Day: January 8, 2007

On This Date – January 8

Jon Ponder

2007 – Today has been an urban emergency “breaking news” kind of day:

  • This morning,cable newsers were practically hyperventilating about a mysterious natural gas smell in lower Manhattan.
  • Mid-day, bomb squads blew up a palette of provisions near a cruise ship in Miami. It tested positive six time for the plasitic explosive, C-4.
  • A tanker truck began leaking a noxious gas in an industrial section in Sugarland, Texas. Last I heard, a cloud of poisonous gas was headed toward Houston.
  • This afternoon, I read that downtown Austin was closed today after 63 dead birds were discovered.
  • Tonight, a sudden, devastating brush fire has taken out eight houses – including homes of as-yet unnammed “celebrities,” according to KCBS — near Pepperdine University in Malibu.

More Rumors of Cheney Ouster

Jon Ponder

In November, we predicted that Vice Pres. Dick Cheney would be ousted in 2007, “resigning” purportedly due to health problems or an overwhelming need to get back to the private sector.

There are rumblings from the capitol today that Cheney’s resignation could be in the works:

Spurious rumor alert: Negroponte to State to replace Rice, who is tapped to replace ailing Cheney.

Our prediction was that John McCain would take Cheney’s place (despite the president’s loathing of him, and vice versa), and will stick to that scenario for now.

Appointing the first woman and first African-American into the second chair may appeal to Bush as a much needed positive bullet point on his legacy, the GOP powers that be would likely prefer having someone like McCain waiting in the wings for 2008.

Post-Partisan Depression: Schwarzenegger to Cut Children’s Welfare

Jon Ponder
Republicans can’t resist the call of the dark side. It’s always a mistake to vote for them.

Wow! That didn’t take long! It was just last Friday, during his inauguration ceremonies, that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised Californians a new era of what he called “post-partisanship.”

Three days later, we learn that one of the governor’s first actions in his second term will be as Republican-partisan as a politician can get: He’s going to cut welfare payments to poor children:

“It’s ironic that the governor is proposing healthcare for poor kids while taking away their breakfasts,” state Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland) said of the cuts, which would affect more than 40,000 families. “Even Republican Gov. [Pete] Wilson, at the time he negotiated welfare reform, agreed that children should not suffer for the behavior of their parents.”

The plan alarmed advocates for the poor, who predicted that eliminating the cash payments of several hundred dollars a month would substantially increase the risk of homelessness for those families.

Schwarzenegger’s proposal also would eliminate this year’s cost-of-living increase for welfare recipients.

The governor made a wild swing to the left last year in order to get re-elected, so it was predictable that he would swing back toward the conservative dark side after his second term was secured. But who knew it would happen so fast.