In a state where thousands of properties have been threatened and continue to be threatened, California is in desperate need of meaningful eminent domain reform that will respect the rights and property of its residents. The preceding legal overview in California demonstrates just how difficult it is for private property owners to defend themselves against California’s redevelopment machine, which siphons billions and billions of dollars into a closed economic system that benefits private parties and hurts not only property owners, but all taxpayers as well.

During an interview on the program “CNN Late Edition” in 1992 Jerry Brown (D-CA) admitted that nearly everything he said in his first campaign for governor of California was a lie. Here are Brown’s rather candid remarks:

Interviewer: You said something a moment ago that I have to follow up on and I have to draw you out on. You said you don’t have to lie anymore now that you’re not a politician. What did you lie about when you were governor?

Jerry Brown: It’s all a lie. You’re pretending there’s a plan…

Interviewer: What did you lie about?

Jerry Brown: You run for office and the assumption is “Oh, I know what to do”. You don’t. I didn’t have a plan for California. Clinton doesn’t have a plan. Bush doesn’t have a plan.

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Democrat California gubernatorial nominee Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown mocked as ’silly’ the concerns raised by a retired Marine Corps colonel about Brown attending a fundraiser at the home of terrorist supporter and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans. Speaking to reporters Wednesday evening at a campaign rally at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building, Brown labeled the call by Col. Bucky Peterson to return the money from the fundraiser “dishonest” and “the sillies(t) thing I’ve ever heard.” Peterson’s statement was released by Brown’s opponent, Republican nominee Meg Whitman.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Brown’s comments.

“Asked about the fundraiser by Evans, who is also a co-founder of Code Pink, Brown said that he has no connection to that group. “That’s the sillies (sic) thing I’ve ever heard..Jodie worked in my (presidential) campaign,” he said. The weekend event in Los Angeles had “nothing to do with Code Pink. That was Jody and campaign workers over many decades and they came to her house.”

“For Whitman to distort that…it’s dishonest,” he said, charging that it was “within that same pattern of dishonesty” he has seen in the GOP candidate’s campaign.”

“Whitman’s campaign Wednesday released a statement from one of the GOP candidate’s supporters, retired Colonel Bucky Peterson, a 31 year veteran of the U.S. Marines, who called on Brown to return the money from the fundraiser.”

Contrary to Brown’s claim, the fundraiser was not a Code Pink event.  The entrance to the fundraiser was adorned with large Code Pink banners.

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For a guy known to hold some pretty strange views, this might be the most bizarre perspective on welfare policy I have ever seen. Here is Jerry Brown from his Pacifica Radio show in 1995 (full transcript here):

The conventional viewpoint says we need a jobs program and we need to cut welfare. Just the opposite! We need more welfare and fewer jobs. Jobs for every American is doomed to failure because of modern automation and production. We ought to recognize it and create an income-maintenance system so every single American has the dignity and the wherewithal for shelter, basic food, and medical care. I’m talking about welfare for all. Without it, you’re going to have warfare for all. Without a universal health care like every other civilized country, without a minimum level of income, this country will explode. You can’t blame the guy at the bottom forever. At some point there’s a reaction and we’ll see that the real criminals are those calling the tune, making the rules, and walking to the bank. We have the money, we have the brain power. The United States now has the highest measured wealth of any nation ever in the history of the world. We could rebuild our cities, we could create the kind of buying power and community well-being that will provide for peace. The guaranteed income is one way. Another way is to have always the availability of work in a nonprofit, in community service. A third is to start giving people training to develop skills where they can be self-supporting. You could come up with a cash supplement. Even conservatives have suggested a negative income tax to cut out the bureaucracy. If we were smart, we’d get rid of welfare and give people a family assistance like they do in Europe…

The problem isn’t even a problem. Automation and technology would be a great boon if it were creative, if there were more leisure, more opportunity to engage in raising a family, providing guidance to the young, all the stuff we say we need. America will work if we’re all in it together. It’ll work when there’s a shared sense of destiny. It can be done! It’s all there! What isn’t there is the leadership to create the kind of social network, the safety net, the distribution that would truly create a just and equal society…

We have to restore power to the family, to the neighborhood, and the community with a non-market principle, a principle of equality, of charity, of let’s-take-care-of-one-another. That’s the creative challenge. First, expose relentlessly the big lie that comes over the tube every night-that if you just go out and find that job, and work harder, it’ll all be fine. It won’t! There’s not enough work to go around and a lot of the pay is not fair. Unless you totally yank up that system and create a better one, unless the spirit changes, unless the heart opens, unless we confront power with the truth of our own unarmed but absolute fearless truth, we’re not going to overcome it. Evil is too embedded to be overcome by anything other than a spiritual challenge.

So let me see if I can get this straight. Since full employment is a practical impossibility, we should just give up on the idea of job promotion and hand out a minimum income or dole like they do in Europe. This has clearly worked out so well for them.

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Plain and simple: Meg Whitman will be the next Governor of California.   After a long primary season, the general election matchup is set.  Brown v. Whitman.  Yesterday v. Tomorrow.

Here are your 7 reasons why Meg Whitman will be the next governor of California.

7.  Meg is News.   The news media follows, well, news.  New candidates, especially dynamic candidates, are written about and get on the news more than candidates that have been around awhile.  Jerry Brown is the anything but new – and hardly news.

6. Meg is Tireless.  Meg will be everywhere throughout this entire cycle.  Brown, by contrast, hasn’t been in a heavily contested statewide race in decades.  Many question whether he has another such race in him.  Brown simply will not be able to keep up with Whitman.

5.  Meg is Extraordinarily Determined.  Anyone that has spent any amount of time with Meg Whitman knows she is an extraordinarily focused person.  eBay wasn’t built in a day and it wasn’t built on hope.  Whitman proved in her primary campaign that she is goal oriented and categorically determined to meet those goals.  Losing is not in her vocabulary.

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