Environment
Agriculture
Rural rebellion brewing
The nearly five-hour drive from the Sacramento area to Yreka, in Siskiyou County by the Oregon border, was a reminder not just of the immense size and beauty of California, but of the vast regional and cultural differences one finds within our 37-million-population state. Sacramento is Government Central, a land ...
California
California’s costly green subsidies
If there was any doubt about the economic success of state-mandated green programs, it was erased this week after a state Senate hearing about the future of alternate fuels. By the end of the four-hour session, it was clear that environmental special interests are thriving in California. At the hearing, ...
Business & Economics
Honesty, No More Subsidies
President Obama’s plan to change federal lending rules so people who are under water in their mortgages can refinance will make a political point about Republican intransigence on his jobs package but won’t sway many voters. The truth: the housing market will not rebound until the banks get their backlog ...
Agriculture
California global warming law choking food processors
As California’s unemployment rate hovers above 12 percent, even the state’s Democratic leaders – notorious for regulating, taxing and complaining about California’s business community – are talking about jobs. They are championing the occasional job expansion in Silicon Valley (i.e., a new Dell research and development center) and proposing their ...
California
Dems Slash Business-Saving Bills
Long before any of 800 bills passed by the Legislature reached Gov. Jerry Browns desk this legislative session, partisan politics took precedence over repairing the states economy. Apparently restoring confidence and faith in Californias residents and businesses was less important than party politics and flexing muscle. In early 2011, Republicans ...
Agriculture
Delta Water rules smelt of extremism
If you want to understand the fundamental things wrong with our nation and California, in particular, you ought to peruse the 140-page opinion recently issued by Judge Oliver Wanger in the “Consolidated Delta Smelt Cases.” It describes many of the most frustrating elements in our society – abuses of federal ...
Business & Economics
Solyndra crash shows shakiness of market subsidies
Solyndra, the Fremont solar-panel manufacturer that went belly up last week, was the subject of a hearing Wednesday all the way in the nation’s capital. Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee Committee on Oversight and Investigations wanted to get to the bottom of how the much-hyped “green” company ...
California
The Conventional Jerry Brown
Common wisdom, embraced by many on the left and on the right, holds that California governor Jerry Brown is a most unconventional politician. Brown’s otherworldly attitude, quick wit, and unpredictable utterances have served him well throughout his long political career. Political observers in Sacramento are still trying to figure him ...
Business & Economics
Your Government Still the Main Threat to Your Freedoms
In my years writing for newspapers, I’ve always hated the commemoration ritual. What new insight can we offer about Thanksgiving? What words can still capture the essence of D-Day? And, this weekend, what can we really say that ameliorates the horror of 9/11? Mainly, I hate how commemorations, and national ...
Agriculture
Villaraigosa wants more of what doesn’t work
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s speech Tuesday at the Sacramento Press Club left many reporters wondering what the mayor is doing and what he is running for next. It seems odd for an L.A. mayor to fly to Sacramento, give a speech detailing a so-called “grand new vision” even as ...
Rural rebellion brewing
The nearly five-hour drive from the Sacramento area to Yreka, in Siskiyou County by the Oregon border, was a reminder not just of the immense size and beauty of California, but of the vast regional and cultural differences one finds within our 37-million-population state. Sacramento is Government Central, a land ...
California’s costly green subsidies
If there was any doubt about the economic success of state-mandated green programs, it was erased this week after a state Senate hearing about the future of alternate fuels. By the end of the four-hour session, it was clear that environmental special interests are thriving in California. At the hearing, ...
Honesty, No More Subsidies
President Obama’s plan to change federal lending rules so people who are under water in their mortgages can refinance will make a political point about Republican intransigence on his jobs package but won’t sway many voters. The truth: the housing market will not rebound until the banks get their backlog ...
California global warming law choking food processors
As California’s unemployment rate hovers above 12 percent, even the state’s Democratic leaders – notorious for regulating, taxing and complaining about California’s business community – are talking about jobs. They are championing the occasional job expansion in Silicon Valley (i.e., a new Dell research and development center) and proposing their ...
Dems Slash Business-Saving Bills
Long before any of 800 bills passed by the Legislature reached Gov. Jerry Browns desk this legislative session, partisan politics took precedence over repairing the states economy. Apparently restoring confidence and faith in Californias residents and businesses was less important than party politics and flexing muscle. In early 2011, Republicans ...
Delta Water rules smelt of extremism
If you want to understand the fundamental things wrong with our nation and California, in particular, you ought to peruse the 140-page opinion recently issued by Judge Oliver Wanger in the “Consolidated Delta Smelt Cases.” It describes many of the most frustrating elements in our society – abuses of federal ...
Solyndra crash shows shakiness of market subsidies
Solyndra, the Fremont solar-panel manufacturer that went belly up last week, was the subject of a hearing Wednesday all the way in the nation’s capital. Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee Committee on Oversight and Investigations wanted to get to the bottom of how the much-hyped “green” company ...
The Conventional Jerry Brown
Common wisdom, embraced by many on the left and on the right, holds that California governor Jerry Brown is a most unconventional politician. Brown’s otherworldly attitude, quick wit, and unpredictable utterances have served him well throughout his long political career. Political observers in Sacramento are still trying to figure him ...
Your Government Still the Main Threat to Your Freedoms
In my years writing for newspapers, I’ve always hated the commemoration ritual. What new insight can we offer about Thanksgiving? What words can still capture the essence of D-Day? And, this weekend, what can we really say that ameliorates the horror of 9/11? Mainly, I hate how commemorations, and national ...
Villaraigosa wants more of what doesn’t work
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s speech Tuesday at the Sacramento Press Club left many reporters wondering what the mayor is doing and what he is running for next. It seems odd for an L.A. mayor to fly to Sacramento, give a speech detailing a so-called “grand new vision” even as ...
