I ride trains every chance I get - love 'em. - Wish there were a lot more of them.

But....I think you don't get it.

Those "wascally wepubs" took congress in the 90s, not necessarily because anyone bought their ideology, but mostly because the Clintons scared the hell out of a lot of people, with their flagrant moscow trained extremism. They thus voted for a check and balance.

Those congressional "wascally repubs" were elected to stop democratic nutzism, but they failed to do it, caving in time and time again, even though they had majorities in both houses. They had been so long out of power (almost 6 decades), that they had forgotten how to govern, standing tough for their core principles, and using their bully pulpits to lead. They provided no leadership, so they got dumped! The cry of 2008 was "it doesn't matter who you vote for anyway - same results!"

But now flagrant "underground trained" left wing extremism rears it scary head again - with a hateful vengeance even, and scares the hell out of an even bigger whole big bunch of people. So the repubs get elected back - at least as a check and balance.

Of course those nasty horrible terrible no good very bad "wascally wepubs" are gonna get really really stubborn this time. Duh! You can bet on it! Not gettin' stubborn before has repeatedly cost them elections!

And yes, they oppose high speed rail now. But HSR as it currently stands, is one big fat hairy joke - a classic theatrical farce. A way too expensive farce that we simply cannot even come up with a down payment for - not even close. It does not currently deserve their support - or anyone else.s for that matter.

Now, later on, when we can afford a few things again (if ever again), and hopefully a more sensible set of HSR proposals emerge, we can then judge them if they still oppose it.

Yes I know, we are in deep trouble now, because the automotive method of getting around is already collapsing. But we should've thought of that decades ago, when a little smarter thinking could have solved the whole "passenger train problem", and prevented this whole mess.

It is not that we didn't have warning. It was always our way out of control over-dependence on the automobile since the early 60s, that left us as sitting ducks to the whim of despots. And starting in 1973 under Carter, we got our first taste of things to come. But we still did nothing about it. Zip - notta - nothing! We could have, but we didn't. The wascally wepub take-over of congress was still two decades away - and still we didn't do one damn thing about it!

So yes - that we won't have decent trains, is all the fault of those nasty horrible terrible no good very bad "wascally wepubs"