This week I announced I’ll be the first 100 percent citizen-backed California Legislator. Specifically, I am declining all contributions from the “Third House.” That’s the term for the Special Interest lobbyists, with offices encircling the Capitol, that account for the vast majority of political funding in California.

The Third House is the Swamp on Steroids. While lobbyists may have enormous influence in Washington, in California they literally run the Capitol. That’s why it’s called the Third House: they control the first two houses, the Assembly and Senate.

Every Legislator gets… Read More

Two groups that have been spoken about often during the 2020 pandemic have been school teachers and restaurant workers. Though both groups have a large number currently not working, the two groups are dramatically different in how they have been treated by our governments. Let’s take a look at the difference and compare/contrast their realities.

School teachers are largely public employees and they principally belong to public employee unions. It is estimated there are more than four million teachers in our country. They are principally represented by two unions – National Education Association (NEA) with 2.2 million members and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) with 1.7 million members. In the well-known ruling (Janus), the Supreme Court made it illegal for these unions to command membership. The unions (in cahoots with state governments and local school districts) have placed significant obstacles in front of anyone wanting to opt out. Teachers have their money taken out of their paychecks beginning the very first day on the job. Those funds are used to buy political influence at the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Some say the teachers’ unions are the… Read More

The Democrats are always coming up with snappy new terms to describe their political antics. “Medicare for All,” “Public Option,” “Democratic Socialism” and “Progressives” are samples of current nomenclature. The terms typically replace a prior term that has failed to capture public acceptance. The press simply follows suit, never questioning the new terms and phrases as they become commonly used by the press. Soon the rest of us are forced to use terms du jour or we are scorned. It is not clear who came up with the term “People of Color,” but there is not a more deceitful and manipulative term than this.

The term basically divides everyone into two groups – White people and everyone else. It treats each group as if it were homogenized. The usage of “people of color” has been traced back as far as 1796. That was really when there were two non-white groups: Blacks and Native Americans. Today that has radically changed.

It is foolish to state that all Whites are just that – people of the same ilk. There are many White Americans with whom I have zero in common. There are many Jewish White Americans I believe live on another planet… Read More

Use of the emergency power by an executive is always evil. It may be a necessary evil, but its use is evil. That is why the executive must use it with extreme caution and in very rare circumstances.

In most cases, such as a natural disaster, the executive power is used to “cut through” the red tape of government, like, in 1993, after the Northridge Earthquake, Governor Pete Wilson used the emergency powers granted to him to remove the environmental obstacles to rebuilding the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles. We now know that a freeway can be planned and built in 60 days, and not the 23 years it takes if we are forced to follow the maze of regulations imposed by the various government agencies. Or, in the case of the fires, houses can be rebuilt in weeks, and not years, when the emergency powers are used to waive the regulatory requirements for rebuilding a home. In those cases, and many others, where the danger is imminent or the damage unpredictable and devastating, use of the emergency powers, while still very evil, because they avoid legislative and public input into government policy, are absolutely necessary to avoid compounding the damage… Read More

There is a lot of talk about how we don’t have enough civility in our public discourse. Mr. Biden has called for unity and reaching across the aisle. Many people would like to blame President Trump. Though he adds to this situation, this has been going on for years. Previously, I have delineated that Democrats think Republicans are evil. I have also delineated that every Republican President since Eisenhower has been called stupid except Nixon who was called evil. Democrats (not all) think most Republican supporters are just beyond understanding societal concepts.

Recently, I had a discussion with a gay friend. Over dinner he said he did not want to engage in political discourse because it just leads to bad feelings. Even though we have different political beliefs I always want to listen to what others say so I can learn how others are thinking.

At a further time, I told him he was wrong to have that thought. I then told him a story. I had been on the forefront of accepting gays; the Best Man at my wedding in 1986 was and is gay. I could not give a hoot about whether someone is gay.

When gay marriage became a hot topic before any court ruling, I told my… Read More

The Kennedys have for the past 60 years been one of the most idolized families in America. Joseph Kennedy converted his ill-gotten gains from bootlegging into a legal fortune. He then unleashed his sons into the political world. This is when his son John changed America in one way and then his younger brother Teddy in another way. We are still paying the price for both today.

President John Kennedy won his election by slightly more than 100,000 votes nationally. The election was particularly close in Illinois. With the help of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley who delivered for Kennedy with heavy turnout by union membership. That may have been a harbinger for what happened once Kennedy became president.

In 1958, Mayor Robert Wagner made New York City the first significant government to legalize public employee unions. The state of Wisconsin followed in 1959. The real floodgate happened when, on January 17, 1962, JFK signed an executive order allowing for unionization of federal employees. Since that time, 75% of the states have legalized collective bargaining for public employees. In 2009, public employees surpassed the private sector in the number of members they have… Read More

I’ve known Arnold Steinberg for more than twenty years, and he had been involved in political campaigns and causes long before we became acquainted, and developed our longtime friendship.

We decided to ask Arnold Steinberg, who was involved in early 1995 in the early stages of what became Proposition 209 and then became that campaign’s strategist and chief consultant. He reprised that dual role in creating and overseeing the campaign against Proposition 16. Steinberg, whose roots are deep within the conservative and libertarian movement, has been involved for… Read More

On Monday, our Arrogant Lazy Authoritarian in Chief (ALAIC), Gavin Newsom, issued new orders to “fight the spread of COVID-19.”

This, of course, occurred right after he, and his minions in the Legislature, violated those orders by (1) sending his kids to school; (2) participating in a soiree at an expensive restaurant that should have been closed down; and (3) flying off to Hawaii for a legislative seminar. What we don’t know is if the ALAIC wore his mask between bites of food or his drinks, whether he “social distanced” himself from other attendees at the restaurant (I would like to see them talk to each other 6 feet apart), how many “families” attended the functions, and whether the ALAIC’s legislative minions actually tested themselves before heading off to Hawaii.

One publication called it their “Marie Antoinette” “Let them eat cake” moment. I think it was more of a proof that the COVID restrictions are a pretense for the unbridled exercise of government power. Who cares about the Constitution or the legislative process? We have COVID, that trumps everything.

I want to be clear.… Read More