California has a strict conflict-of-interest law designed to block public officials from self-dealing with public contracts.

The law, which dates back to soon after California became a state in 1850, prohibits government workers and elected representatives from profiting from their official actions.

In 2017, the state Supreme Court wisely ...Read more

A crackdown by both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission on 12 supplement makers selling 58 products that claimed to help Alzheimer's patients is just the latest in decades of reports about fraud in the supplement industry. In 2016, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, successfully pushed Amazon to stop selling ...Read more

President Donald Trump has long said the goal of his trade policy is simply to get better deals for Americans. But as the trade war intensifies, it seems increasingly likely that his policies will lead to something more: a lasting break with China and a new alignment of global power.

First, consider the evidence for the break. The current ...Read more

Heads up: It's crunch time for Assembly Bill 392, the proposed law to reform the rules for when police can use deadly force.

The bill, authored by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, and introduced in its original form shortly after the killing of Stephon Clark, appears stalled in the California Legislature. Despite public support from ...Read more

President Donald Trump's recently unveiled immigration plan is going nowhere with members of both parties. But while this policy gridlock is nothing new on the federal level, the situation is quite different outside Washington. State and local governments are making immigration policy all the time, mostly for the worse, and often Democrats are ...Read more

Some media and others today either ignore or deplore claims of Christian persecution, even though prominent and numerous facts mount.

Witness the recent Easter Sri Lanka slaughter of hundreds. On Mother's Day, a Catholic priest was killed with six others during a mass in West Africa. The ruling Chinese Communist party has destroyed churches and...Read more

Eighteen months before the election of 2020, we know that Donald Trump is the worst president in American history and the most deserving of removal from office before the expiration of his term.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi can pass a bill of impeachment any day of her choosing. With every passing day she comes under greater pressure from ...Read more

The world's largest secular democracy has just moved further away from its foundational ideals – exemplifying a worrisome global phenomenon.

India, like the United States, was established as a secular, democratic republic. The ascension to power five years ago of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist who was banned from the United...Read more

"I am not a crook."

"Mistakes were made."

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

The lexicon of presidential denials and non-denial denials of impropriety and illegality is replete with memorable one-liners. And on Wednesday, President Donald Trump offered a new one: "I don't do cover-ups."

The day began with House Democrats ...Read more

Like a pro wrestler pounding the mat in feigned pain, Donald Trump flailed, wailed and showcased his victimhood in his own Rose Garden, Wednesday at high noon.

"This is very sad," said President Trump, performing with all the WrestleMania flamboyance he once displayed as a World Wrestling Entertainment guest star (really!) while honing his ...Read more

If you've lost someone to war or conflict, every day is a kind of Memorial Day.

For the rest of us, once a year we are called upon to actively honor the sacrifice of our uniformed men and women who've died in service to our nation.

People have a "tendency ... to forget the purpose of Memorial Day and make it a day for games, races and revelry,...Read more

If you weren't paying close attention, the prairie fire of strict anti-abortion laws jumping like flaming embers from red state to red state -- punctuated by Alabama's clearly unconstitutional (for now, anyway) straight-up ban that imposes a straight-outta-Gilead maximum sentence of 99 years on doctors performing the procedure -- seemed to come ...Read more

Police officers should be able to use deadly force only when necessary to prevent death or serious injury to themselves or to others.

That standard seems so logical and so based in common sense that it may come as a surprise that it's not already the law. It ought to be, and a bill currently before California lawmakers would make it so. ...Read more

After years of tolerating an unhealthy culture of police secrecy, the California Legislature finally showed some gumption last year by passing Senate Bill 1421. It requires law enforcement agencies to treat discipline records of officers who faced sustained allegations of misconduct as routinely available public records. The law took effect Jan....Read more

When California voters allowed the use of recreational cannabis by adults statewide in 2016 -- enacting Proposition 64 by a 57% to 43% margin -- a key provision of the measure said local governments could "ban nonmedical marijuana businesses." This reassured many voters because it respected the fact that communities could have different views ...Read more

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Efforts are underway to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress, which in theory could result in a fine or jail time for Barr.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warns of a "constitutional crisis."

Unfortunately, if there is such a crisis -- and there isn't -- it would be the result of Congress' abuse of its ...Read more

The Poynter Institute is a journalism school and research center that owns the Tampa Bay Times in Florida and has stood tall for journalistic excellence in multiple, impressive ways for years now. Sadly, it recently clip-clopped backward to the point of tripping over an inanity and falling on its head.

We want true news, Poynter had been saying...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Are we in a constitutional crisis? We have the makings of a political crisis, but the constitutional crisis that many are declaring has yet to materialize.

Crisis is a loaded word. At times it can be used in a widely agreed upon context, but in the political realm it can often be used to emphasize a political point and is much ...Read more

MILAN, Italy -- Talk of a re-emergence of neo-fascism is rampant in Europe. So I went to Milan last weekend to watch a rally in which the country's most powerful political figure, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, was promoting a pan-European alliance of far-right parties, joined on stage by nationalist leaders from a dozen European countries. ...Read more