Peter Thiel probably isn’t the California GOP’s savior, after all

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Our take

Editorials

Trump tall tales: First crowd size, now immigrant voter fraud: There is no evidence to the claim that millions of undocumented voters gave the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. But President Donald Trump won’t stop repeating it.

A smart move on convention center. Mayor Darrell Steinberg is right to look beyond just a proposed expansion of the Sacramento Convention Center and explore using some of that money on other amenities to make the city a destination.

Columns

Dan Morain: There has been speculation that Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire and Donald Trump supporter, may run for California governor. But it turns out Thiel has been a legal resident of New Zealand since 2006 and has held citizenship there since 2011, reporters on the other side of the international date line have found. He might not be the savior California Republicans are seeking.

Joe Mathews: Our state makes thoughtful pruning essentially unconstitutional. Take for example the “California rule,” a guarantee – now being challenged in court – that public employees’ pensions can never be reduced in any way.

Op-eds

John Berthelsen: The U.S. has no trade agreement with China, and as much as anything the Trans-Pacific Partnership was designed to present a common front against Beijing. Now China is set to expand its influence dramatically.

Take a number: 3.5

In 2006, California voters approved a $3 billion bond to fund stem cell research and, as proponents promised, get therapies to people in need quickly. But reporter Charles Piller, writing for the journalism nonprofit site Stat, reports that the National Institutes of Health has supported 3 1/2 times as many human trials of stem cell therapies, dollar for dollar, as the California agency. The story, which ran at KQED, is especially relevant as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine’s money runs out and as stem cell supporters contemplate going back to voters for more.

Their take

L.A. Times: Among the many manifestly bad ideas being promulgated by the newly minted Trump administration, the most hare-brained could well be building a barrier along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico – from the Pacific to the Gulf Coast – as a way to keep people from entering the country illegally.

Mercury News: Battle lines are drawn over sanctuary cities, and Bay Area mayors are on the right side. Donald Trump may call that villainy. We call it humane. And don’t get us started on the wall.

Kansas City Star: President Donald Trump said Wednesday he wants a “major investigation” into voter fraud in America. Apparently, he actually believes that millions of people cast illegal votes in November, costing him the popular vote victory. The claim, first advanced by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, is laughable.

Charlotte Observer: A poll released a month before the election found that most Americans believe relations between whites and blacks worsened during Barack Obama’s presidency. Why the change? Many reasons.

Lexington Herald-Leader: In urging Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act “in its entirety,” Gov. Matt Bevin has put himself at odds with some of his fellow Republican governors and also with his own former position.

National Review: The president’s latest executive orders directing the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and stripping federal grant money from sanctuary cities are a good start toward reorienting American immigration policy so that it favors the interests of American citizens over their foreign counterparts. However, they are only a start.

Syndicates’ take

E.J. Dionne: In his first days, President Donald Trump has been riding policy horses that seem to be moving in quite different directions. On the one hand, he has continued to make himself out as a “populist” standing up for workers. On the other, he has been promising corporations the moon.

Thomas L. Friedman: I think Democrats should focus their critique of President Donald Trump’s policies in how we actually bring back more middle-class jobs.

Garrison Keillor: The question is: How cynical are we willing to be and for how long? How long will Senate Republicans wait until a few of them stand up to President Donald Trump?

Mailbag

Strong gun laws have saved lives. – Amanda Wilcox, Penn Valley

Tweet of the Day

“Can we all agree now that reporters weren’t, it appears, stupid for taking Trump’s statements literally? Because he’s making good on them.” – Cathleen Decker ‏@cathleendecker

This story was originally published January 26, 2017 at 5:31 AM with the headline "Peter Thiel probably isn’t the California GOP’s savior, after all."