I love the simplicity you suggest of prosecuting the banks simply on the basis of FDIC insurance fraud.

From all accounts I’ve read, they were the banks were the deliberate liars in originating these time bomb loans (misrepresenting terms, misrepresenting facts, manipulating appraisals and borrower qualifications). Then the banks “knowingly defrauded the government by seeking federal insurance for these poorly underwritten loans.”

It’s really the equivalent of financial arson.

The people protesting are heroic, but the MSM is not giving this the national nightly news attn it deserves.

Where’s Al Gore and why isn’t he chaining himself to the WH fence? I really don’t understand why Gore is MIA here, when his participation could bring this critical environmental issue into the national dialogue.

I don’t know how the AARP became the “spokespeople”
for the over 50 crowd. They’re just a glorified insurance agency with a frightening access to everyone’s mailing addresses. How do they know when everybody in the Country turns 50 and how to send them that grim invitation to join up?

The only change to Soc Security that should happen is the lifting of the yearly cap at $107,000. Sales tax doesn’t stop after people spend $107,000, why does the social security premium? Why is the majority of rich people’s income untaxed in this system? They get the highest benefits and live the longest.

Where are the Gray Panthers? They are the ones that used to fight for the oldsters and everyone’s eventual older age? They, not AARP, have always been the sincere conduit for protest. They, at one point, were really powerful.

I’m looking up and joining my local chapter of the Gray Panthers. Hopefully they’ll be organizing & growing their membership
over this.

I completely agree that Billbray, who votes lockstep/kochstep Repub Study Group, is an embarrassment to our district. It would be so easy to defeat him… just a handful of billboards at the major freeway intersections/merges reporting Billbray’s hateful voting record (anti women, medicare, environment, immigrants, education, lower 98%) would do the trick.
I agree we need a more charismatic Democratic candidate than Busby. Donna Frye would defeat Billbray in a landslide. Definitely the Dems need to brainstorm this and get organized soon around here.

It looks on the new map like they might have extended our district into coastal OC? Is that possible?

Great!While I was writing my comments, I see others mentioned the 3 strikes and drug laws. So
definitely I second those suggestions and sorry to duplicate.

I thought of one more taxfree event that rankles me. The Port of Ca in Long Beach makes that area and Freeway one of the most unhealthy, polluted spots in the Country. Why not put a Ca environmental tax of say 2% of value on every container unloaded there? The majority of those
containers come from foreign countries, yet they pay nothing to our state for the excessive diesel pollution their trucks causes.

I did the ballot too and was stunned by how uninspired, often cruelly counterproductive the choices. And cutting elderly home healthcare, forcing elderly into nursing homes! That appears almost a campaign contribution payback to filthy money. There was no place to register suggestions to the Gov either on the form…just choose between a bunch of sad options that unfairly target the less fortunate.
Brown offers no indication that he is willing to go to bat against fundamental forces that have sucked our coffers dry:
Why is he not addressing the financial insanity of our three strikes law, where each inmate costs the taxpayer $50000 year til death? The majority of these 3 felonies are non violent. At least Brown should be promoting a law change to making three strikes mean three violent felonies.

Jerry is also the perfect spokesperson for declaring the unaffordability to Ca of hemp and marijuana prohibitions. The savings to our state budget in diminishing violent crime, incarcerations, prosecutions and arrests, the environmental benefits of hemp cultivation, and the revenue from taxation of Ca’s largest cash crop…all at this point realistic no brainers.

Increasing sales tax…which is already obscenely near 10% and already unaffordable for the poor and economically struggling. Why not sales taxes enforced that our state and local coffers have been cheated out of for years:
An internet tax on all purchases shipped into California and a financial tax on every financial purchase made by California residents?

Corporations should also pay corporate tax in California if the majority of their employees (including “consultants”) reside in our state.
Enough with these corporate tax cheaters pretending to be in Delaware & the Caymen Islands
while they use our roads and schools.

Brown should also get more aggressive about getting all the Mers money back for states and cities…fees that were not collected by this virtual fraud.

It seems necessary, given the obscene amount of tax free money we in Ca saw spent on the last election, that there should also be a way to tax this money…maybe just by putting a sales tax on media purchases, I don’t know. But why, for example, did we have to listen to the Prop 23 wall of sound lies and subsidize that garbage at the same time?

I guess Brown’s hands are tied right now on raising income tax, but in addition to that gaping mess between 50000 and a million, why not do a progressive estate tax?

Prop 13 should be reexamined to disallow heirs from inheriting their parents property and still pay only the property tax of their parents. Prop 13 was designed to keep homeowners, especially the fixed incomed, in their homes. Not to make tax cheats out of their children and grandchildren.

These are just a few ideas. Brown’s cuts are intellectually lazy and rudderless. He needs to have a Plan, something that demonstrates to Ca that he wants to make fundamental changes to our broken tax system in Ca. And essential to that Plan is addressing some of the fundamental misorientations of our state laws and priorities.

Instead of hopelessly picking over the carcass Arnold left, Brown needs to show some serious and informed leadership with a Master Plan that addresses the true financial realities of our State. That’s why we voted for him.

Why did Feingold vote against both measures? I’ve tried to find a statement from him today. My suspicion is, since he’s leaving, he was voting to let all the Bush cuts expire. Perhaps, in his opinion, the most fiscally responsible and realistic thing to do.Anybody know?

Do they still have time to do this in this Congressional session if they work through Xmas? Clearly they’ll get the votes in the current House and have the 50+ in the Senate. Or is the Dem Party so disorganized and ineffective that they’ve already bungled this opportunity? I believe that they can use reconciliation only once a year…so they also let this whole year go by without getting one decent piece of obstructed legislation (including the postponed public option or this tax readjustment) through on this opportunity? This is sheer (or willful) incompetence on the part of Reid and the Dems. And,of course, shows an appalling lack of presidential leadership or strategy.

Who could beat Feinstein in a well desereved primary challenge?
Robert Reich now teaches at Berkeley. He’d be great to fight for working Californians if he’d run. He’ll make Issa (who clearly plans to run & win) look like the carnival dunce he is.
Lawrence O’Donnell I think lives in So Ca now.
As Reich, he has a deep Democratic connections/history and can deliver a strong, constructive and succinct message for the California progressives and Lower 98%.
Donna Frye from San Diego is very, very beloved as a straight shooting ecoliberal by her city.(She once got cheated out of winning as a write in for Mayor) Unfortunately she probably has little recognition outside southern Southern California.
I doubt Gavin Newsome would challenge Feinstein, but the other three seem unattached and unbeholding enough to the Ca Dem Machine to oppose her.