A few years back, I posited a scenario about California’s future if the effort to secede from the United States had succeeded. It was set in 2030, and described a decrepit and decaying California, destroyed by the collectivist mindset of its political leaders. These autocrats built a wall around California, except along the Mexican border (that would have been racist), to prevent Californians from leaving. I have taken to calling it the “Sierra Wall”, since it would be built on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and would lock Californians into the socialist dystopia engineered by the leftist political leaders that currently run California.

California is close to that dystopian future now. The elected officials in California are authoritarians, quite willing to use the political power the people have leased to them to punish their opponents as criminals, and let the real criminals go free. The political press, with few exceptions, is little more than a propaganda machine for the California political elite (since investigative journalism is passe, it seems), and that elite has little or no problem corralling the citizens with… Read More

I have known and liked Kevin Muldoon for many years. I had always considered Muldoon to be a committed conservative activist, standing tall on issues when others would fade into the background. I was pleased to play a role in helping Muldoon get elected to the Newport Beach City Council. That said, it turns out I didn’t really know Kevin, or at least I didn’t know about an important character flaw of Kevin’s until these last couple of months.

Kevin cares only about Kevin. Narcissism is a trait that serves nobody well. And it can hurt our communities badly at those times when politics needs to be a team sport in order to win.

That character flaw is the single greatest factor in ultra-liberal Katrina Foley winning last week’s special election for Orange County’s Supervisor. And the worst part is, Kevin knew before he filed that he could not win. Let me walk you through the past few months to explain.

Orange County Supervisor Michelle Steel started running for Congress shortly after the ink was dry on Harley Rouda’s certificate of election, after Rouda defeated long-time Congressman Dana Rohrabacher in 2018. She was termed out of her… Read More

An excellent SAN DIEGO U-T article details a study of the TOTAL gasoline taxes paid by Californians. It costs more than even I realized. We are the highest gas tax state — even higher than tax-crazed Hawaii.

The study concludes that thetotalCA gas tax currently is $1.19 a gallon. But according to my calculations, it’s even more. Included are some arcane taxes and mandates disguised as “fees.”

EXCERPT: • The federal government charges an excise tax of 18.4 cents per gallon.

• Plus, there’s a state sales tax. It can vary by area but the Stillwater analysis estimated the sales tax averages 10.7 cents per gallon. Put together, Californians pay 79.6 cents per gallon in gas taxes.

Now for thefeesNoda says are often overlooked:

• Underground Storage Tank fee of 2 cents per… Read More

California legislators rarely meet the test of being “profiles in courage” – at least not formally. Just the opposite is more typical. Voting behavior of state lawmakers isn’t at all courageous. Data shows that votes are cast only after they are okayed by a preferred special interest or the particular House leadership.

That changed with the arrival of Bob Hertzberg in the state Senate. In time he took on the state’s really big issues. Right or wrong, he seized on California’s major problems, focusing on winning bi-partisan solutions.

Hertzberg, a Democrat, didn’t immediately fit the profile-in-courage standard, though. He was not a purposeful contrarian or a Party maverick – nearly all of his votes went the direction his leadership set for their caucuses. And, his first effort to push major legislation was a flop.

Consider that a few years back, Hertzberg dared take on the entire business community in California by issuing a report on the state sales tax. In the report, the junior member of the Senate advocated that private businesses and real estate enterprises pay a new tax, based on sales.

With the introduction of… Read More

Handing a government over to one political party does not always end with disastrous results. There are times when single party leadership avoids massively bad policies and destruction. But it is especially likely to occur when that one party leadership remains in control for long periods of time. The current pandemic has allowed for some of the worst examples of why not to hand over your government to one party — whether at the municipal, state or federal level.

Currently, the shining examples of this at the state level are the two bad boys of governorship – Andrew Cuomo in New York and Gavin Newsom in California. There are other examples who somehow manage to get obscured. Illinois is a perfect example with J.B. Pritzker, that man who inherited Hyatt millions, never had to work a day in his life and bought himself a shiny new toy – Illinois Governorship. He is aided and abetted by Chicago Mayor Laurie Lightfoot — that superstar of duplicity — and was until recently urged on by Michael Madigan, Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives for nearly 40 years. These Illini have done a marvelous job of destroying a once great state, but we will… Read More

Many mainstream Republicans have watched as elements of the party have changed, particularly with the desertion of the non-public union middle class from the Democrats. Some like George Will display a level of discomfort with the new elements of the party that were particularly attracted to our last President. Will’s January 22, 2021, column epitomizes how his ilk have no comprehension of what the party believes while he fuels the minds of the Republicans’ political opposition.

He starts his column by saying that immigration is the sincerest form of flattery. Thank you, but we all know that. The question has been how and how many. That question has been the overarching concern for Republicans for at least 50 years or since the 1965 passing of Ted Kennedy’s Immigration Bill. That bill radically changed both the number and nature of our immigrants despite being pitched as maintaining existing standards.

Will goes on to tell his readers that Republicans are out of the mainstream. He reveals to us a Gallup poll saying 77% of Americans think immigration is a good thing. That is not surprising because poll participants probably know an immigrant and know… Read More

A lot of California legislators think just “one more small addition” to the cost of housing won’t matter. “After all,” they say housing in California is so expensive anyway that a modest new tariff “won’t be noticed.”

So, the added charge is routinely assigned to housing – presumably to appease some special interest, though it’s hard to imagine a group cheering more and more individuals being priced out of housing markets.

Now comes a study, commissioned by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), which shows those additional costs have consequences. The study says that for every $1,000 added the cost of a new home chases over 150,000 families from housing markets, nationwide.

In California, the state loses over 12,000 homebuyers for every $1,000 added to the cost of a home, according to the study. (An additional $1,000 – through offensive policies and regulations – is a no-brainer here in the state, by the way.)

What should this finding say to lawmakers? Especially those in California, where the median-priced home exceeds $700,000? Simple: added costs matter a lot so stop asking housing to do all sorts of new… Read More

Over and over, I’m reminded that, as a geezer educated in a different time, I must be careful not to use references that many in my audience won’t understand, thanks to their subpar education.

Now, that assertion doubtless sounds offensive to some, but I’m NOT talking about their INTELLIGENCE, which doubtless is equally as good as previous generations. It’s just that in the last 40 years or so, what is taught as history in schools is both biased and highly selective. You can’t learn from the lessons of history if you don’t firststudyhistory.

Recently I mentioned the stunning parallel between Antifa and the NAZI Brownshirts. My bad. Few under age 50 grasped the significance of my reference.

TO REVIEW: The Brownshirts were founded in 1920 by Hitler and his allies. They were the driving force that brought Hitler to power in 1933. The Brownshirts were a highly organized, private militia who wore brown uniforms. Their goal was to oppress — bully, intimidate and literally beat — any opposition. They were quite successful.

Like Antifa, the Brownshirts seldom used firearms.… Read More