Really, who cares what the subject matter is, or why they claim the trip is necessary. Only Democrats would travel to a country in worse financial shape than California, looking for a model for success.

And who is paying for this trip? Unlike the legislators traveling to Texas later this week, who will be paying their own expenses from campaign funds, the Ireland-bound lads and lassies are going to be on a paid excursion courtesy of the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy,  a group that includes Chevron Corp., Southern California Edison, Sempra Energy and the State Building and Construction Trades Council, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The three-day Texas trip is to to meet with legislators and Governor Rick Perry in a state that is growing businesses and jobs as California bleeds them.

And the purpose of the Ireland trip? Assembly Democrats Steven Bradford (Gardena) and Fiona Ma (San Francisco) are traveling to Ireland to learn how to lead the way in green technology, waste diversion and wind energy.  Both legislators claim they are looking forward to exploring what other countries are doing. There are expected to be others joining them, but have not been named yet.

The Ireland trip is a textbook definition of a junket. This could be accomplished with a teleconference, or with a simple Google search, as I found with a little research.

The insensitivity to the plight of California residents is telling, and only serves to demonstrate just how big the bubble is in which many legislators live. As we are being asked by Gov. Jerry Brown and Democrats to pay higher taxes, receive fewer government services, and told that more of us need to share in the economic pain, legislators are jetting off to Ireland for 10 days.

And these are California’s leaders?

APRIL 11, 2011

Fortunately, California is such a beautiful state that there’s no reason to leave anyway, except to get a job. So I’m staying put until the fascist TSA stops treating passengers like concentration camp inmates.

Here’s the latest:

If you don’t want to pass through an airport scanner that allows security agents to see an image of your naked body or to undergo the alternative, a thorough manual search, you may have to find another way to travel this holiday season.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport.

That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest.

“Once a person submits to the screening process, they can not just decide to leave that process,” says Sari Koshetz, regional TSA spokesperson, based in Miami.

What a fascist. Once you’re in the clutches of the TSA goons, they won’t let you go. It’s the very definition of fascism.

And this from LewRockwell.com:

Ever since the initial discovery in the mid 1800s by the great doctor from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ignaz Semmelweis, health professionals have known that it is essential that the hands be washed between patients and after handling unsanitary items in order to minimize the transmission of disease.  With this in mind, all fliers should demand that the TSA agent change into fresh gloves prior to any contact.  The possibility for the transmission of various skin diseases and sexually transmitted diseases is increased exponentially with the enhanced patdown procedures, aka gropings.  Just think how many times the TSA agents use the same gloves for touching the outside of bags, the soles of shoes, as well as various and sundry unsanitary objects and surfaces, only to then use these same gloves to perform physical contact with intimate portions of fliers bodies.  Please advise all air travelers to protect themselves from the TSA and their disease-vector gloves.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the filthy TSA rubbed a plague across America, and the world, like the Bubonic Plague that wiped out up to 60% of Europe as recently as the 14th Century.

Nov. 20, 2010