I remember as a child seeing the bumper stickers “Impeach Earl Warren.” For those who don’t remember the Warren Court, I’ll rehash a little history.

Earl Warren was a “progressive” Governor of California, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by Dwight Eisenhower as a part of the deal made by Eisenhower to get the Republican nomination for President in 1952. Eisenhower had not been able to secure the nomination over his more conservative opponent, Robert Taft of Ohio, and so, to obtain the Republican nomination, he went to Governor Earl Warren and Senator Richard Nixon, then the heads of the California delegation to the Republican National Convention, and told them he would choose one of them for his Vice President and one for the first vacancy to the Supreme Court, if they delivered the California delegation for his nomination. The rest is history. Warren was appointed to the Supreme Court. Dwight Eisenhower once called it the “biggest mistake” of his presidency.

The year is 1962. The case is Engel v. Vitale. The Supreme Court declared prayer in schools unconstitutional under the Establishment clause of the… Read More

Nothing speaks vacation more than having empty pockets, no keys, no cell phone, no TV, and no driving.

After departing the barren landscapes of Iceland and the Faroe Islands, we arrived in the lush landscape of Norway. Scandinavia (of which Iceland and Faroe Islands are part) always fascinates as they are countries comprised largely of homogenous populations except for the recent influx of foreigners, mainly Muslims, brought to Europe by the diktat of Germany’s Angela Merkel.

Arriving in Norway was a lesson in not believing what one reads on the internet. Two things I read were that you should not look Norwegians in the eye and that they really do not like tourists with Americans at the top of the list. That would make sense since we are quite a noisy crowd who like to look people in the eye and fist-pump new acquaintances. Both points were disproved completely. We found Norwegians to be friendly and helpful and not just at hotels and restaurants. Most spoke English and well. They should since there are more people of Norwegian heritage in the U.S. than in Norway.

As much as we plan a trip, we often change our itinerary. Though Oslo is quite a beautiful… Read More

In his book, Parliament of Whores, PJ O’Rourke noted that taxes are extracted from people by force, that is, the threat of imprisonment if you don’t pay. Therefore, he says, a tax should be thought along the lines that “you are putting a gun to your grandma’s head” to get the money. Only those things that you can justify paying for by taking the money from grandma by force should be funded by government. If you cannot say in good conscience, grandma should pay for free stuff for illegal aliens (as an example), then government should not fund it. The money for it was extracted from everyone by force.

The Legislature is set to pass a budget today. They are set to approve all the money they stole from grandma by force. It’s a budget that shows their contempt for the working people of California and their subservience to the government employee unions that control the levers of power in California. The seeds of the destruction that will be caused by this spending spree have been planted, and, while some have mentioned it, no one emphasizes how irresponsible the budget really is.

Let’s start with the headlines… Read More

What if I told you that the legislature is hastily looking at passing a massive de facto tax increase that is going to make every-day living for all Californians more expensive? You might ask why they would do this? Especially right now? Have they seen our gas prices? Our grocery prices? Our everything prices? We are on the verge of sliding into a recession in our country – and legislators are poised to make it worse?

Yep – enter Senate Bill 54. I actually found out on Twitter (which is complete post-Dobbs… Read More

I wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times 22 years ago defining my position on abortion. They ran it because of my positions. I expressed support for first trimester abortions only and being in favor of no government funding. I favor parental notice. Not much has changed since then and I still hold 80% of Americans agree with that position.

The idea of trimesters did not even exist until Justice Harry Blackmun made it up in Roe V. Wade. In 1973 we had medical standards that were much different than today. Are we to believe that the science surrounding abortion and a fetus in the womb has not evolved? It has as well as the diseases that would cause many mothers to abort their unborn child. Since that time, it has become scientifically clearer that late-term abortions rarely if ever are justified and that the babies are viable. “Rare” is not the estimated 13,000 late-term abortions currently performed every year. I have since written that for many on the Left, there are three issues about which they are concerned – abortion, abortion, and abortion. Little has changed.

I also expressed that the argument that exists today was created because the Left does what… Read More

When the Supreme Court, in 1973, raised the issue of abortion from a state to state decision to a Constitutional one, it stained the Constitution and did violence to the concept of federalism. No matter what you may think of abortion as a practice or procedure, there is nothing written in the Constitution close to granting a Constitutional right to an abortion. Indeed, Roe v. Wade even perverted the concept of a “right to privacy,” also not in the Constitution but used to justify the invalidation of a number of state laws on a variety of different issues. Once again, no matter what my opinion of the policy of those laws may be, whether the Constitution bans them or not is a completely separate question.

That being said, today, the Sun is a little brighter, and the air is a little cleaner, as my daughter said to me in a text today. The stain of the federalizing of abortion law is dead, and, God willing, will stay that way. For me, it feels like 40 years of political activity has been vindicated. It was worth the effort to get to this point. Now the real fight begins.

For all of my time in the Legislature, most of my effort on the question of life… Read More

On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag – Germany’s Capitol building – was set on fire. Who was responsible remains in dispute even today. What is undisputed is that the Nazis, barely holding onto power in a coalition government – used the attack to besmirch their political opponents, consolidate their grip on the government, arrest hundreds of political opponents, and ultimately rescind the due process rights and fundamental freedoms of the German people.

It remains a cautionary tale, for obvious reasons.

The January 6th riot at the Capitol has become the centerpiece of the Democrats’ agenda. No other issue facing our country – not the worst inflation in 40 years, not the highest gasoline prices in history, not the fastest increase in homicides ever recorded, not the historically unprecedented illegal mass migration at our southern border – none of these crises has commanded prime time congressional hearings from the Democrats.

What happened here on January 6th was an affront to our Constitution and a national disgrace. Those who entered the Capitol with the intent to disrupt the counting of electoral votes deserve to be denounced by their fellow… Read More

One might think that calling a performer “underrated” for whom 84,000 people have list their profession as “Elvis Impersonator” on tax returns is a crazy statement. Yet, with the upcoming Elvis movie (June 24), he will still not be regarded as the remarkable vocalist he was before he left us.

The idea of calling him “underrated” might immediately be rejected because his career was overwhelmingly successful. But that career never totally veered from the moment he burst on to the scene with his September 9, 1956, tamed-down, hip-swiveling performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. As a rock ‘n’ roller, he was never considered a vocalist especially compared to the era’s greats, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Tony Bennett.

Elvis was a victim of his own success. From the time of his first recordings at Sun Records he changed the face of the music business. Sam Phillips was seeking a white singer who could capture the essence of the black artists he had been recording. When Elvis broke out into a revved-up version of an old blues classic, That’s All Right Mama, Phillips knew he had his man and… Read More