If they Cannot Be Honest About the Tax Election, Why Should we Trust them with the Tax Money?
The novelist Mary McCarthy once wrote of Lillian Hellman that, “every word she wrote was a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.” The same could be said of the legislature’s conduct in trying to give Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax increase initiative a leg up by moving it to the top of the November ballot. By appearing […]
Sir Walter Scott Comments on California Politics
Oh! what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive! Sir Walter Scott From the poem, Marmion, published in 1808 It’s safe to assume that Sir Walter Scott, the author of Ivanhoe, who was born in the 18th century, was not thinking of California when he wrote the lines above. But, I […]
Legislators Make the Right Vote for High-Speed Rail
If legislators are paid to make the hard decisions, they earned their money last Friday. At a time when most politicians’ long-term view extends no farther than the next election, the Democrats in the Legislature looked to California’s future by approving construction of the first 130-mile segment of the state’s long-planned high-speed rail system. It […]
Space X vs. California High-Speed Rail
So let’s take bets: who gets to their exotic destination first? Space X, from Earth to Mars? Or the California high-speed rail project, from San Francisco to Los Angeles? I’m not sure I would bet on either, but I’ve been wrong about both before. I doubted Space X would pull off its private space flight. […]