Bye Bye CRA

Too much going on for me to say much at this moment.

I'll let the good folks over at Hollywood-Highlands entertain and bring you up to speed on what's important and what is funny.  They don't mean to make a joke of the powers in city hall, it just happens naturally.  It all seems so organic.  Maybe it's improvisational (with the right props, of course).  Whatever you call it, it shows a lack of respect for our first amendment rights (you don't have to be there for your rights to get kicked around).  H-H call themselves oddballs.  Others have said "gadflies" and I've heard them called much worse.  I prefer to call them successful wags.

The great news is that the California RDA (Redevelopment Agency), including LA's own CRA, is history.  Gone.  Kaput.  CRA was the worse use of public funds and probably the most damaging organization to hit the middle class.  With the CRA dissolved, no more areas will be declared "blighted" and families tossed on their butts to create "development" (note: shopping malls, high income housing, mixed use properties).  More wealthy people became richer and fatter and more bloated through RDA funding and dirty backroom deals due to the CRA.  And more working class people had the rug pulled out from under them, their homes seized (not from foreclosure, this was done through "imminent domain") as a result of the same development plan.

That's the beginning and a grossly abridged version of the whole story.  Check out Hollywood-Highlands for the end of the story. 

Red-Hot Cigarette

Red Hot Patriot: the Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins 
(at GeffenPlayhouse)

                The play lives up to all the hype surrounding the incomparable Molly Ivins.   Crisp and tight writing by journalists, and twins, Margaret Engel and Allison Engel quickly transports the audience into the sharp edged world of Ivins.  Equally crisp, and slightly sparse, staging (by John Arnone) helped and under the direction of David Esbjornson, I could almost feel the newsprint on my fingers. 

I learned a bit more about Ivin’s personal life, her key relationships, specifically her father “the General,” than I expected and less about the source of her “kick ass wit.”  This is Molly Ivin’s biography. While her story is at least as interesting as anything else on stage these days, the play is not really ‘about’ her wit.  It contains a good amount of the real Molly Ivins wit and repartee to make the 75 minutes move quickly and enjoyably.   It’s only gingerly theorized that Ivins spent her life, consciously or unconsciously dedicated her professional career responding to “The General.”  When in fact, the real Molly Ivins had so much more to say and I’ll just accept that some things, like the “kick-ass wit of Molly Ivins” must remain a mystery.

I love Kathleen Turner.  She is one of the few actors who can, in my book, do no wrong.  I wish she had quit smoking cigarettes about 10 or 20 years ago.  It was difficult to hear her and when I was able to hear, it was a bit painful to listen to her. 

I still recommend that you see this play.  It is refreshing in this time of watered-down, pristine, journalism and propaganda scantily clad as well researched editorial.  What Molly Ivins represents to me is the courage it takes to say the obvious and the fact that she had the ability to spice it with that kick-ass wit never cheapened what she had to say.  She said the truth over and over again.  And I miss that. 

I miss cigarettes too, sometimes.

Here's an Idea on How to Reduce the Deficit

This is an open letter to the Joint Select Committee-- the members of Congress who have the unenviable task of reducing the deficit. We all hear horror stories about the necessity for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. We hear elected representatives fighting to protect the 2001 and 2003 tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. No one has mentioned the obvious place to begin all this deficit reduction-- the expenditure created by our representatives. We don't need to cut Government programs as much as we demand cuts to Government overhead. This includes salaries, benefits, office furniture, entertainment expenses, all the perks that members of Congress have grown accustomed to but don't really need. The American people are asking for congressional prudence before they touch one red-cent of seniors and disabled dollars. They need to come back to earth with their own salaries and benefits packages and join the rest of us taking "a hit" in this economy.

Please participate in our democracy, sign your name and repost for others to do the same.

Thanks!

They want a focus, focus on this: Step back. Let the people work this out peacefully

We must not allow the oligarchy to uproot the important Occupy movement.

Tax payers, registered voters paved those streets and built these city halls. This is OUR government. Dianne Feinstein, Councilman Rosendahl, and Mayor V must be put on notice that they work for us. The people are speaking now. 

I understand the oligarchies resistance and confusion because we gave them the keys to the castle a long time ago.  We elected so many corrupt politicians who have skewed the game by changing laws and deregulating or allowing "self-regulation" (what a disappointing joke that turned out to be).  Our representatives favor the corporate power structure.  The temptation was too rich and the opportunities too obvious and it's just the way human nature works sometimes. 

Before we, as a society, become anymore czarist, let the people speak.  Let the people be heard.

It is a long and arduous process to find their message.  They are doing this by consensus and we haven't seen anything done by a genuine honest consensus in a long time.  They don't teach this stuff in business school.  But the Senate and Congress have not worked efficiently to change things for the better any quicker. 

The people who think they are in charge need to sit back down and listen. No matter how long it takes or how creepy it looks or how bad it smells. It's not much different than giving birth, only this is a birth of new thought.  It will be painful and dangerous at times and not everyone will promptly accept the new born-- some will call it a bastard.  It makes it no less of a life.

They want a focus, focus on this:  Step back.  Let the people work this out peacefully. 

 

 

The 53% is missing 100% of the point

I am not going to take this 53% thing too seriously (file it right next to the 9-9-9 plan). The guy is doing it just to be contrarian. He has nothing to hold up but his silly ideal of a crappy life.

 

Erick Erickson started this movement by holding a handwritten sign that says:

I work 3 jobs. I have a house I can’t sell. My family insurance costs are outrageous. But I don’t blame Wall Street. Suck it up you whiners. I am the 53% subsidizing you so you can hang out on Wall Street and complain.

That sucks.  

 

He works three jobs.  He can't afford a house that he can't sell.  His insurance costs are almost prohibitive (but that's where those three jobs come in handy).  And he "doesn't blame Wall Street."  His advise to the rest of us is to "suck it up." 

 

He's a bloody fool if he doesn't see the connection between his lousy life and the legal corruption on Wall Street.  

 

Go and follow him at your own risk.

 

 

 

cut the flesh before you get to the bone

It is not likely that the Federal deficit was caused by all that frivolous spending on Planned Parenthood, or education, or health costs.  The deficit was caused by poor management, plain and simple.  The health of our nation depends upon healthy fiscal roots and simply put: we got root rot. 

It is the definition of hubris to cut 60 billion dollars in funds to the most needy while maintaining the same salaries for our representatives.  I'm calling for a ten percent cut in all salaries to elected officials across the nation.  They can do what they want to their appointed fellows.  What are they going to do?  Get elected somewhere else where they have higher pay?

Have we learned nothing from Cairo?  Are we not paying attention to what is happening in Bahrain and most especially what our fellow working-class citizens are doing in Madison, WI.  The Governor of Wisconsin remains "unfazed" by the protests.  Of course he is unfazed--he doesn't give a flying bee about the working class.

I will say this again, and probably again, management needs a functioning proletariat.

There will be more on this.

UNhappy Anniversary

One year ago today the Edward's Supreme Court decided a fateful ruling in Citizens United which eliminated all restrictions on corporate spending in elections.  Basically, the frightfully right-wing court sold out the soul of our democracy:  fair elections. 

Here's a question for the court:  if the constitution guarantees one vote per citizen-- how do shareholders of multiple corporations have their best interests represented multiple times by their corporate interests?  Not only is it not fair, it is not a way to operate a democracy.

We need to stop this.  New information just reached the surface that Justices Scalia and Thomas had, at the time of the ruling and still to this day, conflicts of interest that should have demanded they recuse themselves from ruling.  Scalia and Thomas! They each took oaths to uphold the constitution--not sell it out to the highest bidders of their choosing.

Scalia and Thomas have been featured guests at secretive political strategy sessions sponsored by Koch Industries, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate that has invested millions of dollars in political campaigns and causes. Koch Industries was a major beneficiary of the Citizens United decision, which overturned long-established law to permit corporations to spend unlimited amounts on political advocacy.

Please take action.  Here is a petition, a request, to the Justice Department to do a full investigation of this maleficence of justice.

Enjoy your day.  Don't celebrate this occasion.  Celebrate yourself for taking action to restore sanity to the highest court in our land.