The departed administration of ex-Gov. Schwarzenegger has been thoroughly discredited, its record of bending public policy to the whims of campaign donors often demonstrated and his own lack of trustworthiness amply proven.

For starters when talking about possible changes in Prop. 13, it’s important never to forget that as with other California initiatives passed at the ballot box, the landmark property tax-cutting measure that passed handily in 1978 only can be changed via a popular vote.

No presidential candidate is hotter among California Republican activists today than Rick Perry, the Texas governor. Their infatuation with the jut-jawed, 27-year professional politician has extended to their pocketbooks for years. Californians have donated more than $500,000 to his campaigns since 2002.

Gov. Brown announced four appointments in an Aug. 11 press release, including a new director and chief deputy director for the state’s Dept. of Managed Health Care. All four are residents of Northern California.

For many years, it could have been standard to suggest that entering high school students look around their homerooms on the fall semester’s first day and notice everyone present. Because they could expect that one out of three of those students would not graduate with them.

Anti-union sentiment has always been strong in California, with today’s particular emphasis on resentment of public employee unions whose members’ pay and benefits sometimes equal or exceed the levels to which recession has reduced similar categories in private business.

There’s a two-word description for the loud whining that has followed release of nearly finalized new political district lines by the state’s rookie Redistricting Commission. Sour grapes. Some people and interests didn’t get what they wanted and expected, and now they’re vocally unhappy. But reality is those wishes were laughably unrealistic from the start.

It’s fair to say they did it to themselves. The future of California’s more than 400 municipal redevelopment agencies is completely unclear today, more than one month after Gov. Brown signed a budget-enabling bill that threatened to eliminate them.

It’s about time someone put the correct labels on efforts by Amazon.com to avoid paying any semblance of sales tax in California or anywhere else. Those labels: Greed and fear.

Want to know what a California high speed rail system might actually be like? What might be some strengths, flaws and weaknesses in current plans of the state commission working to get such a system built? Or who might ride it?