Chris Reed, Author at CalWatchdog.com

Posts From Chris Reed

Chris Reed

Chris Reed is a regular contributor to Cal Watchdog. Reed is an editorial writer for U-T San Diego. Before joining the U-T in July 2005, he was the opinion-page columns editor and wrote the featured weekly Unspin column for The Orange County Register. Reed was on the national board of the Association of Opinion Page Editors from 2003-2005. From 2000 to 2005, Reed made more than 100 appearances as a featured news analyst on Los Angeles-area National Public Radio affiliate KPCC-FM. From 1990 to 1998, Reed was an editor, metro columnist and film critic at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario. Reed has a political science degree from the University of Hawaii (Hilo campus), where he edited the student newspaper, the Vulcan News, his senior year. He is on Twitter: @chrisreed99.

Thanks, Dan: Cal Watchdog themes now Walters’ favorite talking points

For a year, Cal Watchdog contributors and staffers (and a Cal Watchdog alum) have been pretty much alone in pointing out two extremely relevant statistics that demolish Gov. Jerry Brown’s and the media’s narrative of the Golden State bouncing back

‘Paycheck protection’: CA shouldn’t give up hope on checking unions yet

Chris Reed December 1, 2013

After the failure of three ballot attempts in the past 15 years to require unions to give their members veto power over the use of their dues for political purposes, Californians hoping for a better balance of power in local

Actual state residents would struggle to recognize Paul Krugman’s California

Chris Reed November 30, 2013

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

Grim LAT: Bullet train $25B short. Dim Sac Bee: What $25B? All soon to be well!

Chris Reed November 29, 2013

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

Rialto police: Inspiration for the nation. Really.

Chris Reed November 28, 2013

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

Bullet train dead in water — yet state to proceed with eminent domain

Chris Reed November 27, 2013

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,

End game on bullet train: No $, no project — and no prospects for $

Chris Reed November 26, 2013

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

LAT on Covered CA: No mention of mass cancellations, sticker shock

Chris Reed November 25, 2013

So Chad Terhune of the L.A. Times does a story on Covered California that notes the state’s version of Obamacare: 1) Isn’t doing that well signing up young people, who are essential to the economics of the Affordable Care Act,

Would-be San Diego mayor plans to nullify reform approved by city voters

Chris Reed November 24, 2013

In 2006, San Diego voters took a bold and unprecedented step: They lopsidedly approved a “managed competition” process under which groups of city employees would bid against private companies for the right to provide certain city services. This modified form

LAO’s cheerfully nutty budget report: Pension crisis? What pension crisis?

Chris Reed November 22, 2013

The Legislative Analyst’s Office has among the best reputations of any state agency. But after the release of Wednesday’s bizarre LAO budget analysis and accompanying press conference by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, I don’t know why. I groused about it