Our take
Editorials
Jack Ohman packs a concealed brush. See what the GOP House of Representatives packs here.
Why Mayor Ed Lee mattered beyond San Francisco – especially in Sacramento: When San Francisco, back on its heels from the devastating recession, needed unity and guidance, it was Ed Lee who willingly stepped up – and without fanfare. On his watch, San Francisco came roaring back with a redoubled tech economy, an influx of high-paying jobs and a housing market to match. It was a recovery that, as Gavin Newsom later put it, was like “drinking from a fire hose.”
California Forum
David Freed: Have the California wildfires burned my house down? A Thomas Fire evacuee says good luck finding answers on TV.
Op-eds
Christopher Knittel: If you buy a Prius, you may be more likely to replace your second car with an SUV. Instead of one-time incentives, we need fuel economy standards that get tighter over time, and we need economy-wide measures, such as a carbon tax.
Take that
On Tuesday night when electoral lightning struck in the deep South, Regina Bateson stood in the middle of a shoulder-to-shoulder gathering at a home in Sacramento and made an announcement: “Doug Jones has won in Alabama.” The crowd, shocked at the news, hooted and hollered. Bateson, a Democrat, is challenging Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, for Congressional District 4, which runs from Roseville to Lincoln to Tahoe to Yosemite. McClintock, a career politician, won with almost 63 percent of the vote in 2016 in what has been viewed as a safe red seat. Democrats understand they have an uphill battle. But lightning does on occasion strike, as Jones showed by defeating Republican Roy Moore and becoming the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama since 1992. “If they can do it in Alabama, we can do it in CD4,” one of Bateson’s volunteers shouted.
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Take a number: 63.3 percent
Rep. Darrell Issa, the Vista Republican whose district includes parts of San Diego and Orange counties, created something of a stir Tuesday with a letter to congressional leaders including Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan urging that they not abolish the deduction for state income taxes in the tax package nearing a vote. “Yes, the tax factory known as the California State Legislature is the root cause of the problem. But my constituents did not ask me – or any Republican for that matter – to vote to make their tax burden even worse,” Issa wrote. Issa’s rhetoric aside, voters, not legislators, approved Proposition 55 in November 2016 to extend the income tax surcharge on the wealthiest Californians, Issa included. The measure, which helps fund public schools, won with 63.3 percent of the vote statewide. In Issa’s San Diego County, Proposition 55 received 60.9 percent of the vote. In Orange County, it carried with 53.9 percent. But it’s so much easier to blame the Legislature.
Their take
San Francisco Chronicle: It’s hard to overstate the ideological and personal chasms that pervaded San Francisco City Hall when Ed Lee became interim mayor in January 2011. Lee, the highly capable city administrator with no burning political ambition, was the perfect candidate for a tumultuous time.
Los Angeles Times: It’s troubling enough that the members of the public in California have no access to the discipline and misconduct files of their police and therefore can’t know the caliber of officers serving them, or whether a particular handful are unreliable or dangerous on the street or are costing too much in liability settlements. What’s worse – shockingly so – is that in some jurisdictions (including Los Angeles County) even prosecutors have no such access, even though that information is absolutely essential if defendants are to have fair trials.
John Archibald, al.com: Let’s face it. Much of the damage is already done. Like in the ’60s, when Birmingham and Atlanta were still competitive, duking it out to see what city would become the dominant force in the South. Birmingham became Bombingham, blowing itself up over hate and intolerance. Atlanta declared itself the city too busy to hate. Birmingham declared itself ... not that busy.
Charlotte Observer: Charleston, S.C., is on the verge of turning a stories-high monument built in honor of John C. Calhoun, probably South Carolina’s most prominent and effective proponent of slavery, into an illustration of what compromising in the face of evil looks like.
Syndicates’ take
Max Boot, Foreign Policy: What will Donald Trump’s reaction be when he figures out he’s been duped – and that the Robert Mueller probe, far from a “nothing burger,” is a carafe of strychnine that poses an existential threat to his presidency? The likely result is that Trump will either pardon everyone involved or try to fire the special counsel, or both.
Kathleen Parker, Washington Post: President Trump even outdid himself by insulting a female U.S. senator with sexual innuendo. He was apparently miffed that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., had called for his resignation because of the multiple charges of sexual misconduct leveled against him.
Jonathan Bernstein, Bloomerg View: The mistakes written into the GOP tax bill are apt to be numerous, and in some cases potentially severe. Last week, for instance, analysts realized that the Senate version of the bill, which restored the corporate alternative minimum tax set at the same level as the new regular corporate tax rate, would kill off the research and development tax credit and other corporate tax credits.
Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg View: Cities tell Airbnb, like Uber, to grow up. Paris, Airbnb’s second biggest city worldwide after London, is threatening to sue the U.S. company unless it removes all the listings for rentals not registered with the city authorities.
David Brooks, New York Times: The loss of faith in institutions, the tendency to see corrupt conspiracies and the desire for total change is evident on the pro-Trump right, but also on the left. The woke activists, the angry Sanders socialists and social justice warriors are just as certain that the system is rigged.
Michelle Goldberg, New York Times: Since the election of Donald Trump, opposition to overt racism, like free trade and supply-side economics, has been revealed as an elite Republican preoccupation with questionable currency among the conservative base.
Jessica Rich, Washington Post: Putting aside the question of whether the Federal Trade Commission has the resources and rulemaking powers to adequately address net neutrality (it doesn’t), there’s the more fundamental question of whether the FTC even has legal authority over Internet providers.
Paul Waldman, Washington Post: President Trump’s response to his accusers is that they’re all liars, even those who are saying he did what he himself is on tape bragging about his ability to do with impunity. He does not bother saying that women should be treated with respect. Tuesday, he added a senator to his list of targets, in a characteristically vulgar way.
Mailbag
“When you can’t win elections, just sue and waste time and money tying up the courts. Wow, what a winning strategy that is. The party of ‘no’ always goes low. They can’t ‘resist’ the pettiness.” John Kerhlikar, Shingle Springs
Jack’s Take
Alabama exit polls showed that about 50 percent of voters support Jefferson Davis in 2020.
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