When it comes to congressional redistricting, the nation’s most populous state is in a class by itself. About a decade ago, the Democratic state legislature passed what would prove to be one of the most perfect “status quo” congressional district maps imaginable. It was designed to create a large cadre of safe seats for both parties, and it did just that.
Has the wind gone out of the sails of the smaller government movement? Is the tea party movement going through a hangover?
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- You'd think that a state knocked cold by the real-estate meltdown would invest in a future not based on housing bubbles. And that if the feds dangled a bag of money to help it address a serious economic drag -- a gridlocked highway system that turns off tourists, retirees and business travelers -- you'd think the state would grab it.
If you buy into the energy speech President Obama delivered on Wednesday, it sure sounds like we're headed for drill, drill, drill. It would be a total reversal of policy. I guess $100-plus oil and near $4 gas at the pump -- along with a consumer economic-political revolt -- will do that to you.
"We have only just begun," Geraldine Ferraro wrote in inscribing a photograph to me after the 1984 campaign. I keep it above my desk, to remind myself that Rome wasn't built in a day, that it takes courage and perseverance when you're trying to change the world.
In 1427, a ship captain sailing for his Portuguese Prince, Henry the Navigator, discovered the Azores Islands. If the question of the significance of this event had been posed, at the time, to Sultan Murad Khan (the leader of the Ottoman Empire), or to Itzcoatl and Nezahualcoyotl (the co-leaders of the Aztecs) or to Rao Kanha (one of the princes of Jodhpur in India), it is unlikely that any of them would have responded that it is an early indication of a historic explosion of cultural energy in Europe that will lead to European exploration and conquest of most of the known world, and to a renaissance of European thought that will give rise to scientific, industrial and scholarly dominance of the planet by European culture for at least half a millennium.
In Sacramento, the knee-jerk response to any crisis is to blame the Republicans. But if Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders can't cut a deal to win the two GOP votes in the Assembly and two in the Senate needed to qualify Brown's tax-increase extension for the June ballot, Democrats must take their share of responsibility for fudging a deal.
Are conservatives right that our government has become overbearing? Is it true that the rights of the individual, enshrined at the dawn of the Republic and cried over by Glenn Beck, are being smashed by the modern state?
The Census Bureau last week released county and city populations for the last of the 50 states from the 2010 Census last week, ahead of schedule. Behind the columns of numbers are many vivid stories of how our nation has been changing -- and some lessons for public policy, as well.
Every American should look at Libya through the prism of the 1988 Pan Am 103 terrorist bombing that left 270 people dead. Moammar Gadhafi -- the man whom Ronald Reagan called the mad dog of the Middle East -- ordered an attack that killed mostly American civilians in a bombing over British soil. Yet rather than be beaten by more powerful nations, he lived to crow about it.
I quit smoking 25 years ago. Before that, I had tried eight times, and each time I failed.
Deciding whether to intervene in Libya, the United States and its allies confronted a terrible situation: the immediate imperative -- to prevent a promised massacre by the country's dictator, versus the many long-term reasons to stay away, from the uncertainty of success to the very question of what success would mean. On balance, we could not stand by and allow Moammar Gadhafi to carry out his grotesque threat.
President Barack Obama says that Americans are “tired of talk” when it comes to rising gas prices. Unfortunately his administration continues to say one thing and do another on this critical economic front – ignoring opportunities to increase our oil supply while at the same time taking credit for production gains that he is actively seeking to dismantle.
California prisons confiscated more than 10,000 cellphones last year. This year, officials at Corcoran State Prison found a cellphone with a camera in possession of convicted serial killer Charles Manson. It was the second phone found on Manson in two years.
Let's imagine that all goes well in Libya. The rebels, protected by air strikes, recapture lost territory and sweep into Tripoli. Moammar Gadhafi and his sons one way or the other disappear.
When it comes to my sanity, the tea party often taketh away. I go nuts when they throw out huge sums to cut from budgets without getting into details.
Amid all the confusion of our new little war in Libya, one thing is clear: Notwithstanding the bravery and professionalism of our troops, in naming it Operation Odyssey Dawn, the Pentagon has invoked a haunting specter. The war's namesake -- Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey" -- is the tale of the hero, Odysseus, taking 10 years to get home from the Trojan War -- which itself took 10 years to fight.
Caveat emptor: The first-quarter economy is slowing, and inflation is rising. A month ago, economists were optimistic about the potential for 4 percent growth. Now they are marking down their estimates toward 2.5 percent. Behind this, consumer expectations are falling, while inflation fears are going up.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Perhaps one of the most dangerous sentences in the English language is: "It can't get any worse."
