If you travel across California you’ll cross the mighty California Aqueduct, the legacy of the great Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, governor of California from 1959 until 1967, when he was defeated by Ronald Reagan. It gathers the waters of the northern Sierra and transports them 400 miles south, where it serves the people of Los Angeles. It’s one of many which were built by the California State Water Project. California has, since then, done virtually nothing to ensure itself an adequate supply of water. The Aqueduct stands as a monument Pat Brown, still serving his people 50 years after it was built.
Pat’s son, Jerry — or, as he’s semi-affectionately referred to, Governor Moonbeam — will have a different monument, or legacy. It will be a stretch of railroad track, from nowhere to nowhere in the Central Valley. The California High Speed Train, or the Moonbeam Express, may wind up laying a few miles of track. That’s all that will ever be built, and these rusting railroad tracks in the middle of nowhere will be the Moonbeam Monument. It might be kind of a tourist attraction in the future, where people can come and marvel at the stupidity and arrogance of politicians back in the day.
The snakes in Sacramento foisted this project on the people of California, duping them into believing that the $10 billion bond they voted for would be all that they’d have to pay for this thing. The federal government and private investors would come up with the rest of the money. Wishful thinking. California will get no federal money, if Trump can prevent it, least of all for high speed rail. And no private investor in his right mind would put a penny into this boondoggle.
They need $68 billion to complete a scaled back first stage. No one’s going to give them a dime. California High Speed Rail will soon be dead. It will be finished off, for good, by an initiative on the 2018 ballot. It’s being promoted by CA Water 4 All, and it will take whatever’s left of that $10 billion high speed rail bond, and dedicate it to water storage and conversation projects. These are long overdue, and desperately needed. You may have heard that the mighty Oroville Dam is full to bursting. That should never happen. There should be dams upstream of the Oroville to relieve the strain, and to conserve the water.
California has been in a severe, five year drought. Everybody’s cutting back on water usage. Babbie and I have disconnected our irrigation system. When the people — who have been taking great precautions to save water — see all that beautiful clear mountain water come blasting out of the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam, wreaking destruction in its path, they should ask themselves, Why are we wasting all that beautiful California water? To hell with high speed rail, let’s build some dams.
This flooding in Northern California, caused in large part because of a failure to build a water infrastructure, will be what Ca Water 4 All needs to win that initiative election. Governor Moonbeam may hang on to his railroad dream, but no other Democrat will embrace it. When he leaves office, two years from now, his dream goes with him. He can always go down to that lonely stretch of track in the Valley, and see how far he got. He’s been an arrogant son of a bitch his whole life. I don’t mind rubbing his nose in it.
We passed the Arizona House, 33-25. With Master Lobbyist Konstantin Querard at the controls, we should get it through the Senate before too long. Idaho is looking very strong, and we should have Wyoming in two weeks. The coast is clear.
reaganproject.com 