Free Republic

Brown claimed he left only a “baby deficit,” rather than the trillion dollar deficit California currently has, according to Sen. John Moorlach, the Legislature’s only CPA At California Gov. Jerry Brown’s “Exit Interview” Tuesday, the Sacramento Press Club auctioned off autographed souvenirs from his years in the Governor’s office, including cartoons of his budget press conference presentations of charts and graphs, Proposition 30 memorabilia increasing sales and income taxes, and graphs showing state government living within its means. Other charts showed record spending levels. Gov. Jerry Brown is known for his infrequent and rather unscripted press conferences, often making glib...

Defacto leader of The Sky is Falling Chicken Little Party, Gov. Jerry Brown The doomsday predictions of global-warming alarmists would have us believe there are more droughts, more extreme hurricanes and tornados, that arctic snow caps are melting, and all coastal cities are in danger of rising seas. Convinced the sky is falling, Henny Penny and a band of gullible friends march off to tell the king, only to meet their end at the hands of a wily fox.“The sky is falling!” Henny Penny said, in a silly tale about a chicken who believes the world is coming to an...

In an interview with 60 Minutes set to air on Sunday, California liberal Governor Jerry Brown carried his crusade as the voice of the Christian left, reports the Washington Times.Areas of California have recently been badly scorched by wildfires, something Gov. Brown attributes to climate change. But, he says that President Donald J. Trump’s ego and lack of humility before God has led to inadequate policy to properly address these environmental disasters.  “I don’t think President Trump has a fear of the Lord, the fear of the wrath of God, which leads one to more humility … and this is...

Brown's reign of madness over California. Halting Brown foolish hysteria is only the first step in saving California. Climate change is California Gov. Jerry Brown’s “crusade,” his jihad, his holy war. Yet Gov. Brown’s climate change and drought policy is flooded with a manic madness - never has his manic obsession with climate change been more evident. California’s drought conditions are actually historically normal; water shortages are created by incompetent and scheming government In March on Meet the Press, after declaring Ted Cruz unfit to run for president because of his views on climate change, Brown said, “We are running...

With the stroke of Brown’s pen, there could be up to 50,000 new voters in California Just days ago California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed into law a measure that effective next year reinstates the voting eligibility of felons on probation or under community supervision. Inmates in state and federal prisons are not covered by the new law. Apparently “community supervision” means “incarcerated in a county jail.”

California's dear leader is killing the golden state: Californians, gird your loins in anticipation of the tax onslaught “California is definitely back,” Governor Jerry Brown boasted in 2014. Brown then proclaimed the state a “job creation engine,” proving he was still living in the 1960s. However, Brown has shown little stomach for sensible tax and regulatory cuts, and instead pays lip service to the media about how fiscally prudent he is…. everything he touches turns Brown. For a state $130 Billion upside down in budget debt, and another $750 Billion of long term unfunded public employee pension debt, the estrangement...

Renewables for thee, but not for me California Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown believes that everyone needs to start using wind, solar and other “renewable” energy sources as soon as possible because, you know, the earth, man. California doesn’t need to be burning all kinds of oil and making bank for rich capitalists who own gigantic ranches with oil underneath them, ‘amiright’? Unless, of course, that ranch owner happens to be Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown! In that case, well, better find that oil! And that’s exactly what Gov. Moonbeam was hoping to do when he dispatched state employees, on the taxpayers’...

Californians are experiencing their third year of drought. Headlines read: "Current California Drought Is Driest In State's History; Scientists Fear 'Megadroughts' On Their Way." "Global Warming Upped Heat Driving California's Drought." Then there are scientific claims such as, "There's a rapidly growing body of scientific research finding that California is in the midst of its worst drought in over a millennium (and) global warming has made the drought worse." A Stanford University study said, "Human-caused climate change helped fuel the current California drought." One news outlet summarized the conclusions of a group of environmentalists this way: "California's severe and ongoing...

Why would someone who opposes draconian federal mandatory minimum sentences oppose efforts to cut California's prison population by about 9,600 inmates? Because the federal system and the California system are two different animals. U.S. prosecutors have been known to throw the full weight of the federal government toward putting low-level, nonviolent offenders away for decades. In California, the focus has been on violent and serious offenders. In the past several years, Sacramento has reduced the state prison population by about a quarter, or more than 40,000 inmates. Gov. Jerry Brown's 2011 "realignment" plan diverted nonviolent, non-serious and non-sex offenders to...

Before you join Jay Leno and Susan Sarandon and sign an open letter to Gov. Jerry Brown to protest "solitary confinement" in California prisons' security housing units, there are a few things you should know. Start with the criminal records of the leaders of the Short Corridor Collective -- the four inmates who, despite their "extreme isolation," orchestrated a hunger strike with more than 30,000 inmate participants July 8. While serving time for burglary in Folsom State Prison, hunger strike leader Todd Ashker stabbed a fellow inmate to death in 1987. During his murder trial, a fellow inmate and fellow...

California now works on the principle of the mordida, or "bite." Its government assumes that it can take something extra from residents for the privilege of living in their special state. Gov. Jerry Brown made that assumption explicit in his latest back-and-forth with Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who keeps luring Californians to lower-tax, higher-employment Texas. Recently, Brown said of Texas, "Who would want to spend summers there in 110-degree heat inside some kind of fossil fuel air conditioner?" Translated, Brown's retort meant that despite California's sluggish economy, high taxes and poor services, it's still worth staying there to enjoy its...

Critics of a free market economy are also critics of individual responsibility. Because they believe in higher taxes, centralized control, and absolute intolerance to other viewpoints, they find themselves reducing free market ideas to that of human flatulence. At least the current governor of California--Jerry Brown--did this week. The seventy-four year old was quite taken aback. He was asked by California media this week if Texas Governor Rick Perry's recent poaching expedition would matter much to the state's future. His reply was direct. "It's not a serious story, guys. It's not a burp. It's barely a fart," replied Brown. Maybe...

If you see Kris Kristofferson around, please tell him thanks for writing the line "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" in his song "Me and Bobby McGee." That thought is sage and very appropriate for America in the year 2013. In California, Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law an astounding 876 new mandates. They all took effect last week. Now, in the Golden State, you cannot do the following: --Hunt a bear using trained dogs. Untrained canines are OK, I guess. And how would the authorities be able to tell? Would the dog have to...

"It is now time to return the control of our prison system to California," Gov. Jerry Brown declared at a news conference Tuesday morning. Amen to that. Federal lawsuits and federal judges have taken over the state's prison system. Unelected judges don't have to worry about paying for what they command. Nor need they worry about losing their jobs should they incite the public's wrath. Thus, judges have ordered massive increases in inmate health and mental health spending. Those orders have driven up the annual cost per inmate to more than $55,000. About $17,000 of that sum goes toward health...

In 2008, voters under 30 preferred Barack Obama over John McCain by a 66 to 32 percent margin. Among older voters, Obama led McCain by 50 to 49 percent. How has Obama paid back the Millennial generation, which provided almost all his margin of victory? With what American Interest superblogger Walter Russell Mead calls "Obama's war on the young." Mead is not a tea party crazy or Ayn Rand zealot. He is a history professor at Bard College and an expert on American foreign policy. He voted for Obama in 2008, and he's not wild about Mitt Romney this year....

You may have noticed the recent hype about global warming, a hot summer, looming devastation from freakish weather and all the same old stuff recycled again. You may also have noticed one of the reasons: Gov. Jerry Brown wants to justify shaking down corporate California, again. Well, not only does Brown get the temperature wrong, he also hypes the threat of extreme weather events. Which is to say he gets that wrong too. So, are we amidst horrific extreme weather events? Normally we’d just say, “not exactly.” In this case, we have to say, ”You’ve gotta be kidding.”...

Brown wants you to believe global warming "poses an immediate and growing threat to California's economy, environment and to public health," and that reducing greenhouse gas emissions, "which are warming the planet," is necessary "to prepare for the unavoidable impacts of climate change, including the increased likelihood of both flooding and drought." That's the same phony scare story repeated until many people finally tuned it out. It failed to persuade Congress to intervene with a law to limit greenhouse gas emissions, even though Congress almost never has seen a trumped-up crisis that didn't justify overreaching intervention... But, as the Sacramento...

If the high-speed train we call the Moonbeam Express will cost anywhere from $68 billion to $117 billion, we wonder how much this one would cost: “Engineers in the U.S. and elsewhere are working on the technology for trains that could shoot through airless tunnels at speeds up to 4,000 miles per hour, the BBC reports. The transporters, which remain at least a decade away, could eventually cut travel time between New York and Beijing to about two hours,” according to the New York Daily News. Actually, at only a decade away, it’s closer than the one floundering today in...

Remember the Credibility Gap? It was a phenomenon that rose to public awareness in the late 1960s (and even inspired a funny comedy group) when reporting showed a great difference between what government claimed and reality. It lives. According to Bloomberg: “As California Governor Jerry Brown seeks a temporary 5 percent pay cut from public employees to fill the largest state deficit in the U.S., many of those same workers are poised for raises next year . . .

We don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but there may be some good news in the most current poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, that left-leaning outfit that insists it isn’t left-leaning. “For the first time in a major California poll since Brown took office, a plurality of likely voters disapproves of the job he is doing,” according to the poll released Wednesday. “The margin is pencil-thin – 43 percent disapprove while 42 percent approve – but follows more than a year of relatively favorable marks for the Democratic governor.” Isn’t it encouraging. . .