Blog
Broken Promises: The California High-Speed Rail Might End Up Being Little More Than A Regular Train — A Particularly Expensive One
Newsom denied that the cost — once a paltry, in comparison, $33 billion — had soared to $231 billion. “We’re actually making this project work,” he claimed. Newsom told Maher that the train “goes back three administrations” and he “inherited a mess” — both of which are true. It’s also true that the want-to-be-president governor ...
Blog
Facing a housing crisis, Boise focuses on incentives, not mandates
Facing a housing crisis, Boise focuses on incentives, not mandates By Sarah Downey | June 12, 2026 The familiar adage of the carrot and the stick helps sum up what Boise is doing to manage a fast-growing population mixed with a housing crunch. Instead of employing a regulation-heavy stick approach, ...
Blog
Is California Coastal Commission finally getting its comeuppance?
California has one of the world’s most spectacular coastlines, which meanders 1,100 miles from Imperial Beach to Crescent City. And, of course, everyone wants to “Save Our Coast” and assure public access to beaches, which is why Californians voted 55% to 45% in 1972 for Proposition 20. It promised to protect ...
Blog
On The David Lucero Case: The Victims Left Behind
When David Lucero went to work one night in June 2013, he wasn’t thinking about criminal justice reform. He was thinking about his son. The single father had picked up a shift as a bouncer outside a Sunnyvale nightclub to help pay for his son’s Pop Warner football fees and ...
Blog
Is There A Limit To The Abuse California Businesses Will Tolerate?
This isn’t the sort of insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, but the type of insanity that doesn’t care what the outcome is. California’s Cartwright Act is the state’s primary antitrust law. It allows both government and private actors to make antitrust claims against businesses. A California Supreme ...
Blog
The Gordon Chang Report–Trump and Xi: Is This ‘Reagan-Gorbachev No. 2’?
READ THE PDF Trump and Xi: Is This ‘Reagan-Gorbachev No. 2’? “We were already in Cold War 2.0 with China,” Charles Payne, the Fox Business anchor, told Jesse Watters, immediately after President Donald Trump’s Beijing summit in May. “I think it’s thawing out tremendously. I don’t think a lot of ...
Blog
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe By D. Dowd Muska | June 5, 2026 BOOK REVIEW: “The Great Train Heist: The California SMART Taxpayer Rip-off” They tried in 1990. It didn’t work. They tried in 1998. Nothing doing. They tried in 2000. Voters declined. They tried in 2006. No dice. ...
Blog
Newsom’s May budget portends future crises for local governments
Gov. Jerry Brown’s last budget spent $140.4 billion in the general fund for fiscal year 2018-19. Newsom’s May Revision to his 2026-27 budget exploded that to $246.6 billion. That’s a 76% increase in eight years at a time the state’s population didn’t grow and the Consumer Price Index rose just ...
Blog
A public bank in California would be costly, risky and unnecessary
But lawmakers were pushing forward anyway. AB 2243 would have established a taxpayer-funded commission to study the feasibility of a public bank and how it could act “as an additional financial tool to lower borrowing costs, strengthen local lending partnerships and help finance urgent public needs like affordable housing, infrastructure, ...
AI
Big Tech Lost in Monterey Park. California’s First Data Center Ban Is a Warning
I grew up in Monterey Park, attending both middle school and high school there. The Monterey Park I know is a small, family-centered community where people go to the park, kids go trick-or-treating, and youth sports are full of life. It has been recognized as one of America’s best places ...
Broken Promises: The California High-Speed Rail Might End Up Being Little More Than A Regular Train — A Particularly Expensive One
Newsom denied that the cost — once a paltry, in comparison, $33 billion — had soared to $231 billion. “We’re actually making this project work,” he claimed. Newsom told Maher that the train “goes back three administrations” and he “inherited a mess” — both of which are true. It’s also true that the want-to-be-president governor ...
Facing a housing crisis, Boise focuses on incentives, not mandates
Facing a housing crisis, Boise focuses on incentives, not mandates By Sarah Downey | June 12, 2026 The familiar adage of the carrot and the stick helps sum up what Boise is doing to manage a fast-growing population mixed with a housing crunch. Instead of employing a regulation-heavy stick approach, ...
Is California Coastal Commission finally getting its comeuppance?
California has one of the world’s most spectacular coastlines, which meanders 1,100 miles from Imperial Beach to Crescent City. And, of course, everyone wants to “Save Our Coast” and assure public access to beaches, which is why Californians voted 55% to 45% in 1972 for Proposition 20. It promised to protect ...
On The David Lucero Case: The Victims Left Behind
When David Lucero went to work one night in June 2013, he wasn’t thinking about criminal justice reform. He was thinking about his son. The single father had picked up a shift as a bouncer outside a Sunnyvale nightclub to help pay for his son’s Pop Warner football fees and ...
Is There A Limit To The Abuse California Businesses Will Tolerate?
This isn’t the sort of insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, but the type of insanity that doesn’t care what the outcome is. California’s Cartwright Act is the state’s primary antitrust law. It allows both government and private actors to make antitrust claims against businesses. A California Supreme ...
The Gordon Chang Report–Trump and Xi: Is This ‘Reagan-Gorbachev No. 2’?
READ THE PDF Trump and Xi: Is This ‘Reagan-Gorbachev No. 2’? “We were already in Cold War 2.0 with China,” Charles Payne, the Fox Business anchor, told Jesse Watters, immediately after President Donald Trump’s Beijing summit in May. “I think it’s thawing out tremendously. I don’t think a lot of ...
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe By D. Dowd Muska | June 5, 2026 BOOK REVIEW: “The Great Train Heist: The California SMART Taxpayer Rip-off” They tried in 1990. It didn’t work. They tried in 1998. Nothing doing. They tried in 2000. Voters declined. They tried in 2006. No dice. ...
Newsom’s May budget portends future crises for local governments
Gov. Jerry Brown’s last budget spent $140.4 billion in the general fund for fiscal year 2018-19. Newsom’s May Revision to his 2026-27 budget exploded that to $246.6 billion. That’s a 76% increase in eight years at a time the state’s population didn’t grow and the Consumer Price Index rose just ...
A public bank in California would be costly, risky and unnecessary
But lawmakers were pushing forward anyway. AB 2243 would have established a taxpayer-funded commission to study the feasibility of a public bank and how it could act “as an additional financial tool to lower borrowing costs, strengthen local lending partnerships and help finance urgent public needs like affordable housing, infrastructure, ...
Big Tech Lost in Monterey Park. California’s First Data Center Ban Is a Warning
I grew up in Monterey Park, attending both middle school and high school there. The Monterey Park I know is a small, family-centered community where people go to the park, kids go trick-or-treating, and youth sports are full of life. It has been recognized as one of America’s best places ...