Thomas D. Elias
Editorials
EDITORIAL: Let Europe defend herself
With massive military cutbacks looming as the war in Afghanistan (or at least our active involvement in it) winds down, difficult choices will have to be made.
Feb 12, 2012 | 12:00 am | Loading…
EDITORIAL: What others are saying
A selection of recent editorials from around the state and region:
Feb 11, 2012 | 12:00 am | Loading…
Columnists
- CHATFIELD: The other drug war
- ELIAS: State democrats start talking tough to Obama on housing
- WALTERS: Redevelopment may not be dead after all
- STRICKLAND: Process is flawed to the max
- GREENHUT: Judge right to promote court openness
- HARRIS: Timing should kill revamp
- WILL: Is it bribery or just politics?
- MILLER: Great gnashing gnats, Batman!
- PARKER: The power of losing
- ELIAS: Late GOP primary hurting California
- RIEHL: Voluntary pledge or plain bullying?
- WALTERS: Prop. 8 ruling aimed at Justice Kennedy
- HARROP: Big Brother is 'sharing'
- EFFINGER: Time to rethink idea of college for all
- SCHARF: Addicts need seeds of recovery planted
ELIAS: State democrats start talking tough to Obama on housing
Pinpointing the prime cause of California's slow recovery from recession is easy: Too little has been done about the crisis in housing construction, values and foreclosures.
Feb 13, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Late GOP primary hurting California
Consider for a moment what this winter season of Republican presidential candidates lambasting each other while they traversed the countryside of early primary states might have been had California been involved.
Feb 10, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Seeing a different Jerry Brown this year
From the moment he began delivering his State of the State speech in mid-January, it was clear Gov. Jerry Brown realized California needs more than the avuncular presence he was most of last year. That speech traditionally offers each governor a chance to set the tone for the coming year,…
Feb 06, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: PUC secrecy extends beyond solar to rates and safety
There was public indignation when this column revealed late last year the secrecy maintained by the state Public Utilities Commission as it regulates the siting, building and design of several massive solar thermal electricity projects that will soon be a major part of California's energy…
Feb 03, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Harm of term limits never more obvious than now
There is probably no more popular law in California today than term limits, the result of a 1990 ballot proposition limiting state legislators to six years in the Assembly and eight in the state Senate.
Jan 31, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Do state campuses condone anti-semitism?
Imagine the outcry if students on a university campus in California set up "checkpoints" to find out whether students with tan complexions are really black, or whether students heard conversing in Spanish are citizens or illegal immigrants.
Jan 27, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: State budget would have differed under Whitman
Now that Jerry Brown has gone public with the second attempt of his latest turn as governor to deliver a balanced budget, it's fair to speculate about how different things might be today if he'd lost to Meg Whitman, his billionaire 2010 Republican opponent.
Jan 23, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Would part-time politicians be the answer?
There's a one-word cause for the gridlock that so often afflicts California government, where compromise is almost nonexistent and very little is accomplished. That word: fear.
Jan 20, 2012 | 12:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Big savings potential in original three strikes
When California voters begin thinking seriously next fall about the propositions they'll vote up or down, one that's currently circulating might stand out as eminently sensible: Return the state's three-strikes-and-you're-out law to its original intent.
Jan 16, 2012 | 12:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: New effort on better cars draws usual misguided opposition
If California highways and parking lots of 2025 look considerably different from today's, it will probably be because they'll contain almost 1.5 million more hybrid cars and trucks, hydrogen-driven vehicles and plug-in hybrids that run mostly on electricity except on long trips.
Jan 13, 2012 | 12:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Crybaby GOP won't face up to its real problems
It's now all but official: The crybaby-of-the-year award for 2011 has to go to the California Republican Party for its sustained gripes about redistricting.
Jan 09, 2012 | 12:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: State GOP bench bare of statewide talent
Those several years in the past decade when actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was its Great Germanic Hope said more about the current state of California's Republican Party than almost anything else that happened during his seven years in Sacramento.
Jan 06, 2012 | 12:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Will 2012 will be the year to restore Prop. 13 intent?
Jon Coupal likes to say his hard-fighting organization, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, exists to beat back constant attacks on Proposition 13, the landmark 1978 initiative that limits property taxes in California.
Jan 03, 2012 | 12:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: "Occupy" is wrong ---- election stakes are enormous
It's fashionable to say ---- and the "Occupy" movement has made this a basic tenet ---- that Republicans and Democrats are really alike beneath their skin, any apparent differences amounting to no more than a contrast between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
Dec 30, 2011 | 12:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Biggest tax hike obstacle: Resentment of public employees
The many negative stories represent aberrations, revealing nothing at all typical about public employees in California. But they have turned public opinion against civil servants so severely that it will be difficult to pass any of the current spate of tax increase proposals, no matter wh…
Dec 26, 2011 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Why (and where) California will lose its clout in Congress
Just a bit over 10 months from today we will all know the resolution of the great California redistricting controversy and we will also find out just how much clout this state will lose in Congress.
Dec 23, 2011 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Fall votes the spur tax hike pushes
One startling statistic from last fall's municipal elections around California has not been lost on the state's policymakers and would-be reformers: Fully 40 out of the 53 local tax or bond measures up for a vote in November passed, usually with supermajorities of 55 percent or more.
Dec 20, 2011 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: New high-speed rail vote needed, not likely
If there's one thing that's become completely clear about California's proposed system of bullet trains, it's this: If the project is ever built, it won't look much like what voters approved in 2008, when they OK'd almost $10 billion worth of bonds to help pay for it.
Dec 16, 2011 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Brown leadership must key state's revival
It's a question commonly asked by schoolchildren: What is the president's most important job? The answer plainly is not being commander-in-chief of the military or appointing a cabinet or negotiating a budget.
Dec 12, 2011 | 5:00 am | Loading…
ELIAS: Utility commission's odiferous solar secrecy
Imagine the public outcry if a legislative committee suddenly raised future taxes on almost every Californian and then said no one would know the amount until the tax bill arrived. Fury would be a mild description of what might follow.
Dec 01, 2011 | 6:00 pm | Loading…
Most Popular
- ESCONDIDO: Police hunting for gunman who shot at officer
- ESCONDIDO: Man stabbed in chest during carjacking
- ESCONDIDO: Police hunting for gunman who shot at officer
- ESCONDIDO: Men charged in murder of young woman
- VALLEY CENTER: Man suffers critical injuries in apparent road race, officials say
- OCEANSIDE: Tapes of alleged police officer DUI cover-up released
- SAN MARCOS: Displaced students crowd Lake San Marcos streets, vexing residents
- RAMONA: Mother works to stop exploitation of child for online hoax
