Arguments were held today in the California Supreme Court regarding the validity of Proposition 8. I had planned to watch them but was distracted by work issues so I have had to rely on summaries. Those summaries do not fill me, as a strong opponent of Proposition 8, with confidence though given the strength of the arguments I have read would seem to favor those who oppose the initiative. At the risk of getting to deep into the legal issues I would like to take a little time to cover the major issue...

Word out today that former First Lady Barbara Bush is recovering from heart surgery. Doctors say that they replaced a heart valve because it was becoming a health risk. I am sure we can all put aside politics and wish her the speediest of recoveries.

Although we are mostly a political and social commentary site I also think we can do our readers a service by providing them with commentary and reviews on good books, movies and the like. Recently I had the pleasure of reading the above book which is about the week Richard Nixon spent in China during February of 1972. For those of us who look back on this event as history it is difficult to understand just how momentous this event was. It would perhaps be the same as President Obama flying to Havana...

My attitudes towards Rush Limbaugh have gone through a lot of changes over the past couple of decades. While many of you were first introduced to him when he came onto the national scene in 1988 I was aware of him several years earlier during his broadcasts in Sacramento. During those early years I had several occasions to meet him in those early years and he was always quite polite. Indeed when he was broadcasting on local radio he was very kind with all of his callers, especially those who disagreed...

Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) are calling for a select (IE special) Senate committee to investigate just what happened with the financial meltdown over the past months.  Although there are, of course, Finance and Banking committees already in place, McCain and Dorgan feel that they are already busy working to find solutions to the problem and thus a separate committee was needed to focus on the how. Both senators conceded that it would be a bit of an uphill struggle to get...

For those who are not familiar with the term Kobayashi Maru I will offer a brief explanation. The term comes from the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and refers to an examination given to students at Starfleet Academy. On the surface it seems to be a character test of sorts. The student is supposedly on a routine patrol when he receives a distress call from a civilian vessel. Unfortunately, the ship is in a restricted area and for the ship to go to the rescue would be a violation of regulations...

Writer Barton Biggs is not convinced that the stimulus package will do much to help the economy. He says that “Throwing money at the problem and propping up greedy banks is like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.” I hope that he is wrong because we all want things to get better but I suspect he is closer to right. Find his story here.

The slide in the stock market continues, with the Dow closing sub 7000 for the first time since 1997. This brings the Dow down by 20% in the last 2 months, not good news for the economy. The market has lost half of its value in the last 16 months and is expected to take years to fully recover.  This is not good news for the Obama budget since it relies on growth in the economy by next year.

Surprisingly this story has not gotten a great deal of attention but there has been a reported security breach involving the Presidential helicopter Marine One. This could cast some questions on plans to consider foreign builders for the new Air Force One.

I’m not ready to make comments on the details of the budget since the specifics don’t come out until next month. But I did find an interesting examination of some potential problems with the assumptions behind the budget and how fast the economy will grow. Harvard professors are hardly right wing hacks, so this is worth a read.

Although I do not always agree with her I do enjoy watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC from time to time. I find her clever and often entertaining but sometimes I think she goes a bit over edge in her criticism of those she disagrees with and since she likes to call people when they step over the line I see no reason to not do the same with her. On some of her recent shows she has had a couple of central themes, the first being that she is unhappy over the fact that Republicans seem reluctant to come...

I have previously posted about my concerns regarding the Employee Free Choice Act. One of my major concerns is the fact that, if the proposal is adopted, there would no longer be secret ballots to determine if a union would be organized  in the workplace or not. The sponsors of the union would simply have to get a majority of workers to sign a card saying they want a union. Under such a system they would be free to do so publicly and to post names of who has and has not signed up for the union and...

Earlier today I was listening to one of the better local talk shows, the Armstrong and Getty show when they discussed an e-mail they had received from a listener in Portland, Oregon. The subject of the e-mail was the fact that the union to which the listener belonged had announced to its members that they ‘would be supporting’ the WERC campaign. There was no debate or discussion but simply a declaration that they would support the agenda. And what an agenda it is, something to make even...

Recently we have been hearing talk of ‘nationalizing the banks’ and there has been considerable panic over the prospect. I am no financial expert but I do know a few things and have researched the topic a bit to find out exactly what is going on. To the degree I don’t get all the terms right I would welcome input from those more expert than I am but it sounds like the Obama administration is planning some good changes. The first issue they are dealing with has to do with just what...

In yet another move towards making themselves a narrowly based party in perpetual minority status, the California Republican party today voted to reprimand the six state legislators who voted in favor of the recent budget deal. This move denies the officials financial support from the party in the 2010 campaign. As I stated previously, I am no fan of tax increases and am very much in sympathy with the lower tax agenda. But I am also a realist and recognize that to cut a deficit amounting to more...

UPDATE #1: It is now nearly time for the vote and word is that the Democrats have issues with the proposed open primary ballot measure. They reportedly worry it could cut into their power base since more moderates could shift power away from the liberal leadership Probably no vote right now but it could go all night. I will post if I hear news, or trust my fellow bloggers to do so if the deal comes early in the AM (west coast time).  Word just breaking that there may be a deal on the budget. State...

For some time now I have been debating whether I am a Moderate Independent Leaning Republican or a Moderate Republican Leading Independent. The latest battle over the budget here in California has led me to question the subject again as the hard core conservatives within the GOP have held the state hostage to their own agendas. About the only thing that keeps me from jumping is that the other side is equally troublesome on many other issues. As most of you know the state is now in the midst of a...

As Joe has already reported, President Obama is in Mesa, Arizona today to announce a plan by the Treasury Department to deal with the housing crisis. Since I am a bankruptcy attorney in Northern California, this is an area with which I am quite familiar. Indeed I am somewhat surprised the President didn’t come here since we are the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis. I should admit from the start that I do arguably have something of a conflict of interest here. Just as doctors technically...

A college student in Los Angeles has filed a lawsuit over a speech he gave supporting Proposition 8 and opposing gay marriage. As indicated in the article, the student is opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds and said so in his speech. His professor interrupted the speech, called him ‘a fascist bastard’ and told students to ‘leave if you are offended’. When none left, the professor cancelled the rest of class and refused to give the student a grade. Details of the speech...

While I am hardly a financial expert, I do like to try and look ahead to see what is coming with the economy in the future. I often am reminded of the scene in ‘Trading Places’ where Eddie Murphy’s character uses his knowledge of how average people work to predict things more effectively than the so-called experts.  As a bankruptcy attorney I saw the banking collapse coming well before most did because I saw so many banks losing tons of money when people surrendered their homes....