Let’s be honest. Gov. Hochul’s proposal to reduce farebeating will do next to nothing. First, let’s look at the scope of the problem. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority says it loses $690 million a year from people jumping the turnstile or boarding buses without paying. At $2.90 a pop, that is more than 238 million fare … Read more
Millions of Americans watched last weekend as NFL teams played the final games of their regular season. California fans were treated to the much-anticipated finale between the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams, and during commercial breaks they were also exposed to ads from two state law enforcement agencies. Despite offering six-digit starting … Read more
Red-state legislatures are the incubator and the proving ground of many varieties of right-wing nutjobbery that go on to affect national policy, but most people give no thought to what happens in their chambers. Even here in the South — where, to all appearances, our legislatures gather mainly to subvert democracy and rend the social … Read more
Jan. 13, 2024 3:05 AM PT To the editor: The Times’ harmful coverage of nonprofit Skid Row housing providers continued on Jan. 5 with an assertion in one of its newsletters that “on Skid Row, the housing network for L.A.’s neediest all but collapsed.” The newsletter blurb linked to an article with the absurd headline … Read more
It took a lot of brass for Hunter Biden to crash a House Oversight Committee hearing convened to hold him in contempt for blowing off a congressional subpoena, a crime which carries a punishment of as much as a year in jail and a $100,000 fine. But if you think of politics as a tawdry … Read more
More than a third of California’s roughly 39 million people are under 27 years old, three-quarters of them are nonwhite, and their families’ incomes are, for the most part, relatively low. Children Now, a 33-year-old advocacy organization based in Oakland and led by former Assemblyman Ted Lempert, contends that the state is stingy when it comes … Read more
Contemplating this moment in which a heartfelt compliment was the spark of a complicated friendship, I thought of my friend, the writer Robert Bingham, who died of a heroin overdose in 1999. At a gallery show in New York in the early 1990s, Rob, then a stranger, came up to me and told me he’d … Read more
As a new presidential election year begins, America’s Republicans have already chosen their candidate. According to every poll, the rank-and-file have overwhelmingly united behind former President Donald J. Trump. The Republican National Committee requirement that any presidential hopeful who participates in a debate for the 2024 election must support the party’s eventual general election candidate … Read more
To all the Democrats cheering Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows for kicking Donald Trump off the ballot, we have to ask: Have you forgotten Katherine Harris? In 2000, the then-Florida secretary of state ended Florida’s recount of presidential votes, sealing a victory for George W. Bush over Al Gore. Indeed, from Election Day all … Read more
When federal government and state governments passed laws governing wages, working hours and other workplace conditions prior to World War II, agricultural labor was exempted. Many years later, after the 40-hour work week became standard, California’s Industrial Welfare Commission decreed that farmworkers could work up to 10 hours a day or six days a week … Read more
