Starting with the day in January 1848 when gold flakes and nuggets first turned up at Sutter’s Mill northeast of Sacramento, California has seen plenty of economic miracles, each focused in a different part of […]

I think Americans are unfairly and even wrongly apathetic about whether or not the U.S. Postal Service survives into the 21st century. Waiting in line at any of the three Santa Monica branches I frequent […]

For more than half a century, the Election Night fate of California Republican candidates could be foretold early in the vote count: If a Republican emerged from Orange County with a lead of 250,000 or […]

The dramatically tectonic nature of the national Republican Party’s shift on immigration policy wasn’t really clear until Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, long a favorite of the ultra-conservative Tea Party, in late March suddenly came out […]

From the moment it passed in 1978, there has been little doubt that Proposition 13 is unfair. On any given block, residents who bought their homes on or before the magic 1975 assessment date contained […]

This column has often railed against those things that appeared to be organized efforts to make Americans less intellectually demanding of… well, just about everything. My personal choice for historic watermark on these efforts would […]

Spend more than $30 million to pass a temporary tax increase proposition. See a governor put his entire political capital on the line to pass it, including airing countless television commercials featuring that man almost […]