After Nevada and South Carolina
Defeat can be a much better teacher than victory. Hillary Clinton entered the 2008 nomination as the odds-on favorite, but in a stunning upset, lost to a young senator from Illinois. Her loss was emotionally searing but politically educational. Specifically, she learned three lessons that she has been applying during the 2016 contest. First, organize […]
California High Speed Rail 2016 Business Plan — A Huge Fraud
The California High Speed Rail Authority just released the draft 2016 Business plan for the project. The new plan is a complete revision and now proposes to build the Initial Operating Segment (IOS) from San Jose to about 8 miles north of […]
It’s Time To Reinvest In Public Higher Education
The news from UC Berkeley is ominous—one of the world’s great research universities is facing a $150 million deficit and Chancellor Nicholas Dirks has announced a process to “reimagine” the campus in light of the “new normal”. That re-imagining will inevitably mean cutbacks in staffing levels and curriculum and undercut UC Berkeley’s ability to deliver […]
Foreign Municipal Officials Are Coming to California—And You Can Meet Them This Week
Perhaps because I persist in the delusion that Californians might want to learn some lessons about governance from overseas (given our globally nutty governance system), I find myself hosting foreigners in California again. The wrinkle this time is that they are locals – municipal officials from European cities – Vienna, Austria; Falun, Sweden, and San […]