[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 John Cox.]

California is facing an uncertain future – and it’s not an earthquake, despite a current blockbuster movie. There’s a water crisis, an education system declared woeful by a state judge and soaring costs on all levels – water, utilities, energy, housing and taxes. These could all be eclipsed by the huge elephant in the room – unfunded pensions and health care for state and local government employees that could be $1 trillion or more.

What are our public officials doing? As was recently reported, there are no fewer than a dozen proposals in the legislature to increase taxes AND spending, despite the massive underfunding of pensions and health care. The Governor crows about a California ‘comeback’ but he almost completely ignores the trillion dollar bomb expected to hit over the next 20 years. This government employee pensions and healthcare bomb only gets worse, as life expectancies expand and investments underperform the rosy scenarios… Read More

Clint Olivier just announced he’s running for California State Assembly for the 31st Assembly District. If Olivier’s name isn’t familiar, be thankful. He’s not the son of a politician. He’s not from Hollywood. He didn’t get independently wealthy as a hedge-fund manager on oil and coal investments. He hasn’t sold rocket launchers to Filipino Muslim separatists, or offered bribes to FBI agents.

Clint Olivier is a member of the Fresno, California City Council, representing District 7, first elected to the council in 2010, and a former television news reporter. He’s married and has two… Read More

Ancient Greek historian Herodotus tells us that when the Persians decided a matter while drunk, they made a rule to reconsider it when sober.

Recent news from Sacramento tells us that the state Legislature may have adopted at least the first part of the Persian ritual. Members of the Senate were recently issued cards with a phone number they could call 24/7 when inebriated, so they could be picked at whatever location and be driven home by a Senate employee. When the program became public last week, it withered under public ridicule and the Senate leadership responded by attempting to quietly put the genie back in the bottle by canceling the free service to lawmakers late Friday afternoon.

However, if the “drunks ride free” cards are no longer valid, the questions raised by this elitist perk remain.

The program was probably a defensive reaction to the bad publicity stemming from the drunken driving arrests of four lawmakers in the last five years, but it makes one wonder how serious is this problem? If taxpayers were expected to pay for this service, should money also be spent providing counseling or detox to those members of the Legislature… Read More

Despite a recent legal victory, thousands of California farm workers await another legal decision on the fate of their votes, by the state agency they petitioned to hold the election.

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board is mandated to protect the rights of California farm workers. However, the ALRB instead waged a systematic campaign against thousands of farm workers in 2013 to prevent them from voting to de-certify the United Farm Workers union at Gerawan Farming, one of the nation’s largest family-owned fruit producers.

Court documents, legal testimony, and sworn statements demonstrate a pattern of voter intimidation, harassment, last-minute rule changing, and other tactics to disenfranchise the Latino farm workers of Gerawan. Legal documents show that the ALRB general counsel and the Visalia-based regional director orchestrated a concerted effort to manipulate the votes of thousands of laborers at Gerawan Farming.

ALRB Lawyer Orchestrated Intimidation, Segregation

ALRB General Counsel Sylvia Torres-Guillén led the agency’s effort to… Read More

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board is responsible for investigating unfair labor practices in California. However, despite knowing that a former United Farm Workers labor union organizer testified that UFW leadership instructed him to lie to farmworkers, and instructed him to coerce farmworkers to lie in written statements submitted to the ALRB, the state agency has decided not to investigate.

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board decision provides even more evidence that the agency is collaborating with the UFW in violation of state law. According to the law, the ALRB must serve farmworkers’ interests by being impartial between unions and employers. Instead, the state agency is ignoring the evidence that the United Farm Workers labor union orchestrated a disinformation campaign to influence the ALRB – even with a former UFW organizer’s sworn confession that the union leadership had trained and instructed him to organize a campaign of lies.

The former UFW organizer who confessed to the… Read More

A former United Farm Workers labor union organizer has testified that UFW leadership instructed him to lie to farmworkers, and instructed him how to coerce farmworkers to lie in written statements submitted to a state board as official evidence.

This latest explosive news in the Gerawan Farming workers’ fight to oust the UFW shines more sunlight on the conspiracy inside the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, and particularly on its office of general counsel, and the close relationship with the UFW. The ALRB general counsel’s office has been accused of blatant bias in favor of the UFW under its present chief, Sylvia Torres-Guillén.

Lies, Lies and More Lies

The ALRB used lies manufactured by the UFW labor union to put a halt to the Gerawan farm workers’ efforts to de-certify the UFW as their collective bargaining representative. Gerawan Farming is one of California’s largest fruit farms.

The disinformation campaign allegedly was part of the UFW’s efforts to discredit Gerawan Farming, as well as the Gerawan workers leading the de-certification campaign.

The UFW lies and… Read More

On March 22, 2015,John Moorlach was officially sworn inas state senator for California’s 37th District. On May 28, 2015,SteveGlazer took the oath of office as state senator for the 7th District. Moorlach is a Republican serving mostly conservative constituentsin Orange County. Steve Glazer is a Democrat serving mostly liberal constituentsin Contra Costa County.

Different parties. Different constituents. You wouldn’t think these two men had much in common. But you’d be wrong.

John Moorlach and Steve Glazer have both distinguished themselves as politicians and candidates by doing something that transcends their political party identity or conventional ideologies. They challenged the agenda of governmentunions. As a consequence,both of them faced opponents who were members of their own party who accepted money and endorsements from government unions.

It wasn’t easy to challenge government unions. Using taxpayers money… Read More

Republican skepticism of big government bureaucracies has been proven right once again with this week’s revelation that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is performing more like the DMV and the Postal Service than, say, Israeli airport security.

When the DMV or the Postal Service screw up, you wait in line longer or your letter gets delayed. When the TSA screws up, lives are potentially on the line.

For all of the changes ushered in after 9/11, bureaucratic ineptitude and political correctness appear to be forces that have proven too powerful to overcome.

Whenever I travel out of Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv – Israeli’s only International airport – I get flagged for special screening. It’s the Pakistan and Qatar visa stamps in my passport – revealing how Israeli airport security focuses on screening for dangerous people, not merely dangerous objects. … Read More