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Back to homepage'Oscar Welfare Bill' Passes Assembly
JUNE 1, 2011 By KATY GRIMES Legislators in the Assembly voted overwhelmingly yesterday to approve what amounts to another $500 million tax credit for Hollywood. But not everyone was enamored of the latest entitlement bill for the rich and famous.
Read MoreGroup Misuses Veterans on Memorial Day
MAY 30, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI California has now reached the place where satire is no longer possible. Irish priest Jonathan Swift’s 1959 satire, “A Modest Proposal,” suggested that the problem of overpopulation in Ireland be solved by feeding Irish
Read MoreWalters Wrong: Arnold DID Wreck Budget
MAY 30, 2011 By JOHN SEILER Dan Walters is the dean of California columnists. But sometimes he gets one wrong. In the wake of ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s personal problems, attacks have increased on Arnold’s performance as governor, especially on the
Read MoreBrown Budget Based on Phantom Jobs?
MAY 27, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI Gov. Jerry Brown’s May 2011 Revised State Budget is based on a rosy assumption of an economic and jobs recovery over the next four years that will result in 7.3 percent more tax revenues
Read MoreCFT Explains Tax-Increase Strategy
MAY 26, 2011 By JOHN SEILER If you listen to people in the political game, they usually tell you what they’re going to do. But you sometimes have to check out their internal communications. One of my best sources is
Read MoreJailbreak: Ruling Could Spark Crime Wave
This article first appeared in the new City Journal California Web site. MAY 25, 2011 By HEATHER MacDONALD If the real-world consequences for individuals and communities were not so potentially dire, the mass release of inmates from California prisons just
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Jerry Brown: Prisoner Of Guards Union
This article first appeared in the new City Journal California Web site. MAY 25, 2011 By STEVEN GREENHUT When California governor Jerry Brown announced details last month of a two-year contract that he’d negotiated with California’s prison guards’ union, you
Read MoreUnions Root Cause Of Prison Problem
Editor’s Note: We would like to welcome Joseph Perkins as a new CalWatchdog columnist. Perkins is the Business Editor for San Diego Magazine. He previously authored a nationally-syndicated column for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Before that, he served on the
Read MoreDoes Prison Decision Violate States' Rights?
MAY 25, 2011 By JOHN SEILER Tuesday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, effectively putting the federal courts in charge of California prisons, directly involved the question of states’ rights. The decision, Brown vs. Plata, mandated that from 38,000 to 46,000
Read MoreBrown Budget Flies to Fantasyland
MAY 24, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI There is a children’s fairy tale about a Sacramento government accountant for the State of California who takes his new poor stepdaughter all the way to Orange County to go to Disneyland for the
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