WorldNetDaily has long been a pal to right-wing California Republican gubernatorial candidate Leo Zacky — and giving him what little publicity it can offer as a fringe website. Zacky complained in a March 26 column:
California is gas and energy starved. But this is not due to drought or a lack of resources. For while the state’s population has grown, the state government has willfully shut down and shrunk our energy supply. From the closures of the nuclear power plants at San Onofre and soon at Diablo Canyon, to the closure of two major oil refineries – the Phillips 66 in Wilmington and the Valero in Benicia – California politicians have left California with only six operating facilities. These closures will reduce the state’s oil refining production by up to 20%.
California refineries were recently closed due to high operating costs resulting from strict environmental rules, market shifts resulting from the conflict in Iran, the high cost of needed upgrades, and industry consolidation making California’s refined fuels less competitive against the cheaper imported fuels and leading operators to seek better returns elsewhere.
California’s political push away from gasoline vehicles (AB 32), carbon taxes, and lower profit margins have played additional roles in the closures.
Those in the state capitol, backed by donors in the environmental lobby, have been pushing a “green energy agenda” of “alternative resources.” But this too is a farce!
Zacky devoted a March 31 column to introducing himself, which had to be embarrassing given that WND has repeatedly given him the opportunity to do so for months:
Despite those painful times, I learned something about loss, adapting, overcoming and getting back on one’s feet. California might be the world’s fourth largest economy, yet it is also one of the worst places for doing business. How ironic.
Thus we can do one of two things: 1) Complain about everything, or 2) Do something about it.
This is why I am running for governor. I have been respected in the agricultural industry and by statewide business owners. I have been a businessman since I was a teenager, with the knowledge, experience and passion to bring real solutions to the problems plaguing the world’s fourth largest economy. I have developed common-sense solutions to California’s key foundational issues and want to bring transparency and accountability to government and prosperity and quality of life to our people.
Zacky used an April 7 column to whine about too many regulations allegedly affecting the state’s food industry:
The Farm crisis. The Water crisis. The Electrical crisis. The Housing crisis. The Wildfire crisis. Gavin Newsom has been in Sacramento for almost 16 years – almost eight years as governor and eight years as lieutenant governor – and he has not solved anything.
I don’t have to this. I choose to do this. California, my home, is a complete mess with zero accountability. I served on several state boards and commissions and I saw the graft firsthand. It is hard to make changes when no one wants to change. That is why I am running for governor. I still care. I still believe in Reagan’s idea of “The California Dream.
We have taken our food supply for granted for so long that an entire generation believes food comes from the grocery store, with no thought of farms. A country’s food supply is indeed a national security issue, yet We The People treat is like a guaranteed, never-ending resource.
If it is not cherished and protected, it could one day disappear.
Zacky grumbled in a May 8 column:
Months ago, America was stunned to learn about the massive fraud occurring in Minnesota. Remember the now-notorious “Quality Learing Center”? The total price tag of the scandals in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” could exceed $9 billion. That is unconscionable.
But then the State of California came along and said, “Hold my beer!” That is when independent journalist Nick Shirley uncovered massive fraud in unemployment, in-home care and hospice services costing California taxpayers as much as $250 billion!
Republicans and Democrats rarely agree, but have come to one mind on the level of hospice corruption, but the two sides still want to fight about how to solve the dilemma.
WND didn’t allow anyone to respond to Zacky’s attacks — heck, it didn’t give any other California gubernatorial candidate the space to prattle on the way Zacky has. That would seem to violate standards of editorial fairness.