Arnold Caves on Fair; and other nice LINKS for a rainy Wednesday… (and happy birthday Gabriel!)

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Other blogs have a regular feature where they link to what they think are the best, most interesting stories on other sites that day or week.  I don’t know about us doing that regularly, but here are a few stories I think OJ readers should check out.  Other OJ writers can add on here, or commenters down below…

State caves temporarily on Fairgrounds Swindle
(or at least their planned Jan. 1 move)

This is pretty good news – especially for OC taxpayers who wanted to enjoy this year’s Rose Bowl without the nagging feeling that someone was stabbing you in the back at the same time.  The meeting that Arnold’s thugs up in Sacramento had hastily scheduled for their Fair Board lackeys Saturday afternoon – with specific orders to sign the quit-claim deed over to them to facilitate the sale of our Fairgrounds to Facilities Management West – has been called off.  This shows we were right – that move WOULD have put them in danger of contempt of the Court’s restraining order on the sale.  Another good sign is that this backtrack was done after consultation with the office of the Attorney General – the AG who will be our governor come MONDAY.  And the next Court hearing on the matter isn’t till February – deep into the Brown Era.  As usual Norberto has the most thorough story (except when me or the Pot Stirrer do.)

Related:  Court throws cold water on Arnold’s “Sleasing” of public buildings.

You may remember when I coined the term “sleasing“ to describe the lame-ass idea of selling a public building (cheap and to a crony, natch) while committing the public to leasing it back at a loss for years or decades – what Arnold’s been trying to do with 11 properties / 22 buildings.  Certain heroes have been trying hard to stop him through lawsuits, at least postpone the scam till Jerry Brown time (and it’s known that Brown opposes this too.)  Arnold’s folks cried like babies that this just HAS to be done before Brown takes over.  Court says NO, let’s look at this carefully a few weeks.  (TRANSLATION:  NO.)  Link

Also related:  Cruickshank’s Valediction Malediction on
California’s Worst Governor Ever.

Calitics’ Robert Cruickshank looks back on the disastrous reign of Arnold Scwharzenegger.  While the common wisdom is that the Terminator was a great failure, Robert disagrees with the general diagnosis that Arnold failed to get things done; rather, according to Robert, he tragically succeeded at far too much of his program since 2007, which was an extreme right-wing, anti-public, pro-corporate agenda, pushed through via “Shock Doctrine.”  The failure of Arnold’s governorship is exactly the failure of right-wing ideology.  Just read the devastating and convincing essay.

Sign on to Filibuster Reform in the US Senate!

This just came into my inbox from the Daily Kos.  DON’T TURN AWAY, Republicans!  Everyone expects us Democrats to be in the minority some time this decade or next; so Filibuster Reform is to EVERYBODY”s benefit if we don’t want the Senate to continue to just be the place where everything dies.  53 Senators have signed on to changing the rules on the Filibuster – which only takes a majority – let’s encourage these timid old boys to do the right thing.  More details here, and if you like it, sign the petition!

Reagan vs. Churchill on Healthcare.

Local single-payer hero Dr. Don McCanne came across two interesting Reagan-healthcare related tidbits.  The Gipper was well-known, even before his California Governorship, as being the premiere spokesman against Medicare and other healthcare reform, constantly labeling (libeling) it as “Socialism.”  This was in great contrast to his supposed hero Winston Churchill’s enthusiastic embrace of a national healthcare system for all British.  Related, we all remember Reagan saying to President Carter during a 1980 debate, “There you go again.”  Most of us forget what the context was – it was Carter reminding the audience what a fervent foe of Medicare (government healthcare) Reagan had always been… and Reagan trying to run away from that unpopular position of his. Fun stuff, courtesy of Dave Weigel…

And Happy Birthday Gabriel San Roman!!!  My partner in crime.