A recent chat with my cousin illuminates the chasm between fact and fantasy. After a recent post in which I detailed California’s abuse of taxpayers, I got a call from my cousin Louie, an aging Hollywood screenwriter. Known as the “red sheep” of the family, he firmly believes that pouring more money into government schools...
It isn’t a partisan observation to say that California is a one-party state. It’s just stating a fact. The Democratic Party controls all the levers of political power in California. Consider the evidence: GOP registration is down to 23 percent of registered voters. There is a Democratic “mega-majority” (75% or more) in both chambers of the...
Union leaders are enraged at Trump and DeVos for the audacity of promoting parental choice. Last week, the President’s State of the Union address was a typically upbeat affair. President Trump outlined his many successes and Congressional Republicans were jubilant, while Democrats scowled. One of the features of Trump’s talk was a revival of Texas...
The economy has been booming over the last decade, which has provided local governments with a windfall in sales and property taxes. Despite the economic fat times, California cities have been complaining about their dire economic straits, with some of them even fearing insolvency unless something is done to change the financial trajectory. What explains...
Last week what is arguably California’s most powerful political special interest, the California Teachers Association (CTA), or teachers union, held its quarterly State Council of Education meeting at the plush Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The CTA reported revenues of $209 million on their most recent IRS Form 990 (results through 8/31/2018), and their total assets increased...
LAUSD and UTLA leaders are leading us down the road to financial ruin. A few weeks ago, I wrote that tax-grabbing state bureaucrats were pushing hard-working Californians to the brink. Incompetence, mismanaged money and union greed have turned the formerly Golden State into a failing enterprise. Here, I will focus on the Los Angeles Unified...
When Gov. Gavin Newsom took office in January 2019 — aware that 10 of California’s 20 most destructive wildfires had occurred since 2015 — he promised an “all of the above” approach to reducing the threat that fires poised to public safety and property in a hot, dry era. In his first full day on...
There is a mass delusion afflicting millions of Californians. They endure a cost-of-living nearly twice the national average, high taxes, the highest incidence of poverty, the most hostile business climate, some of the worst K-12 schools, well over a $1.0 trillion in bond and pension debt, unaffordable homes, among the highest prices in the nation for gasoline and electricity, water rationing, and they drive on congested and decaying...
Gavin Newsom, the lily white, urbane, coiffured scion of San Francisco’s posh royalty, is California’s highest ranking Democrat. He presides over a party that has taken progressive ideals beyond absurdity to the brink of tyranny. One would think that the party of Gavin Newsom is bent on destroying everything Gavin Newsom represents. So what’s going on?...
Hollywood gives school choice a fair, positive representation. Inspired by a true story, Miss Virginia is the saga of Virginia Walden Ford, the force behind the Washington, D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a voucher program that lets low-income parents use public funding to send their children to private schools. Set in 2003, the film portrays Virginia,...
After being discussed for decades, a privately funded 170-mile high-speed rail link through the desert between Las Vegas and Victorville — 90 miles east-northeast of Los Angeles — could get final approval in coming weeks from the Federal Railroad Administration. After that happens, the California and Nevada state governments are expected to give final approval...
There is now a $300,000 club for California’s firefighters. In the City of Manhattan Beach during 2018, the average pay and benefits for a full time firefighter were $300,242. While the Manhattan Beach firefighters, at least through 2018, belong to an exclusive club, twelve California cities pay their firefighters over $250,000 per year, and 69...
The abusive education monopoly must go. Having retired as a teacher over ten years ago, I often look back on some of the great educators that I worked with during my 28-year career, and how lucky their students were to have them. I also think about the stinkers I encountered, and how sad it is...
If you’re searching for an organizing principle that unites the Left, density ideology should be at or near the top of your list. Far from being a sideshow, density ideology is behind the leftist drive to cram America’s rising population into the footprint of existing cities. It fulfills the agenda of every big player on...