President Biden thinks his real title is “Spender in Chief,” not Commander in Chief. He is always throwing our money around. It seems every answer he provides has him committing our money without any clear explanation of his authority. His recent failings have caused him to refocus his efforts on a new, but recurring subject – student loans.

Biden is not the only one who wants to spend wildly. He has gotten immense pressure from his party (particularly the Left). Now that the Build Back Better boondoggle has tanked, the Left and other Democrats feel compelled to spend money somehow. They want to relieve the debt from student loans, and they are using the pandemic as a front for their battle on the issue.

Student loan repayments have again been deferred until August 1, 2022, with no interest accruing during the deferred period. Biden had said the deferral to February 1, 2022, would be it, but that did not hold for long. This is the sixth time the repayments have been deferred during the pandemic with zero evidence that the people who owe the loans are not capable of repayment.

The drumbeat for relief rolls on. Katrina vanden Heuvel who writes for the… Read More

Since Russia has not rolled through Ukraine as was speculated by many people, some have argued that Putin would use more extreme measures. The same people began speculating and the Biden Administration followed stating that Putin was poised to use chemical warfare against Ukraine. Biden should first start with stopping the current chemical war waged against the United States.

When most Americans think about the use of chemical weapons, they think about World War I. The scenes of soldiers wearing gas masks in trenches where chemical weapons were used early on by both sides. Interestingly, there was a pre-war agreement not to fire projectiles carrying the dangerous chemicals so canisters were strategically placed so the wind would cause the chemicals to drift into the opposition’s bunkers.

The destructive aspect of chemical warfare was so universally recognized after World War I that an agreement was made called the Geneva Protocol which was passed in 1925. It was put into force in 1928 to prohibit the use of chemical and biological weapons.

That did not stop the use of these deadly chemicals in multiple military conflicts after adoption of the Protocol.… Read More

We are coming off two years of lockdowns that were countered with government programs spending billions and billions of dollars to offset the effects of those government-imposed restrictions. We are then hit with a burst of inflation at levels not seen in America for forty years. Additionally, one of the world’s largest energy suppliers decided to attack its neighbor without provocation. This has all brought to the forefront the failed philosophies of a political party and a lesson to be learned.

With the soaring cost of energy and the abandonment of sourcing that energy from America and Russia, there is a logical and pragmatic solution. Restore our own production to the levels we had prior to the Democrats taking over our government. Unfortunately, the party is so driven by their blind allegiance to their green energy policy that has caused this crisis that an adjustment is not even a consideration.

First, Washington proposed a release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. One might think that the reserve is for legitimate national emergencies and not just politically embarrassing price increases. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced an agreement… Read More

40 Years – Two generations, no action to correct the continuing failure of our schools. The failure to correct the downward spiral of the quality of California’s schools is the greatest sin of the Democrat controlled Legislature.

In my talks to the Legislature, when I talked about the “intractable problems” of the state that the Democrats continually failed to address, I would always include the schools, because they have been lost in the wilderness for at least 40 years. Lack of leadership, union control of the processes of management, curriculum, and operation of schools, and lack of accountability have led to at least two generations of the needs of students for a quality education lost to the wants of those who make money off the system and the frustration of parents who are only looking to the school system to help prepare those children for life in the continual complexity of society.

Our education system is a political monopoly. We have amazing teachers who are dominated by union leadership that is more focused on maintaining the flow of cash to their pockets and political power from the tax fed budget than they are about meeting… Read More

Whenever I have lunch or dinner with someone – especially with recent events — I ask a very straightforward question. “In your wildest dreams did you ever believe they would muck things up this bad, this fast?” I use more vivid language, but I am against using such language in a public forum so I will leave it to your imagination. Sit back and think about the question yourself and derive your own answer.

In a little over a year, the Biden Administration has opened our border to an estimated two million illegal aliens who have been spread throughout the country with very little hope of ever tracking them; shut down a significant amount of our home grown energy production by killing a major pipeline deal costing 3,900 full-time equivalent jobs and pausing oil production on all federal government land which is 25% of national production; taken sanctions off Nordstream 2 to continue the flow of Russian gas to Europe; had a radical withdrawal from Afghanistan that is roundly considered a disaster for the United States; engineered policies that lead to inflation levels not seen in over 40 years which caused a severe depression; and has the world involved in a war… Read More

I once attended a seminar regarding the continuing problems of our overburdened transportation system, and how sitting in traffic made people miserable. When I talked about a fix, one of the attendees, who represented an environmental organization, said (and this is an very close to an exact quote) “if we fix the freeways, more people will come to California.” My response was “so the answer to our traffic issues is to make people as miserable as possible, so that no one else will come here and be miserable?

And that is the issue with the environuts in this state. In their minds, people are bad, and the goal is to get rid of as many of them as possible. Don’t let them go to state parks, don’t let them have an affordable place to live, make gasoline as expensive as possible through unreasonable environmental controls on the extraction and production of fuel. If they still buy the fuel and use their cars, make that use a miserable experience, to discourage further use. Make water so expensive to obtain that people don’t buy or use it. Cram people into small living units, into smelly, nasty transportation systems like buses and… Read More

To put this series in perspective, I started with my observations from my time in the Legislature, which, by the way, are now 16 to 29 years old. My speeches would usually start with the observation that, in California, our freeways are overcrowded, our schools are failing our children, our housing costs too much, and we are running out of gasoline, water, and electricity. You would think that, if those who are in charge in Sacramento were serious about solving these problems, they could at least fix one of them in 29 years. Yet…here we are…29 years later, with the exact same problems, the exact same complaints, and the exact same excuses for why the Democrat majority in the Legislature haven’t solved the problems.

And Californians keep electing them, despite their excuses. We do get the government we deserve, and things won’t change until we get rid of the majority, and replace them with those who have a better idea.

So, let’s talk water. California has one rainy season, usually November through March, and then seven months of almost perfect weather (if you live in San Diego, it is absolutely perfect). We just came off of a… Read More

Yesterday, I showed how California Government, currently under the control of Democrats, increases the cost of gasoline through taxes, fees, and regulation, all things that are under the control of the State Government. The majority in the Legislature and the Governor have created the high cost gasoline in California (all the while blaming oil companies for the actions of the politicians).

Today, we’ll talk about the cost of housing. Once again, the increasing cost of housing is created by massive housing shortages throughout the state, and those shortages are caused by government fees and regulations. So what is the majority blaming for the high cost of housing? Once again, they blame the private market, a market they have severely controlled and regulated.

I would like first to make this observation to put the housing issues in a context. The cost of housing plays only a minor role in the homelessness crisis in this state. The major causes of homelessness are mental illness and substance abuse. That is why the Democrats’ solutions to crisis, that is, to build homeless shelters and give the homeless money don’t work. The mentally ill… Read More