The Associated Press is up with a story this morning warning that vote tallies next Tuesday could turn into multi-day events. Pointing out that the number of California voters casting mail-in ballots this year is expected to surpass 2008, with several statewide contests polling at dead even, the story says final results could take days to tabulate.
Voting officials have distributed 8.9 million mail-in ballots this election cycle, about 20 percent more than were requested in 2008, when about 42% of the 13.7 million ballots cast in the presidential election were sent by mail. In the 2000 election, only 25% of the electorate voted by mail.
The bottleneck in the counting process is attributed to the number of ballots that are being dropped off on Election Day. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen is quoted as saying dropped off ballots don’t even start to be processed until 8 p.m. In 2008, 3.2 million ballots– a quarter of the total vote count– didn’t make the tally on election night.
In this year’s June primary 65% of voters cast mail in votes, and a tight contest delayed a verdict on Proposition 29, which would have raised the state’s tobacco tax for the first time since 1998, for nearly 10 days. The initiative lost by less than 1% of the vote.
Glen Beck Outfit Now a News Source for UT-San Diego
It’s right there on page A-7 of today’s print edition. The all-caps headline reads “BUSINESS GROUP ALLEGES ‘CRONYISM’ AT JUSTICE DEPARTMENT”. The story is about yet another conspiracy within the Obama administration, emanating from ‘Eric Holder’s Justice Department’. Needless to say, Rep. Darrell Issa is being asked to launch an investigation.
The story is credited to Blaze reporter Madeleine Morgenstern. The Blaze is wingnut Glen Beck’s “news site”, founded after he left the Fox network. ‘Popular’ (their designation) stories on the site this morning include (IN ALL CAPS) :
REPORT: REVEREND WHO GAVE BENEDICTION AT OBAMA’S INAUGURATION SAYS HE THINKS ALL WHITES ARE GOING TO HELL
WOMAN FORCED TO COVER UP ‘VOTE THE BIBLE’ T-SHIRT AT TX POLLING PLACE: ‘TARGETED BECAUSE OF HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
WELCOME TO ‘ASTHMAPOLIS’: A WORLD WHERE YOUR INHALER HAS A GPS TRACKER
Just so you know….
Congressional Research Study Report Buried by GOP
No doubt that the reportage from the Blaze in the UT-San Diego bumped the NY Times report yesterday about Senate Republicans pressuring the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to deep six a report finding that lowering marginal tax rates for the wealthiest Americans had no effect on economic growth or job creation.
Congressional Democratic sources told the Times that the move is part of a broader effort by Republicans to squelch legitimate research that runs counter to their economic principles.
The CRS Report concluded:
The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.
However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities.
Lifting the cover off DeMaio’s bi-partisan crap…
DeMaio’s Downtown Development Plan
Lest anybody really be buying the reasonable guy cameo that mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio has been kind enough to share with us over the past couple of weeks, let me share UT-San Diego editorial board writer Chris Reed’s description of the candidate’s vision, as described in The American Spectator:
As mayor, DeMaio would ramp up San Diego‘s already-aggressive attempts to bid out a wide array of government services. He also wants to end automatic “step” pay increases given to public employees just for years on the job and to finally bring to government the productivity revolution that has fueled U.S. private-sector growth for two decades.
The goal, DeMaio told me in April, is to set up a national model for downsized, efficient government. If elected, DeMaio appears likely to have a GOP majority on the City Council. If these more conventional Republicans back him up, San Diego could become Ground Zero for government experimentation — of a sort that many will call radical but that libertarians will call long-overdue.
The ‘unendorsed hypothetical’ plan for a new City Hall
One of the many future problems San Diego faces will be what to do about offices for the city government. The downtown location that currently serves as City Hall is a fifty year old structure, loaded with asbestos and equipped with a barely functional sprinkler system. Many city employees are scattered about in rented offices, making citizen access more difficult.
Faced with a growing financial crisis and an electorate hardly inclined to approve additional city spending, Mayor Sanders did the only politically safe thing; he kicked the can down the road.
Whoever wins next Tuesday’s election won’t have that luxury. The city’s seven biggest downtown leases are expiring over the couple of years. And the maintenance bill for the Civic Center property will cost taxpayers $37 million by 2020.
So it was big news yesterday when KPBS/I-Newsource Investigations Desk rolled out a story about a proposal by none other than developer Doug Manchester suggesting city hall move to the Navy Broadway complex, his long standing waterfront development project. They went on to suggest that mayoral contender Carl DeMaio was considering the deal, citing Councilman Todd Gloria’s recollection of comments the candidate made before a board of directors meeting of the Downtown San Diego Partnership.
DeMaio’s office initially denied the claim, but later modified it, saying “It is accurate to say that Carl DeMaio has suggested that this proposal, along with many others, be studied/considered as possible options.” VOSD’s Scott Lewis tweeted later in the day: “DeMaio’s camp called. His suggestion that the city could lease office space at Papa Doug’s Navy Broadway is an ‘unendorsed hypothetical’.”
Gloria, DeMaio mix it up
Anybody who’s dealt with City Councilman Todd Gloria knows that he’s an easy-going guy, generally more focused on his district that the larger political questions constantly swirling around City Hall. So Will Rodriguez-Kennedy’s article in the LGBT Weekly about Gloria challenging a debate claim made by Carl DeMaio was an eyebrow raiser, to say the least.
When the subject turned to veterans support DeMaio stated, “I am proud to have led a coalition, in 2010, to change how we hire veterans and give them preference points in hiring decisions.” DeMaio was describing his participation in Proposition C which does just that.
But that particular claim didn’t sit well with Gloria who Tweeted from his official Twitter handle @ToddGloria.
“For the record, I was the leader of the 2010 Prop. C to update the City’s veterans hiring policy.”
When Kennedy reached out to Gloria’s office for a direct comment, it was back to being Mr. Nice Guy, as they released a timeline of events, saying “Others can decide who led the effort.”
LGBT Weekly asked Lorena Gonzalez, Secretary-Treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial County Labor Council and one of the five signers of the Prop. C ballot statement, about DeMaio’s involvement in the proposition.
“Nothing,” said Gonzalez. “I don’t even remember him saying he supported it. I expect he will take credit for building the CoronadoBridge too, nothing surprises me.”
LGBT Weekly also reached out to the DeMaio’s campaign team who declined the opportunity to comment.
Gloria v. DeMaio V.2, The Shadow Boxing Edition
This time around it was Jonathan Hale, Carl DeMaio’s significant other, standing up against an implied slight as Todd Gloria posted an articleon his Facebook page from the UT-San Diego that talked about public monies being spent on “constituent mail”, focusing mostly on the mayoral candidates. Included in the story:
The U-T reported in January 2010 that in 2009, DeMaio spent $32,000 on tax-funded invitations to town-hall meetings — while the rest of the council combined spent $1,300.
With the article Gloria posted the comment:
“You all know I’m too cheap to spend your tax money on self promoting mailers to constituents. Besides, if I need to share something with you, I can do it on Facebook for free!
This was a typical Gloria comment, which tend to be self-deprecating, rather than boastful. But Hale apparently took it as a slap in the face, using five comments to attack Gloria for posting the article and making derogatory comments about the councilman. Well over two dozen other Facebook readers jumped into the fray, with more than sixty five “liking” the article/posting.
The exchanges spilled over onto Twitter, but several people expressed frustration at not being able to view Hale’s comments. It seems as though Hale (and DeMaio) have a policy of “blocking” people in social media that disagree with them.
Quote of the Day: “He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” – John Bright
On This Day: In 1920 the first commercial radio station, KDKA of Pittsburgh, PA, began regular broadcasting. In 1947 Howard Hughes flew his “Spruce Goose,” a huge wooden airplane, for eight minutes in California. It was the plane’s first and only flight. The “Spruce Goose,” nicknamed because of the white-gray color of the spruce used to build it, never went into production. In 1962 the Elvis Presley film “Girls! Girls! Girls!” premiered.
Eat Fresh! Today’s Farmers’ Markets: Fallbrook (102 S. Main, at Alvarado) 10 am – 2 pm, Imperial Beach (Seacoast Dr. at Pier Plaza) 2 – 7:30 pm, Kearny Mesa (No. Island Credit Union pkg lot 5898 Copley) 10:30 am – 1:30 pm, La Mesa Village (Corner of Spring St. and University) 2 – 6 pm, Rancho Bernardo (Bernardo Winery parking lot 13330 Paseo del Verano Norte) 9 am – noon, Southeast San Diego(4981 Market St. West of Euclid Ave. Trolley Station) 2 – 6 pm
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Doug Porter
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