Thomas Buckley, Author at California Globe

What the Recall Candidates are Saying about California’s Escalating Crime

August 23, 2021 11:26 amAugust 24, 2021 4:47 pm

After years of decline, the past two years have seen sharp increases in crime throughout the state. The causes blamed are myriad, with some being more valid than others. The social stresses of the pandemic and increased economic uncertainty most...

Newsom Recall Team Attempting to Nationalize Campaign and Blame Trump

August 17, 2021 8:23 pmAugust 18, 2021 10:27 am

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s campaign to retain his seat as governor is focusing on a pair of main themes, one quite clear and the other far less so. The primary thrust of the campaign has been an effort to “nationalize”...

What the Recall Candidates Are Saying About the California Dream

August 16, 2021 7:15 amAugust 18, 2021 10:29 am

Over the past 40 years, at least, the topic of illegal immigration has played a central role in California politics. But now the topic of legal out-migration is rearing its depressing head. Despite attempts by many to either dismiss the...

How the Democrats May Have Out-Thunk Themselves on the Newsom Recall

August 11, 2021 2:28 pmAugust 13, 2021 9:29 am

The term “conventional wisdom” is rather odd, as at most conventions the vast majority of the wisdom floating around the hall is used trying to figure out which sponsors hospitality suite will have the best (free and plentiful) drinks and...

What are the Recall Candidates Saying About the State of California Public Education?

August 9, 2021 2:20 amAugust 12, 2021 2:21 pm

Even before the pandemic, California’s public schools were not something to write home about. But what COVID, and the related mandates and closures and distance learning and union intransigence did to it, seems to have obliterated whatever shred of credibility...

What the Recall Candidates are Saying About the State’s Most Dysfunctional Agency

August 2, 2021 5:05 pmAugust 2, 2021 4:19 pm

One of the hot button issues of the entire recall effort has been California’s Employment Development Department’s disastrous handling of the massive unemployment increase, a result of the pandemic and its concomitant state-ordered business lockdowns. The mishandling – which managed...

What California Could Have Done with the $30 Billion Lost by the EDD

July 19, 2021 6:14 pmJuly 21, 2021 5:00 pm

It is, sadly, a fact of life that the public has become so inured to the vapor trail of zeroes involved in governmental financial mismanagement that sometimes those big numbers lose their meaning. Take, for example, the loss to fraud...