Fighting good fight for freedom!

SEPT. 13, 2010 I, as a nattering nabob, see negativism everywhere. The Legislature manages to do just about everything wrong. The Obama administration – like the Bush administration – is an embarrassment bordering on a disaster. Debt is rising, freedom

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Brown: Proverbial Weather Vane

SEPT. 10, 2010 Brownian movement in physics: The constant zigzag movement of particles in a gas or liquid, the position of none of which can be predicted ahead of time. Jerry Brown, the Democratic candidate running for governor (again), is

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Capitol Mischief on Admission Day

SEPT. 10, 2010 Thursday was California Admission Day – the 160th anniversary of California getting admitted to the United States. Over at the state Capitol, they celebrated the old fashioned way, with a bunch of people dressed up in 1850s

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Is budget a tragedy or a horror?

SEPT. 2, 2010 As entertainment goes, the final regular-season episode of the Budget Show in the Capitol was shoddy. The actors – the Assembly members and senators – are B-rate. The speeches, despite their strained attempts to sound Kennedy-esque, were

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Dems boast of state's great ed system!

SEPT. 2, 2010 Tuesday brought Californians yet another budget charade. The “drill” that took place in the Assembly and Senate over a supposed budget vote, spoke volumes about the real worth of legislators to the state.  But what senators and

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No hope for finance reform success

SEPT. 2, 2010 As you read this, please keep in mind that I want the new Political Reform Act Task Force to succeed. As someone who’s spent about a decade reading through the campaign finance and personal disclosure reports the

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Pension escape routes being cut

AUGUST 30, 2010 I’ve frequently argued that, as the state faces an unfunded pension liability that’s as high as $500 billion, legislators are not doing anything about a problem that is depleting public services and imposing additional debt and tax

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Uncertainty is the only certainty

AUG. 26, 2010 Every day, more homes go into foreclosure. Companies are not hiring. Credit card usage is at the lowest in decades. Banks are not lending. The question everyone is asking is, do businesses and consumers feel optimism or

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What Hath Arnold Wrought?

AUGUST 26, 2010 We’re at that time in a governor’s term when we start hearing the word “legacy” on a nearly daily basis. A Nexis search of the terms “Arnold Schwarzenegger” and “legacy” in newspapers over the last month yielded

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Prop. 22 protects corporate welfare

AUG. 23, 2010 It’s always entertaining watching various tax consumers fight with one another over a shrinking revenue pie, which makes the Proposition 22 campaign a spectacle. Despite the chatter from supporters about “saving local services” and stopping Sacramento from

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