In one of her many iterations, Arianna Huffington targeted "corporate greed" as a force undermining America. That was during one of her populist phases, which frequently are followed by Huffington morphing into what she once scorned.
Forget all that talk about bipartisan civility. When some 200 conservatives showed up for a weekend conference hosted by the libertarian-leaning industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch in Rancho Mirage, Calif., there was no welcome wagon. Instead, seminar attendees were met by close to 1,000 activists protesting the meeting and waving banners. News reports showed a swastika and cute slogans like: "Quarantine the Kochs" and "Koch kills."
"We don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem." That's a Republican mantra often used to explain why the answer to Washington's deficit spending is not a tax increase, but more spending cuts.
Four times this month, the U.S. Supreme Court has slapped down the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Four times the Big Bench unanimously reversed Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decisions. Unanimous is a big deal. It means that there's no left-right political divide in the Big Bench's findings -- just right on the law and wrong on the law.
The problem with left-leaning elites trying to run the U.S. economy from the top down is simple: They think the answer to America's economic woes is to create more jobs that replicate managers just like them.
GOP Assemblyman Chris Norby is a former Orange County supervisor with a longtime and deep aversion to California's 425 redevelopment agencies. Some redevelopment zones may eliminate blight and provide low-income housing as originally intended, he concedes, but redevelopment also allows billions of tax dollars to bankroll the building of a lot of half-empty shopping malls, as well as sweetheart deals that pad the pockets of well-connected developers.
In a January 2008 Democratic presidential debate, then-Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both promised to deliver universal health care plans. But Obama hit Clinton for supporting a requirement that individuals buy their own health care.
Can Jerry Brown do it?
This is a free country. If Sarah Palin wants to run for president in 2012, she is free to try. But she will not win the GOP nomination because Republican voters are not going to choose a middle-aged version of Britney Spears -- a figure whose most evident talent is to attract attention to herself -- to challenge Barack Obama.
How do we react to the horrific murders of Christina Green, 9; John Roll, 63; Gabe Zimmerman, 30; Dorothy Morris, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; and Phyllis Schneck, 79; and the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and 13 others??
In his last remaining hours as California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger issued three sentence commutations. The most notable went to the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, Esteban Nunez, who is serving time for voluntary manslaughter.
As he was sworn in as governor at Sacramento's Memorial Auditorium on Monday "with no mental reservations," Brown gave Californians reason to be optimistic that he might succeed where predecessors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger failed. In the face of a $28 billion shortfall, Brown's team is floating savvy cuts in California government.
Michigan prosecutor Jessica R. Cooper's bio boasts that she is a "pioneer in the world of women in the law." As it turns out, she is a pioneer in the world of busybodies in the law as well. Cooper is the Oakland County prosecutor who charged Leon Walker, 33, with a felony for hacking into his now ex-wife's e-mail, as he suspected that she was having an affair.
Twenty-two years ago last week, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Scotland. The terrorist attack killed 270 people, including 189 Americans and 11 Scots on the ground in the small village of Lockerbie.
2010 was a year consumed with silly stories. The more trivial the controversy, the more airtime it consumed. Although not all the silly stories made conservatives look stupid, the more a squabble tarnished the right, the surer it was to generate talking-head babble. And then they fizzle, as most non-stories do.
The controversial anti-immigration bill passed by Arizona lawmakers this year helped and hurt the Democrats in the November election. President Obama used it when he told Latinos that they should vote to "punish our enemies" and "reward our friends" by voting Democratic. In California and Nevada, Latino voters clearly heeded that advice.
Once upon a time in America, when George W. Bush served as America's 43rd president, Democrats criticized the Bush tax cuts, especially for the wealthy. This month, President Obama called a measure extending all the Bush tax rates "a win for our economy" -- after excoriating liberal critics of his compromise tax package as "sanctimonious."
In the last decade, the symbol for profligate federal spending was the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" -- a huge proposed span that would link the town of Ketchikan, Alaska, population 7,500, to an airport on Gravina Island. Powerful Alaska Republican lawmakers tried to stick American taxpayers with a huge chunk of the tab for this dubious project.
When former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich proclaims a measure to be "good for the country," that usually means it's good for Gingrich. When President Obama tells the media that his $858 billion compromise tax package is the fruit of negotiations with GOP "hostage-takers," you have to wonder if he even wants it to pass.
Federal judge William A. Fletcher recently told the Gonzaga University School of Law that Kevin Cooper, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal 1983 slaying of Chino Hills, Calif., chiropractors Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and 11-year-old house guest Christopher Hughes, is "probably" innocent. Cooper, Fletcher added, is "on Death Row because the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department framed him."
