Environment
Commentary
The real cost of ‘Medicare for All’ could be American lives
During the most recent Democratic presidential debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders made the case for Medicare for All, saying, “We need a health care system that guarantees health care to all people as every other major country does.” Sanders is right to point out the similarities between his plan and government-run ...
Blog
Latest Campus Free Speech Battle Shows Long Way to Go to Protect Student First Amendment Freedoms
The free speech battles on college campuses today are perhaps unparalleled since the time of Mario Savio at Berkeley in the 1960s – although the cast of characters is much different today with conservatives being afraid to speak freely about their beliefs in class. Recently on “Next Round with PRI,” ...
Blog
California State Senate Hands Newsom Decade-old Political Lightning Rod in Redevelopment Agencies
Since 2011, the California State Legislature has been itching to bring back redevelopment agencies. Governor Jerry Brown’s nixing of the 70-year-old program scored the California state budget several billion dollars during the Great Recession in 2011. At the time of their elimination, redevelopment agencies collected around 12 percent of all ...
Blog
Is California Already Tired of Newsom’s “Winning” So Much This Legislative Session?
President Trump said many times during the 2016 election that the American people would “win” so much under his administration that they would get tired of winning. Now that the 2019 legislative session is over, Gov. Gavin Newsom may be making the same boast.California’s new governor was, by all accounts, ...
Agriculture
Organic Industry Anti-Pesticide Propaganda Threatens to Cripple American Agriculture
In The Wealth of Nations, the 18th century economist and philosopher Adam Smith observed about the chicanery of some businessmen, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” ...
Agriculture
California Lawmakers Always Thirsty for More Water Laws
Water policy is one of those topics that can leave newcomers and casual listeners feeling inundated. The regulations that govern state and federal water policy are laced with a flood of acronyms and terms, with a steady gush of changes to state water policy and regulation over the past decade. ...
Commentary
Cutting Medical Costs Can Be a Bargain
Much of the medical progress in the past half-century has involved expensive, high-tech diagnostic tests and therapies. But it would be a mistake to gainsay the value of inexpensive, low-tech innovations. Consider the problem of falls, which are both a cause and effect of declining health in the elderly. They ...
Commentary
Knowing A Little Physics Could Save Your Life
As Hurricane Dorian closes in inexorably on the U.S. mainland, even the local news here in California is covering it intensely. One meteorologist made an odd remark about the storm: “Let’s not focus too much on what category it is.” (Hurricanes are categorized from one to five, depending on the ...
Agriculture
Plants could give us new treatments for cancer, HIV and other diseases if we had better ‘pharming’ regulations
Politicians talk a lot about farming but seldom about “pharming,” even though the latter can also have a big impact on Americans’ pocketbooks—and their health. The punny name refers to genetically modifying plants such as corn, rice, tobacco and alfalfa to produce high concentrations of pharmaceutical ingredients. Many common medicines ...
Blog
This Is California: Paying the Rich To Buy State-Approved Cars
California leads the country in electric vehicle sales, but it’s apparently not enough to satisfy the Sacramento meddlers. The same legislator who would outlaw gasoline and diesel automobiles now wants to increase the publicly-funded subsidy that is intended to motivate car buyers to choose EVs. As if rich Californians couldn’t ...
The real cost of ‘Medicare for All’ could be American lives
During the most recent Democratic presidential debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders made the case for Medicare for All, saying, “We need a health care system that guarantees health care to all people as every other major country does.” Sanders is right to point out the similarities between his plan and government-run ...
Latest Campus Free Speech Battle Shows Long Way to Go to Protect Student First Amendment Freedoms
The free speech battles on college campuses today are perhaps unparalleled since the time of Mario Savio at Berkeley in the 1960s – although the cast of characters is much different today with conservatives being afraid to speak freely about their beliefs in class. Recently on “Next Round with PRI,” ...
California State Senate Hands Newsom Decade-old Political Lightning Rod in Redevelopment Agencies
Since 2011, the California State Legislature has been itching to bring back redevelopment agencies. Governor Jerry Brown’s nixing of the 70-year-old program scored the California state budget several billion dollars during the Great Recession in 2011. At the time of their elimination, redevelopment agencies collected around 12 percent of all ...
Is California Already Tired of Newsom’s “Winning” So Much This Legislative Session?
President Trump said many times during the 2016 election that the American people would “win” so much under his administration that they would get tired of winning. Now that the 2019 legislative session is over, Gov. Gavin Newsom may be making the same boast.California’s new governor was, by all accounts, ...
Organic Industry Anti-Pesticide Propaganda Threatens to Cripple American Agriculture
In The Wealth of Nations, the 18th century economist and philosopher Adam Smith observed about the chicanery of some businessmen, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” ...
California Lawmakers Always Thirsty for More Water Laws
Water policy is one of those topics that can leave newcomers and casual listeners feeling inundated. The regulations that govern state and federal water policy are laced with a flood of acronyms and terms, with a steady gush of changes to state water policy and regulation over the past decade. ...
Cutting Medical Costs Can Be a Bargain
Much of the medical progress in the past half-century has involved expensive, high-tech diagnostic tests and therapies. But it would be a mistake to gainsay the value of inexpensive, low-tech innovations. Consider the problem of falls, which are both a cause and effect of declining health in the elderly. They ...
Knowing A Little Physics Could Save Your Life
As Hurricane Dorian closes in inexorably on the U.S. mainland, even the local news here in California is covering it intensely. One meteorologist made an odd remark about the storm: “Let’s not focus too much on what category it is.” (Hurricanes are categorized from one to five, depending on the ...
Plants could give us new treatments for cancer, HIV and other diseases if we had better ‘pharming’ regulations
Politicians talk a lot about farming but seldom about “pharming,” even though the latter can also have a big impact on Americans’ pocketbooks—and their health. The punny name refers to genetically modifying plants such as corn, rice, tobacco and alfalfa to produce high concentrations of pharmaceutical ingredients. Many common medicines ...
This Is California: Paying the Rich To Buy State-Approved Cars
California leads the country in electric vehicle sales, but it’s apparently not enough to satisfy the Sacramento meddlers. The same legislator who would outlaw gasoline and diesel automobiles now wants to increase the publicly-funded subsidy that is intended to motivate car buyers to choose EVs. As if rich Californians couldn’t ...
