If Faye McGarry has such a strong opinion, why can’t she truly express and become a candidate for governor of Cali?  Arnold is a movie hero superstar, Faye is a girl who knows.  Elect this woman, and more importantly,VOTE!!!!
Faye for Prez, 2008!!!!!!!
VP-  Parish Ilton
E

We need more John Burtons, and we need more people like most of these wise, compassionate commenters.

I received a two page letter from President Clinton about welfare reform. My foco of operations was the Tenderloin, downtown San Francisco, the area representedby, over the years by Carol Migden; Mark Leno, Milton Marks and John Burton. No support was ever received by any of those elected officials. It was a period of constant urban warfare with muggins, arson, drugs badly cut, poison,gunshots,  knifings, squalor, communicable diseases, and such. Clinton was told that the ony way to clean up such welfare was to ran an operation similar to Viet Nam—house to house and door to door. Our welfare htels were dens of users, sexual coercion, prostitution, drug use, gang members with their tie-ins elsewhere such as the Fillmore,  Oakland, Richmond, East Palo Alto, etc. I beganstruggle in the Tenderloin after being released from prison in 1983 as a security night (graveyard) desk clerk) beign paid under the table $1.30 an hour.Black gang and other race   struggles for controls were a daily problem, especially so at evening until early a.m., gay defensive reactions; poor whites and Spanish speaking were systematically decimated,other situations interfered. Eventually,  the Tenderloin would be declared a high crime area by police/sheirff and tourists were warned to stay away from the area which is near the St. Francis Westin Hotel, Tiffany’s Cartier’s Union Square. Fights, drunks,muggins,knifings,gunshots,killings chronic users, unauthorized persons inside our hotels were common routines. I left the Tenderloin in June of 2004. Given my criminal record and political persecution experienced( history of armed struggle) I was denied work as a social worker here in Oregon even though I am a capable one.

I see no solution to welfare. Now at age 65, I have my share of problems, frustrations accumulated over 40 years of such struggle lving hand to mouth, barely making it.

In Feburary 11, 1967, I appeared at a speaker’s podium in Sacramento, California when then Governor Roanld Reagan made an impromptu appearance as about 10,000 people from all over the State and elsewhere were present at such rally. In my comments to the crowd, I made a famous statement made previously by JFK about “Don’t ask what your country can do for you. Ask instead what you can do for your country.” I have lived those words and now, a sad,tired, damaged overweight old man, living single in a studio apartment in Portland, Oregon, I have nothing but bitter memories to remember.

Hugo Stanchi Nahuel
Native of Argentina. Arrived at the United States in June of 1958. U S citizenship January 17, 1964.
B.A. CSU Northridge, Northridge, CA 1968 History/English and American Lit.

Expelled from SFSU San Francisco, CA 1977 for political actvity.Expelled again from SFSU in 1984 for same type of actvity. Hope any readers may recall those times and contact.

Hope my bitterness at the overall situation experienced over the years provides you with a window of perception into the welfare situation.

“welfare reform “ is unconstitutional, fascistly invasive and impossible to implement.”

Give me a break.  It’s unconstitutional and fascist to say taxpayers won’t support non-taxpayers permanently?

Thinking like that will put the GOP back in charge.

WITHOUT PREDUDICE

Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld,and the rest of the evil ( and we know most of who you are) should be enforced to undergo psychiatric examinations (independent of course lol ) and declared whether they are indeed fit to kill hundreds of thousands of sovereign people,men women and children, and by what means. Rumsfeld, with his ‘aspartame’ and chemical flavour added foods, causing deaths and massive diabetes and obesity on a global scale, Cheney with his arsenal of mass produced killing machines,not to mention control of national infrastructures in many other countries, which already have had their constitutions steamrollered as well.  Bush & Co are allowed to murder and maim wholesale, is this what “freetrade” really means or do we use another word more appropriately, like just plain murder. Any means justifies the result they want. And Arnie, well we all have a good feel for the actor within the actor.No surprises there.

Bush is not finished ...if 9/11 can happen during his really enthusiatic ‘reading’ lesson then take heed.

I wouldn’t personally let him do anymore education tours. And what is it with education tours anyway…is this “an adult hiding behind the innocent”? He’s such a bad actor, won’t win any Gold Logies there.

Come on America, Impeach, Arrest, Stand Up and be counted for Real Truth and Freedom, and “clean food” and water.

Bush surprised and disappointed??
This man never read a newspaper, never spoke to a group that wasn’t pre-selected for conformity, never appointed any but immature syncophants to even the most trivial post, never paid attention to a poll, never communicated with opposition politicians, never saw a negative poster, never heard those who were discontented or fearful, never allowed dsiplay of the coffins of those who were sacrificed in his wars, never visited those wounded and deformed fighting his battles.
Small wonder that in his istrich-like existence, he was “surprised and disappointed” in the election results. 
Is there any reason to believe that he will heed the message of the election?

Where are the liberal leaders, talk show hosts or liberal politicians? Are we really supposed to think that Nancy Pelosi and Hillary are liberal?
Time to focus on the health care system , why should Americans of any bracket go bankrupt as soon as cancer visits their household. Tell me JB how many people is California supposed to support and what do we do when we reach that number? That goes for the whole world the biggest problem, “overpopulation”, doesn’t seem to be a very popular talking point.

Why did the Democratic party controlled California legislature confirm Arnold’s nominee for secretary of state after the GOP ran Kevin Shelley out of his office for correctly identifying and dealing with the problem or riggable electronic voting machines?

There was a precedent for leaving the position open and letting Shelley’s lieutenant run the office for the rest of his term, but instead they confirmed Bruce McPherson who has tried to quietly bring the machines back in and slow the removal of those still in place.

Likewise, the Democratic attorney general has not pursued racketeering charges against the energy companies that blackmailed the state for billions and created the crisis that led to Arnold becoming governor—and he just happens to be backed by those same people who created the crisis.

Now state Democrats have given us an unknown candidate for governor and aren’t pulling out all the stops to get rid of Arnold, who tried to match Bush for callous corruption and destructive priorities his first few years in office.

Having had some experience with local government, the explanation is all to clear.  Whether someone is Democrat or Republican, their primary constituency is the Chamber of Commerce, and if they think about regular people who only contribute votes to them, we are an afterthought if a thought at all.

You guys could have stared down Arnold and chased him out of office.  Instead, you did only slightly better than national Democrats did in the face of Bush.

Please act more like an opposition party and less like the Washington Generals to the GOP’s Harlem Globetrotters.

being a mother is a whole lot harder than being a politician. the job killed my own mom at 57. ”  welfare reform ” is unconstitutional, fascistly invasive and impossible to implement. clinton was in with the walton family of AR in putting this sham together.
either a civil society provides for mothers and babies ( most the result of one degree or another of date rape in our dissonant macho culture ), or it goes medieval.
and by the way, arnold not only conspired w/cheney to let enron slide on 20 billion worth of theft, but on the iraq war as well. and three vital counties showed blatant election fraud in 2003, so arnold is NOT governor of CA, just another cheap plastic fascist pretender we must have the legal courage to remove, imprison and have his ill gotten assets seized for use of the public good.

Clinton balanced the budget on the backs of welfare women and Bush is unbalancing it by military spending that sends their sons to fight in Iraq. Keep givin’ them hell, Johnnie Baby!

We grew up on aid to dependent children.  We went to public schools and state universities which were low-cost then, and made something of ourselves.  My brother earned a law degree, I graduated magna cum laude and went to work for a major museum and my sister earned AA degrees at community college and supported herself as a technician.  And we’ve paid taxes just like anyone else.  Our lives could have been very different.  I’m grateful first to my mother who inspired us to do our best and then to the people of California who quite literally invested in us.  I’m proud we paid off.  Other poor kids should have a shot.

I lived in California during those Golden years. Now I’m back in Montana.  WOE is me. Staying in California for some 40+ years, and then returning to my native state was not a great idea. Don’t think I’d really want to be in California again with Arnold in charge. I should NOT have been surprised when California picked an actor(?) for Governor. More like disheartened.

Burton was, and always will be, the best.

He is one of very few good Americans left in the legislation. But we still hope the new sun will rise.

If John Burton were House Minority leader
(instead of Nancy Pelosi ), one would hope
that he would have noticed by now
(in contradistinction to Nancy)
that since the Cheney-Bush regime is the
most negligent,
most corrupt,
most criminal
regime in the entire history of this country,
all the executive level officers of this regime
should have had bills of impeachment introduced
against them by now (in spite of the composition
of the Congress at this time)

Welfare reform made a lot of people less dependent on the government and more dependent on their friends and family, who could ill afford another mouth to feed.

Everyone loved welfare reform, but this moment is what defined President Clinton, as Republican Light. It explains why he has no problem playing golf with Papa Bush.

Like many things that happen under a popular slogan, it meant different things to different people, one thing to those on welfare, and another to those who saw it as a way of disenfranchising the Democratic voting poor.

Someday when I’m long dead, the dirty little secret of welfare reform will be pulled out from under the rug, into the light of the day. The destruction of millions of families - whose only crime was being poor, turning the divorced dad into a felon, gutting the safety net, and making American streets into the likes of the third world - full of disease, hopelessness and despair…

This was the moment when the Democratic party betrayed itself. And it has paid for this moment of self betrayal, with almost 10 years of aimless wandering, without a moral compas to guide itself back to it’s principals.