Stemming police violence/misconduct: Why LAPD should emulate Rialto PD

The more I watch the law-enforcement complex at work, the more I think our criminal-justice system is often akin to an industry designed to manufacture tidy narratives of guilt and innocence. This POV leads some officers to believe they should

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The $634 million 'performance issue'

With the Obamacare website crashing daily since it went online Oct. 1, it's a wonder anyone at all has been able to sign up to then be able to “shop” for government health care. “The befuddled beast that is Healthcare.gov has shutdown,

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Gov. Brown signs bill allowing nurses to perform abortions

A bill allowing nurse practitioners to perform abortions was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown this week. AB 154 by Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, will allow nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives and physician assistants to perform abortions. Ironically, the 1973  Supreme

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Are 'neo-Confederates' holding up Obamacare?

Are “neo-Confederates” shutting down the government and wrecking the Constitution by trying to de-fund Obamacare? So claims longtime Republican staffer Mike Lofgren in an interview with Salon's Josh Eidelson. download adobe cs6 Pictured are two senators who are strongly against

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As governor contemplates teacher 'discipline' bill, fresh classroom outrage

As Gov. Jerry Brown weighs whether to sign a teacher-discipline bill that actually makes it more difficult to discipline teachers, fresh evidence turns up of bad teacher behavior in the state's largest school district, the district where the outrages occurred

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Govt. shut down: Political football with military families

I received an email message yesterday from a military wife who shared a message she received about military pay being delayed during the government shut down. If that actually happens, it could be one of the ugliest, most devious messages

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New dose of Obamacare pain arriving by mail

After nearly four years of covering the Affordable Care Act, more commonly referred to as “Obamacare,” it's hard not to laugh at a story today in the San Jose Mercury News about two San Francisco Bay Area Obama voters who

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Shutdown blacks out U.S. Census site

It's taken a week, but I finally was affected by the federal government “shutdown” (which actually only closes, temporarily, 17 percent of the government; leaving 83 percent still operating). computer softwares I went to the U.S. Census's Web site, census.gov,

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$4.4 billion headache solved. How? Chronicle has no explanation

Members of the media's aversion to math — especially to explaining how numbers work when explaining spending decisions in public policy — is hard to miss. For years, few stories by California journalists on pensions and retirement benefits really dug

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Judge rules against government retirees, for common sense

A common argument in California from public employees and government retirees is that once they get a goodie, they always have to get a goodie — even if it's not guaranteed by law. Take the bizarre, antithetical-to-logic practice of giving

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