Politics and Elections

Assembly District 74: Taxes, fire pit issues burn bright in race

Grassroots vs. the establishment. Taxes and fire pits. In the heart of conservative Orange County — would you expect anything else? The race for California’s 74th Assembly District features some familiar storylines as three Republicans and two Democrats campaign for this

California leads way in emergence of thoughtcrime vigilantes

Chris Reed April 5, 2014

California continues its emergence as the base for those who wish to enforce thoughtcrime penalties and launch group-hate campaigns against people with unacceptable political and social views. There have been glimpses of this mindset for years among the academic left

The reality of politics

John Seiler April 4, 2014

He wasn’t as eloquent as Machiavelli, but President Bill Clinton summed up the essence of politics more pithily: “I take care of my friends and I [expletive deleted] with my enemies.” The rest is just rhetoric to fool the masses.

Coverage of L.A. ‘pothole tax’ never mentions why budget is bare

Chris Reed April 4, 2014

The city of Los Angeles’ finances are in terrible shape. The city’s economy is sluggish and revenue is stagnant. Meanwhile, retirement benefits for retired city workers — especially police and firefighters — eat up ever more of the budget. “As

CA GOP stays neutral on new electoral-college initiative

Dave Roberts April 3, 2014

An initiative seeking to get on California’s November ballot likely would add 20 or more Electoral College votes to the Republican candidate’s tally in the 2016 presidential election. That’s more Electoral College votes than the battleground state of Ohio

Pro Tem Cup: CA Senate Dems cancel event, keep cash

John April 2, 2014

In light of recent criminal cases involving three of their members, Senate Democrats have canceled a large annual fundraising event scheduled for this weekend. But the event organizers won’t be returning the campaign cash to the special interest groups that spent

April Fool’s Day campaign aims to clear voter confusion

John April 2, 2014

Here’s a fact that’s no April Fool’s Day joke. A political party, which traces its history to the segregationist platform of Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace and his 1968 presidential bid, is the fastest growing political party in California. The state that is home to

New min wage law clears CA Senate committee

James Poulos March 31, 2014

Two minimum wage hikes in two years for California? Just a year after Gov. Jerry Brown signed one minimum wage hike into law, the California Senate’s Labor and Industrial Relations Committee last week greenlit an even faster and more sweeping boost.

California experiments with open-source voting

Dave Roberts March 28, 2014

After spending tens of millions of dollars in recent years on ineffective voting systems, California election officials are planning to experiment with an “open source” system that may prove to be the cure-all for secure, accessible balloting – or

CA Dems caught up in corruption in L.A., Bay Area and San Diego

Chris Reed March 28, 2014

High-profile elected Democrats in all of California’s most populous areas are turning out to be corrupt cretins. The indictment released Wednesday of state Sen. Leland Yee depicts a San Francisco-Oakland-Daly City culture in which gangsters traffic in a long laundry list