Politics, Government and Business in Southern California's Inland Empire
InlandPolitics.com in it’s first three full months of operation has witnessed expansive growth in readership.
As of today, milestones reached by the blog include the preservation of nearly 1,100 archived stories, which have received some 740 comments.
In February, the 40,000 hit per/day barrier was achieved.
By James Quinn, US Business Editor in New York
Published: 8:20PM GMT 26 Feb 2010
California is a greater risk than Greece, warns JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan Chase, has warned American investors should be more worried about the risk of default of the state of California than of Greece’s current debt woes.
Sandra Emerson, Staff Writer
Created: 02/27/2010 11:44:11 PM PST
Over the past year, federal stimulus dollars have been making their way to various projects and programs in the Inland Empire.
About $463 million has been awarded in San Bernardino County alone. The money is targeted at variety of goals, coming from federal agencies such as the U.S. departments of Justice, Energy, Housing and Urban Development as well as the Federal Highway Administration.
February 27, 2010 11:00 AM
FROM STAFF REPORTS
WASHINGTON • As Congressional Democrats look to forge ahead with a controversial health care reform plan — with or without Republicans’ support — Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon and Rep. Jerry Lewis are joining fellow Republicans in a call to begin a new proposal from scratch.
“If we do not start over with a blank page, we ignore the fact that the American public does not want a massive government takeover of health care that does not make health care more affordable,” Lewis, R-Redlands, said in a statement. “They want it fixed, with common sense, step by step reforms.”
James Rufus Koren, Staff Writer
Posted: 02/27/2010 06:12:50 AM PST
The federal stimulus package has allocated more than $900 million for local projects, but congressional Republicans and Democrats from the Inland Empire disagree about whether the money spent so far has accomplished its main goal: creating jobs.
Republicans say the money has mostly gone to expanding government programs and has not created jobs as promised. But Democrats say many jobs have been either saved or created and that the bill has worked. In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said the stimulus bill has put to work two million Americans who would otherwise be jobless.
Wesley G. Hughes, Staff Writer
Posted: 02/27/2010 08:25:27 PM PST
Victorville moved forward Friday in what is expected to be the first of many steps toward healing its economy.
The first foreign investor is willing to put up $550,000 toward a $25 million wastewater treatment plant and site preparation for a $120 million bottling plant to the city.
A major allegation contained in the recent announcement of charges in the “windshield crack-like” corruption investigation into San Bernardino County government by District Attorney Mike Ramos and Attorney General Edmund “Jerry” Brown has some interesting twists.
Ramos earlier this week announced a series of reforms necessary to put the power of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors in check.
Strangely enough, one of the proposed reforms didn’t involve a measure to curb abuse in the expenditure of campaign funds.
10:00 PM PST on Saturday, February 27, 2010
By JULISSA McKINNON
The Press-Enterprise
After knocking on doors for five months, John Smelser collected his 5,500th signature supporting term limits for Menifee council members Friday afternoon.
He stopped mid-driveway, checked off the address on his clipboard and modestly pumped his fist before walking to the next house.
By GRIFF PALMER
Published: February 27, 2010
The Supreme Court decision last month allowing corporations to spend unlimited money on behalf of political candidates left a loophole that campaign finance lawyers say could allow companies to pay for extensive political advertising while avoiding the disclosure requirements the court appeared to leave intact.
Experts say the ruling, along with a pair of earlier Supreme Court cases, makes it possible for corporations and unions to donate anonymously to nonprofit civic leagues and trade associations. The groups can then use the money to finance the types of political advertisements that were at the heart of last month’s ruling, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Maywood, which is spearheading the effort with Bell, has requested federal funds for a three-month feasibility study.
By Ruben Vives
February 28, 2010
Citing a decline in revenues and an increase in the cost of law enforcement, several small cities in southeast Los Angeles County are considering a novel approach to policing their communities.
PolitiCal
February 27, 2010 | 8:09 pm
The three Republican U.S. Senate candidates will debate for the first time Friday on Sacramento radio host Eric Hogue’s show.
The topics will be national security, terrorism and foreign policy, which is notable because one of the candidates, former Congressman Tom Campbell, came under fire this week for his record on Israel.
THE WEEK
Meg Whitman’s use of the measure as a weapon against Poizner in the GOP race for governor recalls the politics of 1978, the year the initiative passed.
By Cathleen Decker
February 28, 2010
Proposition 13 made its return to electoral politics last week, proving anew the continued political heft of the 32-year-old measure.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., named for the long-deceased champion of the property tax-limiting proposition, gave its imprimatur to Meg Whitman’s campaign for governor. Though not necessarily surprising, the news dealt another blow to Whitman’s opponent in the race for the Republican nomination, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who has been grasping for momentum for weeks as Whitman has filled the airwaves with advertisements.
By Ken McLaughlin, Steven Harmon and Denis C. Theriault
Bay Area News Group
Posted: 02/28/2010 12:00:00 AM PST
The three people vying to be California’s next governor offer differing styles, levels of political experience and degrees of wealth. Here’s a look at Jerry Brown, the ex-governor who’s running unopposed for the Democratic nomination, and the two Republican hopefuls who are battling for the right to face Brown in November.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
Nearly 90 percent of California voters believe that state government needs an overhaul to make it more effective, a new statewide poll found, with virtually identical numbers among Democrats, Republicans and independents.
Just 5.5 percent of voters surveyed by Datamar, an El Cajon polling firm, agreed that state government is “fine the way it is. Exactly what kind of reform voters want is less certain, as the Datamar poll found.
California Watch
A Project of the Center for Investigative Reporting
Money and Politics
February 27, 2010 | Chase Davis
Amid a crippling fiscal crisis, managers throughout California’s government have routinely allowed their employees to amass unused vacation time, enabling hundreds of workers to end their public-service careers with payouts topping $100,000, a California Watch investigation has found.
One worker combined vacation and compensatory time to walk away with more than $800,000, records show.
L.A. NOW
Southern California
February 26, 2010 | 1:06 pm
A long awaited audit released by Los Angeles County officials found that the Board of Supervisors often use behind-the-scenes levers to control the inner workings of the Regional Planning Department, whose decisions are key to hotly contested battles over development, environmental protections and code enforcement.
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