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Relevance: 59% Posted on: September 30, 2015
We live in a time when intelligent people expend vital brain power concocting explanations for war that weigh drought as a more significant cause than . . . previous tyranny and warfare. Yes, the President’s friends and acolytes defend the notion, in all seriousness, that it is unregulated capitalism leading…
Relevance: 59% Posted on: September 3, 2008
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that it is constitutionally okay for states and towns to grab property for pretty much any reason at all, citizens have been trying to prevent governments from doing so. The track record is spotty. Officials and private interests who like to…
Relevance: 58% Posted on: July 14, 2008
Give Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal credit for doing the right thing sooner rather than later. Jindal acted faster than, say, former Governor Gray Davis of California. In 2003, Davis tripled California's car tax, provoking widespread anger. Finally, Davis agreed it should be repealed . . . but only after voters…
Relevance: 58% Posted on: April 18, 2023
Thanks to renewable-energy mandates and other regulations, California muddles along with crippled power markets in which rolling blackouts are routine when demand for electricity is high and sun and wind are unavailable. Apparently, this and other burdens on energy usage in the Brownout State are insufficient to fully immobilize everybody…
Relevance: 58% Posted on: October 9, 2009
A humungous national debt. Growing state federal government budget deficits. Social Security and Medicare, running out of funds. All very frightening. But look out: The costs of public employee pensions are walloping city and state budgets — pushing a number of California cities into bankruptcy. Though the stock market tumble…
Relevance: 58% Posted on: October 28, 2003
All the usual suspects came out against the California recall campaign. Not only political partisans. But also folks who distrust the democratic process as such especially when it has teeth. I'm going to leave the topic of the California recall real soon, promise. But let me just get in one…
Relevance: 58% Posted on: January 6, 2023
In 2019, California imposed a law to force many independent contractors to become standard employees if they wanted to keep working for erstwhile clients. AB5 threw many gig workers out of work. Many lost all of their clients, who typically could not afford to simply convert contractors from whom they…
Relevance: 58% Posted on: April 16, 2008
Banned! First alcohol prohibition, then other drugs. Now candy. Yes, candy is now banned on many school campuses. Why? Refined sugar is so bad for you it’s wicked. I’m sure you know many of the major bad guys here. Twinkies. Ho Hos. Nestle’s Crunch. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Maybe you…
Relevance: 58% Posted on: October 24, 2003
I guess this is as good a time as any to hawk the virtues of Instant Runoff Voting. If things had gone a bit different in California, IRV would have really come in handy. Out a field of 135 candidates, Arnold Schwarzenegger won the right to succeed the ousted governor…
Relevance: 57% Posted on: July 6, 2018
“Strip away the absurdity,” writes Scott Shackford at Reason, “and it’s essentially a very technical ruling.” Shackford is explaining a bizarre recent judgment of the California Supreme Court. Politicians in Sacramento had, years ago, passed a gun control measure requiring gun manufacturers to “implement microstamping technology that would imprint identifying…
Relevance: 57% Posted on: September 3, 2015
The SFGate.com headline was clear: “State ballot initiative fee raised to $2,000 to prevent mischief.” It just wasn’t accurate. Assembly Bill 1100, introduced by Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), passed by Democrats in the legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, doesn’t do anything to address “mischief.” Which, incidentally, abounds in…
Relevance: 56% Posted on: March 20, 2015
“Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world.” Earl Warren, as speech at Columbia University, January 14, 1954
Relevance: 56% Posted on: June 29, 2016
Romanticism. The yearning for greatness; the need for speed. Efficiency! It’s all there in California’s high-speed rail project — hopes and dreams and a sense of the grandeur of progress. And yet the bullet train project, approved by voters in 2008, is a fiasco. One can blame the voters, I…
Relevance: 56% Posted on: December 11, 2010
In vignette after vignette, this mash-up provides a helpful (and amusing) take on California's pension fiasco: It's not easy thinking about government-enacted pensions, I guess. Everyone wants to retire young and well-off, and no one wants to appear stingy. But there has to be responsibility in how these things are…
Relevance: 56% Posted on: July 7, 2009
All tyrants love unlimited government. But do all advocates of unlimited government love tyranny? Well, recently major fans of big government sure have been blurting out their hysterical hatred for normal democratic disagreement. Take Paul Krugman, New York Times rah-rah boy for humungoid government. He recently referred to opposition to…
Relevance: 56% Posted on: January 27, 2015
Coach Michael Anderson and the girls on his team did too well. At least according to officials at Arroyo Valley High School in San Bernardino, who suspended him for “running up” the 161-2 score. Here we go again. Anderson is, alas, apologetic. But there’s nothing morally wrong with winning —…
Relevance: 56% Posted on: January 11, 2024
Frédéric Bastiat called it “spoliation”; California’s Democratic politicians call it social justice. A bill went into effect last week, offering complete medical coverage to an estimated 700,000 undocumented — illegal — immigrants. The price tag? 3.1 billion dollars. Well, not “price tag”: call it a subsidy tag. California taxpayers will…
Relevance: 56% Posted on: August 9, 2011
William Endicott, former deputy managing editor of The Sacramento Bee, thinks the problem with California legislators is their “Let the people decide” attitude. In a recent op-ed, Mr. Endicott argued that the initiative process allows politicians to shirk their responsibilities, to let decisions be made by voters at the ballot…
Relevance: 56% Posted on: November 13, 2000
This was the year for politicians, or so they thought. The economy is strong. So politicians hoped the time was right to roll back these pesky term limits laws voters had passed. We voters were supposed to be so fat, dumb and happy that we wouldn't care how long politicians…
Relevance: 56% Posted on: July 23, 2001
Seems career politicians have found even more problems with term limits. For instance, if you are a longtime incumbent, term limits don't allow you to pick your successor when you leave office. How terrible. That's what California Assemblyman Bill Leonard tells us. He should know. He's been in power since…