I think it is appropriate, when earned, to offer praise to elected and other government officials when they have acted in the defense of liberty. Sometimes it’s baby steps, sometimes it’s putting on the armor of liberty, and standing face to face with those who would destroy that strength of this country, that is, that unique form of American liberty that, while under attack in our modern era, has survived longer than any other country in any other time.

So first, to Sheriff Chad Bianco of Riverside County — Thank you for announcing you would not make criminals of law abiding citizens. I represented Riverside County for 14 years in the Legislature. I know the people of that County, they are good people who struggle every day to make their life, and the lives of their family, better. Many of them spend hours a day on the freeway, abandoned by traffic planners in Sacramento and Riverside County government, just to get back and forth to work. They don’t deserve to face the threat of arrest for doing what is necessary to feed their family. More of the state’s Sheriffs should have the courage to do what you did, Sheriff Bianco.

To… Read More

Today we learned that our Arrogant Lazy Authoritarian (ALA) Newsom claims that “California can’t cope with its budget deficit without federal help.”

My advice to the feds: Don’t do give us the help. I don’t want to have to launder my taxes through the federal government to bail ALA Newsom out of his ill-considered orders, and his continuing arrogance.

California state government must now pay the price for the order issued by ALA Newsom, just like hundreds of thousands of Californians have. Hundreds of thousands of Californians were forcibly laid off from their jobs because of the totally unnecessary statewide lock down order, and now that it is clear that it was totally unnecessary, ALA Newsom still refuses to lift the order, choosing what he calls a “phased in” restoration of liberty to the people of California. What that means is, if you are not one of the favored few, large businesses, politically connected groups, or supporters of Democrats in Sacramento, you will continue to starve, and you might get some kind of government bail out at some time in the future (READ: when we feel like getting around to it). If you… Read More

In the 12th century, there were kingdoms and fiefdoms, but who really ruled the day was the high priests. Try to argue against the high priests you were considered a heretic. Many were burned at the stake for the sin of questioning the high priests. Flash forward 200 years and there was Joan of Arc. Today there are new high priests and dare to question one and you are scorned and ostracized.

That occurred for me a few years back. Through the modern miracle of social media, I located a very close friend of mine, Elliott, from junior high when I lived in Shaker Heights, Ohio. He was ‘smarter’ than me and went on to get a degree at Brown University. The fact that he used his high level degree to become a publicist for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) baffled me. One would think he would have loftier goals – maybe one of the scientists. I found he was dedicated to his beliefs.

We did not debate the value of the UCS, but we did get into a debate about a concept presented by Paul Krugman, a Nobel Laureate in economics, but currently slumming as a columnist on the New York Times. We were now discussing a field I know a lot about. I disagreed with Krugman on… Read More

First off, Kudos to the thousands of statewide protestors who voiced their opposition to the quarantine order. You are the heroes of liberty.

Second, shame on any elected official who condemned them. Such behavior from an elected official is “irresponsible and unacceptable.” The exercise of free speech is a fundamental right, and it is the duty of elected officials to protect that right. I should also add shame on any local elected official who says he or she will enforce the unconstitutional order. You are violating your oath of office.

Third, shame on any law enforcement officer who arrested any of the protesters. You are allowing yourself to be instruments of the oppressor, that is, the Arrogant-Lazy-Authoritarian-in-Chief (ALAIC), Gavin Newsom. Those protesters have been your biggest supporters over the years. Don’t lose their support by violating your oath as well. “Just following orders” never got any oppressor off the hook for violating fundamental liberties.

To the Orange County Sheriff, who announced he would NOT enforce the order to close the beaches, my hats off to you. That is exactly what an elected… Read More

I received an email from a local elected official yesterday that told me to “understand” that the order that quarantined people who are not infected with COVID-19 was not issued by his agency, it was issued by the state. His email told me that, in his opinion, there was not much he could do about it. Seeing this comment from someone I know to be a freedom loving elected official told me how important it is to let local elected officials know what power they really have. You have what is known as “administrative discretion.” You have the right to determine what work your employees will do, and what they won’t do, and no court or any other agency has the power to tell you how to exercise that discretion.

What does that mean? It means you can ignore the quarantine order of the Arrogant-Lazy-Authoritarian-In-Chief (ALAIC), Gavin Newsom, and there’s not a damn thing he, or anyone else, can do about it. City Managers, County Executives, City Attorneys, and County Counsel will spend a lot of time trying to explain the nature of executive authority in the time of an emergency, but the fact is, if you ignore them, and order your police… Read More

Is there any doubt now that the decisions of Gavin Newsom, California’s Arrogant-Lazy-Authoritarian-in-Chief (ALAIC), are driven by politics and not science?

If beaches need to be closed, they need to be closed everywhere. If they don’t need to be closed everywhere, then they don’t need to be closed anywhere. So why did ALAIC Newsom choose to close Orange County beaches? Because Orange County had the gall to stand up to his irrational order.

By all eyewitness and law enforcement accounts, Orange County residents acted reasonably in going to the beach. But that’s not good enough for ALAIC Newsom. People ignored his order, and the local officials justified it, so he needs to make an example. This order is a sign to other counties, stand up against me, and I will take you down, just like I’m doing to Orange County.

The only crime here is people looking to enjoy a weekend at the beach. I don’t know about you, but whenever I go to the beach, I don’t like to be within six feet of anyone anyway, unless I know them. And by the looks of the pictures I saw, people were not that close. Police officers on the site… Read More

To anyone who believes that our current economic crisis is not the result of government incompetence and overreaction, I give you the following story, and quote from the story:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/governors-warned-pandemic-years-ago-told-stockpile-didnt/story?id=70331277&cid=clicksource_4380645_2_heads_hero_live_hero_related

Less than two years ago, county officials in Los Angeles warned that deadly disease outbreaks were becoming a “serious threat” and that the county’s public health system still suffered from “gaps” in “strategy” and “resource preparation,” including a “limited number of ventilators.”

To put this is perspective, Los Angeles County has over one half the statewide deaths and almost one-half of the total infections in the State of California, yet the entire state is being forced into an economic shutdown because of the incompetence of LA County health officials. Did Governor Newsom happen to mention that in his briefing yesterday, when he said “Politics will not drive our decision-making; protests will not drive our decision-making; political pressure will not drive our… Read More

Quarantineis the forced confinement of a person who has contracted or been exposed to an infectious disease. Although it is a long-standing police power of governments, it is seldom used because seldom needed – sick people generally stay home on their own. When it must be used, it is subject todue process: the right to contest the order in court, to present evidence that the order is invalid, and to have it vacated.

What is happening today is radically different and profoundly un-American: the indefinite and indiscriminate home detention without due process of perfectly healthy people on the pretext that they might catch a contagious disease. While it is true that some people may be infectious without knowing it, that’s no different than a wide variety of other contagious diseases that have been with us for generations and… Read More