The “farm to fork” movement has brought farmers’ markets to the heart of urban areas and they have long been a hit in cities such as Davis, California. Those who patronize farmers markets might be surprised to learn that they are “white spaces,” in which the “habits of white people are normalized.” Farmers’ markets…
Read More »
The Republicans’ victorious tax bill lowers the corporate rate from 35 to 21 percent but is nothing approaching a flat tax because it retains, count ‘em, seven tax brackets. According to the New York Times it will cut taxes for about 75 percent of filers in 2018, but nobody should consider it a gift….
Read More »
On Monday December 18, the Amtrak Cascades 501 headed out on its inaugural trip on a new route in Washington state when it ran off the tracks near DuPont, sending 13 cars into traffic on busy Interstate 5 below. The train carried 86 people and at this writing at least three are dead and…
Read More »
Elected representatives of the people have been investigating unlawful surveillance of American citizens through the FISA court. When representatives posed questions to FBI boss Christopher Wray he told them, “I’m not prepared to discuss what happened in the court,” though he obviously knew the answer. Instead of answering questions, Wray offered boilerplate praise for…
Read More »
As California politicians complain about the lack of affordable housing, a new state study claims the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), as a Los Angeles Times report put it, “doesn’t block development from actually happening.” A working family looking for affordable housing in California should have more than a reasonable doubt. The claim that…
Read More »
As fires rage in southern California, driving nearly 90,000 people from their homes, recurring governor Jerry Brown explains that that because of climate change such fires could be “the new normal” and “this could be something that happens every year or every few years.” As usual, the governor ignores a key back story. The…
Read More »
Besides Hollywood (Harvey Weinstein), Congress (Al Franken), and the media (Matt Lauer), to name only a few, it turns out that sexual abuse has been thriving in the California legislature. Capitol staffer Elise Flynn Gyore charged that assemblyman Raul Bocanegra groped her at a public event in 2009. Faced with this and other accusations,…
Read More »
In housing, California has been in the throes of what Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf, calls an “affordability crisis.” This year governor Jerry Brown signed a batch of bills designed to end the crisis and, as Assemblyman Richard Bloom put it, “make housing affordable again.” Those currently priced out of the market might recall past…
Read More »
The California Supreme Court has ruled that the state can impose a contract on employers, in the style of Don Corleone, a deal they can’t refuse. News stories hailed the unanimous ruling as a victory for “farmworkers” but it isn’t. The case deals with Gerawan Farming, a fruit grower in Fresno and Madera counties….
Read More »
President Trump has tapped Mick Mulvaney head of the Office of Management and Budget, to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a bad sign for a number of reasons. As we noted back in 2012 in Financial Crisis and Leviathan, the CFPB was created during the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, not…
Read More »
 |
 |
 |