California House Republicans support narrow approval of budget, tax overhaul
McClatchy DC's EMILY CADEI: "All 14 House Republicans from California voted for their party’s budget Thursday, helping to narrowly advance Republican efforts to rewrite the tax code for the first time in more than 30 years."
"The plan also jeopardizes a tax write-off that disproportionately benefits Californians and others in high-tax, high-income states, setting off alarms from Golden State Democrats."
"Republican leaders have yet to introduce a full draft of their tax legislation, but the “framework” they released in September would eliminate most itemized deductions to pay for the deep income and corporate tax cuts it proposes. The biggest write-off on the chopping block is the state and local tax deduction. In 2015, federal data shows that more than 6 million California taxpayers claimed the deduction, worth $112.5 billion. That’s more than any other state, according to the Tax Foundation, a right-of-center tax policy research organization. California is one of just six states, along with New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas and Pennsylvania, that together claimed more than half of all state and local tax deduction dollars in 2014, the foundation says."
Inside a Capitol fight over housing
Capitol Weekly's NIK BONOVICH: "The housing crisis — “debacle” might be a better way of putting it — has no quick or easy solution. For decades, housing production has not kept up with population growth in California, leaving Californians to struggle with soaring bills, longer commutes and more people living under one roof."
"State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), representing a district that includes some of the highest rents in the nation, shepherded Senate Bill 35, which seeks to expedite construction when local governments do not meet their housing goals. It was part of a package of housing bills that made it through the Legislature this year and were signed by Gov. Brown."
As Harvey Weinstein scandal spreads, talent agenices and guilds face tough questions
LA Times' DAVID NG/JOSH ROTTENBERG: "Behind every major Hollywood actress is her “team” — that invisible group of agents, managers and lawyers who are discretely thanked during Oscar acceptance speeches and who wield enormous power behind the scenes to shape their clients’ careers."
"Not every actress is fortunate enough to have her own team. But even the greenest of showbiz newcomers can at least count on the support of SAG-AFTRA, whose mission is to fight for the rights of its 160,000 members."
Here's why Republicans could help send Dianne Feinstein back to washington -- even if they can't stand here
LA Times' MARK Z. BARABAK: "Larry Ward is no fan of Dianne Feinstein."
"Time to retire,” he says of the Democratic senator from California. “Too old."
"Coming from a Republican such as Ward, that’s hardly surprising. He’d have gladly been rid of Feinstein a long time ago."
Trump calls billionaire activist Tom Steyer 'wacky' and 'unhinged'
LA Times' SARAH D. WIRE: "President Trump called Democratic megadonor Tom Steyer "wacky" and "unhinged" Friday after apparently seeing an ad that features the San Francisco billionaire calling for Trump to be impeached."
"The 60-second television ad has been running for nearly a week, and has been spotted during World Series broadcasts, but it was its appearance during "Fox and Friends" on Friday morning that might have caught Trump's attention."
"Trump tweeted shortly after the ad ran that Steyer "has been fighting me and my Make America Great Again agenda from the beginning," adding the billionaire environmentalist "never wins elections!"
Supreme Court weighs challenge to California's abortion disclosure law: Does it violate free speech?
LA Times' DAVID G. SAVAGE: "The Supreme Court is weighing whether to hear an anti-abortion group’s challenge on free speech grounds to a California law that requires “crisis pregnancy centers” — which advocate alternatives to the procedure — to also advise clients that the state offers free or low-cost contraception and assistance in ending their pregnancy."
"The justices could announce as early as Monday whether they will hear the case, the latest in a series of clashes pitting the 1st Amendment against the state’s power to regulate the medical profession."
SF looks to Oakland as it plans to regulate recreational pot sales
The Chronicle's RACHEL SWAN: "A controversial Oakland cannabis law — which prompted a year of scrappy, knock-down political fights before it finally passed in March — has become a blueprint for lawmakers in San Francisco."
"As the Board of Supervisors looks to approve a complex set of ordinances to regulate the sale of recreational marijuana next year, its members are turning to Oakland as a model, saying they want to uphold the same social justice credos that inspired the East Bay city’s equity permit program."
"The idea: use these regulations as an opportunity to right the wrongs of the federal war on drugs and its disproportionate punishment of black and brown people and to create an industry that welcomes entrepreneurs of all races and income levels, not just people with political connections and access to capital."
Sonoma County hazard plan foresaw deadly Wine Country fire
The Chronicle's JOAQUIN PALOMINO/KIMBERLEY VEKLEROV: "On a hot September night in 1964, 70-mph winds pushed a cascade of flames through the dry vegetation of Mark West Canyon and into the outer edges of Santa Rosa, destroying more than 100 homes and burning 52,000 acres."
"Until this month, that blaze, known as the Hanley Fire, was the worst in modern Sonoma County history, and the path it carved was remarkably similar to the one the devastating Tubbs Fire would follow a half century later."
"Local officials had long been aware that another tragic wildfire was a possibility. As recently as last spring, a Sonoma County report on potential hazards facing the region cautioned that a fire comparable to the Hanley blaze could cause “catastrophic damage to the county and the city of Santa Rosa."
Pentagon chief Mattis stresses diplomacy in Korean crisis
AP's ROBERT BURNS: "On his first visit to the tense but eerily quiet frontier between North and South Korea as U.S. secretary of defense, Jim Mattis conveyed the message he hopes will win the day: Diplomacy is the answer to ending the nuclear crisis with the North, not war."
"He made the point over and over - at the Panmunjom "truce village" where North literally meets South; at a military observation post inside the Demilitarized Zone, and in off-the cuff comments to U.S. and South Korean troops."
"We're doing everything we can to solve this diplomatically - everything we can," he told the troops after alighting from a Black Hawk helicopter that had ferried him to and from the border some 25 miles north of central Seoul."
They saved him from a terrible life in foster care. Now that decision could cost cop-killer's parents their home
Sacramento Bee's SAM STANTON: "In March 1996, when Tommy Littlecloud was in the fifth grade, an evaluation of how he was doing as an adopted child found positive results, except for a severe impairment for being “overly demanding of attention."
"Who could blame him?"
"Since he was a small child living in Tucson, Ariz., his life had been hell."
Government backtracks on release of JFK assassination files
Miami Herald's CAITLIN OSTROFF/GLENN GARVIN: "Blowing a deadline it had 25 years to prepare for, the federal government released some files on the Kennedy assassination Thursday night but announced it would hold others back for six months while the CIA and FBI try to convince President Donald Trump not to declassify them."
"The declassification of the secret files was mandated in a 1992 law, which set Thursday as the deadline for their release. And Trump sent out a tweet Wednesday night that the documents were coming."
"But after a long day of squabbling with intelligence agencies who were determined to keep some of the documents secret, the president sent out a memo Thursday evening that about a fifth of the 3,600 or so files would be withheld for six months while the government studies them further."
Congressional committees probe Puerto Rico contract award
AP: "Multiple congressional committees are investigating a $300 million contract awarded to a small Montana company in the hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke that was tapped to help restore Puerto Rico's damaged power grid."
"The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority awarded the contract to tiny Whitefish Energy Holdings to restore transmission and distribution lines damaged or destroyed during Hurricane Maria. The 2-year-old company had just two full-time employees when the storm hit last month."
"In the House, leaders of the Natural Resources and Energy and Commerce committees sent letters Thursday seeking documents about the contract, saying circumstances surrounding the award raise troubling questions."
Former Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci's $25K donation to Simon Wiesenthal Center will be used to hunt down Nazi war criminals
OC Register's DEEPA BHARATH: "The Simon Wiesenthal Center will use a $25,000 donation from former White House spokesman Anthony Scaramucci to bolster efforts by “Nazi Hunter” Efraim Zuroff to help prosecute the last generation of Nazi war criminals and hold them accountable for the deaths of Jews during the Holocaust, center administrators in Los Angeles said Thursday, Oct. 26."
"Zuroff, an American-born Israeli historian, is the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, and has played a key role in bringing indicted Nazi and fascist war criminals to trial. He is now looking at a specific group of Nazis who formed the Einsatzgruppen, killer squads that would come in behind the military and mass murder Jews, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Los Angeles center."
"“Some of these individuals were also directly involved in herding Jews to the gas chambers,” he said. “They’ve lived long and continue to live in Germany without being indicted.”"
