The recent ruling by the California Supreme Court in the case CalFire vs CalPERS has garnered much attention from pension reformers. While falling short of being a landmark ruling, the result was nonetheless encouraging. The court left open the possibility that vesting does not protect prospective benefits of current employees. The implications of that are left to related, still...
The teachers union is coming after more of your money. The American Federation of Teachers is on a bender, having launched a six-figure advertising campaign in which it bemoans the fact that – per its own study – 25 states “spend less on K-12 education than before the Great Recession” and that there are “massive...
View this post on Instagram Who knew furniture shopping could be this dangerous!! I bet these guys wouldn’t have laid down to try out this bed together had they known they were risking their lives by doing so. #thestruggleisreal #bromance #cousins #slumberparty #furnitureshopping #redecorating #Itsonsale #sale #deals #prop65warning #prop65contest #californiapolicy #californiapolicycenter #prop65 #caliprops...
Contessa Mendoza’s (the_barefoot_contessa14) winning entry for week 29 has to be seen to be believed. Girl Scouts are the latest purveyors of cancer! Really? Only in Crazy California. View this post on Instagram It’s Girl Scout Cookie time. Don’t touch my cookies! How many boxes of cancer-causing cookies are you going to buy? Me? I...
Earlier this week the California Supreme Court ruled in the case CalFire vs CalPERS. The case challenged one of the provisions of California’s 2014 pension reform legislation (PEPRA) which had eliminated the purchase of “Airtime.” This was the practice whereby retiring public employees could purchase “service credits” that would lengthen the number of years they worked,...
California’s teachers unions, a compliant legislature and an anti-choice governor do not bode well for the state’s charter schools. Yet another group of angry teachers has made charter schools the focus of their wrath. The seven-day teacher strike, which ended in Oakland last week, was replete with typical teacher union demands like higher pay and...
Proposition 65’s infringement of free speech is wonderfully illustrated by Shanae Chester’s winning Week 28 entry featuring Jiffy Lube. How ironic is it that side by side with the Jiffy Lube pitch “Give the Gift of Peace of Mind” is a Proposition 65 warning? Apparently the price for peace of mind is cancer or birth...
Crony capitalism is an economy in which businesses thrive not as a result of risk, but rather as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business class and the political class. This is done using state power to crush genuine competition in handing out permits, government grants, special tax breaks, or other...
Legislators in the Mountain State buckle to the teachers union. In aggregate, West Virginia’s public schools are not very good. According to the state scorecard, 88 percent of the state’s 116 high schools “do not meet standards” in math. Furthermore, the state’s eighth graders rank 45th nationwide in reading as per the 2017 National Assessment...
California’s government union leaders love their monopoly — their control over government employees, public officials and the public. So by June 27, when the Supreme Court declared in Janus v AFSCME that a “state’s extraction of agency fees from nonconsenting public sector employees violates the First Amendment,” union leaders already controlled the information field. In...
Week 27’s winning picture depicts a TV that not only has features to kill for and a killer price, but also, according to California Proposition 65 actually kills. The winner who was debating whether to show her love by refusing to give her husband his heart’s desire, is Danielle Smith (@mrsnellie08). This is her first win. ...
One of the most frustrating contradictions inherent in the policies being enacted by California’s one-party state goes something like this: We are inviting the welfare cases of America and the expatriates of the world to move here, while simultaneously enacting environmental policies that make it extremely time consuming and expensive to build anything. No wonder there’s a “housing crisis.” Until demand...
Conflating regulation with accountability, teacher union leaders continue their deceptive talking points. While it’s up for grabs who originated the saying, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” Alex Caputo-Pearl is certainly one of its modern-day avatars. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, the...
Week 26’s winner is Contessa Mendoza (the_barefoot_Contessa14). Her colorful pen photo wins on all counts – great picture, humorous quip, and highest social impact. Prop 65 does indeed provide a handy excuse for avoiding study, work, cleanliness and even healthy eating. Even going to the gym for a protein shake is dangerous and a cancer...