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Relevance: 56% Posted on: July 14, 2012
We’ve discussed the Stockton, California, municipal bankruptcy. It was brought about by a number of factors, but the highlights are (1) lavish and totally unsustainable public employee pay and benefits, and (2) the recession. Here is a detailed explanation from Vice Mayor Kathy Miller: This sort of disaster may be…
Relevance: 56% Posted on: May 31, 1999
Powerbrokers in the media have never liked term limits. Over and over they write that term limits are dead. Of course, the fact that they write about term limits again and again only shows the activity of the movement, and the ridiculousness of their claims. Roll Call, the Capitol Hill…
Relevance: 55% Posted on: August 30, 2012
“Democracy should be for everyone,” says Michelle Romero of the Greenlining Institute. That sounds right. She also argues that “California speaks 200 languages, but our initiative petitions speak only one. We can bring millions of voters fully into our democratic process, and it will only cost about a penny per…
Relevance: 55% Posted on: August 31, 2022
The state government of California spends a lot of money. But how much and on what? That information has, apparently, been a state secret. Until now. For years, a watchdog group called OpenTheBooks.com has been working to discover and disclose government spending in the United States. Its efforts were enabled…
Relevance: 55% Posted on: December 2, 2009
California voters love their state’s process for placing initiatives and referendums on the ballot. Legislators? Most take a much dimmer view. This year they’ve been blaming voters for spending the state into bankruptcy through the initiative. Additionally — and please hold your laughter — they claim that initiatives have tied…
Relevance: 55% Posted on: September 16, 2008
Some politicians are loathe to allow freedom of action even when they’re going out of their way to allow freedom of action. California Attorney General Jerry Brown doesn’t want the federal government to harass patients who use medical marijuana, or to harass those who provide it. To implement this laissez-faire…
Relevance: 55% Posted on: April 4, 2024
Could a barren, charred, devastated landscape be the actual intended goal? In California as in Washington, lawmakers and chief executives apparently have a long list of nice things to destroy and are crossing them off one by one, as if on the payroll of aliens from outer space wanting to…
Relevance: 55% Posted on: July 22, 2015
“The nature of power is such that even those who have not sought it, but have had it forced upon them, tend to acquire a taste for more.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (1958), chapter one, p. 12.
Relevance: 54% Posted on: July 6, 2012
California's Democratic legislative majority is anything but lazy. On July 3, when most politicians had long-since left their posts to begin vacationing, California legislators kept their collective nose to the grindstone, busy trying to grind down the right of citizens to petition their government. Again. Last year, California's initiative process…
Relevance: 54% Posted on: August 30, 2016
“Marijuana is only legal for white people, in California,” explains Lynne Lyman of the Drug Policy Alliance. Talking with Zach Weissmueller, on reason.tv, she clarifies the situation regarding California’s currently legal medical marijuana, and why Prop. 64, a ballot measure sponsored by Californians for Responsible Marijuana Reform, is so necessary.…
Relevance: 54% Posted on: September 9, 2009
Could California’s budget crisis be solved by a triumvirate of Internet services, Craigslist, eBay and Twitter? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is raiding the state’s storage sheds to sell off unneeded items on eBay and Craigslist. His signature on a California fleet car adds, it is estimated, $400 to its auction value.…
Relevance: 54% Posted on: May 6, 2020
Just get rid of it. The “it” is AB-5, the absurd new law attacking California freelancers. And those articulating the good riddance are the “151 Ph.D. Economists and Political Scientists in California” who have signed an open letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom and the state legislature. The lawmakers who…
Relevance: 54% Posted on: January 20, 2020
Eventually, champions of government intervention, of all forms of thwarting independent judgment and killing dreams, find themselves under assault. From the public. And you don’t need an economics degree to grasp why. Initially, an intervention prevents other people from pursuing projects, getting jobs, earning a living. Then, finally, government meddling…
Relevance: 54% Posted on: September 17, 2010
One goal of academic freedom is to protect inquiry from the guardians of orthodoxy, the machinations of those who resent any articulation of an alternate view. Administrators at UCLA don’t seem to be fans of this goal. James Enstrom has been at UCLA for 36 years. He lacks tenure, and…
Relevance: 54% Posted on: June 14, 1999
There's a big difference between "independence" and "arrogance." Our Founders wanted judges to be independent from politics and the other two branches of government. The judiciary could thus protect our freedoms and defend our Constitution against assaults from powerful politicians or even against majorities of the public.But being independent is…
Relevance: 54% Posted on: April 13, 2010
While Washington, DC, steps in to take over responsibility for determining just how much and what kind of medical insurance we should buy, the states march, instead, towards personal responsibility, defending a right to self-medication. More than a dozen states have enacted medical marijuana laws, in defiance of Congress and…
Relevance: 54% Posted on: August 23, 2021
“For weeks, legal scholars have debated whether the recall election of [California] Gov. Gavin Newsom could be found unconstitutional,” The Los Angeles Times reports, “if Newsom failed to realize a ‘no recall’ majority of the ballots cast and was ousted by a candidate who received fewer votes than he did.”…
Relevance: 53% Posted on: March 8, 2024
Republican Representative Kevin Kiley of California has introduced H.J. Resolution 116 to block “the rule submitted by the Department of the Labor relating to ‘Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under the Fair Labor Standards Act.’ ” 116 is a legislative attempt to thwart legislation by regulators. Labor’s rule is modeled on…
Relevance: 53% Posted on: November 20, 2012
Two court cases come to our attention, courtesy of Cato’s Ilya Shapiro. Both involve the favoring of members of one group over another. The Sixth Circuit ruled that a voter-approved amendment to the Michigan state constitution outlawing racial preferences in college admissions would violate the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause.…
Relevance: 53% Posted on: January 13, 2017
It’s neither “iconic” nor “ironic.” “Storm fells one of California’s iconic drive-through tunnel trees, carved 137 years ago,” Travis M. Anderson’s title informs us. Calaveras Big Trees State Park is famous for its hollowed-at-the-trunk Pioneer Cabin Tree, a sequoia you have seen in hundreds of photos. It fell, almost certainly,…
Relevance: 53% Posted on: October 20, 2009
“Slow, corrupt and expensive is no way to run a state government.” That’s what Pittsburgh Post Gazette columnist Brian O’Neill wrote recently about the Pennsylvania Legislature. The state budget remains unset three months past deadline. O’Neill bemoaned that for the seventh consecutive year “America’s Largest Full-Time State Legislature has been…
Relevance: 53% Posted on: August 16, 2010
Democracy and constitutional rights fit together better than some people think. Most people don’t think of democracy as some hyper-pure system where two wolves and a lamb decide whom to eat for dinner. They envision a constitutional republic that protects fundamental rights while also democratically controlling government’s legitimate decisions and…
Relevance: 53% Posted on: January 5, 2023
What do California and Canada have in common, aside from bone-chilling temperatures? Well, the fact that they’re trying to chill the discourse of doctors. In California, a new law empowers medical boards to punish doctors who spread “misinformation” about COVID-19. The misinformative nature of a stated view about the pandemic…
Relevance: 53% Posted on: April 26, 2014
A man at a forum asks the operative question. Michigan’s ban on racial and gender preferences, upheld this week by the SCOTUS, was passed by voters in 2006 through a citizen initiative led by Jennifer Gratz, now leading the XIV Foundation, and Leon Drolet, a former state legislator and activist.…
Relevance: 53% Posted on: May 25, 2004
Paul Jacob Mention initiative, referendum, and recall to political insiders and you'll hear a one-word rebuttal: California! California politics is almost universally portrayed as, well, a little loony. California stands out from other states of the union, of course, for a host of reasons, from the sheer size and diversity…
Relevance: 53% Posted on: May 27, 2012
California politicians are at it again, as you can see on Townhall this weekend. And come back for the links: LA Times coverage Chuck Woolsy No on 28 Poll stuff Professional Politicians, Crony Capitalists Fleischman US Term Limits
Relevance: 53% Posted on: June 26, 2023
What is the U.S. SupremeCourt thinking by refusing even to listen to arguments about the effects of California’s AB5 law, which effectively outlaws certain kinds of freelancing and gig work, on the right to speak out and petition in California? The case is Mobilize the Message, LLC v. Bona. Plaintiffs…
Relevance: 53% Posted on: June 21, 2011
I’m traveling across California this week to raise awareness about a diaper load of legislation designed to restrict, thwart, inhibit, hamper, obstruct, impede, block and tackle California’s robust system of initiative and referendum. Politicians know they cannot abolish voter initiatives outright. They’d need voter approval. Instead, they seek to rig…
Relevance: 52% Posted on: October 29, 2020
Fighting racism should be at least conceptually easy. The California Assembly referred to Golden State voters Proposition 16, a constitutional amendment that would repeal a previous constitutional amendment voters had authorized in 1996, with Proposition 209. That amendment “stated that discrimination and preferential treatment were prohibited in public employment, public…
Relevance: 52% Posted on: December 8, 2010
The ugliest truth about California’s newest, gimmick-ridden budget, is that it doesn’t address the looming public employee pension issue. Adam Summers, a Reason Foundation policy analyst, gave some figures in the Orange County Register, explaining that these pensions have been “recently pegged at up to roughly $500 billion — roughly…
Relevance: 52% Posted on: April 29, 2019
California’s new top banana is playing politics the old-fashioned way: passing the buck. Last week Governor Gavin Newsom directed the California Energy Commission (CEC) to look into the state’s higher-than-average gasoline prices. “Independent analysis suggests that an unaccounted-for price differential exists in California’s gas prices and that this price differential…
Relevance: 52% Posted on: August 25, 2017
The proper study of mankind is books. Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow (1921), Ch. XXVIII.
Relevance: 52% Posted on: September 25, 2011
by Paul Jacob What fools we were to revolt against King George! Instead of installing a constitutional republic with democratic checks on government, we could have found a wise philosopher king or an enlightened House of Lords to make decisions for us. Instead of embracing universal suffrage and government by…
Relevance: 52% Posted on: March 4, 2024
In 2015, the Hillary Clinton campaign exhibited the hubris for which politicians have been associated since the dawn of civilization. Instead of relying on a strategy of promoting Hillary herself, Clinton insiders plied what they called “Pied Piper candidates,” Republican hopefuls who, they theorized, would shift mainstream candidates further “right,”…
Relevance: 52% Posted on: October 12, 2023
Why doesn’t California Governor Gavin Newsom care about kids? What is it with this “conservative”? Last week, Newsom coldly deployed his veto pen to deny to Golden State public high school students the sex subsidies — in this case, free condoms — that a solid majority of their state legislators…
Relevance: 52% Posted on: October 13, 2020
Expect a tsunami of lawsuits against state and local governments. The lockdowns, mask mandates, and other putative ‘mitigation efforts’ to combat the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 demand a deluge. The latest is Burfitt v. Newsom, filed in Kern County’s Superior Court of the State of California. “The legal complaint,”…
Relevance: 52% Posted on: September 28, 2010
D. Dowd Muska attacks conservatives and libertarians for so strongly supporting voter initiative and referendum. From the august pages of the Hartford Business Journal, he writes that we’re “hopped up on the false notion that elected officials respond not to voters but the dictates of liberal elites.” It all started,…
Relevance: 52% Posted on: October 22, 2009
Money. Politicians like to spend it. People — especially special interests — like to get it. And taxpayers really don’t much like having to pay for all that spending. So our representatives try to procrastinate their balancing of spending and revenue. How? With debt. Hence our yearly unbalanced budgets. At…
Relevance: 51% Posted on: July 25, 2015
“However hard they try, men cannot create a social organism, they can only create an organization. In the process of trying to create an organism they will merely create a totalitarian despotism.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (1958), chapter three, p. 24.
Relevance: 51% Posted on: February 3, 2014
Why is schooling so expensive? Government makes it so. Take the recent example, in California, of “coder boot camps.” These are “schools” where computer coders receive training. We now learn that the Golden State’s education bureaucrats are cracking down on this unlicensed and unregulated form of learning. Unless they comply,…
Relevance: 51% Posted on: November 12, 2020
Californian voters have largely reversed an assault on “gig” workers in that state by passing Proposition 22. Prop 22 is a response to Assembly Bill 5, enacted in California in 2019. The idea was to reclassify many freelancers so that companies could no longer treat them as independent contractors. Instead,…
Relevance: 50% Posted on: June 7, 2012
After more than a year of big labor throwing industrial-size kitchen sinks at Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s Republican governor became the first of the three governors in U.S. history to face recall and retain the office. Walker more than survived; he prevailed, beating his Democratic rival by seven percentage points, 53…
Relevance: 50% Posted on: July 23, 2015
“Liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of central government.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (1958), chapter one, p. 14.
Relevance: 50% Posted on: August 23, 2017
“Liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of central government.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (1958), chapter one, p. 14.
Relevance: 49% Posted on: July 16, 2018
Could it be that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, may not be liberal enough? The San Francisco Democrat has ostensibly represented the Golden State in the United States Senate for the last 26 years. Before that, Feinstein spent eight years on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors and then a…
Relevance: 48% Posted on: June 1, 2012
When California voters read Proposition 28’s ballot title, they overwhelmingly support the June 5th measure. Yet, once voters get more details as to what the ballot initiative really does, that robust support not only dissolves, it completely reverses. The Public Policy Institute of California poll shows 68 percent of voters…
Relevance: 48% Posted on: January 11, 2020
On January 11, 1571, the freedom of religion was granted to Austrian nobility. Two years earlier, the first recorded lottery in England was held. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the eleventh day of the first month of 1759, the first American life insurance company was incorporated. On January 11, 1935, Amelia Earhart became…
Relevance: 48% Posted on: July 10, 2012
On July 10, 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoes the Second Bank of the United States, ending central banking in America until the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. On July 10, 1913, the record for the highest temperature in the United States is set in Death Valley, California, at…
Relevance: 48% Posted on: January 31, 2024
AB5 is the code name for legislation passed in California a few years ago to kill freelance work. Ex-freelancers hate AB5; employers who can’t afford to convert contractors into regular employees hate AB5. Unions, on the other hand, love AB5; lawmakers also love AB5. A California citizen initiative partly reversed…
Relevance: 48% Posted on: April 29, 2021
California State Senator Josh Newman has, for now, withdrawn a bill to let elected officials facing a recall see the names of petition signers so that they may be asked if they really mean it. The Democrat complains that critics call his bill “an attack on not just the recall…