Cynical Move in Sacramento

The defeat of Maldonado as Lt. Gov. was justice so far as I’m concerned.

The Republicans, meeting in secret caucus, asked Maldanado to join the Democrats and vote for the California tax increases last year because he was term-limited out, and the Republicans wanted to be able to get the taxes while appearing to oppose  the tax increases. The Republicans thought that by opposing the taxes in public while getting a couple of their ranks in safe districts, or under term limits to get the measure passed – they would have political cover.

The problem is that one of their members spilled the beans on a little-heard public radio show, and it was recorded. The Republicans in Sacramento had held a caucus and arranged the entire charade with the Democrats!

(One of those Republicans running in a “safe district” – the one who let the scheme slip — suffered through a proposed recall action, and has decided not to run for another term!)

The Lt. Gov. position was payback to Maldonado for being a good soldier.

It stinks.

It was no more than the Ben Nelson/Mary Landrieu sleaze in a California bathing suit.

The So-Called “Fire Department”

I just received the Year To Date Totals for the Deer Springs Fire Department, and it makes me believe they should be re-named the Deer Springs medical response Department!

So far, YTD, the four stations have responded to THREE structure fires. Three vehicle fires, one vegetation fire – and 57 medical responses.

I suspect that your fire department statistics are similar.

Big Brother Is Watching

It seems the Obama Administration is continuing – nay, increasing the Bush -style use of WARANTLESS surveillance of Americans through the WARRANTLESS use of cell phone tracking:

“In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their–or at least their cell phones’–whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department’s request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans’ privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed. “

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html

Perhaps this is something that liberals and conservatives alike can agree is egregious…well, at least both of the liberals in the country who are not ObamaBots.

I Have Seen The Future — It Doesn’t Work

I have seen the future of California…it is Greece, and it does not work.

Greece has debt due this year that exceeds half the entire budget of the government.

Europe is discussing bailing Greece out, although to enter the European Union Greece said it would live by certain spending limits – it didn’t.

Now that would not be a terrible thing except that they share a common currency, the Euro, and Greece is a threat to the currency.

Greece, you see is European version of a socialist nation. About a third of the entire population – or at least the employed population, works for the government…and as a strong union nation those employees have life-time jobs.

There was a great article in the American Thinker back in 2008 that described the youth of Europe:

“The last time I was in Rome I listened as a very bright young man explained to his friends, over lunch at a sidewalk café, what was really going on: Most European countries have become, essentially, plutocracies. The socialist governments give lip service to wealth redistribution but they are tightly interwoven with the “old money” in the banking system and in big business.

This came as no surprise to his educated friends. Their response was (same as it always is): Of course the system is corrupt. We will throw out the old socialists and put in some new ones. It played in their minds like a broken record. I have heard it for years and years and years.

The only thing that stopped the conversation from becoming a perpetual loop was that one of the conversationalists eventually proclaimed, “Ah. But at least we are not America!” The Marlboros got lit up. The espresso and Coca Cola were sipped. And they got back to the serious business of bashing capitalism.

Well, not all of them. It turned out that the bright young man who had so eloquently described the current corruption was the bus boy at the café. He had a university education … and a job!

I had the opportunity to speak with one of these young people alone. Actually, this fellow was not so young anymore. He was thirty-four. He still lived with his parents.

 e could not afford his own place. His family was having problems even paying their electrical bills.

The reason the price of electricity was so high was that the “greens” had for years stopped the Italian government from building nuclear power plants.  

It is a great read.

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/waltzing_on_the_titanic_1.html