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Will AG Kamala Harris sign up for trial lawyers’ obesity shakedown?
The attorneys general of California and 15 other states are being implored to join in a legal crusade that holds food manufacturers responsible for obesity. Politico has the details: “Lawyers are pitching state attorneys general in 16 states with a
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San Diego leaders embrace failed affordable-housing approach
As Eric Stratton so memorably put it in 1978 — or was it 1962? — sometimes a situation “requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.” Which brings us to the affordable-housing policies of the majority faction of
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Will CA GOP emerge as defenders of embattled techies, tech firms?
Is the present anti-Google, anti-techie agitation in the Bay Area a reflection of anger over how affluent tech workers have driven up rent and reinflated the housing bubble? Or is it a harbinger of broader anger over how California technology
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CA closes corporate tax ‘loophole,’ but doesn’t get expected bonanza
The argument that raising taxes cuts revenue because it deters taxable economic activity leads to a tired fight in which obvious facts are ignored by both sides. This claim is sometimes true and sometimes not true. It depends on what
Read MoreAnti-Google ‘terrorism’ endorsed by editor for S.F.-based Salon
The increasingly militant targeting of tech workers in the Bay Area now has a champion: an assistant news editor for the San Francisco-based online magazine Salon. Here’s a sample of Natasha Lennard’s astonishingly glib endorsement of “terrorism” targeting Google workers
Read More‘Techno-militarization’ seen in CA alarms tech intellectuals
The NSA scandal and the increasing use of technology to police and monitor all Americans, not just suspected terrorists around the world and in our midst, is a growing worry in Silicon Valley. CEOs fret that U.S. tech firms will
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LAO questions legality of plan to use cap-and-trade $ on bullet train
The governor’s just-released 2014-15 budget proposes to spend $850 million from cap-and-trade auction revenue on various projects — including the state’s high-speed rail project. That would defy the very purpose of cap-and-trade. In a new report on the spending plan,
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Brown: No teachers' pension fix until after November election
Gov. Jerry Brown has a basic problem when it comes to the California State Teachers' Retirement System: the most powerful forces in state politics oppose the standard fix for an underfunded pension system, even if it is now enshrined in
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U.S. fracking changes global balance of power; can’t CA join fun?
Anti-fracking forces are gearing up in California, aided by our pathetic state media, which never mention that the Obama administration considers hydraulic fracturing to access natural gas and oil reserves to be just another heavy industry that can be made
Read MoreBullet train fans learn CA enviros’ clout trumps building, trades unions
A few years ago, I began to think about how California’s state government operated in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a famous 1943 paper about how humans prioritize what’s important in their lives, starting with the basics — the
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