Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

I’ve been reading and subscribing to (in print and online) The Wall Street Journal for more than 30 years.

I’ve enjoyed the financial news reporting, a passion (and skill) of mine for decades. I’ve also enjoyed reading The Journal as an investor. It’s more sophisticated than most U.S. newspapers.

But under its relatively new owner Rupert Murdoch, I find The Journal is increasingly akin to a print version of Fox News, another one of Rupert’s creations.

To be sure, The Journal’s commentary always has been conservative, but now it is creeping into the news pages. One example is here.

It’s sad that a publication once respected for its insightful financial reporting is becoming more like a newsprint version of Fox.

For financial news, I increasingly go to Bloomberg, the Financial Times and the myriad investor forums that the Internet has brought us. The internet has changed the media landscape, as I have said many times before.

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San Francisco values (I mean “politics”) prevailed again tonight, as the Giants shut out the Rangers 9-0.

The team is hitting (nine runs on eight hits) — and pitching. Just one example: Pitcher Matt Cain has allowed no earned runs in the post-season.

I enjoyed watching the fans in the stands wearing Brian Wilson “beards” made of foam rubber. With those big, black, bushy beards, the next thing you know the S.F. detractors will be calling the team “ragheads.”

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First Barry Pruett’s mom is coming here to defend her son. Cool. Now Barry is blogging that he was “never supposed to say ‘San Francisco values’” — a now infamous pejorative remark during the county clerk-recorder race.

Barry cites a printed “draft” of his now infamous remark that said “San Francisco politics” instead of “San Francisco values.”

Trouble is, Steve Enos points to the statement again on Barry’s own Facebook page: “Barry W. Pruett vs. San Francisco Values #1 . . . it’s time to elect a new Clerk-Recorder who will fight for those Nevada County values we share.”

“After the misspeaking I had to own it then!” Barry responded. OK. Got it.

Then Steve pointed to a story from The Union on April 3 covering the candidate forum at the Grass Valley Vets Hall:

“Attorney Barry Pruett said the race ‘is the difference between San Francisco values and Nevada County values,’ referring to Diaz’ former locale.”

“Steve: that was the same speech about which we are discussing,” Barry wrote.

But there was no correction in the paper that he misspoke.

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I know of a household where one voter is decline to state and another is a registered GOP, and we laugh about the campaign mailers we get and compare notes.

The Dai Meagher campaign for county Treasurer is a case in point.

“Dai has signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge to oppose higher taxes,” reads the mailer sent to the registered GOP voter. (If you recall, this pledge touched off a firestorm of debate — and justifiably so — within the local Democratic Central Committee, which endorsed Dai despite opposition.) See video below with conservative taxpayer advocate Grover Norquist.

The mailers addressed to the Decline to State Voter include the so-called Voter Information Guides that are not “official” and “appearance is paid for and authorized by each candidate.”

In this case, Dai appears on the ballot with a host of Democrats. One of the mailers reads: “Republicans Meg Whitman and Carly Fiornia sent California jobs overseas, fired workers and then received millions in corporate bonuses. Don’t reward them.”

You get the drift.

In both mailers, Dai plays up his CPA and “22 years of accounting and financial experience.” It does not mention, however, that Dai received his CPA relatively recently — in 2006.

I remain undecided in this race. As I’ve said before, I’m disappointed in the campaigning by both sides.

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Carly Fiorina is making a final push to win her race for Senator, launching a “Retire Boxer Money Bomb” to raise $280,000 in the next 28 hours — $10,000 for every year boxer has spent in Washington.

“If we don’t fight back with everything we’ve got, we risk losing this election,” Carly writes in her email. “That’s why your immediate donation of any amount up to the $2,400 limit is needed right now.”

Fiornia has battled Boxer to a toss-up, though recent polls have shown Boxer pulling ahead.

President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton have held fundraisers for Boxer in the final days of the campaign, while the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee has given $8 million to Fiorina’s campaign.

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Proposition 23, the ballot measure that would suspend California’s progress toward a clean-energy economy, would be very bad news for California’s low income and minority communities, according to an editorial by Aubry Stone, chief executive of the California Black Chamber of Commcere.

“It would stifle job growth, an effect especially harsh in minority communities where unemployment is among the state’s highest. And it would stymie efforts to clean up some of the state’s most toxic facilities, areas where a disproportionate number of California’s minorities live,” Stone writes.

Clean energy jobs are one of the few bright spots in the recovering economy, according to Stone.

“Such communities – like Wilmington in the LA area where many of the toxic plants are located and the poverty rate is 25 percent – would benefit greatly from the solid, good-paying “green color” jobs a clean energy economy would bring,” he said.

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Cash-strapped governments are ramping up tax-collection efforts as huge projected budget deficits threaten to slash public services.

As school districts struggle with shrinking state funding, now they must cope with delinquent property tax revenue.

Suburban Washington D.C. localities are owned more than $40 million in overdue real estate taxes from fiscal 2010 alone, for example. The background is here.

“Before we start talking about tax hikes and laying off employees, we should find out what people owe us,” said incoming Council Chairman Kwame Brown in Montgomery County. “Then we need to figure out what we’re doing to get our money.”

“It’s a very frustrating situation,” said Elizabeth Arnold, a school official in Buckeye Lake, Ohio. She said district residents who are delinquent on their taxes strain the school’s budget. The details are here.

Another Catch-22 for the schools: It’s tough to pressure people into paying their taxes when these are the same people who vote on levies. “These are the people you want to be supportive of you,” said Arnold. “It’s a bad place to be.”

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