The Abuses of Adversity

Another wacky story from California's $38 billion deficit follies. Yesterday, a group of lefty Democrats in Sacramento held a secret meeting to discuss how they could prolong the month-old budget impasse (the one that is beginning to shutter daycare centers and schools around the state), in order to score political points against Republicans, and popularize a union-backed initiative to amend the California Constitution so that the legislature could raise taxes with a 55 percent vote, instead of usual two-thirds. Unluckily for them, they forgot to turn off the intercom. The response from ringleader Jackie Goldberg, upon learning that other legislators were listening in to her plotting on their "squawk boxes"? "Oh [expletive], [expletive]."