Free Republic

Local planning politics on Los Angeles’s Westside is in a sad state of affairs. There, a municipally-led push to complete city streets by adding bicycle infrastructure and other pedestrian improvements has been met with fierce opposition from local drivers. Recent efforts in L.A’s Mar Vista neighborhood, for example, grew so toxic that community members launched a now-stalled recall bid to remove Mike Bonin—the local council person who champions the so-called “road diets” as well as the city’s Vision Zero plan those diets support—from office. The embarrassing spectacle has thrown into question the commitment L.A. residents have not only toward prioritizing...

Is fighting sprawl still a goal for those who decide the fate of transportation funding at the federal, state and local levels?Transportation planning is deeply connected to economic development, but there in any agreement about transportation funding among government leaders often ends.Parag Khanna, a senior public policy analyst in Singapore and author of “Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization,” summarized the political divide over transportation planning like this: “America is increasingly divided not between red states and blue states, but between connected hubs and disconnected backwaters.”But division that stymies transportation planning goes further. Government leaders have always been divided...

Authors Susan S. Fainstein and James DeFilippis wrote a book titled Readings in Planning Theory, which is all about centralized planning. In the book, the two authors spend a lot of time focusing on early planners Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier, and here's their conclusion about the three men: (page 23) "Many people dream of a better world; Howard, Wright, and Le Corbusier each went a step further and planned one." This is what we're up against. If it was really "better", it wouldn't keep failing. "The more the planning fails, the more the planners plan." -...

Faced with ever-increasing traffic jams, South Florida's public officials have come up with a plan: Make it worse. Instead of fixing the problem, government officials are deliberately adding to it in hopes we'll all walk, ride the bus or take the train. "Until you make it so painful that people want to come out of their cars, they're not going to come out of their cars," Anne Castro, chair of the Broward County Planning Council, said during a meeting last year. "We're going to make them suffer first, and then we're going to figure out ways to move them after...

The AP review of Clinton's calendar — her after-the-fact, official chronology of the events of her four-year term — identified at least 75 meetings with longtime political donors and loyalists, Clinton Foundation contributors and corporate and other outside interests that were either not recorded or listed with identifying details scrubbed. The AP found the omissions by comparing the 1,500-page document with separate planning schedules supplied to Clinton by aides in advance of each day's events. The names of at least 114 outsiders who met with Clinton were missing from her calendar, the records show...

Uber, the ride-hailing company, founded in 2009, began operations in San Francisco in 2011, and now has a presence in 449 cities worldwide. From its beginning with just a vision, the firm's market value, by recent estimates, now exceeds $60 billion dollars. Uber is just one of many new emerging businesses that are the result of applying new technology to the routine affairs of living. In this case, rather than needing to hail a cab or order one from a central office, you just connect with drivers through an app on your smartphone. When existing businesses find themselves threatened by...

U.S. prosecutors have abandoned their case against Angelo Mozilo, the over-tanned character at the center of the risky subprime mortgages that fueled the financial crisis, after a two-year quest to bring a civil suit against him. As Bloomberg reports, The Justice Department has decided not to sue Mozilo, according to people familiar with the matter, ending a decade-long hunt for someone, anyone to jail over what happened.

WASHINGTON -- Tensions between the rich and poor are increasing and at their most intense level in nearly a quarter-century, a new survey shows. Americans now see more social conflict over wealth inequality than over the hot-button topics of immigration, race relations and age. The survey released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center highlights U.S. perceptions of the economic divide, an issue that has moved to the forefront in the 2012 presidential campaign amid stubbornly high unemployment, increasing poverty and protests by the Occupy movement.

The last two presidential election cycles have revealed a stinking hypocrisy in conservatives: They profess their love of capitalism and entrepreneurship, but when offered a real capitalist and entrepreneur, they go, “Eek, a mouse!” And they tear him down in proud social-democrat fashion. In the off season, they sound like Friedrich Hayek. When the game is on, they sound like Huey Long, Bella Abzug, or Bob Shrum. Last time around, Mike Huckabee said Romney “looks like the guy who laid you off.” Conservatives reacted like this was the greatest mot since Voltaire or something. To me, Romney looked like someone...

As many as 5 million California property-tax payers who have been taking the entire amount they pay off their state income taxes could see a major cut in their deductions when they file next year. Beginning with the 2012 tax bill (the one due in April 2013), the state Franchise Tax Board will require property owners to break down their property taxes into deductible and non-deductible portions. That means property owners who have been deducting their Mello-Roos fees — often running into thousands of dollars — will no longer be able to deduct those or any other special assessments like...

KEENE, N.H. (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum called Friday for immediate cuts to Social Security benefits, risking the wrath of older voters and countless others who balk at changes to the entitlement program. "We can't wait 10 years," even though "everybody wants to," Santorum told a crowd while campaigning in New Hampshire and looking to set himself apart from his Republican rivals four days before the New Hampshire primary. Most of his opponents have advocated phasing in a reduction and say immediate cuts would be too big a shock to current and soon-to-be retirees.

... Never before have so many of the unemployed owed their job loss, not indirectly at all, but quite obviously directly, to the intentional, conscious directives of their president and his direct appointees, the czars and cabinet secretaries who have launched a direct frontal assault on industry after industry ever since their appointments. Consider: Car Dealers: In 2009, though everyone knew that the problems dooming Chrysler and General Motors were their enormous property and property tax obligations caused by too big, too old, factories, and their utterly unsupportable labor and pension costs, Barack Obama ordered the closure of over 3000...

The latest census shows that 1 in 2 people have slipped in America and are poor. The tax burden has risen and this idea of socialism has amounted to a charity that costs $9 out of $10 to function. It is now government itself that is the beast consuming everything, not the poor who get table scraps. After the Arab riots in Iran and how they used the internet to organize, I warned that those in Washington in the unelected backrooms were shaking in their boots and would eliminate that threat in the USA. The bill was introduced to allow...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: According to a new study from the Bureau of Labor statics, public school teachers are now the highest paid state workers. Public school teachers. In fact, public school teachers receive more than twice as much in average hourly wages and benefits as workers in private industry, on average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Public school teachers "are paid an average of $56.59 per hour in combined wages and benefits," which is twice the $28.24 an hour in wages and benefits paid to workers in the private sector. Now, some of you are probably saying, "I...

When the recession squeezed Miami's budget in recent years, officials reached into funds raised for road repairs and other projects to plug the shortfall. Now, the city is paying a price. The moves triggered lawsuits and a federal investigation, in a brouhaha that holds ramifications for how municipalities nationwide maneuver around unprecedented money problems. Cash Flow View Interactive ..Cities and states across the country are using money designated for specific purposes—such as fixing roads or sewers—in order to fill financial holes elsewhere, according to public officials and records. The moves are exposing municipalities to controversy, as federal regulators and local...

To All My Valued Employees: There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your j What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests. First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against...

Environmentalists on Saturday hailed as one of the biggest conservation victories in decades a federal court ruling that upheld a "roadless rule" to protect massive swaths of national forest. But while the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday removed a lower court's block on the "roadless rule," the Clinton-era order protecting over 50 million acres of prime federal forests from timber and mining companies could leave President Obama vulnerable to charges similar to those levied against the White House after the Gulf drilling moratorium: that the administration is unfriendly toward extractive industries that utilize the nation's natural wealth and...

We know the politicians are lying and breaking the law and yet nothing is done. We know the bankers have broken laws and are not being prosecuted. We taxpayers are being robbed. The corruption is so blatant and yet nothing is being done.

10 Mind Blowing Facts Which Show How Members Of Congress And Federal Employees Are Living The High Life At Our ExpenseOctober 19,2011 If you were asked to guess, what area of the United States would you say has the highest average income? New York City? Los Angeles? Silicon Valley? Well, would you believe that it is actually the Washington D.C. area? Median household income in the region is $84,523, which is the highest in the nation. One of the biggest reasons for this are the huge salaries being pulled down by federal employees in the Washington D.C. area. According to...

A uniform goal, no binding party alignment and no focus is lost from the main causes below. Focus on moving the conversation forward and bring in the 99 percent into the fold.