California Doing California Things

[Jimmy Higgins]

Newsom is such a clown.



He's actually standing in front of a freight train!

Billions of dollars spent, years and years behind and only now track is being laid for 120 miles to connect two towns in the central valley!!!

This started off as high speed rail that was going to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles.

And this is your guy for president?!! Oh help me Rhonda.

I suppose if laying rail is what you only consider as progress, yeah, it has been slow. Not certain how fast you think $10+ billion in construction is supposed to be. About 2/3 the way through transportation structure construction.

 

[Politesse]

He's actually standing in front of a freight train!

Do you know nothing about the american rail industry? I'm struggling to comprehend why anyone would see freight rail traffic as a bad thing.

 

[TSwizzle]

Newsom is such a clown.



He's actually standing in front of a freight train!

Billions of dollars spent, years and years behind and only now track is being laid for 120 miles to connect two towns in the central valley!!!

This started off as high speed rail that was going to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles.

And this is your guy for president?!! Oh help me Rhonda.

I suppose if laying rail is what you only consider as progress, yeah, it has been slow. Not certain how fast you think $10+ billion in construction is supposed to be. About 2/3 the way through transportation structure construction.

The San Francisco to Los Angeles HS rail was supposed to be complete by 2020.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Newsom is such a clown.



He's actually standing in front of a freight train!

Billions of dollars spent, years and years behind and only now track is being laid for 120 miles to connect two towns in the central valley!!!

This started off as high speed rail that was going to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles.

And this is your guy for president?!! Oh help me Rhonda.

I suppose if laying rail is what you only consider as progress, yeah, it has been slow. Not certain how fast you think $10+ billion in construction is supposed to be. About 2/3 the way through transportation structure construction.

The San Francisco to Los Angeles HS rail was supposed to be complete by 2020.

Not looking good to hit that milestone.

 

[TSwizzle]

He's actually standing in front of a freight train!

Do you know nothing about the american rail industry? I'm struggling to comprehend why anyone would see freight rail traffic as a bad thing.

Who said freight rail was a bad thing?

 

[TSwizzle]

Jeezus, Newsom is such a dumb cuck. Here he is celebrating his abject failures.



No TSA lines, no Real ID (also an abject failure in CA) just hop on the train to erm, nowhere.

 

[Politesse]

No TSA lines, no Real ID (also an abject failure in CA) just hop on the train to erm, nowhere

"Nowhere"? On behalf of all 7 million residents of the Central Valley, fuck you. Even if there were no plans to extend the line to other places, why should we be any less deserving of a modern transit system than any other region? Your ignorance about your own state - its geography, climate, sociology, and economy - is staggering.

 

[TSwizzle]

No TSA lines, no Real ID (also an abject failure in CA) just hop on the train to erm, nowhere

"Nowhere"? On behalf of all 7 million residents of the Central Valley, fuck you. Even if there were no plans to extend the line to other places, why should we be any less deserving of a modern transit system than any other region? Your ignorance about your own state - its geography, climate, sociology, and economy - is staggering.

lol. Billions of tax dollars spent, years overdue to connect two insignificant towns in the central valley.

 

[Politesse]

Where by "insignificant", you mean "places I am too uneducated to understand the importance of"?

 

[TSwizzle]

Where by "insignificant", you mean "places I am too uneducated to understand the importance of"?

San Francisco to Los Angeles. Significant.

Wasco to ??? Not significant. Billions wasted. Only now are tracks maybe going to be laid, soon. When will it actually be operational, 2030? Nobody really knows but whatever they say, add at least two years.

 

[Politesse]

Where by "insignificant", you mean "places I am too uneducated to understand the importance of"?

San Francisco to Los Angeles. Significant.

Wasco to ??? Not significant. Billions wasted. Only now are tracks maybe going to be laid, soon. When will it actually be operational, 2030? Nobody really knows but whatever they say, add at least two years.

So what you're saying is, you're exactly the kind of asshole West Coast urban elite that Republican apologists usually feign offense at, and you don't understand the value of places where real people live and work. No, Tswizzle, San Francisco and Los Angeles are not the only "significant" places in California. They are significant places, but they are not the only significant places.

You also know nothing about engineering, apparently. Laying the tracks is not the first step, it's nearly the last. Building miles of viaducts, tunnels, sound barriers and roads is a much more significant engineering challenge than laying down some rail.

 

[TSwizzle]

Where by "insignificant", you mean "places I am too uneducated to understand the importance of"?

San Francisco to Los Angeles. Significant.

Wasco to ??? Not significant. Billions wasted. Only now are tracks maybe going to be laid, soon. When will it actually be operational, 2030? Nobody really knows but whatever they say, add at least two years.

So what you're saying is, you're exactly the kind of asshole West Coast urban elite that Republican apologists usually feign offense at, and you don't understand the value of places where real people live and work.

What I am saying is billions of tax dollars have been wasted on a high speed rail route (119 miles?) that hardly anyone will use IF it actually goes into service. I am sure the good people of the Central Valley could have had a lot better things to have the money spent on.

This is a vanity project. Only a corrupt government would allow this shambles to continue. Newsom stands before an utter failure of a project as the low IQ insufferable prick that he is, gaslighting low IQ democrat voters about what a success it has been. Newsom is like Comical Ali from the Iraq war, standing in front of a stationary freight train telling us what a success High Speed Rail is. Hilarious.

It is comical that you defend this shit.

 

[TSwizzle]

The fifth (or is it fourth) largest economy in the world has chased Valero out of California

California just lost another giant, and this one came with a billion-dollar receipt. Valero Energy is reportedly taking a staggering $1 billion loss to shut down and exit California by April 2026 rather than comply with the ever-expanding mandates pushed by Governor Gavin Newsom and his regulatory agencies. Let that sink in. One of the largest energy companies in the country looked at Sacramento’s rules, did the math, and decided it was cheaper to walk away than play along. This is not a market failure. It is a policy failure. Valero’s billion-dollar exit should be a five-alarm fire for California Democrats, but don’t expect a course correction. Newsom and his allies remain committed to doubling down, even as refineries close, prices climb, and jobs vanish. Ideology comes first. Reality comes later.

News

Newsom should definitely run for president.

 

[Politesse]

The fifth (or is it fourth) largest economy in the world has chased Valero out of California

California just lost another giant, and this one came with a billion-dollar receipt. Valero Energy is reportedly taking a staggering $1 billion loss to shut down and exit California by April 2026 rather than comply with the ever-expanding mandates pushed by Governor Gavin Newsom and his regulatory agencies. Let that sink in. One of the largest energy companies in the country looked at Sacramento’s rules, did the math, and decided it was cheaper to walk away than play along. This is not a market failure. It is a policy failure. Valero’s billion-dollar exit should be a five-alarm fire for California Democrats, but don’t expect a course correction. Newsom and his allies remain committed to doubling down, even as refineries close, prices climb, and jobs vanish. Ideology comes first. Reality comes later.

News

Newsom should definitely run for president.

IOW they have been ostentatiously flaunting their disregard for state law ever since they bought the plants, and the resulting fines and suits are getting more expensive than one last billion dollar hit for breach of contract. You feel, I suppose, that it is worth overlooking a few laws if it keeps one or two more billionaires in the state? Or if not that, what exactly is it you want the governor to do differently?

 

[Politesse]

I note that Valero was initially considering a full exit from the state, until Gavin Newsom opened negotiations and talked them into an ongoing import deal after the closure of the refineries. Which, unlike defining tax law for the state or relaxing environmental legislation, is actually the governor's job. I don't like Newsom's position on most questions of substantive policy, but it cannot be denied he's good at talking to people. You will pay less at the pump than you would have, next year, because Newsom sat down with some billionaires for a couple of weeks and cut a deal.

 

[ZiprHead]

The fifth (or is it fourth) largest economy in the world has chased Valero out of California

California just lost another giant, and this one came with a billion-dollar receipt. Valero Energy is reportedly taking a staggering $1 billion loss to shut down and exit California by April 2026 rather than comply with the ever-expanding mandates pushed by Governor Gavin Newsom and his regulatory agencies. Let that sink in. One of the largest energy companies in the country looked at Sacramento’s rules, did the math, and decided it was cheaper to walk away than play along. This is not a market failure. It is a policy failure. Valero’s billion-dollar exit should be a five-alarm fire for California Democrats, but don’t expect a course correction. Newsom and his allies remain committed to doubling down, even as refineries close, prices climb, and jobs vanish. Ideology comes first. Reality comes later.

News

Newsom should definitely run for president.

That reads like an oped more than a news article.

 

[Elixir]

I hope all California’s Valero employees that don’t take up the Company’s offer to move them, don’t end up broke and drunk, passed out on Swiz’s doorstep.

 

[Tigers!]

I note that Valero was initially considering a full exit from the state, until Gavin Newsom opened negotiations and talked them into an ongoing import deal after the closure of the refineries. Which, unlike defining tax law for the state or relaxing environmental legislation, is actually the governor's job. I don't like Newsom's position on most questions of substantive policy, but it cannot be denied he's good at talking to people. You will pay less at the pump than you would have, next year, because Newsom sat down with some billionaires for a couple of weeks and cut a deal.

Whilst it is good that politicans/policy makers are talking to business there is too often a hidden sting in the tail that comes out later. A nice quid pro quo for the businesses that somebody else has to pay for? I wonder what that one might be?

 

[Politesse]

I note that Valero was initially considering a full exit from the state, until Gavin Newsom opened negotiations and talked them into an ongoing import deal after the closure of the refineries. Which, unlike defining tax law for the state or relaxing environmental legislation, is actually the governor's job. I don't like Newsom's position on most questions of substantive policy, but it cannot be denied he's good at talking to people. You will pay less at the pump than you would have, next year, because Newsom sat down with some billionaires for a couple of weeks and cut a deal.

Whilst it is good that politicans/policy makers are talking to business there is too often a hidden sting in the tail that comes out later. A nice quid pro quo for the businesses that somebody else has to pay for? I wonder what that one might be?

It's not even a secret. Newsom's attitude toward Valero has been self-sacrificially capitulory from the start, offering them billions in exemptions and kickbacks just to operate the aging facilities. One of the reasons Valero finally pulled the plug on the Benicia facility was that they brazenly demanded a further $400 mil from the state on top of all the other bribes and inventives they were already receiving -- covering the entirety of the "routine maintenance" needed to keep the plant functional going forward. Newsom tried to talk them down to $280 mil, but they walked.

 

[Tigers!]

I note that Valero was initially considering a full exit from the state, until Gavin Newsom opened negotiations and talked them into an ongoing import deal after the closure of the refineries. Which, unlike defining tax law for the state or relaxing environmental legislation, is actually the governor's job. I don't like Newsom's position on most questions of substantive policy, but it cannot be denied he's good at talking to people. You will pay less at the pump than you would have, next year, because Newsom sat down with some billionaires for a couple of weeks and cut a deal.

Whilst it is good that politicans/policy makers are talking to business there is too often a hidden sting in the tail that comes out later. A nice quid pro quo for the businesses that somebody else has to pay for? I wonder what that one might be?

It's not even a secret. Newsom's attitude toward Valero has been self-sacrificially capitulory from the start, offering them billions in exemptions and kickbacks just to operate the aging facilities. One of the reasons Valero finally pulled the plug on the Benicia facility was that they brazenly demanded a further $400 mil from the state on top of all the other bribes and inventives they were already receiving -- covering the entirety of the "routine maintenance" needed to keep the plant functional going forward. Newsom tried to talk them down to $280 mil, but they walked.

Sometimes you have to say no more.