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Dueling prison plans: Brown vs. Steinberg
SACRAMENTO — California continues to grapple with a 2009 federal court order requiring reductions in prison overcrowding. Two plans are before the Legislature: One by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento; the second by Gov. Jerry Brown. On Wednesday,
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The bigger mafia
The state of California just nabbed another $32,000 from Al Pacino, star of “The Godfather,” “Scarface” and other gangster films. Reportedly, he promptly paid the “tax” bill. Even Don Corleone and Tony Montana have to pay “protection” money to bigger
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Why CA carbon auction and overall AB 32 approach are doomed
This month marks the seventh anniversary of Arnold Schwarzenegger signing AB 32 amid an orgy of self-congratulation over this alleged environmental landmark. Ever since then, I’ve written regularly about the basic flaw of AB 32: reducing the emissions believed to
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Why do Dems nominate Pelosi, Feinstein, Boxer?
California is supposed to be a liberal state, with the most liberal Democratic Party in the country. Yet its top honchos back the bombing of Syria that is overwhelmingly opposed by Americans — left, right and center. Those honchos: House
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Underappreciated Prop. 13 fact: It protects vulnerable in housing bubbles
As the push builds in Sacramento to undercut Proposition 13 by weakening its limits on how fast business property taxes can increase, it’s worth making two basic points in defense of the 1978 initiative — one of which doesn’t get
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Kids burning Obamacare cards
If you're old enough, you might recall students burning their draft cards during the 1960s and early 1970s. They were protesting LBJ's War, which we lost after 58,000 brave young Americans troops were killed, and about 3 million Vietnamese. The
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Bill would allow AWOL state employees to keep jobs
SACRAMENTO — Imagine you miss work for five consecutive days and don’t call your supervisor to explain why. You probably wouldn’t have a job for very long. But employment conditions in state government are very different, and about to get
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Tax-funded zombies
I've enjoyed the “Walking Dead” TV show. Although the last season wasn't as good because they got away from the Zombies and featured the Rick vs. the Governor human conflict. The Governor better could be called “the Government” because, like
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Hank Jr. on the Depression
New numbers show that the co-called economic “recovery” is bogus. See Adam O'Neal's new article. And a new report showed that a record 90,473,000 Americans 16 years and older are not in the labor force. It's just going to get
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