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California Gas Prices: A Rigged Game Where Consumers Lose Big

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by Liza Tucker/California Progress Report

Who would want two companies, Tesoro and Chevron, to control more than half of California’s gasoline market? Only people, like oil company executives, who think paying five dollars a gallon should be the new normal.

That could happen, though, if a deal goes through for Tesoro to buy BP’s refinery in Carson and its low-cost Arco brand. In California, the ninth largest economy in the world, gasoline refineries have shrunk from 32 in the mid-1980s to just 14, owned by only a handful of companies. The more consolidated a market, the more tempting it is to make more money by producing and selling less gasoline. California’s gasoline market is so consolidated that it is now geared to shortages and scarcity, which is why a few refinery outages and some scheduled refinery maintenance can cause a price spike of the sort you should only see in the wake of a real disaster.   [Read more…]

Obama and Romney do lunch!

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By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Recently re-elected President Barack Obama and failed GOP presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney had lunch last Thursday, and what fun it is to imagine their conversation. Perhaps it went something like this. …

President Obama entered the dining room and assessed the image of the conquered man. Gov. Romney’s discomfort was painfully obvious in his rapid blinking and the puckered face he gets whenever he has to admit to a screw-up. With a surge of sympathy, Obama glided across a carpet of triumphant confidence to warmly greet the poor guy with a firm hand and a manly half-hug.

“Hey, Governor, welcome to the White House.”   [Read more…]

Marijuana Decriminalization Drops Youth Crime Rates by Stunning 20% in One Year

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The Center for Public Integrity / By Susan Ferriss

Arresting and putting low-level juvenile offenders into the criminal-justice system pulls many kids deeper into trouble rather than turning them around.

 

Marijuana — it’s one of the primary reasons why California experienced a stunning 20 percent drop in juvenile arrests in just one year, between 2010 and 2011, according to provocative new research.

The San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile & Criminal Justice (CJCJ) recently released a policy briefing with an analysis of arrest data collected by the California Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Statistics Center. The briefing, “California Youth Crime Plunges to All-Time Low,” identifies a new state marijuana decriminalization law that applies to juveniles, not just adults, as the driving force behind the  plummeting arrest totals.

After the new pot law went into effect in January 2011, simple marijuana possession arrests of California juveniles fell from 14,991 in 2010 to 5,831 in 2011, a 61 percent difference, the report by CJCJ senior research fellow Mike Males found.   [Read more…]

Macy’s CEO to American People: Drop Dead

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By Lynn Stuart Parramore / AlterNet / Nov. 21, 2012

Macy’s is a powerful symbol of Thanksgiving, with its festive parade and freakishly large floats. But Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren is part of a group of greedy, unpatriotic CEOs who would like to seize this moment of American hardship and tear the rug out from under hard-working families. Moms, dads, grandparents, kids—he’d like to take a little something from each of you. Especially if you’re poor: he’d really like to get into your purses.   [Read more…]

We Have to Be on Guard About False Solutions for Climate Change

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By Ben Castle / AlterNet / Nov. 29, 2012

As the world’s governments gather yet once more for a global climate summit, the prospects for the future look more ominous than ever. Regardless of the outcome of this year’s COP 18 climate change negotiations in Doha, many now fear it is too late to prevent global temperature rise exceeding 2°C this century – which has long been considered the point beyond which impacts become far more serious. Sir Bob Watson, the UK Government’s Chief Scientist,said last year that ‘‘the idea of a 2°C target is largely out of the window.’’ The current trajectory of global emissions puts us in line for a stunning four degree, or even six degree increase this century.   [Read more…]

‘Crisis Pregnancy Center’ that Made Couples Study the Bible Now Suing for Taxpayer Dollars

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By Sarah Seltzer / AlterNet / Nov. 30, 2012

Crisis Pregnancy Centers are problematic on many levels: they often engage in deceptive practices, setting up shop near abortion providers to confuse women, handing out medically inaccurate information and sometimes even coercing patients.

Many are Christian conversion clearinghouses in disguise , as well.

One such “Christ-centered ministry” in Vermont, part of a national umbrella network of Christian CPCs, got rejected for a federal loan for a variety. Now they are suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture.   [Read more…]

Immigration: Renewing The Battle For Family Unity

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By 

The election is over.

Time to get back to work.

Back to immigration reform.

Real immigration reform.

Let’s start with family unity.   [Read more…]

Sustainability 101: When Should Passengers Intervene on the Bus?

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Picture this:   You’re on the bus and you see a mother with three beautiful school-age children and one adorable toddler in a stroller. The children are well-behaved, the toddler is babbling excitedly, and the mother is yelling at the children, especially the toddler, even covering his mouth, threatening to slap his face if he doesn’t sit still and be quiet.

What would you do?   [Read more…]

Riding the Rails in the West – The State of Amtrak

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Part 1: Are We There Yet?

By JEC / Special to the San Diego Free Press

Its 6am – still dark with a morning fog when we board the Pacific Surfliner in San Diego. While there is a train leaving at 6:35 am, Amtrak urges passengers booked on the Coast Starlight to take the first train out at 6 am, likely based on experience with frequent delays. But today’s train leaves on time with a few dozen blurry eyed passengers. We were bound for Chicago via Oakland.

Days before we departed, I had mentioned to my doctor I was about to leave on a train trip, from San Diego to Chicago via Oakland. He looked up, surprised, “what, you can do that, take a train from here to Chicago?”

  [Read more…]

California’s Looming Transportation Funding Crisis

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by Robert Cruikshank/California High Speed Rail Blog

The passage of Prop 30 has stopped the bleeding at California’s K-12 schools, at least for the time being. The $6 billion in revenues it raises won’t fully backfill the nearly $10 billion in cuts made to K-12 education since 2008, nor will it restore the huge funding cuts made to the community college, CSU and UC systems in that same time. But it’s a start.

Transportation funding faces a crisis too. It has been slashed over that same amount of time, and even before that, revenues weren’t keeping pace with basic road maintenance needs nor were they sufficient to fund the level of mass transit that the state desperately needs.   [Read more…]

For California Prison Realignment Hype, Scary Tales Deserve Skepticism

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by Mike Males and Barry Krisberg/California Progress Report

Over the last 30 years, California has created an oversized, overcrowded prison system entailing billions of dollars in taxpayer expense, endless safety and health crises, a dismal record of rehabilitation, and increasingly proscriptive court orders to regulate almost all aspects of prison operations.

One major reason for this crisis is that a number of counties were over-relying on the state system by sending thousands of lower-level property and drug offenders to prison. California’s legislature and governor had no choice but to cut prisoner numbers.   [Read more…]

Thankful for What?

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By K-B, et al

With Thanksgiving upon us last week, I was curious about what inspired gratitude among the givers of thanks, so I sent the following message to some people I knew and some I didn’t.

Hi, folks,
I’m collecting answers to the following question for a column — if you have a moment, please respond: What are you thankful for?  (And, yes, dear darling sister, I know “for” is a preposition, but occasionally vernacular is the better part of grammar.)
Love,
K-B

In retrospect, I admit it was a cowardly question, because I had no certain answer of my own. Whatever teetered on the tip of my tongue felt trite or self-absorbed or even boring (a horror for wearers of my family genes). I was seeking inspiration in other folks’ gratitude — and I found it.   [Read more…]

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