Yesterday, California Common Sense (CACS) released the most extensive analysis to date of unfunded retiree healthcare liabilities associated with California’s state and local governments, as well as its public education institutions. The report, “Surveying California’s Unfunded Retiree Healthcare Obligations,” assessed the financials of 690 “Other Post-Employment Benefit” (OPEB) plans statewide. It studied those for the State of California, 53 counties, 352 cities, the state trial court system, 282 school districts, and the University of California system. This survey found that the state of California and its constituents have $157.7… Read More

“The AFT [American Federation of Teachers] will be looking more closely at those who are supporting the dismantling of defined benefit plans at the state and municipal level.” – Ranking Asset Managers, A Retirement Security Report on Money Managers for Pension Fund Trustees, March 5, 2014

As reported in aWashington Examiner editorialon April 4th, the American Federation of Teachers – that’s “teachers union” in plain English – has circulated a pamphlet that:

“Calls on pension fund trustees to drop any investment managers that are tainted by connection to free-market nonprofits. They also want those same trustees to force any potential new managers to have to disclose any donations they may have made to the groups on AFT’s blacklist.”

That the AFT can circulate a document like this without generating an uproar in the media reflects a monstrous and tragic double-standard. Money supporting… Read More

This spring thousands of business owners throughout California are receiving a welcome surprise in their mailbox. Rather than a notice of a new tax, fee or audit, they’re getting a check from the State Board of Equalization.

No, we’re not talking about annual income tax refunds from the Franchise Tax Board. These checks are marked “SECURITY REFUND” and represent a dramatic shift in how California’s elected tax board welcomes new businesses to our state.

Previously new corporations and LLCs were forced by the BOE to turn over anywhere from $2000 to $50,000 of their own money as security before they could make a single legal taxable sale. This “security” was held just in case a business might default on its taxes during its first three years of operation.

It was a uniquely California-style shake down. Rather than encourage new business start-ups, the government robbed them of the capital they needed to be successful, only to sit on it for three years before returning it.

I took a close look at the program and found it didn’t make sense for taxpayers or the state. Security was rarely applied, and staff time and energy were needlessly… Read More

In my first two stories about Dr. James Enstrom, Ph. D., The firing of James Enstrom: the dangers of bucking fashionable science, and Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned,I explained about the attempt to muzzle scientific debate at UCLA, and the ultimate wrongful termination lawsuit of Enstrom, a scientist and professor at the university for more than 35 years.

Enstrom challenged the scientific research that the California Legislature and California Air Resources Board used to enact clean air policies including regulating diesel fuel emissions. And then he was fired.

Enstrom exposed the cover-up of “junk environmental science,” and exposed a phony… Read More

Liberals and good government advocates (“googoos”) frequently decry citizens’ mistrust in government, especially in California. Over the last decade and a half, numerous surveys have confirmed that voters distrust government on several levels including waste, corruption and lack of responsiveness to legitimate public needs.

The recent criminal exploits – both actual and alleged – of three California state senators are going to add fuel to the fire of outrage on the part of voters… Read More

I want to share some exciting, fun news with you. The Breitbart News Network is launching a new Breitbart California page! It will be awesome — just read the press release below. I’ve been tapped as Politics Editor, and will be penning a weekly column for the new site… That said, please know that my first and foremost passion will continue to be this site, the FlashReport, which will continue to publish every day as it has since October 1, 2005! Our crack team (read: John Hrabe, Anton Hartmann and me) will link the best of Breitbart California’s content right to our main page. Look for even more original content here as well as new fantastic pieces coming from our Senior Correspondent Katy Grimes, and our other contributors. Jon

BREITBART NEWS NETWORK ANNOUNCES LAUNCH OF BREITBART CALIFORNIA… Read More

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I am definitely in the camp that California has become a hopeless place for Republicans and/or sane government. The downward spiral has been happening for a long time culminating in the disastrous election of 2006 where Schwarzenegger hogged all the campaign funds, while the Democrats abandoned Phil Angelides and elected all the down-ballot positions wiping out any statewide bench the Republicans might have been able to establish. This election will be a major test of whether the California electorate has finally come to its senses.

The reason that we may have a test is not based on the strength of Republican statewide candidates, but the disaster that the Democratic caucus in the state legislature has become. This week brought about the completion of a trifecta of state senators being charged with crimes with one member already being convicted.

Though the convicted member, Senator Rod Wright, and the one charged with bribery, Senator Ron Calderon, had taken a leave of absence, it wasn’t until Senator Leland Yee was indicted for multiple issues including illegal arms dealing that the Senate suspended the three from their seats. Interestingly, all three were… Read More

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It’s nearly unanimous in Sacramento to punish the three corrupt Democratic State Senators, Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, Ronald Calderon, D-Montebello, and Roderick Wright, D-Inglewood, identified as corrupt. So, Governor Jerry Brown called for their resignations. The State Senate actually suspended them.

Former Senator and Congressman John Burton, Chairman of the California Democratic Party, did not see a pattern of Democratic criminal acts. He was quoted in the Los Angeles Times attributing the arrest of the three Democratic Senators, “to the personal failings of those accused, rather than to any culture of corruption festering in Sacramento’s ruling party.” Even if he pretends not to know how Sacramento “payola” or “pay-to-play” works, he must have read them in newspaper stories.

Unfortunately, it is also almost unanimous that Sacramento’s bi-partisan corrupt system of awarding special interest laws in exchange for campaign donations continues and there is no call by our elected officials, not by Brown, not by Burton, not even by Republican leaders of the Senate or Assembly to try to permanently fix our failing legislative… Read More