Aug 20, 2014
The New Yorker featured perennial Congressional candidate Ro Khanna in an article titled “The Disruption Candidate. Right. Disruption – aka moving fast and breaking sh*t – is how we got the Patriot Act. Also this last line: The last page of ‘The Great Gatsby’—I forget the line, about looking at the dock and moving toward the future and all that. The Valley is…
Aug 19, 2014
The Whopper of the Week is back. I admit one reason I’ve returned to the Left Hook is that San Jose Inside’s interview with Mayor Chuck Reed provided such an irresistible target. First, let’s check out the whoppers in the Mayor’s discussion of the City Council’s deadlock on the sales tax issue. Chuck and 5 Councilmembers including Republicans Constant and Khamis…
Aug 13, 2014
UPDATE: AB 1522 passed through the Senate Appropriations Committee with unanimous approval. The bill is now on the floor of the Senate. Assemblymember Gonzalez anticipates a Senate floor vote on the bill next week or the following and if it is passed out, then it needs to come back to the Assembly for a concurrence vote, in which the amendments (none…
Aug 8, 2014
Some political debates have two equally valid sides. More often than not, however, the evidence is significantly more one-sided than journalists and pundits suggest. AB 1522, a bill that currently sits on the California Senate’s Committee on Appropriations on its Suspense File for consideration on August 14, is an example of legislation for which there is no ethical, intellectually honest opposition. Three related lenses…
Aug 4, 2014
Santa Clara County Unaccompanied Minor Immigrants Now that we’re out of July vacations, we have a lot more to talk about on Policy Watch. Let’s start with the most dramatic, controversial and needed: Santa Clara County Supervisors developing a “host family” program to provide temporary housing for unaccompanied immigrant children. Thousands of children have been streaming across the southern U.S.…
Jul 29, 2014
Right about now, dozens of children and their families who made a risky and frightening journey across the Southern U.S. border are getting a small bit of comfort from people like you. Your donations of clothes, blankets, diapers, women’s feminine care products and other necessities collected by San Jose’s Working Partnerships USA were sent to the Interfaith Center for Worker Justice…
Jul 28, 2014
San Jose Potential measures for November Ballot San Jose City Council has a lot on its plate when Council Members come back from their July break. Polling results show support for a City sales tax increase and for a 20% Marijuana Business Tax. The Council may decide whether or not to put either or both items on the November ballot.…
Jul 24, 2014
I’m remembering the morning after Brazil´s devastating loss to Germany in the World Cup. It´s 7 a.m. and I’m taking my usual walk through the center of Caucaia. The city of 200,000 is already bustling with people catching buses to work or opening their small shops. Tears were shed last night but today it´s back to work. It´s also back…
Jul 22, 2014
When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country,” he expressed a view shared by many business leaders. In today’s business climate it seems incredible, but through much of the 20th century business leaders supported workers’ rights. Why did leading…
Readers: It’s another light agenda week. Please enjoy some summer reading inequality and the minimum wage. Paul Mason writes in the Guardian that the best of capitalism is over for rich counties by painting a bleak picture of what a continuation of “more of the same” means by 2060. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/07/capitalism-rich-poor-2060-populations-technology-human-rights-inequality Tweet