HIllary hate on the right and the left

In yesterday's Huffington Post:

As a lot of the world now knows, last Saturday night Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was late returning to the stage at the Democratic Debate after a five-minute break. Almost immediately media reported that she was delayed because of a line at the women's bathroom. As the break came to a close, with Clinton nowhere in sight, the moderators of the debate started without her. Within minutes, Clinton walked back onto the stage, smiling, and said, "Sorry," to knowing laughter. Women, the laughter acknowledged, live in the interstitial spaces of a world shaped by and for men.

Clinton's wry smile and later explanation, "You know, it does take me a little longer. That's all I can say," sent tetchy sexist commentators, and more egalitarian commentators, aflutter.

Rand Paul's wrote a popular tweet, going straight for the tried and true conservative "women cat fighting" narrative, that read, ".@CarlyFiorina has ZERO trouble making it back from commercial breaks @HillaryClinton." Because everyone knows women pee competitively.

Mike Huckabee opined that Clinton's "best moment in the entire night was when she was in the restroom."

Donald Trump, it goes without saying, made the biggest splash. He took the opportunity, once again, to put his bottomless reservoir of shame and misogyny on public display. "I know where she went, it's disgusting, I don't want to talk about it," Trump said, talking about it. "No, it's too disgusting. Don't say it, it's disgusting, let's not talk." Bodily fluids freak Trump out, but women's in particular. This summer, Trump told a lawyer who needed a breast pump that she was disgusting and after Megyn Kelly challenged him on his sexist record during the first GOP presidential debate he jumped to, "you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever"...

Daily Kos

Rob's comment: There's Hillary hate on the left, too. See also this and this.

Two boondoggles: High-speed rail, delta tunnels

From CalWatchdog.com:

To his cherished high-speed rail project, Gov. Jerry Brown can now add his ambitious Delta tunnel project to the list of big plans arousing strong opposition. Especially in the Delta region itself, public opinion has turned sharply against the scheme, which would cost over $15 billion dollars and reshape the area with massive infrastructure construction...Delta landowners, Northern Californians and many environmentalists have for years opposed a conveyance, while labor unions and building trades groups that stand to benefit from a project support it” (emphasis added).

The unions don't care if these massive projects are dumb and waste taxpayers' money as long as they create jobs for their members.

From Union Watch:

Construction unions were among the top donors to the campaign to pass Proposition 1A, the November 2008 California ballot measure that authorized the state to borrow $9.95 billion via bond sales for development of a “safe, reliable high-speed passenger train for the 21st century.” (See a chart of the top-40 donors to Proposition 1A below.)

That support was rewarded when administrators of the California High-Speed Rail Authority subsequently signed a Project Labor Agreement (disguised as a “Community Benefits Agreement”) with the unions for future construction. The Authority board never discussed nor voted on this costly and discriminatory insider deal.

Seven years after 53% of California voters approved Proposition 1A, the public has realized, to its dismay, that most of the promises about California High-Speed Rail were exaggerated, deceptive, or impossible to achieve. The project staggers from widespread grassroots opposition and relentless (and deserved) negative news coverage...

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SPUR, the so-called good government organization, continues to support the dumb high-speed rail project. This recent SPUR article (The Next Big Moves for Transportation on the Bay Area Peninsula) simply ignores all the project's problems and assumes the project will be built, which is increasingly unlikely.