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UC Davis has come up with an answer to the crushing budget reductions that the State of California has thrown its way:  become a private university.  While that’s not exactly what University Chancellor Linda Katehi said in her move to add 5,000 mostly non-California students to the UCD population by 2016, it is the essence of the new program. Davis is following what is called the Michigan plan, which will grow the University with more than 50 percent of its expanded base of new students paying

Sylvia Longmire's new book Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug Wars has just been released and is available in bookstores today. She is a retired Air Force captain and Special Agent with extensive experience investigating Mexico Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO). She now consults and writes about southwest border violence issues and blogs at Mexico's Drug War. I interviewed her last month. Your book implies the violence and corruption of the drug wars will be spilling across the bor

In the wake of the debt ceiling crisis, there has been an astonishing wave of criticism directed at the two-party state and duopoly system of government.  For many Americans, the debt debacle appears to have been the straw that broke the camel's back.  But, will their anger translate into action? Sometimes it seems as if not a day goes by without a new survey or poll measuring the depth and breadth of the nation's frustration with its elected representatives, as well as underscoring the exodus

For those looking for a silver bullet to fight obesity, you will have to keep looking.  A study released by the University of North Carolina found that among people living in “food deserts,” the availability of grocery stores does little to improve eating habits. “Food deserts” are considered geographic areas with easy access to fast food and few or no grocery stores. The study found that in "food deserts", there was an association between the availability of fast food and its consumption.  How

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has published an update and a revision of a 2007 study entitled “Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom”. The report analyzed three primary “freedom variables” for each state, determining the overall burden that local and state policies place on individual residents. So how did California stack up? Frankly, not so good. In fact, California was only underperformed by New Jersey and New York. The authors, William Ruger a

In a challenge to Mitt Romney, the Republican Party's frontrunner for the presidential nomination, Texas Congressman Ron Paul raised another million dollars in just 24 hours Sunday, using the online fundraising technique pioneered by his grassroots supporters in 2007 known as the "money bomb." The Paul campaign urged his supporters in email updates leading up to the event to help the Texas congressman fight Mitt Romney's special interest donors from "Wall Street bankers" and the political establ

"I think it's eerily like 1994. Not much will change." That's what Rich Hamblen told me about the 2010 midterm elections on our way to a political conference sponsored by the Los Angeles-based Tenth Amendment Center. And Rich would know. With decades of political activism under his belt, and a year of hard time for civil disobedience pertaining to a Second Amendment issue dear to his heart, the man has some serious street cred when it comes to politics. I challenged him, ever the optimist, and

As Los Angeles commuters were making their way home Monday evening they were treated to a spectacular site.  Around sunset, a large missile emerged from the Pacific Ocean north of Catalina Island and about 35 miles out to sea and rocketed skywards. A local station's traffic helicopter captured a brief video of the missile, with a substantial contrail, disappearing into the stratosphere, en route to Asia. At this point in time, these are the only facts we, the American public, know. Amazingly en

Though  the mainstream political press has naturally focused on the stinging  Democratic losses and sweeping Republican gains in last week's  elections, 2010 has proven to be an historic year for third party and  Independent politics in the United States. One  of the primary motifs in media coverage of this year's elections has  been the public’s deep discontent with both the Democratic and  Republican parties.  In poll after poll, record numbers of  Americans opted to identify themselves as In

On July 1, the federal government and dozens of states set up temporary “high-risk” health insurance pools for people denied health insurance due to so-called pre-existing conditions. These pools were one of the major provisions included in federal health care reform signed into law early this year. However, this is only a temporary fix intended to provide health insurance to individuals without coverage until the law goes fully into effect in 2014, when insurance companies will no longer be ab