Sunday, December 3, 2017

Notations From the Grid (W-End Edition): On #California (Courtesy The Nooner)

Image result for california Big Sur California  Disneyland California Los Angeles California

 California is our home state and we love it!!!   We always, though, strive to understand our Community and our State as part of our overall mission of Intelligent Engagement as California has been a trailblazer on a constant & consistent basis.   One of the resources we consult on a daily basis is The Nooner published by Scott Lay that provides some of the insightful analysis on California Politics right now--and hope all do consider subscribing!!!

 We are pleased to present the results of the recent PPI poll result for all as we bid farewell to 2017 and gear up for a crucial 2018 election season:
THE Nooner for November 30, 2017

Subscribe to The Nooner to access exclusive election analysis. | Follow @scottlay
If the subscription price is a bit steep for you and you don't need the election analysis, help support independent coverage of California politics and policy by chipping in whatever you can afford. Thank you for your support!

POLL POSITION: The Public Policy Institute is out with its statewide poll "Californians and their Government." Just some quick excerpts before you go to bed. Crosstabs [Adult residents | Likely voters]
Adult residents: n=1,391; MOE: ±3.9; live interviews (landline/cell); Spanish and English; November 10–19, 2017
Likely voters: n=1,070 MOE: ±4.3 live interviews (landline/cell); Spanish and English; November 10–19, 2017

Job approvals (Approve/Disapprove/Don't Know):
Adult residents
  • Governor Jerry Brown: 53%/28/19
  • Legislature: 49%/36/15
  • Donald Trump: 28%/68/5
  • U.S. Congress: 22%/70/8
California right direction/wrong direction/don't know: 53%/41/6
United States right direction/wrong direction/don't know: 29%/65/6
2018 GOVERNOR: “As you may know, California now has a top-two primary system for statewide races in which voters can cast ballots for any candidate, regardless of party, and the two candidates receiving the most votes—regardless of party—will advance to the general election. If the June primary for governor were being held today, and these were the candidates, who would you vote for?”
  • Gavin Newsom, a Democrat
    • All likely voters: 23%
    • Dem: 34%
    • Rep: 5%
    • Ind: 24%
    • Latinos: 11%
    • Whites: 27%
    • Other groups: 23%
  • Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat
    • All likely voters: 18%
    • Dem: 26%
    • Rep: 7%
    • Ind: 15%
    • Latinos: 42%
    • Whites: 9%
    • Other groups: 22%
  • John Chiang, a Democrat
    • All likely voters: 9%
    • Dem: 13%
    • Rep: 2%
    • Ind: 10%
    • Latinos: 9%
    • Whites: 7%
    • Other groups: 16%
  • John Cox, a Republican
    • All likely voters: 9%
    • Dem: 13%
    • Rep: 2%
    • Ind: 10%
    • Latinos: 7%
    • Whites: 12%
    • Other groups: 4%
  • Travis Allen, a Republican
    • All likely voters: 6%
    • Dem: -
    • Rep: 18%
    • Ind: 6%
    • Latinos: 4%
    • Whites: 8%
    • Other groups: 4%
  • Delaine Eastin, a Democrat
    • All likely voters: 3%
    • Dem: 4%
    • Rep: 2%
    • Ind: 2%
    • Latinos: 5%
    • Whites: 2%
    • Other groups: 5%
  • Someone else (volunteered)
    • All likely voters: 1%
    • Dem: -
    • Rep: 1%
    • Ind: 2%
    • Latinos: -
    • Whites: 1%
    • Other groups: 1%
  • Don't know
    • All likely voters: 30%
    • Dem: 20%
    • Rep: 37%
    • Ind: 35%
    • Latinos: 21%
    • Whites: 33%
    • Other groups: 25%
2018 SENATE: “Keeping in mind that California has the top-two primary system, if the June primary for US Senator were being held today, and these were the candidates, who would you vote for?”
  • Kevin de León, a Democrat
    • All likely voters: 21%
    • Dem: 16%
    • Rep: 25%
    • Ind: 20%
    • Latinos: 26%
    • Whites: 22%
    • Other groups: 12%
  • Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat
    • All likely voters: 45%
    • Dem: 66%
    • Rep: 18%
    • Ind: 43%
    • Latinos: 48%
    • Whites: 41%
    • Other groups: 58%
  • Someone else (volunteered)
    • All likely voters: 1%
    • Dem: -%
    • Rep: 2%
    • Ind: 2%
    • Latinos: 1%
    • Whites: 1%
    • Other groups: 1%
  • Don't know
    • All likely voters: 33%
    • Dem: 18%
    • Rep: 55%
    • Ind: 35%
    • Latinos: 26%
    • Whites: 36%
    • Other groups: 29%

GOP TAX PLAN: “From what you know of those proposals, do you think you and your family will be better off, worse off, or about the same if they are passed and signed into law?"
  • Better off: 20%
  • Worse off: 41
  • About the same: 33
  • Don't know 6
“Do you think that lowering taxes for large businesses and corporations would help the economy, hurt the economy, or not make a difference?”
  • Help: 35%
  • Hurt: 41
  • No difference: 20
  • Don't know: 3
POSSIBLE BALLOT MEASURES (Likely voters):
  • Top two primary:
    • Mostly a good thing: 60%
    • Mostly a bad thing: 26
    • Mixed (volunteered): 3
    • Don't know: 10
  • Gas tax repeal: 
    • Very important: 54%
    • Somewhat important: 18
    • Not too important: 12
    • Not at all important: 13
    • Don't know: 3
  • Single-payer health care:
    • Very important: 59%
    • Somewhat important: 19
    • Not too important: 6
    • Not at all important: 9
    • Don't know: 0
  • State bond for affordable housing:
    • Very important: 48%
    • Somewhat important: 25
    • Not too important: 11
    • Not at all important: 12
    • Don't know: 5
  • Expanding the size of the Legislature:
    • Very important: 18%
    • Somewhat important: 19
    • Not too important: 25
    • Not at all important: 31
    • Don't know: 7 
Since we're focused on our Home state, we got a chuckle when we saw this courtesy of the Guardian of London which in our view captures what we feel about our home state despite its' challenges at times as one of our own will be a member of the British Royal Family:

Never a dull moment.....


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Thursday, November 30, 2017

Notations From the Grid (Special Month-End Edition): As November 2017 Fades Into History (with an Update).......

November 1963 was the month 54 years ago that John F. Kennedy was assassinated.    The images that was shared over Twitter was quite a scene to be witness to.      Our team picked this up which was the telegram by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr on his condolence message for Mrs. Kennedy that the Presidential Scholar Michael Bescheloss released to his Twitter Feed as the President was busy talking about something else over Twitter:


Dr. King was to fall to an assassin's bullet 5 years later along with Robert F. Kennedy shortly thereafter.    

We also picked up this from our Founders' Archives about the need to be above it all:  

Our team was also profoundly concerned about the attacks on the Press especially as we've been witness to journalists killed in Mexico, cartoonists being imprisoned throughout Africa along with the continued detention of Al Jazeera's Mahmoud Hussein in Egypt that we've done our utmost to help keep his cause for freedom alive.    The following three tweets we chose were profound as the debate over Tax Cuts and President Trump's attack on CNN ensued as the subtle changes continue onward at the Department of Justice: 



 Libya, for instance, took its' cue from President Trump in criticizing CNN for saying that the reporting on the Slave Trade was #FakeNews even though it wasn't.  

 We close out November with this we received courtesy of the team at the New York Times that captures the profound challenges the United States Faces as the Tax Cut Bill works its' way through Congress and other profound challenges loom--as we went to press, for instance, we reviewed a call by a commentator at Haaretz to have the US Ambassador Fired as Southern Israel again was attacked and Israel hit back at Hamas targets--We could not help  but wonder what's actually left in Gaza which is for all intent and purpose the largest prison in the World:


The New York Times
The New York Times

Thursday, November 30, 2017


David Leonhardt

David Leonhardt

Op-Ed Columnist
A few weeks ago, I read a short new book by the legal scholar Cass Sunstein titled, simply, “Impeachment.” The book doesn’t mention President Trump once. Sunstein started writing it, he told me, partly because he was alarmed by what he considered reckless talk of impeachment during Trump’s first weeks on the job, before he had started doing much.
Sunstein’s goal was to lay out a legal and historical framework for thinking about impeachment, independent of any specific president. I’ve been thinking about the topic a lot since finishing the book, and I want to recommend both Sunstein’s book and a Vox piece published this morning by Ezra Klein.
To be clear, I think it would be a mistake for Democrats to put much energy into impeachment right now, because it’s not going to happen: Republicans control Congress and show no interest.
But I also think it would be a mistake for Americans — regardless of party — to be in denial about the governing crisis our country is facing. Let’s admit it: Trump is behaving in ways that call for serious talk of impeachment. If you read Sunstein’s careful history of impeachment — of when the founders believed it was appropriate and necessary — I expect you will come to the same conclusion.
Trump disdains the rule of law (as I detailed in this column), and he lies constantly. Multiple high-level Republicans, including some who work in the administration, consider him unfit for the presidency.
His behavior in the last couple of days highlights the unfitness: an irresponsible provocation of the Muslim world; a lie about NBC News making up stories; a ridiculous new claim that the tape of him bragging about molestation is a hoax; an insult at a ceremony to honor Native Americans.
It’s time for Congress to take the crisis seriously. It has many options short of impeachment, starting with clear warnings from senior Republicans about Trump’s unacceptable behavior. If those measures work, I’d be thrilled (and surprised). If they don’t work, maybe Republicans will become more comfortable with considering the ultimate constitutional remedy.
Here is Klein: “Sometimes I imagine this era going catastrophically wrong — a nuclear exchange with North Korea, perhaps, or a genuine crisis in American democracy — and historians writing about it in the future. They will go back and read Trump’s tweets and his words and read what we were saying, and they will wonder what the hell was wrong with us. You knew, they’ll say. You knew everything you needed to know to stop this. And what will we say in response?”
And: “There are plenty of people who simply should not be president of a nuclear hyperpower, and Trump is one of them. This is a truth known by his staff, known by Republicans in Congress, and known by most of the country. That so few feel able to even suggest doing the obvious thing and replacing him with a Republican who is better suited to the single most important job in the world is bizarre.”
Related: Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and Nick Kristof on removing Trump.
The tax bill. I heard from Senator Susan Collins’s office with an objection about yesterday’s newsletter. I disagree with the objection, but it’s worth sharing.
The tax bill that Collins may help pass would do substantial damage to health insurance markets. I wrote yesterday that she had dropped her insistence on other legislation to reduce that damage. Her office points out that she still strongly supports such legislation and has pushed for it with both Trump and Senate leaders.
That’s true. But Collins has also suggested that she would vote for the tax bill in exchange for verbal promises that Congress and Trump would later pass the other legislation. To me, that’s not insistence. It’s hope. Collins has the ability to insist that her vote depends on preventing damage to Americans’ health insurance. She isn’t doing so.
Also: The bills she favors would undo only a fraction of the damage that the tax bill would do, as Aviva Aron-Dine and Edwin Park explain, here and here. Unless Collins changes course, she is on the verge of harming the quality of health care for millions of Americans.
On the same subject, Fox News is refusing to air nationally a liberal ad that describes the ways that Trump and his family stand to gain from the tax bill, Politico reported yesterday. You can watch the 30-second spot, titled “Billions,” here.
More firings for sexual misconduct. It isn’t just feminism that has brought down Garrison Keillor, Matt Lauer and others; free markets have also been crucial, writes Elizabeth Nolan Brown in The Times. In the internet age, “corporations are susceptible to the moral suasion of the public,” she writes. “For better or worse, we’ve all become remarkably effective at mobilizing it to our own causes.”
Onward to December...

 UPDATE:  Two Media Sources (The Washington Examiner & the New York Times are reporting that President Trump has decided apparently to replace the Secretary of State with the Director of the CIA as Senator Tom Cotton (of the Iran Letter fame) is tapped to take over as CIA Director)--both opponents of the Iran Nuclear Deal).  Th ebreaking news we received courtesy of the Washington Examiner is noted below:

Breaking News Alert

White House develops plan to replace Rex Tillerson with CIA Director 

Mike Pompeo: Report

The White House has mapped out a plan in which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is
 replaced in the next few weeks with current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, according to
a report.
Senior administration officials told the New York Times Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.,
would then take over for Pompeo as director of the CIA.


Read the full story here.



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Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Notations On Our World (Special Mid-Week Edition): On #ClimateCrisis & The Need to Change

A New Week and a New Month is at at hand.    As we look to the end of 2017 and gear up for 2018, challenges abound.

One of the most profound challenges we have before us is the  challenge of the Climate Crisis:  It is real.   We here in Southern California, for instance, experienced a heatwave over the thanksgiving Week with records broken.     This is as we are faced with the challenge of how to feed a growing Population and how to adapt which was addressed by Raj Patel recently--one of the focus points we hope to build on during the new year as we formulate our strategic road-map here in #Outsiders: 


Our Founder shared this image with us he captured from Al Gore's Book about three questions that has helped to drive our work on Climate Change and our World in General: 

As we have reflected upon a very challenging World (underscored by the attack in Sinai over the Thanksgiving Week; the continued challenges of War and Poverty in World), our answer to the three questions is a resounding yes and our mission has been to help drive the conversation towards a sense of intelligent engagement which we hope to build upon during 2018.    A pivotal event at hand is before us which we are pleased to announce that we look forward to joining:

Join us December 4-5 for a global broadcast event to fight the climate crisis.

The climate crisis is the defining challenge of our generation. With devastating storms, dangerous floods, melting glaciers, and rising seas becoming increasingly regular facts of life, it’s more critical than ever that we face reality and get working on solutions together.
Responding to a global challenge like climate change begins with getting the problem out into the open with a global conversation.
That’s why we’re creating the largest social broadcast to spread awareness on the climate crisis and its solutions. Join us December 4-5 for 24 Hours of Reality: Be the Voice of Reality.
LEARN MORE AND JOIN

Hosted by former US Vice President Al Gore and featuring an all-star cast of celebrities, popular artists, scientists, global leaders, and business visionaries, this live broadcast travels around the globe allowing people to witness the climate crisis unfolding on every continent. It highlights the activists fighting for solutions everywhere from city streets to City Hall. And it shows how we can all speak up and make a difference. 
Help create the largest social broadcast on the climate crisis by following the three steps below:
  2. Enter your name, email address, and phone number.
  3. Choose your social media account and follow the prompts to connect (make sure to complete the authorization in this step).
When 24 Hours of Reality begins on December 4 at 6 PM ET, the live broadcast will automatically be published on your social media account.
It’s time to be the voice of reality to create the clean energy future we need and deserve.
- Your friends at Climate Reality

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