Chip Jacobs

Count me as disgusted. Maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger can beam himself to the future in some upcoming, crappy Terminator remake and see in 100 years (or 1,000) how the freeway extension that never will be built remains unbuilt because it didn’t make any sense today or then, and that he’d had his chance in 2009 to welcome back sanity but apparently didn’t know history, didn’t care about the blighted communities living under Caltrans’ occupying, slumlord-acting force, has nursey school math skills saying this veto saved $ when the 710 extension will cost billions we don’t have and would’ve handed the state a $500 + windfall with the sale of hundreds of homes the state purchased when the 710 extension actually had a whisper of an existence, and is a false crusader. Yeah, a screenwriter could make that case. I can. Now I just need to exhale.

What a ginormous manifestation of political decay, gutless leadership, union avarice, bureaucratic hubris and may we somehow, as voters, not give up on our Republic when the Republic seems to have given up on us. Progress: yeah, right. You wanna buy some Middle East oil fields? Or a subprime mortgage?

L.A. Times story, though pretty general and thin, that presents the basic facts of this tragicomic public works monstrosity.

Confirmation, with this under-reported little nugget, that Arnold, the Westsider and supposed Outsider, had used his red pain to knock down a building block of compromise and potential resolution like a sick anti-aircraft gun. The 710 might as well stand for 666.

Disgusted, depressed and dejected.