Waste, Fraud and AbuseIron Man Goes To North CarolinaFriday, October 28th, 2011 Katy Grimes: California is losing out on more job creation opportunities to yet another state. Despite the $100 million in tax credits recently extended to Hollywood filmmakers by the state Legislature, the next Iron Man production will be in North Carolina. "The production is expected to cre... A Role Model Tattoo BarbieSaturday, October 22nd, 2011 Katy Grimes: It's hard to tell if Barbie has gone ghetto or white trash. Mattel has just released a $50 Barbie complete with tattoos, sleazy punk, clothes and leopard leggings. What happened to the flat-chested Midge doll, or even modest Barbie? Don't girls play with bald baby dolls anymore? ... Welfare as Wave Life: Don’t Blame it on RioFriday, July 29th, 2011K. Lloyd Billingsley: As the Los Angeles Times noted last year, welfare “clients,” as the system calls them, were using their Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards to spend millions in casinos and on cruise ships headed for Rio de Janeiro. All clients going out on the town this weekend should... Will Salaries Sink CIRM?Friday, July 8th, 2011Lloyd Billingsley: The Los Angeles Times is editorializing that outlandish salaries at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, will “will go a long way toward assuring the institute's extinction.” But the Times is leaving out another factor that could sink the state stem cell i... Subsidizing A Broke SacramentoTuesday, July 5th, 2011Katy Grimes: Sacramento is living proof that the left hand doesn't know what the other left hand is doing. Forget the right hand - there is no "right" in Sacramento. Despite the city's $60 million deficit, city officials and several members of the Sacramento City Council want to forge ahead with ... City Privatization Sabotaged?Sunday, June 26th, 2011 Katy Grimes: When employees who mow grass for the city of Sacramento are paid $60,000 annually, medical benefits and a nice pension, you know that the inmates are running the asylum. Unskilled labor jobs, which in the real world are paid at an hourly wage, have become part of the union-driven entitl... Brown Impounds Cell Phones!Tuesday, January 11th, 2011Anthony Pignataro: Within hours of the news breaking that Verizon will begin selling Apple's iPhones, California Governor Jerry Brown issued Executive Order B-1-11, forcing 48,000 state employees to turn in their work-provided cellular phones. "It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent... High-Speed Revolving DoorFriday, January 7th, 2011Anthony Pignataro: You don't have to watch politics very long before you see that top people move more or less freely from the public sector -- where they develop much expertise at taxpayer expense -- to the private sector -- whey they cash in on that service, then turn around and start grabbing ... Bill Honig’s Back!Wednesday, January 5th, 2011Anthony Pignataro: That's right, folks: Governor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown has appointed one Louis "Bill" Honig to the California State Board of Education. Honig, for those of you not old enough to remember 1993, spent a decade as state Superintendent of Public Instruction until getting convicted o... The Nunez-Schwarzenegger LegacyTuesday, January 4th, 2011Katy Grimes: Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger might finally have a legacy, but it isn't what he had hoped for and forever links him with nefarious, notorious politicians. Esteban Nunez, the privileged son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, may have received a commutation on his pr... |