I’m in Indiana where the political conversation is centered on Republican Governor Mitch Daniels’ interest in a White House run in 2012.  Or is he interested? Daniels has said he is open to the idea, but he has yet to take the kick-off trips to Iowa and New Hampshire.

Over the weekend the press here buzzed about the possibility with Daniels receiving national attention from Fox News and Newsweek. Arnold-like, Daniels rode around for the cameras on a motorcycle in a charity ride that included hundreds of bikes.

Daniels is getting attention for the top government job because Indiana is in relatively good shape compared to other states suffering during the economic downturn. Locals have told me that when Daniels is criticized for the state’s fiscal condition he points out how much better Indiana is doing than California or Illinois.

The worst idea in American politics right now may be the effort by some Republicans in Congress to end birthright citizenship – the constitutional fact, under the 14th Amendment, that a person born in the United States is a U.S. citizen.

I do not know the intentions of the politicians advancing this argument, but let’s assume they are well-intentioned people, who believe they are preventing illegal immigration with such a policy change.

Here’s what they also would be doing, perhaps unwittingly: establishing a new American system of apartheid. Think about it. Some people born in the United States would be citizens, because they are born to U.S. citizens. Others born in the U.S. would not be citizens, presumably, if one or both parents were not permanent legal residents of the country.

A recent lawsuit against Skilled Healthcare California LLC has
had little or no coverage and it is amazing. Skilled Healthcare
California was hit with a penalty of $671 million dollars by a Humboldt
County jury. And that does not even include the punitive damages. The
core issue was whether the company violated a state law requiring
nursing homes to provide a minimum of 3.2 nursing hours per patient per
day (ppd). The key word here is minimum.

Senior
care in this state and country is a huge issue. Skilled Healthcare has
never received one complaint against it on the California Nursing Home
Directory. However, this did not stop the plaintiffs’ attorneys. The
judgement was leveled against Skilled Nursing on behalf of the 32,000
patients it has in California, awarding the maximum damages over a six
year period to the whole class.

This
is a company that provides 14,000 jobs to people in California. Its
stock price plummeted 75% on news of the judgement. It looks like it
cannot appeal the decision because to do so you have to post a bond of
150% to do so and its assets are approximately $2 million. It has also
exhausted its primary professional liability insurance.

The Public employee unions have never been shy about in-your-face political activity to defend their turf and make sure they get for their members what they think the members deserve. The onslaught of activity has increased in these difficult economic times.

In San Francisco, a number of public unions filed suit this week to throw a pension reform measure off the ballot. That reform was introduced by the city’s public defender. He was concerned that his budget is being eaten away to cover employees’ pension costs.

SEIU and other public employee members plan to rally in protests against the opening of the movie "The Expendables," because Arnold Schwarzenegger has a bit role in the movie. The unions want to express opposition to the governor’s furlough policies.

The worst thing about a conspiracy theory isn’t when you discover that the conspiracy is true.

The worst thing is finding out that the conspiracy is true and that you weren’t in on it.  

Which is why I’ve been so hurt by the revelations that important journalists – many of them friends and one-time colleagues — were members of a listserv called Journo-list and were exchanging interesting gossip and trying to plot story lines and saying many, many opinionated things that don’t look good when repeated publicly.

Ray Irani
gets too much money, according to the California State Teachers’
Retirement System and an activist investor group. Last week the two
said they’d fight to get their own slate of directors on the board of
Irani’s employer, Occidental Petroleum Corp. of Westwood.

Irani certainly hauls a bundle.
Last year, he made off with $31.4 million in salary, bonuses and stock
awards. If you throw in the value of past options he exercised during
the year and stock grants that vested, he got close to $128 million.

But is that too much? Let’s compare:

The following is the introduction of a new weekly column, "Sports, Pop Culture and Everything Else."

Sports and politics – both bring out a level of passion unmatched in society’s great arena. You could make the argument that people rally behind a team – democrat or republican – in the same they root for their favorite sports team or vice versa.

Regardless, the idea behind
this new weekly column is to escape the realities of politics and
discuss the world of sports. We’ll talk popular culture as well:
Hollywood, music, Internet, media and … just about everything else.

My
journalism career began in the sports department at The Sacramento Bee
and continued to NBC Sports before I transitioned into the world of
politics as editor of PublicCEO.com, a local government site. Even now, I still write for
NBA.com.

So, let’s begin with this initial column …

The 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy (full disclosure: I was co-president of the event) finished up last week in San Francisco after five nights and days of discussion of initiative and referendum around the world.

While there were many disagreements, one verdict of those in attendance was crystal clear: American direct democracy moves too fast for its own good.

That goes double for California, particularly in the eyes of our foreign visitors. It convinced me that the most significant initiative reform in our state would be simple: more time.

The
business community often complains about L.A. City Hall’s lack of
action to make Los Angeles more business friendly for job creators.
This week, I am pleased to extend congratulations    to City officials
for their recent actions on five of the L.A. Area Chamber’s top
business and budget priorities.

On the jobs front, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council
approved a three-year tax holiday for all new businesses that open in
Los Angeles over the next 36 months. This incentive is especially
important for startups and small businesses, and could create more than
55,000 new jobs, according to a recent report by the USC Marshall School of Business.

At the same meeting, the Council approved a taxpayer’s bill of rights,
and voted to move forward with an independent economic analysis of
comprehensive business tax reforms. The reforms to be studied include a
60 percent reduction in the City’s gross receipts tax for businesses in
the highest tax category.    The recommendations originated with the
volunteer Business Tax Advisory Committee appointed by Mayor
Villaraigosa and the City Council last year.