Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says students need to be careful when investing in their education. Bernanke says taking on debt to pay for college can be an important way of increasing one's earning potential. But higher education can also become a financial burden if it doesn't lead to a good job, he warns.

Jimmer Fredette was Jimmer Fredette again Monday night, burying jumpers and runners and generally looking like the scoring machine that created so much hype back in his halcyon days at BYU. But all is not well for the second-year Kings guard, even with the 30-point outing he unleashed in a summer league game against the Rockets at UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center. Just minutes before hitting the floor, he received word that the Kings had signed veteran point guard Aaron Brooks and thus moved him even further down the team's depth chart.

by John HillStand With Arizona It's no contest. It's not even close. California is America's undisputed "Sanctuary State" for illegal aliens. And now, in their hysteria over the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the central provision of Arizona's S.B. 1070 - that requires police officers to check the immigration status of people they stop - California legislators are setting new lows in contempt for the rule of law. The California Senate on Thursday passed a bill supporters dub the "anti-Arizona" law, which seeks to "shield illegal immigrants from status checks by local police" and which even welcomes in illegals from states such as Arizona. The...

When guilt is demonstrable, confession is the best bet. So allow me to confess: as the California’s Director of Finance for four years, I did some stupid things. Let’s take a few examples and see if they help the casual observer to better understand how government, or at least how the Golden State’s’ budget process works – or fails to work.

Not too many people get excited about dry budget numbers. Most people care instead about what’s behind those numbers — how much of our money will the government take, what kinds of services will it provide? Indeed, those programmatic and policy questions are far more important than the latest assessment of how bad our fiscal situation is. They’re also the subject of the remainder of this week’s conversation on these pages. As a former Director of Finance for the state, it falls to me to give an overview of the arithmetic and the budget process. Bear with me: you’ll laugh,...

Labor unions and business interests have been quietly raising millions of dollars and testing campaign messages for months, girding for a brawl over a November ballot measure that could fundamentally shift political power in Sacramento. Now, on the heels of an election that saw unions handed a major defeat last week in Wisconsin, the opposing camps in California soon will launch a campaign battle likely to consume $50 million or more in political spending. "Unions have just two channels of influence," said Daniel J.B. Mitchell of the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, "collective bargaining and the political side,...

SEIU Member Noujaim wins writ of mandate allowing her to get access to SEIU financial records.

The 12th annual Civil War Experience starts Friday at Gibson Ranch Road and is expected to give families a living history day. The 12th annual Civil War Experience starts Friday at Gibson Ranch Road and is expected to give families a living history day.

An eyewitness says: "It was pretty freakin' real when all the dogs started barking right before it hit, then EVERYTHING shook. We were in the field just outside the barn & the barn continued to shake for a couple minutes afterward. We are about 50-60 miles or so from where it hit."

by John HillStand With ArizonaWe have become sadly accustomed to California - America's Sanctuary State - sinking lower and lower into utter lawlessness for the sake of naked racial politics. But whatever they do in Sacramento doesn't even come close to the utter madness that is Los Angeles - which makes the rest of the state look conservative by comparison. This week saw the Los Angeles Police Department announcing that it will soon start ignoring California state law, which requires police to impound the vehicles of unlicensed drivers for 30 days - because it is "unfair" to illegal aliens!That's right....

Dale Carlsen was about 24 years old and had been merely selling mattresses, but finally Dale got frustrated and went into the biz for himself. He was coming up on having to make a payment on the loan for his new, tiny mattress company. He didn't have much money, and this loan was at over 20% interest, ok? Worse was that Dale had chosen the location of his first mattress store in gritty South Sacramento, near Sac State, alongside some train tracks, next to a flea market. He'd thought the flea market foot traffic would bring customers, but in fact...

A massive student rally in support of higher education funding planned for Monday at the state Capitol is being co-opted by labor and Occupy activists, says an executive with one of the student groups. In the run-up to Monday's rally, two groups, Refund California and Occupy Education California, have issued press releases and given interviews about their plans to "Occupy the Capitol." But Miles Nevin, executive director of the California State Student Association, says those two groups have "nothing to do with this event." "We are majorly losing the media battle. They are trying to take over our event," Nevin...

<p>Pictures Monday (02/27/2012) was to be just another nice normal day for me at the CA Capital taking pictures of the Tea Party’s 3 year anniversary.</p> <p>They had advertised that they were meeting on the North steps; however, when I arrived I noticed that they were actually on the West steps and there was some group already gathering on the North side.</p>

A man showed up for a job interview near Sacramento naked and high on methamphetamine, and now cellphone footage of his fight with police has gone viral. Jose Ayala didn't make the best first impression at a Del Paso Heights-area welding shop when he showed up last week frazzled and unclothed, says shop owner Chris Johnson, who added he won't soon forget the job applicant. “The producer from TruTV called me [Monday afternoon]. I can’t even get any work done now. I’m taking calls from camera crews and TV stations,” Johnson told FOX40 in Sacramento. Ayala was eventually subdued by...

New Law Forces Older Kids Into Child Seats SAN DIEGO - A new California law that went into effect Sunday increased the age of child required to use a car seat. The new state law indicates any child under eight years old must be in a car seat, and if the child is over eight years old and too small for an adult side seat, they also must be in that seat. It's a change from the previous law for children under six and for those weighing less than 60 pounds. The state insists keeping older kids in booster seats...

Free pot draws a crowd as Sacramento County dispensary closesBy Peter Hecht - The Sacramento Bee Last Modified: Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 - 3:58 pm Hundreds of people lined up for free grams of medical marijuana and discount pricing today as one of Sacramento County's last surviving dispensaries closed with a flourish and a day tinged with politics. People snaked around the building at the Magnolia Wellness Center, waiting more than two hours for their marijuana as the Orangevale dispensary doled out its inventory and promoted a political drive to overturn the county's ban on cannabis stores. Sacramento County, which...

Clear Channel will flip the simulcast switch tomorrow (December 1), creating "FM News/Talk 92.5 and AM 1530 KFBK." The station is about to turn 90 years old on February 2, and in the 1980s it was the incubator for the Rush Limbaugh talk show. Its current lineup includes Limbaugh, Tom Sullivan, Kitty O'Neal, Amy Lewis, Ed Crane, John McGinness and Kelly Brothers. The station losing out is modern AC "My 92.5" KGBY. Clear Channel market manager Jeff Holden says adding an FM signal "will give a younger audience access to one of the most influential stations in not only Sacramento,...

<p>AP material must be excerpted to 50% of content, if the article is short.</p>

Sacramento is Government Central, a land of overly pensioned bureaucrats and restaurant discounts for state workers. But way up in the North State, one finds a small but hard-edged rural populace that views state and federal officials as the main obstacles to their quality of life. These rural folks, living in the shadow of the majestic Mount Shasta, believe that they are being driven away so that their communities can essentially go back to the wild, to conform to a modern environmentalist ethos that puts wildlands above humanity. As the locals told it during the Defend Rural America conference Oct....

A glutton for bad press, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has canceled on the Sacramento Press Club. Again. The rail authority, which canceled a luncheon once already at the club -- and delayed the release of its much-awaited business plan -- said this afternoon that it will still release its business plan Nov. 1. But it will be just somewhere else. Lance Simmens, the authority's new deputy director for communications and public policy, said he made the call "to roll out what is going to be a very significant business plan at another venue." That venue, Simmens said, has yet...