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The LAUSD Superintendent is calling on Calif. voters to approve new taxes on the November ballot to safeguard education spending. How do you plan to vote? Yes No Don't know Vote

High-Speed Rail: It says something that even struggling California may be willing to lose a $3.3 billion federal bullet-train grant. Maybe it senses some risk. Now how can that be? The Golden State is not known for its fiscal sobriety, but at least some of its top lawmakers are thinking twice about accepting the Obama administration's invitation to waste money. Last week, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said a promised $3.3 billion federal grant to start the state's high-speed rail system is at risk unless the state budgets $2.7 billion from bond funds for it this June. State Senate leaders, bucking...

CALIFORNIANS AREN’T FLEEING - California, you might think, is a terrible place that people are fleeing from. One reason you might think so is that a cottage industry of pundits, business lobbyists, and politicians has been dedicated to convincing the world that California is and will remain a failure until our prevailing cultural and political climate changes. In this game, demographics are treated like a football. But the people of California are the demographics, and they may not like being tossed about. The doomsayer narrative presupposes that any place not booming with growth must be a failure. But any...

It has become clear for some time that there is no limit to which a leftist will go in there attempt to control mankind from the cradle to the grave. Even the fear of voter backlash in an election year does not seem to slow them down any longer. Why else would Obama come out of the closet in full support of same sex marriage, at the same time that California Democrats are attempting to criminalize a parent's influence upon their child's sexual orientation. Passing through the California Senate Judiciary committee by a vote of 3-1, SB 1172 is...

The Department of Interior plans to destroy four dams on the Klamath River in Northern California so salmon can swim further than 180 miles up the river. But these dams provide water and flood protection to thousands of humans who also live along the river. Clean energy from these hydro dams supply electricity to 70,000 residents in the area. Despite a lack of scientific evidence that dam removal will help the fish, or any study on the human impact of dam removal, the DOI is pressing forward to have the dams destroyed. When their own scientist, Dr. Paul Houser, questions...

Just a few months ago, Gov. Jerry Brown chastised "declinists" and "dystopian journalists" for their pessimism about California, particularly about emerging from a deep recession. "Contrary to those critics who fantasize that California is a failed state, I see unspent potential and incredible opportunity," Brown told the Legislature in January, citing supposed signs of economic recovery. On Monday, however, Brown blamed a sluggish economy for revenues falling billions of dollars short of the rosy estimates in the budget he signed last June. "You can never get it quite right," Brown told reporters as he released a revised budget aimed at...

Gov. Jerry Brown announced Monday that the state budget deficit had grown by a remarkable 70 percent since January, but fiscal experts said the economy had little to do with it. They instead blamed a bad marriage of volatile capital gains and political intransigence that led state leaders last year to count on a huge upswing in revenues that never materialized. At the same time, corporate tax changes from 2009 appear to have cost California more than state officials ever realized. The Democratic governor says the general fund deficit has mushroomed from $9.2 billion to $15.7 billion. Most of the...

Recently, I was driving down pot-holed, two-lane, non-freeway 101 near Monterey (unchanged since the 1960s) when the radio blared that on a recent science test administered to public schools, California scored 47th in the nation. As I looked at the congested traffic on the decrepit highway and digested the idea that our public schools are competitive only with Mississippi and Alabama, I wondered — is that what we get for a more than 10 percent income tax, 10 percent state and local sales taxes, and the highest gas taxes in the nation?

California, like Greece is perpetually in fiscal trouble. Overoptimistic revenue forecasts coupled with spending $2 billion more than expected has California in a deep hole. Governor Jerry Brown has the same non-solution as ever, hike taxes. Brown wants a "temporary" (as in seven years) tax hike. Given we all know there are no such things as temporary tax hikes in California (seven years is permanent enough in the first place), and also given the California school budget needs an axe, I say let him. Please consider California deficit has soared to $16 billion, Gov. Jerry Brown says Gov. Jerry Brown...

California is in desperate fiscal straits, facing a nearly unbridgeable deficit of $16 billion, the result of spending that continues to exceed estimates and tax revenue that fails to meet them. Those in better-governed states who are tempted to sniff at the Golden State’s comeuppance, however, should bear in mind that California’s position as a national trendsetter is still quite secure: What is happening in California is very likely to happen in other states — and possibly at the federal level — if action is not taken. There are lessons here for both the Left and the Right, and those...

As of midafternoon Monday, The following information was considered to be accurate in describing the flag line route for fallen hero Spc. Chase Marta. Late monday evening, we received word the plannned route has been changed. The changes follow the original posting. Both the original and amendment were provided by members of the Veterans of Foriegn Wars .The route for Spc. Chase Marta has been revised to the following: This Wednesday, May 16th, the body of our Fallen Hero, Spc. Chase S. Marta, will arrive at Beale AFB at about 11:00 a.m.. There will be a procession from Beale AFB...

BELLEVUE, Wash., May 14, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit against the police departments in San Francisco and Oakland, California for refusing to return firearms to people who had been charged with crimes, but subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. SAF is joined in the lawsuit by the Calguns Foundation and two private citizens. The case is known as Churchill, et al. v. Harris, et al. The police agencies apparently are relying on a state Department of Justice document that requires proof of ownership of each firearm before they are returned. But Don...

If California starts building a 130-mile segment of high-speed rail late this year as planned, it will enter into a risky race against a deadline set up under federal law. The bullet train track through the Central Valley would cost $6 billion and have to be completed by September 2017, or else potentially lose some of its federal funding. It would mean spending as much as $3.5 million every calendar day, holidays and weekends included — the fastest rate of transportation construction known in U.S. history, according to industry and academic experts. Over four years, the California High-Speed Rail Authority...

Imitation Firearms Regulations; County of Los Angeles Once again we need your help in stopping a wrong-minded bill – SB 1315. SB 1315 is a rework of last year’s defeated bill SB 798 that attempted to regulate the manufacture and sale of BB devices and pellet guns. Last year’s bill language has been modified this year to give Los Angeles County and its cities the authority to enact local restrictions on BB devices and pellet guns. SB 1315 is still a bad idea! SB 1315, attacks California’s firearm preemption law by: * Exempting Los Angeles County and cities within Los...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday released his plan to contain California's rapidly growing deficit by closing state offices one day a week, deepening healthcare cuts and implementing a variety of short-term fixes -- all in the hope that voters give the state more breathing room by approving higher taxes in November. Brown warned that the deficit could grow significantly if his proposed ballot measure to raise the state sales tax and income levies on high earners fails. He says that would trigger severe cuts in public education that would be the equivalent of lopping three weeks off the school year....

FLASHBACK.. 2011 Democrats reject GOP plan to eliminate CA's $15.4 billion deficit without tax hike.... From 2011 ! Deficit is now $16 billion... For some in California its Déjà vu all over again. This week Governor Jerry Brown announced his ‘Honest’ budget from last year is now $16 billion in the red. Republicans did not support his plan. They offered their own plan to cut state spending and balance the budget without tax hikes. Now, one year later the Governor's new plan is convince voters to approve $63 billion in new taxes (over 7 years) According to an LA Times...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday unveiled his revised budget for the coming fiscal year with twin pleas. He pleaded poverty and pleaded with voters to approve more taxes on the November ballot. Both pleas are curious. . .

San Francisco wouldn’t be San Francisco if not for robust political debate, even over a seemingly feel-good request to the U.S. Secretary of the Navy to name a ship after gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk, the assassinated city supervisor who served as a Navy officer during the Korean War. Critics of the idea, led by Supervisor Christina Olague and a contingent from the San Francisco gay Democrat club named in Milk’s honor, don’t think he would have wanted his name associated with a military ship. Milk was “against the Vietnam War and war in general,” Olague said of Milk,...

The automaker plans to ship its Model S electric sedan in June, rather than July. Tesla Motors announced today that it is on track to start delivering its Model S in June, a month ahead of schedule. It moved up the date of the first deliveries because it’s nearly completed testing on 80 cars it’s built so far. Tesla continues to lose money. It lost nearly $90 million in the first quarter of 2012, compared to a loss of about $50 million during the same period the year before. It’s staying afloat in large part thanks to a Department of...

SANTA ROSA, Calif. — A Santa Rosa man pleaded guilty Thursday morning in Sonoma County Superior Court to hit-and-run and other charges stemming from the death of a 4-year-old boy he struck and killed in a crosswalk in August. Marcos Lopez-Garcia, 23, pleaded guilty to felony hit-and-run causing injury or death, and to misdemeanor charges of gross vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence and driving without a license, defense attorney Walter Rubenstein said. Garcia faces five and a half years in prison when he is sentenced on June 29, Rubenstein said. "He wanted to resolve the case because he feels bad...