California Governors’ Race

                Californians are ready for what seems to be a long overdue change in leadership because of our current governor, Arnold Schwartzenegar has proven ineffective in correcting California's downward spiral.  California’s Governors’ Race has become a major priority for voters this year. The two candidates; Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman are running for California Governor. Part of the electorate periceves both as poor choices because of the perception that neither will be able to break the logjam for true structural change to some major issues in California. As Californians we must decide who the next governor of California will be and some ways to help determine this is to take a look at their views on unemployment, immigration, unions, school funding and the balance of our state's  budget and point out errors in logic demonstrated in television advertisement  to make the best  decision possible.

Irrational Appeals

                One major issue that both Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman must address as governor of California is that of unemployment. However, each has a different plan to through on their goal of creating new jobs for the people of California. On July 20, 2010, Whitman ran an ad stating Jerry Brown had no plan to create jobs for Californians (“whitman-brown-is-plan-free”),  but this claim was unfounded because Jerry Brown does have a plan to create hundreds of thousands of green  jobs by the year 2020 (Jerry Brown governor 2010). Therefore, the ad ran by Whitman is misleading in an attempt to deceive the people of California.  It appears that Mrs. Whitman is making an irrational appeal to voters fears/emotions. According to Beyond Feelings, an irrational appeal to emotion occurs when an appeal is made to a group of people and elicits feelings of fear (Ruggiero).  In this case, Whitman implied because Jerry Brown does not have a plan to create jobs, Californians will not be able to feed their families and  pay their bills.  The real question is does Whitman have a plan to help our unemployed and is it a safe plan or not? Whitman states she can create two million private-sector jobs by 2015 because she is willing to eliminate the eight-hundred dollar start up fee for new business owners and also willing to eliminate the capital gains tax (“platform topic. php?type=jobspage=1”), but this could have many effects on the people of California like increase taxes for the middle and low class.

Post Hoc Fallacy

                On the other hand, Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown totally have different views on immigration and whether to legalize or illegalize it. Because of this, during elections Megan Whitman was falsely accused in television ads ran in April 2010 of supporting amnesty for illegal immigration.  These ads stated that supporting amnesty for illegal immigrates this will increase the cost of healthcare in the state of California under President Barack Obama’s Healthcare Plan but, what the ad failed to prove is how this would increase cost and did  not offer any suggestions or proof behind such  an accusation(“California-governors-race-and-more-on-health-care”). It is clear on Meg Whitman’s website that she is one hundred percent against amnesty for illegal immigrants.  This television ad is completely false.  Another error, the ad made is to assume that supporting amnesty will result in an increased healthcare cost to tax payers. This is a good use of the post hoc fallacy error in procedure. Post hoc fallacy is the belief that if one event occurs it is the direct cause of the next event that follows. In this case, supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants would result in astronomical cost to taxpayers.  This ad also played on voter’s emotions with an irrational appeal to voter’s emotions and/or fears of an increase cost to taxpayers or “sky rocketing healthcare cost under Obama Healthcare.”   Jerry Brown supports a comprehensive reform plan to legalize illegal immigrants according to his website.  As attorney General he stated, “I cannot legally support giving driving licenses to illegal or undocumented immigrants.”    Brown seems to have taken a neutral, but firm stance to find a solution to this growing issue.

Oversimplification

                Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman are both being accused by an independent special interest group who are running television ads which state, to a certain extent, that both candidates are tied to special interest groups. For example, Megan Whitman is being accused of providing tax cuts for those in the wealthy upper class rather than the “common man” in the middle class to serve her and her rich consigentents . This is an example of using oversimplification to mislead voters to make a hasty and costly decision.  Oversimplification is used when an issue is complicated and may take too long to explain (Ruggiero). Just to clarify Megan offer to give middle class homeowners a ten thousand dollar tax cut. However, how many Californians’ still own their home after the economic downturn and the crash of the housing market?  Mrs. Whitman just like all other Republicans’  in this country believe that the more tax cuts the wealthy have the more jobs they will create. If I am not mistaken this was introduce by the Reagan administration (Reaganomics), which had good intent, but big businesses started sending American  jobs overseas to increase their profits. This policy did create jobs, but not for Americans.

By the same token, special interest groups also ran ads to mar Jerry Brown‘s record as a previous governor.  He was accused once again of being a candidate of special interest rather than that of a neutral one.  The television ad claimed that because Jerry Brown gave unions collective bargaining power and that he is the reason why the state budget in regards to retirement for state employees has cause a huge deficit with no way to fund these retirement plans.  The ad is misleading in that Jerry Brown did give unions collective bargaining power, but it was under Gray Davis leadership that state employees got to retain 90% of their pay if they retire from a state job.  This misleading ad is just a flat out lie, but Beyond Feelings describe this error as a hasty conclusion.  The television ad implied because Jerry Brown approved collective bargaining power for unions he is the reason why California state budget  not balanced.

Schools

State Budget

Conclusion

Television advertistment running  during this government election demonstrates many uses of error in logic, not to mention some ads are misleading and in most cases flat out lies.  Logic errors addressed in this paper consist of errors  in procedure such as hasty conclusion, oversimplification and post hoc fallacy;  errors of expression such as an irrational appeal to emotions and errors of perspective.

ANOTHER REASON TO VOTE OUT MURRIETA INCUMBENTS

Murrieta City Councilman Gary Thomasian went and did it now.
In an interview with The Californian, Thomasian outed the Western Riverside County Regional Conservation Authority and his own council for conspiring to ignore more than 100 property owners, known as Murrietans for Quality Life, rightfully upset by the abuse of their property rights by government.
He's a member of both bodies: an authority appointee (in fact, chairman this year) and the Murrieta City Council.
The way this violation of the people went down was, the council secretly voted unanimously not to meet with the residents, and then instructed the city manager to convey to the authority the city's desire for it to do likewise.
He did. It did.
Also on the sly.
The council justifies its cowardice, citing Calvary Chapel's pending suit that charges the two bodies with extortion. The church seeks $25 million recompense.
The church claims the council and the authority tried to hold it up for the majority of its 118 acres in return for permission to develop the remainder. The church had intended to create a 95-acre campus.
Regardless of the politics, the cliched larger problem is transparency and accountability.
It's worth noting that authority members are not elected, but according to the Joint Powers agreement, must be elected to a position on the body ---- like the LAFCOs and many of the other outfits that take away our say over our lives at our expense ---- that appoints them. All five supervisors sit on it.
Anyhow, Thomasian has done a rare thing in opening the inside game to scrutiny.
The ubiquitous "they" are cringing.
Upon Thomasian's spilling the beans, some of the "they" in this case, namely Randon Lane and Doug McAllister, the two incumbents not up for re-election, refused to endorse him and threw their weight to a challenger.
Lane reportedly because Thomasian outed them. McAllister felt "uncomfortable." Yeah, no kidding.
Certainly the council has ducked its constituents' darn good questions about this outrageous and costly (up to six figures for a landowner) scam by which their rights are usurped.
For whatever reason, Thomasian finally took exception to this seizure-by-fiat of the landed's rights and said "No."
Come to think of it, if those residents paid for a lawyer rather than fees ...
----

Test post

Obama the Terrorist Sympathizer

JERUSALEM – The board of a nonprofit organization on which Sen. Barack Obama served as a paid director alongside a confessed domestic terrorist granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe" and supports intense immigration reform, including providing drivers licenses and education to illegal aliens. The co-founder of the Arab group in question, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, also has held a fundraiser for Obama. Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel, has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group. In 2001, the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, for which Khalidi's wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002. Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund's website. According to tax filings, Obama received compensation of $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2000. Obama served on the Wood's Fund board alongside William C. Ayers, a member of the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow of the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971. Ayers, who still serves on the Woods Fund board, contributed $200 to Obama's senatorial campaign fund and has served on panels with Obama at numerous public speaking engagements. Ayers admitted to involvement in the bombings of U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The $40,000 grant from Obama's Woods Fund to the AAAN constituted about a fifth of the Arab group's reported grants for 2001, according to tax filings obtained by WND. The $35,000 Woods Fund grant in 2002 also constituted about one-fifth of AAAN's reported grants for that year. The AAAN, headquartered in the heart of Chicago's Palestinian immigrant community, describes itself as working to "empower Chicago-area Arab immigrants and Arab Americans through the combined strategies of community organizing, advocacy, education and social services, leadership development, and forging productive relationships with other communities." It reportedly has worked on projects with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which supports open boarders and education for illegal aliens. The AAAN in 2005 sent a letter to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson in which it called a billboard opposing a North Carolina-New Mexico joint initiative to deny driver's licenses to illegal aliens a "bigoted attack on Arabs and Muslims." Speakers at AAAN dinners and events routinely have taken an anti-Israel line. The group co-sponsored a Palestinian art exhibit, titled, "The Subject of Palestine," that featured works related to what some Palestinians call the "Nakba" or "catastrophe" of Israel's founding in 1948.According to the widely discredited Nakba narrative, Jews in 1948 forcibly expelled hundreds of thousands - some Palestinians claim over one million - Arabs from their homes and then took over the territory.
Historically, about 600,000 Arabs fled Israel after surrounding Arab countries warned they would destroy the Jewish state in 1948. Some Arabs also were driven out by Jewish forces while they were trying to push back invading Arab armies. At the same time, over 800,000 Jews were expelled or left Arab countries under threat after Israel was founded.The theme of AAAN's Nakba art exhibit, held at DePaul University in 2005, was "the compelling and continuing tragedy of Palestinian life ... under [Israeli] occupation ... home demolition ... statelessness ... bereavement ... martyrdom, and ... the heroic struggle for life, for safety, and for freedom." Another AAAN initiative, titled, "Al Nakba 1948 as experienced by Chicago Palestinians," seeks documents related to the "catastrophe" of Israel's founding. A post on the AAAN site asked users: "Do you have photos, letters or other memories you could share about Al-Nakba-1948?" That posting was recently removed. The AAAN website currently states the entire site is under construction. Pro-PLO advocate held Obama fundraiser, describes Obama as 'sympathetic' AAAN co-founder Rashid Khalidi was reportedly a director of the official PLO press agency WAFA in Beirut from 1976 to 1982, while the PLO committed scores of anti-Western attacks and was labeled by the U.S. as a terror group. Khalidi's wife, AAAN President Mona Khalidi, was reportedly WAFA's English translator during that period. Rashid Khalidi at times has denied working directly for the PLO but Palestinian diplomatic sources in Ramallah told WND he indeed directed WAFA. Khalidi also advised the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Conference in 1991. During documented speeches and public events, Khalidi has called Israel an "apartheid system in creation" and a destructive "racist" state. He has multiple times expressed support for Palestinian terror, calling suicide bombings response to "Israeli aggression." He dedicated his 1986 book, "Under Siege," to "those who gave their lives ... in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon." Critics assailed the book as excusing Palestinian terrorism. While the Woods Fund's contribution to Khalidi's AAAN might be perceived as a one-time run in with Obama, the presidential hopeful and Khalidi evidence a deeper relationship. According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the Democratic presidential hopeful first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003 while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004. Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi. Speaking in a joint interview with WND and the John Batchelor Show of New York's WABC Radio and Los Angeles' KFI Radio, Khalidi was asked about his 2000 fundraiser for Obama. "I was just doing my duties as a Chicago resident to help my local politician," Khalidi stated. Khalidi said he supports Obama for president "because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause." Khalidi also lauded Obama for "saying he supports talks with Iran. If the U.S. can talk with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there is no reason it can't talk with the Iranians." Asked about Obama's role funding the AAAN, Khalidi claimed he had "never heard of the Woods Fund until it popped up on a bunch of blogs a few months ago." He terminated the call when petitioned further about his links with Obama. Contacted by phone, Mona Khalidi refused to answer WND's questions about the AAAN's involvement with Obama. Obama's campaign headquarters did not reply to a list of WND questions sent by e-mail to the senator's press office. Obama, American terrorist in same circles Obama served on the board with Ayers, who was a Weathermen leader and has written about his involvement with the group's bombings of the New York City Police headquarters in 1970, the Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972. "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough," Ayers told the New York Times in an interview released on Sept. 11, 2001 "Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon," Ayers wrote in his memoirs, titled "Fugitive Days." He continued with a disclaimer that he didn't personally set the bombs, but his group set the explosives and planned the attack. A $200 campaign contribution is listed on April 2, 2001 by the "Friends of Barack Obama" campaign fund. The two taught appeared speaking together at several public events, including a 1997 University of Chicago panel entitled, "Should a child ever be called a 'super predator?'" and another panel for the University of Illinois in April 2002, entitled, "Intellectuals: Who Needs Them?" The charges against Ayers were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance. Ayers is married to another notorious Weathermen terrorist, Bernadine Dohrn, who has also served on panels with Obama. Dohrn was once on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted List and was described by J. Edgar Hoover as the "most dangerous woman in America." Ayers and Dohrn raised the son of Weathermen terrorist Kathy Boudin, who was serving a sentence for participating in a 1981 murder and robbery that left 4 people dead. Obama advisor wants talks with terrorists The revelations about Obama's relationship with Khalidi follows a recent WND article quoting Israeli security officials who expressed "concern" about Robert Malley, an adviser to Obama who has advocated negotiations with Hamas and providing international assistance to the terrorist group. Malley, a principal Obama foreign policy adviser, has penned numerous opinion articles, many of them co-written with a former adviser to the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, petitioning for dialogue with Hamas and blasting Israel for numerous policies he says harm the Palestinian cause.
Malley also previously penned a well-circulated New York Review of Books piece largely blaming Israel for the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at Camp David in 2000 when Arafat turned down a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and eastern sections of Jerusalem and instead returned to the Middle East to launch an intifada, or terrorist campaign, against the Jewish state. Malley's contentions have been strongly refuted by key participants at Camp David, including President Bill Clinton, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and primary U.S. envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross, all of whom squarely blamed Arafat's refusal to make peace for the talks' failure.