribly your paper and the LAT have done on fracking by leaving out Obama’s view?

Sheesh.

And in op-ed pages, we’re seeing more and more pieces like this one by John Husing, an economist who works for the Inland Empire Economic Partnership who’s been a familiar figure for Southland journos for three decades. I’m pretty sure Husing’s a Democrat, but he’s given up on California’s Dem leaders:

“There was a time when California made it a priority to create jobs that would allow its most vulnerable residents to move up skill ladders into the middle class. No longer. Today, the Golden State is quietly seeing millions fall into poverty while their plight is met with a deafening silence from Sacramento. … today’s generation of Democratic leaders have virtually ignored this situation. …

“Geography is a key because one in every five people living in counties along the state’s central spine from San Joaquin County to the Mexican border plus Los Angeles are living below the federal poverty level (family of four: $23,550). In these 12 counties, 3.7 million people are poor including 29 percent of the area’s children. It is no surprise that 21 percent of residents have no health insurance.“

“Class is an issue because California is increasingly being divided between a well-educated elite who control the state and a huge marginally educated underclass that has remained largely invisible to them. The governing class tends to live in coastal counties, the Bay Area and Sacramento. Again, numbers tell the story. While 43.5 percent of the adults who live in the nine Bay Area counties have a bachelor’s or higher degree, 5.4 million of the 11.7 million people (46 percent) living in the state’s interior or L.A. County either stopped their educations with a high school diploma or did not get that far.”

Disconnect in CA Dems among rank-and-file, not electeds

Husing does a great job laying out the disconnect between impoverished, mostly inland Dems and elite, mostly coastal Dems. There’s also the disconnect between Dems who back teacher unions and Latino and African-American Dems who want minority students to get a higher priority that adult employees in school districts.

But these are disconnects that exist among rank-and-file Dems. Not elected Dems. In Sacramento, it’s insanely rare to hear a Dem say Dems are causing poverty. And outside of Gloria Romero, I can’t think of an elected Dem raising doubts about the CTA’s hegemony over California’s schools. This is bizarre.

Back to Husing, whose op-ed was in the Redlands Daily Facts:

“If California had appropriate policies for dealing with the poverty facing this huge portion of the state’s population, two efforts would be in evidence. First, an immediate goal would be to encourage sectors with few barriers to entry and with skill ladders up which marginally educated residents could move toward middle class incomes. Second, the state would be engaged in the equivalent of the GI Bill with short-course programs aimed at giving these adults the tools they need to move up these skill ladders. That is vital since the nature of the work in most sectors is becoming increasingly technical.

“Do we see this? No. …

“Unless California’s leaders, in particular given their majorities, those in Democratic Party, begin to understand the pain that their policies are inflicting on a huge share of the state’s population, we are destined to live with a growing and permanent underclass …”

Powerful stuff. Here’s hoping for more and more of this sort of thinking finally breaking through the conventional wisdom served up by the L.A. Times and the Sac Bee’s editorial pages, which never note that Californians are much worse off than they used to be — or that rank-and-file Democrats aren’t being served well by elected Democrats.

As a practical matter, that means the state needs to have $31 billion in solid funding for the project’s 300-mile initial operating segment. State law requires the segment to have firm financing in place before construction begins to make sure what’s built is operationally viable if future funding dries up.

Given what has been spent so far and the commitments the rail authority has already made with its $13 billion in state and federal funding for the project, the state has at most $6 billion on hand. Where is the other money coming from?

The state has no idea and no good options.

In the sequester era, federal funding for discretionary domestic spending is dwindling for far bigger priorities than a California-only pork project. Also, not just House Republicans but Senate Budget Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., opposes more California-only rail funding.

No private investors are forthcoming either because state law forbids operating subsidies, which rules out the revenue guarantees that investors demand as a condition of investment. (If those guarantees aren’t met, investors want taxpayer subsidies.)

Ho-hum: This too shall pass; move along, nothing to see here

That this $25 billion shortfall is daunting isn’t just my conclusion. It was also cited in the L.A. Times’ coverage of the ruling.

“The state rail agency created a funding plan, but it was an estimated $25 billion short of the amount needed to complete a first working section of the line.

“Kenny ruled that the state must rescind the plan and create a new one, a difficult task because the state High-Speed Rail Authority hasn’t identified sources of additional revenue to allocate to the project.”

So how did the Sacramento Bee editorial page deal with this crucial aspect of Judge Kenny’s bombshell ruling? By never mentioning the size of the funding shortfall and by implying it won’t be difficult for the state to deal with the unspecified shortfall. The Bee editorial says Kenny’s decisions merely …

“…will delay the issuance of voter-approved Proposition 1A bonds by months.

“Work funded with the federal grants will continue on the first 29-mile stretch of construction from northeast Madera to the south edge of Fresno. Jeff Morales, chief executive officer of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, has made it clear the project will move forward.

“The judge ruled in one case that the CSHRA has to ‘rescind its approval’ of the 2011 funding plan. [Rail authority CEO Jeff] Morales expects to have a new draft in the next few weeks that will identify the funding sources for the high-speed rail backbone in the Central Valley, connecting with BNSF tracks at each end – not just the first 29 miles.”

But where is the $25 billion coming from, Sac Bee editorial board? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

A reminder of history that’s more like a reminder of doom

Hilariously enough, the Bee editorial also makes an observation that is supposed to be reassuring for supporters of the project but is actually another reminder of why it is doomed:

“We all need to remember that no mega-projects are funded all at once. Morales points out that the last big highway project in California – the 210 in the Los Angeles area – was planned in the 1940s, commissioned in the 1950s and built in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The last segment opened in 2007.”

But this is not a normal “mega-project.” Under state law, the first 300 miles of the project must have solid funding established before construction can proceed. So it has to be essentially funded “all at once” — not piecemeal, like the 210. Does the Bee editorial page read the Bee front page?

Here’s still more evidence of the Bee’s obliviousness: Kenny first ruled the business plan was illegal on Aug. 16. The rail authority had nearly three months to come up with a legal business plan before the “remedies” hearing was held earlier this month. It couldn’t do so. Instead, the state was left to argue that it could still spend federal funds for now on moving the project forward.

But now the Bee would have us believe that the project will be back on track within “months” because suddenly Morales will be able to pinpoint the $25 billion he couldn’t from Aug. 16 to Nov. 8.

What in the world is that assumption based on? Does the Sac Bee editorial board have hallucinogens in its water cooler? The first time I read this editorial from start to finish, I was kind of stunned at its omissions. The second time I read it, I actually laughed out loud three times. Thanks for the good times, Bee board!

Now back to that $25 billion shortfall: Once again, Bee opiners, where is it coming from?

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Almost two months ago, she profiled Silvia Lopez, the farm worker who was fighting UFW representation being force on Gerawan’s workers without their consent. Grimes spent half a day with Lopez and the workers when they protested at the ALRB offices and at the Capitol. “I never once saw another reporter or media person,” Grimes said.

At first, the Brown administration and the California Agricultural Relations Board resisted the workers’ pleas to allow a vote, as required by the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, as Grimes reported in another article.

The articles gained widespread readership in Sacramento and among the state’s farming community. The outcry led to the ALRB granting a vote for the Gerawan workers, as Grimes then reported on Nov. 3.

These stories were scoops, not reported elsewhere.

Finally, the Sacramento Bee is covering the controversy, quoting Lopez (pictured above).

Better late than never, I guess. But it would have been nice if they had given Grimes credit for breaking the story and keeping it alive.

And while in their coverage, the Sacramento Bee and the Los Angeles Times cited environmentalists’ dire warnings about fracking, the papers once again made a gigantic omission: They don’t note the Obama administration says it’s safe.

That’s right — the greenest president ever says it’s safe. On the 2012 campaign trail, Barack Obama liked to boast that fracking had made the U.S. “the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.” That’s why greens are unhappy with him, as the recent Politico headline shows.

Why isn’t this relevant in California?

For a classic example of horrible CA fracking coverage, check out this quote from Sally Jewell, Obama’s secretary of the interior:

“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 aide on fracking safety; LAT quotes flack

That’s what she said at a May 17 news conference on federal fracking rules. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times both covered the conference. Guess which paper cited Jewell as testifying to fracking’s safety, and guess which paper cited an oil-industry group.

Bingo. The New York Times matter of factly noted that Jewell, and thus the Obama administration, see fracking as safe. But not the L.A. Times.

“‘States have been successfully regulating fracking for decades, including on federal lands, with no incident of contamination that would necessitate redundant federal regulation,’ said Kathleen Sgamma, vice president of government and public affairs for Western Energy Alliance, a Denver-based trade group.”

Why would LAT reporters Neela Banerjee and Wes Venteicher think Sgamma’s view on fracking’s safety was worth quoting but not Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s?

1) Incompetence

2) Incompetence + Bias

3) Incompetence + Pack Journalism

4) Incompetence + Bias + Pack Journalism

Because it absolutely is not …

5) Good Journalism

I’m still waiting for a single logical explanation as to why California journalists always omit the president’s views on fracking, which would go a long way toward countering green claims.

For now, the most logical assumption is that green journos don’t want to counter green claims.