Anyone who has reached the age of 90 just wants to get to the age of 90. We do not envision writing our 56th book, not to mention writing on a subject you have been studying for almost 50 years – education of the Black community. Thomas Sowell’s Charter Schools and Their Enemies defines the fact that Black students are not the problem. It is the grown-ups who make up the educational establishment that fails children.

This is not some jaunt in the park by Dr. Sowell while he pontificates about his thoughts on the value of charter schools. This is a scientific analysis done by Dr. Sowell, who is a world-respected economist. He starts the book by outlining the rules he followed to do comparative analysis. The procedures were as strict as can be within the circumstances.

The difference of performance between public school students and those of the charter school students is based on annual testing among schools within New York City. Many of these schools occupy the exact same buildings and have similar ethnic compositions which are 95% Black and Hispanics. One must wonder what the other 5% of the students are and you… Read More

There are many important propositions on the November ballot. In fact, all twelve props are significant and deserve your full attention. Nothing on the ballot is more important than votes on these issues. Of them all, the single most important is Proposition 15. It attempts to once again overturn the hallmark Proposition 13 that shook the world in 1978. This one is particularly devious, yet the only people who would not be harmed by its passing are public employees and their unions. Let me explain.

Proposition 15 would amend the California State Constitution to require commercial and industrial properties (except those zoned as commercial agriculture) to be taxed based on their market value. In California, the proposal would assess taxes on commercial and industrial properties at market value, while continuing to assess taxes on residential properties based on the purchase price. This has been referred to as “split roll.”

The ballot initiative would make an exception for properties whose business owners have $3 million or less in California holdings. These properties would continue to be taxed based on their purchase price. The ballot… Read More

The Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force provides recommendations in six areas of domestic policy which are a roadmap for what Biden and his team want to accomplish if he is elected president. Despite little discussion about public policy at their convention, this is a detailed plan for domestic policy. Today we will take a look at their plans for the education called Providing a World-Class Education in Every Zip Code.

There are two parts of the plan a 5-page narrative of what they want to do and then a 10-page description of their policy recommendations. This proposal contains very few new proposals. The task force that drafted this plan has the heads of the largest national teachers’ unions on it. A note: there is no statement of how much any of these proposals would cost or how they would be funded.

Here are some points of what they describe:

1. They want to ban both for-profit charter schools and for-profit colleges from receiving federal funding. The people who drafted this obviously need to understand that we operate in a capitalist system where profits are looked at as a positive. They don’t mention any… Read More

For those who have not been following the ongoing controversy, Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, which is led by Pastor John MacArthur, has been holding indoor church services since July 26 in defiance of a county order that bars indoor church service and only allows outdoor services under very strict attendance guidelines. Recently a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge issued an injunction against the church saying:

“While the court is mindful that there is no substitute for indoor worship in the ‘spiritual refuge’ of a sanctuary, the court cannot ignore the County Health Order does not dictate a ban on worship,” If there is no substitute for indoor worship, then an order banning that service is wrong. These are all rational people, who are voluntarily joining a service with full knowledge of the risks, in order to worship God in the way they want. An order by the government saying they can’t is not justified under any circumstance. I stand with Pastor MacArthur. We all should.

I’m going to go one step further. Any government official that enforces these orders, be they judge, health official, or elected official, is… Read More

This year the FlashReport is pleased, again, to partner with State Senator John Moorlach on exposing the very worst bills sitting on Governor Newsom’s desk.

Understand that there are hundreds of awful bills on the Governor’s desk worthy of veto. And it would be laudable if Governor Newsom would simply veto every bill. The main point being that this list is just a sampling. Every bill listed below is awful and as you read this list it is a painful reminder of the liberal super-majority in the State Capitol.

Without any further introduction, read it and weep… Take it from here Senator Moorlach… — Flash

Ten Terrible Bills in 2020 Governor Newsom Should Veto

By John M. W. Moorlach

This should not have been a “business as usual” year in the California Legislature. Fighting the pandemic should have been the first priority, followed by bills crucial to the state’s fiscal viability. Anything else could have been postponed to 2021. Indeed, I put off several important bills this year to focus on the most critical issues.

Despite a limit on the number of bills to be considered, the… Read More

In June of 2003, I held a town hall meeting in San Diego County, and, at the end of the meeting, a park ranger from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park came up to me and delivered an ominous warning. “I don’t know when,” he said, “but we will have a horrible fire here in San Diego County soon. The environmentalists in charge of our state parks are not removing the fuel, the underbrush, the weeds and the dead trees. When they catch fire, it will destroy a lot of land and a lot of homes.” He explained that, in the past, state park land management practices actually managed the land to minimize the danger to people and to nature. Fires happen, he said, but if the worst fuel dangers are removed before the fire, extinguishing it with minimal damage to humans is possible. He said, however, that state policies, adopted at the behest of enviro nuts (my words, not his), who believed in the policy of “letting nature take its course,” were putting lives and property at risk. Three months later, his predictions came true, and the “worst fires in the history of the state” destroyed homes and lives all throughout Southern… Read More

Here we go again. Huge “unexpected” California brush fires destroying hundreds of homes — not to mention lives lost. After the conflagration subsides, publicity-seeking politicians will overrun the area, consoling disconsolate homeowners — great photo ops. These political opportunists will then demonstrate their generosity by doling out OPM to victims, taking credit for the “charity” they provide.

And then, after a couple months of this posturing, no significant preventative measures will be adopted — even LOW COST non-coercive preventative measures.And yes, there ARE some cost-effective reforms that could be adopted that likely would save many and perhaps most of the houses now burning to the ground.

I’ve been writing about such reforms since the 2003 San Diego fire destroyed 330 homes in my Scripps Ranch subdivision. Indeed, I did a paid, five part, pro-con op-ed debate series with a big government advocate in theLos Angeles Times. It’s no longer available on their website, but fortunately I saved the entire debate in a blog article I did. The wisdom I imparted then… Read More

In a previous column, I wrote that the most important issue of this election is what happened to General Flynn with out-of-control government abuse. If Trump is not reelected the culprits will get away with it. Yet that is not the grinding issue of this election. It is the onslaught attempting to dismantle the First Amendment and now the Fourth Amendment being pushed by the Left. Unless the rest of America stands up here and now, we will have irreversible damage.

Republicans tend to focus on the Second Amendment (with justifiable reason) since the Left has attempted to take guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. Totalitarians take the guns out of the hands of their citizens; then when they strip rights away from the citizens, they cannot defend themselves. Follow the patterns of Erdogan in Turkey and Chavez/Maduro in Venezuela. These were wonderful countries until these despots systemically destroyed them and the rights of the citizens. The arguments for gun control are often insipid as the gun violence almost universally is done by people who illegally obtain guns. That will not be eliminated by new gun restrictions.

As important as that issue is, the… Read More