Elias: ‘Fireman’ Trump increases fire season dangers
Many politicians love to play fireman, often visiting disaster scenes and advising real firefighters on how they can do things better. No politico does this...
California Focus
Elias: Require IDs from federal agents
If a U.S. senator doesn’t work to alleviate the fears of his or her constituents, they probably are not doing their job very well. This...
Elias: All digs aside, California is fine
To hear the declinists, as ex-Gov. Jerry Brown liked to call them, there’s plenty wrong with California today: high taxes, lousy business climate, earthquakes, wildfires,...
Elias: Could Trump drive a serious California secession movement?
There can be no doubt that the relatively few Californians strongly interested in becoming an independent country have had high hopes that President Trump’s “War...
Elias: Head Start may be the unkindest cut of all
A little-hyped effort to gut and likely shut down Project Head Start composes one of the oddest and perhaps cruelest spending cuts mandated by President Trump...
Elias: Why are state oil refineries closing?
It’s an apparent contradiction: On one hand, state regulators reported in May that California gasoline pump prices since 2015 average 41 cents per gallon higher...
Elias: Will consumers pay utility’s big fire fine?
When California’s second-largest electric utility settled a U.S. Forest Service claim for starting a huge fire that covered 114,577 acres in 2020, officials of that...
Elias: California faces new battlefronts
No one can doubt anymore that President Trump has carried out a “war” on California in both his presidential terms, harming this state’s reputation, capabilities...
Elias: Ethical issue dogs ‘$8 per gallon’ gas study
Academics have known for many years the potential for conflicts of interest when they conduct studies or write reports on products or companies for which...
Abandoned IRS secrecy could cost US, California billions
It seemed simple enough the other day when the Internal Revenue Service issued a brief statement saying it will now share addresses and other tax...
After fires, a test for housing laws
By almost any measure, the spate of housing bills adopted by California lawmakers over the last five years has failed. But the January firestorm that...
Elias: The high costs of incompetence
It’s easy to blame the Trump administration for much of the incompetence that’s so readily visible in Washington, D.C. these days. Certainly, some of the...
Elias: Disney cowed by political power
For many generations, an American proverb stated that “Money talks, (other stuff) walks.” But maybe that old saying needs revision, as the sixth largest publicly...
Elias: Are we covering mansion payouts?
Here’s the likely outcome of the April 8 hearing set to follow the California insurance commissioner’s tentative mid-March approval of a 22% average rate increase...
Elias: Grid imperils state autonomy
If California wants power company executives from coal-happy states like Wyoming and Utah to run energy policy in this state, then the state Senate should...