Free Republic

OAKLAND -- Clipboards in hand, high school seniors Estephania Franco and Jocelyn Sanchez approached a group of UC Berkeley students sitting on a curb in Sproul Plaza. "Hey guys, you want free tuition?" one of them asked. "Free? Tuition?" sophomore Josh Netter asked, as if waiting for the punchline. "I just feel like it's too good to be possible." It wouldn't be -- if, by June, supporters of the "College for California" ballot petition managed to gather the signatures of 807,615 people registered to vote in California. And, of course, if voters approved it. The proposed constitutional amendment, researched and...

You know that American voters aren't feeling the love for ObamaCare when House members hold town-hall meetings in their districts, only to be heckled and booed. No worries for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco. On Tuesday, she ditched the town-hall concept in favor of a friendlier closed-to-the-public "roundtable" with health care professionals and consumers at San Francisco General Hospital. At a news conference afterward, Pelosi proclaimed that "health care is a right, not a privilege." The House health care bill, she said, would mean Americans could receive health care with no restrictions on pre-existing medical conditions, more benefits for...

I don't know a single Democrat not on a political payroll who is enthusiastic about state Treasurer Phil Angelides' run for governor. In the Capitol, many Dems can't stand the guy. No one can argue with a straight face that Angelides has a serious plan to balance state finances. If Schwarzenegger is the free-lunch governor -- he won't raise taxes and has failed to slice spending to eliminate the state's $4 billion to $5 billion structural budget shortfall -- Angelides offers free lunch followed by free desert. Angelides' recipe for state finances: no new taxes, unless you're rich, and a...