Is Newsom Running for President?
When the subject of the governor’s race comes up in conversation with political and government types, there are two things I often hear. First, that someone new and exciting is going to enter the governor’s race late and scramble the contest. The second is that Gavin Newsom is running for president in 2020. I don’t […]
Where’s the Republican Bench?
The Republican Party in California is fighting for relevance – “Dying at the box office,” as former Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger once put it—so you would expect an effort to be made to field known, credible candidates in all statewide races. But with little over a month to go to file for a constitutional, statewide […]
California Legislature should be cautious about disrupting the ridesharing balance
When riders hop in an Uber or a Lyft, services that operate as so-called “transportation network companies,” insurance is usually the last thing on their mind. They’ve got places to be. But according to a joint study by the California Department of Insurance and the California Public Utilities Commission, insurance might be more important than consumers usually […]
Trump’s peasant rebellion and the political monoculture of Hollywood and Silicon Valley
A year into office, Donald Trump remains something of an unlikely figure: a self-promoting and well-heeled demagogue who leads a bedraggled coalition of piratical capitalists, southerners, and people from the has-been or never were towns of Middle America. His fiercest opponents largely come from the apex of our society: the tech oligarchy, a rabidly hostile […]