Issues
Tech
AI is collapsing the cost of building software—a quarter of YC startups now have 95% of their code written by AI, some hitting $10M revenue with fewer than 10 people—and the constraint has shifted from engineering to judgment, taste, and physical infrastructure. The energy grid can't keep up: data centers are on track to consume 10% of US power by 2028, driving YC to fund 40+ energy startups while hyperscalers pour billions into nuclear. Meanwhile, the next frontier is AI memory—open-source projects like GBrain are racing to solve the architectural problem of agents that forget everything when a session ends.
$215 Billion New City Gets Historic Labor Deal
California Is Killing the Golden Goose
Airbnb's Cofounder Is Redesigning America
SF Is Winning the AI Race. Politicians Want to Kill It.
Washington's Tax Blitz Could Kill the Sonics—And the Startup Economy
Bernie Sanders Can't Explain American Innovation
Anthropic's War on Its Own Power Users
Brain Computer Interfaces Are Now Giving Sight Back to the Blind
New York Wants to Ban the AI That Outscores Doctors
The BASED Act Comes for Big Tech
SFO Is Trying to Bury Waymo
From AI Doomerism to Molotov Cocktail
The Compute Is Ready. The Grid Isn't.
Personal AI Is in Its Homebrew Computer Club Phase
The Seeker and the Builder Are the Same Person
Miss the YC Deadline? Gustaf Is Watching Friday.
Your AI Forgets Everything. GBrain and MemPalace Don't.
State Capacity
Sacramento lawmakers killed two bipartisan bills that would have made lobbyist letters publicly available in real time—while California spends over half a billion dollars annually on lobbying with minimal transparency. Separately, a bill that could expose journalists investigating taxpayer-funded immigration nonprofits to $4,000-per-violation fines is one committee vote from the Assembly floor. Together, the stories point to the same pattern: institutions blocking the oversight mechanisms that would make them accountable.
Sacramento Sabotages Prop 36 After Voters Spoke
Oakland's Coliseum Fiasco: Managed by Clowns
Stanford's Fake Disability Crisis Is America's Future
California Is Killing the Golden Goose
Airbnb's Cofounder Is Redesigning America
This Citizen's Union Is Throwing a Party March 4 in Mountain View, California
BART's 'Leave Them Be' Order Burned the Transbay Tube
The San Francisco Chinatown Grift: 29 LLCs, Political Power, and Too Few New Homes
Lurie's Charter Reset Is a Masterclass
Why Is Los Angeles Spending $20M on 32 Empty Housing Units?
BART Paid Consultants to Say Fare Evasion Didn't Matter — Then Lost the Receipt
California Auditors Confirmed Billions in Fraud. The State Ignored Them.
SFO Is Trying to Bury Waymo
A Tropical Disease Hit a Berkeley Homeless Encampment. Courts Blocked Cleanup.
SFMTA Promised 465 Affordable Units. There Was Never a Plan to Pay for Them.
After a Rigged Review Process, SFUSD Just Approved Its New Ethnic Studies Curriculum
Exposing Nonprofit Fraud Could Come With a Price Tag
Half a Billion in Lobbying, Zero Transparency
Public Safety & Policing
Anti-AI extremism escalated to attempted murder in April 2026, when a PauseAI member firebombed Sam Altman's home and was arrested carrying a list of additional targets—part of a pattern of ideologically motivated attacks on tech figures that included a shooting at a city councilman's home over data centers. Meanwhile, SF's courts have gone five years without reporting a single data point to the state and resolve only 32% of cases, Berkeley's homeless encampment courts blocked a leptospirosis cleanup for sixteen months, and new research confirms that less than 0.5% of Oakland residents drive the majority of its gun violence. Across these stories, a common thread: institutions applying maximum friction to legitimate actors while failing to act against clear and documented harms.
Oakland's Crime Crisis by the Numbers
Lawsuit Wants to Ban the Tech That Caught My Wife's Hit-and-Run Driver
Matt Mahan Must Be California's Next Governor
NYC's Socialist Mayor Raids the Piggy Bank
While SF stopped Prosecuting Drug Dealers, 3,700 People Overdosed
Richmond Cut Its Crime Cameras. Car Thefts Jumped 33%.
A parole officer sent an email: "Agents must not search for violations." Then two women died.
Chinatown Stabbing Victim Got No Press Conference
Yes, Fare Gates Actually Reduce Crime
He Killed Grandpa Vicha. Tomorrow, He Walks Free
Grandpa Vicha's Killer Was Just Released on Probation
Richmond Just Voted to Reinstate Their Flock Cameras After Crime Spiked
SF Courts Won't Show Their Work
The Easiest Way to Sell Wine in San Francisco Is Illegally
A Tropical Disease Hit a Berkeley Homeless Encampment. Courts Blocked Cleanup.
Oakland Has a Gang Problem Disguised as a Gun Problem
From AI Doomerism to Molotov Cocktail
State Politicians
California lawmakers killed two bipartisan bills that would have made lobbyist position letters publicly available in real time — a reform already standard in at least ten other states — while the state's nonpartisan analyst confirms a structural deficit of $20–$30 billion per year driven by spending that outpaced revenue growth by 10 points. Meanwhile, a bill that could expose journalists covering immigration nonprofits to $4,000-per-violation fines is one committee vote from the Assembly floor. From lobbying secrecy to runaway spending to pandemic fraud still unrepaid, Sacramento's accountability problems are stacking up fast.
Matt Mahan Must Be California's Next Governor
Mahan wants to fix the waste. Steyer just wants to raise taxes.
Steyer's $20 Billion "Trump Tax Loophole" Is a Lie
The Builder Class vs The Luxury Beliefs Class
The BASED Act Comes for Big Tech
California Auditors Confirmed Billions in Fraud. The State Ignored Them.
Exposing Nonprofit Fraud Could Come With a Price Tag
The Deficit California Can't Tax Away
Half a Billion in Lobbying, Zero Transparency
Merit & Excellence
Paul Graham is pushing back on AOC's claim that billionaires can't earn their wealth, arguing his two decades evaluating founders at Y Combinator prove that building things people want—not exploitation—is what creates extreme wealth. Meanwhile, Sacramento is trying to gut Proposition 209's K-12 protections through ACA-7, which would allow race-based admissions to gifted programs, even as SFUSD rubber-stamps an ethnic studies curriculum through a rigged review process. With California projected to lose nearly a million public school students by 2031, the fight over who gets into what classrooms—and how those classrooms are run—has never had higher stakes.
UC Regents Knew SAT Ban Was Wrong—Voted for It Anyway
Blanket Visa Bans Punish America's Best Immigrants
Stanford's Fake Disability Crisis Is America's Future
Noam Chomsky Denied a Genocide, Advised Epstein, and Paid No Price.
California Will Lose a Million Students
After a Rigged Review Process, SFUSD Just Approved Its New Ethnic Studies Curriculum
Yes, You Can Earn a Billion Dollars
Techno-Optimism
AI is collapsing the cost of building software—a quarter of YC startups now have 95% of their code written by AI, with some teams hitting $10M in revenue with fewer than 10 people—shifting the scarce resource from engineering to judgment and taste. The physical infrastructure powering this boom is straining to keep up, with US data centers on track to consume 10% of national electricity by 2028, driving YC to back 40+ energy startups. Meanwhile, Germany's nuclear reversal is a live case study in what happens when pessimism hardens into policy.
SF Is Winning the AI Race. Politicians Want to Kill It.
Anthropic's War on Its Own Power Users
Brain Computer Interfaces Are Now Giving Sight Back to the Blind
The Compute Is Ready. The Grid Isn't.
Personal AI Is in Its Homebrew Computer Club Phase
The Seeker and the Builder Are the Same Person
Your AI Forgets Everything. GBrain and MemPalace Don't.
Asset Seizure Taxes
A debate over whether billionaire wealth is earned or extracted just broke out nationally, with Paul Graham firing back at AOC's claim that "you can't earn a billion dollars" using two decades of data from evaluating founders at Y Combinator. That argument lands against a backdrop of California's structural fiscal crisis, where the state's own nonpartisan analyst confirms spending outpaced revenue growth by 10 points — exposing the limits of tax-more politics at the moment Sanders and Khanna are pushing a federal 5% annual wealth tax on unrealized gains. Europe already ran this experiment: 12 countries had wealth taxes in 1990, only 4 remain, and France lost 42,000 millionaires without reducing inequality.
The NIMBY Millionaire Behind California's Asset Seizure
The Wealth Exodus Is Live: Watch California Die
Washington's Tax Blitz Could Kill the Sonics—And the Startup Economy
Mahan wants to fix the waste. Steyer just wants to raise taxes.
Bernie Sanders Can't Explain American Innovation
Asset Seizure: A One-Act Play
The Deficit California Can't Tax Away
Yes, You Can Earn a Billion Dollars
Criminal Justice
San Francisco's criminal justice system is under scrutiny from multiple directions: a judge just released the killer of 84-year-old "Grandpa Vicha" Ratanapakdee straight to probation after pretrial credit math erased his entire sentence, and SF's Superior Courts haven't reported a single case outcome to the state in five years—ranking 52nd out of 56 counties in case clearance. Meanwhile, new data on Oakland's gang violence shows that less than 0.5% of the population drives the majority of homicides, raising hard questions about whether the region's criminal justice policies are targeting the right problems at all.
Sacramento Sabotages Prop 36 After Voters Spoke
A parole officer sent an email: "Agents must not search for violations." Then two women died.
Chinatown Stabbing Victim Got No Press Conference
He Killed Grandpa Vicha. Tomorrow, He Walks Free
Grandpa Vicha's Killer Was Just Released on Probation
SF Courts Won't Show Their Work
Oakland Has a Gang Problem Disguised as a Gun Problem
Housing & YIMBY
California is projected to lose nearly one million public school students by 2031—a 15.7% enrollment collapse driven by the state's housing affordability crisis—while San Francisco's broken housing pipeline was laid bare when SFMTA admitted it never had funding for 365 affordable units it spent eight years promising. These failures are fueling a broader debate over why California keeps producing housing commitments that collapse under their own math, whether from underfunded transit-adjacent projects, nonprofit operators with 29 LLCs and zero disclosures, or progressive politicians pushing rent freezes that developers say make construction economically impossible.
The NIMBY Millionaire Behind California's Asset Seizure
$215 Billion New City Gets Historic Labor Deal
Matt Mahan Must Be California's Next Governor
California Taxes Affordable Housing Into Oblivion
NYC's Socialist Mayor Raids the Piggy Bank
The Builder Class vs The Luxury Beliefs Class
The San Francisco Chinatown Grift: 29 LLCs, Political Power, and Too Few New Homes
The Left's Housing Math Doesn't Add Up
SFMTA Promised 465 Affordable Units. There Was Never a Plan to Pay for Them.
California Will Lose a Million Students
Budgets & Fiscal Policy
California's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office just confirmed what critics have argued for years: state spending grew 10 points faster than revenue since the pandemic, producing structural deficits of $20–30 billion every year with no end in sight. That's on top of $20 billion in confirmed EDD fraud, an unpaid $21 billion federal pandemic loan, and a projected loss of one million public school students by 2031. From Sacramento's chronic overspending to BART hiding consultant invoices to San Francisco's $1.7 million toilet, this channel tracks where the money goes—and who's accountable when it disappears.
California Is Killing the Golden Goose
California Taxes Affordable Housing Into Oblivion
The Wealth Exodus Is Live: Watch California Die
NYC's Socialist Mayor Raids the Piggy Bank
Mahan wants to fix the waste. Steyer just wants to raise taxes.
Lurie's Charter Reset Is a Masterclass
BART Paid Consultants to Say Fare Evasion Didn't Matter — Then Lost the Receipt
California Auditors Confirmed Billions in Fraud. The State Ignored Them.
California Will Lose a Million Students
The Deficit California Can't Tax Away
Homelessness & Drug Crisis
A tropical disease common in the developing world is spreading through Berkeley homeless encampments while courts block cleanup, and a federal judge took three months to act after rats tested positive for leptospirosis. Meanwhile, Los Angeles is sitting on 32 empty housing units that cost taxpayers $625,000 each, BART's Transbay Tube went dark for 12 hours after an encampment fire the agency knew about and couldn't get cleared in time, and San Francisco nonprofits running taxpayer-funded housing have logged 162 overdose deaths since 2020—while teaching residents how to use drugs in their apartments. The throughline: policies designed to help the homeless are failing them, and nobody in charge is being held accountable.
Housing Won't Fix This. It's the Drugs.
Matt Mahan Must Be California's Next Governor
Chan and Fielder Vote to Keep People Dying on Sidewalks
BART's 'Leave Them Be' Order Burned the Transbay Tube
While SF stopped Prosecuting Drug Dealers, 3,700 People Overdosed
Why Is Los Angeles Spending $20M on 32 Empty Housing Units?
A Tropical Disease Hit a Berkeley Homeless Encampment. Courts Blocked Cleanup.
Media & Narrative
Garry's List is launching its inaugural Civic Impact Awards to recognize the newsletters, reporters, and creators helping Californians make sense of the June 2 primary — nominations are open now. Meanwhile, a pressing press freedom fight is unfolding in Sacramento: AB 2624, a bill that could expose journalists investigating government-funded immigration nonprofits to $4,000-per-violation fines with no press exemption, is one committee vote from the Assembly floor.
The NIMBY Millionaire Behind California's Asset Seizure
Noam Chomsky Denied a Genocide, Advised Epstein, and Paid No Price.
Most Democrats Want Normal. Nationally It's Going Bad. In San Francisco, There's Hope.
From AI Doomerism to Molotov Cocktail
Exposing Nonprofit Fraud Could Come With a Price Tag
Introducing the Garry's List Civic Impact Awards
Asian American Issues
Antoine Watson, the man who killed 84-year-old "Grandpa Vicha" Ratanapakdee, walked free on probation this week after a San Francisco judge suspended his sentence — an outcome made inevitable by California's 2-for-1 pretrial credit math stacking up against a four-year manslaughter cap. The case is the latest flashpoint in a broader pattern: a Chinatown stabbing two days before Lunar New Year drew little official attention, a civil lawsuit now targets state parole officials over policies that left a man with 91 felonies free to kill two women, and Sacramento is advancing ACA-7 to strip Prop 209's K-12 protections despite voters rejecting racial preferences twice.
The San Francisco Chinatown Grift: 29 LLCs, Political Power, and Too Few New Homes
A parole officer sent an email: "Agents must not search for violations." Then two women died.
Chinatown Stabbing Victim Got No Press Conference
He Killed Grandpa Vicha. Tomorrow, He Walks Free
Grandpa Vicha's Killer Was Just Released on Probation
SF Politicians
SFMTA just voted to eliminate 365 of the 465 affordable housing units promised atop the Potrero Yard bus facility — units that, it turns out, were never funded in the first place. Meanwhile, Mayor Lurie is pushing the city's first comprehensive charter reform in 30 years while clashing with progressive supervisors who voted against his drug intervention program despite nearly 3,800 overdose deaths since 2020. SF's local politics are at an inflection point, with real consequences for housing, public safety, and whether city government can function at all.
CA Ballot Measures
Tom Steyer is pushing a ballot measure to close what he calls the "Trump Tax Loophole" in Prop 13—but critics say he's inflated the revenue projection by up to 150% and renamed a 1978 Democratic law for political cover. Meanwhile, a separate SEIU-backed billionaire wealth tax has already triggered a documented exodus of roughly 48 billionaires and $1.1 trillion in wealth from California before a single vote is cast—a dynamic even Governor Newsom warns will backfire, as Europe's abandoned wealth taxes already proved.
Elections & Voting Integrity
California lawmakers just killed two bipartisan bills that would have required lobbyist position letters to be posted online in real time — blocking a reform that ten other states already practice, while half a billion dollars in lobbying influence flows through Sacramento with minimal public scrutiny. With the June 2 primary approaching, the channel is also tracking how public sector unions are shaping the governor's race and whether California's Democratic mainstream can reassert itself over a small but outsized progressive fringe.
This Citizen's Union Is Throwing a Party March 4 in Mountain View, California
The Builder Class vs The Luxury Beliefs Class
Most Democrats Want Normal. Nationally It's Going Bad. In San Francisco, There's Hope.
Introducing the Garry's List Civic Impact Awards
Half a Billion in Lobbying, Zero Transparency
Business Taxes
San Francisco's June 2026 ballot includes Proposition D, a so-called "CEO Tax" that critics say would deliver an 800% gross receipts tax increase while exempting major tech companies and hitting grocery stores, pharmacies, and coffee shops hardest. The debate is unfolding against a backdrop of downtown vacancy and a booming AI startup scene that supporters argue new taxes would jeopardize. Meanwhile, Governor candidate Tom Steyer is pushing a separate business tax agenda—rebranding California's 1978 commercial property tax rules as a "Trump Tax Loophole" and claiming $20 billion in recoverable revenue, a figure that critics say inflates the state's own estimates by up to 150%.
The 'CEO Tax' Scam That Will Crush Your Grocery Bill
Art Won't Save Downtown From an 800% Tax Hike
The "CEO Tax" Doesn't Tax CEOs. It Kills SF.
SF Is Winning the AI Race. Politicians Want to Kill It.
Steyer's $20 Billion "Trump Tax Loophole" Is a Lie
SF's "Overpaid CEO Tax" Will Hammer Grocery Stores and Coffee Shops
Federal Politicians
AOC is drawing fire for claiming billionaires can't "earn" their wealth — Y Combinator's Paul Graham, who spent two decades professionally evaluating founders, says the data from thousands of startups proves her wrong. The debate reflects a broader battle over federal economic policy, where Sanders and Khanna are pushing a 5% annual wealth tax on unrealized gains despite the same experiment failing across Europe.
Small Business & Regulation
San Francisco's permitting maze forces restaurant owners through four agencies and a six-month wait just to serve wine legally — while stolen bottles sell openly two blocks from City Hall. Richmond's small business owners just won a hard-fought vote to restore the crime cameras that city leaders disabled last fall, after car thefts jumped 33% in the months they sat dark. Across California, the pattern is the same: maximum friction for law-abiding business owners, minimum consequence for everyone else.
Transit & Safety
SFO is exiling Waymo to a remote facility while Uber and Lyft keep 800,000 monthly trips from the main terminal — the latest front in a pattern of institutional resistance to autonomous vehicles that's playing out from San Francisco to DC. Meanwhile, BART is facing scrutiny over a consulting report it commissioned to argue fare enforcement was pointless, even as its own new fare gates helped drive a 2025 crime collapse — and the agency can't produce the invoice for what it paid. Two encampment fires that shut down the Transbay Tube for 12 hours earlier this year made clear the cost of what critics call BART's "leave them be" approach to infrastructure safety.
SF Ballot Measures
San Francisco's Proposition D, the "Overpaid CEO Tax" on the June 2026 ballot, would raise gross receipts tax rates by roughly 800% — but critics say it's structured to exempt major tech companies while hammering grocery stores, pharmacies, and other low-margin businesses. The tax is levied on company revenue, not CEO paychecks, meaning executives pay nothing while consumers likely absorb the cost through higher prices. This comes as San Francisco already faces a downtown vacancy crisis, with companies representing $400 billion in market value having fled the city citing its existing tax burden.
Tech & Startup Regulation
New York's S7263 — which would ban AI from answering medical, legal, and other licensed-profession questions — reached the Senate floor in February and faces an imminent full chamber vote, even as studies show AI outperforming doctors on diagnostic tests. Meanwhile, Anthropic and Google have moved to lock paying subscribers out of third-party tools, and a San Francisco lawsuit is targeting the license plate camera network that's solving 10% of reported crime nationwide.
Skilled Immigration
Blanket visa bans targeting countries like Venezuela are now blocking even model legal immigrants from basic family visits — a San Francisco family that has repeatedly intervened to stop crime and save lives can't get the wife's mother a tourist visa to meet their newborn. The policy can't distinguish between security risks and people who have spent years demonstrating exactly the civic values America claims to want. The case is fueling a broader debate over whether the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is undermining the legal immigration pathways that have long been central to American competitiveness.
Tech Antitrust & M&A
California is moving to do what Congress couldn't: SB 1074, the BASED Act, would ban Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft from self-preferencing their own products, mining competitor data, and using platform access as leverage — with teeth allowing consumers, businesses, and the AG to sue. Introduced last week by State Senator Scott Wiener at YC headquarters, the bill takes the fight over Big Tech's grip on startups directly to their home turf.
CA Prop 36 (2024)
California voters passed Prop 36 overwhelmingly in November 2024, but Sacramento is now effectively nullifying it by refusing to allocate funding for enforcement—a move San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is calling out directly as he launches a 2026 gubernatorial bid. Mahan, whose city reduced unsheltered homelessness by nearly 23% through accountability-focused policies, is framing the legislature's inaction as a betrayal of voter will. The fight over Prop 36's implementation is shaping up as a central fault line in California's 2026 governor's race.
CA Prop 47 (2014)
A viral post spotlighting open-air stolen wine sales at 7th and Market in San Francisco has reignited debate over Prop 47's role in creating asymmetric consequences — maximum regulatory burden for law-abiding businesses, near-zero risk for petty theft. The contrast is stark: restaurant owners navigate six months of permitting and nearly $2,400 in annual fees just to serve a legal glass of wine, while stolen bottles trade openly two blocks away with impunity. Ten years after Prop 47 passed, the policy tradeoffs are playing out in real time on SF streets.
SF Prop M (2024)
San Francisco's business tax overhaul, passed as Prop M in November 2024, is now at the center of a new fight: a proposed "CEO Tax" that critics say is actually a gross receipts tax hike of up to 800% on certain companies, threatening the city's position as the only major tech hub in America with *growing* startup formation. With SF capturing 40% of early-stage venture capital and outpacing every rival city, the stakes are high—a badly designed tax could squander a rare competitive advantage just as the AI boom accelerates.
San Francisco
San Francisco's June 2026 ballot is shaping up as a major test of city policy, with Prop D's "Overpaid CEO Tax" drawing scrutiny for exempting major tech firms while hitting grocery stores and pharmacies with an 800% rate hike. Meanwhile, SFUSD's board just approved a controversial ethnic studies curriculum over open-meetings law objections, and SFMTA quietly gutted 365 of 465 promised affordable housing units from the Potrero Yard project after admitting the funding never existed. From rigged curriculum reviews to broken housing commitments to ballot measures that do the opposite of what they claim, San Francisco's institutions are under fire on multiple fronts simultaneously.
The 'CEO Tax' Scam That Will Crush Your Grocery Bill
Art Won't Save Downtown From an 800% Tax Hike
The "CEO Tax" Doesn't Tax CEOs. It Kills SF.
Housing Won't Fix This. It's the Drugs.
Lawsuit Wants to Ban the Tech That Caught My Wife's Hit-and-Run Driver
Chan and Fielder Vote to Keep People Dying on Sidewalks
SF Is Winning the AI Race. Politicians Want to Kill It.
While SF stopped Prosecuting Drug Dealers, 3,700 People Overdosed
The San Francisco Chinatown Grift: 29 LLCs, Political Power, and Too Few New Homes
A parole officer sent an email: "Agents must not search for violations." Then two women died.
Lurie's Charter Reset Is a Masterclass
Chinatown Stabbing Victim Got No Press Conference
Most Democrats Want Normal. Nationally It's Going Bad. In San Francisco, There's Hope.
Yes, Fare Gates Actually Reduce Crime
The BASED Act Comes for Big Tech
He Killed Grandpa Vicha. Tomorrow, He Walks Free
Grandpa Vicha's Killer Was Just Released on Probation
SF Courts Won't Show Their Work
The Easiest Way to Sell Wine in San Francisco Is Illegally
SFO Is Trying to Bury Waymo
SFMTA Promised 465 Affordable Units. There Was Never a Plan to Pay for Them.
From AI Doomerism to Molotov Cocktail
California Will Lose a Million Students
After a Rigged Review Process, SFUSD Just Approved Its New Ethnic Studies Curriculum
SF's "Overpaid CEO Tax" Will Hammer Grocery Stores and Coffee Shops
SF Bay Area
Garry's List is accepting nominations for its inaugural Civic Impact Awards, recognizing the creators, newsletters, and reporters helping Californians make sense of the June 2 primary. Meanwhile, BART is under scrutiny on two fronts: a resident's public records request revealed the agency can't locate the invoice for a consultant report it commissioned arguing fare enforcement was pointless — even as it pursues a new tax measure — and a February encampment fire that killed Transbay Tube communications for 12 hours came after BART had already flagged the site to Oakland and asked for a cleanup that never came.
UC Regents Knew SAT Ban Was Wrong—Voted for It Anyway
The Wealth Exodus Is Live: Watch California Die
BART's 'Leave Them Be' Order Burned the Transbay Tube
Steyer's $20 Billion "Trump Tax Loophole" Is a Lie
Brain Computer Interfaces Are Now Giving Sight Back to the Blind
Why Is Los Angeles Spending $20M on 32 Empty Housing Units?
BART Paid Consultants to Say Fare Evasion Didn't Matter — Then Lost the Receipt
Introducing the Garry's List Civic Impact Awards
South Bay
Ro Khanna and Bernie Sanders just introduced a 5% annual wealth tax on billionaires' unrealized gains — a policy that would hit the heart of CA-17, home to roughly a third of U.S. stock market value by cap. Meanwhile, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is making the case for the governor's race by pointing to a concrete win: his fee cuts turned zero market-rate housing starts in 2024 into 2,000 in 2025. The South Bay is ground zero for the sharpest fault line in California politics — between lawmakers who want to tax the tech economy and builders who want to grow it.
Sacramento
Sacramento is blocking transparency on lobbying while hemorrhaging money it doesn't have: bipartisan bills to post lobbyist influence letters online were killed without a hearing, and the state's own nonpartisan analysts confirm that spending has outpaced revenue by 10 points since the pandemic, producing structural deficits of $20–30 billion annually with no end in sight. Meanwhile, a bill that could expose journalists to $4,000-per-violation fines for reporting on government-funded immigration nonprofits is one committee vote from the Assembly floor. With the governor's race heating up and California's fiscal model under fire from across the political spectrum, what Sacramento does—or doesn't do—this session has consequences for every resident in the state.
Sacramento Sabotages Prop 36 After Voters Spoke
$215 Billion New City Gets Historic Labor Deal
Matt Mahan Must Be California's Next Governor
California Is Killing the Golden Goose
Exposing Nonprofit Fraud Could Come With a Price Tag
The Deficit California Can't Tax Away
Half a Billion in Lobbying, Zero Transparency
New York City
New York State is days away from a full Senate vote on S7263, a bill that would ban AI chatbots from answering medical, legal, and other professional questions — even as studies show AI outperforms doctors on diagnostic tests. Meanwhile, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is pushing rent freezes, eliminating gifted school programs, and raiding city reserves to fund policies that economists and enrollment data say are already failing.
Oakland
Oakland's gun violence turns out to be a gang problem hiding in plain sight: new analysis of the city's Ceasefire program shows less than 0.5% of residents drive the majority of homicides, and targeted intervention cut shootings in half. That finding lands against a backdrop of cascading civic failures — a homeless encampment fire that knocked out the Transbay Tube for 12 hours despite BART having warned the city beforehand, a Coliseum sale collapsing with no buyers in sight, and property crime rates that are the worst in America with a 0.5% solve rate.
Berkeley
A tropical disease common in the developing world spread through a Berkeley homeless encampment while courts blocked cleanup for over a year—a case that's become a flashpoint in the national debate over judicial oversight of homelessness policy. Meanwhile, Berkeley's Robert Reich is under fire for hypocrisy after a Pirate Wires investigation revealed the wealth-tax advocate earns nearly $13,000 an hour at UC Berkeley while blocking affordable housing in his neighborhood. Newly surfaced footage also shows UC Regents admitting in 2020 that dropping the SAT contradicted their own faculty's data—a decision now facing growing calls for reversal.
East Bay
Berkeley courts finally allowed cleanup of a disease-ridden homeless encampment after a 16-month legal blockade—but only after leptospirosis, a tropical bacterial disease spread by rats, was confirmed on-site. Meanwhile, Richmond voted to reinstate the Flock license plate cameras it disabled last fall over ICE concerns, a decision that triggered a 33% jump in car thefts—with immigrant shopkeepers among the loudest voices demanding the cameras come back.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles is under mounting scrutiny over its homelessness spending after a former hotel purchased for $10 million in 2020 sat empty for four years and ballooned to $20 million in costs — producing zero occupied units. The scandal is fueling a broader debate about LA's housing strategy, with mayoral candidate Nithya Raman pushing a rent-freeze-plus-construction platform that developers and economists say is mathematically incoherent. Both stories point to the same problem: the city keeps spending more and housing fewer people.
Seattle
Washington State's proposed 9.9% millionaire's tax is threatening more than just wealthy residents — it's spooking NBA investors needed to bring back the Seattle SuperSonics and prompting tech founders to plan exits from the state. Critics warn the tax will hit married dual-income households and small business owners far below the billionaire tier, while street-level outreach workers are separately challenging Seattle's homeless policy, saying half the people living outside already have taxpayer-funded apartments — and the real crisis is untreated addiction.
Peninsula
A viral essay is accusing Stanford University of enabling widespread gaming of disability accommodations, with 38% of undergraduates now claiming disability status compared to 3-4% at community colleges. The piece argues the system rewards affluent, high-achieving students with perks like single dorm rooms and extended test time through a minimally scrutinized 30-minute Zoom process. Critics say Stanford's explosion in disability claims reflects a broader normalization of institutional gaming among elite students.