In the end, Gov. Brown is just a union guy

SACRAMENTO ---- As the legislative session came to an end, some Capitol observers expressed a glimmer of hope that Gov. Jerry Brown would be the independent, reform-minded governor that he swore he would be when he ran for office.

After the governor argued that not every problem deserves a government solution when he vetoed a nanny-ish ski-helmet law and put the kibosh on a card-check bill that would have eliminated secret-ballot elections for farm workers, I joined the "wishful thinking" chorus and urged the governor to heed his libertarian impulse.

But Brown was just playing head games with those of us who believe that California must reform its government and take on the unions that are driving up costs and eroding public services.

He vetoed a couple of other egregious union-backed laws, including one that would have unionized child care workers, but when the final bill-signing tally came in, it's clear that he is nothing more than a front man for the unions and an enemy of reform. It always helps to deal in reality. So don't expect anything to improve under his watch.

Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/greenhut/article_e860cb3d-c687-58b5-93c9-7b77e2f5b7d4.html#ixzz1b328Ys7a

Keystone Cops Wag The Dog

October 17, 2011 by Bob Livingston 

UPI FILE

The Administration of President Barack Obama saved the announcement that an assassination plot had been thwarted for the same day a Congressional investigation announced Attorney General Eric Holder was being subpoenaed over his lying testimony about Fast and Furious.

With investigations into U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s complicity in the Fast and Furious guns to Mexico criminality gaining steam, and public appetite for another U.S. war in another Mideast nation waning, President Barack Obama needed a big play.

What he got was a four-base error.

At a news conference last week announcing a thwarted assassination plot, Holder said the plot was the work of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is the guardian of Iran’s 32-year revolution, and the Quds force, its covert, operational arm, according to a Reuters report.

“High-up officials in those (Iranian) agencies, which is an integral part of the Iranian government, were responsible for this plot,” Holder told the news conference.

If so, they must have planned it about four hours into a booze- and cocaine-fueled night of poker, because it is one of the most convoluted, pathetically inept, unprofessional hits ever concocted. A 10-year-old semi-literate could have devised a plan with a better chance of success.

The “plot,” such as it was, came to light in early summer. Press reports say President Barack Obama was briefed on it in June. The “mastermind,” an Iranian-American used-car salesman said to have a penchant for alcohol and prostitutes and described as scatterbrained, was arrested in September. But the Obama Administration saved the announcement for the same day a Congressional investigation announced Holder was being subpoenaed over his lying testimony about Fast and Furious.

The problem for Obama and Holder is that not even their normally fawning press corps is buying the story, simply because it is so ridiculous.