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Lawsuit challenges chemical safety regs
California’s ongoing battle over new regulations has an interesting twist: a chemical company is asking a judge to keep in place an older tougher standard that’s been weakened by state regulators. For nearly four decades, furniture manufacturers have been required
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CA Dems seek new corporate tax
A new bill would hike taxes on corporations with the biggest spread in paid wages. The legislation, Senate Bill 1372, was recently introduced by state Sens. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, and Loni Hancock, D-Oakland. It passed the Senate Governance and Finance Committee late
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Skepticism rises over need to reduce CO2 levels
It’s not even Halloween, but this sounds scary. The San Francisco Chronicle headline warned, “High Carbon Dioxide Levels Set a Record.” CO2 is a greenhouse gas of the type that AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, is designed
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Taxpayers win Fresno rate hike court ruling
A group of taxpayers battling the City of Fresno has won a critical legal victory in their fight to get a referendum of the city’s water rate increases on the November ballot. On April 28, Superior Court Judge M. Bruce
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CA governments can open meetings with prayer
In one of those weird rulings, today the U.S. Supreme Court decided that it’s OK for local governments to open meetings with prayer. It’s weird because the Court itself opens with the prayer, “God save the United States and this Honorable
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Longevity breakthroughs make gov pensions even more of a gold mine
On Sunday the Drudge Report sent Twitter abuzz with the report of a hugely significant breakthrough on aging and longevity: “It may seem the stuff of gothic horror novels, but transfusions of young blood could reverse the ageing process and
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Jerry Brown expresses satisfaction with CA’s 24% poverty rate
If you live in a state that has by far the highest effective poverty rate in the U.S. — at just under one-quarter of the population — you would seem unlikely to express satisfaction with the economics status quo. But
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Dems face ethnic Family Feud
One thing I’ve predicted for years is that once Democrats reached supermajority status, fierce intra-party battles would surface. I regerenced the “Solid South,” meaning the total dominance Democrats had in the U.S. South from the end of Reconstruction through the 1960s.
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Gov. Brown’s 3D chess game leads to timid politics
If you believe Jerry Brown is a governing genius, then forgive me for laughing until I injure myself. What I think is that he’s scary shrewd at managing the narrative, at keeping people in the dark about what he’s really
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