Everyone wishes success to our incoming President. Unlike the crowd that hated Trump, Republicans will not be sitting with their voodoo dolls sticking pins into them in hopes of Biden falling on his face. As much as I would like to applaud Biden’s $1.9 Trillion stimulus plan, it would be an act of economic insanity to do such. Let me explain why.

First and foremost, Congress just passed a $900 billion bill to stimulate the economy. Virtually none of that has been spent. Some people have received stimulus checks, but the vast majority of the law is still being dissected. Why would we commit an extensive amount of new funds when we have not even spent the recently approved funds? It is unclear that all the monies were spent from the Cares Act in March 2020. The answer is this is not really economic relief. This is a Democrat hodgepodge of a wish list along with union mollification. That is not for reasons of economics.

One would also expect that Biden’s economic team would have a handle on what is going on in our economy. The facts are common knowledge; they do not need to get transition briefings from the Trump team. Americans made $1 trillion more in the… Read More

In 1982 James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling wrote an article espousing the Broken Windows Theory. Simply stated, it says if you let small crimes and evidence of such become apparent it will lead to larger and more specific crimes. In effect, it gives people a license to continue on misbehaving as they have clear indication that people don’t care to stop the errant behavior. Otherwise, fix the broken windows.

This theory was adopted by then-newly elected Mayor of NYC, Rudy Guiliani, and his police commissioners. Its adoption was responsible for cleaning up our largest city after decades of decay. Unfortunately, Democrats and their Leftist allies never accepted this theory despite the clear results and characterized it as they do everything these days as racist.

This summer Americans sat locked in their homes watching the disintegration of our cities in what was determined by many elected officials and talking heads to be righteous actions. Most Americans did not accept the actions of the miscreants. They did not accept the destruction of businesses and the livelihoods of their fellow citizens along with their employees’ jobs. They detested the burning of… Read More

I didn’t like the President’s speech on January 6th. I thought he was wrong to assert that the Vice President and Congress can pick and choose which electoral votes to count. He was wrong to set such a confrontational tone in a politically tense situation.

But what did he actually say? His exact words were, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” That’s impeachable? That’s called freedom of speech.

He also threatened to oppose candidates in future elections. By the way, that was directed at Republicans like me who had resolved to uphold the constitutional process and protect the Electoral College. So what? That’s called politics.

If we impeached every politician who gave a fiery speech to a crowd of partisans, this Capitol would be deserted. That’s what the President did. That’s all he did. He specifically told the crowd to protest “peacefully and patriotically.” The vast majority of them did.

But every movement has a lunatic fringe.

Suppressing free speech is not the answer; holding rioters accountable for their actions is the… Read More

Mr. Speaker:

What a sad and ominous way to begin the 117th Congress! Hasn’t this body done enough in the last session to divide our country and abuse our Constitution without carrying that damage into the new session?

The 25th Amendment specifically addresses the incapacity of the President to discharge the duties of his office. It was NEVER intended as a political weapon when Congress doesn’t LIKE THE WAY he discharges those duties.

I read his speech. He never suggested rampaging the Capitol and disrupting the Congress. He urged them to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

Many of us Republicans joined a bipartisan vote to respect the votes of the Electoral College, despite our suspicions, misgivings and fervent desires.

We did this because the Constitution commanded it and our institutions depended on it.

Today, those same principles should compel a bipartisan vote to oppose this grotesque abuse of the 25th Amendment.

Last week, the majority argued the President tried to abuse the Constitution to overturn the votes of the Electoral College. He asserted no direct power; rather, he urged the… Read More

As the supply of California housing dwindles more and more local officials – desperate to do something in response – are wrongly placing affordability mandates on new development and, thereby, killing production.

These mandates – the most popular being inclusionary zoning – demand that locals won’t approve a housing project until the developer agrees to provide a certain percentage of its units at below-market prices or rents. (The below-market homes are usually built on site – to socially engineer the residency.)

Although there is lukewarm opposition at the Capitol to imposing this policy statewide, it has become the law in about 140 local communities around the state – usually enjoying the force of a locally authorizing ordinance. Ironically, as the housing problem worsens, the mandate is increasing in popularity.

As it exists here in California, inclusionary zoning works like this: Let’s say you wanted to build 100 homes on 30 acres you own. (When you bought the land it was already zoned for single-family housing so at least that part of the seemingly endless approval process is behind you.) You look to sell the homes anywhere from… Read More

Supposedly our election rules are left to the states. The problem is most people seem not to care about anything other than our biennial elections for the Congress and the President every four years. Bill de Blasio — the worst mayor in American history — was elected by just 8% of NYC voters. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was thrust on the American scene by winning a primary that was arguably tantamount to a general election with just 16,898 votes. It is time to clean up this mess. The problem is the political parties are worlds apart.

The Democrats have done much to loosen election rules. They argue that even simple rules are voter suppression. That is even though they know the inherent problems with cleaning voter rolls maintained at the county level. Just dealing with the deceased is a major problem. Almost 3 million Americans die every year. That means nearly six million dead people are potentially on voter rolls since the last biennial election, not including ones never removed in past elections. Then there are the people who have moved. Forty million Americans move every year many between states or at least change jurisdictions within… Read More

Crises often see bad information spread faster than good. Denial and deception efforts are frequently employed to create confusion around events, obscuring the truth.

I observed the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection from a television studio on Constitution Avenue, right above the Capitol grounds. Many of those who attended the rally earlier that day stayed at my hotel on the edge of Georgetown.

The first step in learning from events is to understand the truth, separating fact from rumor. During and after Wednesday’s events, rumors quickly circulated online that the perpetrators of violence were really members of “Antifa” in disguise, donning Trump garb to make Trump supporters look bad. There is no evidence to support this.

Concurrently, those who committed acts of sedition and insurrection on Wednesday are not Republicans in any meaningful sense of the word. No legitimate Republican who believes in the values of our party would attack peace officers, invade a federal building, destroy and desecrate the Capitol, and do so while marching under the… Read More

From a television studio on Constitution Avenue, I looked down on the United States Capitol in the hours after a group of seditionists failed in their vile and shameful attempt to take over the building.

In watching the events of earlier that day, it became clear that despite their stated support for a Republican president, there was nothing Republican about these people whatsoever. The violent hooligans, some of whom would call themselves Republicans, are the real RINOs – Republicans in Name Only.

No genuine Republican who shares the values at the heart of our party would assault peace officers, break into a federal building, vandalize our most sacred symbols of democracy and “hunt for the Vice President,” all while carrying a Confederate battle flag. No, there’s nothing Republican or conservative about these vile people.

Most of them don’t identify with the Republican Party anyway. These are people who have nothing but disdain for the Republican Party, a party of conservative philosophy… Read More