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Concerns about energy independence notwithstanding, when the odor of coal dust wafting through the town offends the citizenry’s olfactory glands, the trains must be stopped.  At least that’s the way some people in Bellingham, Washington see it. Activists have formed a Political Action Committee (PAC) called No Coal! to halt coal trains from traversing city property. They envision a legal system that would recognize the Rights of Nature, which apparently includes freedom from coal dust. The grou

Beginning with the Iowa caucuses on January 3, 2012, more than half of the states in the nation will hold their presidential primary and caucus elections over the course of the next three months. In the coming years, however, we may well see a significant change in the way the nation chooses its president if the movement for the national popular vote compact continues to gain momentum. And it appears that supporters of the compact public opinion on their side. As many Americans discovered for t

As Texas Congressman Ron Paul gears up for a vital turn in his presidential campaign this week, a study from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) lends credence to what many followers have long suspected: Even with a strong presence in several polls, Dr. Paul is being marginialized by the mainstream media at large. According to Pew's study of the news media's narrative of Dr. Paul, it found that he received the least coverage of any presidential candidate overall

The average age of farmers and ranchers in America is increasing, and rural populations are in decline. This is why the U.S. Department of Agriculture is acting to plant a new crop of much needed agricultural producers here in California and across the nation. Last week, Ag Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced this year's winners of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture's (NIFA) 'Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program' (BFRDP). According to a NIFA news release, a tota

It's doubtful that "birthers" are wallowing in embarassment today over the president's release of his long-form birth certificate.  They never really cared about the piece of paper.  It was the man they were after.  And the man, to their dismay, remains our president, our first black president. This controversy reminds me of the naked racism that I grew up with.  In my home state of Virginia, non-whites were regularly asked to prove themselves more competent than whites in order to gain the vot

Despite continued rhetoric that Republicans blocked the Dream Act this past weekend, Democrats have only themselves to blame for failing to gather enough votes for the bill. Republicans filibustered the partial immigration reform bill that would have granted a pathway to citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, from their teenage years up into their mid 30's.  While Republicans filibustered and Democrats took the initiative to invoke cloture, the Dream Act fell five votes short of pr

The most heated debate in Sacramento during the past two years hasn’t been budget cuts depriving poor children of health care or awarding billion-dollar tax breaks to corporations.  It hasn’t even been California’s massive multi-billion dollar budget shortfalls. Generating far more public outcry is the mandatory spaying and neutering of cats and dogs. In 2008, unsuccessful spay/neuter legislation logged some 32,000 letters and e-mails either in support or opposition -- many thousands more th

A significant – and often overlooked -- result of what’s been dubbed the Great Recession is that in just over half of the 50 states, the programs that pay unemployment insurance to workers who’ve lost their jobs are insolvent, leading states to borrow more than $39 billion from the federal government to keep writing checks. California, which has the largest unemployment program in the country, has the dubious distinction of leading 34 other states and the Virgin Islands in borrowing:  $8.5 bil

Having been solidly rebuffed at the ballot box, turned back by a repentant California Supreme Court and then frustrated by a series of statewide special elections (most of which took place in blue states), the opponents of Proposition 8 have now decided to take their arguably counterproductive political strategy a step further by taking their case to the last refuge of unpopular minorities seeking special privileges – namely, the Federal Court system. This time-honored strategy of appealing to j

California felt about a 20 percent drop in exports through the month of February, which means that only a little over three-quarters of the amount of goods typically exported from California, were actually exported during the month of February. This isn't great news for the Golden State, which has also recently found itself in a more than $40 billion mess of a budget situation, using what can only be affectionately referred to as half-baked schemes, to get out of it. If California wants to get