“Too Many Containers Inside the Terminal”

This is all about the supply chain issues. Trucks, warehouses, port docks are all involved in this.

For more than 30 years, Octavio Guadarama’s trucking career has seen its ups and downs. But this is the worst he’s seen it.

“I think they don’t have enough people to move everything,” he said.

On the dock, complaints are with warehouses that receive the goods. At the warehouses, complaints are with the dock that unloads them. For Guadarama, it’s the lack of trucks to get from point A to B.

“There are too many containers inside the terminal but there are no chassis to take those containers out,” he said.

More than 60 cargo ships are parked at sea and waiting to come into San Pedro and Long Beach. The estimated wait time as of today is 12 days. Wednesday President Joe Biden made the announcement that both LA and Long Beach would move to a 24-7 operation, calling it a potential game changer.

“I say potential because all of these goods won’t move by themselves,” he said.

But there’s no timeline as to when that will begin or how. The White House is making the push to clear the supply chain from slowing the nation’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Gene Seroka, the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles.

“We have to push this cargo out as quickly as we can,” he said.

Today port leaders say it’ll take a commitment of more than just those on the dock. Private companies such as Walmart, Target, FedEx and UPS have agreed to up their plans to work overnight hours to move goods faster.

“You have the commitment of the Biden administration, the commitment of the hardworking women and men in the supply chain to do their very best,” said John Porcari, who works the White House supply chain disruptions task force. “What we’re doing together is to accelerate the velocity of the supply chain using the available capacity, which is at night.”

But some along that chain worry there’s still an equipment issue that has to be solved first. No trucks – no movement.

“If they don’t have no chassis, it’s going to be the same thing,” Guadarama said.

This article posted on line provided by Los Angeles TV station NBC4.

California’s Government is a Failure

Larry Elder was a gift to Governor Gavin Newsom. Follows are his views.

Elder opposes the minimum wage and gun control. He’s said he doesn’t believe that a gender wage gap exists, and has called the climate crisis a “crock”. He has suggested that fatherless families drive up crime rates in Black communities. During the coronavirus crisis, he has given a platform to Covid-19 conspiracy theorists, including a self-identified physician who promoted the false claim that coronavirus vaccines were being pushed in minority communities as “population control”. Elder has said he has been vaccinated but has vowed to repeal California’s mask and vaccine requirements if he wins the governorship.

The Elder platform is the reason Newsom was not recalled.

Forget the social issues that divide Democrats and Republicans. California’s state government has failed.

The list of things that our California government has failed to address is long.  Neither Jerry Brown nor Gavin Newsom and the Democratic Party controlled legislature has addressed any of these issues in a meaningful way.

In the long term climate change is an issue but there are many other issues that demand immediate attention.

-The income gap.  California has more millionaires than any other state but also has one of the highest poverty rates.

-Low minimum wage law.  The low rate of pay perpetuates poverty.

-Homelessness. It’s not just the drug addicted and mentally challenged.  The poorly paid cannot afford an apartment.  Many are living in motorhomes.

-Lack of affordable housing.  Low cost housing units are in short supply and the building codes and zoning laws prevent construction due to regulations and high construction costs.

-Poorly managed state agencies.  Examples are the delays in payment of unemployment benefits, long lines at DMV facilities.  

 -High cost of college education. $46 per unit at two year community colleges.  State university’s fee is $396 per semester unit and $264 per quarterly unit.

-Water shortage.  Yes it is a natural disaster but where is the plan to ensure both agriculture and urban areas have adequate supplies?

-Death penalty.  A ballot measure retaining that law was passed by the public but Gavin Newsom has suspended its use.

-Bullet train. In their voter guides, Californians were informed of an estimate from the California High-Speed Rail Authority estimating that, “the total cost to develop and construct the entire high-speed train system would be about $45 billion.” Current estimates place the possible cost as high as around $100 billion.  Newsom has scaled back the project to 171 miles from Merced to Bakersfield.

-Taxes. California has the highest income tax rate in the nation.

First there is the issue of jobs that pay enough to live comfortably without the need for food stamps and rent subsidies.

The big employers have either closed or moved

  • Toyota: 3,000 jobs moved to Texas
  • Walt Disney: 2,000 jobs moved to Florida
  • Lockheed Martin: 5,000 jobs moved to Georgia
  • Rocketedyne
  • General Motors
  • Price Pfister
  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise

When all of those companies left California the state government was silent in the press.

California needs new leadership.

The Words Of Larry Elder

Larry Elder at a campaign stop

Larry Elder is running to be elected California’s next governor if Governor Gavin Newsom is recalled. Elder is the front runner in most polls. These are quotes collected by CNN. The recall election will be September 14.

Larry Elder has a long history of making disparaging remarks about women.

“Glass ceiling? Ha! What glass ceiling? Women, women exaggerate the problem of sexism,” radio host Larry Elder said in a 1996 ad for his radio show.

“Blacks exaggerate the significance of racism”

“Medicare should be abolished”

He has mocked premenstrual syndrome, known as PMS, calling it “Punish My Spouse (or Significant Other).” He prominently promoted on his webpage a 1950s textbook on “how to be a good wife” that said women should “have dinner ready” and told them, “Don’t complain.”

His disparaging comments have been as recent as January 2017, when he deleted a tweet that implied women taking part in the Women’s March were too unattractive to be sexually assaulted, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In another previously unreported comment from a January 2017 radio show, Elder mocked women attending the Women’s March as “obese.”

Elder suggested in a video news conference with U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) that he would end the “war on oil and gas” and the “attack on the logging industry,” adding that he would reduce regulation of fracking and deemphasize wind and solar power, which he called “not very efficient.”

“For somebody who’s never run a business to tell business people… ‘I’m going to jack up your price of labor, and you’re going to deal with it,’ to me, it’s offensive, The ideal minimum wage is $0.00.”

Are you OK with Larry Elder’s views on the issues he has discussed? If so, go ahead and vote for him but don’t be surprised about the outcome.

Larry Elder is Front Runner to Replace California Governor Gavin Newsom

This article written by James Rainey, Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times was posted on the Times website this morning. It provides Governor Newsom a lot of ammunition in the recall election scheduled to take place September 14.

Larry Elder at Camp Pendleton in 2013 (1).jpg

He has on occasion fueled climate change skepticism, depicting global warming as a “crock” and a “myth.” He said the medical establishment and “professional victims” have overblown the danger from secondhand tobacco smoke.

He offered no pushback when a doctor called into his nationally syndicated radio show last month to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines were dangerous and didn’t object when the physician then implied that Bill Gates might have backed the “experimental” immunizations as a form of “population control.”

Larry Elder created a platform for those views in a more than 30-year career in the media, epitomizing the convention-defying persona that has helped him seemingly leapfrog other candidates in the race to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom in next month’s recall election.

On issues like smoking, climate change and the best ways to treat COVID-19, he has sometimes given airtime to views outside the mainstream, simultaneously inspiring those who say he would be a maverick leader and alarming others who say his brand of libertarianism is too extreme for California.

Those conflicting realities have leapt to the fore, less than a month after the talk radio host entered the recall race and as journalists and rivals begin to dive into Elder’s three-decade record on the radio, as well as his books, newsletters and social media pronouncements.

Elder is being revealed as someone who has occasionally been comfortable standing outside the scientific consensus on issues like secondhand smoke and climate change, while fervently promoting dramatic measures to unravel some of the core policies and beliefs of liberal-leaning California.

He has called the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision, which creates a legal right for women to have abortions, “one of the worst decisions that the Supreme Court ever handed down,” called abortion “murder” and said abortion rules should be left to the states.

He said he would have voted against the law that requires employers to offer workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave to bond with new children or to care for family members with medical emergencies. He has rejected the notion that women confront a “glass ceiling” in attempts at career advancement and embraced the libertarian truism that citizens have become too reliant on an overbearing government.

A recent interview with The Times suggested that his introduction to the California electorate will create even more provocative fodder. Elder implied that he might declare a state of emergency in order to fire “bad” teachers, estimating they make up somewhere between 5% and 7% of the California public school faculty of about 300,000.

He added that he could declare another emergency to “suspend” the California Environmental Quality Act, the law requiring environmental review of building projects. He depicted the law, known as CEQA, as part of a bureaucracy that is “treating contractors and developers like they are criminals.”

Such measures would undoubtedly face monumental legal and political hurdles and almost certainly alienate a large number of Californians. But they would also be sure to thrill those who view Elder — the self-proclaimed “Sage from South-Central” Los Angeles — as a blast of fresh air in a state foggy with liberal “political correctness.”

But it appears that, on at least one topic, he wants to make clear he has moved away from a past view. Elder told opinion editors for the McClatchy newspapers last week: “I do believe in climate change. I do believe our climate is getting warmer.”

Elder would not answer detailed questions and a campaign spokeswoman insisted that many of the past statements and positions highlighted by The Times were not pertinent to the recall.

“Some involve statements out of context, while others reflect prevailing notions of political bias,” spokeswoman Ying Ma said. “For instance, there is a clear inability [to] comprehend why a talk radio host might want to allow a caller to express views different from his own, or why anyone would consider unconventional assertions presented by reputable researchers.”

Ma said that the central recall issues should be “rampant crime, rising homelessness, out-of-control costs of living, water shortages, disastrous wildfires, rolling brownouts, and repressive COVID restrictions.” The spokeswoman said The Times was conducting “opposition research,” with some topics dating back “many years,” in a way she said mimicked “a (French) laundry list of attacks from the Newsom campaign.”

Under the unusual ground rules of California recall elections — where Newsom needs a simple majority of the vote to remain in office, while, if Newsom falls short, Elder needs only to defeat other would-be replacements, no matter how small his plurality — experts said Elder’s provocative views actually could advance his cause, and Newsom’s.

“These kinds of statements and issues benefit both Larry Elder and Gavin Newsom,” said Dan Schnur, a UC Berkeley and USC political scientist and previous adviser to numerous Republican candidates. “Elder needs only one more vote from conservative voters to prevail over other recall challengers. And his supporters will love these ideas.

“Meanwhile, it’s clear Newsom and his team have decided that — rather than motivating progressives by telling them good things about this governor — they are better off telling them frightening things about the person who might replace him.”

Schnur noted that some politicians viewed as extreme by large numbers of voters — like Donald Trump on the right and Bernie Sanders on the left — used their plain-spoken personas to push their way into the center of the political debate.

Elder, 69, jumped into the race in mid-July, months after some other candidates, and immediately changed the dynamic in the race. He became the front-runner in the polls and quickly raised significant sums of money, with a particularly strong showing among people who gave less than $100.

Between his entry into the race on July 12 and July 31, he collected nearly $4.5 million, according to fundraising disclosures filed last week with the secretary of state. That’s more than every other GOP candidate in the race except John Cox, who is largely self-funding his campaign.

A graduate of Brown University and the University of Michigan Law School, Elder leaves little doubt that he relishes a good debate. “I can articulate these issues in such a way that Joe and Joan Six-pack can go, ‘OK, now I get it,’” he told The Times in the recent interview.

He said the seed of his candidacy was planted by his talk radio mentor, conservative Dennis Prager. Elder initially demurred because he worried the state had become “ungovernable.” But further research convinced him he could make dramatic changes, partly by invoking emergency powers, he said.

Elder said he believes such an “education emergency” declaration would spur reform, particularly for inner-city schools. He said a tiny number of teachers have been fired annually, on average, from among the 300,000 who work in California public schools. “Unions are protecting bad teachers,” he said, “to the point where the worst ones get in the areas where the kids need them the most.”

Elder correctly notes that California removes fewer teachers than some other states, though the state’s practices around teacher performance and retention are complex.

Tenure offers strong protections for teachers against removal after two years on the job. But a significant number of teachers leave the profession anyway, sometimes under pressure because of substandard performance. Some experts argue the greater problem is the loss of effective teachers, many of whom protest a lack of support from their schools and communities.

“Someone told me that between 5 and 7% of public school teachers need to be fired,” Elder said, adding that the emergency declaration would provide “the power to get rid of bad teachers faster than the system allows.” He concluded: “Once you did that, automatically, education would improve overnight.”

Because Elder declined to field follow-up questions, it was impossible to know who had advised him on teacher terminations and exactly how he might weed out educators he judged to be underperforming.

Similarly, Elder said in interviews with The Times and opinion editors at McClatchy newspapers that he envisioned an emergency action on homelessness that would allow him to waive the state’s environmental review law “so that I can unleash the developers and contractors who would be able to build low-cost housing and low-cost apartments.”

He said many builders had moved their work out of California because CEQA “allows almost anybody to stop anything for any length of time.”

On the other most pressing issue of the day in California, the COVID pandemic, Elder subscribes to conservative view that the government and health officials should allow individuals to make choices about wearing masks. He has decried attempts to force people to get vaccinated.

He remained silent last month, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, when “Kathy,” a gynecologist who claimed no expertise in infectious diseases, claimed that vaccines could be a threat and asserted that unnamed individuals “are going to specifically target the minority areas first and lower income areas.”

When she spun out dark intimations about a Gates-organized plot to administer dangerous vaccines, Elder also did not respond. Instead, as first reported by HuffPost, a page on his website promoted the gynecologist’s pronouncements, saying, “You’ll Want to Hear This Physician’s Take on the Vaccines.”

But Elder has said he has been vaccinated (as an “old man” with “co-morbidities,” he told the McClatchy editors) and supports others who have done so. He added: “A lot of people have made the choice, rightly or wrongly, not to get a vaccine. And I think in America, you want to have that choice.”

As with other topics, Elder prefers to focus the COVID issue on Newsom, saying that the governor hadn’t followed his own mandates, as when he didn’t wear a mask while attending a party at the tony French Laundry restaurant. Elder’s website says COVID business shutdowns have gone too far and “inflicted unnecessary pain on ordinary Californians,” adding: “I will govern as your governor, not as your tyrant.”

He once maintained a page on his website devoted to “debunking the Gore-Bull warming myth.” (A reference to Al Gore, the former vice president who has made the battle against climate change his life’s work.) The web page contained links to a list of stories, several rejecting the consensus of mainstream science: that the planet is warming to dangerous levels and that humankind is responsible.

In a 2008 CNN interview, Elder called global warming “a crock” and disparaged Republicans, such as John McCain and George W. Bush, who disagreed. He rejected Bush’s contention that “global warming is this big peril to the planet,” concluding: “It is not.”

In his meeting with the opinion editors last week, Elder sounded a markedly different note, expressing his belief in a warming planet and adding, “I do believe that human activity has something to do with it.” He said he also believes that the warming is “a factor” in California’s worsening wildfires. But he added: “What I don’t believe in is climate-change alarmism.”

His 2000 book suggesting the dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke have been exaggerated puts his views outside the scientific consensus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. surgeon general have long warned of the magnitude of that threat. The CDC estimated in 2014 that 2.5 million people had died over the previous 50 years from health problems caused by secondary smoke exposure. That would average 50,000 deaths a year.

Elder’s provocative missives have been so frequent and over such a long span that many quickly blew over.

In 2017, he posted a picture on Twitter of three women attending the Women’s March in Washington to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump, who faced serial accusations of sexual assault and misconduct. Above the picture, he wrote: “Ladies, I think you’re safe.”

That drew immediate complaints that Elder was suggesting the women were too unattractive to be sexually assaulted. A member of the Nebraska state Senate retweeted Elder’s post, then, facing a storm of condemnation, resigned his post. The original tweet was apparently deleted.

In a 2000 column, Elder asserted that Democrats had an advantage over Republicans because they were supported by women and “women know less than men about political issues, economics, and current events.” In the piece for Capitalism Magazine, he added that women could be misled because “the less one knows, the easier the manipulation.”

In the column, Elder cited research done at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center on “gender gaps” in political knowledge.

Surveys have detected such gaps and no clear explanation for them, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg policy center. She said related research has shown that women are “factoring in other information and consistently making decisions at the ballot box that are consistent with their self-interests.”

Elder’s late entry into the race, about two months before the Sept. 14 vote on Newsom’s future, leaves relatively little time for voters to examine the candidate with arguably the most voluminous record of public policy pronouncements.

“I mean, he has created his own opposition research for decades,” said Jessica Levinson, an election law professor at Loyola Law School. “On the other hand, he does have a shortened timeline here. I think what a lot of people just know is that he’s the Republican, leading in the polls, and a talk-show host. There’s not a lot of details that are filled in; it’s basically a sketch.”

“So has he been vetted?” Levinson asked. “Not in the way that we’re used to of candidates having to go through a process of showing up to town halls and press conferences, and respond to opponents, and provide answers and explanations for what they’ve said in their public life.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Recalling California’s Governor

Candidates running to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election include, clockwise from top left: businessman John Cox, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, retired Olympian/reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner, Larry Elder, nationally syndicated conservative radio host, Assemblyman Kevin Kiley and billboard model Angelyne.

California’s next gubernatorial election will take place on November 8, 2022.  Doing a recall in September of this year is really a waste of money.  That recall vote will be on September 14.  So the Republican Party is trying a run around the way we select our  governor.  I am guessing that they believe once elected in the recall Californians will re-elect that individual next year.

In October 2020, California had 22,047,448 registered voters, comprising 87.87% of its total eligible voters. Of those registered voters, 10,170,317 (46.10 percent) were registered Democrats, 5,334,323 (24.20 percent) were Republicans and, 5,283,853 were No Party Preference (24.00 percent).  In that November 2022 election what is the likelihood that a Republican would win the governorship?  Not very likely unless the GOP governor does a very good job.

There are many issues that should be front and center that Governor Gavin Newsom has not resolved and does not appear to have a plan. Here are my top concerns.

Homelessness

Affordable housing

Water shortage

Unemployment insurance system

If there is to be a Republican governor those are the issues that he/she will have to address.  That means the GOP candidates have just 43 days to convince a majority of voters that they have solutions.

It is accurate to call me a DINO (Democrat in name only). I say I lean Democrat but I am really looking for solutions.

Los Angeles County Orders Inspection Of Marina City Club Towers In Marina Del Rey

Condo boards nationwide have put off repairs because of cost concerns. Or to put another way high cost of repairs causes delays in needed repairs in homes, condos and townhouses.

I don’t live in a condo so I personally am not concerned with condominium maintenance.  My mother lived in senior community that maintained the outside of the buildings and the grounds.  The management company provided hotel vouchers when all residents were required to leave when the exterior of buildings needed painting.

I’ve known a few people who have had water leaks in their units.  Both were resolved but it did require involvement of building management.

Now that we have viewed the events in Surfside Florida everyone is concerned about their condo and townhouse homes.   Just one day after an investigation by CBS2’s David Goldstein exposed potential problems at a Marina Del Rey condo, building inspectors were on the scene Thursday to survey the property. This property consists of two 65 story buildings. That brought out county public works department to conducts an inspection.

It might be frightening but everyone living in shared facilities throughout the country are likely to demand repairs.

Poor Latin American Populations Dream of a Better Life

Waves of poor and mostly illiterate people are trying to enter the United States from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.  They all have one thing in common.  They want to escape their economic condition and gangs that terrorize them.  And so they beg for asylum.

Caution Immigrant Crossing Sign on California highways near Tijuana, Mexico

The U.S. response has been to send most of those people back to their country of origin.  This is not a new issue. It existed under the Obama, Trump, and now the Biden administration.  Even before Obama the issue of illegal immigrants into the United States was an ongoing problem.

The issue of Mexican and Central American people trying to obtain entry into the United States by any means goes back decades.  The year 1980 marked the opening of a decade of public controversy over U.S. refugee policy unprecedented since World War II. Large-scale migration to the United States from Central America began, as hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans fled north from civil war, repression, and economic devastation. That same year, in the last months of the Carter administration, the U.S. Congress passed the Refugee Act, a humanitarian law intended to expand eligibility for political asylum in the United States.

Until those countries provide their people with education, jobs, and safety from marauding gangs there will be no end to illegal entry from those nations. 

As long as there is little opportunity for those people in their native countries this issue will not go away.

A Long Hot Summer in California

It’s already started and summer isn’t here until officially until June 20. “May Gray” wasn’t gray other than overnight clouds that dissipated by 10 a.m. June has started with sunny days that are summer hot rather than “June Gloom.” Those expressions describing May and June weather are the words of local weather reporters.

A heat wave swept through California’s Central and Sacramento valleys this week, setting temperature records and prompting heat advisories, even as coastal regions remained temperate. Triple-digit temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley for the past three days have prompted a heat advisory through at least 8 p.m.

Each year Lake Oroville in northern California helps water a quarter of the nation’s crops. This is how the lake looks now.

Countries like Israel have designed irrigation and water projects that enable that country to provide water to the West Bank and Jordan as well as training to the Chinese on water management.

It is obvious that California government has chosen to ignore the water shortage issue.

Looking for a reason to recall Gavin Newsom? Water management is a real issue.     

America is Running out of Water

The western United States is facing a an ever growing drought.  This should not be news because the facts have been with us for decades. First-ever Colorado River water shortage is now almost certain, new projections show.

On July 28, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom released a final version of the Water Resilience Portfolio, the Administration’s blueprint for equipping California to cope with more extreme droughts and floods, rising temperatures, declining fish populations, over-reliance on groundwater and other challenges.

The rings around the Colorado River at Hoover Dam tells us how high the water reached below the dam.  That was a long time ago.

Decreasing precipitation and rising populations could bring a perfect storm of water shortages for the United States. Where is our water going?

Along with decreasing rainfall comes rising temperatures. By 2050 the U.S. could be as much as 5.7°F warmer, and extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and drought, could be more intense and occur more frequently. As temperatures warm, evaporation increases, further decreasing water in lakes, reservoirs, and rivers. For example, every degree of warming in the Salt Lake City region could drop the annual water flow of surrounding streams by as much as 6.5 percent—for cities in the western U.S. that rely on cool temperatures to generate snow and rain, warmer weather is bad news.

When Sierra snow seeps into the ground or evaporates before it can flow downstream into reservoirs, you know California is facing a severe drought.

It’s happening this spring up and down the mountain range that is a primary water source for the state.

As if the declining water supply was enough of a challenge the Metropolitan Water District, that acts as the agency bringing water to Southern California, is having a fight among board members as to who should head the agency.

In addition to the Middle East and North Africa, desalination has made inroads in water-stressed parts of the United States, notably California, and other countries including Spain, and Australia. The biggest plant in North America, able to purify tens of millions of gallons each day, is now pumping water near San Diego.  Environmentalists may have some objections but the need for fresh water takes priority.

Slow Population Growth in California is a Good Thing

With immigration leveling off and a declining birthrate, the United States may be entering an era of substantially lower population growth, demographers said.  The 2020 census brought good new to California and other high population centers.

The new decennial census counted 331,449,281 Americans as of April 1, 2020. The total was up by just 7.4 percent over the previous decade.

New York, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia each lost a seat, in addition to California. Texas gained two seats, and Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon each gained one.

The importance of counting as many people as possible was highlighted by New York, which would have avoided losing the one seat if 89 more residents had participated in the census.