Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Chinese state firms are poised to be strong contenders in the race to make high-speed trains that will sprint between Los Angeles and San Francisco, part of a $68 billion project to bring the service to the United States for the first time. While "bullet train" manufacturers from Germany, Japan, South Korea, and France are expected to be among those jockeying for the estimated $1 billion train contract, China’s ability to offer low prices and hefty financing appear to make it the one to beat, say lobbyists and industry insiders. Lacking experience in the technology, California...

California Gov. Jerry Brown had some sharp words for environmentalist critics of his proposed Sacramento River water tunnels. On Wednesday, Brown told critics of his $15 billion plan to “shut up, because you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” according to the AP. Brown’s office told Sacramento Bee blog Capitol Alert that the governor’s remarks were made in “jest.” But the sharp rebuke highlights the tension surrounding the pricey project, which would send water from the northern part of the state south by using a pair of underground water tunnels to divert water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River...

“You know, I believe people knew this was likely in the 1970s, but enviros stopped the necessary water projects,” Glenn Reynolds wrote as an aside in September while linking to an article titled “American Southwest has 80% chance of decade-long drought this century.” Today at City Journal, Victor Davis Hanson flashes back to when California enviro-leftists began the countdown on the state’s existence: Brown and other Democratic leaders will never concede that their own opposition in the 1970s (when California had about half its present population) to the completion of state and federal water projects, along with their more recent...

Joel Kotkin, the noted liberal critic of California’s far-left government, says that Gov. Jerry Brown is leading California to ruin–and that the state’s business leaders share the blame by failing to speak out. In a new essay at the Daily Beast that summarizes much of his recent criticism, Kotkin says that while Brown’s father Pat brought the state progress and prosperity as governor (1959-1967), Jerry Brown “has waged a kind of Oedipal struggle against his father’s legacy.”

California has met the future, and it really doesn’t work. As the mounting panic surrounding the drought suggests, the Golden State, once renowned for meeting human and geographic challenges, is losing its ability to cope with crises. As a result, the great American land of opportunity is devolving into something that resembles feudalism, a society dominated by rich and poor, with little opportunity for upward mobility for the state’s middle- and working classes. The water situation reflects this breakdown in the starkest way. Everyone who follows California knew it was inevitable we would suffer a long-term drought. Most of the...

People will gather in San Francisco this weekend to mark the 109th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake. SNIP The only survivors are believed to be 113-year-old Ruth Newman and 109-year-old William Del Monte. It was not known Friday if they would attend the early-morning ceremony Saturday. Mayor Ed Lee, San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr and Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White will attend.

One water district manager says the plan fails to account for water-saving measures already in effect in some California communitiesCalifornia cities are pushing back against Gov. Jerry Brown's order for mandatory water use reductions, but it's not likely that regulators will retreat with the state in its fourth year of drought. The State Water Resources Control Board's proposal to meet Brown's order has some cities slashing water use by more than a third, and it will be updated in the coming days. Dozens of affected agencies say the expected reduction targets are overreaching, unrealistic and unfair. Calif. Sets Water Use...

Gov. Jerry Brown has billed his $25 billion plan to build two massive tunnels under the Delta as a way to not just make it easier to move water from north to south, but also increase the reliability of water supplies and bring back salmon and other endangered species. But now the Brown administration is proposing a major and politically risky change: dropping a 50-year guarantee to restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta's environment. A centerpiece of the project, the environmental plan included $8 billion to preserve 100,000 acres of wetlands and dozens of other restoration efforts. The dramatic course...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Even in 2015, the New York Times is still pretending that desalination does not exist The New York Times just published this article on California’s water shortage:California Drought Tests History of Endless GrowthA punishing drought is forcing a reconsideration of whether the aspiration of untrammeled growth that has for so long been the state’s engine has run against the limits of nature.April 4, 2015LOS ANGELES — For more than a century, California has been the state where people flocked for a better life — 164,000 square miles of mountains, farmland and coastline, shimmering with ambition and...

A punishing drought is forcing a reconsideration of whether the aspiration of untrammeled growth that has for so long been the state’s engine has run against the limits of nature. ... a punishing drought — and the unprecedented measures the state announced last week to compel people to reduce water consumption — is forcing a reconsideration of whether the aspiration of untrammeled growth that has for so long been this state’s driving engine has run against the limits of nature. Can Los Angeles continue to dominate as the country’s capital of entertainment and glamour, and Silicon Valley as the center...

Victor Davis Hanson, noting the draconian water restrictions that Gov. Jerry Brown has imposed on California, suggested that Brown and his cohorts have only themselves to blame for the effects of the drought in a piece in City Journal on Thursday. When Brown was first governor, in the 1970s, he opposed a number of projects that might have brought more water to parched Californians. Brown also diverted water to fish and river enhancement that might instead have lessened the effects of the drought.As a result of Brown’s folly, California’s agricultural sector is in great peril. This peril will impact...

The liberals who run California have long purported that their green policies are a free (organic) lunch, but the bills are coming due. Lo, Governor Jerry Brown has mandated a 25% statewide reduction in water use. Consider this rationing a surcharge for decades of environmental excess.

Jerry Brown, Democrat governor of drought-stricken California, appeared Sunday on ABC's This Week and defended his executive actions that placed mandatory water restrictions on citizens but not on the agriculture industry. "There are farmers who have senior water rights," Brown told guest-host Martha Raddatz. "Some people have a right to more water than others." Of his own actions, Brown stated: This executive order is done under emergency power and it has the force of law. Very unusual. And it's requiring action and changes in behavior from the Oregon border all the way to the Mexican border. It affects lawns. It...

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) said Californians will face heavy fines for taking long showers. Brown said, “This executive order is done under emergency power. It has the force of law. Very unusual. It’s requiring action and changes in behavior from the Oregon border all the way to the Mexican border. It affects lawns. It affects people’s — how long they stay in the shower. How businesses use water.” Brown said to enforce his order, “Each water district that actually delivers waters — water to homes and businesses, they carry it out. We have a state...

There's something very dangerous happening in states across the country. A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors. Some, such as the bill enacted in Indiana last week that drew a national outcry and one passed in Arkansas, say individuals can cite their personal religious beliefs to refuse service to a customer or resist a state nondiscrimination law. Others are more transparent in their effort to discriminate. Legislation being considered in Texas would strip the salaries and pensions of clerks who issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — even...

Conservative think tank Americans for Prosperity (AFP), co-founded by principals of Koch Industries, sued in federal court to prevent ultra-liberal California Attorney General Kamala Harris from using her office to disclose the names and addresses of their 90,000 donors. Harris may have a problem with AFP being a major force behind the Tea Party movement and its support of free markets, entrepreneurship, lower taxes, and limited government spending and regulation. As a federally registered 501(c)(4), not-for-profit educational organization, Americans for Prosperity is allowed under federal law to raise and spend money educating the public regarding issues associated with political campaigns...

A rather expensive development has surfaced on the way to installing Common Core in California’s hundreds of school districts statewide. Officials have figured out that the big government initiative could collectively cost districts $1 billion every year to set up a new statewide testing system supporting the new curriculum. The question is, who’s going to pay for it? According to the Santa Ana School District, the state, not the district, should foot the bill. Santa Ana along with three other school districts submitted a class action complaint, demanding that California pay for the “next generation” Smarter Balanced Assessments based on...

California governor Jerry Brown said, "Yes, I would" run for president if I were ten years younger. He made the remarks this morning to NBC: Video at source

Sen. Ted Cruz has "rendered himself absolutely unfit to be running for office" -- let alone president -- by insisting that humans aren't to blame for global warming, California Gov. Jerry Brown says. Brown, a Democrat, took aim at Cruz during a Sunday appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," the day before Cruz is expected to announce his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during a speech at Liberty University in Virginia. He blasted Cruz's comment during a late-night television appearance that climate change "alarmists" have a problem. "The science doesn't back them up," Cruz had said on NBC's...

The war of words over climate change is getting blisteringly hot between Gov. Jerry Brown and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, with the Republican presidential candidate blithely dismissing the Democratic governor as one of those “global warming alarmists” who relies on ridicule and insult. A Brown campaign strategist shot back Monday that the “factually irrational” Cruz is apparently now determined to “stand out from a pack of troglodytes in the GOP race for the White House.” The public slap down — and the dis of Brown — came as Cruz formally announced his run for the White House at Liberty University...