After the Legislature imposed billions of dollars in new car and gas taxes on Californians last month, a friend emailed me to register his disappointment and disgust: “It’s like we live in an apartheid society where the politically powerful live in luxury and laugh at the working people of our state.” Sadly, his point is accurate. The separation between the ruling class and the rest of Californians is becoming more extreme by the day. So much so, in fact, that California is beginning to resemble a society based on a caste system, meaning a formal structure of social stratification (usually associated with India) deriving from the hereditary division of the population into the highest caste (Brahmins) and various castes below.

California’s high cast Brahmins reside primarily in coastal enclaves including the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara, Malibu and the west side of Los Angeles but they are also numerous in the Silicon Valley and Hollywood. These elites tend to be high income or wealthy and can afford to separate themselves from the trials and tribulations suffered by average citizens. This immunity from “real world” problems allows them… Read More

There’s a lot in the proposed Trump budget. Most of it is good. Much of it won’t make it through the legislative sausage factory. But here’s one little-noticed proposal that has almost universal voter support, yet is opposed by the Democratic Party.

President Trump is seeking to reform the “food stamp” program. He’s calling for able-bodied adult recipients to work (or perform public service — or PREPARE for work via training) before receiving their food funding. This idea has proven stunningly effective in reducing the food stamp rolls, because most recipients don’t want to do anything for their handout.

The article below details this idea. Here’s one salient excerpt:

In December 2014, Maine imposed a work requirement on this category of recipients. Under the policy, no recipient had his benefits simply cut. Instead, recipients were required to undertake state-provided training or to work in community service six hours per week.

Nearly all affected recipients chose to leave… Read More

This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties. – John Jay: Federalist 2 – October 1787

The founding fathers, in particular the one who would be the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, believed the new constitution they created would be a shining example of a people governing themselves for generations.Chief Justice Jay never anticipated the level of vitriol that would follow a national election could result in California becoming so “jealous” of an outcome tomake our state an “alien” sovereign.

With effortsto have California secede from the Unionending not with a bang, but with a whimper,it’s worth noting a significant factor leading to the failure of the cause is the fact that since liberal Democrats gained control of both the legislative and executive arms of state government, secession is unnecessary.

Californians are becoming the victims… Read More

By Chris Mann Founder, Inland Empire Taxpayers Association

California’s high desert in San Bernardino County is a great part of the Golden State. The region has consistently elected strong conservative voices to represent citizens, and the people have long stood for lower taxes and smaller government. But a big lie is going around the Town of Apple Valley that should put everyone on alert. If it can happen there, it could happen anywhere in California.

Do you support Prop 13?

Do you oppose higher gas taxes and vehicle license fees?

If you’re like me then the answers to those questions are simple. What do they have to do with Apple Valley and a $150 million water bond?

Plenty…read on to learn why.

Local politicians in the Town of Apple Valley have… Read More

With President Donald Trump reportedly* pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord,heads must be exploding inCalifornia’s Democratic supermajority State Capitol. However,Trump’s decision fulfills a very important campaign promise he made to “cancel” the accord.

California Gov. Jerry Brown issued anExecutive Orderin 2015 for a drastic new target for greenhouse gas emissions cuts, coinciding with the international… Read More

When President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi rammed through ObamaCare in 2010 without a single Republican vote, we as conservatives knew health care in this country would be irrevocably changed. And not for the better.

As Americans came to see that, “You can keep your doctor” wasn’t true, skyrocketing premiums, higher and higher out-of-pocket costs, and fewer choices, they realized the new system was destined to fail. Their answer? Toss out the people who gave us ObamaCare and put in new ones. Except that still meant President Obama could (and did) veto every effort to repeal his boondoggle.

Then came the election of… Read More

The SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE had a good editorial on 5/30/17 (see the bottom of this commentary), excoriating politicians for ignoring practical private market housing alternatives (such as “granny flats”) in favor of uber-expensive taxpayer-subsidized housing which meets only a tiny fraction of the low income housing need. The editorial correctly highlights some building innovations that offer low income folks small but quality homes for relatively low cost. Perhaps most intriguing is the 3D printer homes prefabbed in 24 yours for as little as $10,000 apiece.

But the editorial fails to consider WHY our politicos so quickly dismiss these amazing “shovel ready” alternatives. The reason is that the labor unions (and their union construction firms) profit greatly from “affordable housing” — housing that can cost double what private apartments would cost and is FAR more expensive than these new housing options (built with nonunion labor). These construction unions partner with their powerful public employee labor unions on policy issues, resulting in the election of local politicians bought and paid for by (or afraid of) these… Read More

Apparently feckless, neutered police are also impacting the safety and security in the United Kingdom, and not just on California college campuses. The horrific Manchester bombing at the Arianna Grande concert Monday evening, which killed at least 22 and injured more than 150, might have been prevented if politically correct fecklessness within government wasn’t so rampant.

Adding to the fecklessness and politics,LondonMayor Sadiq Khan said terrorism is “part and parcel” of urban life.

…Good to know given that I live in California, where our officials… Read More