California Forum

Unless you're steeped in Idaho politics, you've probably never heard of Frank VanderSloot. But the wealthy Republican businessman and people like him around the country are wielding outsized influence on the 2012 presidential election.

Alice Waters, one of the world's best-known chefs and an icon of the sustainable food movement, is making plans to bring one of her signature projects to Sacramento.

Sometimes what The Bee provides along with our watchdog investigations is a giant megaphone.

I'm about to commit a sacrilege so unAmerican that neither presidential pardon nor papal dispensation will provide absolution:

Park Romney says some pretty wild things.

If we had our druthers, we'd let voters decide this November on the once-delayed $11.1 billion water bond, passed by lawmakers in 2009. The sooner voters dispatch this albatross, putting it out of its misery, the sooner California can get serious about smarter and more equitable alternatives for financing needed water infrastructure.

The blockbuster Facebook public stock offering will produce a welcome windfall for the state.

After enduring a painful recession and a slow recovery, there are some good signs that growth in the California economy is finally starting to accelerate. Yet the budget deficit remains a serious issue, largely because the state is grappling not just with cyclical issues caused by the recession but with a long-term structural gap that can be traced all the way back to the dot-com boom and bust. Despite spending cuts and a recovery in revenue flows, the budget deficit is still in the $9 billion range. This is better than the $25 billion seen last year, but it shows the depth of the issues being faced.

Back in 1841, not long before Sacramento established its first city charter, a young Bostonian by the name of Ralph Waldo Emerson published an essay titled "Self-Reliance," and in it he penned these words: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

Posts from McClatchy reporters and editors covering Washington, Jerusalem, Afghanistan and beyond.

If you use Gmail, YouTube or any other Google services, it's been impossible to miss – we're updating our privacy policies on March 1. These kinds of changes can lead to lots of confusion, so let me keep it simple: We're doing this to make our privacy commitments more understandable and to make Google work better for you.

You'll likely be hearing a lot of talk about the Panama Canal over the next couple of years.

More often than not, big money players with high-priced lobbyists win the inside game, especially when the stakes reach $1 billion.

The Legislature should not meddle in the internal affairs of the judiciary. A bill headed to a vote in the Assembly on Monday would do exactly that, and should be rejected.

Google's plan to integrate all the data it collects as it tracks users across email, video and nearly all its other services will undoubtedly be good for its bottom line.

You are driving your car in the left-center lane of a busy four-lane street. Suddenly ahead, you see the car to the right has stopped at a crosswalk with no signal. What do you do?

Parks, abortion, redevelopment, etc.

The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park has been a vital source of clean water for San Francisco Bay communities for almost 100 years.

Last week, Sarah Palin stepped over the edge of civility. Fox Business host Eric Bolling played a clip of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on "Meet the Press" in which Christie said Newt Gingrich "has been an embarrassment" to the Republican Party.

Californians of all political stripes are convinced that state government is broken and it is time for local governments to take charge. At a time when Sacramento's partisan battles stymie the search for solutions to serious problems, it is an understandable view.

After an absence of nearly a century, we have a wolf in California, a lone 2 1/2-year-old male who's traveled more than 1,000 miles after leaving his pack in Oregon. Since his entry on Dec. 28, he's roamed a couple of hundred miles south of the border, according to the state's Department of Fish and Game, which is tracking the wolf's movements through a GPS transmitting collar.

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye on Thursday urged the defeat of Assembly legislation that would undermine the authority of the Judicial Council, and give courts in as few as two counties authority to veto any statewide judicial project.

I can't believe I did it, but I did. (No, I didn't marry again. Sure, I'm dumb, but not that dumb.)

One year ago, young Egyptians poured into Tahrir Square in a revolt whose outcome surprised them as much as the world.