It’s time for another recap of all the news we here at the McGeorge Capital Center for Law & Policy have been thinking about this past week.

 

 

 

CBC News and the Toronto Star

‘I’m getting ripped off’: A look inside Ticketmaster’s price-hiking bag of tricks by Dave Seglins, Rachel Houlihan, Valérie Ouellet, and William Wolfe-Wylie

Jon’s take: I used to go to a lot more concerts than I do now. There’s a number of reasons for that, but one the biggest reasons was that I go sick of seeing the face value for a ticket, getting to checkout, and after service fees essentially paying twice the face value of the ticket. I got sick of giving Ticketmaster my money, and when I do go to concerts now I mostly go to venues like Ace of Spades here in Sacramento that use Eventbrite for ticket sales. Long story short, this article gave me a new crop of reasons to not be a fan of Ticketmaster. And serious props to the journalists at the Toronto Star and CBC News for some excellent investigative journalism.

 

 

 

Orange County Register

California tries to make the world play by our rules by Tom Campbell

Chris’s take: I respect Professor Campbell’s perspective on this pending legislation and so many other issues that he has offered his perspective on over the years. I enjoyed working with him while he was briefly in the State Senate and then as Director of the Department of Finance under Governor Schwarzenegger. He has served as the Dean at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and then as Dean of Fowler School of Law at Chapman University. What an amazing public servant.

I am particularly interested in this op-ed because I worked on the legislation that he write about – SB 826 (Jackson), which is pending final action by the Governor prior to September 30. And I agree with Professor Campbell about his point that California might try to impose its societal views on the rest of the country if it can impose requirements on out-of-state incorporated businesses. Why couldn’t California impose its labor laws or tax laws on foreign corporations, for example?

 

 

 

The Hill

Trump attacks on Session may point to his departure by Olivia Beavers and Jacqueline Thomsen

Molly’s take: ‘Another one bites the dust’ is the song that comes to mind when I check off all of the officials that President Trump has either fired, forced to resign, or had unexpectedly quit. It seems that Attorney General Sessions may be safe until after the midterm elections, but after that, one can only guess.

Trump stated that he doesn’t “have an attorney general.”

Well it seems to me that President Trump will be uprooting another position in the Executive Branch, and everyone on the Hill is expecting it. The question is when.

HuffPost

California’s Largest Wildfire Has Finally Been Contained by Antonia Blumberg

Molly’s take: After a fire-filled year, the U.S. Forest Service says the largest wildfire on record in California is 100 percent contained.  All I can say, is ‘Thank You’ to the hardworking firefighters who are tirelessly working on putting out the fire. Over 720 square miles have been burned since July when the fire began.

As someone who has seen their previous homes burned by fires, this article hit me particularly hard. Memories of cutting grass around the family home and seeing scorch marks across the side of the garage were brought back. This year, my family was lucky, our home was not at risk. The same cannot be said for hundreds of families across California, including classmates and friends here at McGeorge, who lost their homes.

As we continue into the colder season, hopefully, we will stop smelling smoke and ash and prepare for another fire season next year.