That's so crazy it just might work. And apparently does.

Bryant

Better not let anyone know about it

left by Republican Schwarzenegger and filibustering Republican State Senators (they refused to raise taxes on the wealthy).

In little over 5 years, Jerry Brown and strong Liberal Democrats in our Legislature turned that $42 billion dollar deficit into a $4.2 billion dollar surplus...and growing. And part of that surplus has allowed California to reinstate Denti-Cal for adults - something that was removed in 2009 under Schwarzenegger due to Republican coddled deficits.

We were all behind Jerry Brown -- at least us Democrats.

Love Jerry Brown. We especially appreciate him when we compare him to the Republicans that preceded him -- Schwarzenegger, Wilson and Deukmejian.

So are the people who vote for Rethuglicans.

They just look at you wearily and shake their heads and say “that’s what the liberals want you to think!”.

I'm about at the point of questioning my relationships with all republicans. My politics defines a big part of who I am, my world view. If one is voting for mean-spirited, small-minded assholes, what does that say about them?

The same thing you speak of is severely straining some long time friendships. It makes me wonder; What kind of people are they turning into?

such as my own. i swear, my dad and grandpa are turning over in their graves.

I work with a very smart young lady (mid 30's) who is an excellent industrial engineer with an outstanding work ethic. She's a good person who is not selfish or mean to others. She votes R because she has bought into the perception that Dems are all about giving free handouts to people who are capable of working but lack the work ethic to make the necessary effort to support and better themselves. She's a believer is "small government" and pointed to Solyndra as an example of government overreach.

Like the vast majority of people she was never exposed to the information (until I told her) that the program related to Solyndra has a higher success rate than the average for private business ventures and the program has yielded a net profit for taxpayers. Most people lead very busy lives and don't bother delving into alternate sources of information outside the corporate media. She sees the national deficit as primarily the result of the welfare state and inherent government inefficiency than astronomical military spending and starving the government of funds by letting the uber-wealthy and highly profitable corporations find loopholes & tax shelters to avoid paying their fair share to support the sysytem that allowed them to accumulate such wealth.

Don't give up in friends & family who have been manipulated into voting against btheir own best interests. We can never defeat the Republican Party if we alienate them and push them farther away.

To believe that is not very "smart" of her.

Like so many people, her opinions were formed on the basis of very little good information and a big chunk of how she was brought up and what her parents believed. Pretty much zero effort is spent exploring other sources to be better informed. Has a demanding job and a 3-year old at home.

People can be very intelligent yet disengaged from real poliitcal involvement & discovery, yet vote nevertheless. Millions of folks like her, who are unlike the rabid teabaggers & bible thumpers. They have the potential to be persuaded, but that possibility diminishes considerably when treated with contempt by those who expect them to know better.

Know some otherwise wonderful people who are conservative because of bad information and the way they were raised. They support liberal ideas, just vote republican. Part is church, part is affluence. They're not super rich, just well enough not to worry. They're just genuinely misinformed, and they listen to me talk about socialism and the insane right. They actually are trying to learn new ideas, even if they don't necessarily agree with them. Of course, one of them has a sister who brought up Benghazi the one time we met, so apparently they're liberal compared to the family.

Like so many people, her opinions were formed on the basis of very little good information and a big chunk of how she was brought up and what her parents believed. Pretty much zero effort is spent exploring other sources to be better informed. Has a demanding job and a 3-year old at home.

People can be very intelligent yet disengaged from real political involvement & discovery, yet vote nevertheless. Millions of folks like her, who are unlike the rabid teabaggers & bible thumpers. They have the potential to be persuaded, but that possibility diminishes considerably when treated with contempt by those who expect them to know better.

that they are lying to her. Those beliefs of hers are rw talking points, so if she only listens to rw news/radio then she doesn't hear the truth. That's the problem with allowing Faux to call themselves "news". People who don't really look into politics on their own just assume that they are telling the truth, after all, they are dressed up as a news organization. If you didn't know anything about it and turned on the station you would think they were telling at least some semblance of the truth since they are supposed to be "news".

Perhaps you could ask her where she is getting that information and then ask her to fact check it online.

substantiated report, that every breathless report had been walked back in the wee hours a couple days later.

Her response? "Are you sure?"

To this day, she believes Saddam had chemical weapons ready to go.

action believes they were moved to Syria. All of them.

doesn't work as well as a coherent plan to use taxes for the overall betterment of services and infrastructure for everyone.

Is nothing but a golden shower

Piss on the poor and the workers. That is the Reaganomics creed.

Of course, the idea of trickling down works. Every corporation believes in the long term goal of benefiting others in order to create long lasting benefits for themselves. They would never only look for huge profits that only benefit those in the top. Any idea otherwise is ludicrous.

Ugh...... such a whiner.....

them CA folks are living in Sin and the whole things is going to slide into the Ocean by the Wrath of God

I think Rick Scott is out there right now trolling.

led down the same path.

"Vermont is a horrible place to do business because of all the taxes."

However there are new businesses popping up here and doing quite well (for a state with the population of San Francisco.)

Maybe we can get the remnants of that tattered GOP to move to Kansas. My apologies to Mt. Oread...

If California spends all that money instead of giving it to billionaires, then how will it trickle down to us peasants? /sarcasm

Just like his good friend, G.W. Bush, Schwarzenegger and California Republicans kept the true numbers off the books until Jerry Brown became governor and Californians elected more Democrats to unseat Republicans in our Legislature.

Actually, they give used car salesman a bad name with their bait-n-switch election slogans. My significant other at the time fell for it. I explained to her that electing Schwarzenegger would result is more chaos, but she did so anyway. She believed in their campaign rhetoric. It didn't help that as times got worse, with the budget shortfalls and dear-in-the-headlights look on Arnold's face that I would rub it in. "See!! I told you so."

What a country!

Sometimes they are only a mile apart. California is one of the leaders in poverty and income inequality. I think the people who write these rosy articles have never been more than 15 miles from the coast.

But we are not afraid to use government to offer services to the poor.

turned Minnesota around nicely. The multi-billion dollar defecit left by Timmeh the Tool Pawlenty is now a $2 billion surplus and the economy is bouncing along nicely save for Target. Education has been dramatically re-funded. Taxes were raised on the 1%. It all works, people. We look across the river at Snotty Scotty's Wisconsin and laff our asses off.

Movie and TV tax breaks are back which means the runaway productions that have been shooting anywhere but California will be able to move back.

The reason they are needed is that the movie and TV industry is different from most industries. Most manufacturing companies have to pick a location and deeply invest to settle there. Movie productions are mobile and can be shot just about anywhere in the world. They are short term and don't need capital to build permanent facilities so they go where ever they can get the best deal.

Tax breaks were eliminated from California so productions have been leaving the state in droves along with the myriad of support jobs. Now that they are back, carpenters, electricians, painters, drivers, caterers, and many other jobs will return to our state.

(A side note: There was a production I know of who's story took place in modern Salem Mass. It was found to be too expensive to shoot there so they looked at other states that would be cheaper. Then they found Canada would be still cheaper to shoot in. But finally they settled on New Zealand. It would be cheaper to build a whole American town from scratch there than to shoot in the real location. Movie economics are weird. )

Do you think they will plaster this across America?


...I don't think so because that message would upset their Republican friends.


Its all a big club,
and YOU ain't in it.-- George Carlin

Why aren't they exposed for peddling bullshit?

She told us that they are cutting school funding do bad that schools will be open only 4 days a week and they will no longer be funding junior colleges in their new budget. My sister in law said when her youngest graduates high school in 3 years she's leaving the state. She now appreciates Jan Brewer and my Mother in law who retired there calls the new governor a douche bag. She is 84 and rarely ever uses terms like that. The tea bag governor is also slashing funding for seniors. The area my mother in law lives near is tea bag heaven Surprise, Az. A lot of tea bag seniors are going to get literally teabagged by the governor. My mother in law will be ok but I feel bad for my two sisters in law who are struggling.

You get what you pay for.

Yes, even those of us who don't earn a lot of money pay high sales and other taxes. But what we get makes it worthwhile.

We could do better, but we are far ahead of most other states.

Kansas makes Texas look good- and that is saying something.