Most of us are less wealthy than last week. The stock market and crypto-currencies took dramatic tumbles. But it’s actually a triple whammy — especially for Californians. Not only did our investments, IRA’s and 401k’s take a belly punch. The drop in equity values means that our mandatory obligation to our CA state and local public servants jumped as well, as the unfunded pension obligation just soared higher. And then there’s that coming CA capital gains tax shortfall. Only our risk-free public employees are pretty much unconcerned about economic downturns. Because the government worker pensions are guaranteed, the hapless taxpayers will simply have to write bigger checks to make up the bigger shortfall. And to add pain to suffering, a stock market downturn translates in into lower capital gains on tax returns. Few realize that the MAJOR reason we have a CA “budget surplus” (ignoring theMadoff-type accounting used) has been the flood of capital gains tax revenue into state coffers fueled largely by our rising stock … Read More

For many years I have written about the horrendous challenges California business owners face because of legislatively-imposed environmental regulations, business-killing regulations and labor laws, hostile politicians and city councils, and government-sanctioned labor union attacks on non-union businesses. Few politicians have ever run a business or owned a business, and even fewer appreciate what it takes to grow a business.

Whether it is Gerawan Farming fighting the corrupted California Agriculture Labor Relations Board and United Farm Workers labor union thugs attempting to take over, or Magliteflashlight inventor and company owner Anthony Maglica, who has been in a battle with the State of California over the “Made in the USA” label on his flashlight packaging (exclusively made in California), these and other businesses and employers are under constant siege by the state and local politicians over business… Read More

Here’s the latest annual U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report to Congress on TANF and SSP [welfare] recipients, using the latest figures from 2015:

U.S.******4,170,107 recipients

CA*******1,803,873 recipients

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ofa/resource/twelfth-report-to-congress page 20

In other words, CA — with 12% of the nation’s population — has an appalling 43.3% of our nation’s needy that require taxpayer assistance. Last time I checked a few years ago, CA had not quite 1/3 of these welfare recipients. As far as I know, no CA press has reported this increase to 43+%.… Read More

This month my home SDG&E electricity bill added a third price category — a “high usage charge.” See below.

Actually I have no problem with such tiered pricing, but the high cost for EACH tier is breathtaking when compared with most other states. Compare my SDG&E (and California) rates with the latest (November, 2017) numbers from the U.S. Energy Administration (EIA) provided below.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a

MY SDG&E BILL — JANUARY, 2018

Tier 1 — 0-374 kWh Tier 2 — 375-1152 kWh Tier 3 — 1153 and up 23 cents 40 cents 47 cents(!)

My total usage (with a solar array): 396 kWh

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Here are the EIA November, 2017 numbers, with comparisons of CA with the nation — and with Texas. Note that my… Read More

Here are all of my comments from the State of the Union last evening, along with a few others who joined me at Tom Del Beccarro’s Political Vanguard: … Read More

I’m just a Navy mom of a United States Naval Academy graduatewho is currently a Navy special ops officer, and has had two long Middle East deployments. I wasn’t going to weigh in on the liberal California councilman and public school teacher who told his students “military Are ‘dumbsh*ts” and “lowest of our low.” That is, until I read that the school district officials of Gregory Salcido, El Rancho High School history teacher and a current member of thePico Rivera City Council, were covering for him, even after he said when speaking about our military, “They’re the frickin’ lowest of our low,” in one of three videos that surfaced last week.

… Read More

Gov. Jerry Brown’s State of the State address yesterday, his last of 16, was rather melancholy and underwhelming. Some aspects of the state seem in great shape, such as low unemployment.

But when I look around the state I see something I have never seen before since my family immigrated here from Holland in 1960: a vast homeless population for which there seems no solution. Even the deep… Read More

California’s Democrats are on an accelerated path of destruction of the once Golden State. In Parts l and ll of my series on how California’s leftist Democrats have turned the Golden State into a sh*thole, I explain how California’s ruling party is doubling down on business-destroying policies, energy destroying policies, education destroying policies, and policies destroying California’s abundant natural resources. The new law claiming sanctuary state status is blatantly unconstitutional, as is “legalizing” marijuana.

But Wait!!! There’s… Read More