WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The California Mess Worsens. “Via Meadia has long thought of California as a failing state. A mix of tight regulatory and environmental restrictions that satisfy the aspirations of rich Californians with an influx of low skilled immigrants who desperately need a wide open economic environment even if that means lax regulations would be difficult to manage under the best of conditions. California’s powerful public unions with their culture of entitlement makes it all much harder; so too does the state’s messy governance with referendums and legislative deadlock combining to produce a truly dysfunctional system. It is all getting worse in a dismal cycle.”

Related: Mike Bloomberg Now Campaigning for Tax Hikes … in California. Because ruining the lives of New Yorkers isn’t enough, I guess.