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.
Happy Labor Day
Fox & Hounds will resume posting Tuesday, September 3rd.
Steinberg’s Prison Plan Misses A Key Point
What part of “forthwith” doesn’t Darrell Steinberg understand?
If there’s one thing the federal judges holding sway over California’s prison overcrowding lawsuit have been consistently clear on, it’s that they want the problem fixed and they want it fixed now.
Every time Gov. Jerry Brown has gone to the judges and suggested that California has already done enough or that the state needs more time to trim its prison population, there’s been a simple – and increasingly peevish — answer: No.
“For approximately a year, (Brown and the state) have acted in open defiance of this court’s order,” Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt said in denying a request last April to modify or drop the inmate reduction order. He charged Brown with “openly contumacious conduct” and suggested that if the governor doesn’t get those numbers down in a hurry, a contempt of court citation could make him part of those prison inmate statistics. (more…)
Of Political Blogs and Libraries
Given the consideration the Fair Political Practices Commission is giving blogs and the fact that pay walls are being constructed around newspaper articles (there’s a pay wall around the article linked to in this paragraph), it’s clear political blogs are gaining attention and will undoubtedly play a bigger role in political debates.
That’s not a bad thing, if you believe in the Marketplace of Ideas. Create many outlets to discuss and debate policy and news and let the public sift through the ideas in the marketplace to discover truths. In California, we have a plethora of political sites that cover all perspectives.
In a sense, with multiple blogs, dissemination of news and opinion is a bit of Back to the Future. In this country’s history, multiple newspapers in the same location argued over policy and politics. As a website dedicated to early American newspapers notes, “Early American newspapers, often printed by small-town printers, documented the daily life of hundreds of diverse American communities, supported different political parties and recorded both majority and minority views.” (more…)
Labor Day 2013: How We Reached the Tipping Point Against Full Time Hiring
(This is a longer version of an essay that originally appeared in Zocalo Public Square).
Labor Day 2013 brings a landscape of job scarcity that is now well-documented: more and more applicants per job opening, more and more part time jobs and lower wage jobs, fewer and fewer full time jobs with benefits, fewer and fewer adults who are even looking for work.
Much of this job landscape is due to forces of globalization and technology outside the control of policymakers. But much of it is the result of government policies and rhetoric over the past decade. For Labor Day 2013, it is worth considering how we reached the tipping point against full time hiring, and how we might bring back such hiring. (more…)
Governor Needs to Call Special Session on Prisons
I applaud the Governor’s bipartisan effort to acquire additional inmate housing space and direct the attention of the Governor and the Legislature to an available facility in Live Oak (Sutter County) as well as California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation facilities in Paso Robles and Ione, which are in jeopardy of disposal as surplus properties under Assembly Bill 826.
The agreement is a step in the right direction, but it does not address a flawed prison realignment policy.
The Governor’s commitment to expansion of prison capacity is only part of the solution. To protect California residents, it is critical to provide offenders with effective rehabilitation opportunities in custody and while under community supervision. (more…)
The Strong Arm of California Labor Unions
If you thought California’s labor unions couldn’t get any stronger, you would be wrong. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have the U.S. Secretary of Labor in your corner.
In a letter to Governor Jerry Brown, Secretary Tom Perez said that the Department of Labor can withhold up to $1.6 billion in federal mass transportation grants if the state does not come to an agreement with transit labor unions to reverse pension reforms that passed the legislature and were signed by Brown last year. Perez is pulling on strings attached to the federal money because he believes the reforms violate the collective bargaining protections in the federal law providing for mass transit grants. (more…)