According to the most recent reports, the unemployment rate in California has reached 12.2%.  The rate in Los Angeles County is at 12.7%.  Some cities within the county such as Compton and Commerce are over 20%.  These are all far worse than the national rate of 9.8%. 

What makes these numbers even scarier is that they have not hit rock bottom according to economic estimates at both the state and federal level.  In fact, the State Government estimate of a maximum unemployment rate of 12.8% seems like it is going to be topped shortly, probably by early winter.  Is it possible that California’s unemployment rate will top the number in 1940 of 14.7% which is the highest recorded on record? 

All of these numbers really do not mean anything unless you compare them to other numbers in the country to get a real picture of just how bad things are here right now.  The California rate is currently the fourth worst in the country.  The only one significantly worse is Michigan at 15.2%.  Notice any similarities between the two by the way?  Not much except maybe extremely powerful unions in both! 

And, on top of all this, the economy is primed to get much worse.  When I drive down the streets in Los Angeles, I see nothing but empty storefronts on all major boulevards.  Portions of Laurel Canyon Blvd have four to five empty storefronts on each block.  Ventura Blvd., Wilshire Blvd., and Sunset Blvd are not fairing much better.  And, I am told it is worse in other parts of the state. 

According to some reports, the only real estate changing hands here are foreclosures and estate sales.  Banks are not even evicting foreclosed owners in some parts of the Inland Empire because they want the house to be saleable when the economy finally does turn around.  I mean, who wants to purchase a foreclosed house that has been destroyed by vandals.  I know of one particular situation where a family has made no mortgage payments since May, 2007 and is still living in the house free of rent or tax payments. 

Are there any solutions to this problem?  Is there any quick fix?  Or, must we just wait it out in hope that this Great State will make a comeback?  I really do not believe any of the Federal Stimulus money will help the California job market.  It has done nothing so far except allow some families to survive with the extension of unemployment benefits.  It is definitely not helping the ailing real estate or worsening job market.  If anything, the excessive federal spending is hurting the economy. 

And, what have our representatives in Congress done to help us?  Nancy Pelosi does nothing accept cost the US and California jobs with her constant big government, regulatory, liberal agenda.  Her support of “Cap and Trade” and HR 3200 will not only effect the US Economy on the whole, but will have a double impact on the state of California.  Outsourcing is already a problem here, but it will get much worse if either of these bills become law.  In fact, it seems that there is already evidence that California employers are not hiring until the result of both “Cap and Trade” and health care reform are known. 

The same goes for Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein.  Neither of them are doing anything to support the economy in the state.  They are just following the same liberal agenda regardless of how it affects the people of California. 

One prime example is that there is not one Congressman representing Californians doing anything to overturn the Federal Order which stopped irrigation in the Sacramento area after it was ruled the necessary irrigation had caused the Delta Smelt, a small fish, to become endangered.  This has caused the farming industry in the Sacramento and Fresno area to pretty much come to a standstill and bring the unemployment rate in the area to approximately 17%.  In fact, the city of Mendota has an unemployment rate of 41%, the highest in the country.  (That’s right 41%.  It’s not a typo.) 

Comedian Paul Rodriguez, a former Democrat and Obama supporter, whose family are farmers in the area, has left his liberal roots as a result of this fiasco.  He has now appeared on Sean Hannity’s show stating that the entire area is in extreme danger.  Farms are being lost, unemployment is rampant and people are starving:  All to protect a little two inch fish. 

And what do our Senators and Representatives in California do about this; again, absolutely nothing.  It seems it is more important to protect the Delta Smelt than to protect the people of the Central Valley.  Let the people starve and the fish thrive.  Who cares if 80,000 people in the area are unemployed?  If they can not afford bread, let them eat cake. 

That is the whole problem with the current Administration and Congress in Washington and the State Legislature in Sacramento, including the aforementioned Ms. Pelosi, Ms. Boxer, and Ms. Feinstein, as well as, Mr. Waxman, Ms. Waters, Ms. Watson and the favorite of this column, Mr. Dan Lungren.  They simply do not care about the people, economy or problems of the State.  They care only about the special interest groups that finance and support them. 

I’m reminded of “Legally Blonde 2” in which Elle’s boss, the Congresswomen, stabbed Elle in the back because a strong campaign financier was against the proposed animal rights bill.  It is true whether it be fact or fiction. 

In the end, the free market will bring this State back to its former glory provided that the regulators and liberals currently in control, including the Obama Administration and his cabinet, do not destroy it completely.  The people of California must rise up against their current so called Representatives and do whatever is necessary to take our government back so that it is a government of the people and for the people, not for the governors!

It took just six days for Henley to file a copyright claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and YouTube immediately took the video down.  

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Refusing to be intimidated, DeVore fired back with a DMCA counter-notification and on April 14th created another YouTube parody aimed at Boxer’s support for cap-and-trade. ”All She Wants to do is Tax” is based Henley’s “All She Wants to do is Dance” and immediately began racking up 10,000 views a day.

Though he doesn’t hold the rights to ”Dance,” Henley filed a federal suit against DeVore and encouraged the true copyright holder to file a copyright infringement complaint with YouTube.  Within a few days YouTube took DeVore’s second video down. Then DeVore caught Henley off guard and fought back with a counter-suit claiming Henley was infringing on his First Amendment right to political parody.  

Back and forth legal machinations kept DeVore’s “After the Hope of November is Gone” off the Net until DeVore filed a counter-notification with YouTube to restore the parody video on the grounds Henley had no rights to ”All She Wants to do is Dance,” and therefore no right to file any kind of complaint. 

Wednesday, August 5th, ten days after the counter-notification window expired for the actual copyright holder to sue DeVore in federal court, YouTube had no choice but to unblock DeVore’s parody. With the energy tax disguised as cap-and-trade sitting in a Senate committee that Barbara Boxer chairs, the timing couldn’t be better.  

Choice excerpts from “All She Wants to do is Tax“: 

Well, the government rigged the market
in the carbon trading scam
And all she wants to do is tax, tax
To keep the boys a sellin’
All the credits they could ma’am
And all she wants to do is tax
But that don’t keep the boys
From makin’ a buck or two
And all she wants to do is tax, tax
They still can sell the public
On the good that they can do
And all she wants to do is-
And all she wants to do is tax
And break our backs

DeVore referring to Boxer as “Ma’am” came a full two months before her now infamous dressing down of General Walsh for calling her “Ma’am” instead of “Senator” during his testimony before her committee. 

“All She Wants to do is Tax” is but one part of a broader DeVore campaign effort to stop cap-and-trade that has already generated over 10,000 faxes into the U.S. Senate: www.taxfax.us.

It may be coincidental that I began to see the error of my ways at just about the time the suits at the networks decided I was too old to write for the tube. On the other hand, being apart from the business for a while certainly gave me ample opportunity to take a more objective look at it.

One thing that became glaringly apparent is that for all the populist claptrap these folks spout, when the caste system was banished from India, it simply packed its bags and moved to Hollywood. There are people in the business who seem to devote more time to spouting left-wing inanities than they do to their acting and singing careers, and, almost without exception, they treat their underlings like indentured serfs.

One of the most successful, most liberal, TV writer-producers was earning upwards of $40 million-a-year. A while back, he advertised that he needed a personal assistant. In Hollywood parlance, a p.a. is responsible for doing every menial chore you can imagine, including driving the kids to soccer practice, making dinner reservations, picking up the dry cleaning, keeping the fleet of family cars gassed up, making airport runs to pick up and deliver, and may or may not include sexual favors. When you make $40,000,000-a-year, it works out to about $110,000-a-day, every day, including Saturdays and Sundays. So, what, you wonder, was the salary being offered for what are typically 12-14 hour days? A whopping $500-a-week, or roughly what the employer made every seven minutes, even when he was asleep!

And, yet, this blood-sucker doesn’t see the slightest contradiction in his insisting that the minimum wage be raised. And neither, I can readily assure you, do any of his well-heeled, left-wing, associates.

That is the thing that is so maddening about these Hollywood characters. It isn’t that they’re greedier or cheaper than other people, it’s that they are totally oblivious to the abyss that exists between what they say and what they do.

The reason it’s so hard to satirize this crowd is because satire calls for exaggerating human flaws and foibles. But how can you possibly do that when the reality is already so ludicrous?

Part of the reason these louts are so at home in the Democratic party is because the leading liberals are exactly like them. Consider kazillionaires like Kennedy, Kerry, Byrd, and Boxer, for instance. What do they have in common? I mean, aside from having the God-given ability to put millions of insomniacs to sleep by merely opening their yaps. What they share is the desire to convince us all that they are as one with the little guy, sharing his trials and tribulations, demanding that taxes go up while they, themselves, have high-powered CPAs whose sole purpose in life is to keep their own tax bite to a minimum. In the case of Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle, apparently even the minimum was too much to ask.

Whether it’s in Palestine, where the Hamas won the election; in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is well-represented in the legislature; whether it’s in California or New York, Massachusetts or Washington, the ongoing problem with democracy is that so many of the wrong people get to vote.

Still, you can’t entirely blame liberal celebrities for their boorishness. How would you expect an adolescent to behave if you gave him millions of dollars, treated him like royalty, and never really punished him when he misbehaved? And what would you expect to hear come out of his mouth if Barbara Walters, Larry King, Oprah, and all the other pimps in the mass media, couldn’t wait to broadcast his drivel to a panting world?

My conclusion is that, as is the case with some children, most celebrities should be seen and not heard.