President McCain Would Not Have Done This

Call it desperation, or whatever, but I wanted to feel good about the President today, and so I'm happy to share this news. The tension between how things are and how I'd like them to be is pretty heavy, so I take some solace in even little things like this.

There Are No Racists In TheTea Party

The Tea Party is an easy target, because, well, there really are some racist motherfuckers at those rallys. And on YouTube. And in the Southern California Tea Party. See below.

Huh Huh, I Said, "Penal"

The state of my state's penal system is horrendous. The SCOTUS, 5-4, upheld a ruling that, shockingly, California can't house prisoners in unconstitutional conditions. As is typical for the Right, they want to imprison people in hoards, but won't pay for it.

George Will: Insane In The Train [Updated Once]

[Update: Better blogs than this one have chimed in.]
Conservative columnist George Will has stumbled upon the newest nefarious liberal plot to run your life and strip you of your freedom: trains. No, really. Check it out.

High Speed to Insolvency

This embodies a new pet peeve of mine. At the Federal level, insolvency is a non-issue. So, he's managed to be wrong, or at best misleading, before the essay has even begun.

Why liberals love trains.

Liberals love trains because we all have a secret gay crush on Thomas the Tank Engine. Betcha even George didn't realize this is part of the homosexual agenda.

Generations hence,

Two words in, and I already want to punch him in the throat. "Hence?"

Spinning Makes Me Nauseous

No link to the story, because I am not going to direct traffic to Politico, but you can find the original there. It is about California Governor Brown's efforts to deal with the budget crisis. What piqued my interest was this:

“The best part about California today is that the Democrats own it,” said Linda Ackerman, a Republican National Committeewoman from California.
“We do not control the Assembly and we do not control the Senate, so all the fallout is going to come down on the Democrats,” she said. “The Democrats own it, let them own. Let’s see what they’re able to do with it.”

This is "spin," or as normal people pronounce it, "bullshit." Technically, she's right. And, technically, she's a liar. You see, in California, because there was an epidemic of short-sighted idiocy in 1978, the good people of my home state passed Prop 13. One of the results is a 2/3rds super-majority in each House is required to pass a tax increase. Consequently, a minority of hard-line Republicans have hamstrung the state in the name of "no new taxes ever for any reason." Yeah, that worked out real well in Colorado Springs.

Ms. Ackerman's statement is misleading. It is the equivalent of the misleading line that the Democrats "controlled" both Houses of Congress from 2007-2010. Because of the filibuster, the reality is, Republicans "controlled" the Senate. And they control it as a minority, due to an antiquated procedural quirk, not the design of the Constitution. So much for the Founders' intent. Similarly, because they have (and given the way districts are drawn, will always have) at least 1/3rd of the California Legislature, the G.O.P. "controls" California, from the perspective of their ability to veto any tax increases or any attempts to close loopholes, including this one.

The bummer is, she's probably right. The deliberate attempt to keep people ignorant about things like how their government actually functions will once again inure to the benefit of the liars.