8 Responses to The Party of “Personal Responsibility”

1. Jkat February 21st, 2009 at 8:20 am «

   i’ll offer to buy a few dozen hari-kari knives and distribute them free to members of the republican/conservative movement ..

   i’ll even throw in free handling and shipping for the knives ..

   i’m going to set aside $19.95 from next week’s budget .. which should cover the number of constituents of the philosophy who actually possess the requisite integrity to take me up on the offer ..

   it’s NOT that they’re such shits .. it’s that they are such unprincipled hypocritical shits …
2. ubetchaiam February 21st, 2009 at 9:50 am «

   Being a california resident, it is amazing how the sacred cow of Prop. 13 is never mentioned as the root cause of California’s problems. When it was brough up by Buffet during the Schwarz’s initial foray to being governor, Buffet was quickly ousted.
   Now, after acceding to constitutional amendments to get a budget passed, there is absolute silence about putting on the ballot an amendment to do away with the nonsensical 60 per cent margine needed to pass a budget.
   California is like the U.S.; the vast majority of the populace held up by small population ‘lawmakers’.
3. Cujo359 February 21st, 2009 at 12:33 pm «

   What bothered me about the governor recall thing, as someone who doesn’t live in California, isn’t guys like Costa who had a motive for “dabbling in politics”. It’s all the people who thought that it was a good idea. It didn’t make sense to have a grab-bag, free-for-all election not too long after they’d just had one, when the current governor’s behavior hadn’t been anywhere near bad enough. The energy crisis that Enron created was on them, and they took it out on the guy who was supposedly in charge.

   If any of those people paid attention, they would know by now that it’s damn near impossible to get anything done when you have a legislature full of people who are just as stupid as the average voter.

   Do I sound pessimistic? I sure hope so. Otherwise, I need to work on my writing skills.
4. cinnamonape February 21st, 2009 at 2:46 pm «

   Some of us Californians suspect that the California Energy Crisis was intended specifically to bring down Davis. Ken Lay specifically had discussions with Ahnold and several other prominent Republicans just months before the prices of energy started shooting upward. The budget “cushion” that Davis had built up (one the Republicans screamed about existing) was quickly depleted as Davis bought energy so that the elderly could use AC in the hottest summer in years and hospitals could continue running. Bush-Cheney refused to investigate the energy suppliers, but the affected states eventually sued and discovered the monopolistic conspiracy as ENRON crumbled.

   Gotta wonder if some of this stuff (and Issas role) is sitting somewhere in the slew of documents stored in Cheneys “man-sized vault” (or subsequently immolated).
• Shoto February 21st, 2009 at 3:36 pm «

  Remember when Cheney showed up to the inauguration in a wheelchair? I’m guessing he strained his back hauling boxes over to the shredder. Some of the Ken Lay/Enron/California energy scandal documents were probably chewed up in the process.

  Talk about your rolling blackout…
5. Shoto February 21st, 2009 at 3:29 pm «

   The idea of cobbling up laws through the process of gathering signatures has become increasingly ridiculous to me. In California, any dimbulb halfwit who manages to get enough registered voters to sign on the line can get a proposition placed on a ballot – or a special election called. Basically, the whole process amounts to nothing more dignified than legislation by mob psychology.

   A few rightwingers in California (with the help of $2M worth of bankrolling by Darrell Issa) managed to collect the requisite number of signatures to call a special election, at which time Gray Davis was ejected, thus opening the gate for Arnie. And didn’t that turn out just dandy?
6. earlofhuntingdon February 21st, 2009 at 3:36 pm «

   David Brooks tells us we’re still a nation – presumably including its governments – that believes in personal responsibility. If he can ignore the reality inside his Beltway, ignoring events in Sacramento must be easy.
• Shoto February 21st, 2009 at 3:38 pm «

  One of these days, the bubble all these people live in has got to pop. The complete and utter absurdity is becoming too glaringly obvious.