California

California

Grading Jerry Brown’s charter school

In the State Capitol, bills hostile to charter schools, which are deregulated public schools independent of school districts, have snaked their way through the Legislature. If they reach Jerry Brown’s desk, it will be interesting to see what the governor decides to do, since he founded a successful charter school, ...
California

The New Watchdogs

Are newspaper reporters still necessary? When the Los Angeles Times broke the story of corruption in Bell, California, where the city manager was collecting $1.5 million in annual compensation, it felt like vindication for the institutional press and its traditional role. Before Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives filed their stories, ...
Business & Economics

California Welfare Gets Carded but Not Reformed

Last year a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed that California welfare “clients” were using their Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards to spend millions at Las Vegas casinos and on cruise ships to hardship destinations such as Rio de Janeiro. Working Californians will be interested to know what the state did ...
Commentary

Why Don’t Health Insurance Exchanges Work?

A previous entry reported and discussed the lackluster — basically non-existent — results of the Utah Health Exchange, and promised to explain why unsubsidized exchanges are unlikely to attract significant numbers of beneficiaries from the small-group market. The answer, I believe, is pretty straightforward: The administrative costs of operating an ...
Business & Economics

Court pick echoes Jerry Brown’s worldview

Gov. Jerry Brown’s decision to nominate Berkeley Law Professor Goodwin Liu to California’s Supreme Court is a highly partisan poke in the eye at Republicans, given that GOP congressional criticisms led Liu, in May, to withdraw his name from contention for a slot on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. ...
Business & Economics

Jerry Brown picks his kind of judge

Gov. Jerry Brown’s decision to nominate UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the California Supreme Court is a highly partisan poke in the eye at Republicans, given that GOP congressional criticisms led Liu, in May, to withdraw his name from contention for a slot on the 9th U.S. Circuit ...
California

How’s ‘Jerry Brown’s charter school’ doing?

In the state Capitol, bills hostile to charter schools, which are deregulated public schools independent of school districts, have snaked their way through the Legislature. If they reach Jerry Brown’s desk, it will be interesting to see what the governor decides to do, since he founded a successful charter school, ...
Business & Economics

Give A Convict A Job

Never has it been more evident that California is in a downward spiral on the verge of economic, social and political collapse — San Francisco is now pushing to make convicted criminals a protected class so that prospective employers cannot inquire about criminal records. An already precarious business climate in ...
Business & Economics

Making public pay for budget cuts

Sacramento – Last year, one of my reporters and her adult son were walking in downtown Sacramento when a couple of young toughs tried grabbing her purse. She pulled back her purse, and the robbers lunged at the two of them, leaving the son’s face covered in blood. Despite a ...
Business & Economics

The Alameda incident: ‘First responders’ who don’t

On Memorial Day, a suicidal man waded into San Francisco Bay outside the city of Alameda and stood there for about an hour, neck deep in chilly water, as about 75 bystanders watched. Local police and firefighters were dispatched to the scene after the man’s desperate mother called 911, but ...
California

Grading Jerry Brown’s charter school

In the State Capitol, bills hostile to charter schools, which are deregulated public schools independent of school districts, have snaked their way through the Legislature. If they reach Jerry Brown’s desk, it will be interesting to see what the governor decides to do, since he founded a successful charter school, ...
California

The New Watchdogs

Are newspaper reporters still necessary? When the Los Angeles Times broke the story of corruption in Bell, California, where the city manager was collecting $1.5 million in annual compensation, it felt like vindication for the institutional press and its traditional role. Before Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives filed their stories, ...
Business & Economics

California Welfare Gets Carded but Not Reformed

Last year a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed that California welfare “clients” were using their Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards to spend millions at Las Vegas casinos and on cruise ships to hardship destinations such as Rio de Janeiro. Working Californians will be interested to know what the state did ...
Commentary

Why Don’t Health Insurance Exchanges Work?

A previous entry reported and discussed the lackluster — basically non-existent — results of the Utah Health Exchange, and promised to explain why unsubsidized exchanges are unlikely to attract significant numbers of beneficiaries from the small-group market. The answer, I believe, is pretty straightforward: The administrative costs of operating an ...
Business & Economics

Court pick echoes Jerry Brown’s worldview

Gov. Jerry Brown’s decision to nominate Berkeley Law Professor Goodwin Liu to California’s Supreme Court is a highly partisan poke in the eye at Republicans, given that GOP congressional criticisms led Liu, in May, to withdraw his name from contention for a slot on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. ...
Business & Economics

Jerry Brown picks his kind of judge

Gov. Jerry Brown’s decision to nominate UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the California Supreme Court is a highly partisan poke in the eye at Republicans, given that GOP congressional criticisms led Liu, in May, to withdraw his name from contention for a slot on the 9th U.S. Circuit ...
California

How’s ‘Jerry Brown’s charter school’ doing?

In the state Capitol, bills hostile to charter schools, which are deregulated public schools independent of school districts, have snaked their way through the Legislature. If they reach Jerry Brown’s desk, it will be interesting to see what the governor decides to do, since he founded a successful charter school, ...
Business & Economics

Give A Convict A Job

Never has it been more evident that California is in a downward spiral on the verge of economic, social and political collapse — San Francisco is now pushing to make convicted criminals a protected class so that prospective employers cannot inquire about criminal records. An already precarious business climate in ...
Business & Economics

Making public pay for budget cuts

Sacramento – Last year, one of my reporters and her adult son were walking in downtown Sacramento when a couple of young toughs tried grabbing her purse. She pulled back her purse, and the robbers lunged at the two of them, leaving the son’s face covered in blood. Despite a ...
Business & Economics

The Alameda incident: ‘First responders’ who don’t

On Memorial Day, a suicidal man waded into San Francisco Bay outside the city of Alameda and stood there for about an hour, neck deep in chilly water, as about 75 bystanders watched. Local police and firefighters were dispatched to the scene after the man’s desperate mother called 911, but ...
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