I told you in my last missive that I would next write you about income inequality. I pulled an Obama…..and lied. I will get to the income inequality issue in a future edition. But, I’m taking an operational pause in my “Farewell Series” to address a couple of important issues that bubbled up last week in Washington on which I feel compelled to opine. So, here are my thoughts on two current hot topics:

NSA/ FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act): Last Thursday, the USA Freedom Act, a bill to reform some of the now well-known practices the NSA has employed to intercept our personal communications, passed the House by a vote of 303-121. I was one of the 51 Republicans and 70 Democrats voting against this bill. This is one of those times when people on the right and people on the left unite to stop what we believe to be an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. However, in my view, those in the middle have proven to be somewhat less passionate about this duty. Don’t get me wrong, this bill is better than current law. But, it does not stop the practices of the NSA in question and does not limit future action to what I… Read More

The Primary fight in SD 28 has been one ugly mess. Candidate Jeff Stone knew he couldn’t win on what he’s done in office (tax increases, repeated FPPC fines and other sordid messes – from enriching his sister to a recent scathing Grand Jury report showing his wasteful use of a “Slush Fund” — their words — to try to enhance his name ID and paying off a family friend with a $100k road to a private artist retreat).

So, to overcome his deficiencies he has waged an almost slanderous, ugly campaign against former Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia – that is, to this longtime political professional, the most over-the-top and outrageous smear I’ve… Read More

Let me explain why I will vote for Tim Donnelly for Governor on June 3.

I’m not a paid campaign worker. I’m not a political consultant. I’m not a member of the Republican establishment. I am a constitutional, conservative volunteer and activist who cares about our communities, our state, our country and our children’s future.

Tim Donnelly, gubernatorial candidate of our great, and yet dysfunctional State of California, earned my vote by his actions and his beliefs.

California’s high unemployment rate worries me. Extreme environmental regulations, heavy taxes and fees that kill California jobs concerns me. Business and entertainment production… Read More

California is known as the world capital of the car culture. The automobile played a central role in creating the California Dream, giving people the freedom to travel, to live where they choose and to experience the exhilaration of the open road.

Now, if Senator Mark DeSaulnier gets his way, you’ll have to pay a new tax for every mile you drive. His Senate Bill 1077 would begin with a “pilot program” in one unfortunate yet-to-be-determined city where motorists would pay taxes based on… Read More

After New York City’s close call with bankruptcy in 1975. the state required the city to balance its budget in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles rather than continuing to use “creative-accounting practices.” According to Richard Ravitch, writing in the Wall Street Journal last week, the city has not had a fiscal crisis since.

The city’s new mayor,Bill de Blasio, released his first budget last week, beginning the slippery slide back into questionable accounting: Many are questioning whether the deferral of payments contractually due city employees was properly accounted for.

Ravitch’s article describesexactly what most California cities are doing: usingdeceptive cash-basisaccounting to hide real costs and… Read More

Should women in the workplace receive paid menstruation leave?

HuffPost Live held a discussion about an actual current topic in employment entitlements: whether women deserve paid “menstrual leave.”

“Do women deserve paid ‘menstrual leave’ for the days when cramps, irritability or more complicated issues like endometriosis distract from the day’s tasks?” HuffPost Live asked. “Menstrual leave is a part of the employee experience in several Asian countries, prompting think pieces on the topic from… Read More

With the 2012 passage of Proposition 30, voters were assured the significant tax increase would go entirely to education. However, less than 50 percent actually does.

Now, a new bill is moving through the Legislature, claiming to tax oil and gas production for – ahem, you guessed it — education.

SB 1017, an urgency measure, would impose a severance tax on the extraction of oil and natural gas, effective immediately after being signed into law.

Pay attention to the taxman behind the curtain who wants to add more taxes onto oil and gas production.

However, if the California legislature doesn’t pass an oil severance tax this year, billionaire hedge fund manager, Tom Steyer, is preparing a ballot initiative for 2016.

Because Gov. Jerry Brown vowed that all new tax increase proposals would go before the voters, there are reports which say he’s largely rejected the oil tax this year. But NextGenClimate Action, Steyer’s political action committee, can do it for Brown instead, with the… Read More

One of the core barriers to economic prosperity in California is the price of housing. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Policies designed to stifle the ability to develop land are based on flawed premises. These policies prevail because they are backed by environmentalists, and, most importantly, because they have played into the agenda of crony capitalists, Wall Street financiers, and public sector unions. But while the elites have benefit, ordinary working families have been condemned to pay extreme prices in mortgages, property taxes, or rents, to live in confined, unhealthy, ultra high-density neighborhoods. It is reminiscent of apartheid South Africa, but instead of racial superiority as the supposed moral justification, environmentalism is the religion of the day. The result is identical.

Earlier this month an economist writing for the American Enterprise Institute, Mark J. Perry, published a chart proving that over the past four years, more new homes were built in one city, Houston Texas, than in the entire state of California. We republished Perry’s article earlier this week, “… Read More