NOV. 5, 2010 Elizabeth Alexis and Nadia Naik were lost. Their arms wrapped around folders and laptop computers, they were trying to find Room 447 in the state Capitol. That particular room is in the “old” wing of the Capitol, but they were in the “new” wing, riding the elevator up to the ...

OCT. 24, 2010 California’s public employee unions have taken the public for suckers for years, so it’s understandable they now think they can play us for fools. A study released Monday by a think tank that specializes in pro-union advocacy purports to show that public employees receive les...

SEPT. 17, 2010 You don’t find the words “state senator” and “indicted” in the same headline very often. But when I saw this Sept. 16 Los Angeles Times story on the eight-count felony indictment of Sen. Rod Wright, D-Inglewood, for perjury and voter fraud, I was surprised. I didn’t kno...

SEPT. 10, 2010 Thursday was California Admission Day – the 160th anniversary of California getting admitted to the United States. Over at the state Capitol, they celebrated the old fashioned way, with a bunch of people dressed up in 1850s garb handing out cake and ice cream while photographer...

AUG. 26, 2010 Every day, more homes go into foreclosure. Companies are not hiring. Credit card usage is at the lowest in decades. Banks are not lending. The question everyone is asking is, do businesses and consumers feel optimism or pessimism? If business owners are optimistic, they hire p...

AUGUST 13, 2010 Earlier this week I beat up on the California High Speed Rail Authority for failing to provide a coherent number of the number of contractors working for it. While this is indeed a stunning example of a bureaucracy not exercising proper control over the billions of dollars it cons...

AUG. 5, 2010 There are many unanswered questions floating around the state’s proposed bullet train plan. How many tens of billions of dollars will it eventually cost? Where will the money come from? Exactly how many people will ride it once it’s built? Do California’s residents even want to...

JULY 23, 2010 Normally a rundown of the people who won’t comment for a story isn’t all that interesting to read. But in this case – another installment in the quest to find out who knew what in the matter of the state handing off Fort Ross State Historic Park to a giant Russian company – ...

JULY 7, 2010 The problem is that there’s no sex in this story. It’s got just about everything else – crime, international intrigue, a mysterious Russian billionaire who likes to acquire pricey antiquities, craven politicians, a bankrupt historic state park and even an action hero movie star...