You wanna see my smartphone, get a warrant

If police want to poke around the bowels of your home computer, they can't just knock on your door and tell you to give it up. The 4th Amendment requires they petition a court for a search warrant. It may be inconvenient, irritating even, but it's the law and it has served the nation well since the Bill of Rights was adopted.
Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court will consider if there is any difference between the computer inside your home and the one you carry around in your pocket that also functions as a telephone.
"The justices," as the New York Times said Sunday, "will have to decide how to apply an 18th-century phrase — the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of “unreasonable searches and seizures” — to devices that can contain 100 times more information than is in the Library of Congress’s 72,000-page collection of James Madison’s papers."


Virtual home or criminal tool?

The 90 percent of Americans who now carry around smartphones carry their lives in their pockets. With these devices people can access their financial, medical and travel records, email, photographs, calendars, records of purchases and Internet browsing and telephone records. If you want to paint a picture of a person, all you have to do is access his or her smart phone. They also can be critical tools for criminals.
When police arrest someone, understandably, they want as much information about the person as possible. And quickly.
That was the case in 2009 when David L. Riley was pulled over in San Diego for having an expired license. Police found loaded guns in his car and when they inspected his cell phone, they found entries linking him to a street gang. Eventually they found information connecting him to a shooting. He ended up with an attempted murder conviction and a 15 years to life prison sentence.
A California appeals court said no search warrant was required, likening the smartphone to a person's wallet or personal papers they might be carrying.
Comparing a smartphone to a wallet is silly on its face, which essentially is what appeals court judges said in the second case.
Brima Wurie was arrested in Boston in 2007 when a search of his flip phone revealed a call log linking him to gun and drug crimes. But in that case, a federal appeals court threw out the evidence found on his phone, citing the 4th Amendment prohibition against "unreasonable searches and seizures."
“Today, many Americans store their most personal ‘papers’ and ‘effects’ in electronic format on a cellphone, carried on the person,” Judge Norman H. Stahl wrote for a divided three-judge panel of the court, quoting the words of the Fourth Amendment.
There are legitimate police concerns that a criminal carrying a smartphone or the person's associates could set up the device to automatically delete information under certain circumstances. Civil libertarians, however, note that for under $100 cell phones can be placed in a Faraday bag, which blocks remote signals and safeguards data they contain. Bagging and preserving potential evidence would allow a magistrate time to consider if "probable cause" exists to issue a search warrant.
It's a fool's bet to try to guess how the high court will rule, but the 2012 unanimous ruling barring police from attaching a GPS tracking device to a car absent a search warrant might offer at least some small window into the justices' thinking. In addition, last week Justice Antonin Scalia, arguable the court's most conservative member and its biggest 4th Amendment champion, decried as a "freedom-destroying cocktail" a majority court ruling giving police a free hand to stop cars based solely on an anonymous tip.
A significant difference between stopping a car being operated by a possibly inebriated driver and temporarily bagging an arrestee's smartphone is that the smartphone is not going to drive off. That difference should be enough to bring reluctant justices around to Scalia's position of protecting Americans from "unreasonable searches and seizures."

Defiant cattleman not so sure about freedom for all

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children; they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”
These are the words of Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher whose defiance of the Bureau of Land Management has made him the darling of FOX News and assorted government haters.

Bundy: cattleman and social critic

The cowboys and cowgirls who have joined him, replete with rifles, handguns and
vows to defend their version of freedom, so far have forced the BLM to back away. The agency had planned to round up Bundy's cattle. Bundy has been grazing his herd on federal land, ignoring grazing fees other ranchers pay, since 1993. Other administrative and judicial remedies will be considered, according to BLM officials.
He made the comments about government subsidy when at one of the news conferences he calls daily, only one reporter and one photographer sauntered up. That didn't stop this Marlboro man from holding forth on the villainous BLM and all manner of social ills troubling him. That's when he decided to tell the world African Americans would be better off picking cotton as slaves.
That there is room to question the propriety of the federal government controlling vast stretches of the Western United States seems legitimate (85 percent of the land in Nevada is owned by the federal government). There might be legitimate beefs about fees the government charges cattlemen, although it would be just as reasonable to complain about how little the government charges companies that extract the nation's mineral and energy wealth from public lands.
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to honor a federal court that has no jurisdiction or authority or arresting power over we the people,” he said. He also likes to ride around on a horse waving an American flag.
Bundy owes the government -- the taxpayers -- more than $1 million in grazing fees. His family has grazed cattle in Nevada since they homesteaded in the 1870s, but he stopped paying his fees after the BLM ordered him to restrict the periods when his herd roamed the 600,000 Gold Butte area as part of an effort to protect the endangered desert tortoise.
But for now, the rules are the rules. And Bundy is obliged to follow them or suffer the consequences ... in this case the loss of his private property -- his cattle -- in exchange for his years-long use of public property.
And certainly Bundy's racist comments should give pause to his followers, the talking heads at FOX News and various politicians who've decided to circle up near the chuck wagon with this guy.

Shields up for automaker

General Motors says it takes responsibility for a faulty ignition switch problem linked to at least 13 deaths, but was in court this week asking a judge to protect the automaker from other responsibilities.
GM attorneys asked a federal bankruptcy judge to dismiss dozens of lawsuits over the defective switch in millions of its cars, and to bar similar cases in the future.
Specifically, the court is being asked to reaffirm the company's 2009 restructuring agreement that shielded the "new" company from liability for incidents that took place before July 10, 2009, the day the agreement went into effect.
As luck would have it for GM, most of the cars in the recall were made before 2009.
According to its court filing, GM faces 54 lawsuits filed since last February, all but two of them seeking class-action status. They all claim economic damages for such things as a lower car value or missing work while the ignition was repaired.
Certainly it would not be unreasonable to question the validity of the shield GM claims it has under the bankruptcy agreement especially given the fact that the automaker knew about the faulty ignition switches years before being forced to recall millions of vehicles. It would not be unreasonable to argue that GM should have made the potential liabilities known to the bankruptcy judge. Failing to do so was either an astounding oversight or fraud. Whatever the case, why should GM be able to claim protection?
Obviously, GM doesn't want to pay for those claims or even face the expense of dealing with them. The company has said both publicly and in its latest court filing that it is not asking for a dismissal of personal injury lawsuits.
“General Motors has taken responsibility for its actions and will keep doing so,” GM said in a statement released after filing court papers seeking to escape some of its responsibility. “G.M. has also acknowledged that it has civic and legal obligations relating to injuries that may relate to recalled vehicles, and it has retained Kenneth Feinberg to advise the company what options may be available to deal with those obligations.”
All of this stems from GM's initial determination that it was cheaper to deal with the potential lawsuits than recall the vehicles and replace a 57-cent spring. One would have thought with $49.5 billion in taxpayer bailout money, the company could have come up with a solution that was less deadly than the one it chose. It didn't and now shouldn't be allowed to escape the consequences.

Anonymous tip is grounds for a traffic stop

California motorists are familiar with highway signs urging them to call 911 to report suspected drunken drivers. It can all be anonymous. It seems a reasonable thing to do.
The U.S. Supreme Court agrees. In a 5-4 ruling, the court said Tuesday that making the call that lets police stop such vehicles passes constitutional muster. Such stops do not amount to an unreasonable search or seizure. That's true even if the arresting officer does not see the vehicle speeding or swaying while driving down the highway, the court said.
The ruling affirms a similar ruling from the California courts.

The deadly potential if police don't act.

Six years ago Mendocino County dispatchers received a 911 call reporting that a pickup truck had run another vehicle off the road. The caller remained anonymous but offered a detailed description of the truck, including its license plate number.
Officers spotted the vehicle and stopped it. They didn't see the driver speeding or swerving but when they pulled truck over, officers did see 30 pounds of marijuana in the truck bed. Two men were arrested and convicted of marijuana trafficking. They appealed under the 4th Amendment prohibition against "unreasonable" searches and seizures.
The high court turned them away, stepping back from an earlier ruling that police cannot rely solely on an anonymous tip to stop and search a pedestrian. Justices in that case worried that callers could unfairly target people for searches.
Certainly an argument can be made that a similar potential exists with motorists. An incident of road rage could become such a case if an upset driver drops a dime on another motorist.
However, there are two big differences. One, driving is a privilege not a right, unlike what most of us presume we have when simply strolling down a street. Two, the potential for harm to others is much greater with motor vehicles. Bumping into a person in the mall is different than bumping into a person with a car in the mall parking lot.
Yes, some minor inconvenience accompanies being stopped by police who've received a tip about a potential reckless or intoxicated driver. But caution suggests the need for police action. If the tip turns out to be false, so be it and the motorist can be sent along. If true, a driver with the potential to kill can be taken off the road.
“We have firmly rejected the argument that reasonable cause for an investigative stop can only be based on the officer’s personal observation, rather than on information supplied by another person,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/22/6343576/supreme-court-upholds-search-of.html#storylink=cpy

This week's ruling came with the usual conservative-liberal spit with two exceptions. Justice Stephen Breyer, often voting with the court's liberal wing, joined the conservative wing. Justice Antonin Scalia, often seen as the leader of the court's conservative wing, sided with the dissenters.
“Drunken driving is a serious matter, but so is the loss of our freedom to come and go as we please without police interference,” Scalia wrote. “To prevent and detect murder we do not allow searches without probable cause or targeted ... stops without reasonable suspicion. We should not do so for drunken driving either.”
Scalia's is an interesting argument, coming as it does from a man who in the past has had few qualms about government interference in many areas of citizens' private lives.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/22/6343576/supreme-court-upholds-search-of.html#storylink=cpy

County home prices up, but not sales

Home prices in San Joaquin County continue to climb with median prices pushing toward a quarter of a million dollars last month.
The California Association of Realtors said last week that the median priced single-family home sold for $245,900 in March, up 28.6 percent in the last 12 months and up nearly 5 percent from February's median price.
However, year-over home sales dropped 24 percent, echoing slipping sales across the state.
“While the demand for housing was up from February, the market is taking a hit from lower housing affordability compared to a year ago, which led to a decline in home sales from last year,” said Kevin Brown, the association's president.
“Moreover, concerns over tighter lending standards and increased borrowing costs are also contributing factors to the sluggish market as they both negatively impact the bottom line of home buyers who obtain financing through mortgages.”
Earlier this month, Realty-Trac Inc. reported that San Joaquin County had a 40 percent drop in new foreclosure filings in March compared to a year earlier. The decline continues the county's retreat from its one-time status as the nation's No. 1 foreclosure market. San Joaquin County last month ranked 35th. The No. 1 label now belongs to Port Lucie, Fla., where one of every 99 housing units received a foreclosure notice last month. In San Joaquin County one of every 258 housing units received a notice in March.
Sales figures released by CAR closely match data released by Irvine-based DataQuick that said the median priced home in the county sold for $225,750, a price about 30.1 percent higher than in March 2010.
According to DataQuick, home sales in March were the lowest for a March since 2008, when 24,565 homes sold statewide – a record low for the month. California’s high for March sales was 68,848 in 2005. That would have been just before the real estate crash. Last month's sales were 23.9 percent below the average of 43,251 sales for all months of March since 1988, when DataQuick's statistics begin. California sales haven’t been above average for any particular month in more than eight years.
The supply of homes for sale is slowing increasing in San Joaquin County, which also parallels what's happening statewide. CAR said there was a 3.4 months supply available for sale last month. That's up from the 2.2 months supply in March 2013. A normal supply is in the six month range.
CAR's complete report on March sales is available at www.car.org/newsstand/newsreleases/2014releases/march2014sales
DataQuick home sales figures can be found at www.dqnews.com/Charts/Monthly-Charts/CA-City-Charts/ZIPCAR.aspx

Trouble getting through to the cable guy? Just wait

Here's a question to ask yourself, especially about the time your cable bill arrives: What do 86 of the 107 in-house Comcast lobbyists have in common?
Answer: they all came out of government. They include a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission and several former chiefs of staff to Senate and House Democrats and Republicans.
In 2013, Comcast spent $18.1 million on its lobbying efforts, seventh highest of any corporation or organization, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
So the next question is: why is this important?
The answer: because those men and women are working hard and lavishing millions on Washington decision-makers to make sure that Comcast's $45 billion purchase of Time-Warner, the nation's second biggest cable and high-speed Internet provider, becomes reality. Oh, and the No. 1 cable and Internet provider? Comcast.
In an information/technology age it is disturbing that we are considering concentrating in one giant company this much of such a vital industry. The phrase "too big to fail" leaps to mind. If this acquisition goes through two other phrases are likely to enter the lexicon: "too big to regulate" and "too powerful to punish."
Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, argues bigger will be better. The company will have more money to do more things and make more investments in innovations. That will force rivals to do the same. All this will be oh so good for consumers, company officials and their shills claim.
But how does that square with the reality that most of the content produced by rivals like Netflix and Amazon will flow through Comcast's cable pipelines? How good, really, will that be for the rivals?

And consumers? When was the last time an unregulated monopoly helped consumers?
Ask grain growers in the 1880s Midwest how having service from one railroad helped them.
Make no mistake, it's no accident that more than 80 percent of Comcast's lobbyists come from government. A company hires such people -- at huge salaries -- precisely because they've been insiders. They know which people to buttonhole and where the bodies are buried.
Good for consumers? Good for rivals? Hardly. This deal, like so many mega-company formations in recent years, is good for those making the deal and those allowing the deal to go through -- the politicians and bureaucrats sent to Washington on the shaky vow to look out for Americans and America.
The acquisition will go through because, government officials will eventually declare, there was no legal reason in this rigged game for it to be denied, notwithstanding arguments about safeguarding our democracy and at least the façade of one-man, one-vote.
If as a Comcast or Time-Warner customer you think your incomprehensible bill is too high now, just wait. If you think you have trouble getting a real company person on the phone to answer a question or complaint, just wait. The phone-tree from hell is about to arrive. And those are only the visible parts of what has the real potential for nefarious behavior when the companies are joined.

What was Scalia really suggesting?

“It was wrong,” Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said “I think the Framers would have been appalled. … It was revising the Constitution.”
Scalia, like many preachers who claim to fathom the mind of God, likes to claim unique insight into the collective thinking of the Framers.
In this case, his complaint is about the unanimous court decision in New York Times vs. Sullivan, 50 years old this year and still the high court's most important press freedom pronouncement.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

In a nutshell, the Sullivan ruling makes it much harder for public officials to win libel cases than it is for private citizens.
Scalia's troubling pronouncement, certainly not his first and doubtless not his last, came Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington, where he made a joint appearance with his personal friend but often adversary on the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
If the Sullivan rule were reversed, it would help shield public officials from criticism. Point in fact, over the decades the court has never seriously reconsidered Sullivan despite Scalia's repeated grumblings. He considers libel a state matter.
With Sullivan, it became a federal matter.
L.B. Sullivan was police commissioner of Montgomery, Ala. who claimed he had been defamed in a paid advertisement in the New York Times. That ad, signed by a number of prominent Americans including former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, sought donations for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights struggle in the South.
Alabama courts ruled that statements in the ad that African American students were being met with "violent intimidation" could reflect on Sullivan, although he was not named in the advertisement. The state courts awarded him the $500,000 he sought.
In unanimously reversing the decision, the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time ruled that the First Amendment's free press protections put limits on libel suits against the media by public officials. It's not impossible for public officials to bring and win such suits, but after the Sullivan ruling it got a lot harder. Under Sullivan, an official must show not only that a factual statement is false but also that it was published with "actual malice" or "reckless disregard" for the truth.
The Sullivan rule opened the door for the media to cover this nation's civil rights struggle and a brand of reporting that torments public officials to this day. But beyond allowing reporters freedom to dig deeper into the doings of public officials, the ruling really expanded the right of all Americans -- not just the press -- to freely and openly comment on the performance of public officials, from the local dog catcher to the president of the United States.
That's not such a bad thing, Americans of all political stripes would likely agree.
However, Scalia may be right that the Founders would find Sullivan unsettling given the highly partisan press of their day. The courts of that period were often used by politicians to throttle opposing views expressed by both individuals and in publications. But just because those particular public officials -- who carry the God-like title of Framers -- might find Sullivan disturbing is no more reason to reverse it than Scalia's carefully parsed argument based on a much more disquieting state's rights logic.
When the state's right argument is tendered, the public's antenna should go up, especially when coming from someone channeling the Framers.

Money buys influence, but is anyone surprised?

A new poll shows a growing number of California voters favor tinkering with Proposition 13, the 1978 property tax limitation measure long considered the third rail of politics.
No more.
About half of voters surveyed by the Field Poll support changing some parts of the law and 69 percent support indirectly increasing taxes on businesses to make it harder for commercial properties to avoid reassessments.
In fact, the poll found that 71 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans favor changes to the law to prevent businesses from structuring property transactions to avoid triggering reassessments under Proposition 13.
A bill that sought to address that issue stalled in stalled in a legislative committee last year where it was opposed by the California Chamber of Commerce, which labeled it a “job killer.”
Interestingly, the Field Poll results come as Princeton and Northwestern universities released a report, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens."
The report concludes that the U.S. government does not represent the interests of the majority of the nation's citizens but is instead ruled by those of the rich and powerful (www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdf).
It would not be a stretch to suggest the findings of researchers Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin I. Page of Northwestern fit the California experience.
Said the researchers: "The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."
The influence of these powerful elites suggests, in the case of California, despite bipartisan voter support for changing Proposition 13, chances are slim.
And getting slimmer, thanks in no small part to the conservative bloc of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Two infamous decisions by the high court -- the 2010 Citizens United decision bestowing First Amendment "personhood" on corporations and unions, and this month's McCutcheon ruling abolishing campaign-contribution limits -- make it even easier for the powerful elites to drown out the voice of the average citizen.
You don't support the state's high speed rail project or Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to bore twin tunnels under the Sacrament-San Joaquin River Delta? Sing out. Just don't be surprised when your concerns are muffled by the chorus of south state and south Valley water interests, unions representing workers that will build them, and companies that stand to profit handsomely from the multi-billion dollar projects.
In Sacramento, just as is the case in Washington, those who have the money can make sure they are heard. It's not that they overtly buy votes, although surely that has happened. Rather it's access to those officials who vote and the ability to constantly remind them that election campaigns cost money -- money the rich and powerful can make available or withhold.

It's a falsehood that we can outlaw political lies

Do Americans have a constitutional right to lie?
That question likely is not the one that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide when it takes on an Ohio case that comes before it next week. That case involves an ousted member of Congress who complained to the Ohio Elections Commission about an anti-abortion group's attacks. His gripe: the group's claim he "voted for taxpayer-funded abortion" when he voted for Obama's healthcare law. Ohio has a law on the books that makes lying about a political opponent illegal. In this case, Democrat Steve Driehaus even threatened to sue a billboard company, which considered, but did not run the ad.
Driehaus said statements against him by the group Susan B. Anthony List were false because federal funds cannot be spent to pay for abortions (that prohibition began in 1976 with the Hyde Amendment).
The Elections Commission found "probable cause" that the statement was false. That set the stage for a full commission hearing. Before it was held, Driehaus lost his reelection bid and withdrew his complaint.
The antiabortion group, however, wants the case to go forward. Next week the Supreme Court will consider the matter, seen as clearing the way for an attack on the constitutionality of the Ohio law and similar measures in 15 other states.
The free speech issue is not likely to be considered, but rather the narrower question of whether these laws can be challenged as unconstitutional even if no one is successfully prosecuted. What's being suggested is a preemptive strike against the laws, which would be sort of like attacking a capital punishment law with no convicted killers sitting on death row.
Of course the real issue is the latitude for snipping we allow in the political arena. The bar already is pretty low. Politicians, their supporters and opponents often take shameful liberties with the truth. To cite but one example is the ongoing and bogus claim, say, by a sitting president that when unemployment drops, it's because of his programs. When joblessness increases, invariably the claim by his opponents is that the higher rate is the fault of the president's policies.
Is there a politician around these days -- local, state or federal -- who doesn't claim an elixir for creating jobs? That claim may not exactly be a criminal lie, but it doesn't exactly nestle next to honesty either.
And it's not like the current crop of politicians invented the technique of reality invention. Political falsehoods have a long and storied tradition in American politics. Lyndon Johnson ran as the peace candidate in 1964 against Barry Goldwater, who LBJ painted as a war-monger. Johnson, of course, was secretly moving the nation toward war in Vietnam. That constitutes a pretty big lie.
Does anybody actually believe waterboarding isn't torture? The George W. Bush administration era politicians continue to foist that fantasy on Americans.
Point in fact, Americans have to put up with a lot of falsehoods and the high court has shown a decided reluctance to stop them. Two years ago the justices in a 6-3 ruling threw out the conviction of a man who falsely claimed he was a Medal of Honor winner. After Navy SEAL Team 6 took down Osama bin Laden a shocking number of men claimed they'd been SEALs. If the court had ruled against the phony Medal of Honor claimee, wouldn't we be obliged to ferret out and prosecute the phony SEALs?
"I hope the Supreme Court will not say that free speech protects your right to lie," Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University told the Los Angeles Times. "At some point, you should not able to consciously lie about your opponent."
In a perfect world, he's right. And political lies can be pretty conspicuous to anyone really paying attention. But politics doesn't always reflect attributes we might associate with a perfect world. And trying to fashion a law -- or in this case laws in 16 states -- that makes lying in politics punishable carries its own perils.
Obviously, there are worrisome risks with letting blatant lies go unchallenged in the public arena. Lies repeated often enough too often become truth to some. One of the most troubling aspects of court rulings such as the high court's 2010 Citizens United case was that it opened the political money spigot to corporations and unions. That means they can drown out other voices. If they're lying -- and they will -- the truth might never be heard.

Lawmakers can't slip up making rainy-day fund

The easiest way to save money -- at least the most effective -- is to bank it before you see it. Not only does that make sure the money goes into savings, it also forces you to live on less.
That's the theory behind 401k plans and similar long-term savings programs: the money comes out and goes into savings before the rest of the paycheck hits the checking account.
That approach, but on a much larger scale, is behind a proposal floated by California Gov. Jerry Brown, who Wednesday called a special legislative session to make changes in a rainy-day measure voters will decided in the November election.
Brown wants to replace the current ballot measure. That proposal seeks to channel more state income into the emergency fund and would make it harder to tap except in emergencies, such as earthquakes and wildfires.
Brown's proposal would allow more flexibility for future governors and lawmakers. He wants to fund the emergency account with part of the capital gains revenue when it spikes, as it is this year with revenue collections running $1.4 billion ahead of projections. That money would be reserved for school spending and paying down debt and unfunded liabilities.
California voters actually approved a rainy-day fund 10 years ago, filling it with 3 percent of the state's annual revenue. But, according to Brown's office, the current system places no restrictions on when the fund can be tapped and requires deposits even in years of budget deficits. Talk about a bone-headed restriction.
"We simply must prevent the massive deficits of the last decade, and we can only do that by paying down our debts and creating a solid rainy day fund," the governor said in a statement.
Republicans have criticized Democrats, claiming they are really just trying to weaken the current measure, ACA4, on the November ballot.
Brown will be forced to deal with GOP concerns since changing the existing measure requires a super-majority vote of the Legislature. The Democrats hold such a majority in the Assembly, but with three Senate Democrats under suspension Brown's party no longer holds a super-majority of the upper chamber seats.

In reality, those majorities have kept Republicans on the legislative sidelines for months and Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway said she is pleased GOP lawmakers will have an opportunity to be heard.

"Republicans will not support a rainy-day fund that diverts from the initial purpose to actually save money, or one that allows the majority party to dip into the savings as much as they want, whenever they want," Conway said in a statement.

It's good Republican ideas will be seriously aired. No one party should hold a legislative stranglehold on the state. That being said, the Republicans have an obligation to work across the aisle and with the governor's office to fashion a ballot measure that provides funds when the economy turns south but makes it hard -- but not impossible -- to tap those funds when really needed.

 

"Kill switches" by default, not by option

Smartphone makers have decided, gee, maybe we can install "kill switches" on the devices as a way to stem thefts.
The about-face by the wireless industry comes as pressure grows from lawmakers and the public. More than 1.6 million Americans had smartphones, tablets or other devices stolen in 2012, according to Consumer Reports. The theft of mobile devices is the nation's No. 1 property crime.

No option but an obvious fix.

The theory is "kill switches" will staunch the incentive to steal the devices by rendering them inoperable. "Kill switches" enjoy overwhelming support. A Creighton University survey found that 99 percent of those asked thought carriers should allow all consumers to disable stolen phones and 93 percent said that it shouldn't cost them extra to do so.
And there's the rub: the wireless industry has long complained that "kill switches" would be costly to install. That's why the industry is trying to get out ahead of a legislative mandate. Under the plan announced by major carriers, the new technology will be available on devices manufactured after July 2015. It will allow users an optional, reversible "kill switch" that would render the device inoperable and wipe out data stored on it. If the stolen device is recovered, the owner could return it to working condition and restore the data using a password.
That's a good first step.
But, and here's the problem, the industry wants an "opt in" system, meaning consumers would have to make the effort to download the needed software or activate factory installed software.
It might be cynical to suggest it, but there's no real upside from the manufacturers' perspective to stemming cell phone thefts since they know consumers will quickly show up at retailers and buy another device.
That has some legislators decrying as inadequate the wireless industry's new found concern.
"For the solution to have an impact on the street where the crimes occur, it must be ubiquitous," California state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Leno has authored a bill that would require smartphones to come with a kill switch by next year.
"It should come enabled when you purchase your phone and the retailer activates it. That is fundamental to communicating to potential perpetrators that their stealing these phones will be a worthless venture," he said.
"Kill switches" might be compared to seat belts. They must be there and they must be used. We don't allow drivers the right to "opt in" to having seat belts in their cars. Given the growth of crime directly related to mobile electronic devices we shouldn't put the burden on consumers by making them jump through more hoops to protect themselves and their property. It's hard enough already to get users to password protect their cell phones. The "kill switch" solution should be enabled by default.

Being low-polluters isn't enough

We're about to become part of the problem, but we tried -- we really did.
In a few days we expect to take delivery of a gasoline-powered lawnmower. It replaces a three-year-old battery-powered model purchased through an environmental program designed to get pollution-prone mowers off our lawns.

Battery-powered mowers must improve.

Living in California's Central Valley, a geological bowl where pollution settles when the air is still and especially when the temperature climbs, retiring gasoline-power polluters makes sense. In this case, it made dollars and sense. By trading in our old gasoline model, the local air pollution control district -- that means the taxpayers -- provided a voucher than paid about three-quarters of the cost of a new battery-powered model.
There was an immediate problem: Consumers had only one lawnmower choice and the make picked by the air district was among the lowest rated around. It still is. Not only did the machine perform poorly -- a new, re-chargeable battery was required within a year and the safety features on the machine quickly became inoperable -- the manufacturer refused any help. The only time the manufacturer was responsive was when we had to replace the battery. They were more than happy to take more of our money.
Moving toward electric powered yard equipment makes sense. Gasoline-powered mowers are heavy polluters. But unless the battery-powered machines perform at a level comparable to gasoline-powered machines, getting consumers to buy them won't happen.
And the machines simply don't measure up. Product rating services consistently rank them much lower than gasoline machines. That's a shame.

The horror in the midst of so much good

At another time I might have been on that bus.
The thought came to me as I read in horror the accounts of the crash this week on Interstate 5 in
Glenn County, about 100 miles north of Sacramento.
Ten people died when a northbound tour bus was struck head-on by a southbound FedEx tractor-trailer rig that inexplicably crossed the median into the northbound lanes. Officials say it could be months, if ever, before the cause can be determined.


The aftermath of the I-5 crash

The bus had left the Los Angeles area headed for a place so completely different comparisons are hard. It was taking a bunch of eager kids to Arcata, a small, coastal town nestled in the redwoods, trees so tall you can fall over backwards trying to stare up at their tops. Arcata is home to Humboldt State University, among the smallest of the CSU campuses and certainly the most isolated.
It takes time to get there and it can take time to get used to the place. But once you do Arcata and Humboldt become part of your DNA.
Many of the young people on the bus were considering attending the university. Many also will be or would have been the first in their families to attend any university. Like me, they were poor kids from educationally-challenged backgrounds. Humboldt reached out to them, actively recruited them. All had been accepted at Humboldt. The trip, a preview weekend, was part of the university's attempt to close the deal.

Founders Hall on the HSU campus

Last fall, my wife and I met about a dozen friends in Arcata on homecoming weekend, which coincided with the university's 100th anniversary. Old friends and old memories. Most of us met our future spouses on that campus more than 40 years ago.
When I arrived in the mid-60s I was a scared kid so stupid I landed on campus without even money to register for classes, and barely enough money to feed myself until the dorm cafeteria opened. Only a phone call from my girlfriend's mom back home to the college president won me a fee waiver until my first grant and loan money was disbursed. Yes, it is possible to be that naïve.
Humboldt was, is, that kind of place. It's a small, personal school that takes youngsters and arms them with tools to make it through. All 12 of the people we met at homecoming last fall can attribute part of their future success to that school (although you might get an argument from Frau Doktor Richter who despite her best efforts could never drive the vagaries of German verbs into my brain).
A lot of people feel this way about their college. They are places that stress you and stretch you at a time when you're undergoing a lot of mental and emotional growth.
My feelings about my Humboldt years are not particularly unique. The place itself is. That's why I was at once saddened and proud of my school's connection to the I-5 tragedy. I was saddened about those killed and injured and the hole that leaves in the hearts of their family and friends. I was proud that my school reached out to a bunch of first-in-their-family kids with an invitation to grow and learn.
I was that kid years ago. I could have been on that bus.

School chief teaches unfortunate lesson

OK, how do these things happen?
The superintendent of a 6,600-student south state school district has been suspended by the same board that gave him a salary about twice that of the guy who runs the nearby LA school system with about 10 times the number of students.
Trustees Centinela Valley Union High School District voted 5-0 to suspend Jose Fernandez pending an investigation of his $674,559 salary. Are they going to investigate themselves?
As superintendent, Fernandez oversees three high schools in the Los Angeles suburbs of Hawthorne and Lawndale. The campuses have a combined enrollment of about 6,600 students.
Los Angeles Schools Superintendent John Deasy, who oversees more than 1,000 schools with an enrollment of more than 640,000 students, is paid $393,106 a year. And, in case you're wondering, President Obama's annual salary is $400,000 (of course the president has to live in public housing).
In February the Torrance Daily Breeze published Fernandez's salary, prompting outrage from district parents and teachers. After the disclosure, Fernandez said he was willing to take a pay cut. He said he hoped to work that out at a school board meeting scheduled for next week.
"I'm just disappointed that I wasn't able to work out an agreement with them," he told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday. He didn't say how much less he was willing to take and he wasn't any more forthcoming Friday when The Associated Press tried to reach him.
District trustees did the right thing -- finally -- but only after it was disclosed that they'd given Fernandez the breathtaking salary in the first place.
This takes us back to the original question: how do these things happen?
They happen when the public and press get lazy and stops watching and questioning authority.
It's the opposite of the old Ronald Reagan bromide, trust but verify.
Maddeningly unrealistic as Fernandez's salary obviously is, his is but the latest example of what can happen when public officials -- some, not all -- are left to their own devices. Just this week a Los Angeles Superior Court judge sent to prison the first of what likely will be a parade Bell city officials who milked that small city dry.
Angela Spaccia was sentenced 11 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $8 million in restitution to the city. Bell's former chief executive and five ex-council members await sentencing.
Spaccia, the city's assistant city manager, cornered a salary of $564,000 a year. In addition, she was found cashing out 26 weeks of vacation each year, effectively boosting her salary by 50 percent.
Bell, California has a population of 35,477, according to the 2010 census.
The Bell officials were convicted of corruption. Nobody is suggesting Fernandez broke any laws. What seems wrong here is an attitude of "it-ain't-our-money-so-who-cares?" on the part of district trustees and Fernandez's willingness to feather his nest at taxpayers' expense.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/11/6316891/high-paid-california-school-official.html#storylink=cpy

Making history fit your needs

For those who believe the study of history is wasted, consider former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint.
Even by the willingness of some politicians to rewrite, misstate or just make up American history for their own purposes, DeMint is in a class all his own.


Former Sen. Jim DeMint

"Well the reason that the slaves were eventually freed was the Constitution, it was like the conscience of the American people," the head of the Heritage Foundation said on the Truth in Action radio show last week.
"Unfortunately, there were some court decisions like Dred Scott and others that defined some people as property, but the Constitution kept calling us back to ‘all men are created equal and we have inalienable rights’ in the minds of God. But a lot of the move to free the slaves came from the people, it did not come from the federal government. It came from a growing movement among the people, particularly people of faith, that this was wrong. People like Wilberforce who persisted for years because of his faith and because of his love for people."
And then DeMint's red-meat line: 
"So no liberal is going to win a debate that big government freed the slaves. In fact, it was Abraham Lincoln, the very first Republican, who took this on as a cause and a lot of it was based on a love in his heart that comes from God."
Any high school history student can punch holes in DeMint's skewered history, even the back-of-the-room slug who slept through half the class sessions.
To point out one of the more obvious errors, DeMint claims that the words "all men are created equal" appear in the Constitution. Perhaps DeMint should pull out the pocket-size edition of the document politicians of his ilk are fond of carrying. Those words are not in that document. They can be found in the Declaration of Independence, penned by the slave owner Thomas Jefferson.
Words that DeMint could find in the original Constitution if he would only look relegated some Americans to the status of three-fifths personhood, a dance-with-the-devil compromise fashioned to birth the nation. It was only after the Civil War that the document was amended (and it was nearly a century later that civil rights and voting rights for all citizens were codified by Congress).
Republicans love to call themselves the "party of Lincoln," a statement that ignores party realignment. Republicans of Lincoln's time were much different than those who belong to that party today. Where are the reddest of the red states today? The Deep South, a place where they love their history, especially when spun with a certain mythical turn that allows inconvenient truths to drop away.
That, perhaps, is why DeMint and others curl or ignore historical facts. Doing so makes it so much easier to rotate history for their own devices. In this case, DeMint tries to exonerate pro-slavery elements and make it seem they really wanted the pernicious institution to end.
Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano recently made the same claim, declaring that slavery was a dying institution and that Lincoln should have tried "purchasing the slaves and then freeing them."
Lincoln did offer "compensated emancipation" to the Border States that remained in the union "and any Confederate states interested," according to Columbian University's Eric Foner, one of the nation's foremost Civil War historians.
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion," Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say, "but not to his own facts.”
DeMint and Napolitano are among a notable group who never let facts get in the way of their opinions. That becomes a problem when they state their opinions as facts and then spin their yarns to a too often unsuspecting and gullible public. Studying a little history is one way to arm yourself against the myth-makers like DeMint.
   

Balancing justice for famlies, taxpayers

Anybody who believes crime doesn't pay isn't paying attention.
The latest example comes from Los Angeles where a veteran building inspector sentenced to prison last month in an FBI corruption case will continue to receive his pension. His take: $72,000 a year. That's $6,030 a month plus a monthly health care subsidy of $1,469.
Samuel In, 66, last year admitted he took more than $30,000 in bribes while working as a senior inspector. He was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison but only after a federal prosecutor argued against leniency and mentioned his "substantial" pension.
How, you ask, can a convicted felon keep a public pension, especially if the charges stem from the person's discharge of his/her public duties?
Sometimes they can't, at least it's harder than it used to be. Two years ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring public employees convicted of a felony to give up retirement benefits earned during the period when their crimes were committed.
That law doesn't apply in Los Angeles because it operates under a voter-approved charter and manages its own pension system. Some council members are making noise about changing the LA system, but In's attorney said his client "earned that pension" during his 37 years of public service and he did a lot of volunteer work.
Frankly, you have to ask how many other bribes he took while he was serving the public and volunteering.
The argument In's attorney made is the usual plea. That argument is often coupled with plea for leniency because without the pension the innocent spouse and children will be left destitute.
The innocent family argument surfaced most recently in the case of Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, 51, who faced sexual assault charges involving a junior officer. Prosecutors urged the military judge to dismiss the general -- a move that would have sent a clear message through the ranks about the seriousness of the case. Sinclair's attorneys argued the general should be allowed to retire, so he could keep his pension (an estimated $831,000 if he lives to be 82). To do otherwise would punish his family, they said.
Sinclair was spared any jail time, was fined $20,000 (plus $4,160 restitution for unauthorized credit card use) and reprimanded. He said he plans to retire.
Moves are afoot, at least in the military, to protect innocent family members when a service member is convicted of a crime or is otherwise ejected from the military and loses pension benefits. Congress in January ordered the Pentagon to study the feasibility of providing "transitional benefits" to families in these cases. That study, due out next month, is to consider such issues as how long such benefits might last and who qualifies.
That's a start. Certainly punishment should not be visited on innocent family members. But certainly taxpayers should not be asked to pay the pensions of public officials when they stand convicted of crimes directly related to their public duties.

NSA challenge needs to ripen

The Supreme Court on Monday declined an attempt to short-circuit the appeals process and consider a challenge to the National Security Agency's bulk collection of Americans' telephone records.
It would have been highly unusual for the court to take the case this early. It also would have been highly unwise.
In December conservative lawyer Larry Klayman convinced a Washington, D.C. judge that the NSA's bulk vacuuming of phone date likely violates the Constitution's prohibition of unreasonable searches. The judge, as they generally do, put a hold on his decision to give the government time to appeal.
Just days after Klayman's case was decided, a federal judge in New York reached an opposite conclusion in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. That district judge, William H. Pauley III, upheld the NSA operation as an effective "counterpunch" to terrorism.
OK, that hardly addresses the constitutional question. Searching every car traveling through Stockton on Interstate 5 would be an effective "counterpunch" to drug and arms trafficking not to mention drunken drivers. That doesn't make it constitutional.
Still, the debate over the NSA's data collection, not to mention the court cases it is spawning, are not far enough along for a full Supreme Court test. Cases generally don't get to the high court without a full airing at the circuit court level and then most often only if there are conflicting decisions coming out of the appeals courts. That serves the purpose of more fully developing the issues and the arguments around them.
As we wait, President Barack Obama has called for ending the government's control of the phone data, leaving it in the hands of the service providers. He also ordered intelligence agencies to get permission from a secretive intelligence court before accessing the records.
Obama's efforts, of course, are eye wash. The history of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has been to pretty much act as a rubber stamp for the government.
According to CNN, there were 1,856 applications in 2012 to the FISC for electronic surveillance and physical searches for "foreign intelligence purposes," the Justice Department said. None were denied, but 40 were modified to some extent. Only one such request was withdrawn by the FBI.
Clearly this is an area deserving public debate and, eventually, intervention by a court operating at least partially in public.

GM's internal investigation far from enough

General Motors' chief executive Mary T. Barra didn't have time to take in the museums during her trip to Washington this week. She was too busy spouting platitudes and non-answers during two days of questioning on Capitol Hill. And when she finished she was hustled away, no doubt glad to be done with it.
Of course she and the nation's No. 2 automaker aren't done with anything, least of all questions about the company's handling of ignition switch problems being blamed for accidents that killed at least 13 and injured many more in dozens of accidents. The faulty switch causes the engine to shut off, disabling power steering, power brakes and the front air bags.
Internal documents indicate GM knew about the defect for more than a decade and years ago passed on a fix because economically it wasn't worth it. The cost of the part involved: 57-cents.
By the time Barra, 51, took over the GM in December she already had 33 years with the automaker. She climbed through the company ranks with a combination of smarts and corporate tenacity. But when she testified this week, she was curiously ignorant about much that goes on in the company she now heads. She said she didn't find out about the ignition problems until weeks after becoming CEO.
And maybe she didn't. Maybe she's being thrown under the bus. That possibility didn't alleviate the frustration of her questioners.
"You don't know anything about anything," Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., bristled.

Is the company really only sorry it got caught?

The whole matter is the subject of an internal GM investigation Barra said. That should be completed in 45 to 60 days.
We've seen what internal investigations look like. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie just released one exonerating him of any knowledge of Bridge-gate, the scandalous, political get-even rush-hour closing of the George Washington Bridge into New York City.
In the case of GM, the company has known about the defect since 2001 and it did nothing to protect its customers. It wasn't worth it, the company decided.
Barra's dodge and dance performance this week frustrated members of Congress. It should outrage consumers, and not just because American taxpayers bailed the company out but also because it is a pattern among so many companies claiming to be good corporate citizens. When news gets out they are less than stellar citizens, the public relations campaign begins (Pacific Gas & Electric is running ads today to convince customers it is taking care of is natural gas pipelines, some of which have blown up in recent years.)
Indeed, GM is doing the same thing. Thursday the automaker confirmed it had hired crisis manager Jeff Eller, a one-time Clinton administration official who went on to represent Firestone in its massive tire recall in 2000. He joins attorney Kenneth Feinberg who specializes in compensation claims from disaster victims, including those of 9/11 and the BP gulf oil spill, and former U.S. attorney Anton R. Valukas, who is conducting GM's internal probe.
We will see if, as Barra alleges, this is the new General Motors. One test will be whether the company accepts responsibility for those killed and hurt in accidents before GM filed for Chapter 11 protection. As it stands now, the company is immune from litigation over crashes that occurred before it reorganized in bankruptcy court.
A second test will be if Valukas probe names names -- those responsible for the decisions about the ignition switch problems -- or if weeks from now we're treated to corporate pabulum about the need to change the company environment.
Companies have been getting away with this kind of shuffle for years. The routine is to cover up and when caught to pay up, the cost of which eventually falls back on customers and shareholders, without even having to admit fault. Almost never -- the lack of jailed investment bankers who helped trigger the Great Recession is an example -- do those corporate officials responsible face criminal charges.
And that's the real crime.

Political money spigot opened more

Evisceration is what Justice Stephen G. Breyer called it. Breyer was being too kind.
The Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling Wednesday added to the obscenity of the court's 2010 Citizens United decision -- also on a 5-4 vote -- by expanding even more the influence of the moneyed few on the American political process.
In latest assault, the court freed wealthy donors to give even more money to congressional candidates. In doing so, the court's conservative bloc struck down Watergate-era aggregate limits barring political donors from giving more than $123,000 a year in total to candidates for federal seats in the House and Senate.
As in the Citizens United ruling, the court's conservative majority shrouded its decision in the McCutcheon case language of First Amendment protections.
“Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so too does much of what the 1st Amendment protects,” said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in his majority ruling. If it protects “flag burning, funeral protests and Nazi parades — despite the profound offense such spectacles cause — it surely protects political campaign speech despite popular opposition.”
That rationale gives the non sequitur a bad name.
For now, donors must still follow rules that prevent them from giving more than $2,600 per election per candidate. For now. But the court's trajectory is clear. Any doubts about that were removed by Roberts.
“We have made clear that Congress may not regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics, or to restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others,” Roberts wrote.
Of course, the effect of McCutcheon is to enhance the influence of the moneyed few over the majority of Americans. And it's not like the moneyed don't already have elected officials on their speed dial list.
If a case comes to the court challenging even the $2,600 limit, a safe bet would be for it to be upheld as this court moves the country ever closer to a plutocracy. Justice Clarence Thomas would like to help it along even more. In his concurring McCutcheon opinion, he said he would end other campaign limits as well.
At some point you have to ask how much is enough? During 2011 and 2012, the Federal Election Commission said, federal candidates, parties and committees reported raising and spending more than $7 billion.
Reaching that level was aided in no small part by the 2010 Citizens United ruling that opened the spigot for campaign spending by corporations and labor unions. McCutcheon opens that faucet even more.
Thirty-eight years ago, in the wake of the Watergate scandal that ended the Nixon presidency in an era of political reform, the high court enunciated the difference between campaign donations and spending in the Buckley v. Valeo case. Spending, the court say, was tantamount to political speech and speech deserves greater First Amendment protection. Donations, on the other hand, were deemed potentially corrupting and therefore subject to regulations.No more. Not with this court. And that's the real corruption.  

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/02/6288978/supreme-court-strikes-down-aggregate.html#storylink=cpy

'Noah," it's a movie and that's all

Some Christians are atwitter these days about the movie "Noah." It seems, in their view, the movie does not follow the Biblical story of the great boat builder as laid out in Genesis.
One irritant surely is that Russell Crowe doesn't look 600 years old as it says in Genesis 7, verse 6. He doesn't even look like Charlton Heston. Oh and there's hot rain and castration and incest and all manner of events that outrage some evangelicals (not that the Old Testament isn't ripe with
disquieting episodes).
Some say they won't see "Noah" because of what they view as the perversion of the Biblical story. That's fine. But lost in all the breathless criticism of the movie, a cross between "Titanic" and "Gone with the Wind," is one undeniable fact: it's a movie.
Hollywood doesn't make films to be viewed in Sunday School. It makes movies to make money. Period. All the talk about art is just so much eyewash if the numbers don't pencil out. You make money by attracting audiences. If you want an accurate reading of the Bible, the great voice actor Alexander Scourby has beautiful one available on-line. The whole book. And there's no need to buy a movie ticket.
Of course, the Bible isn't the only subject with which Hollywood routinely takes a certain license. "Based on fact" movies about historic events come in for revision all the time. Does anyone think "The Butler" was a true depiction of actual events? OK, there were (and are) African American house staffers in the White House. And there were some really bad things going on in America during the period the action takes place. But that's about it  The rest of the story was fudged, as they say, for "dramatic effect."
Film makers have been doing this since the beginning, often without any warning to audiences. That leaves it to viewers to try to separate fact from fiction, assuming we not talking the likes of "Star Wars, which -- spoiler alert -- was all fiction.
The "based on fact" and "based on real events" movies, especially those arching toward history, present their own problem. Because Americans are so ill informed about their own history, such films easily play into our high school history understanding of events and our various biases. D.W. Griffith's 1915 obscene ode to the KKK, "Birth of a Nation," was the first motion picture shown in the White House. It allegedly prompted Woodrow Wilson, so far the nation's only president with a doctorate, to say, "It is like writing history with Lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."
The authenticity of the quote is questionable. That the film reinforced widely held prejudices is beyond question.
The only safe position for viewers, then, is to treat movies as entertainment, storytelling, and not documentaries.
In the case of "Noah," it is the story of a boat builder, a big boat with a big mission, but just a tale about a boat builder nonetheless.