Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty in federal district court in New York to all 11 counts against him, waiving his right to an indictment, avoiding the humiliation of a trial, and depriving his victims and the public of what might have been a public course in how Ponzi schemes work, and how even sophisticated investors can be played for dupes.
If President Barack Obama's response to the economic crisis is imperfect, as he acknowledges, and if the Congressional Democrats leave much to be desired as well, then Americans can at least be thankful that the nation's fate has not been consigned to the frozen minds on the other side of the aisle.
Crumbling energy prices have created a profoundly positive tax cut effect for U.S. consumers across-the-board.
Every midterm year, the lion's share of the attention seems to go to the U.S. Senate and House contests at the national level, even though the governorships are arguably more important.
When a jury found Richard Allen Davis guilty of the murder of Petaluma's 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1996, Davis puckered his lips and extended a middle finger to TV cameras.
President Obama has vowed to curb the number of earmarks, also known as pork, in future spending bills.
It has a way of sneaking up on me, like the unhappy anniversary it is. Who knew?
Many of the media are following the convention of assessing President Barack Obama's first 100 days in office.
Do recessions make people sicker? Some studies say yes, some say no. The better question might be, "How is this recession affecting health?" Not in a good way, comes the answer. This recession -- depression? -- seems different. This recession is messing with our heads.
I have known Rush Limbaugh since his old radio days in Sacramento, before he became a GOP god. I've disagreed with him over the years. Last year I took on his bashing of Republican moderates and criticized Limbaugh and other talk-radio hosts when they were too harsh on not-yet GOP nominee John McCain. I've never apologized and we're still friends.
California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron George looked none too comfortable Thursday morning as he heard oral arguments for and against California's ban on same-sex marriage.
"Animal spirits," said John Maynard Keynes, are the essential spring of capitalism. We depend on the animal spirits of investors, high earners and entrepreneurs for a growing economy.
In an ideal world, gay marriage would be won at the ballot box. Voters would recognize that they have absolutely nothing to lose by allowing their fellow citizens the same rights to marry that heterosexual men and women now enjoy. Even many prominent conservatives (say, Sarah Palin) have come to recognize that it is wrong, heartless even, to deny gay couples the right to sign up for health benefits or to make critical medical decisions for their partners.
Twenty-five years after 1984, Doublespeak lives. Last week, President Obama released "A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise" -- a 10-year, $3.55 trillion spending plan that represented anything but fiscal maturity.
Amid pleas to spare the rich, the right is accusing the Obama administration of waging vile class warfare. They envision wooden carts carrying the wealthiest 2 percent to the guillotine. Are the critics right? Only in the tumbrels of their mind.
I am trying to capture the spirit of bipartisanship as practiced by the Democratic Party over the past eight years. Thus, I have chosen as my lead this proposition: Obama lied; the economy died. Obviously, I am borrowing this from the Democratic theme of 2003-08: "Bush lied, people died." There are, of course, two differences between the slogans.
He talks for hours every day. He gets paid to talk. Just talk. Doing it well is no small thing; witness the number of people who have tried to be him, or be the NOT-him, and failed. But he doesn't have to build a coalition.
A Sunday New York Times story described an expected sea change in international global warming policy. The story noted that President George W. Bush, "pressed by the Senate, rejected" the Kyoto global warming protocol in 2001, but now President Obama is eager to negotiate a robust international global warming treaty to be signed in Copenhagen in December.
When a pizzeria closes, the pizzeria down the block usually sees a surge in business. That principle applies to commerce in the larger North American neighborhood. Whenever the United States locks the gate on a plausible economic activity, Canadians move in and profit.
When he worked as a legislative liaison in 1982 for Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, B.T. Collins -- an unlikely Brown hire, as Collins was a Republican and double-amputee Vietnam War veteran who joked that he threw grenades "like a girl" -- had choice words for the California Legislature. He used to call the Assembly "an adult day care center."
