Sacramento When I moved to Orange County in the mid-1990s, it was still the most Republican county, in raw numbers, in the United States. Virtually anyone with serious political ambition there ran as a Republican, although changes were starting to…
Sacramento Say what you will about former Gov. Jerry Brown, but he did in fact govern as an adult. He spent too much money and promoted boondoggles such as the bullet train and a twin tunnel project that would burrow…
Sacramento Everyone who has visited the Happiest Place on Earth has been greeted by this not-so-joyful sign: “WARNING: The Disneyland Resort contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm.” Who…
Sacramento It was one of the most absurd stories of California’s lunacy. In the midst of one of the worst droughts in the state’s history, state and federal wildlife officials were depleting a large reservoir in the Sierra foothills to save…
That former California Attorney General Kamala Harris is surging in the Democratic presidential polls tells us one not very surprising thing: Democrats are situational when it comes to concerns about “authoritarianism.” A few progressive writers have pointed it out, but most…
Sacramento California’s cities, counties, and public agencies have secured a record tax windfall in recent years, as property tax collections soar, yet they continue to cry poor-mouth. There’s not enough money, they say, to provide adequate public services. Government officials and…
Sacramento San Francisco politicians and civic leaders love to think of themselves as cutting-edge free spirits who are so much more tolerant than the rubes found in America’s hinterlands. Hey, we have San Francisco values. We aren’t foolish Puritans when…
Sacramento “How do you tell a communist?” asked Ronald Reagan, in one of his best-known quotations. “Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.” It might be…
Sacramento Californians have been fighting a contentious battle over transportation funding since 2017, when then-Gov. Jerry Brown pushed through a large increase in gasoline and diesel taxes and vehicle-license fees to upgrade the state’s crumbling infrastructure. No one disagreed that…