NEWSOM SHOULD GO SLOW ON OFFSHORE WIND POWER

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS 

     “NEWSOM SHOULD GO SLOW ON OFFSHORE WIND POWER”

 

 

        There weren’t many causes Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed harder during the just-concluded state legislative session than offshore wind power, something that has been tried in only a few places around America.

 

 

        For some in the Legislature, including Senate President Mike McGuire of Sonoma County, this seems an easy way to modernize the state’s electric grid without risking much pollution, taking advantage of an inexhaustible natural resource – winds that often gust at 40 mph or more.

 

 

        But now it’s time for Newsom to go slow before committing California electric customers (who always pay for new generating facilities via their monthly bills) to fund this largely untried renewable energy source.

 

 

        If adopted, a plan to build enough offshore windmills to fill about 6 percent of California’s electric needs would be America’s largest commitment to offshore wind power.

 

 

        There is not yet any offshore wind power along the Pacific Coast, but yes, there is offshore wind power on the Atlantic Coast. There’s a small (five-turbine) project off Block Island, R.I. Also a few windmills off Virginia and others off Nantucket Island in Massachusetts.

 

 

        Many of those turbines are anchored to the ocean floor in locations where water is shallow even miles offshore.

 

 

        Off California, where federal authorities have identified three potential wind power areas (off Morro Bay and Diablo Canyon on the Central Coast and near Eureka on the North Coast), waters are so deep that windmills will have to float, anchored by cables.

 

 

        The wind turbine industry is already rejoicing over the California possibilities. Said an announcement from Turn Forward, an organization promoting offshore windmills, “Offshore wind is California’s golden opportunity to generate high-power jobs, spark investments in local communities and provide clean, domestic and reliable power to millions of homes and businesses while helping stabilize electricity prices.”

 

 

        That’s not quite the way some other folks see it. Take the county board of commissioners in Cape May County, NJ, where a Danish company proposes a development called Ocean Wind One. “What’s happening in Nantucket shows we were right to oppose offshore wind power (Cape May County’s stance since 2021),” said a statement from county executive Len Desiderio. He called events at Nantucket, near Martha’s Vineyard, an “offshore wind environmental catastrophe.”

 

 

        Some 15 miles off the celebrated beaches of Nantucket, renowned as a summer resort, a development called Vineyard Wind this summer saw one-third of a turbine blade snap off. Industrial fiberglass, paint, foam, adhesive and other objects soon washed up on Nantucket beaches and later onto Cape Cod.

 

 

        The Cape May commission, working to stave off a larger development near its coast, called this “an environmental catastrophe akin to an oil spill. Vacationers are leaving the beaches or cancelling trips. Tourism on Nantucket has taken a devastating hit.”

 

 

        Cape May doesn’t want those risks. A new question is whether California should invite new problems of its own.

 

 

        Meanwhile, the nation’s largest investor in wind power, entrepreneur Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, also raises questions about wind power, whether offshore or on dry land.

 

 

        Yahoo Finance reported in 2023 that “Buffett’s energy division has reported a negative income tax rate for five straight years thanks to billions of dollars worth of tax credits…for producing clean power.”

 

 

        The firm during the years from 2019 to 2022 took tax credits of $6.1 billion from the federal government, far above its profit levels, thus slashing all its other tax burdens. In one quarter last year, Berkshire Hathaway’s wind power fields collected tax credits of $363 million, far more than its $223 million in actual profits. That made wind farming worth almost $600 million to the company in just one three-month period.

 

 

        Said Buffett, “On wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build…wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” What about all those turbines in places like the Altamont Pass near Livermore and the San Gorgonio Pass northwest of Palm Springs? They are basically tax credit farms for their owners.

 

 

        California might or might not avoid environmental disasters from wind turbines. That’s unknown. But some risks are now known and Newsom should be very careful before approving anything more than small, experimental developments.

 

 

        -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

 

WHY HER GENDER GETS LITTLE MENTION IN HARRIS CAMPAIGN

 CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

 

   BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “WHY HER GENDER GETS LITTLE MENTION IN HARRIS CAMPAIGN”

 

        Kamala Harris has been a trailblazer in politics for most of the last two decades, giving more and more young women a sense of unlimited possibility.

 

        But on the night she accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, only one national convention speaker stressed the fact she is but the second woman so nominated and just the third female to make a national ticket.

 

        That speaker was Hillary Clinton, the first woman nominated for president and the winner of the popular vote in 2016 by almost 3 million, a margin that once all but guaranteed Electoral College victory but has not for the last two decades, which featured two of only three American presidents elected with a minority of votes.

 

        Clinton, who stressed her then-unique status as a female at the top of a presidential ticket, spoke of “cracking this last glass ceiling,” and fervently hoped Harris would bust it wide open.

 

        But Clinton has a different perspective from Harris, perhaps because she is almost 17 years older. It’s much like younger women today who cannot remember when married or engaged women were denied jobs legally because they might become pregnant. That discrimination was fully authorized until court decisions of the 1980s used an earlier Civil Rights Act to ban it.

 

        Now women occupy positions of authority in a host of fields, including law, medicine and clergy. More than 56 percent of current law school students are women. And in 2023, 54.6 percent of medical school students were females, having become the majority in 2020. Both men and women by now are accustomed to representation and treatment by skilled females.

 

        Millions of American churchgoers also are used to hearing women deliver sermons from myriad pulpits. Every Anglican denomination ordains women priests, along with most Lutheran and Presbyterian churches, while both Reform and Conservative Jewish denominations ordain women rabbis.

 

        But there remains considerable resistance to female clergy, where fields like law and medicine have no problems with women, who occupied less than 5 percent of student slots in those fields just 100 years ago.

 

        The Roman Catholic church remains the largest resistor to women in pastoral roles, but Mormons, Southern Baptists, Southern Methodists, some Pentecostal churches, Muslims and Orthodox Jews also allow no female clergy.

 

        But the indications are more women will be in more positions of authority in the future. Example: Caltech, one of America’s premiere colleges, now has its first majority female freshman class. 

 

Taken together, all this has made it ever easier for both men and women to accept females in positions of authority.

 

        That’s probably one reason Harris’ gender drew so little note during the four weeks she took to solidify herself as the Democratic nominee before the party convention. It’s also likely why her gender was not a major focus of either conventional speeches or her own almost hourlong acceptance speech.

 

        Yes, Harris has had to walk something of a tightrope: She’s had to project strength without aggressiveness, boldness without being strident, physical attractiveness without vanity, and caring without submissiveness.

 

        But she’s long handled those complications without much problem. As district attorney of San Francisco, attorney general of California and vice president, Harris burst through previous glass ceilings without offending many very masculine men.

 

        It was the same this summer as she vetted and interviewed possible vice presidential running mates. The likes of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and eventual nominee Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, had no qualms about accepting her as their boss.

 

        Some of these men epitomize masculinity, but none quailed at the notion of serving a female occupying arguably the world’s most powerful political position.

 

        Walz displayed nothing but comfort after his selection, seemingly having no trouble ceding the limelight and most public attention to Harris during bus tours and at the convention itself.

 

        So anyone expecting her to act timid or fearful of Trump in their first debate (and others that may follow) probably doesn’t know Harris very well.

 

        She may turn out to be the ideal candidate for this time, and if that’s so, it will be because of the success of myriad other women who broke through to their own successes and authoritative stature.

 

 

-30-

 

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

THE UPCOMING CONSEQUENCES OF CONDONING CAMPUS ANTI-SEMITISM

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2024, OR THEREAFTER

 

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “THE UPCOMING CONSEQUENCES OF CONDONING CAMPUS ANTI-SEMITISM”

 

 

        As college students head back to school, expect wider than ever consequences of many California colleges failing to act quickly against campus anti-Semitism of last spring.     

 

 

        That autumn reality was made clear by events of the summer.

 

 

        Those incidents were fueled by a realization on the part of pro-Palestinian protesters that their springtime demonstrations of almost pure religious hatred have gone essentially unpunished.

 

 

        This happened again in summer, not only in California, but around the world, with masked demonstrators wreaking violence along with their rhetoric in many places.

 

 

        When hundreds of pro-Hamas demonstrators wearing both surgical masks and checkered keffiyahs marched on a synagogue in Los Angeles in June, protesters attacked not only Jews who had mobilized to protect those under attack, but also journalists.

 

 

        This incident was quickly condemned by President Biden, Gov. Gavin Newsom and local Mayor Karen Bass, but there was only one reported arrest among protesters who blocked entrances and beat several worshipers.

 

 

        Days later, the pro-Hamas group Within Our Lifetime, which consistently glorifies the Oct. 7 slaughter Hamas carried out in Israel and especially its attack on a music festival, blocked New York’s Union Square carrying signs saying “Zionists…are not human” and “Long live Oct. 7.” They also swarmed a subway car demanding Zionists identify themselves. None did, and no arrests followed. And they blocked portions of the San Diego Freeway in Los Angeles, also without serious punishment.

 

 

        Similarly, there was no pushback from authorities when pro-Hamas protesters blocked Interstate 880 near San Jose and the Golden Gate Bridge, much as they earlier had blocked Interstate 110 in downtown Los Angeles.

 

 

Later, masked demonstrators shouting “Intifada, Intifada” blocked entrances to multiple synagogues around California.

 

 

In all these cases and others around the world, there was almost no pushback from authorities, partly because the demonstrators masked or otherwise covered their faces.

 

 

        Now, the University of California has ruled out encampments by demonstrators on its 10 campuses in the new academic year and says buildings and walkways are not to be blocked. Also, no masking to hide identities.

 

 

Pro-Palestinian groups essentially laugh this off, in part because many protesters they send to campuses are not students at all and therefore not subject to campus discipline, the main enforcement stick UC says it will use. There have been proposals for city laws banning demonstrators from wearing masks or other face coverings. But so far, no locale has passed such a law, in part because demonstrators claim they need to conceal their identities to prevent being “doxxed” and denied employment or other privileges because of their activities.

 

 

        Behind all this lay the precedent set early on by university administrators, who allowed students and outsiders helping organize their rallies free rein to vandalize and block parts of campuses while also shouting hate slogans.

 

 

        As the last school year ended, some college administrators caved in to demands that they “negotiate” with protesters in order to end their demonstrations. Officials at places like UC Riverside, Cal State Los Angeles and the Pomona colleges met with protest leaders and agreed to “consider” ending their investments in companies that do business with Israel, but there was no serious follow-up. This was in part because university investments are controlled by UC Regents, Cal State trustees and the trustees of other colleges – not campus administrators. Campus leaders can’t deliver boycotts on their own.

 

 

        Two things to realize: The identification of all synagogues and other Jewish institutions as “Zionist” establishes that these protests are not merely anti-Israel, but plainly anti-Semitic. Those who wear Hamas headbands and yell “Oct. 7 Forever” and “Gas the Jews” are not protesting merely the war in Gaza but the very existence of a Jewish state. Backing Hamas places the protesters firmly behind an organization whose charter urges killing all Jews, everywhere.

 

 

        All this, along with Israel’s steady continuation of its campaign to decimate the entire Hamas organization, left protesters frustrated but not defeated, and therefore almost certain to come back with even more determination.

 

 

        Few were punished significantly last year, no matter how many rules they broke, so they have no reason to observe UC’s new rules in the nascent school year. 

       

 

-30-
    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

 

DON’T EXPECT A HARRIS ROLE ON PROP. 36

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2024, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “DON’T EXPECT A HARRIS ROLE ON PROP. 36”

 

        Kamala Harris played almost no role in the key decision on crime made by California voters in the 2014 election, when they passed Proposition 47 and reduced penalties for many types of crime.

 

        As state attorney general at the time, Harris said professional ethics forced her into a neutral role. It was a convenient stance allowing her to escape unscathed to the U.S. Senate two years later, then become vice president in 2020 and now emerge as the Democratic presidential nominee.

 

        So don’t expect her to say much about this year’s Proposition 36, a measure backed by prosecutors who have long claimed Prop. 47 made life easier for criminals. Of course, don’t expect Harris to spend much time in California this fall, either, as her home state is regarded by all sides as immutably blue and all but absolutely certain to provide Harris with 54 electoral votes.

 

        The main thrust of Prop. 47 was to reduce many property and drug crimes to misdemeanors from their previous status as felonies. That, say many, opened the door to rampant shoplifting and a spate of what appeared to be highly organized and coordinated “snatch-and-grab” burglaries.

 

        Few of the criminals involved have paid much of a price for those crimes, almost all of which have been considered misdemeanors under Prop. 47, which set a $950 floor for the value of any theft to be treated as a felony. This has usually allowed even thieves who are caught to avoid jail time.

 

        Ten years ago, Prop. 47 split the state’s dominant Democrats, with Harris doing little on it, while Gov. Gavin Newsom, then lieutenant governor, was a backer. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown opposed it even though the measure boosted his effort to cut down the prison population.

 

        Then-Sen. Dianne Feinstein was also opposed, warning that “wholesale reclassification of many dangerous felonies as misdemeanors would put the people of California at continuous risk…”

 

        Meanwhile, current Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, now in a tough reelection fight, signed the ballot argument favoring Prop. 47. He was then the DA in San Francisco.

 

Retailers are one business segment that definitely feels at risk because of Prop. 47 and its standard for felonies. Outfits like Target, Walgreen’s and Rite-Aid have closed stores because of rampant shoplifting. Big Box stores like Walmart, Target and Home Depot are among the chief financial backers of Prop. 36, which would roll back much of 47.

 

The new measure would make any third conviction for theft of any size a felony punishable by three years in prison. It would also make possession of fentanyl a felony and make any third drug possession conviction a “treatment-mandated felony,” depriving those convicted of any right to refuse treatment.

 

Newsom has been anything but neutral on Prop. 36, pushing through a 10-bill legislative package that aims to upstage and replace Prop. 36. So he won’t be endorsing 36. His successor several times removed as mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, has been a prime backer of the proposition.

  

Meanwhile, Harris took no position on the original 47, her campaign manager of the time saying attorneys general are like umpires, “the objective observer calling balls and strikes.” He said that role was thrust on Harris because the attorney general by law must write fair and objective ballot titles and summaries for all initiatives.

 

And yet, previous attorneys general, like Republican Dan Lungren in the 1990s and Democrat Tom Lynch in the 1970s, took strong positions on ballot measures.

 

Harris will not be obliged to do much with Prop. 36, and might be wise to avoid it altogether as a party-splitting hazard, even though that would leave her open to criticism for ducking the issue.

 

Doing that never hurt her before, so there seems no large and obvious advantage to changing her tactics now.

 

Which would make it no surprise if the California resident even mentions the issue this fall, despite sharing the ballot with it.

-30-
    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

STAKES HIGH FOR CALIFORNIA IN TRUMP V. HARRIS RACE

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

     “STAKES HIGH FOR CALIFORNIA IN TRUMP V. HARRIS RACE”

 

        Ever since California gave Hillary Clinton a vote margin of almost 3 million in 2016 – thus assuring Trump would lose the overall popular vote and become a minority president installed by the Electoral College and not the majority of voters – he’s had it in for the Golden State.

 

As President, Trump delayed aid for wildfire victims in California until forced to act. He tried mightily to eliminate the state’s strict smog control rules. He attempted to overrule state laws that restrict offshore oil drilling. And much more, enough that many observers saw it as a consistent Trump “War on California.”

 

Now it’s Californian Kamala Harris standing between Trump and a second term in the White House, one that would make him only the second U.S. president to recover from a reelection defeat and later retake the office.

 

The first was Grover Cleveland, who won a second term in 1888 after losing an 1884 reelection bid.

 

It’s pretty plain from statements by Trump and some of his family members that Californians can expect a resumption of Trump’s war on California policies and practices if he wins this fall.

 

The alternative is Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney, state attorney general and successor to longtime California Democrat Barbara Boxer in the Senate.

 

A win for her would likely mean much more for California than merely increased traffic around her presumed Western White House in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, where she lives with husband Doug Emhoff, a longtime entertainment industry lawyer.

 

Start with the fact that California electric taxpayers right now are “lending” more than $1 billion to Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in order to keep the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Generating Station open at least five years past its prior closure date of 2030, set by state officials in 2018. The money is supposed to be repaid by the federal government.

 

That almost certainly would happen under a President Harris, but likely not under a reinstated President Trump.

 

Under Trump, federal authorities would probably reassert their effort to limit or end California’s unique authority over automotive smog, while Harris would let it stand. A Harris administration might include Gov. Gavin Newsom in a cabinet role if he wants it, elevating Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis to governor almost two years before she’s planning to run for the office anyhow. Big boost for Kounalakis.

 

Trump and former officials of his administration indicate in various ways they will try for a national ban on abortions, which would negate the abortion rights clause California voters inserted in the state Constitution via a successful ballot proposition. Under Harris, California’s law might serve as a national model for states to adopt if they choose.

 

Trump also has said he would not oppose state governments tracking pregnant women to prevent their seeking abortions. Harris would try to ban that proposed practice.

 

As state attorney general, Harris fostered a strong environmental unit in her office, working to head off both air and water pollution at its sources. A Harris-appointed national attorney general might set up a similar office within the Justice Department, offering strong backing to California’s toughest-in-the-nation conservation policies.

 

As President, Trump sought often to cut welfare and other benefits to poor Americans, including millions of Californians. A President Harris would likely try the reverse.

 

Trump promises to extend the wall that already covers many parts of California’s border with Mexico. It’s unclear whether Harris might expand that wall. Republicans often claim she was President Biden’s “border czar,” when in fact he placed her in charge of trying to better conditions in Latin America that foster illegal immigration. Harris might continue some of her efforts in that direction, which have not yet accomplished very much. 

 

One thing for sure: As both senator and vice president, Harris frequently spent weekends and holidays in California. Trump never did. If Harris continued that practice, it would mark the first time since Ronald Reagan’s era that a President was intimately familiar with California’s problems and policies.

 

All of which makes the California stake in this fall’s election more direct that it has been since the time of Ronald Reagan.

 

   -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

FAILURE TO COMPROMISE BRINGS CRIME INITIATIVE BATTLE

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

  

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
      “FAILURE TO COMPROMISE BRINGS CRIME INITIATIVE BATTLE”

 

        This fall’s campaign over the anti-crime Proposition 36 now promises to be one of the more expensive and unnecessary ballot measure campaigns California has seen, as avid supporters of the 2014 Proposition 47 battle to keep it alive in more than just name.

 

        It's apolitical fight that could have been avoided fairly easily by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the several district attorneys and big box store chains behind the new ballot initiative. They could have (should have) used a decade-old process letting initiative sponsors reach agreements with legislators who have opposed their measures, leading to new compromise laws and then withdrawal of the initiatives involved.

 

        The clear-cut conflict between Newsom and liberal Democrats who dominate the Legislature and the sponsors of Prop. 36, who called their measure the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act (even though its link to homelessness is unclear) was always plain: Newsom’s side sees Prop. 47 as largely successful in reducing repeat crimes and treating the drug addictions that motivate many offenses.

 

        But much of law enforcement views Prop. 47 as an abject failure that’s caused more crime by reducing many former felony offenses to misdemeanors and setting $950 as the lower limit for the value of felony thefts. Never mind, they say, official statistics that suggest most crime levels are now near all-time lows.

 

        The get-tough side in this dispute had no problem gathering more than 600,000 voter signatures to qualify its plan for the ballot. It would allow prosecutors to aggregate the value of goods an accused has stolen and conduct a felony prosecution when the total goes over the $950 limit. It would also crack down hard on fentanyl users, dealers and illicit manufacturers.

 

        The obvious compromise could have been to aggregate the take from thefts by individuals, but leave all the anti-drug addiction benefits of Prop. 47 intact. Such a deal would have restored some crimes reduced by Prop. 47 from felonies back to that status, including things like burglary of stores during business hours and forgery. At the same time, a compromise could have left things like drug possession and writing bad checks as misdemeanors.

 

        But there was no attempt at compromise. Rather, under pressure from Newsom, legislators passed a package of new laws allowing felony prosecutions on the third theft offense, regardless of value. The new laws also let judges impose restraining orders preventing “minor” thieves from revisiting stores they’ve shoplifted, while eliminating time limits for prosecution of organized retail thievery like last year’s well publicized smash-and-grab burglaries of major retail stores.

 

        This lets the governor and his legislative allies claim they’ve solved the Prop. 47-related problems that led large companies like Walmart, Walgreens and Nordstrom to close multiple California stores in part because of major losses from thefts enabled by Prop. 47.

 

        But the laws they passed are not as tough as Prop. 36, with its extreme emphasis on shoplifting offenses.

 

        Still, some lawmakers who voted against the Newsom-linked package maintained its increased emphasis on repeat thievery will increase mass jailings of minorities.

 

        “These measures deepen mass incarceration and (that) is going in reverse of where Californians (wanted to go via Prop. 47),” said Democratic state Sen./ Lola Smallwood-Cuevas of Los Angeles.

 

        Her statement added that “Increased criminalization too often falls on the backs of Black and Latino Californians.”

 

        Other Democrats opposed the bill package because it creates two new crimes they say are already covered under existing laws: breaking into a vehicle with intent to steal and possessing property stolen from a vehicle with intent to sell it.

 

        If it looks like the conflicts between the new bill package and Prop. 36 seem fairly small, with both aiming at alleged flaws in Prop. 47, that’s because they are. That’s also why it was plain from the moment Prop. 36 qualified for the ballot that it would essentially be unneeded if legislators passed new laws accomplishing many of its aims.

 

        They’ve now done that. Which means voters will be wasting their time and psychic energy if they get very caught up in the upcoming ballot measure fight.

 

        The basic reality is that most of this exercise and expense could and should have been avoided.

 

-30-

 

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

TIME FOR HSR TO INSIST ON CLEAN BIDDERS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

        “TIME FOR HSR TO INSIST ON CLEAN BIDDERS”

 

        Fully 19 years ago, several members of Congress pushed for a new law that would expose American wings of the French government-owned railroad system SNCF to lawsuits from families of Holocaust survivors it carried to Nazi concentration camps like Auschwitz during World War II.

 

        Amid today’s wave of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic protests, even most pro-Palestinian demonstrators concede the historical disgrace that the Holocaust actually killed 6 million European Jews, plus several million others.

 

        The corps of sponsors for that bill eventually grew to 40, but it never went very far – in part because progress on California’s high speed rail system has been so slow.

 

        But that system is now making headway on its initial segment between Merced and Bakersfield, so talk of the SNCF’s World War II role is again relevant.

 

        This is because the state’s High Speed Rail Authority has advanced the huge project enough to issue a formal request for proposals to build its new trains, a multi-billion-dollar part of the project.

 

        Bidding appears greased in favor of two companies, both with shameful World War II records. One bidder on the HSR authority’s shortlist is the French-owned Alstom Group, which builds the engines and railroad cars for France’s smooth-as-silk TGV (Train a Grand Vitesse – high speed train) network, stretching from Lourdes near the Pyrenees Mountains to cities far north like Amsterdam and Cologne.

 

        Alstom has built rail stock for the SNCF (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais, or French National Railway Corp.) since 1928. It’s now the corporate sister of the SNCF.

 

        As good as its machinery is, as good as the SNCF has been at building rail lines with glassy smooth track, it might nevertheless be morally wrong for Alstom to get even a dime of the billions being spent on the California project. That is, until and unless it begins paying reparations for its role in the Holocaust. The railway carried more than 75,000 French Jews and tens of thousands of gypsies and political prisoners to their deaths, but has always claimed it was forced into that.

 

        Whatever its motives, the SNCF has yet even to apologize to survivors. Yes, there is a plaque near one entrance of the Gare du Nord (North Station) in Paris acknowledging that thousands of French citizens passed through en route to their concentration camp deaths. But no specific victim groups are mentioned, nor has the French government ever apologized for rounding up those victims.

 

        The same goes for JR East, the Japanese railroad that at one time wanted to partner in the California project with Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Nippon Sharyo Ltd., maker of most engines and cars for Japan’s bullet trains. All those companies used American prisoners of war as slave labor during World War II, forcing them to work in mines, factories and on docks. None of them has paid any reparations.

 

        In fact, the only likely foreign bidder that used slave labor during World War II and later apologized is the German-based Siemens Corp., one of the current two preferred bidders for making California rail equipment. Siemens is now majority owned by American investors and pension funds.

 

        Siemens has built trains in Northern California since the 1980s, doing design, engineering, testing and assembly at a large plant in Sacramento, where it employs more than 1,000 persons. Siemens has built trains for Amtrak, as well as the trains used in Florida for Brightline, the company now behind a projected privately-owned Los Angeles to Las Vegas bullet train.

 

        Meanwhile, Alstom – builder of the East Coast Acela trains – has plants in several Eastern cities, but years ago closed an operation in Vallejo. It is currently bidding on cars for the Los Angeles International Airport people mover, now under construction and aiming to open before the 2028 Olympics.

 

        Before taking any bids from Alstom or allowing any potential Japanese bidders into the competition, the HSR Authority must insist they clean up their past records as much as possible.

 

If all this should leave a clearer path for the Korean firm Hyundai or open the way for an American bidder, so much the better. No one should have to ride a dirty train.

 

    -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

TOP OF TICKET CHANGES SHARPEN FOCUS ON CONGRESS RUNS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2024, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

        “TOP OF TICKET CHANGES SHARPEN FOCUS ON CONGRESS RUNS”

 

        As Labor Day approaches, bringing the semi-official start of this completely unprecedented presidential election season, the vastly altered scene makes the outcomes of several heavily contested California congressional races even more important than usual.

 

        The last four years have showed that even the narrowest of majorities in the House of Representatives can make huge differences on issues vitally important to millions of Americans.

 

        And it is six California districts that almost always are tightly contested which now provide Republicans with the tiny margins they’ve lately enjoyed and exploited.

 

        But if the GOP also wins the presidency and the Senate this fall, there will be fresh evidence of how vital the House outcome can be.

 

        The stakes over the next two years may include votes on a national abortion ban, whether to get rid of no-fault divorce nationally and go back to finger-pointing and open scandal in divorce courts, and whether same-sex marriages continue to be legal.

 

        A narrow majority for either party could also decide national policy on other vital issues, but those are among the most prominent.

 

        The same six California races remain key. All are taking place almost 3,000 miles from the Capitol, but their outcomes will have a huge bearing on what happens soon in that legendary structure.

 

        California, says the often-accurate and non-partisan Cook Political Report, “is, along with New York, one of the two most important paths to potential Democratic control of the House.”

 

        If the Democrats win, they would be in position to harry a renewed Donald Trump presidency from its first day, when Trump has said he intends to be a dictator.

 

        If they lose, Trump is likely to have a completely free hand to do whatever he likes, legal or not, under the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling.

 

        He could, for one example, send Army or Marine Corps units to enforce his wishes everywhere without serious dispute, disregarding the longtime American tradition that the military stays out of domestic quarrels.

 

        Five of the six seats most likely to be decided by very thin margins this fall are now in Republican hands, enabling the GOP’s current thin House majority.

 

        In the 27^th district around Santa Clarita, incumbent Republican Mike Garcia has kept winning lately by puzzlingly large margins despite a Democratic registration advantage. This time, he faces Democrat George Whiteside, former head of the space tourism company Virgin Galactic. It’s rated a tossup.

 

        In Orange County’s open 47^th district, currently held by failed Senate candidate Katie Porter, Democrat Dave Min, a state senator, faces 2022’s losing Republican Scott Baugh. This time Baugh might be a thin favorite, as Min’s DUI conviction of last spring hurts him.

 

        In another hot Orange County race, incumbent Republican Michelle Steel seems likely to beat back Derek Tran, the son of Vietnamese refugees, despite her ready approval of almost everything Trump does. After a heated Democratic primary last March, Tran still lacks needed name recognition.

 

        In a 41^st district rematch of their close 2022 race, longtime Republican incumbent Ken Calvert faces former federal prosecutor Will Rollins in a test of whether the large gay vote in Palm Springs will turn out in sufficient numbers to overcome Calvert’s advantage in other, more conservative parts of Riverside County.

 

        Another rematch, in a Central Valley district taking in all of Merced County and much of Madera, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties, pits Republican Rep. John Duarte of Modesto against Democrat Adam Gray, a former Assemblyman whose onetime legislative district forms almost a complete overlay of today’s contested turf. Duarte won in 2022 in the nation’s tightest race, decided by less than 600 votes.

 

        Yet another rematch pits former Democratic state legislator Rudy Salas against Republican Rep. David Valadao, who keeps fending off Salas as the Latino vote never yet has turned out sufficiently to help Salas. Will it this time?

 

        Close races also threaten other incumbents like Democrats Mike Levin in north San Diego County and Josh Harder of Turlock. But Republicans Young Kim of Orange County and Kevin Kiley of Rocklin, sometimes seeming threatened, will only lose in the unlikely event of a Democratic landslide.

 

        No one expects that.

 

    -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

THE TIGHT LINK BETWEEN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND HOMELESSNESS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “THE TIGHT LINK BETWEEN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND HOMELESSNESS”

 

 

        One of the quickest and least controversial ways to reduce homelessness has now become clear: Eliminate as much domestic violence as possible.

 

 

        That’s made plain in a new study from researchers at the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center which concluded that intimate partner violence contributes greatly to persons becoming unhoused – and that these victims of violence are far from universally female.

 

 

        The new report from UCSF’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative says physical violence during the six months before becoming homeless was a major reason for almost one-tenth of all homelessness in California.

 

 

        And yet, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order that homeless encampments on state land be shut down forthwith never mentions domestic violence.

 

 

The new study found that 8 percent of the unhoused in the largest ever survey of California’s homeless experienced intimate partner violence, a more formal term for much domestic violence. That included 17 percent – almost one-fifth – of all women living on the streets or in homeless shelters.

 

 

        This makes domestic violence a lesser cause of homelessness than escalating rents or mental illness of various types, but still a major contributor. The finding is based on in-depth interviews with more than 100 homeless persons who experienced domestic violence before leaving their former residences.

 

       

       As might be expected, intimate partner violence does not occur in  a vacuum. Most of those made homeless after such episodes are also poor, with median monthly income about $1,000, often too little for groceries, let alone rent.

 

 

        Of those naming physical violence as a reason for leaving their prior homes, almost half told the UCSF researchers the violence was a large reason for leaving. In short, they would rather chance living in gutters, tents or temporary shelters than stay and get beaten. Fully 40 percent of them said the physical abuse was their main reason for leaving.

 

 

        For these folks, about two-thirds of them women, leaving was a survival strategy; they believed their lives were threatened.

 

 

        Before leaving their last previous “permanent” housing, about 20 percent had government rent subsidies.

 

 

        Other barriers also drive many to the streets and keep them there. These include not knowing about specialized domestic violence programs, child care responsibilities, fears their intimate partner would find them if they got government help and pandemic-related problems including increased time at home with their predators. Male victims of intimate partner violence, many of them gay, indicated reluctance in seeking help to avoid becoming homeless because they feared discrimination and stigma.

 

 

        But simply leaving home often can’t remove the threat of violence, it turns out.

 

 

        “Many who experienced intimate partner violence in the six months prior to homelessness also experienced (it) during homelessness,” says the report, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

 

 

        Because the newly homeless can be tracked down by former housemates with relative ease, the report says, many described to researchers how they change locations frequently and constantly “remain vigilant of their surroundings.”

 

 

        Their situations are especially perilous because fully 81 percent of the surveyed homeless persons fleeing domestic violence spend most nights completely unsheltered, not even in tents.

 

 

        Many with these woes lack money to seek apartment rentals, especially in coastal counties where both rents and housing are higher than inland.

 

 

        That’s why 73 percent of the UCSF sample believe a small monthly housing subsidy could help them a lot. Even more said a lump-sum payment that might cover first and last month’s rent would help even more. Almost all those surveyed (92 percent) said a housing voucher limiting their need to pay most rent would have kept them housed for at least two additional years.

 

 

        Instability while unhoused also contributes to extended homelessness, the research showed, because without easy access to domestic violence services and shelters, intimate partner violence can continue or worsen while people remain homeless.

 

 

        The bottom line: Domestic violence causes and prolongs a healthy share of California’s homelessness. But the state’s healthcare system “does not provide substantial support” for people who become homeless due to violence. 

 

 

        In short, the more Californians can do to lower or prevent domestic violence, the less homelessness citizens will encounter and the better off those already homeless will be.

 

 

-30-
    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

ELECTRIC CUSTOMERS DUNNED AGAIN

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2024, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “ELECTRIC CUSTOMERS DUNNED AGAIN”

 

        For the umpteenth time in the last 60 years, California electric consumers are again being dunned. As usual, the stated reason is they must pay up by the hundreds of millions to keep the lights on.

 

        This time it’s via a $400 million “loan” to Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to help pay for extending the life of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on the coast north of San Luis Obispo.

 

        Never mind that this facility was officially relegated to the dust bin, effective next year, during the teens of this century.

 

        But Gov. Gavin Newsom later panicked over the reality that renewable power has been slower than expected in coming online. So he brokered a 2022 deal extending the atomic power plant’s life until at least 2030 with state loans the federal government would cover. Does anyone seriously think the feds will do that if Donald Trump regains the White House?

 

        The same for the new “loan,” reluctantly approved by state legislators this summer as part of their budget deal with Newsom. Don’t expect PG&E to repay it.

 

        Right now, it’s not federal taxpayers funding PG&E to keep Diablo open past next year; rather, it is utility customers almost everywhere in California. Yes, even if your power arrives via Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric or PacifiCorp, you are still being dunned for Diablo.

 

        One big question is why this extension should be foisted off on millions of folks who don’t deal directly with PG&E. The Newsom answer is that Diablo’s power is needed to prevent blackouts during this year’s record-level heat waves, even if that juice has to flow hundreds of miles across the state’s electric grid to be useful.

 

        But what about all those so-called “peaker” plants operating at times of high electric use all over the state? Their purpose when approved was to keep the grid going in times of extreme need. Are they now superfluous, with Diablo resurrected? Utility executives and the benighted state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) don’t answer that question.

 

        Rather, millions of electric customers must pay ever-higher bills without argument. For the most part, they do it, too, forking over whatever amount appears on monthly invoices.

 

        Meanwhile, who’s to say Diablo will be more reliable than it’s ever been? When working, that one plant can produce 8.5 percent of all the energy it takes to run everything electric in California.

 

But Diablo shut down for much of 2022 because it violated PG&E’s own management procedures. Those outages came when a hydrogen cooling system in the plant’s Unit 2 leaked and had to be shut down manually.

 

Hello, peakers.

 

Diablo was equally unreliable in 2020-21, when it experienced 149 days of unplanned outages over a 476-day period. Essentially, the plant produced next to nothing one-third of the time.

 

How smart is it to depend for backup power on a plant that has shown itself capable of extended breakdowns? What if those shutdowns happen during heat waves and other times of ultra-high air conditioning usage?

 

It’s all part of the coddling of big privately-owned utilities by a long series of California governors, Republicans and Democrats. All received large donations from the companies, Newsom’s own take coming to more than $10 million over his career.

 

That $10 million is chump change for PG&E and the others when they can snap their fingers and get sycophantic political tools to provide them hundreds of millions, often billions in ratepayer money.

 

In fact, even as utility customers pay to keep Diablo

going, the PUC may soon authorize even more money for the companies, starting with PG&E. Rather than limiting those firms to applying every four years for basic rate increases, they can now come back to the trough as often as they can convince the PUC they need more money to create new power for the electric vehicles the state hopes will dominate new car sales starting in just a few years.

 

It all adds up to more costs for customers, more inflation and less money in most wallets. Which makes now a good time for the PUC to become elective and start answering to the customers it loves to dun.

-30-
    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net