THIS RECALL COULD BECOME NEWSOM VS. TRUMP

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2021, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
   “THIS RECALL COULD BECOME NEWSOM VS. TRUMP”

 

        California’s Republican Party appears bent on making the seemingly inevitable fall recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom into a symbolic vote on the political revival ex-President Donald Trump so avidly desires.

 

        As the days wound down before the March 17 deadline for submitting recall petition signatures, it became clear that three men with links to Trump would likely be the most prominent figures on the recall’s list of prospective Newsom replacements.

 

        As in any statewide recall election, voters would have two votes this time – a yes-or-no choice on dumping Newsom and a second vote choosing from a list of would-be alternatives. The winner in that contest would not need a majority, just more votes than anyone else running.

 

So far, the three most prominent likely candidates include former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, San Diego County businessman John Cox and Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell.

 

If the list of alternates does not soon add a figure or two who’s more palatable to the state’s dominant Democratic voters, it appears the recall won’t have much chance no matter how poorly Newsom may fare in the polls.

 

        Cox lost to Newsom in the November 2018 runoff election by a massive 62-38 percent margin, running as a strong Trump ally determined to end California’s status as the state most resistant to his policies. That’s almost exactly the same margin by which Trump lost California last fall. It may represent the best any conservative Republican can do in this era.

 

The thumping frequent candidate Cox took did not dampen his enthusiasm for calling Newsom incompetent and hypocritical. Yet, he likely won’t get as enthusiastic backing from Trump this time as three years ago.

 

        For Grenell, said to plan on entering this list when the recall formally qualifies for a vote, has been among Trump’s most loyal operatives.

 

        During the Trump presidency, Grenell served first as spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, then ambassador to Germany and finally as acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s final year, after the ex-president fired the previous chief spy for reporting publicly that Russia was interfering in the election on his behalf.

 

        Grenell would not enter this race if he did not have Trump’s blessing, reportedly secured during the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee last month in Orlando.

 

        Faulconer is not so obvious a Trumpist. He downplays his Republican identity in this state where the GOP label has lately meant certain defeat in statewide races other than those involving movie muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger.

 

        But Faulconer at times leans heavily to the right. Example: he endorsed former U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa early on to replace the disgraced and resigned San Diego Republican Duncan Hunter in a Mexican-border congressional seat. The hard-right Issa “retired” in 2018 from his former seat in north San Diego County when that district became too liberal for him to be reelected. The Hunter district leans far more toward Trump loyalty.

 

        There was also Trump telling Fox News last June, after Faulconer visited the Oval Office, that “(Faulconer) was just in my office, great guy. He came up to thank me for having done the (border) wall…

 

        Faulconer quickly denied saying that, his spokesman claiming he and Trump discussed only a trade deal. Still, Newsom can use the Fox News video against him, and never mind Faulconer’s denial.

 

        A big difference between this recall and the 2003 ouster of then-Gov. Gray Davis is the absence of anyone with the innate popularity of Schwarzenegger, who dominated that vote.

 

        All this should make it easy for Newsom’s veteran campaign team to cast this as a Trumpian attempt at a backdoor takeover of California.

 

        If he succeeds at beating back the recall, Newsom would have already defeated all his likely major 2022 reelection opponents, plus California’s most active Trump supporters. So he could – like some previous recall survivors – emerge as a popular hero in his own party, with an easy path to reelection next year as well as a promising potential national future.

 

       

       

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    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 BET ON SINGLE-PAYER ARRIVING SOON

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 2018 OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

          “DON’T BET ON SINGLE-PAYER ARRIVING SOON”

          There is loud talk in the Legislature and anywhere California Democrats meet in large numbers about passing a single-payer health care plan something like the one that didn’t make it to a state Assembly vote last summer.

          But don’t bet on such a plan passing anytime soon. For one thing, Democrats now lack the two-thirds supermajorities in both legislative houses that they enjoyed most of last year, the edge that allowed them to pass a gasoline tax increase Republicans will try to defeat at the polls this fall.

          Those big margins won’t return until mid-year at the earliest, as Democrats lost three Los Angeles-area Assembly seats and one in the state Senate to the Legislature’s sexual harassment scandal and some health problems near the end of 2017. Even if Democrats hold on to all those seats, a likely prospect, they would have precious little time before the November election to place an inherently controversial single-payer, Medicare-for-all plan on the ballot.

          That plan was so questionable when presented last year that Democratic Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, usually a reliable liberal, shelved it for the year last June. His objection: There was no clear financing for the idea, with many ultra-liberal Democrats figuring they’d just pass something and figure out later how to pay for it.

          There’s also the dicey matter of negotiating with federal officials – mostly conservative Republicans these days – over how to switch the payroll withholding that now funds Medicare over to the state if California adopts single payer.

          And there’s the reality that California will have to find new money somewhere if it expects to keep Medi-Cal benefits at present levels in the face of federal cuts included in the Republican tax bill passed in the waning days of last year.

          Medi-Cal advocates including Health Access California warn that the state may see “the mother of all Medicaid battles.” Medi-Cal is the state’s version of the federal Medicaid program, funding health care for about one-third of the state’s residents, a figure that demonstrates California’s extreme economic inequalities. Liberal Democrats now want to expand Medi-Cal even farther, saying they plan to cover undocumented immigrants along with low-income U.S. citizens.

          Without two-thirds majorities, it will be difficult to act on any of this agenda because Democrats can have no realistic expectation of help from any Republican who hopes to be reelected. That’s because all these ideas are part of what Republicans call the Democrats’ “tax-and-spend” politics.

          Long-simmering disputes over rising prescription drug costs also figure to occupy plenty of time in Sacramento this year, just like last year.

          But single-payer is the largest target for California Democrats, who understand that passing it would take this state outside the constant battles in Congress over repeal or dismemberment of ex-President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

          One big problem would be convincing the millions of California seniors now on Medicare that a state-run program can provide as widespread and comprehensive coverage as Medicare, widely perceived as one of the best-run federal programs. Of course, if Republicans in Congress move to cut or eviscerate Medicare, as some have threatened or promised, then a completely independent but unproven state-run plan might look much better to over-65 citizens.

          It’s not that single-payer is a new idea in California. Twice during the first decade of this century, former Democratic state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, now a Los Angeles County supervisor, shepherded such plans through the Legislature, only to see them vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Her idea – also embodied in most current proposals – was to use existing health insurance premiums as the main funding source, one reason California would need to get access to Medicare fees now taken regularly out of most seniors’ Social Security checks, in addition to what comes out of workers’ paychecks.

          As was Schwarzenegger, current Gov. Jerry Brown is skeptical about whether adequate funding is available for any of this.

          All of which creates an extremely complex health care situation in Sacramento, and nothing complex gets done quickly there. So people anticipating a single-payer ballot proposition on a California ballot probably should not hold their breath. Chances are it won’t come before 2020 at the earliest.

           

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    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

NEW REASONS TO BE GLAD POPULISM KILLED CALIFORNIA LNG

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 2012, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“NEW REASONS TO BE GLAD POPULISM KILLED CALIFORNIA LNG”

From the Economist magazine in London to the Wall Street Journal and even some California newspapers and talk shows, so-called authorities have been telling us for years this state’s populist system of letting the people decide major issues has made California dysfunctional, even ungovernable.

There’s a three-word reply to at least some of those complaints: liquefied natural gas.

Better known as LNG, this is natural gas supercooled into a liquid state and then hauled thousands of miles across oceans in specialized billion-dollar tankers to regasification facilities, where it is rewarmed and placed into the host area’s natural gas pipeline distribution system.

For many years starting in 1979, utility companies like Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Gas Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. told Californians they desperately needed LNG to replaced dwindling supplies of domestic natural gas that’s shipped here via three major pipelines from Colorado, Alberta and the Permian Basin area of Texas and Oklahoma.

The first big effort won support from then-Gov. Jerry Brown (in his first Sacramento go-‘round) and employed his father, ex-Gov. Pat Brown as its lead spokesman. A partnership of PG&E and SoCal Gas was thwarted in its plan to build an LNG facility at Point Conception in Santa Barbara County when a lawsuit by the Chumash Indian tribe delayed it long enough for a worldwide glut of natural gas to make the whole thing moot.

Fast forward 25 years to the middle of the last decade and resource exploitation companies from around the world, led by Australia’s BHP Billiton Ltd., employed the same scare tactics in efforts to build LNG receiving plants near Eureka, Long Beach, Oxnard and other points. Each of these facilities was killed primarily because of local public opposition based on both environmental and economic factors. Because of the cost of facilities and ships, LNG would most likely have pushed gas bills upward significantly for generations.

But the people ruled, even if there was no formal ballot initiative on these proposals.

Now it turns out they were absolutely right. All over America and Canada, LNG receiving and warming terminals are being converted into LNG exporting and liquefaction facilities. That’s because gas produced from shale in the Rocky Mountain region and other locales has shut up all those who ever said LNG would be needed in California and many other places. Now the same people are saying shale can make America into a net energy exporter.

As early as last December, Mike Stice, senior vice president for natural gas at Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy, told a meeting of investment analysts that “Every (LNG) operator on the Gulf Coast has a liquefaction plan.”

Voters who approved existing LNG plants strictly to receive gas are getting little or no say in places like New York, New Jersey British Columbia and the Gulf Coast, where those conversions are now taking place. This could expose them to far more peril than mere receiving facilities.

Besides the greenhouse gas produced by fleets of huge tankers constantly crisscrossing the world’s oceans, environmental opponents of California LNG plants were also worried about huge explosions and fires. So far, there have been no major fires at receiving/rewarming plants.

But there have been two devastating explosive events at liquefying/export facilities. One happened in 1944 in Cleveland, Ohio, where a fireball at a liquefying plant decimated a huge area around that city’s port on Lake Erie. The other occurred 60 years later in 2004 in Algeria, where builders of that country’s liquefaction plant had pledged it would forever be absolutely safe.

California’s populist opposition to LNG is now protecting the state from the perils associated with exporting LNG. Meanwhile, the nearest place to California where plans are proceeding for a facility that could be adapted both to ship and receive LNG is just outside Coos Bay, Ore., where popular opposition grows stronger by the week.

That putative plant was originally to provide natural gas to California, whose big utilities in the early 2000s pressured the state Public Utilities Commission into allowing them to give up some of their reserved space on two big pipelines that supply California. Fortunately, no one ever acted on that because no LNG facilities were built in this state.

It’s a classic example of populism enabling a constructive move that spared this state both danger and expense. It’s also a case of the people knowing better than so-called experts. And that’s the very opposite of dysfunctional.

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Elias is author of the current book "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It," now available in an updated third printing. His email address is tdelia@aol.com

WILL RIVALS BE FOILS FOR A CANNY JERRY BROWN?

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2010, OR THEREAFTER

THOMAS D. ELIAS
“WILL RIVALS BE FOILS FOR A CANNY JERRY BROWN?"

So far, the most interesting thing about the formal entry of Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown into the run for governor has been the reaction of the two megabucks Republicans now vying so avidly and expensively to be his November rival. Or maybe to be his unwitting foil for the fall election season.

Both former eBay chief Meg Whitman and current state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner greeted Brown by calling him an old-fashioned tax-and-spend liberal.

But neither was anywhere near California during most of Brown’s previous eight years as governor. So maybe they don’t know he was the guy who often employed the terms “small is beautiful” and "an era of limits" to describe what government should be. Or that he’s the fellow who vetoed three bills giving state employees raises – in one year. Or that he fought a raise for university professors by reminding them of their “psychic rewards.”

It was awful, griped Jon Coupal, the head of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, in a conference call set up by the Whitman campaign, that Brown saddled several new parcel taxes upon Oakland during his recent eight years as mayor.

Yep, responded Brown, there were some of those. “Are (Coupal and Whitman) saying the people don’t have the right to vote more money for police and schools if that’s what they want?” he asked incredulously. “Every one of those taxes was approved by two-thirds of the people who pay the tax. Are they trying to tell the people what to do? Anyone who says the people shouldn’t have the right to tax themselves is living in an ivory tower. That’s fundamental to democracy.”

If other charges leveled at him this year prove as easy for him to fend off as those first ones, Brown will have fun this fall.

He didn’t seem to have much fun during his last-go’round as governor.

Back then, he said in an interview, “I wanted to be governor because I thought it was an important and exciting job and I was drawn to it. I had seen my father do it and I thought I could do it well.”

He slept on a mattress on the floor of a bare apartment near the state Capitol. He famously rode around in an ultra-unpretentious powder blue Plymouth sedan. About the only fun he had, it seemed, was when he dated singer Linda Ronstadt.

Things are different now, and Brown says he is, too. He and his wife of five years, Anne Gust, live in the Oakland hills rather than the gritty downtown neighborhood he called home while mayor. “I go home at night more now,” he said. “I know I don’t need this job. But I would like to bring back a time when people worked together even if they came from different parties.”

It’s almost as if he’s saying he wants to clean up the mess made by his various successors. But can he or anyone accomplish much when Republicans who deviate from the party line risk either recall or getting knocked off in the next primary election? When Democrats who cast an anti-union vote often lose party support for their next campaign?

Brown thinks he can do it in part because he’s changed profoundly since leaving office in 1983. “I’ve seen a lot more, I’m more patient,” he said. “Being mayor of Oakland was an eye opener. Half the people in my neighborhood were below the poverty line, there were parolees just out of Pelican Bay. It gave me a real-life feel that has grounded me.”

Brown does not expect to resolve the ongoing budget mess instantly, figuring that will take at least two years. “We’ll have to hold spending down and develop a plan with everyone on board,” he said. “Starting in December, I’ll meet with every single legislator. The Republicans should say where they want to cut, too, and then we’ll work it out. Plus, I believe the economy will come back – it has every time we’ve had a recession for the last hundred years. Is California finished? That’s absurd. With a total economy of more than $1.5 trillion, our budget is less than 2 percent of the gross state product.

“The Republicans have not yet identified just how they would solve things. So you have to put the spotlight on them. Is there waste? Well, we’ve already cut $60 billion in the last three years. But one thing is for sure: California government can’t continue unless we pull together. And we can do it because I don’t believe the Republicans want to destroy California.”

That’s a speech the Jerry Brown of the 1970s and ‘80s could never have made.

So this time, it’s Brown who’s after a psychic reward, the satisfaction of restoring California’s luster. The bottom line: Even if he’s severely outspent by whichever ultra-rich Republican he faces, all indications are he will have plenty of fun this year, and maybe far beyond.

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net