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.
No Nixon-Goes-to-China for Obama on CA School-Testing Retreat
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last week that testing students was vital to measuring their progress and to improving student and teacher performance. Duncan warned California not to proceed with a reckless move away from standardized testing.
That didn’t sway the Legislature, which passed AB 484 — the legislation Duncan ripped — or Gov. Jerry Brown, who praised the Legislature for its approval and whose aides helped craft the CTA- and CFT-blessed bill.
So what does the Obama administration do? Education reform has arguably been the single strongest policy initiative of the president, reflecting an unusual willingness to take on teachers unions, a core Dem constituency. And Obama is also a lame duck, with no election on the horizon. He can do a Nixon-goes-to-China thing if he wants and stake out for history his support of the common-sense idea that bad teachers need to be weeded out of public schools.
Driver’s Licenses and the Jobs Argument
One major argument supporters of granting specially marked driver’s licenses to immigrants living in California unlawfully is the need for these individuals to use cars to get to jobs. However, there is a disconnect between this rationale for the driver’s license bill and the reality of federal law.
Assembly speaker John Perez supported AB 60, the driver’s license bill, “so they can drive to work.” Governor Jerry Brown threw his weight behind the bill saying in a statement that it would “enable millions of people to get to work safely and legally.”
Yet, Friday’s Wall Street Journal reported that the federal government is conducting a “New Hunt for Illegal Workers,” according to the headline of the story.
A Culture of Coverage
The people who designed the Affordable Care Act employed an “If we build it” strategy reminiscent of the Field of Dreams, the classic 1989 film about an iconic baseball diamond built in an Iowa cornfield. If they built a more accessible health insurance system, the reasoning in Congress went, consumers would come and use it.
But will they?
Certainly older adults who don’t yet qualify for Medicare will take advantage of the chance to buy insurance at bargain rates if they don’t already get it from their employer. And people who are already sick and using a lot of health care – and paying for it on their own or going into debt – will flock to the new system.
The question is whether people who are young or healthy — or both — will be as eager.
Why California Keeps Repeating Junipero Serra’s Mistakes
If Californians ever figure out a way to bring Father Junipero Serra back from the dead, the first thing we should do is put him in charge of the state prison system.
In the California mind, Serra is the state’s founder, a great builder of churches, and, in more recent histories, the man whose system of missions killed, mostly by disease, thousands of the Indians he sought to save.
But, as a new exhibition at the Huntington Library and a terrific new biography by UC Riverside historian Steven Hackel should remind us, Serra was also the first of many ambitious Californians to try to forge large statewide institutions—only to find they’d created systems far more complex, vulnerable, and destructive than they imagined.
Why I’m Running for Sheriff
During my 30 years with Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, I had the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated, driven and hard-working men and women the public safety profession has to offer. However, over the years I have seen a once proud organization turned into an institution with a reputation for corruption, scandal and deputy misconduct. We desperately need to restore trust, accountability and transparency to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. In order to do so, I believe we need new leadership. That is why, after careful consideration and the support of my friends and family, last month I decided to announce my candidacy for Sheriff.
After my election, restoring order to the Department will by my primary order of business. First, I will ensure the institutional hierarchy of the department is clearly defined and sensible. Second, I will strengthen the hiring requirements for all new-hires, which will ensure that we hire only the best of the best. Lastly, I will ensure that we implement an accountability system that is fairly and equally applied to all deputies, without exception. Public safety officers must have the highest level of professional conduct; a standard set forth by the department and by society.
Shake, Abel, Shake
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Abel Maldonado has shaken up his campaign. There’s good and bad in this news.
First, the good. Maldonado’s shake-up serves as a helpful reminder that there is an Abel Maldonado campaign for governor. I had a vague notion that there might be such a campaign going on, but this was confirmation.
The shake-up also serves as what law enforcement professionals involved in the retrieval of kidnap victims refer to as “proof of life.” You need to know that the kidnap victim is alive before negotiating over ransom after all. Maldonado might have been wise to release the news of his shake-up with a photo of himself holding that days’ newspaper. (more…)