The guiding principle for California policymakers seems to be: Tell everyone what they want to hear—or at least stick to the rosiest scenarios.
Newsom is leaning on the side of fish in the state's never-ending fish v. people debate, but is at least trying to deal with farm and urban water needs.
Pentagon brass, who urged the president not to issue these orders, fear that the president's actions will undermine the system of military justice.
"Liberty," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "is unobstructed action according to our will; but rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."
That's not the comparison you want if you're a California governor. Newsom should spend more time dealing with the nuts-and-bolts of government and less time preening for the national stage.
For all their harrumphing about the evils of corporate influence-peddling, left-wing demagogues are willfully blind to the biggest influence-seekers in state and federal capitols.
From plastic bag bans to plastic straw bans to bans on shampoo bottles in hotels, California is adopting supposedly environmental policies that won't save the environment but will piss off residents.
There are stories of marijuana business owners showing up at California's tax agency offices with trash bags filled with cash, even though the agency generally doesn't allow cash payments.
California's progressive political imperatives are having such glaring real-world repercussions that it's hard to keep ignoring them.
H.L. Mencken defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." The rub against vaping, and other smokeless tobacco products, is that people enjoy it.
California is about to get a real world lesson in how rent control laws can't solve a housing crisis.
Putting up with some drag-queen storytelling seems like a small price to pay to live in a relatively free society.
California lawmakers have approved Assembly Bill 5, which poses an existential threat to the gig economy in the state.
Californians' tax rates are among the nation's highest in almost every category, but their property tax levels have remained reasonable. That could change soon.
Milton Friedman famously observed that "nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." The rare demise of a government program, it seems, is temporary too.
It's necessary to confront the threat of white nationalism on the political right, but it must be done without handing new powers to law enforcement and government.
If your neighbor were unbalanced, armed to the teeth and busy posting social-media messages about how much he hates you, you'd certainly support measures to disarm him. But you'd feel more secure if he didn't hate you in the first place.
The idea that "deficits don't matter" has been growing among Trump-supporting Republicans. Democrats are preparing to take full advantage.
As debt soars, federal payments to service the debt will crowd out the government's core spending responsibilities.
The debate over Donald Trump's "go back" tweets regarding four minority Democratic members of Congress has centered on the unmistakably bigoted words that he wrote, but has missed the deeper point.
It's refreshing to see many conservatives abandon their kneejerk support for militarism, and nice to watch Joe Biden be held accountable for his support for the Iraq blunder.
Harris is pitching a carefully constructed narrative that seems to be at odds with her record in many ways.
A state Supreme Court ruling sets a new, higher bar for determining when workers can count as independent contractors rather than employees. It might ruin some online firms' business models.
As governments and law enforcement agencies rush to incorporate facial recognition tech, California lawmakers have a chance to slam on the brakes.
The show wasn't about a nuclear disaster per se, but about how a government—and individuals—reacted in the face of disaster.
Republicans, who have gleefully warned the public about Democratic flirtations with socialism, shouldn't be quick to gloat given the emergence of an anti-freedom movement on the Right.
After state lawmakers boosted the gas tax with a promise to improve California streets, some cities are upsetting drivers by spending millions on so-called 'road diet' projects that reduce the number of lanes for motor vehicles.
Actions speak louder than words. Trump 's labeling of the media as "the enemy of the people" is bad, but he's not breaking into reporters' homes to find leakers. That's what the San Francisco Police Department did.
This is the nature of government. It can't stop the flow of illicit substances in a sealed and militarized building that's under its total control.
Americans are paying more than ever for car loans. Why shouldn't the government bail those out too? For the same reason eliminating student loans would be a bad idea.
Everywhere rent control is tried, the same things happen. Landlords exit the market. Developers stop building apartments. Supply drops significantly.
All the welfare programs California Democrats can dream up won't do as much as some commonsense reforms to let people who want to work, work.
A flaw in a proposal that would let developers build more high-density apartments and condos is that it doesn't go nearly far enough
At least now we're arguing over the right thing: the need to hike housing supply.
But that might be news to some Californians, and even more of the state's elected and appointed officials.
It's hard to believe that smart people such as Ta-Nehisi Coates and David Brooks don't understand the tinderbox that their idea would ignite.
One doesn't need a predictive-policing program to realize that police officers who have been convicted of serious crimes ought not to be trusted with a badge.
A system that lets us make our own decisions about our own lives is more moral than one that transfers them to powerful strangers.
Soviet revolutionary Vladimir Lenin used the motto, "Land to the peasants, peace to the nations, bread to the starving." Sounds good, right?
To understand socialism, one needn't fixate on its most-horrifying elements-gulags and executions. Think about the simple stuff. Like aspirin.
Unlike lawmakers, who are usually are fairly forthright about their goals and intent, the justices have left Californians befuddled with several recent rulings.
Reformers always have a new scheme to take "the money out of politics," but it usually just makes the government larger and campaign spending increase.
Government officials want as much revenue as possible so it can spend it with wild abandon. There will never be enough to satisfy them.
Specifics remain sparse, but universal healthcare will surely increase demand for medical services, and California's already low on nurses.
Government planners do not understand markets, so they promote overly pricey projects that fail to meet our real-world transportation needs.
A well-intentioned plan is one of the worst ideas in the governor's new budget given the real-world effect it will have on California students.
California's fiscal foundation is built on rock, says Gov. Gavin Newsom, but it's really more like sand.
All this anger about immigration (and a lack of sympathy for the poor people coming here) is not only cruel, but politically foolish.
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