California
Business & Economics
Local Businesses Shrug Off California’s Strict COVID Restrictions
It’s not hard to argue that California has the country’s harshest pandemic restrictions, though New York and Michigan are close enough to call it a tie. This would be news to anyone visiting from elsewhere, though. Aside from a few exceptions, things look rather normal. About 33 million of the ...
Blog
Get Ready for Redistricting Dominoes to Fall
With the beginning of the new year, work now begins on the drawing of California’s new legislative and congressional lines. Several years back, voters enacted a ballot measure to give the power to draw district lines to an independent citizen’s commission. They will produce final maps by fall 2021, which ...
California
A Single-Payer Healthcare System Would Have Made the Pandemic Worse
The intended-to-scare-readers headline said “California hospitals discuss rationing care as virus surges.” And it should frighten anyone who saw it. Though not necessarily for the reason the headline writer had in mind. The alarmist string of words topped a Dec. 21 Associated Press story, which warned that “overwhelmed hospitals” in ...
Blog
New Year, New Laws
It’s been a tough year, and we hope that Californians can get back on their feet in 2021. Unfortunately, many of the new laws that took effect on January 1 won’t be helping. To borrow from Kermit the frog — it’s not easy being Blue. I’ve picked out a few ...
Blog
What’s Up with the New “California Driver Benefits Fee”?
Uber customers might have noticed a new fee that’s appearing on their charges. Now, who do we have to thank for that? Oh, yes, the lawmakers who tried to destroy the gig economy and its millions of jobs. Uber added a “California Driver Benefits Fee” to its charges on Dec. ...
Commentary
California’s Self-Inflicted Mental Health Crisis
Nine months into California’s pandemic restrictions and no one knows how things will end. Are most of us going to succumb to “poverty… depression … (and) suicide” brought on by being locked down? Or will history validate those who insisted that the only course was to “cancel everything”? No one ...
Commentary
Work Requirements Can Preserve Medicaid For Those Who Need It Most
This month, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case early next year that will decide whether states have the power to impose work requirements as a condition of receiving Medicaid benefits. The question before the high court is a legal one. But as a matter of policy, work requirements are a great ...
Blog
Is Newsom Learning Anything From The Courts That Are Telling Him ‘No’?
Twice in recent weeks, California superior court judges upended government pandemic restrictions. Is the governor’s office getting the message? On Dec. 8, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant told the county that its ban on outdoor dining “is an abuse of the (health) department’s emergency powers, (and) is not ...
Blog
Stockton Voters Reject Mayor Who Pushed Basic Income, Yet Liberal State Lawmakers Embrace Plan
One of the more surprising results from November’s election was the surprise defeat of Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs in his bid for re-election to a Republican upstart Kevin Lincoln, a pastor and former George W. Bush administration official who is both black and Latino. Tubbs won national attention for his ...
Blog
California’s Scandal-Plagued Unemployment Agency
The number of Californians certified for unemployment insurance is now at 1.6 million compared to October last year before the pandemic, when just 260,000 Californians received unemployment checks. Going into the holidays, a heart-breaking one in 10 Californians are unemployed. Even more anguishing, the state’s Employment Development Department (EDD), the ...
Local Businesses Shrug Off California’s Strict COVID Restrictions
It’s not hard to argue that California has the country’s harshest pandemic restrictions, though New York and Michigan are close enough to call it a tie. This would be news to anyone visiting from elsewhere, though. Aside from a few exceptions, things look rather normal. About 33 million of the ...
Get Ready for Redistricting Dominoes to Fall
With the beginning of the new year, work now begins on the drawing of California’s new legislative and congressional lines. Several years back, voters enacted a ballot measure to give the power to draw district lines to an independent citizen’s commission. They will produce final maps by fall 2021, which ...
A Single-Payer Healthcare System Would Have Made the Pandemic Worse
The intended-to-scare-readers headline said “California hospitals discuss rationing care as virus surges.” And it should frighten anyone who saw it. Though not necessarily for the reason the headline writer had in mind. The alarmist string of words topped a Dec. 21 Associated Press story, which warned that “overwhelmed hospitals” in ...
New Year, New Laws
It’s been a tough year, and we hope that Californians can get back on their feet in 2021. Unfortunately, many of the new laws that took effect on January 1 won’t be helping. To borrow from Kermit the frog — it’s not easy being Blue. I’ve picked out a few ...
What’s Up with the New “California Driver Benefits Fee”?
Uber customers might have noticed a new fee that’s appearing on their charges. Now, who do we have to thank for that? Oh, yes, the lawmakers who tried to destroy the gig economy and its millions of jobs. Uber added a “California Driver Benefits Fee” to its charges on Dec. ...
California’s Self-Inflicted Mental Health Crisis
Nine months into California’s pandemic restrictions and no one knows how things will end. Are most of us going to succumb to “poverty… depression … (and) suicide” brought on by being locked down? Or will history validate those who insisted that the only course was to “cancel everything”? No one ...
Work Requirements Can Preserve Medicaid For Those Who Need It Most
This month, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case early next year that will decide whether states have the power to impose work requirements as a condition of receiving Medicaid benefits. The question before the high court is a legal one. But as a matter of policy, work requirements are a great ...
Is Newsom Learning Anything From The Courts That Are Telling Him ‘No’?
Twice in recent weeks, California superior court judges upended government pandemic restrictions. Is the governor’s office getting the message? On Dec. 8, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant told the county that its ban on outdoor dining “is an abuse of the (health) department’s emergency powers, (and) is not ...
Stockton Voters Reject Mayor Who Pushed Basic Income, Yet Liberal State Lawmakers Embrace Plan
One of the more surprising results from November’s election was the surprise defeat of Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs in his bid for re-election to a Republican upstart Kevin Lincoln, a pastor and former George W. Bush administration official who is both black and Latino. Tubbs won national attention for his ...
California’s Scandal-Plagued Unemployment Agency
The number of Californians certified for unemployment insurance is now at 1.6 million compared to October last year before the pandemic, when just 260,000 Californians received unemployment checks. Going into the holidays, a heart-breaking one in 10 Californians are unemployed. Even more anguishing, the state’s Employment Development Department (EDD), the ...
