Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Sesame Street?

At one point host Tucker Carlson rhetorically asked if this was a parody when referring to his ongoing interview on 8/1/17 with Shanker Singam, the Vice President of the California Freedom Coalition (CFC). Although he did not say it, he was probably thinking, “Is this really the best they can do? Is this is the educated spokesman (he was dressed in a coat and tie) for the CFC or is this Sesame Street? Is this a joke?”

To his credit Mr. Singam had a few well rehearsed lines when referring to California’s economy, but when he was asked questions about anything else, he came off more like Big Bird. When asked about the myriad of middle income earners who had left the state, he responded that they were bringing California’s blue philosophy to other parts of the country, akin to missionaries. Of course he did not answer why they were leaving, but he did imply that he was happy to be exporting the middle class as this would make way for the next wave of immigrants.

Another one of his rehearsed lines was that California pays more in taxes than it receives in benefits, but explaining the economics of this would have been like trying to explain calculus to Grover, and mercifully Tucker Carlson did not persist here.

His response to a question about what to do with federal land like Camp Pendleton in Southern California along with its thousands of marines was even more confusing, as he then started to explain that California would lease this land to the U.S. just like the U.S. now has bases in Germany. I guess that Elmo did not know that Camp Pendleton already is U.S. Federal land.

At this point even though the eye-rolling by the host was making me dizzy, it certainly would have been interesting to have the CFC spokesman explain the plan for the National Parks in the new “state”, and even more interesting to hear his response about what California would do if North Korea launched a missile in this direction

I can almost hear some of you saying that one ill-prepared spokesman does not destroy an entire movement. Well the CFC is apparently now out on the streets of California trying to obtain the necessary 585,000 signatures necessary to put the “California Autonomy From Federal Government” initiative on the ballot for 2018, despite the fact that a prior attempt in April was dumped after failing to find enough support.

Cost? It has been estimated that in the final analysis the cost to the state for “an advisory commission to assist the governor on California’s independence and its associated unknown potential fiscal effects” would be about $1.25 million per year.

Err . . . perhaps Miss Piggy and the CFC should rethink its position on middle class taxpayers.

An optimist would say that at least we in California do not have to put up with the machinations of the legislature as they are not presently in session, whereas a realist would say, “Who do you think is out there collecting signatures? Ernie, Bert, and Mr. Snuffleupagus?”

It was Kermit, err . . . California’s Attorney General, who went along with the potential initiative that would allow the state to be a “fully functioning sovereign and autonomous nation” within the U.S. Now keeping in mind that this is the Attorney General of California speaking, one can now understand to whom Shankar Singam was referring when he said, “We [in California] are fundamentally different in the way we speak, and how we think about the world.”

This is Sesame Street!

Help!

 

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