Syndicated Columnists

It’s likely that most Californians have never heard of the Levering Act, passed by the California Legislature in 1950, but it symbolized the state’s political orientation in the post-World War

They’re for cutting waste and fraud in government – until you cut waste and fraud. They’re for stopping the war in Ukraine – until you try to stop the war.

There are a lot of questions these days about poll numbers, both President Donald Trump’s and those of his Democratic opponents.  First, job approval.  The president’s rating has tipped slightly

We’ve all seen the outrageous stats for the Department of Education. Until Donald Trump’s White House hit man Elon Musk sicced his Department of Government Efficiency on it, the Education

St. Patrick’s Day couldn’t come soon enough. Half the country is giddy as the Trump administration undoes our reckless spending and $2 trillion deficits, which have resulted in a frightening

Construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and its more famous cousin, the Golden Gate Bridge, began in 1933, and both were carrying traffic by 1937. The 1989 Loma Prieta

My wife Amy purchased a gift card for our daughter at Sephora, the large retailer of beauty products, but all she got was disappointment. When Stephanie tried to use it

Polls have repeatedly shown that majorities of voters support the work President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency is doing to cut waste and fraud in federal spending.  A recent

I write this from my hotel room, a two-minute walk from the Colosseum. My trip to Rome has been planned for months, and I looked forward to it with anticipation

We may be seeing the meltdown of one of California’s highest ranking public officials, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Ever since wildfires began sweeping through Los Angeles County neighborhoods, Bass

For the lucky few of us who grew up during the 1950s in Southern California, the non-stop coverage of the massive wildfire was impossible to watch. My thoughts took me

One of the many gimmicks that California’s governors and legislators employ to paper over budget deficits, thus avoiding real spending cuts or increasing taxes, is to assume some level of

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy is one of the Democrats urging his party to more aggressively resist President Donald Trump across a broad range of issues. “Mr. Murphy has seemed to

This week is a personal milestone, marking a half-century of writing about California’s ever-changing political ambiance. My move into the Sacramento Union’s Capitol bureau on March 3, 1975, was part

I was talking to a friend the other day about another friend, who has been going through a difficult period ever since Hamas massacred peaceful Jews in Gaza a year and

Since when did bureaucrats become a victim class? The answer to that one is easy – as soon as Donald Trump began his crusade to reduce their numbers. Before Trump

President Donald Trump is obsessed with how California manages its water supply, demanding changes as one price of giving the state billions of dollars in aid to cope with Southern

As wildfires swept through Los Angeles County last month, the New York Times published a commentary by former insurance commissioner Dave Jones, who suggested that oil companies should pay for

A proverb said to have arisen in 16th-century England postulates that “too many cooks spoil the broth.” When too many people are working on a project without clear accountability, it

All over America that Friday in November 1963, college football teams boarded airliners for their Saturday games. They took off in one country, where John F. Kennedy was president and