Nothing like a scandalous political quid pro quo, complete with new information about an ideologically stained physical assault on Sproul alongside bylaw violation charges galore to awaken our senses. I give you, Divestment: Season 2. After this latest flood of melodrama, politicians in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento look like snoozers. Read More…
Let’s get this straight: online education will never completely replace in-person instruction or totally eclipse the most fundamental tenets of the traditional university. At least, it shouldn’t. Nevertheless, California State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, introduced a bill in late February that would require the 50 most impacted Read More…
If impulsive California legislators and the money-hungry National College Players Association have their way, UC Berkeley athletes may soon be going pro. The Sacramento Bee reported Saturday that California State Assembly Bill 475, currently being considered in committee, would require UC Berkeley and UCLA to pay student athletes an annual Read More…
Things are pretty bad when Washington is happy about a filibuster. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, with help from a small group of primarily Republican senators, staged a nearly 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination to direct the Central Intelligence Agency last week. Paul’s anti-Obama rant added up to little more Read More…
Oh, my kingdom for a compromise — something is rotten in the state of American politics. Even as President Barack Obama stood before Congress in his 2013 State of the Union — practically begging the House and Senate for bipartisan reform on Medicare, the tax code, climate change, immigration and Read More…
While California may not be as broke as you think, at least in terms of dollars and cents, the same probably can’t be said for social capital. After news emerged last July that the California Department of Parks and Recreation had hidden an approximately $20 million surplus from state officials, Read More…
Texas Gov. Rick Perry is at it again. And this time he didn’t forget his lines. “Building a business is tough, but I hear building a business in California is next to impossible,” was Perry’s opening salvo in a radio ad that recently premiered on airwaves across the state. Perry Read More…
More than my snug bed, more than Mom’s cooking, more even than that warm feeling of home, I miss Henry David Thoreau. Let me explain. I was more than a little disappointed academically in my first semester at Cal — not that my grades were poor, but I didn’t think Read More…
Are the signs of a great unraveling beginning to emerge? Last Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., appeared on George Stephanopoulos’ “This Week” and announced his willingness to violate conservative tycoon Grover Norquist’s infamous no-tax pledge. Alleging that he would “violate the pledge for the good of the country,” Graham took Read More…
We’ve seen sex scandals before, but this one hurt. From the disappearance of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford in 2009 to the collapse of Eliot Spitzer’s political future in 2008 and the obliteration of John Edwards’ genteel Southern morality that same year, Americans have seen it all. From those who Read More…
