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.
CALmatters is Part of a Changing Media World
In regard to your column in Fox and Hounds last Thursday on CALmatters, as a veteran journalist, Timm, you are trained well to “follow the money.” In Watergate, those were the instructions that led reporters to the White House connection. In journalism today, it points to a vital question about how newsrooms maintain credibility as they work to replace the money lost when the traditional business model collapsed.
At CALmatters and other non-profit journalism centers nationally, philanthropy is filling the gap. Your article is wrong in saying CALmatters is much different than the public radio model, which you call “the most promising.” We actually share many of the same donors and we even seek joint funding with public radio. But you’re right to look at the independence of the journalism, which is a core value built into CALmatters. It’s reflected in the “top-notch … respected veterans” you describe at CALmatters as well as in our board of directors, which includes several executives from major American news organizations. It’s also affirmed by the reproduction of our work in most of California’s major newspapers and radio stations. (more…)
Mayors Don’t See Eye to Eye on Infrastructure Fixes
Can a Northern California big city Democratic mayor and a Southern California big city Republican mayor find common ground when it comes to infrastructure improvements? Sacramento’s Darrell Steinberg and San Diego’s Kevin Faulconer both want infrastructure improvements but place a different emphasis on how to get the job done.
The mayors talked infrastructure fixes to a Public Policy Institute of California audience in Sacramento last Friday, the event moderated by PPIC president Mark Baldassare.
Steinberg wanted an easier path to raise taxes for transportation needs. The Sacramento/Placer County sales tax measure in November missed the required two-thirds vote requirement by less than two percentage points. Steinberg said he didn’t understand the two-thirds vote requirement for earmarked taxes. He argued that if a government identifies what the tax revenue is being used for then a majority vote should be satisfactory. (more…)
Decentralize Government to Resolve Country’s Divisions
America is increasingly a nation haunted by fears of looming dictatorship. Whether under President Barack Obama’s “pen and phone” rule by decree, or its counterpoint, the madcap Twitter rule of our current chief executive, one part of the country, and society, always feels mortally threatened by whoever occupies the Oval Office.
Given this worsening divide, perhaps the only reasonable solution is to move away from elected kings and toward early concepts of the republic, granting far more leeway to states, local areas and families to rule themselves. Democrats, as liberal thinker Ross Baker suggests, may “own” the D.C. “swamp,” but they are beginning to change their tune in the age of Trump. Even dutiful cheerleaders for Barack Obama’s imperial presidency, such as the New Yorker, are now embracing states’ rights. (more…)
Trump’s Super Bowl Dilemma
Just when we thought there were no more significant snubs forthcoming after Mexico’s president turned down the invitation to visit the White House over the unresolved issue of who will pay for The Wall, we hear that some of the Super Bowl Champion, New England Patriots, may also be taking a pass.
One tantalizing question is whether their star quarterback, Tom Brady, is among them?
Foreign leaders often cancel appointments over political quarrels but if Tom Brady, the record-breaking California-bred star quarterback says no thanks that is cause for concern.
The nation can withstand slights directed at our presidents as temporary dust-ups that can be remedied over time. (more…)
Business Networking Key to Boosting Bay Area over LA
The “Beat LA” chant that occurs at many San Francisco sporting events featuring teams from the two regions of the state may reflect more than the athletic contest on the field. The San Francisco Bay Area’s economy has surged ahead of Los Angeles’s economic growth over the past 40 years.
Professor Michael Storper of UCLA told a Town Hall Los Angeles audience Wednesday that the Bay Area managed the transition to the modern economy better than the Los Angeles region. Former Los Angeles city councilman and county supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky agreed that while San Francisco looked ahead at the blossoming high tech business, Los Angeles business leaders and politicians were looking back, working to preserve traditional industries.
Storper, co-author of the book, The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies: Lessons from San Francisco and Los Angeles argued that the Bay Area’s success was due to San Francisco’s old downtown business community realizing that it needed a regional approach. In the 1980s, the Bay Area Council, which represented traditional San Francisco businesses, understood that the economy was changing. To capture the future of high tech, high-income economy, the Bay Area Council reached out to the Silicon Valley. (more…)
Gloves Come Off as a Rude and Loud Minority Seeks to Stifle Open Democratic Discourse
Whether one is speaking of First Amendment-protected speech on university and college campuses or efforts of elected congressional representatives to conduct dialogues with their constituents, America has become messy indeed.
While we weren’t looking, groups were organizing to take away our most fundamental civil liberties.
Organized and paid political activists mingle among honest citizens seeking to participate in democracy and have their grievances and voices heard. They drown them out before they even have an opportunity to speak.
These are not spontaneous grassroots occurrences. They are carefully planned, funded, organized and executed campaigns with the specific purpose of disrupting our democracy.
Take two recent examples, one from the University of California at Berkeley and the other from a California congressman’s town hall meeting in the Sacramento area. (more…)