The Great Budget Fix
Yesterday our fearless state leader, the Governator, announced some severe budget cuts in order to head off state bankruptcy. And with the courage of so many of our elected political leaders decided to eliminate most of the health care programs for children and the poor in our state. While top state administrators will enjoy gravy-laden retirement benefits on the state dole, (some in excess of $20,000 per month), California is on the verge of becoming a Dickens-like environment for the have-nots.
Of course, this is a shrewd political move, as people in poverty seldom vote, make no campaign contributions, and have no expensive lobbying organization in Sacramento to represent their needs. But hey, as long as cash remains the mother's milk of state politics (long past Assembly Speaker Jesse "Big Daddy" Unruh's favorite phrase), then those least responsible for our budgetary crisis will bear the heaviest burden in its repair. Someone once said that the true measure of a civilization is not in its grandiose accomplishments, but rather in the way it treats its most vulnerable citizens. If that is the case we should rank somewhere between Czarist Russia and Pol Pot's Cambodia!
A Rock and a Hard Place
Leave it to President Obama to find a way to further marginalize the Republican Party, by nominating Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the vacancy on the US Supreme Court. Not only does she bring more judicial experience to the job than did any of the current Supreme Court justices(before their appointments), but she is the first Hispanic so honored in American history(hey, wasn't Benjamin Cardozo's dad from Spain? I guess under the rules of contemporary Ameri-speak the term "Hispanic" does not mean of Spanish descent, but rather of Latin-American). So now the Flat Earth Party has a very fine line to walk. Any vigorous attacks on Judge Sotomayor, like that stoned pinhead, Rush Limbaugh, threw out yesterday, and the fastest growing ethnic group in the US will move even faster into the welcoming arms of the Democrats. Viva Rush! But hey, maybe their ultimate strategy of right-winged purification is to dig a moat around the Old Confederacy and launch a new assault on Fort Sumter. That might explain the record number of guns being sold since the 2008 national elections.
In my opinion we do not need to find another Lincoln this time. I suggest we let them go their merry way. Think of all we stand to gain: Social Security and Medicare solvent forever, our international education rankings soar, no more problems with hurricane and tornado relief, George W Bush and all televangelists no longer are American citizens, tobacco products stopped at the new border, the KKK a foreign terrorist organization, and on and on (feel free to add a few of your own). Unfortunately we will have to scale back our expectations of college football. Without the SEC and the ACC, football's TV ratings may slip to the level of soccer and professional bowling. Then the only major university to be under constant investigation for cheating will be USC.
Yesterday our fearless state leader, the Governator, announced some severe budget cuts in order to head off state bankruptcy. And with the courage of so many of our elected political leaders decided to eliminate most of the health care programs for children and the poor in our state. While top state administrators will enjoy gravy-laden retirement benefits on the state dole, (some in excess of $20,000 per month), California is on the verge of becoming a Dickens-like environment for the have-nots.
Of course, this is a shrewd political move, as people in poverty seldom vote, make no campaign contributions, and have no expensive lobbying organization in Sacramento to represent their needs. But hey, as long as cash remains the mother's milk of state politics (long past Assembly Speaker Jesse "Big Daddy" Unruh's favorite phrase), then those least responsible for our budgetary crisis will bear the heaviest burden in its repair. Someone once said that the true measure of a civilization is not in its grandiose accomplishments, but rather in the way it treats its most vulnerable citizens. If that is the case we should rank somewhere between Czarist Russia and Pol Pot's Cambodia!
A Rock and a Hard Place
Leave it to President Obama to find a way to further marginalize the Republican Party, by nominating Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the vacancy on the US Supreme Court. Not only does she bring more judicial experience to the job than did any of the current Supreme Court justices(before their appointments), but she is the first Hispanic so honored in American history(hey, wasn't Benjamin Cardozo's dad from Spain? I guess under the rules of contemporary Ameri-speak the term "Hispanic" does not mean of Spanish descent, but rather of Latin-American). So now the Flat Earth Party has a very fine line to walk. Any vigorous attacks on Judge Sotomayor, like that stoned pinhead, Rush Limbaugh, threw out yesterday, and the fastest growing ethnic group in the US will move even faster into the welcoming arms of the Democrats. Viva Rush! But hey, maybe their ultimate strategy of right-winged purification is to dig a moat around the Old Confederacy and launch a new assault on Fort Sumter. That might explain the record number of guns being sold since the 2008 national elections.
In my opinion we do not need to find another Lincoln this time. I suggest we let them go their merry way. Think of all we stand to gain: Social Security and Medicare solvent forever, our international education rankings soar, no more problems with hurricane and tornado relief, George W Bush and all televangelists no longer are American citizens, tobacco products stopped at the new border, the KKK a foreign terrorist organization, and on and on (feel free to add a few of your own). Unfortunately we will have to scale back our expectations of college football. Without the SEC and the ACC, football's TV ratings may slip to the level of soccer and professional bowling. Then the only major university to be under constant investigation for cheating will be USC.
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