Seems like all my life I've been listening to rightwingers spout that nonsense about the decline and imminent death of California due to our wicked liberal ways. And yet it was our venerable and recently departed (from office) Governor Moonbeam, Jerry Brown, who grew the economy to fifth place in his second time at bat, and turned a huge Republican deficit into a nearly $15 billion surplus...and filled up the state rainy day fund, capped by law at just over $14 billion.

But yeah, the state is strangling under Democratic/Liberal misrule.

I think for the wingnuts it's not about the facts at all (surprise!), but it's a morality play. In a "just" universe, God would smite our asses repeatedly for our liberal wickedness, and so it must have come to pass. Surely. The alternative is to admit that God doesn't exist.

I wasn't able to watch Gavin Newsom getting sworn in as Guv due to the weather, which drove the ceremony inside a relatively small tent. Went home and watched a video stream of it, and came away feeling pretty optimistic about the future. California's going to be the tip of the state-level spear resisting Trump, with enough bandwidth left over to move ahead with liberal wet dreams like single-payer health insurance and housing reform.

It's good to be a Californian.