Thread: California Hires Eric Holder for Legal Fights Against Trump White House

by CHRISS W. STREET
15 Jan 2017
newport beach
1,734 comments

Despite tax collection increasing by 50 percent in the last 9 years, California’s public pension insolvency is forcing Gov. Jerry Brown to propose a dangerously unpopular 42 percent increase in gasoline taxes and a 141 percent increase in vehicle registration fees.

Breitbart News reported on January 9 that Gov. Brown announced that for the first time since 2012, California’s $122.8 billion General Fund Budget is in deficit by $1.6 billion. Despite a near bankruptcy during the financial crisis, California’s tax revenues have increased by about $43 billion in the last 9 years. Brown on Monday only suggested relatively painless spending reductions to close the budget gap. He was very careful to not suggest highly controversial increases in gasoline tax or vehicle fees.

Democrat governors have been regularly spiking gas taxes and vehicle registration fees for decades. But 12 years ago, Democrat Gov. Gray Davis was recalled by voters after he pushed the state legislature to pass a vehicle registration fee increase from $46 to $158.

The legislature cancelled the increase and Democrats have avoided gas and vehicle increases since. When the Assembly tried to revive a gasoline tax last year, the issue was dropped after polls showed 63 percent voter opposed any increase.

Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger destroyed his popularity by pushing through the Proposition 1-A high-speed rail initiative in 2008 that added about 11 cents a gallon to the price of gasoline — for a project now referred to by Bloomberg News as a “fiasco.”

Gov. Brown’s willingness to try raising gasoline taxes by 17 cents a gallon, and on vehicle registration fees by $65, is a sign of the insolvency risk from the exploding cost of California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) public pensions. Brown’s draft 2017-2018 budget already includes a $524 million increase for the public pension contribution. That amounts to an 11 percent increase over this year’s $5.3 billion cost.

The CalPERS contribution increase would have actually been another $516 million more next year, but the world’s biggest pubic pension is allowing the State of California to “smooth” the higher pension funding cost by reducing its projected investment return expectation from 7.5 percent to 7 percent. But that smoothing will lock California into about a $524 million CalPERS contribution increase for each of the next four years.

Breitbart News reported in December that Stanford University’s “U.S. Pension Tracker” calculated that if CalPERS used the 2.75 percent interest rate on 20-year U.S. Treasury bonds as a “conservative” expected investment rate of return, the state would have a $964.4 billion unfunded actuarial public pension debt, or about $92,748 per household.

But under this conservative scenario, California would be required to start contributing an extra $3 billion to CalPERS immediately. Given that CalPERS only earned a 2.4 percent investment return in 2015, and just 0.61 percent last year, the 2.75 percent expected investment return may actually not be that conservative.

Gov. Brown has little flexibility to raise taxes to fund CalPERS, because “Taxifornia” already has the highest personal tax rate of 13.3 percent and its sixth highest corporate rate of 8.84 percent. According to a study by the Pacific Research Institute, the brutally high tax burden has been the cause California’s abnormally slow growth, its net exporting of U.S. citizens and its shrinking labor force for over a decade.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/...ilout-calpers/

Funny! Where Mexico goes, so goes California. Well, on the bright side that will run the Mexican gas buyers back to Mexico.

by TOM FITTON
19 Jan 2017
Washington, DC

I’ve often observed that, when it comes to public policy, the Obama Justice Department has been a locus of evil. And therefore it was concerning to see that the man who ran that Obama agency for years, the disgraced Eric Holder, has gotten himself a new, government-related gig.

On January 4 liberal California legislative leaders announced that they are using tax dollars to hire former Attorney General Eric Holder and his law firm to assist them in anticipated federal challenges to several state policies such as climate change and immigration. Leftists controlling the Democratic Party are especially concerned that a new Trump administration might actually start enforcing the rule of law against California’s dangerous and unlawful sanctuary policies. Evidently, Eric Holder will waste taxpayer funds defending this lawlessness.

In a statement, Kevin de Leon, California Senate President Pro Tempore, said, “With the upcoming change in administrations, we expect that there will be extraordinary challenges for California in the uncertain times ahead.” The California Attorney General, who represents the State’s interest in court, already has a budget of $190 million.

In response, we have filed a records request with the California Legislature Joint Rules Committee seeking to examine legislative records regarding the state’s employment of former Obama U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.:

All contracts between the California Legislature and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. or Covington and Burling.

All communications between the California Legislature and former U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. or Covington and Burling about the Legislature’s retention of Holder and/or Covington and Burling.

Holder was one of Obama’s longest-serving and most controversial Cabinet members.

On June 28, 2012, he became the first U.S. Attorney General to be held in contempt of Congress on both civil and criminal grounds. The contempt charge came in connection with Holder’s refusal to turn over documents about his agency’s lies on Operation Fast and Furious, the Obama administration’s gun-walking scandal. JW exposed numerous outrages associated with this scandal.

Under Holder the Justice Department dismissed its voting rights case against the New Black Panther Party. The Justice Department originally filed its lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party following an incident that took place outside of a Philadelphia polling station on November 4, 2008. According to multiple witnesses, members of the New Black Panthers blocked access to polling stations, harassed voters and hurled racial epithets. A video of the incident, showing a member of the New Black Panther Party brandishing a police-style baton weapon, was widely distributed on the Internet. JW exposed a number of Obama DOJ lies regarding the Black Panthers, which a federal judge validated in Judicial Watch v. United States Department of Justice (No. 1:10-cv-851).

In 2013, the Obama Justice Department was caught spying on The Associated Press by collecting months’ worth of phone records of reporters and editors. Fox News’ James Rosen was among those targeted by Holder’s Justice Department.

Thanks in part to JW’s success in exposing his corruption, Holder was forced to resign from the Justice Department in 2015 and rejoin his old law firm of Covington & Burling.

Our records request is designed to expose how California state legislators are wasting tax dollars to take care of another corrupt politician – Eric Holder – with the intention of deliberately resisting the rule of law on immigration and other matters. His record at the Clinton and Obama Justice Departments demonstrates a willingness to bend the law in order to protect his political patrons.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...on-connection/

It's all about the drug money folks. Shut it down.

by ASSEMBLYMAN TIM DONNELLY
3 Jun 2017
Sacramento, CA

The California State Assembly will not renew it’s $25,000 per month contract with former US Attorney General Eric Holder—according to a statement by Assembly Speaker, Anthony Rendon.

According to multiple news reports, Rendon released the following brief statement: “We have received valuable guidance from Covington & Burling over the past four months. We will continue to seek their guidance as the need arises.”

Announced in January jointly by Rendon and DeLeon with much fanfare about developing legal strategies to oppose President Trump’s agenda, the legislature agreed to retain Covington and Burling, the law firm of former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

The State Senate and State Assembly were splitting the cost of the former AG’s hefty fee, but that arrangement ended Thursday when the Assembly Speaker made his announcement.

$100,000 of taxpayer money has already been spent retaining Holder for the express purpose of fending off the policies of the Trump administration—this at a time when the legislature is raising gasoline taxes just to fix California’s neglected roads to say nothing of the crumbling infrastructure.

State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon—who admitted half his family is illegally present in the country—plans on keeping Holder on retainer. According to a Sacramento Bee report, Dan Reeves, De Leon’s chief of staff responded:

“Covington’s advice and guidance has been very valuable to the Senate in responding to the Trump’s administration’s sustained attack on California’s policies and values,” Reeves said. “We currently have a number of ongoing projects with Covington and plan to continue that valuable relationship.”

Reeves went on to say that the contract is being renegotiated—both the cost and the duration.

Emboldened by recent victories in California—including emergency federal funding to shore up the Oroville Dam and preliminary funding for Silicon Valley’s CalTrain electrification retrofit—perhaps Assembly Democrats are confident they can weather the anti-Trump “summer of resistance” without high-paid legal help.

Only time will tell.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/...onth-contract/