Stop pretending self-checkout ban is about retail theft
SACRAMENTO – In describing a high-profile state bill that would largely ban self-checkout lanes at grocery and drug stores, the radio station KSBY reported, “It’s all in an effort to combat theft.” A...
View ArticleCalifornia’s lagging economy hinders efforts to close state budget deficit
As Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators spend the next few weeks fashioning a state budget that’s plagued by a multibillion-dollar deficit, they can’t count on a booming economy to make their task...
View ArticleDouglas Schoen: What Biden and Trump must do to ‘win’ the first debate
After months of back and forth between the Biden and Trump camps, the two sides finally agreed on terms for a presidential debate, due to take place this summer, hosted by CNN. That voters would see...
View ArticleLarry Wilson: Where are GOP candidates like Pete McCloskey?
Everyone’s always saying, and they are not wrong, that the California Republican Party is dead in the water, sinking like a boulder would. You know what would make the California Republican Party...
View ArticleThe persecution of Donald Trump
The prosecution has wrapped up its case against Donald Trump in his New York trial on 34 felony counts of nobody is sure exactly what. The 34 counts pertain to allegedly falsifying business records,...
View ArticleCapital punishment might satisfy retributivist instincts. But it’s still...
Civil rights groups such as LatinoJustice and Witness to Innocence have filed a petition for the Supreme Court of California to issue a writ of mandate ruling that the death penalty is...
View ArticleHow California’s bursting budget morphed into a $45 billion deficit in just...
The much-revised 2024-25 state budget that Gov. Gavin Newsom released last week contains hundreds of spending reductions and other actions to close what he says is a $44.9 billion deficit. Exactly two...
View ArticleShould public colleges offer classes in agitation, protest?
It’s a question central to the commencement cancellations, protest encampments and building takeovers that have been significant features of college life across California and America this spring:...
View ArticleAmerica’s obsession with race is a double-edged sword
The concept of race can be a valuable tool in analyzing social structures, but we must also keep in mind the consequences of being overzealous in its application. During the latter half of the 20th...
View ArticleFinancial fraud at California’s community colleges
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed California’s fiscal mismanagement in countless ways, most spectacularly in the payment of more than $30 billion — some estimates put the total as high as $55 billion —in...
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