Downward Trend of Facebook Is a Downer for the State

Facebook shares hit a new low July 31 — $21.71, 43 percent below its initial public offering.

This isn’t good new for the state, which hopes to bank a healthy chunk of tax receipts from stock sales the distribution of 240 million Restricted Stock Units to Facebook’s 3,000 employees as early as November.    Read more »

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Who Uses Social Media?

Who doesn’t is increasingly the better question.

In one infographic created by Go-Gulf.com, a Dubai website design team, it’s estimated there are more than 2 billion persons online – some 30 percent of the world’s population.

The highest concentrations of users are in North America, Europe and Oceania.

A US Internet user averages 32 hours online.    Read more »

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An Illuminating Interview with Attorney General Kamala Harris , Courtesy of “She Shares” and the California Channel

(More about “She Shares” )    Read more »

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Vanity Thy Name is Governor

By Katy Grimes

First there was the bullet train to nowhere.

Now there are the tunnels to nowhere.

Gov. Jerry Brown seems hell-bent on creating a legacy. Unfortunately, it also appears that most of California’s legislators make decisions based on legacy as well.

Lawmaking by legacy rarely bodes well.

Brown announced Wednesday that the state intends to build two large tunnels to move water from Northern California to Southern California under the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.    Read more »

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Undercover Window Tinting

Even though illegal for anyone else to do so, law enforcement agencies can tint or glaze a vehicle’s front side or rear windows under a new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. 

The measure, sponsored by the Peace Officers Research Association of California, is supposedly aimed at ending the embarrassing situation of a peace officer puling over someone for illegal window tinting and discovering that person is an undercover officer.    Read more »

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State Tax Dollars at Work

California no longer has a Commission on Industrial Innovation.

This thanks to AB 1460 signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown who, coincidentally, wrote the 1981 Executive Order creating the commission during his second term as governor and signed the 1982 legislation placing the commission in statute..

Assemblywoman Alyson Huber, an El Dorado Hills Democrat, says the commission no longer exists and its “activities are supported by other divisions of government, including the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.”    Read more »

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Happy Birthday Governor Pardee!

Republican George Cooper Pardee – born July 25, 1857 in San Francisco –probably couldn’t be elected governor today.

At least not as a Republican.

The political progenitor of the progressive agenda that bloomed under his successor Hiram Johnson, Pardee was a Republican in the Teddy Roosevelt mold.

His “liberalism” and willingness to increase taxes would almost certainly doom any chances of his nomination in 2012’s Republican party.    Read more »

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Constitutional Conflict? Not to Worry

A person convicted of a felony for giving or accepting a bribe, or stealing or embezzling public funds cannot be a candidate for state or local office under a new law signed July 24 by Gov. Jerry Brown.

 “The intent of this bill is to create accountability and ensure that we are setting a high ethical standard for those seeking to represent Californians by running for public office,” said Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, a Los Angeles Democrat who authored the measure, AB 2410.    Read more »

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Anosmic

Adjective: Impaired or lost sense of smell

Used in a Sentence: “As an inspector of CAFOs, Madam Chair, I’m very grateful to be anosmic.”

(As defined by the US Environmental Protection Agency, a CAFO is a “Confined Animal Feeding Operation.” That means a congregation of  “animals, feed, manure and urine, dead animals and production operations on a small land area.    Read more »

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Why Vote against Proposition 30? Let’s Count a Few of the Reasons

By Aaron McLear 

Proponents of Proposition 30 have been giving voters a lot of reasons to reject their $50 billion tax hike lately.

In the past couple of weeks, they’ve rejected something voters want — pension reform — and enacted something they don’t — the $200 billion bullet train. They’ve awarded pay raises to legislative staff and have been caught hiding tens of millions of dollars for parks.    Read more »

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