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Why do I feel like Obama is a real-life incarnation of Tommy Lee Jones’ rendition of Two Face in Batman Forever?
Scroll down to watch the video of the Senator smacking down an irate brother in St. Pete, Florida and then read this.
Your humble scribe wrote in the July 22, 2004 Sacramento Union:
“If there was any lingering life left to the quaint notion that we reward our elected leaders based on performance, then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has put it to rest once and for all.
Polls show the governor with positive ratings approaching 70 percent, yet his performance is such that even Gray Davis would have to qualify as an adequate chief executive.
My suspicions and warnings about the Austrian Oak were chalked up by many to the cynicism inevitably born of two decades of hosting talk radio programs. In those years I have seen political pied pipers come and go. Invariably, they have flashed across our radar screens, first as champions then as inept failures or even scoundrels, always leaving in their wake a path of broken promises along with disappointed and discouraged voters.
I have known all along, and the governor insists on continually confirming, that what I was responding to was not my cynicism, but rather something else spawned by all those years of dealing with politicians and their spinmeisters and masters and that is my sense of smell.
My nose can sniff out a phony before he even comes across the horizon.
Arnold has had my nose working overtime since well before his announcement on Leno that he was going to run for the office.”
As it turns out and to my own detriment, as well as to the entire state’s misfortune my nose works just fine.
As a Californian, homeowner and taxpayer, not to mention just as a normal, caring human I take no pleasure in the “I told you so” implied, the great Austrian Joke is causing my family the same stomach-wrenching pain that he is causing most Californians.
In November 2002, it appeared that the greatest in-progress disaster facing the state was not the ever-creeping tectonic plates under our feet threatening “The Big One” but that Big One instead seemed to be manifest in human form, as the hopelessly inept and ill-equipped then governor Gray Davis.
Melanie Morgan, Ted Costa and Mark Williams all teamed up (soon to be joined by legions of radio talkers who recognized a bandwagon when they saw one) and sincere citizens to successfully remove Davis. The plan was to clear the road for responsible governance in the person of state Senator Tom McClintock. Unfortunately for California a pot smoking, orgy attending, Kennedy family member named “Arnold” invaded the ensuing recall campaign. Arnold was swept into office via a super slick advertising drive and appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Since then we have been subjected to endless stunts staged for cameras and designed to boost Arnold’s personal appeal. We have been subject to Arnold’s internationalist agenda in his quest to be global warming czar. As a result we have obsessed over imbecilic ideas like outlawing normal light bulbs, fighting against hundreds of new jobs at a water bottling plant in Northern California as well as fighting against exploitation of our own natural resources while legislating as quickly as possible laws and regulations that could not be more effective in chasing taxpayers and businesses out of California even if they were designed specifically for that purpose.
Mind you, the entire nation is deeply into what New York Governor David Paterson says is an economic crisis of 1929 proportions so the whole blame does not lay at Arnold’s feet. On the other hand, as goes California so goes the nation – and Arnold has taken California into a dark and awful place where people are losing their homes and their freedoms. Arnold has burned our seed corn, so to speak, that would have otherwise allowed California to ride out the storm if not abort it.
The former “Austrian Oak’ turned “Austrian Joke” (and a sick joke at that) has now coughed up yet another way to act against our interests…. threatening state workers with minimum wage or job loss. I presume that is an idea he came up with while flying in another special interest private jet from his special interest funded Sacramento hotel suite to another special interest event to line his pockets with special interest money.
We are in trouble; trouble aggravated by a complete lack of leadership and a governor who anybody paying attention stopped taking seriously a long time ago and who is now on an uncontrollable rampage of fiscal and social destruction…. Terminator style.
2 videos; in the first a group of black protesters heckle Bam Bam, in the second he tries to engage them in conversation and gets an earful of insinuated “Uncle Tom” accusations. Taken together with the total lack of a bump in his polling numbers from his international trip, it appears that Barack The Magic Negro isn’t so magic after all.
I have put a permanate link to the “See Through New York” web site is on the sidebar (to the right on this page) under “Government Pork”.
Here is the release from the Empire Center, which runs the new site:
“New Yorkers will get a clearer view than ever of how their state and local tax dollars are being spent, thanks to a new transparency website launched today by the Empire Center for New York State Policy.The website – www.SeeThroughNY.net– initially offers searchable databases of the following public information:
- the entire payroll of more than 263,000 state government employees, cross-referenced by name, title, branch of government and agency;
- current teachers’ union contracts and superintendent of schools’ contracts for nearly all of New York State’s 733 school and BOCES districts;
- operating expenditures by both houses of the New York State Legislature; and
- the Legislature’s pork-barrel “member items” spending for 2008-09.
The site will expand in the near future to include more payrolls, expenditures, contracts and other information from a variety of New York government entities, according to Edmund J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center.“SeeThroughNY is designed to become the hub of a statewide network through which taxpayers can share, analyze and compare data from local governments and school districts throughout New York,” McMahon said.
McMahon noted that 2008 already has seen the launching of two government-run transparency websites in New York. Project Sunlight (www.sunlightny.com), sponsored by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, includes information related to campaign finance, legislation, lobbying activity, and recipients of state government contracts. Open Book New York (www.osc.state.ny.us/openbook/index.htm), launched in June by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, provides an up-to-date listing of state vendor contracts, along with expenditure summaries for state agencies.
“Project Sunlight and Open Book were significant steps forward for transparency and accountability in New York, but we still have a long way to go,” McMahon said.
SeeThroughNY is the first state and local transparency site to be independently sponsored and maintained by a private, non-partisan organization. The payroll, school district contract, and legislative expenditure data on SeeThroughNY has never before been available to New Yorkers in a searchable format on the Internet.
The Empire Center is a project of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, one of the nation’s leading non-profit think tanks, which supports all of the Center’s work.”
Friday August 8, (2:00 - 6:00 PM broadcast, 5:00 - 8:00 PM event) for “Smoke and Ponies, An Evening of Pure Indulgence” at Saratoga Polo, Saratoga Springs, New York. (show and event times are eastern time)
Tuesday and Wednesday August 5 & 6. Details here
Sunday August 3. Scheduled “hit” time is 4:20 PM Eastern / 1:20 PM Pacific. Topic TBA
Passenger flights into Earth Orbit begin in about 18 months, 250 people already have paid tickets or deposits down for reservations.
Mark Williams notes; the anticipated price for these flights was expected to be $50,000.00 higher than it is, just a handful of years ago the Russians were selling tickets for Soyuz at $25-Million at a pop. At this rate I half expect to soon see a space ship sporting Southwest Airline colors and a line of people clutching their A, B or C boarding passes. In the meantime, I’m looking under the sofa cushions and my penny jar for the 200-thou to take this flight!
Story comes with photos of two guys who use the stuff thinking they look Ab Fab… I am sure that you will agree, it ain’t helpin’ ‘em
