Thanks to democratic underground.

Gavin Newsom and high-speed rail

Fog City Journal

From last week's story in the LA Times on the high-speed rail project:

...[Governor]Brown’s successor will likely come in with a different agenda that will affect how the[high-speed rail] project progresses—or if it will even survive. 

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is running for the office, has signaled that he has some grave concerns about the project’s execution and has raised expectations that he could possibly kill the entire project.

Legislative leaders this summer made clear that they are not willing to commit additional state money, despite a shortfall triggered by lower greenhouse gas fees that the state has raised for the construction.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) said in a recent interview that the legislature had already taken care of the project with the existing appropriation, despite the funding problem.

“They will have to do something,” Rendon said. “The reality is that some things have to be cut when revenues aren’t what was expected.”

Rob's comment:

Newsom is concerned about more than "the project's execution." He understands that more money for the project from the federal government is unlikely. He also understands that every high-speed rail system in the world gets government subsidies to operate, which is/will be illegal for the California system. 

The legislation enabling this project forbids any public subsidy to operate the system if/when it's ever built, which is increasingly unlikely (See (J) on page 8) and (D) on page 9.

Mayor de Blasio and the NY Post

2012 New York Post

From the NY Times this morning (De Blasio, Frustrated, Chooses to Take His Private Feuds Public, Again):

...In the interview, Mr. de Blasio’s remarks went further by saying the tabloid was unlike other mainstream news outlets and engaged in “racial dog whistling"...He described the paper as “a negative force in this city” that engaged in “coded imagery” on race.

That included the cartoon of Ms. McCray, who is black, which ran during Mr. de Blasio’s nascent mayoral campaign and appeared to have soured him to the paper...

Rob's comment:

It's understandable that de Blasio found the cartoon above objectionable, but it's not racist. 

No dog whistle or coding on the cartoon below early in Obama's first administration. If a major newspaper in the country does this sort of thing, it's a public issue, not a "private feud."

From Daily Kos:

What effect this new news of the Republican presidential nominee bragging on tape about committing sexual assault and getting away with it will have on the race is—not kidding on this one either—still hazy. 

Because the Republican Party has fallen just that very far, to the point where it's not at all clear that a presidential candidate bragging about getting away with sexual assaults would be a deal-breaker. There are still tax cuts to be had, after all. There are still anti-abortion laws to write...

Honestly, I think we can just stop there. There's no point in even covering the rest of it. You're sick, I'm sick, we're all completely sick of talking about the great orange human shitstain that the Republican Party base decided was the perfect man for making America great again...