“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
 – Ben Franklin

On January 1, I posed the question, “What will Liberty look like in 2014?” Six months later, the only honest answer is “less and less.”

Liberty… Read More

The troubling trend towards mono-political news viewpoints is a well funded project. Activist groups masquerading as news outlets have very clear agendas, and big budgets. Any actual journalism happening along the way appears to be more of a byproduct by well-meaning employees.

Many of these groups focus on environmental, economic, and “social justice” issues, and receive commensurate, sizable grants.

Former McClatchy journalist David Westphal posed the question of who will pay for the news with so many newspapers shrinking, in a 2009 story. Westphal suggested “non-news organizations”, trade associations, businesses, governments and labor unions, should step up with funding. “At the recentHarvard session on new business models for news,I offered an off-the-beaten-path idea to the question of who will pay for the news,”Westphal said. “One… Read More

As seen in the Los Angeles Register and Orange County Register

Drop by the California State Capitol at just the right moment and you might be surprised to hear liberal legislators sounding like tax-cutting conservatives.

In support of a multi-million dollar tax cut for business, one liberal lawmaker argues, “We need to send a message to New York… and other states competing for our jobs and say, ‘It stops here.’”

Adds another: “We can’t afford to let any more jobs abandon our state.”

One more chimes in: “Right now we’re getting our lunch handed to us by these other states.”

You’d be right to scratch your head. For years lawmakers have voted for tax hikes and burdensome regulations that drive jobs away from our state. As a consequence, Californians pay some of the highest tax rates in the nation.

Given this grim reality, any sign that tax-and-spend lawmakers might see the error of their ways is cause for hope, if not outright celebration.

A few recent developments are encouraging:

Nearly every news outlet in California has been gleefully reporting that the state economy is bouncing back. While recent newsreports show unemployment has slightly dropped, the facts show otherwise — particularly telling is how the Legislature is so focused on increasing the minimum wage, rather than improving the business climate.

Unemployment in the state, and across the country, is worse than is being reported. And, it is far more complicated than a slight economic uptick, or slight “drop” in unemployment.

We’re creating jobs at a slower pace now than at the same time last year. And with the supposed drop in unemployment, the underemployed and those “no longer in the labor force” are issues rarely reported. There is no coincidence between… Read More

By Tom Tanton and Katy Grimes

Many in America have grown convinced the world would become Utopia if it wasn’t for evil, dirty oil.Ironically, these oil critics are alwayssuccessful beneficiaries of the U.S. free enterprise system. When theydemonize oil profits,they show just how misinformed they are.

The relationship between oil and gas, and humans, is inextricably linked. As a nation’s economy grows, its oil consumption naturally follows suit.

Would America be a better place without the “Big Oil” and gas industry? Or is the vehemence behind demonizing oil and gas just a ploy for extracting exorbitant and punitive taxes? The… Read More

As the California legislative Democratic Latino Caucus attempts to put two initiatives on the November ballot designed to attract Latino voters, tens of thousands of “unaccompanied alien children,” are flooding across the southern U.S. borders illegally.

The current infusion of illegal immigrants flooding the borders is expected to grow. The number of unaccompanied, undocumented youth and child immigrants, as young as three-years old,… Read More

I’ve finally got the hard proof I need demonstrating that an IQ test should be administered prior to being granted the privilege to vote.

In Tuesday’s election, 287,590California voters cast ballots for Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco, in the Secretary of State race. Yee isunder indictment by the FBI since April, for arms trafficking and bribery. Yeewithdrew from the race, but it was too late for his name to be removed from the ballot.

Yee ended the night with nearly 10 percent of the votes. Of the top two winners, Sen. Alex Padilla, got only 884,857votes, 30 percent of the votes. Republican Pete Peterson… 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