Blue reign in Sacramento: Democrats dominate California voting

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown and his fellow Democrats are on the cusp of a coveted supermajority in both the Assembly and Senate, giving them the rare power to raise taxes without any Republican support.

No single party has held such a supermajority in Sacramento since 1933.

To cement the dual two-thirds majorities when the Legislature gets down to business next year, Democrats must hold onto one of two Senate seats to be vacated and a few Assembly seats won in tight races. The Senate seats will be filled in special elections expected in March.

The supermajorities would mark a dramatic shift in Sacramento's balance of power, where GOP legislators have aggressively used their ability to block state budget plans and prevent revenue increases to scale back the scope of state government.

Coupled with the approval of Brown's tax plan, Proposition 30, the Democrats now have not only the power but also the money to break free of the deficit that has paralyzed state government for years.

The pressure on Democrats to restore funding for the many services slashed to balance the budget in recent years will be intense.

Already, activists are pressing lawmakers to pump new money into such programs as college scholarships, dental care for the needy and, of course, public schools.

But the first move Brown and legislative leaders made Wednesday was to reassure voters that they would show restraint.

They promised there would be no frenzy of tax hikes.

"Voters have trusted the elected representatives, maybe even trusted me to some extent, and now we've got to meet that trust," Brown said at a Wednesday news conference in the Capitol. "We've got to make sure over the next few years that we pay our bills, we invest in the right programs, but we don't go on any spending binges."

Still, lawmakers can appear to hold the line on revenue generation without actually doing so.

Supermajorities allow lawmakers to impose new fees to pay for infrastructure and other programs that are not technically defined as taxes.

And the same Democrats who are talking tough about fiscal responsibility this week have for years been touting the programs they want to restore or start once the opportunity is there. In addition to raising revenue, they would also be empowered to bring constitutional changes and other measures to voters without any GOP signoff — and to override gubernatorial vetoes.

Given a supermajority, "We're going to use it," Senate President Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said Wednesday.

"It will be an awesome responsibility," Steinberg said. "But it's very exciting.''

Steinberg briefed the media on his desire to overhaul the tax code.

The result, he acknowledged, could be more money for the state budget.

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles), who vowed there would be no additional tax increases next year, laid out goals that could trigger more government spending, such as helping students pay for college.

The success Tuesday of Brown's Proposition 30, which raises billions of dollars through temporary income-tax increases on high earners and a quarter-cent surcharge on sales, gives lawmakers breathing room they have not had in years.

With one election, a deficit that has rendered Sacramento dysfunctional and threatened to ravage public schools has been largely wiped out.

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Siemens to sharpen its game with 6 billion euros of savings

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“Ode to Joy” for Royal Philharmonic Society’s 200th

LONDON (Reuters) – The British music society that commissioned Beethoven to write his Ninth Symphony and its “Ode to Joy” announced on Wednesday it will celebrate the society’s 2013 bicentenary by showing off its manuscript of the work on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Royal Philharmonic Society, founded in London in January, 1813, also will sponsor performances of Beethoven’s last symphony, splash out on commissions of new music and will digitize its archive held at the British Library, the society announced in the London pub where its founders used to meet.

“Some of the most famous works in the classical repertoire were either commissioned by the Philharmonic Society or premiered in the UK at Philharmonic Society concerts,” John Gilhooly, the society’s Irish chairman, told reporters.

“Works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner and Delius, Debussy and Shostakovich, to name but a few,” Gilhooly continued, adding that the society had commissioned “over 60 composers in the last decade alone”.

The society will participate in exhibits in New York and London featuring manuscript versions of Beethoven’s last symphony which contains the “Ode to Joy” that has become a theme song for world peace and freedom.

The society’s archives record that in 1817 it paid Beethoven 50 guineas for the work. The society, which is not publicly funded and is financed by donations, got the “royal” tag in its centenary year.

Gilhooly said a much-photographed and copied bust of Beethoven that the society owns would be making a return visit to concert stages after having been squirreled away in the RPS headquarters for most of the past 30 years.

“It’s going to be a bit like the Olympic torch,” Gilhooly said. “It’s busted out in preparation for a grand tour.”

Founded by a group of professional musicians to make classical music available to a wider audience, the RPS said it was commissioning 16 new works by such prominent composers as Harrison Birtwistle, Wolfgang Rihm and Magnus Lindberg, some of them in conjunction with the Britten-Pears Foundation which is celebrating the centenary of British composer Benjamin Britten.

“I very much admire that they are sponsoring young composers, older composers, making it possible that music, even avant garde or little known music, is written and performed,” Alfred Brendel, one of the world’s most distinguished pianists and a RPS gold medal recipient, who retired from public performance several years ago, told Reuters at the launch event.

The exhibit of letters and manuscripts will be mounted in cooperation with the British Library and the Morgan Library and the Juilliard School of music in New York, which holds another copy of the Beethoven Ninth.

The American and British manuscripts of the symphony, annotated by Beethoven, will be seen together side by side for the first time since 1824 in New York later in the year, the society said.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Recipes for Health: Cabbage, Onion and Millet Kugel — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Light, nutty millet combines beautifully with the sweet, tender cabbage and onions in this kugel. I wouldn’t hesitate to serve this as a main dish.

 

1/2 medium head cabbage (1 1/2 pounds), cored and cut in thin strips

Salt to taste

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill

Freshly ground pepper

1 cup low-fat cottage cheese

2 eggs

2 cups cooked millet

 

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Oil a 2-quart baking dish. Toss the cabbage with salt to taste and let it sit for 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat in a large, heavy skillet and add the onion. Cook, stirring, until it begins to soften, about 3 minutes, then add a generous pinch of salt and turn the heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring often, until the onion is soft and beginning to color, about 10 minutes. Add the cabbage, turn the heat to medium, and cook, stirring often, until the cabbage is quite tender and fragrant, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the dill, taste and adjust salt, and add pepper to taste. Transfer to a large bowl.

3. In a food processor fitted with the steel blade, purée the cottage cheese until smooth. Add the eggs and process until the mixture is smooth. Add salt (I suggest about 1/2 teaspoon) and pepper and mix together. Scrape into the bowl with the cabbage. Add the millet and stir everything together. Scrape into the oiled baking dish. Drizzle the remaining oil over the top and place in the oven.

4. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the sides are nicely browned and the top is beginning to color. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature, cut into squares or wedges.

Yield: 6 servings.

Advance preparation: The cooked millet will keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days and freezes well. The kugel will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator. Reheat in a medium oven.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 195 calories; 7 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 64 milligrams cholesterol; 23 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 148 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 10 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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DealBook: On Wall Street, Time to Mend Fences With Obama

Del Frisco’s, an expensive steakhouse with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Boston harbor, was a festive scene on Tuesday evening. The hedge fund billionaires Steven A. Cohen, Paul Singer and Daniel Loeb were among the titans of finance there dining among the gray velvet banquettes before heading several blocks away to what they hoped would be a victory party for their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.

The next morning was a cold, sobering one for these executives.

Few industries have made such a one-sided bet as Wall Street did in opposing President Obama and supporting his Republican rival. The top five sources of contributions to Mr. Romney, a former top private equity executive, were big banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Wealthy financiers — led by hedge fund investors — were the biggest group of givers to the main “super PAC” backing Mr. Romney, providing almost $33 million, and gave generously to outside groups in races around the country.

On Wednesday, Mr. Loeb, who had supported Mr. Obama in 2008, was sanguine. “You win some, you lose some,” he said in an interview. “We can all disagree. I have friends and we have spirited discussions. Sure, I am not getting invited to the White House anytime soon, but as citizens of the country we are all friendly.”

Wall Street, however, now has to come to terms with an administration it has vilified. What Washington does next will be critically important for the industry, as regulatory agencies work to put their final stamp on financial regulations and as tax increases and spending cuts are set to take effect in the new year unless a deal to avert them is reached. To not have a friend in the White House at this time is one thing, but to have an enemy is quite another.

“Wall Street is now going to have to figure out how to make this relationship work,” said Glenn Schorr, an analyst who follows the big banks for the investment bank Nomura. “It’s not impossible, but it’s not the starting point they had hoped for.”

Traditionally, the financial industry has tended to support Republican candidates, but, being pragmatic about power, has also donated to Democrats. That script got a rewrite in 2008, when many on Wall Street supported Mr. Obama as an intelligent leader for a country reeling from the financial crisis. Goldman employees were the leading source of campaign donations for Mr. Obama, who reaped far more contributions — roughly $16 million — from Wall Street than did his opponent, John McCain.

The love affair between Wall Street and Mr. Obama soured soon after he took office and championed an overhaul in financial regulations that became the Dodd-Frank Act.

Some financial executives complained that in meetings with the president, they found him disinterested and disengaged, while others on Wall Street never forgave Mr. Obama for calling them “fat cats.”

The disillusionment with the president spawned reams of critical commentary from Wall Street executives.

“So long as our leaders tell us that we must trust them to regulate and redistribute our way back to prosperity, we will not break out of this economic quagmire,” Mr. Loeb wrote in one letter to his investors.

The rhetoric at times became extreme, like the time Steven A. Schwarzman, co-founder of the private equity firm Blackstone Group, compared a tax proposal to “when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” (Mr. Schwarzman later apologized for the remark.)

Mr. Loeb was not alone in switching allegiances in the recent presidential race. Hedge fund executives like Leon Cooperman who had supported Mr. Obama in 2008 were big backers of Mr. Romney in 2012. And Wall Street chieftains like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, who have publicly been Democrats in the past, kept a low profile during this election. But their firms’ employees gave money to Mr. Romney in waves.

Starting over with the Obama White House will not be easy. One senior Wall Street lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity said Wall Street “made a bad mistake” in pushing so hard for Mr. Romney. “They are going to pay a price,” he said. “It will soften over time, but there will be a price.”

Mr. Obama is not without supporters on Wall Street. Prominent executives like Hamilton James of Blackstone, and Robert Wolf, a former top banker at UBS, were in Chicago on Tuesday night, celebrating with the president.

“What we learned is the people on Wall Street have one vote just like everyone else,” Mr. Wolf said. Still, while the support Wall Street gave Mr. Romney is undeniable, Mr. Wolf said, “Mr. Obama wants a healthy private sector, and that includes Wall Street.

“If you look at fiscal reform, infrastructure, immigration and education, they are all bipartisan issues and are more aligned than some people make it seem.”

Reshma Saujani, a former hedge fund lawyer who was among Mr. Obama’s top bundlers this year and is planning to run for city office next year, agreed.

“Most people in the financial services sector are social liberals who support gay marriage and believe in a woman’s right to choose, so I think many of them will swing back to Democrats in the future,” she said.

---

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 8, 2012

An earlier version of this article misidentified Reshma Saujani as a male.

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Voters' reactions mixed on raft of ballot measures

SACRAMENTO — Proposals to ease the state's three-strikes sentencing law and stiffen penalties for human trafficking — part of a group of measures that would reshape the justice system — held comfortable leads in voting returns early Wednesday.

A measure to abolish the death penalty was trailing badly, however, and Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to raise taxes and prevent deep cuts to public education was leading, though narrowly.

In other contests, voters were opposing an initiative to label genetically engineered foods and leaning against one to curb organized labor's clout in state politics.

Californians were rejecting by a wide margin a measure to raise income taxes to boost school spending, while favoring another to eliminate a corporate tax break to help balance Sacramento's books. Voters seemed opposed to efforts to retool the way California crafts budgets and change state law to create a new car insurance discount. A referendum that would uphold newly drawn state Senate districts appeared headed for victory.

---

FOR THE RECORD:
This article on Nov. 7 said that more than $500,000 was expected to have been spent in California this election. The correct figure is more than $500 million. —

---

More than $500,000 was expected to have been spent in California this election, most of it in initiative fights.

The election gave voters their first opportunity to weigh in on the death penalty since they reaffirmed capital punishment in 1978. Overturning one or both of the state's most iconic and controversial tough-on-crime sentencing laws would mark a significant reversal for Californians, who overwhelmingly approved the three-strikes law nearly two decades ago.

"This historic victory overturns the long-held conventional wisdom that it's impossible to fix our most extreme and unjust crime laws — and hopefully inspires future efforts," said Dan Newman, a spokesman for the three-strikes measure, Proposition 36.

Brown had pitched Proposition 30, his $6 billion-a-year tax hike on sales and high-income earners as the linchpin of his plan to restore fiscal sanity to Sacramento — the central promise of his gubernatorial campaign. He said he was confident his campaign had overcome his well-funded opposition.

The criminal justice measures were among the most controversial on the ballot.

Proponents of Proposition 34 created the measure to replace capital punishment with life in prison without parole, a change they said could save the state as much as $130 million a year by effectively eliminating capital trials, reducing appeals and cutting the cost of special housing. The measure would require convicted killers to work while in prison, direct their earnings to their victims and earmark $100 million for police to solve murders and rapes.

Opponents, primarily law enforcement and victims' groups, countered that any savings could be consumed by healthcare costs for lifetime inmates.

Backers of Proposition 36 urged Californians to change the three-strikes sentencing law so offenders whose third strikes were relatively minor, such as shoplifting or drug possession, could no longer be given 25 years to life in prison. Inmates doing that kind of time for non-serious offenses could ask for a sentence reduction.

Opponents noted that current law already allows prosecutors and judges to spare a third-striker the maximum sentence.

Backers of a third justice-related measure, Proposition 35, promoted increased punishment for sex trafficking of a minor, from a maximum eight-year sentence to up to life in prison. The proposal would also increase the fine, from a cap of $100,000 to a maximum of $1.5 million.

The governor had been flogging his tax measure, Proposition 30, for months. His plan included a quarter-cent state sales tax increase for four years, plus seven years of higher income taxes — elevated one to three percentage points — on those making more than $250,000 annually.

Opponents cast the measure as a Sacramento power grab, arguing in a multimillion-dollar ad campaign that Brown was misleading voters by saying all the new revenue would go to schools. In fact, some of it could be used for other government programs.

Millionaire civil-rights lawyer Molly Munger bankrolled Proposition 38, to increase income taxes for most Californians to raise funds primarily for schools and early childhood education. Tom Steyer, a Bay Area investor, funded Proposition 39, his bid to end a controversial corporate tax break and use the money — about $1 billion a year — to help balance the budget and pay for a new green-energy program.

Read More..

Move over, Obama; Twitter had a big night too

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Recipes for Health: Sweet Millet Kugel — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Millet, a light, fluffy gluten-free grain that is a good source of magnesium, manganese and phosphorus, lends itself beautifully to both sweet and savory kugels. In fact, this kugel turned me into a millet convert.

 

2/3 cup millet

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 cups water

Salt to taste

1 cup cottage cheese

3 eggs

1/4 cup low-fat milk

1/4 cup mild honey or agave nectar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 cup (3 ounces) diced dried apricots

1/2 cup (3 ounces) raisins (or omit and use all apricots)

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

 

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the butter or oil over medium-high heat in a heavy 2- or 3-quart saucepan. Meanwhile, bring the water to a simmer in another saucepan or in the microwave. Add the millet to the heavy saucepan and toast, stirring, until it begins to smell fragrant and toasty, about 5 minutes. Add the boiling water and salt to taste, and bring back to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer 25 to 30 minutes, until the liquid in the saucepan has evaporated and the grains are fluffy. Transfer to a large bowl.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 2-quart baking dish. In a food processor fitted with the steel blade, blend the cottage cheese until smooth. Add the milk, eggs, vanilla and nutmeg and blend until smooth. Scrape into the bowl with the millet.

3. Stir together the millet and cottage cheese mixture. Stir in the apricots, raisins and lemon zest. Scrape into the prepared baking dish. Cut the remaining butter into small pieces and dot the top of the kugel with them. Bake 40 to 50 minutes, until the kugel is set and beginning to color on the top.

4. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes (longer if possible) before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Advance preparation: This will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator. It’s best if you warm it up, either in a low oven or in the microwave.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 306 calories; 8 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 105 milligrams cholesterol; 50 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 149 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 12 grams protein

Nutritional information per serving (8 servings): 229 calories; 6 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 79 milligrams cholesterol; 37 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams dietary fiber; 112 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 9 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

Read More..

Mothers from Central America search for missing kin in Mexico

SALTILLO, Mexico — The mothers knock on the doors of flophouses and morgues. They sift through pictures of prisoners and the dead. Clutching pictures of their own, some from long ago, they ask the same questions, over and over.

Have you seen him? Does she look familiar?

Occasionally, there is a reported sighting. More often, it's another shake of the head, a "Sorry, no." And with that, weariness stooping their shoulders and worry sagging their faces, they board their bus and move on to another town.

By last weekend, these mothers, wives and sisters of missing Central American migrants had already crossed some of Mexico's most dangerous territory in their two-bus caravan.

Following a route often used by migrants northward along the Gulf Coast to the U.S., they had entered the country in the south through Tabasco state. They traveled through Veracruz and Tamaulipas, sites recently of horrific massacres of Central Americans and others, stopping along the way to ask and search — against all the odds wishing for a happy ending.

By the time they finish what has become an annual mission organized by several migrant rights and church groups, they will have traveled to 23 cities and towns in 14 states in 19 days. A total of nearly 3,000 miles.

Aboard the buses, with the lived-in feel of ordered chaos, the women pass the time dozing, chatting, occasionally watching a movie.

Despite their pain, or perhaps because of it, they find friendship. The Nicaraguans share stories of their experiences during their country's civil war, telling of relatives killed or forced into armies; the Hondurans recount tales of their nation's utter, violent poverty that fuels one of the world's highest homicide rates and drives their children to seek lives elsewhere.

Emotions soar and fall. The women joke and tease one another and laugh. Then, suddenly, one remembers the son she is missing and breaks into sobs and another moves to her side to comfort her.

Another nine hours through hot, dusty cactus fields brought them here to Saltillo, the capital of Coahuila state, where the top leader of the notorious Zetas paramilitary cartel was slain by government forces last month. By all accounts, it is the Zetas who most routinely and viciously prey on the migrants, thousands of whom have gone missing in recent years — kidnapped, killed, pressed into involuntary labor by drug traffickers, or simply lost to poverty and desperation.

Dilma Pilar Escobar last heard from her daughter, Olga, in January 2010. Olga had taken off from their home in Progreso, Honduras, leaving behind five children, with the plan of reaching the United States. Like so many others, her idea was to earn a little money, make things a little easier for her mother and her children.

Now Escobar is raising her grandchildren, listening to their questions every night about when their mother might come home. She is running out of answers.

"I've looked in hospitals, in morgues," said Escobar, 55. "We see so much about what's happening in Mexico on TV. It puts a lot in your head."

Escobar was inspired to make the trip in part by a local radio program that attempts to help families with missing relatives.

"It gave me the push to come here," said the woman with dark, unsmiling eyes, grasping an 8-by-10 photo of Olga that hangs from her neck on a green cord.

In each city or town, the mothers stage a public event to make their presence known. A Mass. A march. Here in Saltillo, they converged on the downtown Plaza de Armas, the pale-blue-and-white that adorns all Central American flags fluttering in the breeze ahead of the slow march of mothers. They hung their photos of loved ones on clotheslines at the center of the square.

The women — about 40 on this year's caravan — sleep on cots in churches or in "migrant houses," shelters set up by a number of communities, where they also receive donated meals.

"We are facing a humanitarian tragedy," Tomas Gonzalez, a Franciscan friar who runs a shelter in Tabasco, told the women. "Mexico has become a cemetery for migrants."

In August 2010, 72 migrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and a handful of other countries were slain execution-style, hands tied behind backs, shot once in the head, in Tamaulipas state, which borders Texas. Among the youngest was 15-year-old Yedmi Victoria Castro of El Salvador. The Zetas were presumed responsible. Dozens more bodies were found in the same region in the months that followed.

Not a week goes by, it seems, without fresh reports of hidden graves and unidentified dead. But the Mexican government has been slow to recognize the epidemic of missing persons, only this year moving to toughen legislation and expand the collection of DNA samples and other data.

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Apple sells three million iPads over first weekend

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Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_dataset = Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_dataset || {};

Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_whitelist = Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_whitelist || {};


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Y.later(10, this, function() {
if(!("Media" in YAHOO)){YAHOO.Media = {};}
if(!("ugcrate" in YAHOO.Media)){YAHOO.Media.ugcrate = {};}
if(!("Media" in Y)){Y.namespace("Media");}
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