SQUAWKING….I skimmed through the paper pretty quickly this morning without finding an awful lot of interest, but for fellow Californians ? or anyone interested in random political idiocy ? a bunch of Democratic legislators had a nice long discussion yesterday about deliberately holding up the California budget because it might help them politically. Unfortunately, they were talking into a live microphone:
The conversation was transmitted to roughly 500 “squawk boxes” around Sacramento that political staff, lobbyists and reporters use to listen in on legislative proceedings.
….”Since this is going to be a crisis, the crisis could be this year,” Goldberg said, according to a transcript. “No one’s running [for reelection]. And maybe you end up better off than you would have, and maybe you don’t. But what you do is you show people that you can’t get to this without a 55% vote.”
….After about 90 minutes, a staffer interrupted to alert lawmakers that their meeting was not private at all:
“Excuse me, guys, you can be heard outside,” an unidentified staff member said.
“Oh [expletive], [expletive],” Goldberg said.
“The squawk box is on,” the staff member said. “You need to turn it off right there.”
“How could that happen?” Goldberg said.
I guess the advanced technology of a “squawk box” was a little too much for them.
