There are many joys of being a Californian. The price of housing, the price of gas and the price of electricity are just a few. One that is not discussed is how our elected leaders are constantly changing the laws under which we are governed. This is one of the worst aspects of our “independent press” which barely discusses the matter. It has become custom for California’s full-time legislature to justify their collective existence by feeling compelled to propose a laundry list of new bills to become law. Each member can submit fifty bills in every two-year session. With 120 members, there could be 6,000 bills every session or 3,000 bills annually. It seems that each member attempts to make that “quota.”

The number gets whittled down, but not by much. The amount of bills passed is significant: 2021 – 965 bills; 2022-998; 2023-1046. The Governor gets a hack at them once passed by the Assembly and State Senate, but maybe “hack” is not an appropriate verb here. In the first year of the session, he has 12 days from passing of the bills to sign them into law or veto. In year two, the governor has 30 days. Newsom signed into law:… Read More

Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, together with hundreds of Californians who served in his administration, gathered tonight at the California Museum for the 20th anniversary of Schwarzenegger’s historic swearing in.

Gov. Schwarzenegger appointed me to the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection in 2005, earning me my invite to the event. In this column I’m sharing why I’m glad I attended, and some lessons from those times.

In a state which has been trending toward the Democrats since 1958, Schwarzenegger’s success owes to his pulling together a broad coalition that went well beyond the traditional Republican base. There wasn’t a choice – if he had not done so, there would never have been a Governor Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis would have gone on to serve out a full second term.

I was Chairman of the Republican Party of San Diego County, and President of our County Chairmen’s Association, when the 2003 recall campaign was launched. It was an electric campaign filled with intense drama over whether the recall campaign would secure the necessary signatures (thank you, Darrell Issa), then who would enter the race, Tom McClintock… Read More

It did not take long for Israel’s enemies to call for a cease fire in their current fight against Hamas and the terrorists in Gaza. To state it accurately, there were parties calling for a cease fire prior to Israel taking any military action. A cease fire does need to occur, but the parties are focused on the wrong war. A cease fire in Israel is out of the question. The Biden Administration should abandon trying to garner votes in the 2024 Presidential election and draw up a real plan. We have a blueprint for that plan, from two instances in World War II. First, Israel needs to demand complete and total surrender of Hamas and its offshoots. Anything less will mean the eventual reconstruction of these sinister forces who impoverished the people in Gaza to accomplish their principal goal – obliterating Israel. After 18 years and multiple attempts to work with the terrorists, we saw their end game on October 7th. Next, a provisional government must be put in place, one that establishes the elements of a functional society. That means a new constitution that does not include the obliteration of Israel but includes freedom of… Read More

This is my third, and final, comment on the trial of John Eastman. In my first article, I commented on how the entire proceeding is wrong, because Eastman did nothing more than advise a client about available remedies for the alleged voting wrongs in the 2020 elections. That his advice has some basis in the law is the fact that, in 2022, Congress voted to change the law because it saw that Eastman was right in his interpretation of the Electoral Count Act (ECA) in effect in 2020, and Congress wanted to foreclose future challenges to Electoral College slates from states where there is accusations of voting irregularities. In 2020, the law allowed the remedy proposed by Eastman to the Trump campaign, now it does not. Whether one disagrees with that interpretation of the ECA or not is not grounds to pursue disciplinary proceedings against a lawyer with whom the Bar disagrees, even if a majority of lawyers think that lawyer was wrong.

My second article pointed out, as proof that this proceeding is politically motivated, that the State Bar has been slow to prosecute real criminality by lawyers that has caused real damage to clients, like failing for years to pursue an… Read More

Yesterday I talked about how the prosecution of John Eastman by the California State Bar lacks substance. Professor Eastman was doing nothing more than counseling the campaign of President Donald Trump on the remedies available under the Electoral Count Act in effect in 2020 for the constitutional violations of state law regarding the counting of votes in battleground states. The fact that Congress went through the effort of changing the Electoral Count Act in 2022 after Professor Eastman opined on the remedies the old act provided is proof, in and of itself, that there was some merit in the opinions of Professor Eastman about the remedies afforded under the old act. Any act of disciplining him for giving his client legal options is political theater, not enforcing the Rules of Professional Conduct or protecting the reputation of the bar.

During my time in the State Legislature, I was a critic of the State Bar, who I, as well as other legislators (such as Senator Bill Morrow), accused of being less concerned about protecting the public than it was in pursuing politics. Our efforts to reign in the political proclivities of the State Bar came to naught when Gray… Read More

There is no way to describe the show trial by the California State Bar against John Eastman other than a gross abuse of power. That any government agency in our free nation would pursue the law license of a lawyer for expressing his reasonable opinion regarding the law for his client is shocking and dangerous to any citizen that cares about freedom and may need, at some point in their life, representation by a zealous lawyer.

For those of you who have not been following the developments of this kangaroo court of a hearing, John Eastman wrote a memorandum for the Trump Campaign advising them of their rights to challenge the outcome of the election in 2020. He analyzed the facts of the election, the law regarding the counting of Electoral College votes, and advised of potential actions available to challenge the counting of those votes. I want to address in this article how he was correct on the law, and in the next two articles just how destructive to freedom this trial truly is.

First, the law.

The presidential election of 2020 was very unique. The alleged pandemic was used to justify the use of executive and judicial power in a number of… Read More

The October 7th murderous terrorist attacks in Israel led to protests erupting on many college campuses. These protests were both verbal and somewhat physical on Israel and the Jewish people while Israel had yet to engage militarily. These protests were justifiably branded by many as anti-Semitic. There have been many calls for changes at numerous colleges. The only effective way to do that is by dismantling their DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs. It is quite apparent that the connection is true. The explosion of anti-Semitism on campuses correlates to the growth of DEI staffing on college campuses. The more DEI staffing, the greater increase in spreading the poison of DEI results and disenfranchisement of disfavored groups like Jews. Harvard is arguably the centerpiece of the anti-Semitism battle. After 34 student groups immediately protested against Israel, there was an immense backlash both nationally and from donors. Harvard’s president attended their Hillel’s Shabbat dinner (though not immediately) and denounced the school’s long history of anti-Semitism. This was a failed attempt to distract people from the current rampant anti-Semitism… Read More

When I was growing up there was no question who was in charge of me. It was my parents. I was blessed with going to one of the finest public-school systems at the time — Shaker Heights, Ohio. It was clear the schools were responsible for educating me to read, write, learn mathematics and science, and teach me about history, particularly American history. The responsibility ended there. Have things ever changed. I saw a transition when my own children attended school. The Beautiful Wife and I chose to send them to a Jewish school system. We knew of the degradation of the public-school systems (in the ‘90’s) and wanted our children to have our Jewish values reinforced during the long school days they experienced. When they were in elementary school the only indoctrination they were subject to was spelling correctly and multiplication tables. Challenges began by the time they got to high school. There was a required health course that was a poorly disguised sex education course. Reviewing the curriculum, I questioned some of the materials and was told by the school headmaster it was a required course by the state of California for my children to… Read More