Politics and Elections

Bored CA Billionaire Groups Merge
Monday, January 30th, 2012
275px-Pyramid_of_Capitalist_System

JAN. 28, 2012 "Think Forward and Long" or "Think Long and Forward California." I suggest one of those as the new name for the merging government reform groups California Forward and Think Long.  Because the ridiculousness of the name should be as ridiculous as the hailed move. This is w...

Courts Undermine State’s Initiative System
Friday, January 20th, 2012
Marijuana smoking

Jan. 20, 2012 I voted against Proposition 215, the so-called Compassionate Use Act, which legalized marijuana use here in the nation’s largest pot-growing state for -- wink, wink, nod, nod -- “medicinal purposes.” That’s why it is rather ironic that I find myself compelled to come to t...

CA GOP Going to Elephant Graveyard?
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
Californian_Republican_Party_logo

JAN. 17, 2012 Many in the media say that Republicans are rapidly becoming irrelevant in California, and will become nothing more than an afterthought after the next election. Even a Capitol press club, made up of declining "old media" newspaper, radio and television reporters, recently ind...

Dems caught GOP flat-footed
Saturday, December 31st, 2011

JAN. 1, 2012 Over the summer, the website I edit, CalWatchdog, published a series of articles documenting the way that the political Left exploited the redistricting process in California to assure strong gains for the Democratic Party. The report included an exclusive interview with a redistrict...

Freedom Will Keep Fading in 2012
Monday, December 26th, 2011

Dec. 26, 2011 The United States and California, in particular, are continuing down a dangerous path where more decisions about almost everything in life are made by government officials rather than by individual citizens. That's a fancy way of saying that we are losing our freedoms, slowly but su...

Gravitas, Integrity and the GOP
Friday, December 23rd, 2011

DEC. 23, 2011 With California in political turmoil, and one-party rule inching closer to perpetuity, as 2011 comes to an end, this column has more meaning than ever. First published in October, I hope Republicans are now listening. Throughout the country, but especially in California, the medi...

Voting Rights for California Workers
Friday, December 9th, 2011

DEC. 9, 2011 “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.” So said Thomas Jefferson, who, aside from being our nation’s third president, was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. Calif...

California Dream is no more
Friday, December 2nd, 2011

DEC. 2, 2011 The California Dream is no more. In 2010, according to Census figures, the proportion of us who moved here from other states was the lowest in a century. That’s because, for the past six years or so, more folks have moved out of California than in. The state’s population fl...

Getting Serious About Ron Paul
Saturday, November 26th, 2011

NOV. 28, 2011 I can't forgive myself for voting for Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor during the 2003 recall. I selected a "winnable" loser rather than Tom McClintock, a principled conservative who knew what policies to pursue to right California's sinking fiscal ship. If everyone who voted for ...

Inconvenient truth about AB32
Saturday, November 26th, 2011

NOV. 26, 2011 A new study, published in the latest issue of Science magazine, concludes that global temperatures are considerably less sensitive to changing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2) levels than previously predicted. It suggests that AB 32, the so-called California Global Warming Solut...