Anyone who drives down the mean streets of LA these days knows California is having hard times, the hardest times I can remember – and I’ve been a resident of this state since 1969. Windows are shuttered on once trendy Melrose. Even Rodeo Drive is putting up vacancy signs. The only businesses that look to be thriving are the medical marijuana storefronts and they may have peaked. And help does not seem to be on the way. The politicians in Sacramento are the most dysfunctional group this side of the Betty Ford Center.
In the midst of this the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger – on which so many had high hopes – is fading out in a cloud of banal insignificance. No one will remember what he did or even tried to do. If he’s lucky, Jim Cameron will hire him for his next movie.
Next up: apparently Jerry Brown II vs. Meg Whitman – the former governor vs. the former Ebay CEO who, in previous incarnations, wasn’t sufficiently interested in politics to vote. Does that matter? I’m not sure, but it’s not particularly inspiring. Of course Brown is even less inspiring. What’s interesting about Jerry is that he’s far more appealing as a man than he is as a leader or politician. As the former, he’s kind of a groovy guy in a seventies way – in other words, fun as a dinner companion, if a little too given to psychobabble. As a pol, despite the Governor Moonbeam rep, he was and is the most conventional of liberal Democrats, not exactly the prescription for a state that is falling apart from over-taxation and hemorrhaging businesses at something approaching the speed of light.
What California needs is a Tea Party movement of its own, but it will be difficult for the largely red state Tea Parties to translate here in the land of mass media and freeways. Maybe we need some version of high tech tea parties that run on iPhones and arugula. I don’t know exactly what that means, other than a turn of phrase, but this is the land of the turn of phrase writ large, where Apple products (made in China, of course) are labeled “designed by Apple in California,” acknowledging the state’s great creative power, the rest of the USA somehow lagging behind. California is still supposedly the land of the future where the next generation of Mamas and Papas are destined to do their dreaming. Well, if you say so, but it’s not by accident Apple itself is building its billion-dollar server farm in North Carolina, some three thousand miles from the Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
That’s how desperate things are. I know Jerry Brown isn’t the solution to that (although he might be great for an expanded medical marijuana business), but I’m not sure how great Whitman will be either. California is not Ebay. It’s the biggest state in the union and it’s suffering to such a degree it’s pulling the rest of the country down with it. Like the rest of the political class – or in her case the wannabe political class – Whitman is in need of a solid Tea Partyish push from the people themselves. It’s too late for the conventional politics of either party, in California more than anywhere. This state needs to be set free. It needs Scott Brown, not Jerry Brown.
UPDATE: A commenter correctly points out that I have overlooked State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who is vying with Whitman for the Republican nomination. As of now, the voters have too (45% to 17%, with 38% undecided). Of course, that may change. But whatever happens, my point remains. We are in an era of anti-establishment politics – and that is needed nowhere so much as California whose political classes have been moribund for years.
I always enjoy reading your blog. As a resident of the mid-west, I have always admired and looked to to CA as the leader and trend setter in the US. It’s sad to see the situation we have come to. Sometimes things have to get really bad before people act. As you point out, state leadership has not been impressive and the outlook doesn’t look all that good. However, it sometimes happens that when things look the worst, a leader will, as the say, “rise to the occasion” and do great things. I’m hoping this will happen in CA’s case.
Roger, so like that you are writing off Steve Poizner?
Meg Whitman has a clear understanding of California’s economic troubles—and might be willing to take the physically courageous measures necessary to resolve them. The next governor of California needs to worry about the possibility of becoming a victim of violence. A number of government employees in their late forties are getting ready to retire at the age of fifty with a sixty thousand dollar annual pension and benefits. They are going to have to be told that this will not occur. Instead, these individuals will have to be patient until the age of sixty-five and a pension of perhaps $30,000 annually. This is will enrage more then a few of these workers.
How many purple and red state voters are leaving California on a weekly basis? One suspects it is increasingly getting bluer. California’s last realistic chance could be this year’s elections. The odds are no better than fifty/fifty. That a silly person like Jerry Brown has even got a decent chance of being elected is demoralizing. Things do not look very good.
As Joe said, Red Staters have looked upon CA as a place of innovation and trend setting. It’s amazing that a person with solid private sector experience is even willing to tackle the state’s official suicidal policies.
Things will get ugly fast as the CA public sector takes out its rage upon the private sector when the latter makes CA survive.
If the tea party can be a force in MA why can’t it be one in CA?
5. Steve:
If the tea party can be a force in MA why can’t it be one in CA?
Good question. Could be the transitory nature of our population; newcomers with and without citizenship papers are always arriving to take advantage of our “progressive” politics. As a consequence, many long-time business owners and homeowners are pulling up stakes and heading for Texas and Nevada. Maybe no one stays here long enough to pass on their hard-earned wisdom that our “progressive” politics don’t work. We always have a fresh infusion of takers and starry-eyed liberals.
Theory.
California is even worse than Massachusetts because there is a rich subset of residents who are here for the weather, whose money is tucked away in the Cayman Islands and who think they get points from Gaia for voting left and “eating right,” as they say in France about champagne Socialists.
The gravest danger the rest of the country faces if California doesn’t do something (Drasticaly) to fix their economic meltdown, is what I like to call the California Effect.
That is when people flee the nonsense that the state has generated in Sacremento and move someplace that’s being run by Sensible Republicans.
When they get their, they proceed to vote into office the same kind of wacco liberals they were voting into office when they ran away from Cali.
Shortly after that, the same policies that made California so “Wonderful” are being inplemented in their new home. Repeating the California Phenomena over again in a New place.
Hey, Californians, Stay Home and fix the Mess you created there. Don’t spread throughout the country like a disease.
jd
Don’t worry Roger, if things really get tough you can always open a chain of payroll advance and check cashing services. And although I think any pol who sets about righting the leaky rowboat that California has become is in danger the real trouble will come from all those big city three generation welfare folks. We’ve already seen how they react when the state subsidy goes away.
David T. the violence that may occur if the correct measures needed to right the ship in CA are taken, will be uglier on the country level.
The unions and government( one in the same?) just don’t get it, they need to create a symbiotic not parasitic relationship with thei host.
End the war on jobs. November 2010
Whitman is saying all the right things, in terms of reforming state government and trying to get the government back on track. The problem is that Schwarzenegger said most of the same things when he first ran, and then was thwarted at every turn by the legislature and the public employee unions. Neither wants reform in the least. The goal, as far as they’re concerned, is to raise taxes as much as possible, and pass the money on to their special interest groups.
My favorite factoid from the recent news: if you lose your job, have to sell your house, and wind up selling it short (i.e. you sell it for less than you owe on it, and the bank eats the difference) the amount you short sell it by is *income* as far as the State of California is concerned. Yes, that means they try to tax people who are broke and can’t even keep their homes. We also are the first state to tax visiting athletes (in the interests of fairness we hit the minor league guys too; some of them barely make subsistence wages, but they have to file if they play a single game in California) and anyone else we can get our hands on. I’m wondering when we’ll tax people conducting business deals as they fly from Las Vegas to Hawaii, if they do the deal while in our airspace.
Last year, during the budget negotiations, the Democrat Assembly speaker bemoaned the fact that not one Republican would vote for what she primly referred to as “revenue enhancement”. The phrase “tax increase” is unpopular, I guess. Until the State’s legislature is turned out, and the public employee unions are brought under control, things are only going to get worse. No one in those groups wants to hear this. They seem to think that the land of early retirement with whopping pensions, and unlimited power to regulate everyone else’s behavior, is going to continue regardless. I guess they think they can appeal to the Federal government, and make South Carolina and Ohio pay for California’s excesses, but I think they have a rude shock coming: Obama and the Democratic National Committee know to send the money where they can either win or lose an election…not to states where they’ll win no matter what they do.
You misunderstand and underestimate Jerry Brown, though. Jerry’s not going to reform things, he’ll be spending like a fool if he’s elected, but he’s not an idiot. I remember back in the ’70′s, when the issue of crime and punishment pitted Democrats against Republicans directly. No one had ever heard of victim’s rights, and the left was consistently on the side of those accused of crimes, because they might be innocent, and even if they weren’t they had been pushed into it by society in some form. Jerry Brown was the first Democrat politician I can remember to point out that the public wasn’t just concerned with the rights of the accused, that the rights of the victims mattered too.
He also has an at times quixotic, but sometimes also appealing approach to politics, and it can be somewhat politically incorrect. As Mayor of Oakland, he set up a public school that only admitted boys (the feminists howled in pain) and that was a military school to boot. The intent was to rehabilitate truly delinquent students, and it had some success for a few years before succumbing to lawsuits. He spent the time he was governor here driving his own car rather unpretentiously, and refusing to live in the Governor’s Mansion, which he insisted that as a bachelor he didn’t need. He once ran a campaign for the Democratic nomination for President, and refused donations of more than $100 from anyone, individuals or corporations. He’s not the typical Democrat.
What does all of this mean? I think we’re heading for the cliff, and those who could do something about it are determined that we continue on course, because the alternative would be personally painful for at least a few of them…and that’s unacceptable.
“The unions and government( one in the same?) just don’t get it, they need to create a symbiotic not parasitic relationship with thei host.”
There is little doubt in my mind that we are entering an era when families and friendships will be split apart by the question: do you earn your living in the public or private sector? In 1962 John F. Kennedy caused enormous damage when he via an executive order permitted government employees throughout the nation to unionize. Few of these people may be willing to listen to reason. They feel entitled to their overly generous salaries and pensions. I can easily imagine an occasional worker getting dead drunk—and then proceeding to violently attack politicians deemed responsible for their plight.
A purple state voter might be best described as someone earning a living in the private sector normally bored by politics. No longer. They realize our national debt threatens their own future and also that of their loved ones. The Republicans will get their support for at least the next two election cycles. Democrats are now perceived as the party representing the government employee unions.
I agree with other posters here that California is reform Mount Everest. I think I have an explanation: California is just too big. It is also two states and two different worlds.
Having lived in the Bay Area a third of my life and Orange County the rest, California really should saw itself in half and allow the Bay Area to become the Cuba it so desperately wants to be. San Francisco’s billion dollar deficits should be paid by those who ran it up with entitlements that, for instance, provide monthly grant stipends to the homeless that exceed the starting pay of a SFSD teacher.
We all have our colorful San Franciso / Oakland visit horror stories. But just try living there. There is a gloom, a darkness, of not just the sky but the people. A feeling that life is a drudge to be got through for some stock options, with occasional cafe breaks to warm up. Residents counterbalance that with a smug condescension towards anything that is not Our Own. The worse life gets there – from cyclical boom and bust, ancient, decaying infrastructure, nonexistent roads, and the constant rain and freezing wind, San Franciscans take refuge in a gigantic swig of hatred towards the US, capitalism, and Los Angeles in particular. I was constantly looked at with amazement with the news that I was from Southern California, yet could read, write and use verbs.
Other Californians tolerate the Bay Area with a laugh because it is not big enough to do real damage, or so we have thought. But that void hasn’t been filled – at least in spirit – by the Southland. Though several times the size of the North, SoCal has always felt detached and powerless from the capitol so far away. It’s a ten hour drive there from San Diego. I don’t know any other way to explain the hands-off attitude SoCal has towards Sacramento, but there has always been a feeling that we are not in our own driver’s seat.
Schwarzenegger said most of the same things when he first ran, and then was thwarted at every turn by the legislature and the public employee unions.
I beg to differ slightly. He was also thwarted by his own inertia, lack of leadership, and desire for popularity. He offered a few great ideas and then failed to fight for them. When they failed, he surrendered with the words, “Lesson learned.”
Whitman has been asked, how are you going to do these things where Schwarzenegger failed? She vehemently answers, “Leadership!” She talks of the need for guts, the ability to take a few rotten tomatoes hurled her way.
Who knows? Maybe she’ll win, and maybe she’ll do what she says.
He spent the time he was governor here driving his own car rather unpretentiously
Actually, I believe he did so quite *pretentiously*.
PM #12–great slogan. I’m definitely going to make a new sign for the next TEA Party rally. End the war on jobs, indeed!
Whitman is saying all the right things, in terms of reforming state government and trying to get the government back on track. The problem is that Schwarzenegger said most of the same things when he first ran, and then was thwarted at every turn by the legislature and the public employee unions. Neither wants reform in the least. The goal, as far as they’re concerned, is to raise taxes as much as possible, and pass the money on to their special interest groups.
My favorite factoid from the recent news: if you lose your job, have to sell your house, and wind up selling it short (i.e. you sell it for less than you owe on it, and the bank eats the difference) the amount you short sell it by is *income* as far as the State of California is concerned. Yes, that means they try to tax people who are broke and can’t even keep their homes. We also are the first state to tax visiting athletes (in the interests of fairness we hit the minor league guys too; some of them barely make subsistence wages, but they have to file if they play a single game in California) and anyone else we can get our hands on. I’m wondering when we’ll tax people conducting business deals as they fly from Las Vegas to Hawaii, if they do the deal while in our airspace.
Last year, during the budget negotiations, the Democrat Assembly speaker bemoaned the fact that not one Republican would vote for what she primly referred to as “revenue enhancement”. The phrase “tax increase” is unpopular, I guess. Until the State’s legislature is turned out, and the public employee unions are brought under control, things are only going to get worse. No one in those groups wants to hear this. They seem to think that the land of early retirement with whopping pensions, and unlimited power to regulate everyone else’s behavior, is going to continue regardless. I guess they think they can appeal to the Federal government, and make South Carolina and Ohio pay for California’s excesses, but I think they have a rude shock coming: Obama and the Democratic National Committee know to send the money where they can either win or lose an election…not to states where they’ll win no matter what they do.
You misunderstand and underestimate Jerry Brown, though. Jerry’s not going to reform things, he’ll be spending like a fool if he’s elected, but he’s not an idiot. I remember back in the ’70′s, when the issue of crime and punishment pitted Democrats against Republicans directly. No one had ever heard of victim’s rights, and the left was consistently on the side of those accused of crimes, because they might be innocent, and even if they weren’t they had been pushed into it by society in some form. Jerry Brown was the first Democrat politician I can remember to point out that the public wasn’t just concerned with the rights of the accused, that the rights of the victims mattered too.
He also has an at times quixotic, but sometimes also appealing approach to politics, and it can be somewhat politically incorrect. As Mayor of Oakland, he set up a public school that only admitted boys (the feminists howled in pain) and that was a military school to boot. The intent was to rehabilitate truly delinquent students, and it had some success for a few years before succumbing to lawsuits. He spent the time he was governor here driving his own car rather unpretentiously, and refusing to live in the Governor’s Mansion, which he insisted that as a bachelor he didn’t need. He once ran a campaign for the Democratic nomination for President, and refused donations of more than $100 from anyone, individuals or corporations. He’s not the typical Democrat.
What does all of this mean? I think we’re heading for the cliff, and those who could do something about it are determined that we continue on course, because the alternative would be personally painful for at least a few of them…and that’s unacceptable.
Oh, and about the state pension thing. Two points need to be made. One is that this is going to be more of a tussle than the commenters, notably #3. David Thomson, think it will. Pensions are a one-way street, legally. If someone hired on in California with the promise of working til they were 65, and collecting a small pension thereafter, and later someone decided to change that to 50 and a gynormous pension, the State probably won’t be allowed to revert back to the former. Remember, the State will have to argue its case if front of a judge, and said judge will be looking forward to *his* generous and early pension, too. There’s no way around it, and it’s one of the reasons I think we’re screwed, period. The only viable solution, as far as these people are concerned, is whopping tax increases on the private sector. I’ve often suggested that what California needs to do, really, is raise taxes on the people who *used* to live here. They probably still have some money, and a job.
Scott Brown thinks its fun to kill unborn babies. We don’t need him for anything.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to post that twice. I’ve never really mastered the art of computers.
#15. Arhooley
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I frankly disagree with your analysis. “Leadership” is a nice word that doesn’t mean much unless the person involved can have an effect. In Arnold’s case, he criss-crossed the State making speeches, but failed to make an impression. Why? Well the State’s politicians and public employee unions were smart. Most of them stayed in the background, and they let a few select unions that still have positive impressions with the public (schoolteachers, firefighters, police officers, nurses) make their arguments to the public. The TV commercials started even before Schwarzenegger was inaugurated, and I saw (my wife keeps our TV on constantly) at least one commercial every day for a solid year. Often there was one at every commercial break in an evening. The public employee unions reportedly spent a whopping $100 Million opposing Schwarzenegger’s reform impulse, and all of his referendums were easily defeated as a result. They hit him so hard there was nothing left except a shell, and he’s been acting shell-shocked ever since.
Thing is, there’s nothing to prevent them from doing the same thing to Whitman, assuming she wins. They still have these whopping pension plans, and everyone is still awash in money. The only people who *don’t* have money in this state are those in the private sector. The public employees are awash in it, and will spend it to protect their entitlements. Hell, the DMV actually staged a sick-out because they don’t get *Columbus Day* off!
When they get their, they proceed to vote into office the same kind of wacco liberals they were voting into office when they ran away from Cali.
I seen this type of thing repeated on blogs whenever there is a discussion of California. I have yet to see a single person ever back it up with evidence.
Do you have any proof of this or are you just talking out of your ass?
In Arnold’s case, he criss-crossed the State making speeches, but failed to make an impression.
I guess I saw something different from you. All I remember is wall-to-wall public employee advertising to which Arnold never responded. Maybe if he’d directly tackled some of those ridiculous ads showing careworn teachers and nurses (of color, naturally) who only wanted to give of themselves for a mere pittance in return — if only Arnold would let them keep their jobs of servitude and sacrifice! I mostly listen to radio, where they were equally inescapable. I just didn’t hear Arnold answering their silly claims.
I agree about the shell-shock, though. I have a little more faith in Whitman if for no other reason than that she has a chance to see the force that blind-sided Schwarzenegger.
To turn things around we have to: DOWNSIZE WASHINGTON; DOWNSIZE SACRAMENTO; from here, DOWNSIZE ALBANY, etc.
jd @9
Ain’t it the truth. Same thing happens/is happening in the NE as the leftist disease is spread by hypocrites out of NY/NJ/Etc.
Sometimes I think stupidity is what distinguishes Man from the animals.
Arnie has a good heart, but didn’t know what he was taking on. His governorship is a greek tragedy. We will have trouble replacing the legislature, so the gubernatorial race is our only chance to avoid state bankruptcy. Arnold appealed to the voters to fix things, and was hamstrung by the unions. Instead, he should have gone to war with them using the gubernatorial powers. Don’t sell Whitman short. She could do it. The question is, is she ready to go to war and to win? She has the correct experience. The question is, is she a Patton, or a Carter?
The tipping point has turned into a drowning point. Sloths/Over-Taxation/Illegals FTW.
Meg sounds like everything she knows about state government she learned from a focus group. In fact, California government is Byzantine with a capital B. Constantinople in the 10th century was an easier place to govern.
18. DavidN
In regards to state pensions being decreased the key is simply to disguise it as a new tax. Just as we have different tax rates depending on the source of the income now, such as for capital gains, etc, one way may be to put a new, steep, and “progressive” tax on the money anyone gets from the State.
You still get that pension, but you have to hand 80% of it back in taxes because that income comes from the State coffers. Its a Public Service Tax. Same result–different rationale.
I grew up in LA, went to school at UC Berkeley, and live now in LA.
I never had high hopes for Arnold Swarzengger, the movie star. After the recall of Davis, I voted Tom McClintock ; he was the real deal. But he lost.
Now, I have high hopes for Meg Whitman.
Unlike you, Roger, I am not going to aimlessly drift wishing we had a Scott Brown.
We have is Meg Whitman and she is extremely impressive – a very successful CEO (unlike Swarzenegger) with vision and the will to put her own fortune into her own success.
Poizner is a good guy, but he’s an engineer; he totally lacksin Meg’s marketing abitlities.
To change the unions, and the politics in Sacramento will require the backing of the residents of California – among other things. I think Meg can get Californians behind her; I don’t feel Poizner can.
In conclusion: Californians need to work with what they have not wish for a Scott Brown.
Just take a moment to look over Jerry Brown’s website. NOTHING about how he will even try to fix California’s problems. Guess he thinks there aren’t any.
Also heard a story on NPR today. Apparently, Los Angeles city is about to go under too. Maybe a loan from Sacramento or DC will save it all.
I just found a down and out business in CA and did a merger with them. They needed me real bad. I think it will work out, but you never know for sure.
California is actually a beautiful state; scenery, and weather is almost perfect.
However, as it is with other states run by liberals, they always destroy, rather than build.
Voters should pay attention, and vote accordingly.
“who, in previous incarnations, wasn’t sufficiently interested in politics to vote.”
Good for her. Shows she has a sense of perspective about government. I’m tired of being governed by people who couldn’t wait to be of voting age. Their schemes lead us to ruin.
“so many had high hopes –” on Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor?
The weight lifting gigolo of a Kennedy brat?
Man, have you people ever bought into your own propaganda.
Whoever gets whatever office, no one will roll back the regulations and statutes that caused the trouble, nor abolish the Civil Service Code. Even the Beatles and Mick Jagger combined (do the voters support any other than “idols”?).
Mad-Max Land, here we come! And LOTS faster than you think.
Where the California “leadership”, public employee unions (and most of the progressive elite) do not “get it” is, that government supports the will of the people, not the other way around. In the corporate world this paradigm of perpetual failure (and no responsibility) is repeated in organizations where HR functionaries run companies (because all the other parts of these companies support them). This bass ackwards “leadership” paradigm is the literal demonstration of the phrase “the tail wagging the dog”.
I used to compare HR departments to the old briefings we had on the Soviet Union (there the real power was; The Red Army, The KGB, the Government and the party. The party had no power in and of itself, but it controlled recruiting, promotions and benefits for the other 3). Some HR types were offended . . . now they run California.
Unfortunately it will take more than a governor with a pair…Kennedy-filtered or untainted. Until the grass root voters begin to nominate and elect legislators to overturn the nonsense inflicted already, there will be no point of electing Rambo for eventually the legislative left will block or dilute any reform efforts.
The Catch 22 is that until the illegal problems are managed the downward spiral will continue and as they are “managed” the legal Hispanic vote will continue to elect the left continuing the downward spiral. Emigration of jobs and the taxpaying job holders will continue making that “Welfare Voice” stronger and finances weaker.
Partition is still the best solution with the North and Eastern areas leaving Los Angeles and San Diego and the Southwest to form a second state…taking much of the Ninth Circuit with them.
arhooley is right. The terminator folded. He had to hammer home his ideas in every forum. He did not do so. He could have named names in public. Over time he could have prevailed.
To Joe comment 1. Unfortunately the whole country has been deceived by California because of Hollywood. I live here, don’t look to us, come here and show us the Midwest way especially the way of Indiana. California is incomparably beautiful but it’s full of Socialist Hollywood-lites that think their ways are higher ways. California needs a grassroot (and I don’t mean medicinal marijuana either) movement that includes getting people’s heads out of their arses. We need this now. BTW if you are a Tea Partier here as I am, you will know that there are other potential candidates for governor there is Larry Naritelli and Steve Poizner (google them). Meg Whitman favors an open border policy and she idolizes the Rev Jesse Jackson. Jerry Brown refuses to prosecute ACORN instead he favors prosecuting James O’Keefe, either of these candidates will be very bad for California. We need a down to earth business experienced Governor that can pull us out of this abyss and FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BAIL OUT IS NOT THE ANSWER. People in California need to learn we are NO better than the rest of this country and WE CAN learn a few things from other states.
Roger,
Being in deep blue (and almost equally bankrupt) NJ, I hear ya.
Maybe Arnold could learn from our “big fat governor”, who unilaterally froze spending, called the Dems budget “Alice in Wonderland” economics, and complained that the Dems whined worse than his 9-year-old.
You never know where great leadership may come from, Roger. Chris Christie looks like he has proverbial guts to match his er, physical guts.
Now if California could only learn from that and find a similar person to run things — at any weight.
If you want to see a major revolt, start taking other states’ federal tax dollars and giving them to California, New York, etc.
Yes, eating arrugula a crime nearly as horrifying as using mayonaisse on hamburgers. Idiot.
[Make that arugula and mayonnaise.-editor who is an idiot]
Arnold was supposed to be the anti-establishment gov. look what happened.
Hard to grasp, but 85% of the state budget is controlled by the propositions passed over the past 30 years. Load the reckless pension deal by Davis and the spinning got a lot faster.
Then, add that Jerry “Moonbat” Brown is still running for public office after so many repeated failures in public office is good reason to evacuate California. He can only make things worse: glad I escaped before he gets more power.
Instead of drivers’ tests in CA, the DMV should start testing for sanity.
OK #19 white tiger, you can go back to your cell now.
lol, spell check has finally given you an intellectual weapon, Simon.
I have never before been uncivil in my posts at PJM but: #19 White Tiger – please shut up and get out of here. No one – and I mean no one – thinks it is cool to kill unborn babies. If the Republican party can’t set aside the influences of the extreme religious right, the abortion absolutists, and those who need to make issues out of homosexuality – then it will insure that the Democratic Progressive movement continues to flourish. I lay the current mess we are in 100% at the feet of those groups. The Democrats play these issues like fiddles and even those who want freedom and limited government end up voting for them because religiously driven ideology is much scarier to them than the socialistic ideologies. So please go away. You are killing us. Scott Brown and his people are handling this exactly correctly.
Look on the bright side. We could sell California to the Chinese for the sum total of our national debt. We’d loose a huge drain on our treasury, and they’d straighten out Californians in a heartbeat!
Arnold’s strategic error was trying to push FOUR different referenda at the same time. We all remember the union pension reform. Some of us recall the redistricting initiative. I cannot recall the last two without a web search. He should have prioritized them and focused on #1 such that he could fight back on the airwaves as earlier commenters have suggested. It’s a simple “all the wood behind one arrow” approach that the Governator didn’t think was needed. It’s tempting to think the pension initiative should have been #1, but the redistricting one might have been a stealthy choice that could have had equally long-term impact. Now we have been left with the longest lame duck governorship in history. One wonders why he even stays in office?
“This state needs to be set free. It needs Scott Brown, not Jerry Brown.”
Right! I mean, the guy drives a truck! I think he’s also a lawyer, I’m not sure, but I do know that he drives a truck!
I’ve known at least two-hundred people who have been killed by cigarettes.
I’ve known at least that many people who have been killed by the bottle.
And yet I have never known another human being who died from too much grass.
I am not even aware of it happening in all recorded human history.
Can someone please explain to me why we still having this stupid conversation in the year 2010? It’s embarrassing.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Tom Degan, maybe I missed it, but I don’t see anybody on here all exercised about the legalization of marijuana. I’m certainly not. Smoked a ton of it in my time (I had an office next to Cheech and Chong at Universal for crissakes), but quit because of over-eating. I only think it’s ironic it’s the only business that seems to be thriving hereabouts nowadays. A lot of people apparently need to medicate themselves – and with reason. Unless there’s an epidemic of glaucoma I’m not aware of. Anyway if it’s legalization of maryjane you want, I support it.
Mr. Degan….our local motor cycle cop struck down by a lovely young woman flying high on maryjane leaves a widow and two babies who would question your opinions and your facts.
john m e, being blunt the same thing could have happened on alcohol and has many, many times. Do you want to prohibit that too? Well, that’s fine. But be honest that you are doing so. Having had sufficient quantities of both alcohol and marijuana to compare, I could say they are roughly equivalent in their ability to impair. You shouldn’t be driving under either.
Well, it looks like the Tea Partiers are trying to get Bay Area Tea Partiers/Conservatives out of the closet:
http://www.bookwormroom.com/2010/02/15/are-bay-area-conservatives-willing-to-emerge-from-their-seclusion/
I seen this type of thing repeated on blogs whenever there is a discussion of California. I have yet to see a single person ever back it up with evidence.
Do you have any proof of this or are you just talking out of your ass?
I don’t know of examples of Californians doing this but it is a well known phenomenon in New Hampshire which is slowly turning blue from the votes of Massachusetts tax refugees who keep their voting habits. The same happened to Vermont from New Yorkers registering from their weekend homes to avoid New York taxes and making Vermont a “people’s republic.”
A lot of it is social issue voting but it puts the taxers in power.
The future for California public employee unions might be previewed by the Illinois sale of “pension bonds” that are supposed to fund the broke pension system for state employees. Gravity cannot be fooled.
“… He spent the time he was governor here driving his own car rather unpretentiously…”
Except, it was a Plymouth sedan from the State Motor Pool, and it was driven by a Patrolman detailed from the CHP.
Other than that, you were exactly right.
I realize that many public employee union people will be enraged when they do not get their inflated pensions. This is going to be fun.
I have seen it before when the airlines went busto. Then it was the stews who would not give up. The pilots faced up to reality, but not the stews.
I enjoy it when this kind nof riff-raff takes it in the shorts!!!!
I cannot let a Jerry Brown column go by unnoted if it fails to remind readers that Brown,created, for his own benefit,
California’s civil service unions, arguably now the major cause of the states financial problems. They will also continue into perpetuity to cause problems relating to taxpayer liability for retiree pensions and health care. We also need to remember his support of the Byrd court and its continual dismissal of citizens votes (see death penalty). Are our memories so short term that we cannot recall what a total disaster this man was the last time. Full disclosure- I,m a retired state employee.
I missed AD,s comment the first time through. There were actually 3 of those dang plymouth sedans and they were maintained in exactly the same condition by General Services at great expense since as older vehicles they required much more maintenance. they were also cosmetically identical so as to maintain Jerry,y public image as a fiscal scrooge.
how does one jin the tea party