I support federalism. Whenever possible, state and local governments should be largely autonomous in how they deal with their problems. The federal government should seek to limit its function to national defense, and a few other narrowly federal issues. Including defending the Bill of Rights — specifically the 2nd Amendment.

As I see it, President Trump erred in sending in troops (“law enforcement units”) to Portland. It MIGHT be justified SPECIFICALLY to defend federal properties, but these forces expanded their role to countering local violence and unrest.

On balance — looking at the Portland example — I think that it’s better to let the federal buildings in such cities be destroyed. If they need to be rebuilt, build them in safer cities and states. Woke cities don’t need or want no stinkin’ jobs. Just ask their progressive goddess — AOC.

Trump is a man who (like our CA Governor Newsom) likes to rule by edict. It results in him too often unwisely dealing with issues the federal government should stay out of. Of course, to varying… Read More

In dealing with the coronavirus, my wife and I (age 75) wereverygood for the first two months. We really isolated. But now it’s July, and we’ve made some adjustments that increase our risks. PRUDENTLY, we hope — but an increase in risk, nevertheless.

And in the process, I think we’ve found one innovation that improves our odds — an innovation that no one is talking about. More on that shortly.

BACKGROUND: Twice this month we’ve had our older son and his two young kids (ages 9 and 6) visit us for several days at a time. Our grandchildren still enjoy being with us, and we’ve decided not to let this precious period slip by.

Remember, we are not a risk to our grandkids — they are a risk to us. As of 7/20/20, in California (40,000,000 people), not a SINGLE kid under age 18 has died from COVID-19.Not one! The coronavirus is 90+% a geezer disease. https://tinyurl.com/y5jrvqv5

While those three visited, we all didn’t wear masks inside the house. Social distancing was spotty at best. Wedidwash our hands fairly often,… Read More

The COVID pandemic is new for most of us. I certainly was not around for the last one, the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, and I’m not likely to be around for the next.

When people are faced with something completely alien to our experience, we naturally look for ways to make it fit within our existing view of the world. We revert to the familiar, equating what is new with something we already know, using the familiar as a guide to understand and respond to what now confronts us.

To some on the right, the government response is the problem, while to some on the left, President Trump is the problem. But the virus doesn’t care.

SARS-Cov-2, the virus which causes COVID 19, is the fire. And we are the fuel.

Just as fire cannot exist without a fuel source, the virus cannot long live outside of a human host.

The challenge before us is to separate the fire from its fuel, allowing the fire to burn itself out.

The evidence from Europe is clear: social distancing, minimizing interactions, better hygiene in the form of handwashing, and masks, when taken together, separate the fire from the fuel.

Our social media circles are… Read More

Alan Dershowitz, a life-long Democrat and supporter of Hillary Clinton, has had a constant theme about anti-Semitism. He has stated that his concern for anti-Semitism from the Left far exceeds his concern for the amount radiating from the Right. The Bari Weiss incident validates that, but makes clear it is even more dangerous than we have thought.

Bari Weiss, an op-ed and political writer, started her career at two major Jewish publications then moved on to The Wall Street Journal. She most recently moved to the New York Times where she continued to build a name for herself as a credible writer even if she was someone I did not agree with most of the time. At 36-years-old she is still building a career that could last four more decades. She had become a major voice in the Jewish Community. Then she resigned from the Times with a scathing commentary that flashed across the news world.

The resignation letter which you can read here is multi-faceted. Her comment “Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but… Read More

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