People who have lived in California for much or all of their lives have little grasp of how badly our CA state and local governments hammer the population and businesses with exorbitant fees. In every area. The general rule of thumb is thatCA fees are at least triplethe average of the other states. And too often a LOT more. Arguably the Golden State is one giant Hazzard County — the fictitious corrupt county run by the comically evil Boss Hogg. This mythical locale was made famous by the “Dukes of Hazzard” TV series. Let’s compare some CA fees with the national fees. Two very different examples: 1. TRAFFIC FINES— Let’s consider the… Read More

Look at the first chart below from the Center for Disease Control (CDC). The number of weekly coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S. is plummeting. The latest week (7/11/20) shows 181 COVID-19-associated deaths — NATIONWIDE.

Compare that with the weekly deaths a month ago — 3,368. Two months ago it was 8,933. The number of weekly deaths has been dropping dramatically EVERY WEEK since mid-April’s weekly peak at 16,897. I say again: DROPPING — EVERY — SINGLE — WEEK.

Let me assure you that this drop in deaths is all Trump’s fault.

No . . .wait . . . lessdeaths is bad for Democrats. Ergo, doubtless NONE of this death rate plunge is due to Trump’s policies.

There — glad that we got THAT straightened out.

BTW, based on these OFFICIAL numbers from the Center for Disease Control, there’s no pandemic any more. It’s still… Read More

After I got to know my friend, Larry Elder, we would often have debates about which group was stupider for supporting the Democrat Party — Jews or Blacks. Larry usually won those debates because of his immense verbal skills and the fact that he has a much richer target with how the Democrats abuse Blacks on a regular basis and have for decades. Yet the current track Jews have taken have catapulted them to the top of the stupidity ladder.

With the death of George Floyd, the biggest political movement has become Black Lives Matter (BLM). People have been fired from their jobs for stating All Lives Matter or any variation of what has been become sacrosanct – BLM. The only thing is that BLM is actually a formal organization with a political agenda. Its founders, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opel Tometi stated in their own words “We are trained Marxists.”

That did not stop the most recognized group in the Reform Jewish movement, the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ), from a full-throated endorsement of the organization. They did not specifically say they are giving money to the organization, but their statement as they said from “the Reform… Read More

The Supreme court delivered one of their more controversial rulings in Bostock v. Clayton County. The MSM called it “very surprising” because two Republican appointees voted with the liberal minority with Justice Gorsuch authoring the opinion. Many Republicans and the three Justices who voted against the ruling were very unhappy about it. I am sorry to say in this case I believe they are wrong.

This dispute is between the Originalists and the Textualists. In plain English that is the running dispute between the people who believe judges should not give their own meaning to laws and abide by what the legislative branch wrote and the executive branch signed into law. Typically, Justice Gorsuch believes it is not his job to stray from the written word of the law. I agree with that and abhor left-wing jurists manipulating rulings to meet their own policy goals by not abiding by the written words and giving their own interpretation to those words.

Three examples of what I consider “making up laws from the bench” that I find distasteful are: 1) Roe V. Wade which made up rules to nationalize abortion when the Justices made up the standards out of whole cloth (by… Read More

You read that headline and you think this cannot be – not in 2020. So it has to be a trick or a lie. It is neither. It may not be what they called it, but that is what it is – an endorsement of home schooling.

Certainly, this likely would never have happened without a worldwide pandemic that brought New York to its knees. The NYT would have gone on with their delusional support of their state’s public-school system costing per pupil on average $23,091. That is 89% above the national average as of 2017. The undying support of malfunctioning public schools rivals their unfettered support for unlimited abortion as something that cannot ever be questioned. In New York City, the average cost per pupil was even higher (as of 2017) at $25,199.

Needless to say it was quite shocking to read this position in the “Paper of Record.” Moreover, it was surprising the position was not being voiced by any of their litany of writers. Rather it was voiced on May 5 by James Bennet, the Editorial Page Editor. One cannot get any higher than that for something like this than perhaps the publisher.

Bennet does a daily summary called Opinion Today. This is due to the fact… Read More

Recently I wrote a column about an interchange with a liberal white person about race. On the heels of that a Black man addressed his thoughts to me about some racial issues. Here is the exchange.

“I hope you and family are well. This is an old article, yet I have always felt professionally written article. I am curious as to your perspective. The confederate ‘heroes’ and that colorful flag that is so proudly defended is no different to African Americans than Nazism and swastikas. It is tantamount to honoring Mussolini, Stalin, Hirohito or Pol Pot. The rhetoric to maintain them for historical sake is beyond me.”

Politico Story

My reply:

That is easy. The flag should go. I never understood that. The question on statues and naming of forts is more complicated. The generals served the country before and some after the war. Some were instrumental in healing the divide after the war. They were classmates, for the most part, of the generals in the union army at West Point. Their relationships were pivotal after the… Read More

On January 1, 2020 a new law – AB 5 – took effect in California. Immediately, the effects of the legislation were felt across California’s workforce, as well as its legal climate. It’s clear now that this assembly bill is nothing more than an experiment gone wrong and that it must be eliminated.

AB 5 was written by San Diego Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez. It codifies into law the Supreme Court of California case, Dynamex Operations West Inc. v. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Dynamex created a new ABC test that serves to determine whether a worker should be classified as an employee instead of an independent contractor. By design, the test results in millions of California independent contractors being reclassified as employees.

What does it mean to be reclassified as an employee as opposed to an independent contractor? Ultimately, the reclassification is for wage and hour laws purposes. This could mean workers compensation, social security taxes, Medicare taxes, disability insurance and health benefits – none of which come into play for an independent contractor – all fall to the company. In other words, it is far more expensive to hire an… Read More

Here is a stunning chart demonstrating the incredible success of Success Academy Charter Schools in New York. Most are located in NYC and have almost all low income minority students. These relatively few schools DOMINATE the entire NY state K-12 schools’ student rankings. Study it in detail.

The chart provided by Professor Mark Perry and the American Enterprise Institute provides the summary data referenced in a recentWALL ST JOURNAL articleby the inimitable Thomas Sowell. Also included below are some “money quotes” from Dr. Sowell’s op-ed.

Note that of the 2,405 K-12 in the state, Success Academies constitute 20 of the top 30 schools’ average student scores. Compare Success Academies with the other top schools. Look at the demographics. Look at… Read More