and sick to my stomach. I find myself so disheartened by the local politicians in Orange County and the State of California. The nastiness and the downright lies that get thrown about literally break my heart.
When Gary, my husband, ran for State Senate, there were no attacks, he didn't really have a chance and all the insults were, well, more passive aggressive, like calling his opponent "Senator-Elect" even before the election took place.
But as I get to know more of my local Democrats, learn with them, fight with them, share meals with them, the more emotionally invested I've become in the process. The more I care, the more I hurt. It's a vicious cycle.
In the past couple of months I've heard more from Beth Krom who currently sits on the Irvine City Council and who is running for Congress in the 48th District. She's fiery, passionate and funny. She's all the things we want in our Democrats, from supporting marriage equality to single payer, she doesn't apologize for her views and is so clear and concise about her vision. Beth Krom gives me hope in an otherwise dreary local political landscape.
A couple of Saturday's ago, Beth lost her middle child in a terrible accident. Noah, her son, was killed just a week before graduating college. And one of the local blogs had to capitalize on his death by pushing their blog and their theory about what happened and then rant and rave about how they beat the local media and all the other blogs. Really, what they did was post a guess that was more gossip than anything else and they just made me ache more for this lovely family. It was awful.
And as some know, I write for a local blog, OC Progressive which seems to have drawn some attention from the right. We have to be getting under their skin or they wouldn't have attacked one of our bloggers. I won't link to the story, it's petty and vicious like many attacks from the right and it's hurtful more than anything. It just goes to show though that we must be doing something right.
Then, we have some local politicians who are spreading the same lies and damn lies about us liberals. You know, we hate the military. This is the illustrious Chuck DeVore and my sitting Californian Assemblyperson. Yes, joy...
What is it about liberals and the military? Why are liberals uncomfortable with the military? Why do some liberals apparently despise our military? Is it because the armed services remind them that not every international dispute can be solved with soothing words uttered by a diplomat? Is it because they view military expenditures as taking money away from greater health and welfare spending?
The latest liberal-military confrontation occurred in a hearing room on Capitol Hill on June 16, 2009 when Brigadier General Michael Walsh called California’s junior senator "Ma’am" – a perfectly acceptable sign of military respect to both a U.S. Senator or a senior female officer.
I mean how many stereotypes can you cram in two paragraphs? How many generalizations can one man get? And how sick does it make you? Makes me sick. Of course, others have another take on the exchange, Barbara Boxer schools general in sexism...
Then you have my sitting State Senator, Mimi Walters who has herself started a new blog.
Getting The Job Done
The Budget Conference Committee Chair, on her personal blog, californiabudget.blogspot.com, has exhibited resistance to making real reductions in this year's budget, constantly calling for tax increases and borrowing schemes which will simply serve to put off the problem for the future.
While I appreciate her "being frustrated" with the Governor’s call to expedite the committee’s decisions, the time for laborious deliberation has passed. We are almost literally out of time.
Asking the committee to accelerate the process as much as possible stems from the Governor’s—and my—desire to avoid seeing the state go off a cliff due to the current cash flow crisis. We are all aware of the pain felt by everyone in this deficit crisis in order to bridge the budget gap.
Of course in her musings she goes on to say that the may 19th vote meant no new taxes, but that's not what this poll said and then you have the fact that California is not THE HIGHEST TAXED STATE, and in reality our tax brackets are highly regressive. You know what would help our state? If we went back to Reagan's tax brackets. NO, I shit you not and even the far right can't stomach that kind of liberalism.
Binder poll data?
# 75 percent support increasing taxes on alcoholic beverages (62 percent among ‘No on 1A’ voters)
# 74 percent support increasing taxes on tobacco (62 percent among ‘No’ voters)
# 73 percent support "imposing an oil extraction tax on oil companies just like every other oil producing state" (60 percent among ‘No’ voters)
# 63 percent support "closing the loophole that allows corporations to avoid reassessment of the value of new property they purchase" (58 percent among ‘No’ voters)
# 63 percent support "increasing the top bracket of the state income tax from 9.3 percent to 10 percent for families with taxable income over $272,000 a year and to eleven percent for families with taxable incomes over $544,000 a year (51 percent among ‘No’ voters)
# 59 percent support prohibiting corporations from using tax credits to offset more than fifty percent of the taxes they owe (55 percent among ‘No’ voters)
And the poll I reference, people would rather raise taxes than eviscerate education and health spending. YES, but you won't here that on the MSM, from the local Republicans or from our local talk show hosts.
The other Carbuncle on my ass is the damaging duo, John and Ken who have decided that Noreen Evans is the next head to go on a stick. From their website...
Phone Blast! Head on a Stick!
Democrat Budget Conference Committee Hack Noreen Evans is trying to raise your taxes again! She says "living within our means, means nothing!"
Call Noreen and her staff of wieners and tell them she needs to start living within her means, because we won’t pay more taxes!
Contact Assembly Member Noreen Evans:
(916) 319-2007 and (707) 546-4500
noreen.evans@asm.ca.gov
Of course, do they post the brilliant piece she did debunking the very myths that they've built their radio audience on? No.
All they can shout is no new taxes! Lay off 2,000 plus more teachers in Los Angeles? NO NEW TAXES! Cut off health care help for sick and paralyzed kids? NO NEW TAXES! And we've got the Governator joining the chorus, Arnold Plays The Gingrich Role, Threatens Government Shutdown.
So the idea that Democrats are not cutting spending is simply unreasonable and wrong. At the same time, they rejected additional cuts to state worker salaries. They rejected the end of Cal Works or Cal Grants or In-Home Support Services. And some of the Governor's proposals, like borrowing from local governments, were rejected unanimously.
I don't even much like what the Democrats came up with. But they did not agree to completely wipe out the social safety net, calling for moderate increases in revenue on constituencies who have been getting away with murder, pretty much literally, for decades, to pay for the externalities in health care costs that they impose on the public. As Noreen Evans explains:
Californians expect their schools to be good, a safety net to be available to the needy, a college education to be affordable for working families, their air and water to be clean, and their parks to be open and kept up. In order to meet their expectations, we must to pursue new revenues. Today, for the greater good, we approved two new tax proposals that won't impact most Californians.
Establishing a 9.9 percent tax on oil extracted from California would generate $830 million in FY 2009-2010 and $1.1 billion in future years. This precise proposal was part of the governor's budget proposals last year. Increasing the excise tax on cigarettes by $1.50 per pack generates $1 billion in FY 2009-2010.
Tax increases require a 2/3 vote. Absent the pursuit of new revenues, wider and deeper cuts will be required. Getting new revenues requires a mere 6 Republican votes: 2 in the Senate and 4 in the Assembly. It is undemocratic that the votes of 6 Republicans can veto the votes of 75 Democrats.
But Arnold wants to destroy the state of California like a good little neo-Hooverist, so he said no.
So yes, that's the same Noreen Evans who gets to face the wrath of the head on the stick crowd and may not be hearing from those who would rather pay more and save some very important programs. Like me.
I'm so tired of the personal and the lies. I'm so tired of how ideologies are put before reality and people. Just as we've seen the public option, cap and trade and almost anything else get called socialist and evil, I've seen the same thing done to local politicians by local politicians. I find as I get to know these people, the so called liberals of the OC, I can't stomach it, it's too close to home.
And so we watch our State battle over the lies and the damned lies and the people who won't budge ideological, they are the cause of this. They were the ones who pushed for a special election and then didn't vote for the budget. Republicans in California haven't even written their own budget but bloviate about making the right choices, nothing from them regarding what they would cut or what they would do to close the gap. They can't offer up anything but insults, lies and more of the same, no new taxes.
How can we compromise with people who won't budge, who won't bend and who won't play fair? How can we share our space with those who would rather see the State Fail and in the case of those like Rush Limbaugh, see our President fail to prove a point? How do we compromise if they refuse to step near the table? To shake our hands to and to look us in the eyes and give us real alternatives? We get more empty budgets, pamphlets and ugly commercials but nothing to solve the problems they had a hand in creating. How do we do this?