If 80 percent of California is in extreme drought, as the Los Angeles Times just reported, where is the data and evidence?

City and county governments are still running sprinklers and wasting water as though there is no drought, yet threatening and even imposing penalties on citizens who violate unclear water policies.

The State Water Resources Control Board adopted new drought policy and regulations to give local agencies the authority to fine water wasters up to $500 a… Read More

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Of course, Neel Kashkari, the GOP candidate for California governor against incumbent Jerry Brown in the November election, is a member of the Republican party and is officially endorsed by it. When I say that he is a candidate without a party, I mean that he is not backed by his party in a way that could promote his victory.

Kashkari, who trailed Brown by 35 points in the June 3 primary, is not expected by anyone to win, and that includes his own party leadership, as I prove below. He is playing the time honored tradition of candidate expected to lose, for the sake of giving his party some representation. My point is that what the state party needs now is a GOP candidate to win a statewide office, not just run a show-campaign designed to manage the party as a shadow of its former self. A losing candidate will not give California what it needs: a viable opposition party.

Kashkari did take some advice I offered in Flashreport concerning… Read More

Given California’s many serious problems, including high unemployment, a listless economy and drought, one might think our Sacramento politicians would not have time on their hands to promote laws that have no force or effect in California. One might also think it unwise, at a time when our state is surviving on temporary tax increases (Proposition 30), to spend millions to place such a pointless law on the statewide ballot. One would think that state lawmakers would have more sense than to waste time and money on such legislation, but they would be wrong.

… Read More

Posing as Gerawan Farming employees, a small group of other farm workers and United Farm Worker union posers protested a meeting of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board Wednesday. Gerawan workers sent out a press release making sure the public knows that the protestors at the Agricultural Labor Relations Board meeting in Sacramento Wednesday were not Gerawan employees. “Every time hundreds of us real Gerawan employees demonstrate, we see a very small group of UFW counter demonstrators, and most of them we don’t recognize,” said Silvia Lopez, a Gerawan employee for more than 16 years. Lopez is also the leader of the thousands of workers who are fighting to decertify the UFW at Gerawan.

Gerawan employees have staged a series of walkouts and protests against the UFW and ALRB. The last protest was July 9 at the Visalia office of the ALRB. Videos of that genuine protest can be seen at the links below:

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<iframe width=”420″ height=”315″… Read More

The California Air Resources Board is a state agency completely out of control. With no oversight by the Legislature, as the California Constitution calls for, Mary Nichols, ARB Chairman, is setting policy on behalf of this regulatory body, for the entire state.

ARB Goes It Alone

The ARB has taken a great deal of liberty, particularly with its interpretation of AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. TheARB devised a cap-and-trade system whereby it holds a quarterly auction program “requiring many California employers to bid significant amounts of money for the privilege of continuing to emit carbon dioxide — or be faced with closing their doors in California, laying… Read More

Last year, President Obama started raising the issue of “income inequality” as a new problem in America. He then proposed to fix this problem using the same “solutions” that he and other Democrats have been pushing for 40 years: Raise the minimum wage and increase unemployment insurance payments. He also used it to further advocate for wealth redistribution via the tax code.

Republicans generally responded that the issue was made up or trumped up by Obama and that this problem either doesn’t exist or is not as big a deal as he suggests. A few Republicans acknowledged the issue and proposed we fix it with tax cuts, which of course was the remedy said Republicans have been pushing for 40 years.

In my opinion, both sides are wrong. Obama is clearly using “income inequality” as a new reason to advocate for the same things he wanted long before “income inequality” ever entered the vernacular. In the same way, Republicans using it to advocate for our standard policy choices is equally inappropriate. So, what do I think we should or should not be doing… Read More

In 1998 I was proud to be part of a small but committed team who saw that bilingual education wasn’t working as a means to teach young children English, and thus keeping them from living the American dream – Proposition 227, the English for the Children campaign ushered out bilingual education in exchange for English immersion.

I remember many, many days and hours spent in our storefront office in the garment district — working with Sheri Annis, our our go-to guy Ben, and all of our great volunteers — almost exclusively Spanish speaking parents frustrated that their kids were not learning English in school. A lot of help came from Sister Alice Callaghan and the folks from her shelter on Skid Row — Las Familias Del Pueblo.

Our campaign Chairman (and funder) for the effort was Ron Unz whose passion for seeing these children actually learn was amazing — Ron devoted years of his life to this cause. Our campaign Co-Chair was Gloria Matta Tuchman, a teacher who successfully had used immersion to… Read More

[Publisher’s Note: Gloria Matta Tuchman was the Co-author of Prop. 227, English for the Children, and narrowly lost the 1998 race for Superintendent to Public Instruction. I was the campaign coordinator for Prop. 227, and really got to know Gloria during that successful campaign, that was all about helping kids achieve fluency in English so that they could live the American dream – Flash]

Why did the California Republican and Democrat Senate Education Committee vote to place a measure on the Nov. 2016 ballot repealing Prop. 227 and restoring the failed “bilingual education” program in this state? Prop. 227 passed overwhelmingly by the vote of the people of California by 61% in 1998 and now our Legislators say that our vote does not count.

What is “bilingual education?” It is a program that utilizes the student’s primary… Read More