“We thought [the employees we fired] were inappropriate to be employees of the city.” – Los Angeles Police ChiefBernard Parks(ret.), in reference to the termination of corrupt police officers,Rampart scandal (late 1990’s)

About a year ago we published an editorial asking this question, “How much does professionalism cost,” using as an example the tragic death of Kelly Thomas. In that case, six police officers repeatedly struck with batons and tased an unarmed man, who died a few days later of his injuries. Since that tragedy back in 2011, numerous cases of police misconduct have surfaced, many of them with equally tragic consequences. The latest one, while inexcusable, is more farce than tragedy, involving a team ofSanta Ana police officers who… Read More

[Publisher’s Note: As part of an ongoing effort to bring original, thoughtful commentary to you here at the FlashReport, we are pleased to present this column from Thomas Del Beccaro.]

When is enough – enough – when it comes to taxes? In California, the answer seems to be never. Despite persistently ranking among the highest taxed states in the nation and consistently ranking last as a place to start a business, in part because of taxes, new tax schemes abound. In my view, it is time to stop threatening Californians with new taxes.

In… Read More

A few years ago I wrote a column on the Orwellian practice of politicians who deceive voters by perverting the English language. For example, the benign sounding terms “investment,” “new revenue,” “budget solution,” and “fair share,” are all euphemisms for “higher taxes.”

A horrible bill dealing with California’s controversial high speed rail projects just cleared the Legislature. It compels us to reexamine the lexicon politicians use to create a very clear impression in the mind of the listener that what is being said is benevolent and true, when, in fact, it is not.

This week’s featured terms are “government transparency,” which to normal people means “open and honest,” and “government oversight,” the plain meaning of which is “watchful and responsible supervision.” To political insiders, however, the meaning of both these terms is “bury it.”

To read the entire column click here http://www.hjta.org/california-commentary/move-along-theres-nothing-to-see-here/… Read More

State superior court delivers a stunning rebuke to Agricultural Labor Relations Board’sTop Staff Attorney Sylvia Torres Guillén, citing “deficiencies in its investigation” and staff “embroilment” in worker termination.

An employee whistleblower at the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board has exposed wrongdoing by the activist attorneys in the state agency responsible for protecting the rights of farmworkers. The charges, made by an insider who participated in an ALRB investigation of Gerawan Farming, were brought directly to the office of the Board’s chairman, William B. Gould IV. The whistleblower employee alleges that the ALRB General Counsel and staff submitted false or misleading sworn statements to the Board in order to get agency authorization to file enforcement proceedings against Gerawan.

These charges could reveal the extent to which theGeneral Counsel TorresGuillénand staff manipulated evidence in administrative and legal proceedings in order to tip the scales – even perhaps illegally – in favor of the United Farm Workers.

The ALRB General Counsel’s… Read More

I felt it was time to come out. I know a lot of you suspected, I know there has been whispering behind my back, but I couldn’t come out when I was in the Legislature, people would not have accepted it. After the Legislature, it just didn’t seem that important, but now that there has been so much publicity around others, and I know there are a lot of people out there that feel like me, I thought, by coming out, I would give others the courage to do the same. I am a transstatial.

When I was young, I ran away from the my statial orientation. I engaged in statial stereotypes, uttered statial epithets. I mocked how they talked, how they dressed, how they looked, all the while envying that they were brave enough to be who they are, unlike me. I know now my statial prejudice was just a form of self loathing. I hid behind my statial profiling to hide my statial orientation. I was a tortured soul.

As I grew older, I became more comfortable with my orientation, I started coming out. Today, I am proud to tell people who I really am. I am a transstatial, that’s right, I am an Oklahoman in Californian’s body. Yes, I used to call them Okies or… Read More

Historically Japanese executives and their companies has been much more comfortable concentrating in California on the Pacific Rim rather than the “inland” and East Coast states. We have a small but successful Japanese population dating back generations. CA is not considered a prejudiced state for Asians. The Japanese have surely felt particularly out of place in the South.

Apparently that undeniable Golden State preference has given way to economic reality. Texas (among other states) is FAR better for a company’s bottom line than Taxifornia.

EXCERPT: “At least 175 Japanese projects have translated into $19 billion in direct investments in Texas since 2003, according to the Texas governor’s office. Some recent investments include:

* Toyota is relocating its U.S. headquarters from California to Plano, building a $300 million campus that will employ nearly 40,000 in 2017.

* Tractor maker Kubota Corp. is investing $51 million to move its headquarters and about 350 jobs from California to Grapevine.

* Mitsubishi Heavy Industries plans to build a $100… Read More

Labor unions target many non-union businesses across the country for takeover; some businesses successfully fend off the unions, and others succumb. But in California, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, a state agency, works in cahoots with the United Farm Workers labor union, intimidating, fear-mongering, threatening, and uses legal actions filed against farming employers to force them into submission to the United Farm Workers labor union.

But recently, the ALRB has been dealt several legal blows to its efforts to malign Gerawan Farming, and force its farm workers into unionization.

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board was created following the signing of the Agriculture Labor Relations Act in 1975 by then-Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, to restore peace in the fields. The California Labor Act states:

It is hereby stated to be the policy of the State of California to encourage and protect the right of agricultural employees to full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment, and to be free from the… Read More

On a variety of issues Americans in general, and Californians in particular, are increasingly saying what we do is really no one else’s business. That libertarian argument appeals to right-of-center voters because they don’t like government control, and it appeals to left-of-center voters because they are more likely to agree with the social goal, e.g. legalized marijuana, for example.

But is it always the right answer to leave controversial social policies up to individual choice? Nowhere is that question more relevant than in the current debate in the California Legislature to allow doctors to help patients kill themselves, an idea embodied in Senate Bill 128 by Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis). The argument goes something like this;

“When someone is diagnosed as having less than six months to live, why shouldn’t they be given the choice to end their life on their own terms instead of enduring months of pain and suffering?”

That’s a straightforward question, and it deserves an answer. After all, whose life is it anyway?

The problem, of course, is that once the issue is reduced to a subjective personal choice we are, for all intents… Read More