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I'll refer to Digby for more on this one. I heard Jessica Yellin call anyone who doesn't like Dick Cheney a "hater" and couldn't believe my ears, but Digby summed up the entire segment much better than I could ever hope to so I'll let her take it from here...Moonbeams And Starshine.

Let's Try Democracy: Most outrageous statement ever by a US Department of Justice

Calitics: WTF! Jerry Brown attends fundraiser for, and endorses, a Republican D.A. in San Bernardino

Mock, Paper, Scissors: Tengrain Presents..."The Memory Hole" starring Chimpy McStagger

The Baseline Scenario: A short question for Senior officials of the New York Fed

Words of Power: Why has the Obama/Biden administration put Pollyana in charge of US policy on Darfur?

HOLY CRAP: American Jihad...Cosmos Remixed...The Empire Strikes Back...Richard Dawkins & Bill Maher...Racist Roots...Hey, we’re not Roman Polanski, OK?...Israeli Taliban...War Whore and Moonie...More Rev. Moon fans...They turned me Muslim...Jesus died for your donuts...Compassion muscle...The War on Language...Catholic movie review...Cheerleader Preaching...God and Wal-Mart...Jesus wants you to laugh!

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(Doing an homage to "The Scream" would have been too on-the-money)

California in 1981 - with a budget surplus from only a few years earlier now gone and an economy getting ready to circle the drain, Governor Jerry Brown offered a bleak assessment for the future in his characteristically short State Of The State Address (a whopping 10 minutes), while trying to maintain an upbeat facade. The big hope was Silicon Valley and the burgeoning Tech sector. Remember, in 1981 personal computers were just starting to gain a toehold in our culture and the promise of the Internet was still a few years away.

Looking back at this State of The State I don't think anyone had a clue just how bad it was going to get.

Gov. Brown:

“As I see it, 1981 is a year of testing. Testing our capacity to live within a stringent budget. More than ever we need the cooperation of both parties. From an historic vantage point, we’ve reached a watershed. For the first time since World War 2 state government spending will clearly not keep pace with inflation.”

Even more difficult to imagine 1981 being considered "pretty okay" by current standards. I wonder if we'll feel that way about 2009.

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(Jerry Brown: Post-Reagan - Pre-Jarvis - hair and optimism in abundance)

Since today is an election day in California, and since California is teetering on an abyss yet again, I ran across an old Meet The Press from October 15, 1975 featuring an interview with Governor Jerry Brown.

In 1975 California had a $300 million surplus. But then, the average household income was $13K a year (hard to imagine . . .not really). New York City was the problem child at the time, plunging hip-deep in bankruptcy and asking for bailout money from the government. To a lot of people it seemed an abstract concept, the U.S. Government actually bailing a city out, and the Ford Administration were loath to offer any help at first. But that was New York City - it could never happen in California.

Famous last words.

So here is Jerry Brown in his first year as Governor in 1975. Loaded with optimism and new ideas and all was sailing along before that little thing called Prop 13 and the Howard Jarvis Tax initiative blew into Sacramento in 1978. And 34 years later we're casting our eyes to Washington with hopes of a bailout.

I've included commercials for one of the sponsors of Meet The Press - Exxon. Seems the issue of clean coal just can't get off the ground.

Like I always say, some things just never change.

Let's see where this goes now. I really hate the California proposition process in the first place (it's decimated the public school system there, for one thing) but to put minority rights up for a vote? That's why we have a Bill of Rights in the first place - to protect minorities against mob rule:

SAN FRANCISCO — In a sharp rebuke to supporters of a contested state ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage, the California attorney general said Friday that the measure was constitutionally indefensible and should be overturned.

The attorney general, Jerry Brown, had previously hinted of his opposition to the measure, Proposition 8, but made his legal opinion concrete on Friday in a brief to the California Supreme Court, which is reviewing the measure. “Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification,” Mr. Brown said in a statement.

Opponents have argued that the proposition fundamentally altered the state Constitution by taking away the right to marry from same-sex couples, who had been free to do so since May, when the California Supreme Court legalized such marriages. Proposition 8 overturned that decision by defining marriage in California as between only men and women.

Supporters of Proposition 8 asked the court in a separate legal brief filed Friday to invalidate the approximately 18,000 same-sex weddings performed before the ban was passed.