Fox and Hounds Daily Says Goodbye
With this article, we end publication of Fox and Hounds Daily. It has been a satisfying 12½ year run. When we opened in May 2008, our site was designed to offer an opportunity to those who wished to engage in public debate on many issues, especially in politics and business, but found it difficult to get placed in newspaper op-ed pages.
Co-publishers Tom Ross, Bryan Merica and I have kept F&H going over this time investing our own time, funding, and staff help. Last year at this time we considered closing the site, however with an election on the horizon we decided to keep F&H going through the election year. With the election come and gone, and with no sense of additional resources, we have decided to close the site down.
Fox and Hounds will live on, at least, with my articles collected in the California State Library.
On a personal note, I have spent over 40 years in California policy and politics. There have been some incredible high moments and some difficult low points. It pains me that politics too often is a blood sport, frequently demonizing the motives of opponents and using the legal system as a weapon in public discourse. At Fox & Hounds, we tried to adhere to the practice of giving all a voice in the debate, yet keep the commentaries civil and avoided personal attacks.
F&H offered the opportunity to publish different perspectives (even ones that criticized my writings!). We had success as indicated by the Washington Post twice citing Fox and Hounds Daily one of the best California political websites and many other positive affirmations and comments received over the years.
Tom, Bryan and I want to thank our many readers and writers for being part of our journey. The publishers of Fox and Hounds Daily believe that we added value to California and its people. We hope you agree.
Padilla’s Fundraising Ban Plan Falls Short
After almost 15 years as an elected officeholder, Senator Alex Padilla decided this week that politicians shouldn’t be raising campaign money and making laws at the same time. Armed with this newly-found perspective, Padilla introduced a smaller, slighter, weaker version of a ban on fundraising during legislative session that I first proposed in the summer of 2012.
Senator Padilla’s version of the ban is a good start, but it must be strengthened significantly before it can realistically weaken the link between political giving and government action and restore sanity to an out-of-control fundraising arms race in Sacramento. If this is a legitimate effort by Senator Padilla to help us begin to fix a broken system of politics, rather than a belated effort to bolster his campaign for Secretary of State during his last months before being forced from the legislature by term limits, then his bill must meet the following standards:
E-Cig Debate: Guilt by Association?
In Hollywood movie scripts, a narrative based on guilt by association might make a compelling story line. But it is a lousy way to make policy – and that is what the Los Angeles City Council is being asked to do regarding electronic cigarettes.
A proposed ordinance in the City Council would impose restrictions on e-cigarette use in public places. Such restrictions make sense for traditional tobacco cigarettes. But this proposal is misguided because it would do a public health disservice, discouraging smokers from switching to less-harmful electronic cigarettes that do not combust tobacco and therefore, do not create second-hand smoke.
As a former president of the American Lung Association, I have seen how e-cigarettes have become the subject of much confusion and misinformation, which has led to a classic case of guilt by association.
Liberal Plutocrats and Their Personal Campaigns
Originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Chronicle readers, beware. At a recent confab at a billionaire’s ranch, an elite gathering of business titans agreed to spend $100 million – thanks to legal loopholes that allow them to skirt federal campaign contribution limits – to elect like-minded politicians who will help them halt the wheels of government, move their party further from the political center and thwart the will of the American people.
In February, local billionaire Tom Steyer invited fellow liberal plutocrats to his Pescadero ranch, where he challenged them to produce $50 million – to match $50 million he has pledged – to help elect politicians who share their views on climate change. Brother Jim told the New Yorker that the brothers Steyer wanted to be the Koch brothers of the left. Tom Steyer nixed that notion, saying, “We think we’re representing the vast bulk of citizens of the United States. We’re not representing our pockets.”
Oppose the Obama Administration’s War on US Antique Collectors ~ It Won’t Save a Single Elephant in Africa!
Last week, in a stunning suspension of logic and good sense, the Obama Administration declared war on law-abiding US antique collectors, maybe on you.
In essence, the administration is seeking to ban the sale of all ivory products even if legally purchased decades ago.
Thursday morning in the Washington Post, Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, former special assistant to President Reagan, and a member of the Chess Collector’s Society, wrote the proper response to this next example of misguided Nanny State government:
In a nutshell, if you have not been following this one, elephants in Africa are increasingly being slaughtered for their tusks, 70% of which go directly to China to satisfy their insatiable demand for ivory, both a status symbol for their newly wealthy, and a material with supposed medicinal properties. Do not mistake my point here – I love elephants. I love my dog. But, take a deep breath fellow animal lovers, and please explain to me how the new Obama Policy to criminalize Americans who own antique elephant ivory, will help save the life of even a single African elephant roaming the plains of the Serengeti.
Pension Funds and the Bubble Economy
“You can’t build a society on artificially inflated asset values, because that accelerates the class division. Immigrants know that even if they work in a low-paying job in a hotel in Houston the chances they can save and buy a house are infinitely better than in California. If you want to have an asset based economy then accept we’re going to have feudalism because the price of entry is just too high.”
– Joel Kotkin, CPPC Interview, January 4, 2014
What Kotkin is referring to is the result of decades of increasing legislative restrictions on cost-effective land and energy development, combined with Federal Reserve policies designed to minimize the cost of borrowing. In the first case, prices for land and energy, the building blocks of a healthy economy, are artificially inflated through constraints on supply. In the second, the supply of borrowed money is artificially increased via ultra-low interest rates.
An Old Story – Another Oil Tax Proposal
Stop me if you’ve heard this story before — there is a proposal to tax oil coming out of the ground in California. Of course, you’ve heard that before – there have been oil severance tax bills introduced in the legislature every few years since the 1990s. One oil tax proposal even made it to the ballot via the initiative process, which the voters rejected.
Senator Noreen Evans, who announced a new oil severance tax plan yesterday, has introduced a bill on the subject three times herself: once when she was in the Assembly, last year’s SB 241, and now SB 1017.
Stop me if you’ve heard the argument put forth by the proponents of this tax: California is the only major oil producing state that does not levy an oil severance tax. Oil producing states Alaska and Texas are always referenced as levying the tax. You heard that, too. It is always the lead argument for supporters of an oil tax.