According to the annual CATO Institute report comparing the amount of freedom in a state, California ranks a dismal 48th out of the 50 states. Only New York (50th) and (perhaps surprisingly) Hawaii rank lower than the Golden State. There’s a good interactive map at the website: https://www.freedominthe50states.org/

Of course, “freedom” is hard to quantify, but this study makes a game effort to view it from several aspects. It looks at fiscal policies, regulatory policies and personal freedom. Within those three broad categories, over 200 factors are considered.

Even more interesting, you can weight 24 policy areas as to each category’s relative importance to you and your family — getting the weighted average that’s more closely tailored to your concerns. https://www.freedominthe50states.org/personalize

Best states?

“Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government– in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.”

– Milton Freidman

Whether the topic is… Read More

As Governor Jerry Brown was signing legislation limiting Californians to using only 55 gallons of water per day, his State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) was finalizing a Bay Delta plan giving each of the “estimated” 600 fish 1,086,667 gallons of water per day. (Their estimate was 200 fish each on the Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced Rivers)

The new laws mandating Californians use only 55 gallons of water per day are yet another knife in the back of businesses and people of our State. What liberals in California have done to highways and power generation, will soon be visited upon water suppliers and their customers.

While liberals work industriously at “remaking the world,” as Victor David Hanson describes their current mania, there’s little doubt the once Golden State is gradually slipping into Venezuela-like third world status. One only need look at the infrastructural needs of California, ignoring for the moment that California has the highest Supplemental Poverty Measure in America.

California ranks #49 out of 50 for “road quality” according to the U.S. News & World Report rankings. This after the CA Dept. of… Read More

One common mistake when measuring employment or unemployment is to highlight a month by month comparison. These numbers are not an exact science, so the variance between two consecutive months can swing significantly in such short time frames. But here’s a full year comparison worth pondering:

In the last 12 months, labor force growth in the other 49 states has averaged a rate TWELVE TIMES HIGHER than vaunted California.

NOTE: “Labor force” is the government’s tally of people working, or looking for work.

In essence, CA seems to discourage people from looking for work in the Golden State. Others are leaving the state for better job prospects, or to reduce living costs. Net result – a static work force with little ability to meet employers’ additional personnel needs.

While CA is producing many new jobs, more and more people are dropping out of the state’s labor force. Even with increasing jobs, CA has a July state unemployment rate of 4.2%, while the national unemployment rate is 3.9%. CA unemployment is 8.8% higher than the average rate in the other 49… Read More

Those incredibly long lines at California DMVs look more like the release of the iPhone X or ticket sales for Beyonce and JayZ. But they are not. People are stuck in long DMV lines just to renew and update their drivers licenses.

Yet the notorious California Department of Motor Vehicles is about to be rewarded for its ineptitude and failures by the California Legislature with an unlimited budget.

News outlets throughout the state have written about 4, 6, and even 8+ hour waits since the January implementation of the DMV’s Real ID program

Republican Gubernatorial candidate John Cox has been traveling around the state visiting DMVs handing out bottled water and… Read More

As chairwoman of the California Water Resources Control Board, Felicia Marcus oversees a massive state bureaucracy with a $1 billion annual budget.

In a prescientop ed today in the Modesto Bee, Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced) had some harsh words for Marcus and her radical environmental cohorts. “Despite her promises to the contrary, she and her board have used their immense authority to jeopardize – not protect – the economy and drinking water supplies of the Northern San Joaquin Valley.”

As I have been warning for a long time, Gray also says, “The State Water Board claims it needs the water to help restore fish populations, but an earlier version of their own report suggested their plan would result in little more than an additional 1,000 fish per year.”

Fortunately, California Congressman Tom McClintock, and fellow CA Representatives Kevin McCarthy, Devin Nunes, Doug LaMalfa, Ken Calvert, David Valadeo, Jeff… Read More

Outside of the Catholic Church, high-risk, sexually violent and repeat sex offenders are required to register on sex offender registries for life, and in California are listed on theMegan’s Lawpublic website. Within the Catholic Church, homosexual priests are offered rehabilitation. Pedophile priests are moved to another parish and avoid prosecution. Why should or would Catholic parents send their children into harms way to Catholic schools inside Catholic parishes run by corrupted Bishops?

The explosive news Tuesday that the long-awaited stategrand jury reportinto sexual abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses has finally been released, with horrifying abuses exposed over many decades.

“The report cites 301 priests, clergy and lay teachers with… Read More

I’m a farmer.

My dear consumer friends; I’m the warm face you are always excited to meet at your local farmer’s market booth as you fill your bag with the sustainably grown produce I offer you. I help ensure that your favorite brand of fruits and nuts is always stocked at the grocery store. Without my small farm in your community, your food would be produced from afar and it would not be as affordable, plentiful, safe, fresh, or tasty.

If you enjoy feeling connected to your food supply, always having that sense of security that can only come with knowing that I produced it locally with care, and you want to keep munching on fresh fruit and vegetables that you cannot obtain outside of California, I need your help.

One of our State’s new laws may prevent me from being there for you in the near future: Senate Bill 1 (“SB 1”)—known as the “gas tax.” Among other problems, it has jacked up the tax on gasoline by 12 cents a gallon and the taxes on diesel by 20 cents a gallon. Since farms need these fuels, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult for my small business to afford to operate in California to serve you.

Most of us… Read More