Posts From Joseph Perkins

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Joseph Perkins

Joseph Perkins

Joseph Perkins, now assistant editor of the Orange County Register Opinion Pages, started his career as an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal. After serving on the White House Staff of former Vice President Dan Quayle he wrote for the San Diego Union-Tribune where he authored a nationally-syndicated column. Before writing for CalWatchdog.com, Mr. Perkins was also Business Editor for San Diego Magazine.

Enviros fight over CA Spotted Owl

  The California Spotted Owl faces extinction unless logging is banned in forests in which “the small and declining owl population” may be found in California’s Sierra Nevadas and the mountains of Southern California. So warns a petition submitted last

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Wage laws killing CA jobs

  On the day before Christmas, the U.S. Department of Labor issued its weekly report on new unemployment claims. While 45 states reported declines, California was one of five states to report an increase. California claims rose by 11,794. To

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San Onofre nuke shutdown shocks consumers

  “This is very good news for the people of Southern California.” So said Erich Pica, president of the outspoken environmental group Friends of the Earth, celebrating in June 2013 the announced closure of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. A year

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One year later, glitches still plague Covered CA

  “Here we go again with the same nightmare as a year ago. [I’m] truly fed up with Covered California’s technical incompetency.” So complained Igal Koiman, a health insurance broker, in remarks published this week in the Sacramento Business Journal.

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Bill would push unionizing franchise workers

  The franchise market in California, a keystone of small business in the state, soon could change radically. The California Legislature last Thursday sent a bill to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk that would effectively supersede the contractual agreements between California-based

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Did Caltrans cover up shoddy work on Bay Bridge?

  Douglas Coe, an engineer under the employ of the California Department of Transportation, spent years working on the retrofit of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge between Oakland and San Francisco. When the 25-year Caltrans veteran told his

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The myth of California’s underpaid public school employees

  Eduardo Benard, a custodian at San Francisco’s Leonard R. Flynn Elementary School, received $107,912.31 in pay and benefits in 2013. He was one of 31 custodians employed by California public schools that boasted more than $100,000 in compensation last

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Legislature picks aerospace winner

  An Air Force request for proposal (RFP) for the next generation stealth bomber is about to hit the street. The contract is worth an estimated $55 billion. Aerospace giants Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman – both of which

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Activists try to stop crude-by-rail

  “Boom!” read the signs carried by some of the five dozen or so protesters who raised a ruckus Saturday outside the Kinder Morgan rail yard in the Contra Costa County city of Richmond. The aim of the environmental and

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Column: UC regents urged to divest in fossil fuels

  The scene brought to mind Tom Wolfe’s essay “Mau Mauing the Flak Catchers,” which was published all the way back in 1970, when young Jerry Brown was a member of the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees. Wolfe’s

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