Let’s do the easy propositions first.

When Prop 11 passed a few years ago, moving legislative districting in California out of the hands of the legislators and into a cumbersome but probably neutral bureaucratic process, a deal was made whereby the legislators stripped reapportionment of Congressional districts out of it. Because God forbid that Congressmembers are chosen by the voters, as opposed to choosing the voters.

Prop 20, sponsored by Charles Munger, undoes that deal, and adds Congressional districts in California to the districts that will be apportioned by the Citizen’s Commission.

It’s an obvious “YES”.

On the other hand, a bunch of Democratic politicians and their minions got together and added Prop 27 to the ballot, which undoes Prop 11 and places redistricting back in the hands of legislators.

Which is a horrible idea. So please vote “NO” on 27.

I don’t think fixing gerrymandering will fix all, or even many, of our political problems here in California. But it’s a good start.

Remember, people shouldn’t fear their government – government should fear the people.
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From TAPPED:

George Soros, a major funder of progressive causes, criticized President Obama today for giving in to deficit hawks amid an economic recession. “To cut government spending at a time of large-scale unemployment would be to ignore the lessons of history,” he said.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know what his currency positions are today vis a vis the dollar??

He made an estimated $1.1 billion on the pound; it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where he invests $50 million or so to drive US policies, and by the way, takes a strong position against the dollar and makes a billion or two.

Farfetched? You decide. But he ought to disclose.
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The state of journalism today:

With all the million-dollar salaries being thrown around journalism circles these days, you’d hardly know we were in the depths of a media downturn.

While much of the journalism profession is idled, redundant, bought-out and collecting unemployment, a slim layer is suddenly pocketing supersalaries as the media landscape remakes itself around rags — and riches.

Well, isn’t that special…on one hand, you could argue it’s the power law effect in place; on the other it could be that the last survivors in journalism leadership – like in music – are more concerned with feathering their nests before the deluge than in figuring out how to build boats.

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I know you haven’t forgotten this:

or this, from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Boxer, first elected in 1992, would not rate on anyone’s list of most influential senators. Her most famous moments on Capitol Hill have not been ones of legislative accomplishment, but of delivering partisan shots. Although she is chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, it is telling that leadership on the most pressing issue before it – climate change – was shifted to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., because the bill had become so polarized under her wing.

For some Californians, Boxer’s reliably liberal voting record may be reason enough to give her another six years in office. But we believe Californians deserve more than a usually correct vote on issues they care about. They deserve a senator who is accessible, effective and willing and able to reach across party lines to achieve progress on the great issues of our times. Boxer falls short on those counts.

Boxer’s campaign, playing to resentment over Fiorina’s wealth, is not only an example of the personalized pettiness that has infected too much of modern politics, it is also a clear sign of desperation.

I may not agree with Fiorina on many issues; but I do respect her. And if she’s too far off-base, we will replace her in six years.

With someone who isn’t Barbara Boxer. Because really, that’s all I’m looking for in this race.

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Honestly, I wanted to break ranks on this one. I wanted to support someone who would try and break the stranglehold that public sector unions have on California politics, and with the bulk of Brown’s funds coming from those unions…I’m not optimistic that he’s the one.

And if eMeg had been…well, half the candidate that Chris Christie was in New Jersey (…rimshot!) I’d have been doorknocking for her.

But you know what? You need to be able to govern to be governor. And that starts with a basic ability to communicate in public. And her flat inability to shove aside this idiotic charge about her domestic help is the nail in the coffin for her.

It’s not the issue – the issue is (as I just said) idiotic. But can you imagine Christie confronted with this?

“What? You’re asking me why after I paid my maid three times the minimum wage, checked her paperwork, paid taxes on her – and she turns out to have defrauded me – I’m the bad guy? Next question.”

Sorry, Meg, but you must be this tall to go on this ride…and you’re not.

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You know, I believed this was true and just told myself that it was impossible.

I even told myself that Obama might not believe in our military activities overseas, but that he saw some wisdom in them.

And I was a fool. Here’s Jackson Diehl, in the Washington Post:

One of the most remarkable aspects of Bob Woodward’s new book, “Obama’s Wars,” is its portrait of a White House that has all but resigned itself to failure in Afghanistan. As Woodward recounts it, by last spring — just six months after President Obama announced the dispatch of 30,000 additional U.S. troops, along with a modified counterinsurgency strategy — virtually every civilian official at the National Security Council and in the vice president’s office had concluded that the plan was doomed.

If that doesn’t offend you, you’re not paying attention. Forget my outrage as the father of a soldier whose life Obama was prepared to waste in support of a cause he and his team have no faith in – I’m outraged as a taxpayer, as a citizen, as someone who relies on my government to defend me and mine and to advance the causes of our nation.

No wonder Obama is uncomfortable around military families. Not only does he think they were fools for enlisting but greater fools to march forward into hazard in the service of a plan he doesn’t believe in.

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Joe and I aren’t dead, or in an Iranian jail (take a moment to think about and act for Hoder). Joe’s in Toronto on a (good news when he can share it) family mission; I’m working two jobs in New York and California plus trying to teach myself WordPress so I can migrate this blog by next monthend.

I’m almost ready to give it a shot, and so blogging will hopefully resume on a shiny new platform in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I’m also wrestling with my reaction to the Tea Party.

On one hand, many of their political positions aren’t mine. There is a genuinely conservative core to the movement. But…

…there’s something more than that as well. Much more. They are aligned perfectly with me in opposing the Skybox nature of our modern politics, which has become almost entirely focused on rent-seeking and dominated by self-serving elites and those who serve them in the hope of joining them.

The leaders of the modern labor movement and other ‘progressive’ advocacy movements are, for the most part, simply fighting for their place at the trough.

The trough needs to be emptied, and I need to decide if that’s more important than specific agreement on social or environmental issues.

More to come…

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From Global Voices:

Agunda Vataeva (LJ user agunya) was a 13-year-old girl about to begin her ninth-grade studies on Sept. 1, 2004, the day when she, her mother and more than 1,100 others were taken hostage at School #1 in the North Ossetian town of Beslan. She survived the three-day siege. Her mother, a teacher, didn’t. Of the 334 hostages who lost their lives six years ago, 186 were children.

Agunda is a 19-year-old college student now. In the past three days, she has posted three installments of her recollections (RUS) of Sept. 1-3, 2004, on her LiveJournal and Radio Echo of Moscow blogs.

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In The Daily Beast a roundup of reactions to Obama’s speech last night. One caught my eye – a piece by a LA Times correspondent who had covered the war and went back to talk to her Iraqi contacts:

“Bush had a project in the Middle East,” said my friend Raheem, “and the politician who wants to do something, he has to create his justifications, his excuses, to do it.”

Raheem, who lost a son to a stray American bullet a few years ago, is a pragmatic and pious Shiite Muslim who argues that while the cost of the invasion was high, Iraqis now have their first opportunity to do what they want–whether that means building a secular democracy or a religious autocracy.

“We feel that Bush has done something good for us, despite all the mistakes,” said Raheem, as we made our way through the dusty streets of Baghdad. “It’s politics. In politics you look at your interests. OK, many Americans were killed, and many Iraqis were killed. But still, if he hadn’t interfered, Saddam would have stayed, and we would have been ruled by his sons, his daughters, and his grandchildren.”

It bothers me that the reactions to the war here – kneejerk on both the right and left – doesn’t spend enough time asking the Iraqis themselves.
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I’ve mentioned before that Glenn Beck just creeps me out – it’s not just that his politics and mine are so different (they are) – I have watched O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin and others and don’t get the same stomach-churning sense of dread that I get from Beck.

Now, watching the video of his speeches at the Lincoln Memorial, I realize I was totally right in stating who he reminds me of – Nehemiah Scudder.

Remember him? From the Robert Heinlein novel …if this goes on? – where the United States is ruled by a theocratic dictatorship.

The story is set in a future theocratic American society, ruled by the latest in a series of “Prophets.” The First Prophet was Nehemiah Scudder, a backwoods preacher turned President (elected in 2012), then dictator (no elections were held in 2016 or later)

[emphasis added].

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