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The drug trade and its accompanying violence continues to be a problem south of the border.  Approximately 90% of the cocaine reaching U.S. soil from South America comes through Mexico, said a portion of the annual report from the Director of National Intelligence.  In addition, the report said that the illegal drug trade provides traffickers with "an enormous source of revenue and influence" and that it gives gangs the means to "threaten institutions, businesses, and individual citizens of Mexi

You may not know it, but even after George Washington and the Continental Congress had raised an army to fight against the English Crown, the American Colonists weren't exactly sure what they were fighting for. It was for this reason that Thomas Paine published his famous pamphlet, Common Sense, which was at that time, the top selling work in American history. In it, he argued that the Americans were fighting for their independence from England, that they should be self-ruled, not taxed, ruled,

First there was a "Tea Party" whose members said they did not care about party, but principle. They railed against corporate America's tax-funded bailouts, they demanded more transparency at the highest levels of government, and they stuck up for the little guy against the establishment. Though predominately composed of "right-leaning" Americans (whatever that means), their anger at a shady, secretive, corporate establishment should have made even Michael Moore proud. Indeed, they echoed the ve

In 1995, Congress addressed this issue with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, sponsored by Republican Senator Kempthorne of Indiana and signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton.  The purpose of the bill was “to curb the practice of imposing unfunded Federal mandates on States and local governments..." and "to end the imposition, in the absence of full consideration by Congress, of Federal mandates on State, local, and tribal governments…”  The problem: the Act so narrowly defined wha

Another one bites the dust. In tragic  news for California, the state just lost another big-name business.  EA’S Pandemic Studios was a beloved maker of video games, and will  cease to function, at least physically, in California. In an interview  with Kotaku, the studio’s CEO, John Riccitiello, blamed  the loss of the studio on ridiculous levels of taxation and the high  price of living in the state, and explained that as a  businessman, working in California simply no longer made sense. “For

Imagine if ANYONE could run for office, wouldn’t that be nice? When I say “ANYONE” I mean even people who do not have a million dollars. Yes, I know, it’s hard to imagine.  But what if candidates- under strict rules- received enough money from a state fund to actually win an election? AB 583 is authored by Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D- East Bay) and intends to do just that. If you receive 7,500 contributions of $5 each, and neither accept money nor use your own money, you may qualify for 1 -

California is as good asout of fresh water. The state is thrown into drought conditions with everyless-than-abundant-rain year, and a series of dry years (like now) decimatereservoirs beyond sustainable thresholds. The fiscal situation is comparablydire; like freshwater, Californiauses more than they've got coming in, a fundamentally unsustainable equation inboth finance and ecology. How convenient and unusual that a silver bulletexists to solve both problems: desalination. Desalination is the

According to the Los Angeles Times, a California-based Federal districtcourt has taken up the question of whether California'sprison overcrowding violates the prisoners' "constitutional rights."The case name has not been released to the public, and there may be no singlecase, for the question comes on the heel of multiple lawsuits filed byattorneys claiming medical neglect of prisoners constitutes an infringement oftheir Constitutional rights. The objectionable part of this situation is notthe

Barack Obama has been elected the 44th president of the United States, an election announced around 8:00 pm Pacific time. The Associated Press reported that John McCain called Obama to congratulate him on the victory. He delivered his concession speech shortly after. "The American people have spoken and they have spoken clearly," McCain said to a booing crowd in Arizona. He commended Obama, calling the election "historic."