Letters & Opinions

The Legislature has a chance to modernize the state’s alcohol shipping laws and allow consumers to buy distilled spirits like they do wine. In 1986 when the Legislature allowed the wine industry to ship their product to consumers through direct mail there were roughly 700 wineries in the state generating about $5 billion in sales. Now California is approaching 4,000 wineries that generate $40 billion a year.

There are two main paths to acquiring citizenship in the United States and a few minor ones. The first is to be born here. The others are via legal immigration, birth abroad to a U.S. citizen, and certain adoptions.

Comparing the Kim Potter and Alec Baldwin cases is a powerful illustration of the missing element in our criminal justice system. Prosecutors are granted broad discretion in who they charge, so that they may consider the totality of circumstances and provide something that the literal interpretation of laws can’t -- justice. But the Potter and Baldwin cases show just how far astray from that goal our systems have wandered.

The program aims to provide funding to protect and conserve California’s deserts, a large and incredibly biodiverse region. There is truly nothing like experiencing a desert oasis. My favorite such place in California is the Amargosa River, which flows intermittently for 185 miles from Nevada into eastern California.

With the turn of the calendar to 2022, Republicans are not only looking to the 2022 midterm elections but to the prospect of Donald Trump running in 2024. Trump is hugely popular with the party’s base and that popularity freezes the plans of other possible candidates for the 2024 nomination. Trump’s hold on that nomination is brittle, however, because of his age. On election day in 2024 Donald Trump will be 78 years old. That is one year older than Ronald Reagan’s age when he left office in 1988.