Think back to late December. Christmas was approaching and the news in California was getting grimmer by the day. California had one of the highest COVID case rates of any state. Just a month earlier, Governor Newsom locked down the state yet again. Hospitals were packed and there was a shortage of body bags. There...
Editor’s note: A Southern California businessman copied us on his open letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Given his reasonable fear of political retribution – from state tax investigators, for instance, or regulators – we honored his request to remain anonymous. Dear Gov. Newsom, I am writing as a lifelong resident of California. I was born...
For about twenty million years, California’s forests endured countless droughts, some lasting over a century. Natural fires, started by lightning and very frequent in the Sierras, were essential to keep forest ecosystems healthy. In Yosemite, for example, meadows used to cover most of the valley floor, because while forests constantly encroached, fires would periodically wipe...
Earlier this month the effort to recall Gavin Newsom was officially ended. As reported in the Times of San Diego on March 17, “Last week, the California Secretary of State’s Office informed Erin Cruz of Palm Springs that her petition effort to oust the Democratic governor had failed. A year earlier, an initiative to repeal California’s gas tax made...
For three years in a row, California’s progressive lawmakers have attempted to legislate high density housing by taking away the ability of cities and counties to enforce local zoning laws. And for the third year in a row, the proposed law, Senate Bill 50, was narrowly defeated. But eventually something like SB 50 is going to...
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...
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...
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?...
By now anyone who works as an independent contractor in California has heard of AB 5, which will force companies to reclassify them as employees. The justification for AB 5, which was reportedly written by the AFL-CIO, is to prevent companies from exploiting workers. Without AB 5, the reasoning goes, companies hire freelancers to do the same work...
California’s homeless crisis is now visible to everyone living in the state. Along with tens of thousands of homeless who are concentrated in various districts of the major cities, additional thousands are widely dispersed. If you drive into most major urban centers, you will see their tent encampments along freeway junctions, under bridges, along frontages,...
When President Trump arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday, he had a few words to say about the city’s homeless problem. “We can’t let Los Angeles, San Francisco and numerous other cities destroy themselves by allowing what’s happening,” the president told reporters. “In many cases came from other countries and they moved to Los Angeles or...
Grassroots activists in California point to the initiative process as a potent and underutilized last resort, capable of ushering in sweeping reforms. They’re right, but the initiative process is equally available to California’s progressives, backed by powerful special interests. And while the activist reformers talk, the progressives act. How else does one explain the hundreds...
For decades, American workers have watched as their ability to enjoy middle class lifestyles erodes away. Conventional explanations abound. American industry in the immediate aftermath of World War II was uniquely unscathed, and with a near monopoly on global manufacturing, it was able to pass much of the ample profits on to workers. It wasn’t...