Periodically I have the opportunity to interview respected, longtime California pollster and political strategist Arnold Steinberg. I have known Arnie for a quarter century and his political observations are always worth sharing. This interview is about the situation in Israel and Gaza. Be advised this is a lengthy interview, but if you have any interest in this topic, I urge you to read it through.

Before it begins, let me share some background on Steinberg. He served as chief political aide to Sen. James L. Buckley (New York) where he worked on transforming the U.S. military from conscription to an all-volunteer force. He also dealt with foreign policy issues, particularly undermining the Soviet Union and Soviet Jewry. Over many years, he was involved with the U.S. Information Agency (U.S.I.A.) and has been on U.S. delegations to various nations, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt. He has served on the board of the National Defense University (NDU).

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TheCalifornia Legislature’s latest attempt to saddle consumers into paying extra for plastic bags at the grocery store is facing formidable opposition.

The American Progressive Bag Alliance just announced it is launching two new television ads opposing Senate Bill 270, by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima.

SB 270 would ban the 100 percent recyclable, multi-use plastic retail bags while allowing grocers to charge and keep fees for paper and thicker plastic bags. Padilla and supporters call the current plastic grocery bags “single use.”

Ironically, SB 270 bans the currently used recyclable plastic bags and replaces them with heavier plastic bags, five times thicker. It is unclear in this… Read More

There’s a deep seated frustration and anger among the rank and file due to their low pay. Det. Tyler Izen – President, Los Angeles Police Protective League,July 28, 2014, KTLA Channel 5

Low pay, of course, is relative. It’s very difficult to objectively determine what a police officer should be paid. There aren’t jobs in the private sector that are easily compared to police work. As a result, police officers typically compare how much they are making in their city to how much other cities are paying their police officers. The problem is no city wants to pay the lowest rates, which creates endless rounds of wage and benefit increases. But a city as big as Los Angeles doesn’t have the option of matching what a much wealthier, much smaller city may pay. Too many billions are involved.

Despite the difficulty in determining what may be a fair rate of pay and benefits for police officers, this very sensitive debate has to be waged. Because without debate, there can be no limit – how do you… Read More

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As I was thinking about what to write for this week and seeing how it’s my birthday, I decided that this piece fits the occasion perfectly.

Every day for the next 19 years 10,000 baby boomers will turn 65 and be eligible for Social Security and Medicare. That is if there is any money left.

This year along with other boomers who were born in 1952, I will turn 62. I am not quite ready to retire and the way the economy is going it looks like a lot of us including myself will be working longer than we anticipated.

And with my youth and middle age in the rearview mirror, the end gets closer every day unless they figure a way to replace all the worn out parts of my body or find a fountain of youth. Even if I make it to the ripe old age of 100, I am way past the halfway mark of my life.

This point was painfully driven home the other day when I received a solicitation for “burial and final expense insurance” from the AARP. I guess before you die you need to write that last check for that “final expense”. The good news is it will be the last bill you will ever have to pay. The bad news is that it will be the last bill you will ever have to… Read More

The California Legislature, run by a Democratic Supermajority, is noodling Open Meeting laws – again.

Two years ago, I wrote about how theCalifornia Air Resources Board, with help from Democratic Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, figured out a way to exempt itself from the state’s open meeting act, yet another blatant example of California Democrats doing whatever they can to operate in secret.

Government Code 11120, the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, is explicitly exempted in the language of budget trailer billSB 1018. ”That was the final nail in the coffin of transparency,” a Capitol staffer commented.

Currently, AB 194, by Asemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose, would allow local agencies, city council and county bodies, to adopt “reasonable regulations” to limit public comment, including time limits. However,According to Campos in January,… Read More

For a week he walked the streets of Fresno, a homeless man looking for work. At night he slept on park benches, during the day he tried to ward off hunger, sometimes with the bananas a grocer sold him at five for a dollar. At the end of the week, still unemployed, Neel Kashkari, Republican candidate for governor, caught a bus for Los Angeles and home.

Trailing incumbent Governor Jerry Brown, who is seeking his fourth term, by 20 points in opinion polls, some observers dismissed… Read More

From the “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” file, a bill currently in the California Legislature would require BB guns and Airsoft Pellet guns painted bright toy colors so they won’t be mistaken for real guns.

Coloring BB guns (“BB” stands for “ball bullet,”) in bright colors will only give parents and children the impression that they are children’s toys, rather than recreational and target sport guns.

And criminals will start painting their AK 47s hot pink.

Last year, Gov. Jerry Brownsigned 11 gun control billsinto law andvetoedseven. More gun bills are on the firing line this year — even banning some BB guns.

In January, the California Senate passed the BB gun bill,Senate Bill 199, by state Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, 23 to 8. In June, the Assembly Public Safety Committee passed the bill, 5 to… Read More

Notwithstanding the fact that “adjustable defined benefits” might constitute an oxymoron, as a concept it represents the only way that defined benefit plans can be sustained. Rather than throwing new employees into individual 401K plans, while they effectively subsidize legacy defined benefits for veteran employees and retirees, why not adjust defined benefits down to a financially sustainable level and let everyone participate?

Let’s set aside for a moment the debate over whether or not defined benefit plans are just fine the way they are, and can survive with merely incremental refinements – eliminating spiking, raising contributions a bit, bumping the retirement age a few years. Those solutions buy time, but unless the investment market roars for another 30 years, they will not solve the problem. And in the context of equitable policy, that debate is moot, because if these plans are just fine, than nobody should object to reforms that will make benefits adjustable if and when they are no longer fine.

Three good examples of how adjustable defined benefits can be implemented are the proposed “… Read More