California

Yesterday the Toyota Motor Corporation announced it would move its U.S. headquarters from Torrance, California, to Plano, Texas. Closing his report on the development, Tim Reid of Reuters noted the reaction of a Torrance business owner who doubtless counts many Toyota employees as loyal customers. "The taxes are lower in Texas. There are fewer regulations. It's cheaper for a company there. Why…

On Friday, University of California Feminist Studies Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young pled not guilty to misdemeanor theft, battery, and vandalism. To bring those who missed the two previous related posts up to speed: A video at the YouTube site of the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust (warning: profanity) shows Miller-Young taking a sign away from a participant in a campus pro-life…

In a 72-word Cheat Sheet item on their website today, Daily Beast editors failed to note California Democratic State Senator Leland Yee's party affiliation nor the fact that the alleged gun-running politician was an outspoken advocate of more gun-control laws. To be fair, the Associated Press article that the Cheat Sheet item linked to mentioned both facts, but casual readers of the Daily…

In another development most of the establishment press, with the usual exception of Fox News and the unusual exception of Reuters, has thus far predictably ignored, Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley announced on Friday the indictment of University of California-Santa Barbara Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young on charges of "theft from a person, battery, and vandalism."…

California Governor Jerry Brown apparently thinks he's some kind of comedian. I would suggest that he not quit his current day job, but many readers would probably prefer he do that. At a union-organized joint legislative conference on Monday, as reported in the Sacramento Bee, Brown told the following knee-slapper in connection with the high-speed rail project which is on track (excuse the…

On Thursday's CBS This Morning, co-host Charlie Rose described how most of California was suffering from "extreme or exceptional drought" but fretted that "the crisis is turning into a political football." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] In the report that followed, correspondent Bill Whitaker explained: "House Republicans passed a bill to divert water to California's…

The PJ Tatler recently reported on the case of Larry Brinkin, for many years an “icon” on the Human Rights Commission in San Francisco: “A former high-ranking San Francisco government employee convicted of felony possession of child pornography will continue to receive his government pension because, according to city regulations, evidence of ‘moral turpitude’ is required to revoke a pension…

A small but vocal band of critics has forced an actress to bow out of a stage production purely because of her political views. It's a brand of McCarthyistic bullying that the national media would (rightly) condemn if the politics of principals in the controversy reversed. But don't hold your breath for a firestorm of outrage in the case of Maria Conchita Alonso, a conservative/libertarian…

The Los Angeles Times decided, as one of California’s leading arbiters of political correctness, that they would skip the ironic headline of “Illegal alien wins license to practice law.” That kind of direct language is a bit too honest. The use of the I-word will be banned in all civilized and "inclusive"  forums in the future, and this may mark the beginning. “California court grants law…

On Friday morning, Richard Pollock at the Washington Examiner (HT Ed Driscoll at PJ Media) broke an important story about the the large number of doctors choosing not to participate in Covered California, the state's Obamacare exchange. The odds that the agenda-driven press in the formerly Golden State of California was already aware of this problem and chose not to report on it would seem to…

In a Sunday morning report which tries to put the best possible face on a project which appears to be on track to make the $22 billion "Big Dig" in Massachusetts look like a petty cash disbursement, Juliet Williams at the Associated Press claimed that the $68 billion involved thus far "would span the state." No it wouldn't, unless all of the formerly Golden State north of the San Francisco Bay…

Movie star, comedian, and “Saturday Night Live” alumnus Rob Schnieder announced he was switching to the Republican Party in an interview with Anne-Marie Murrell of the website Politichicks.tv.  “The state of California is a mess,” Schneider declared, “and the supermajority of Democrats is not working. I’ve been a lifelong Democrat and I have to switch over because it no longer serves the…

When you think of California, a few things spring to mind. One is the state's love affair with the automobile. Another is, of course, how in the past 25 years the state the state has abandoned the center-right politics that gave it governors like Ronald Regan and George Deukmejian for hard-left, tax-and-spend politics. So it should come as no surprise that the penchant for the latter is…

If the newly gay-friendly Boy Scouts were paying attention last week, they may have caught a glimpse of their future.  According to USAToday, Girl Scouts marched in San Francisco’s infamous gay Pride Parade “for the first time.” Celebrating the “boost” that the DOMA and Prop 8 rulings gave to the Pride Parade, the article quoted Girl Scout parent Del Gregor, who brought her 11-year-old…