National Water Quality Month is turning out rather dry in California, but trouble will soon be washing up in court. Farmers and business owners have filed more than 90 claims against the state government for causing a total of $1.7 billion in losses from the spillway failure at Oroville Dam back in February. Might…
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There is fantastic news coming out from Washington D.C. this week. The U.S. Treasury Department is shutting down a money-losing retirement account program that was aimed at getting low income-earning Americans to invest their retirement savings in its very low interest rate-paying U.S. Treasury bond fund for U.S. government employees (the Thrift Savings Plan…
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Imagine if land that had been held in your family for decades were suddenly subject to new environmental regulations that would severely limit what you could do on that land, where you would not be able to do things like build a new house on it, cut down trees on it, or even to…
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As we noted, the University of California at Davis garnered national attention in 2011 when campus cops pepper-sprayed students peacefully demonstrating against tuition hikes. The ensuing lawsuits cost taxpayers more than $1 million, most of it going to crony consultants. No UCD administrators got fired, least of all chancellor Linda Katehi, who also came…
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August is National Water Quality Month and that might prompt a meditation on agencies such as California’s State Water Resources Control Board. The Board’s five full-time members are appointed by the governor and “the mission of the Water Board is to ensure the highest reasonable quality for waters of the state, while allocating those…
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Uniforms are a big deal at the U.S. Department of Defense for outfitting the members of the nation’s military branches, particularly its Battle Dress Uniforms (BDUs), which incorporate camouflage among other technologies to help protect the lives of American service members who will be engaged in combat operations. As part of that mission, the…
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Social Security’s Trustees have released their annual report for 2017, which updates their view of the fiscal health of the single largest government program in the United States. To provide some sense of scale, the program paid out $922 billion to 61 million Americans in 2016, for an average benefit of over $15,000 per…
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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions seeks a “new directive on asset forfeiture” and plans new policies to “increase forfeitures.” The target is supposedly big-time criminal organizations but all citizens have good cause to be wary. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas notes, the issue is “whether modern civil-forfeiture statutes can be squared with…
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Illinois has kicked the can down the road for the state’s debts and liabilities. Last week, Moody’s credit rating service announced that it would sustain its current rating for the state of Illinois at Baa3, one level above “junk” status, making Moody’s the third of three major credit rating agencies to not take the…
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While running for office, Donald Trump pledged to reduce the regulatory burden for Americans while also increasing the amount of spending to support federal law enforcement agencies in their work, much of which involves enforcing federal laws and regulations. Budgets are about priorities, so perhaps it isn’t much of a surprise that President Trump’s…
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