As the sun was resisting rising this morning, I was mourning the enforced comatose state of the quite useful Redevelopment Agency.
It has done enormous good in Culver City in this century. But it has been doomed to limbo — the equivalent of marrying a ghost — ever since the unfortunate day last January that the wretchedly weak, incompetent Bald Retread became our governor again, proving that some monsters cannot ever be killed.
On Opening Day, he threatened to kill the state’s 400 or so Redevelopment Agencies. He scarcely has said a word about them since, just left them dangling. What a wonderful leader. Mommy, please buy me one.
Yeah, But He Is Ours
Gov. Retread has been as healthy for California as Karzai for Afghanistan, Saddam for Iraq, Assad for Syria. The single advantageous distinction for our guy is that he has not killed anything — except last week’s prank-laden budget by 52 Democrats who are seamlessly interchangeable with the denizens of any zoo in the land.
San Francisco is reputed to be the most liberal community in America — remember, that is where the obese ladies of Walmart slowly waddled into court for the first time to sue for gender discrimination before the U.S. Supreme Court finally swatted them down this week.
Not so fast about San Francisco’s rep. Parallel readings show that the newspaper of record for the Bay Area, the San Francisco Chronicle, is more conservative than the angry mob of girls and boys who run the Los Angeles Titanic.
The Titanic criticizes a left-winger nearly every time Mars invades the earth. Otherwise, Democrats, starting with Swish (Boys, I Am Sorry but I Am Lost Again) Obama down to Gov. Retread consistently get a pass.
A blind old lady whose left ear and left leg have dropped off would have been a more effective chief executive than Boob Retread the last six months. Boob has been unable to convince a couple Republicans in the Senate and a couple in the Assembly to buy into his special election to hike taxes in three categories. The old lady could have done that without leaving her wheelchair.
Making a Comparison
No matter how carefully you listen, Gov. Retread has not been criticized, even faintly, for spending his first half-year on his face, licking linoleum and crying out for a comb, a soft one.
The Sacramento Bee, the Chronicle and the Titanic have treated Gov. Retread as if he were an expensive vase that will shatter if looked at crosseyed.
Mentally he is just as erudite as Mr. Wasted Space in the White House, the sui generis brainiac who thought up “leading from behind” by himself one night after Mad Michelle sent him to bed without his oatmeal and cigarettes.
When state controller John Chiang withheld the paychecks of the Dim Dem legislators who crafted last week’s phony budget, the Chronicle applauded and the Titanic booed.
The Chronicle agreed with 80 percent of Californians (all residents except the illegal aliens) that Mr. Chiang followed the law, especially the proposition passed last autumn saying that legislators should not be paid until a balanced budget is passed.
Said the Chron:
“State Controller John Chiang did math the straightforward way, as in addition (revenues) and subtraction (expenditures). What he found was that the budget just passed by his fellow Democrats in the California Legislature — and promptly vetoed by fellow Democrat Jerry Brown — was not balanced. He found parts of the $89.75 billion budget that were “miscalculated, miscounted or unfinished…
“So Chiang did exactly what voters ordered last November when they approved Prop. 25: He put legislators' pay on hold until they pass a legitimate budget. The no-pay clause was designed as a sweetener for voters to lower the threshold for budget passage from two-thirds to a simple majority. It's amusing to hear the wails and legalistic arguments from Democratic lawmakers who were ardent proponents of Prop. 25. Their declaration of having completed their duty by the June 15 deadline is similar to a child claiming to have cleaned his room by stuffing everything under his bed. The state Constitution requires the budget to be balanced. Anything less is simply not a budget.”
Oh, no, contended the Titanic.
With the sun shining luminously upon the gifted minds at the largest newspaper on Spring Street, the angry liberal editorial writer argued that one part of Prop. 25 was fine (killing the two-thirds vote to pass a budget).
But the other half, well, phooey, said the Titanic, the voters did not really mean it when they approved withholding legislators’ salaries if the budget were not passed by June 15. They did not know what they were doing.
Huh?
That is how the Titanic became one of America’s finest journals, by training its reporters to read minds.
May I see the palm of your hand?
