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Gov. Brown’s 3D chess game leads to timid politics
If you believe Jerry Brown is a governing genius, then forgive me for laughing until I injure myself. What I think is that he’s scary shrewd at managing the narrative, at keeping people in the dark about what he’s really
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Dallas editorial chortles over Toyota departing CA for Texas
Monday’s announcement that Toyota is moving its North American headquarters from Torrance to the suburbs of Dallas prompted the usual schizophrenic approach in California: Some editorial writers and pundits lamented the loss of 3,000 middle-class jobs, but Gov. Jerry Brown
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Honors belie years of gloom-and-doom talk about UC system
For at least seven years, we’ve heard University of California officials and Democratic lawmakers describe budget “cuts” at UC as being so devastating they threatened the system’s elite reputation. I recall hearing surrogates for Jerry Brown say in 2010 that
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Alleged CA budget renaissance: Yet another hole in narrative
The readiness of the Sacramento and East Coast media to accept the narrative that Gov. Jerry Brown is a genius who has solved California’s previously immense budget problems is everywhere. An accountant — as opposed to a journalist or a
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Reputation defender: The L.A. office of the NAACP
Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is expected to face suspension or more from the NBA at a press conference at 11 a.m. today (Pacific time) in the league’s New York office. Sorry, but I can’t believe the tone-deafness of
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Latino assemblyman: Asians not ‘people of color’
The increasing rift between Latino and Asian Democrats over Latinos’ newly revived interest in gutting Proposition 209 took a funny twist in the Sacramento Bee. So much for the Rainbow Coalition — it turns out that one lawmaker thinks Asian-Americans
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CA history lesson on Obama: Any doubt it will be slanted?
The conventional way to look at this bill is still ultimately the correct way — yes, what happened in 2008 was so powerful and historic that it makes sense: “SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A bill that passed the Assembly with
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Economist called genius by left backs Prop. 13-style wealth protection
It may seem wonky and obscure now, but I bet it’s going to emerge as a strong, enduring counterpunch to Proposition 13 critics. I refer to the fact that French economist Thomas Piketty — the hottest, in the media sense,
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Push for sharp minimum-wage hike under way in San Diego
California’s second-largest and the nation’s eighth-largest city appears sure to have a six-month-plus debate over whether to raise the minimum wage much more than the state government has in store. The Democratic majority of San Diego’s City Council is going
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Trash train fiasco illustrates private vs. public double standard
This story in the Orange County Register illustrates a common CalWatchdog theme: In the private sector, incompetence leads to companies failing and people getting fired. But in government, all too often incompetence comes without consequence: “The Sanitation Districts of Los
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