[Stevejet]

Mark Landsbaum - OC Register


How far would a politician get if he spoke plainly and you didn’t have to decipher or read between the lines to understand him?
Yeah, not far.

Don't worry?

Here’s today’s example. Gov. Jerry Brown reportedly pooh-pooh critics of his boondoggle Moonbeam Express (sorta) high-speed rail. Said Brown, “The world is full of NIMBYs and fearful men…This is a bold move…don’t worry about the polls.”

Allow us to put that into plain English.

“Fearful men” is an allusion to people who have the audacity to question why spending too many billions of dollars to lay 130 miles of track connecting the center of the state to the center of the state might not be prudent.

“a bold move” actually can be translated as “We’re going to do this no matter how stupid everyone else thinks it is.”

And, of course, “don’t worry about the polls” should be understood to mean “We can spend every dime we’ve already taken from taxpayers, and don’t need their approval.”

But it probably wouldn’t be political astute for the governor to be this plain spoken.

Brown certainly has no monopoly on Orwellian verbiage. Take President Barack Obama. (Please)

Fairness? Really?

Obama says it’s a matter of “fairness” that people who make more money than others be taxed not just more than others, but disproportionately more. Not just taxed at the same rate as everyone else, which would mean they pay more than everyone else, but at an even higher rate on top of that. That, in Obama-ese, is “fairness.”

How would that work in other aspects of life? How about baseball?

A hitter’s strike zone is from about the chest to the knees. Should we adjust the strike zone for “fairness” if a hitter is better than average? Albert Pujos and Matt Kemp certainly are better hitters than most ballplayers. Should their strike zones be from the neck to the ankles?

Some how this doesn’t seem fair at all, does it? But Pujos and Kemp hit more home runs and for a higher batting average than most ballplayers. Shouldn’t they “give back” (another Obama-ism) some of what they achieve that others don’t?

You’re right. They shouldn’t. Because it’s not fair, no matter what the president says.

Brown and Obama redefine normal words to mean what they want them to mean. That way they hope to hit a responsive note while advancing what most people would recoil at if they understood what these guys really intend.

Brown and Obama don’t really mean “bold” and “fair” when they use those words. But they hope that people will feel the warm and fuzzy comfort those words convey, while tricking folks into going along with what they really have in mind.

Their Orwellian language camouflage is what’s morally outrageous. That’s because advancing what’s morally outrageous in its own terms would repulse most people.

[Popeye]

Politicians get away with this because most citizens have become too fat, lazy and stupid to notice anything amiss.

[Desert Dawg]

I've lived in California my entire life, and ENDURED the first time that Jerry Brown was Governor. After Ronald Reagan left, all that Brown could do was to gripe about how broke the state was after Reagan was Governor. It took Brown more than 3 months to find out that the state wasn't broke....Reagan had left a SURPLUS of $11 million in the coffers! It didn't take Brown very long to spend that surplus, AND raise our taxes! When Brown left office that first time (after 8 years!), our state WAS broke!

Well, it's sort of "Deja Vu all over again"! The State of California is nearly bankrupt, and due to the economy, many state parks and recreational facilities have been closed. Yesterday, out of the blue, it was revealed that the State Department of Parks and Recreation was sitting on a SURPLUS of more than $54 million....that someone just "forgot" about! That surplus, of course, is ALREADY spent, and will only make a minor dent in the state debt....and Brown will continue to raise our taxes to pay for such frivolities as "Bullet trains" and solar energy! Businesses are moving out of California at a record pace because of Brown and the tax-and-spend Democrats in the state legislature!

Me? I'm not leaving! I've seen the GOOD times here, and I love our weather. I'm just biding my time for someone like Ronald Reagan to take us out of this mess!

[Stevejet]

I'm not from Kalifornia and I appreciate 4-season weather, as long as it is East of the Mississippi. I'm in Kalifornia due to a combination of bad for me company choice, timing and circumstances and self-influenced bad luck. But every state has its insanity and that which reigns in Kalifornia is the most fine-tuned of them all. The shenanigans and outright theft in plain sight by the Sacramento legislators is all the more criminal because these mentally ill crooks have no fear and are therefor shameless in their actions and their rational for them.

In the next 2 years the combinations of environmentalists attacks via AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act, the diversion of Bullet Train funds to San Francisco's internal city BART system and other areas siphoning of funds legally dedicated to the Bullet Train, a proposed GPS Taxmeter installation in all vehicles to collect the data on travel miles, time of day and location of our trips for annual taxation, and the ready to implode public employee pension & benefits fiasco will pretty much bring reality to bear via fiscal pain to the useful idiot Democrat voters and to those of us in the voting minority who fight everything the insane can think of to implement as "new laws and regulations".

Personally, I'd rather watch the carnage and misery that is coming at us, like a nuclear-powered train, from the sidelines of Utah, Arizona, Idaho.......well, you get my drift. But for those who feel protected from the insanity of what happens in Kalifornia, just rest assured that Democrats, public employee unions, environmentalists (religion of the mentally ill) and other fellow-travellers in your own state are looking and considering borrowing pages from the Kalifornia Handbook on Self-destruction.

The politicians and their supporter call it "social progress"!