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Actual state residents would struggle to recognize Paul Krugman’s California
What is it about California that inspires such insistently cheerful happy talk from New York Times columnist/Princeton professor Paul Krugman? This spring he claimed that California was in the middle of a roaring comeback. Has he ever been here? Read
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Grim LAT: Bullet train $25B short. Dim Sac Bee: What $25B? All soon to be well!
On Monday, a Sacramento judge dealt a devastating setback to the California bullet train. The most serious of several obstacles in two decisions released by Judge Michael Kenny was his ruling that the $68 billion project didn’t have a legal
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Rialto police: Inspiration for the nation. Really.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! The city of Rialto is an odd mix of nice new subdivisions, industrial grayness and rundown neighborhoods. When I covered the city as an Inland Empire news columnist in the late 1990s, it had a distinct inferiority
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CARB update: Powers expanding beyond AB32
Irish wit Oscar Wilde once quipped, “The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.” He died in 1900, but he would have recognized the California Air Resources Board. Under AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of
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Sac Bee finally discovers Gerawan-UFW story
Since June, Katy Grimes has been covering the struggle between Gerawan Farms and its workers against the United Farm Workers union and Sacramento politicians. Almost two months ago, she profiled Silvia Lopez, the farm worker who was fighting UFW representation
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Dem Mayors tell Reed to drop pension reform initiative
Many can agree on the need for thoughtful and serious pension reform measures. Yet labor unions, and now Democratic mayors and city and county officials from around the state, have called on San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed to call off
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Bullet train dead in water — yet state to proceed with eminent domain
Eminent domain is one of the greatest government assaults on individual rights that one sees on a regular basis in the United States. Even in its purer form, in which land is seized for projects with broad general public benefit,
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Covered California unplugs most top hospitals from patients
President Obama has been claiming that people can keep their favorite doctors under the Affordable Care Act. But anyone who wants a premier hospital in California better do some homework before signing up. A survey of the state’s top hospitals
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Local governments approve numerous tax increases: Part 1
This is Part 1 of a series of stories about tax increases passed throughout California in the November 5 elections. Earlier this month, local governments throughout California passed more than two dozen little-discussed tax increases that will ultimately affect hundreds
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End game on bullet train: No $, no project — and no prospects for $
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny’s issued a double-whammy ruling Monday. He barred the use of bond funds for the state bullet-train project until it had adequate funding and complete environmental reviews for its first 300-mile segment. He also blocked
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