Issues
Tech
AI is collapsing the cost of building software so fast that YC now says a quarter of its startups have 95% of their code written by AI—and some are hitting $10M in revenue with fewer than 10 people. The binding constraints have shifted upstream: to energy (data centers are on track to consume 10% of US electricity by 2028), to memory architecture (open-source projects are racing to give AI agents persistent context across sessions), and to founder judgment over technical credentials. For anyone watching where California's economy is heading, this is the transition happening in real time.
$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 influence letters publicly available in real time—the kind of basic transparency already standard in at least ten other states. Meanwhile, 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. From lobbying secrecy to phantom affordable housing commitments to courts blocking disease cleanup in homeless encampments, the through-line is the same: California institutions protecting themselves from accountability while the public pays the price.
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
AI-related violence escalated dramatically in April 2026, when a PauseAI member threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's home and threatened to burn OpenAI's SF headquarters—part of a broader pattern of ideologically motivated attacks on tech figures. Meanwhile, San Francisco's public safety institutions are failing on multiple fronts: its courts rank 52nd out of 56 California counties in case resolution and have submitted zero criminal case data to the state since 2020, while Oakland's data shows that less than 0.5% of its population drives the majority of gun violence—a problem Ceasefire intervention cut by 50% when properly targeted.
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
Sacramento's transparency problem is in the spotlight after two bipartisan bills that would have posted lobbyist influence letters online — a standard practice in at least ten other states — were quietly killed without a hearing by a single Assembly Rules Committee chair. That's just the latest sign of dysfunction in California government: the state is running structural deficits of $20–30 billion annually after spending grew 10 points faster than revenue under Newsom, billions in pandemic unemployment funds were lost to fraud that auditors flagged and officials ignored, and a bill is advancing that could expose journalists who cover immigration nonprofits to $4,000-per-violation fines. Meanwhile, a high-profile antitrust bill targeting Apple, Amazon, Google, and Meta is working its way through the Legislature — a fight the state may finish before Washington ever does.
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, citing two decades of data from evaluating thousands of founders at Y Combinator. Meanwhile, California's education system is under fire on multiple fronts: SFUSD just approved an ethnic studies curriculum through what critics call a rigged review process, ACA-7 is moving through the Senate to strip Prop 209's K-12 protections and allow racial preferences in gifted programs, and federal data projects the state will lose nearly one million public school students by 2031.
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 under 10 people—shifting the scarce resource from engineering to judgment and taste. The energy infrastructure powering that compute boom is straining to keep up, with US data centers projected to consume 10% of national electricity by 2028, while Germany's nuclear phase-out stands as a cautionary tale of what happens when politics masquerades as inevitability. For anyone building, investing, or governing in California's tech economy, the race between exponential compute demand and physical infrastructure constraints is the defining tension of the next few years.
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
AOC's claim that "you can't earn a billion dollars" drew a sharp rebuttal this week from Y Combinator's Paul Graham, who argues his two decades of evaluating founders proves billionaires create rather than steal value. The exchange cuts to the heart of California's tax debate: as the state faces $20–30 billion in annual structural deficits caused by overspending, Sacramento's instinct is to reach for wealth taxes and exit taxes that Europe already abandoned after they triggered capital flight and killed the firms that employed working people.
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 mounting scrutiny: a judge released the killer of 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee on probation after pretrial credit math made his four-year manslaughter sentence meaningless before sentencing even began, while SF's Superior Courts haven't reported a single data point to the state in five years and resolve only 32% of cases filed. Meanwhile, new research on Oakland's gun violence confirms that less than 0.5% of the city's population drives the majority of homicides—a finding with direct implications for how prosecutors and policymakers should be targeting resources.
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% collapse driven by the state's housing affordability crisis pushing families to Idaho, Florida, and beyond. In San Francisco, the dysfunction is on full display: SFMTA just gutted 365 of 465 promised affordable units from a major transit project, admitting the housing was never actually funded. Meanwhile, debates over rent control, nonprofit corruption, and zoning reform are exposing a widening gap between the policies California politicians promise and the homes they actually deliver.
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 has 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 the backdrop for a cascade of fiscal failures — billions lost to unemployment fraud that the state still hasn't accounted for, a looming loss of nearly one million public school students, and transit agencies spending tax dollars on consultants to argue they shouldn't collect fares. From Sacramento's budget to San Francisco's byzantine city charter, the question isn't whether California has a spending problem — it's whether anyone in power will act on it.
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 developing nations spread through a Berkeley homeless encampment while courts blocked cleanup for over a year—the latest sign that legal and bureaucratic obstacles are leaving both housed and unhoused Californians exposed to real harm. Across the state, the dysfunction compounds: Los Angeles spent $20 million and four years to produce 32 empty housing units, a BART encampment fire that officials saw coming shut down the Transbay Tube for 12 hours, and a San Francisco housing nonprofit logs more overdose deaths than any other provider while running programs to help residents use drugs. The data and the body count keep accumulating; the accountability doesn't.
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 doing the most to make California politics legible — nominations are open now ahead of the June 2 primary. Meanwhile, a quieter threat to that same journalism ecosystem is moving through Sacramento: AB 2624, which could expose reporters covering government-funded immigration nonprofits to $4,000-per-violation fines with no press exemption, cleared committee and is one 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 out of a San Francisco courtroom on probation this week — a mathematically inevitable outcome after California's 2-for-1 pretrial credit rule converted his five years in detention into more time served than his four-year maximum sentence allowed. The case, never charged as a hate crime despite occurring at the peak of anti-Asian elder violence, is the latest flashpoint in an ongoing reckoning over whether California's courts and criminal justice system are failing Asian American victims. Meanwhile, Sacramento is advancing ACA-7, which would strip Prop 209's K-12 protections and reopen the door to race-based preferences in public school programs — a measure voters have rejected 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
San Francisco's SFMTA board 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 blocked his drug crisis shelter program, exposing a deepening fault line between reform and obstruction at City Hall.
CA Ballot Measures
Tom Steyer is pushing a ballot measure to close what he calls the "Trump Tax Loophole" in Proposition 13—but critics say he's inflated the revenue figure by up to 150% and renamed a 1978 Democratic law to sell it. Meanwhile, a competing ballot fight over SEIU-UHW's billionaire wealth tax has already triggered a documented exodus of nearly 50 billionaires, costing California an estimated $16 billion annually in lost tax revenue before a single vote is cast. With the state running an $18 billion deficit despite record revenues, the ballot measures Californians vote on in 2026 could determine whether Sacramento closes the gap—or accelerates the collapse.
Elections & Voting Integrity
California lawmakers killed two bipartisan bills that would have made lobbying records public in real time — blocking reforms that at least ten other states already have in place. The defeat exposes a deeper pattern: the same special interest machine spending half a billion dollars lobbying Sacramento is the one selecting the next governor, with public sector unions lining up endorsements before most voters are paying attention. With the June 2 primary approaching, understanding who's buying influence — and why Sacramento keeps that information hidden — has never mattered more.
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 Proposition D — dubbed the "Overpaid CEO Tax" — is on the June 2026 ballot, and critics say it's a misnomer: the measure is actually an 800% gross receipts tax hike that would exempt major tech companies while hammering grocery stores, pharmacies, and coffee shops. Meanwhile, Tom Steyer's campaign to rebrand California's commercial property tax protections as a "Trump Tax Loophole" is drawing scrutiny for inflating the revenue figure by as much as 150% over what state analysts actually projected. With downtown San Francisco still one-third vacant and the city's AI boom driving rare startup growth, the stakes over who gets taxed — and how — couldn't be higher.
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's claim that "you can't earn a billion dollars" drew a sharp rebuttal from Y Combinator's Paul Graham, who spent two decades evaluating founders and says the data flatly contradicts her. The exchange is the latest flashpoint in a running debate over wealth, tech, and federal policy—with Sanders and Khanna's proposed 5% annual wealth tax on unrealized gains still live in Congress, despite the same experiment having failed across Europe.
Small Business & Regulation
San Francisco restaurants face a six-month wait and fees across four agencies just to serve wine legally — while stolen bottles sell openly two blocks from City Hall with zero enforcement. Richmond, meanwhile, just voted to reinstate the Flock license plate readers it killed last fall, after car thefts jumped 33% and the immigrant shopkeepers the cameras were disabled to "protect" showed up to city hall demanding them back. Across California, the pattern is the same: maximum friction for businesses playing by the rules, minimum consequence for everyone else.
Transit & Safety
SFO is forcing Waymo to operate from the remote Rental Car Center while Uber and Lyft keep exclusive access to the main rideshare garage and its 800,000 monthly trips — a policy critics call incumbent protection dressed up as a pilot program. That fight over autonomous vehicles is the latest front in a broader transit accountability battle: BART can't produce the invoice for a consultant report it commissioned to argue fare enforcement was pointless, even as its own crime data shows the new fare gates are working. From encampment fires shutting down the Transbay Tube to safety records that DC politicians are ignoring, the gap between what the evidence says and what transit agencies do keeps growing.
SF Ballot Measures
San Francisco's Proposition D, the so-called "Overpaid Executive Tax," is on the June 2026 ballot—and critics say it's a massive bait-and-switch that exempts tech giants like Google while hitting grocery stores, pharmacies, and coffee shops with an 800% gross receipts tax hike. The measure doesn't tax CEOs at all; it taxes business revenue, meaning consumers bear the cost while executives pay nothing. With downtown SF still reeling from post-pandemic vacancies and companies like Stripe and Schwab already having fled the city's tax burden, the stakes for what's left of San Francisco's business ecosystem are high.
Tech & Startup Regulation
New York's S7263 — which would ban AI from answering medical, legal, and other professional questions — is headed for a full Senate floor vote after clearing committee 6-0, even as new research shows AI models outperforming physicians on diagnostic tests. Meanwhile, Anthropic and Google have moved to lock paying subscribers out of third-party tools, and a San Francisco lawsuit is challenging the license plate camera network that's solving one in ten reported crimes nationwide. The fight over what AI and surveillance tech can do — and who controls it — is moving from debate to courtrooms and legislatures right now.
Skilled Immigration
Blanket visa bans on nationalities like Venezuelans are snaring model legal immigrants in the dragnet — including a San Francisco family known for personally stopping crimes and saving lives, whose grandmother can't get a visitor visa to meet her newborn grandson. The policy forces an absurd choice: apply for a green card she doesn't want, or never visit at all. It's a flashpoint in the debate over whether Trump-era immigration restrictions are targeting bad actors or punishing exactly the kind of people America should want.
Tech Antitrust & M&A
California is moving to do what Congress couldn't: SB 1074 (the BASED Act), introduced last week by State Senator Scott Wiener, would ban Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft from self-preferencing their own products, mining competitor data, and tying marketplace access to other services. The bill targets companies with over $1 trillion in market cap and gives consumers, businesses, and the state AG independent authority to sue. If it passes, California becomes the de facto regulator of Big Tech platform conduct in the US.
CA Prop 36 (2024)
California's legislature is defying voters by refusing to fund Prop 36, the criminal sentencing reform measure that passed overwhelmingly in November 2024—effectively nullifying the results through budget inaction. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who just entered the 2026 governor's race, is calling out Sacramento directly, arguing that starving voter-approved measures of funding is a betrayal of democratic accountability. The fight over Prop 36's implementation is shaping up as a defining fault line in California's 2026 political landscape.
CA Prop 47 (2014)
A viral post highlighting open fenced-wine sales at 7th and Market in San Francisco is renewing debate over Prop 47's role in creating asymmetric consequences — maximum regulatory burden on law-abiding businesses, minimal deterrence for retail theft. The contrast is stark: restaurateurs navigate six months of permitting and nearly $2,400 in annual fees before legally pouring a glass, while stolen bottles move freely two blocks away. The episode illustrates the core tension Prop 47 critics have raised since 2014 — whether reducing theft penalties below felony thresholds has effectively decriminalized low-level property crime in practice.
SF Prop M (2024)
San Francisco's business tax overhaul, passed as Prop M in November 2024, is now at the center of a fresh fight: a proposed "CEO Tax" that critics say disguises a nearly 800% gross receipts tax hike on major employers behind populist branding. The battle comes as SF emerges as the only major U.S. tech hub with *growing* startup formation—up 24% since 2022 while rivals like Austin and NYC have cratered—making the stakes unusually high. Whether City Hall doubles down on tax reform or backs off could determine whether SF consolidates its AI-era dominance or hands it to competitors.
San Francisco
San Francisco's June 2026 ballot features Prop D, an "Overpaid CEO Tax" that critics say is structured to exempt major tech companies while hitting grocery stores and pharmacies with an 800% rate hike. Meanwhile, SFUSD's board just approved a contested ethnic studies curriculum through a $147,000 review process that lacked any defined passing threshold, prompting an immediate legal challenge under open-meetings law. These fights over taxes, schools, and broken housing promises — like SFMTA's admission that 365 of 465 pledged affordable units were never actually funded — reflect a city where the gap between official commitments and reality keeps widening.
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 tools helping Californians make sense of the June 2 primary — submit your picks before voting opens. Meanwhile, BART is under fire on two fronts: a public records request revealed the agency can't locate the invoice for a consultant hired to argue fare enforcement was pointless, even as encampment fires — including one BART knew about — shut down the Transbay Tube for over 12 hours.
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
Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents the heart of Silicon Valley, just co-introduced a bill with Bernie Sanders that would impose a 5% annual wealth tax on unrealized gains — paper wealth that can't actually be spent. The proposal puts Khanna in the awkward position of targeting the founders and engineers who are literally his constituents. Meanwhile, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is emerging as the region's most consequential policy story: after cutting construction fees, the city went from zero market-rate homes built in 2024 to 2,000 breaking ground in 2025 — and Mahan is now running that playbook statewide in a gubernatorial bid.
Sacramento
Sacramento is blocking transparency on two fronts at once: a Rules Committee chair just killed bipartisan bills that would have made lobbying letters public, while a bill moving through the Legislature could let government-funded immigration nonprofits sue journalists who report on them. Meanwhile, the state's own nonpartisan analyst confirms California is running $20–30 billion structural deficits annually—spending grew 10 points faster than revenue since the pandemic—with the governor's race now heating up around exactly these failures of fiscal management and accountability.
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's S7263, which would ban AI chatbots from answering medical, legal, and other professional questions, is heading for a full Senate floor vote after clearing committee 6-0—threatening to eliminate the only affordable option millions of people have for basic professional guidance. Meanwhile, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is raiding reserve funds and hiking property taxes to finance rent freezes, city-run grocery stores, and the elimination of gifted school programs—policies economists widely condemn and that wealthy families can simply opt out of with $75,000 private school tuition checks. New York is becoming the test case for whether progressive governance can survive contact with math.
Oakland
Oakland's gun violence crisis is more concentrated than most realize — new analysis of the city's own Ceasefire program finds that less than 0.5% of residents drive the majority of homicides, and that targeting those networks (not guns broadly) cut shootings in half between 2012 and 2017. Meanwhile, the city is grappling with the worst property crime rate in America, a historic low of 509 police officers, and a Coliseum site it can't sell — all while a February encampment fire knocked out BART's Transbay Tube for 12 hours despite the agency having warned Oakland about the hazard beforehand.
Berkeley
A leptospirosis outbreak at Berkeley's Harrison Street encampment—a tropical disease rare in developed countries—finally forced a cleanup in April 2026 after courts blocked the city for 16 months while rats spread the bacteria through the site. The case has become a flashpoint for the debate over judicial injunctions that prevent cities from addressing dangerous encampment conditions. Meanwhile, Berkeley's Robert Reich is under scrutiny for championing a California wealth tax targeting unrealized gains while earning nearly $400K annually to teach two hours a week—and blocking affordable housing in his own neighborhood.
East Bay
Berkeley's Harrison Street encampment—where rats tested positive for leptospirosis—is finally being cleared after 16 months of court-ordered delays, exposing how legal injunctions can override public health emergencies. Meanwhile, Richmond reversed course and voted to reinstate its Flock Safety license plate readers after shutting them down over an ICE data-sharing concern that had already been resolved, a decision that cost the city a 33% spike in vehicle thefts.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles is facing mounting scrutiny over its homeless housing spending after a former Ramada Inn sat empty for four years at a cost of $625,000 per unit — while the people it displaced remain unaccounted for. The scandal has renewed a broader debate over LA mayoral candidate Nithya Raman's platform, which critics say tries to combine rent freezes with new construction in a way that housing economists and developers say is mathematically impossible. Both stories point to the same question: why does LA keep spending more on homelessness and housing while getting less?
Seattle
Washington State's proposed 9.9% "millionaire's tax" is rattling the tech industry, spooking NBA investors eyeing a Sonics return, and pushing founders to plan exits from Seattle — with critics warning the threshold actually hits dual-income professional households, not just the ultra-wealthy. Meanwhile, street outreach workers in Seattle and San Francisco are publicly contradicting the housing-first consensus, reporting that many people living outside already have apartments but remain on the streets due to addiction.
Peninsula
Stanford's skyrocketing disability registration rate — now at 38% of undergraduates — is drawing sharp scrutiny, with critics arguing elite students are gaming accommodation systems for perks like single dorm rooms and extra test time. The trend highlights a growing gap between how disability services function at prestigious universities versus community colleges, where rates hover around 3-4%. For Peninsula residents in the shadow of Stanford, the debate cuts to the heart of fairness, institutional trust, and what "merit" actually means at America's top schools.