Inone of the most significant labor relations fights in the country,California farm workers have made history again. But this fight is about trying to get their votes from a November election counted, in order to boot the farm labor union out of their place of business.

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board has steadfastly refused to count the ballots from the Nov. decertification vote.

Ironically, this same group of people – Hispanic farm laborers – are the very demographic the Democratic Party is so eager to register to… Read More

“California is definitely back,” Governor Jerry Brown recently trumpeted. Brown then proclaimed the state a “job creation engine.” But the magical California job creation engine has shifted from a healthy manufacturing economy, to a service economy – from high-paying jobs with benefits and growth potential, to low-wage, nowhere minimum wage jobs.

Rather than creating policies to make California a healthy business state once again to incentivize businesses, politicians are instead focused on these low-paying jobs, and treating the symptoms instead of curing the disease.

The winter of our discontent

The growing discontent between politics, politicians, and the hard-working electorate could turn into anguish, misery and rebellion with the latest minimum wage increase proposal.

Before the last… Read More

I’ve finally got the hard proof I need demonstrating that an IQ test should be administered prior to being granted the privilege to vote.

In Tuesday’s election, 287,590California voters cast ballots for Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco, in the Secretary of State race. Yee isunder indictment by the FBI since April, for arms trafficking and bribery. Yeewithdrew from the race, but it was too late for his name to be removed from the ballot.

Yee ended the night with nearly 10 percent of the votes. Of the top two winners, Sen. Alex Padilla, got only 884,857votes, 30 percent of the votes. Republican Pete Peterson… Read More

First-time political candidate Vanila Singh was inspired to run for Congress out of concern about the direction of the country. Singh is running for the congressional seat in California’s 17th congressional district, located in the South San Francisco Bay Area, and the heart of Silicon Valley.

While many political candidates say they are concerned about the direction of the country, Singh is different.

After spending a year as a medical intern at Yale New Haven hospital, Vanila was drawn to acute care medicine. She moved to New York City and completed her residency in Anesthesiology at Cornell Medical Center.

Currently a Professor and Physician at Stanford University, Singh was doing her residency in New York City on September 11, 2001 when the twin towers were bombed by terrorists. Singh spent days treating… Read More

Gerawan Farming worker Silvia Lopez recently sent a letter to members of the California Legislative Latino Caucus, asking for help in her two-year fight with the Agricultural Labor Relations Boardand the United Farm WorkersUnion.

The ALRB has refused to count the thousands of ballots Lopez collected and her co-workers cast six months ago to decertify the UFWlabor union to end its representation.

But so far, the only sound coming from Latino legislators is the distinctive, quiet sound of nothing. Nada. Crickets.

Lopez, who is leading the effort for the workers, sent Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Los Angeles, Latino Caucus chairman, and each member of the Latino Caucus, a letter in English and Spanish. But Lopez got no response.

“Mr. Chavez once said, that it is ‘never about grapes or lettuce, it is always about people,’” Lopez wrote. “I believe that is true, and that is why I write to you.”

“I am writing on behalf… Read More

With the 2012 passage of Proposition 30, voters were assured the significant tax increase would go entirely to education. However, less than 50 percent actually does.

Now, a new bill is moving through the Legislature, claiming to tax oil and gas production for – ahem, you guessed it — education.

SB 1017, an urgency measure, would impose a severance tax on the extraction of oil and natural gas, effective immediately after being signed into law.

Pay attention to the taxman behind the curtain who wants to add more taxes onto oil and gas production.

However, if the California legislature doesn’t pass an oil severance tax this year, billionaire hedge fund manager, Tom Steyer, is preparing a ballot initiative for 2016.

Because Gov. Jerry Brown vowed that all new tax increase proposals would go before the voters, there are reports which say he’s largely rejected the oil tax this year. But NextGenClimate Action, Steyer’s political action committee, can do it for Brown instead, with the… Read More

California Governor Jerry Brown told a group of scientists in a speech on Monday that California is at the “epicenter” of global warming.

Only a few days prior, Brown blamed climate change for the rash of major wildfires in San Diego County.

Last week, Brown said that within a couple hundred years the seas could rise up to four feet, and put the Los Angeles International Airport under water. Brown’s statements brought back to mind George Kastanza from the Jerry Seinfeld show who famously said,“It’s not a lie if… Read More

Ethics, even in politics, is based on adherence to moral principles. Honesty, integrity, loyalty, fairness, respect for others, lawfulness, pursuit of excellence and accountability, are principles.

G. K. Chesterton explained why: “Morality is always terribly complicated – to a man who has lost all his principles.”

The fundamental purpose of the American project was and still is individual freedom.

While many American freedoms have been eroded, we still hold the sanctity of the individual sacred in America. Americans believe that man is inherently free, whether a gift from God, or a fact of nature.

However, with freedoms and individual liberties increasingly plundered, many ask what the proper role of government is, as well as the proper role of the politician.

Especially in California, suffering under the cloud of recent scandals in the… Read More