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.

Southern California has Aging Issues

Back in the 1960s, and for well into the 1980s, California stood at the cutting edge of youth culture, the place where trends started and young people clustered. “The California teen, a white, middle-class version of the American dream” raised in a world of “suburbs, cars, and beaches,” notes historian Kirse Granat May, literally shaped the national image of youth, from the Beach Boys and Barbie to Gidget.

In those times, California, particularly the Southland, was literally becoming ever younger, as more families and migrating 20-somethings moved in. The beaches of Southern California, so attractive to youth, evoked a care-free, athletic, somewhat hedonistic culture; California also was the place where young people, free from the traditional constraints of places East, felt free to innovate, in everything from music and board shorts to the earliest PCs.

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For President’s Day – Another Presidential Mystery

As most people kick back and take a day off for President’s Day, I’ll take the opportunity to offer a shameless self-promotion for my mystery series that deals with American presidents. The second book in the series is now available. FDR’s Treasure  is a modern day mystery that spins off from the actual visits President Franklin D. Roosevelt took aboard the USS Houston to Cocos Island off Costa Rica, an island notorious for containing buried treasure.

Once again FBI Special Agent Zane Rigby must solve a murder while uncovering the connection between the murder and something in the history of an American president.

Rigby encounters personal, political, and criminal troubles as a beautiful British treasure hunter vies for his affections and Rigby’s nemesis, the Monument Bomber, is determined to blow up Mount Rushmore. To top it off, Rigby is suspected of murder, while an assassin has him clearly in his sites and is ready to pull the trigger.

Rigby must unravel the secret of the treasure of the Bloody Sword or face his own bloody end.

In the first book of the series, Lincoln’s Hand, Rigby had to discover the connection between a modern day murder and an actual historical event — the attempt to steal Abraham Lincoln’s body.

You can read more about both mysteries here or get FDR’s Treasure and Lincoln’s Hand  in paperback or digital format at Amazon.

Brown Finally Surrenders on Prison Overcrowding

The endgame is here for Gov. Jerry Brown’s long-running battle with the courts over prison overcrowding.

On Monday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. District court gave Brown the two-year extension he was looking for, but he had to pay the price. And it was a steep one.

The governor agreed to accept the court’s long-standing ruling that the state’s prison population has to be capped at 137.5 percent of design capacity, or just over 112,000 inmates. He also has to immediately implement ways to get the 5,000 or so inmates over that limit out of the system, using methods like more “good time” credits for non-violent prisoners, faster parole for “two-strike” offenders and expanded parole for sick and elderly inmates.

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Brown Gets to Appoint New Supreme Court Justice

Joyce Kennard will be stepping down from the California Supreme Court effective April 5.

Kennard was appointed by Governor George Deukmejian in 1989, and is the longest serving justice on the Court. Born of Eurasian ancestry, she currently helps make up both the majorities of Asian and female justices on the seven-member bench.

The timing of the retirement coincides with the 25th anniversary of Kennard’s appointment and ensures that her successor will not have to stand for the first retention vote by the voters until November 2018 before commencing a full 12-year term.

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Californians Still Believe in Proposition 13 Taxpayer Protections

A statewide survey commissioned by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association shows Californians continues to support Proposition 13 and the two-thirds vote requirement to boost taxes on property owners.  Nearly 60 percent of voters agree that reducing the two-thirds vote to 55% to pass local bonds would place an unfair burden on owners of property.

Tone-deaf legislators have introduced a number of bills in Sacramento that would lower the vote required to pass new special taxes, per parcel property taxes and local bonds.  Especially menacing is ACA 8, being considered in the Senate after narrowly passing the Assembly last year.  ACA 8 would lower the currently mandated two-thirds vote threshold for local bonds to 55%, resulting in billions of dollars of new taxes being placed on the backs of property owners.

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Criticize the Candidates for Voting

News item: Republican gubernatorial wannabes Neel Kashkari and Tim Donnelly have come under criticism for not voting in a number of elections over the past decade. After Gov. Brown’s spokesman leveled criticism, it was pointed out that Gov. Brown had missed two elections as well.

Reaction: These candidates should be criticized – but not for the elections they skipped but for all the voting they did.

Show me Californians who have voted in every single election in which they’ve been eligible to vote – presidential, state, local and the never-ending special elections – and I’ll show you a person who needs to get a life. No one carrying on a career and family life could possibly vote in every election, nor should they.

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