The April 11 written congressional testimony of Mark Zuckerberg is already available, and what the Facebook CEO told senators on April 10 is of considerable interest. It was “my mistake,” he said, that the Cambridge Analytica firm had purloined the data of 87 million Facebook users. Zuckerberg said he was sorry and was taking…
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The squad came at dawn, Remington model 870 shotguns at the ready. They broke down the door, rushed in and handcuffed a man before shoving him into a police car. One might think they were after a terrorist, escaped convict, or murderer. In reality, this was a raid by the enforcement division of the…
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During its heyday, we tracked Covered California, the wholly owned subsidiary of the federal Affordable Care Act, through the services of health journalist Emily Bazar. She charted problems with the $454 million computer system, skyrocketing premiums, automatic cancellations, glitches with tax credits and such. All told, it added up to “widespread consumer misery,” particularly…
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Helicopters have proven their worth in fighting the wildfires that devastate California. Cal Fire, the state agency in charge of these operations, wants to replace its aging fleet of Huey helicopters. The legislature set aside the money and launched a bidding process that took two years, and as the Sacramento Bee reports, “rejected the…
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As we noted, during the last three years the state of California has paid out more than $25 million to settle sexual harassment claims against state agencies and public universities. The payouts ranged from $500 to $1.7 million, and the state did not volunteer the information or make it easy to find. As usual,…
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March 22 is World Water Day but that may have escaped notice, particularly in flooded areas of the central United States. So what is this day about? According to the official site, it is about “exploring nature-based solutions to the water challenges we face in the 21st century.” As some readers may have noted,…
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As we noted the estimated cost to build California’s bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles has doubled to $77.3 billion and could almost triple to $98.1 billion. Governor Jerry Brown is now on record what he thinks of it. “This is bullshit,” he told reporters in Sacramento on March 19. “I’m so…
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“Our country is infuriated by the lack of action taken by Congress to combat the gun violence epidemic in America,” says Sen. Martin Heinrich, New Mexico Democrat, who is calling for “repeal of the Dickey Amendment,” a 1996 measure that restricted the federal Centers for Disease Control from spending public funds to research what…
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As we noted in January, costs for Jerry Brown’s vaunted high-speed rail project jumped by $2.8 billion to $10.6 billion, just for the stretch from Madera to Bakersfield. “It’s horrifying when you look at the amount of money we’re going to have to reinvest to make this program work,” exclaimed bullet-train board member Ernest…
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Proposition 57, California’s 2016 Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act championed by governor Jerry Brown, expanded parole possibilities for nonviolent offenders and barred prosecutors from directly filing juvenile cases in adult court. This measure was supposed to reduce the prison population and save taxpayers money. Instead it burns up more taxpayer dollars and gives some…
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