A little more than one month from now, the Metro Expo Line’s final portion will open for business, making it possible to take trains from the far eastern portions of Los Angeles County to the often-crowded beach in Santa Monica. This will come barely two months after a new section of Metro’s Gold Line opened, allowing a simple, cheap 31-mile jaunt from downtown Los Angeles to Azusa. Barely any protests have afflicted any of these projects, which together will have cost many billions of dollars.

Watch the primary election process now playing out both nationally and in California, and you almost have to wonder whether the state and national wings of the Republican Party have made a suicide pact.

OpEd: One Answer to Data Security: Stop Creating Data

Just a few months ago, it seemed as if the November election might produce the silliest “silly season” ever seen in modern California politics. But the essential good sense of shoppers around the state appears to have prevented that.

OpEd: That’s my new t-shirt line: “All ‘ism’s Matter” printed on 100% Fair Trade cotton by union workers who all get the same pay, male or female, and are offered healthy vegan options at lunch that never include dolphin.

OpEd: There’s probably no hope of stopping the revolving door in Washington, D.C. anytime soon. The constant cycle of longtime Congress members and senators moving downtown from the Capitol to take high-paying jobs as lobbyists can only be ended by Congress itself.

OpEd: There is a threat to the safety of Americans so elusive it often cannot be anticipated, and even when it is anticipated there is often no reaction against it… you know, without spending money or changing things. When it strikes, chaos ensues and the dangers can be deadly.