When Past Meets Present: Russian California and the Monroe Doctrine
When Past Meets Present: Russian California and the Monroe Doctrine
During this week’s Radio Free California podcast, cohosts David Bahnsen and myself discussed the return of the Monroe Doctrine, now offered as the logic behind the Trump administration’s decision to blow up Venezuelan drug boats and to invite that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, to step outside. It’s unlikely most Americans know that the doctrine, which President James Monroe...
By Will Swaim
The Los Angeles Times Misses the Forest Fire Scandal for the Trees
The Los Angeles Times Misses the Forest Fire Scandal for the Trees
The real story is not ‘climate change.’ Most good news editors, whether they admit it or not, believe themselves Michelangelo’s heirs — men and women who chisel off the unnecessary bits of a reporter’s copy in order to reveal the angel within. Sadly, the Los Angeles Times often seems bereft of these judicious hacks. Take, for instance, a...
By Will Swaim
California Teachers’ Union Ruins an Earnest Effort to Confront Antisemitism
California Teachers’ Union Ruins an Earnest Effort to Confront Antisemitism
And in so doing, has helped demonstrate why California’s schools, once among the best in the nation, are now among its worst. California has a problem with antisemitism in its public schools, but the proposed remedy — a massive new regulatory agency outlined in a bill on the governor’s desk — will do approximately nothing to...
By Will Swaim
Why Teachers Unions Trade Algebra for Antisemitism
Why Teachers Unions Trade Algebra for Antisemitism
Politico: “Why Sacramento is fighting over antisemitism in schools” CPC’s answer: Because the California Teacher Association (CTA) would rather yell about foreign policy than answer for its documented failure to educate California’s students. To paraphrase the old joke, those who can’t do, teach – and those who can’t teach math or writing fall back on...
By Will Swaim
The Week in Populism
The Week in Populism
The British philosopher G.K. Chesterton is most famous for his mystery series featuring Father Brown, a Catholic priest who moonlights as a detective. But geeks also rightly honor his anti-populist defense of time-honored principles neatly summed up in what we’ve come to call Chesterton’s Fence. Chesterton (1874–1936) put it this way: if you’re walking through a forest...
By Will Swaim
California’s First Fourth of July
California’s First Fourth of July
California’s first Fourth of July was celebrated in the rugged hills of present-day San Bernardino, when the region was still under Mexican rule. On that day in 1842, Daniel Sexton, a Louisiana-born carpenter and early American settler, raised an American flag and celebrated Independence Day with an unlikely group: Native Americans of the local Cahuilla...
By Will Swaim
The Public-Sector Union Behind L.A. Immigration Agitation
The Public-Sector Union Behind L.A. Immigration Agitation
SEIU California expands its membership and its coffers by trying to bring open borders. The week’s riots in Los Angeles kicked off with the June 6 arrest of David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union’s California chapter. You might expect a union boss to favor immigration enforcement in the name of protecting his members’...
By Will Swaim
Don’t Overlook the Union Factor in California’s Chaos
Don’t Overlook the Union Factor in California’s Chaos
All social movements require a patron saint. Californians who support illegal immigration believe they have theirs: David Huerta, president of the state’s Service Employees International Union, or SEIU. Federal officers in Los Angeles arrested Huerta during a protest outside a business where ICE was executing a search warrant Friday — just one skirmish in what...
By Will Swaim
The Clock Is Running Out for Covid Fraud Investigations
The Clock Is Running Out for Covid Fraud Investigations
A bill to allow more time to track down and file charges for these massive fraud schemes is languishing in the Senate. For all of the five-year remembrances of Covid-19, few have paused to recall the cyber smash-and-grab that hoovered billions of dollars out of state unemployment offices. Inmates in California grabbed thousands of dollars from prison library...
By Will Swaim
Gavin Newsom’s Shameless Dodge on the Homeless Crisis
Gavin Newsom’s Shameless Dodge on the Homeless Crisis
California’s governor tries — and fails — to blame the state’s homelessness epidemic on someone, anyone else. Confronting yet another calamitous state budget deficit, California Governor Gavin Newsom took time last week to blast the real public enemies: Donald Trump and someone called Amy Bublak. You know Trump. His tariffs have indeed produced volatility in the stock...
By Will Swaim
Charter School Emerges as Financial Lifeline for Struggling Orange County District
Charter School Emerges as Financial Lifeline for Struggling Orange County District
Times are tough in Orange Unified, Orange County’s fourth-largest school district. Already facing a years-long decline in state funding that followed the district’s plummeting enrollment, school officials in June 2024 nevertheless agreed to a teachers union demand for a 10 percent pay hike. Union officials celebrated – but only briefly. In September, internal documents show,...
By Will Swaim
Trump’s First 100 Days Have Shattered California’s Left-Wing Illusions
Trump’s First 100 Days Have Shattered California’s Left-Wing Illusions
President Trump has pushed aside Governor Gavin Newsom and driven the nation’s most populous state toward something approaching sanity. President Trump’s (second) first 100 days have generated some amount of horse excrement. It’s hard to see how it serves Trump’s interests to anger allies in advance of a trade war with China, to drive the economy into...
By Will Swaim
Can Republicans Undo the Damage of Julie Su?
Can Republicans Undo the Damage of Julie Su?
Biden’s wannabe labor secretary brought one of California’s worst workforce ideas to the entire country. There’s much harrumphing in the media about President Donald Trump’s penchant for norm-busting, but he’s hardly the first to engage in it. Under President Joe Biden, the media generally cheered student loan forgiveness, talk of packing or ignoring the Supreme Court,...
By Will Swaim
California Fires Don’t Justify an Energy Industry Shakedown
California Fires Don’t Justify an Energy Industry Shakedown
A bill that would allow state residents to sue private companies for restitution is only the latest front in California’s ongoing war on oil producers. L.A.’s wildfires are still burning, but that hasn’t stopped anyone with eyeballs from identifying the likely causes: America’s costliest natural disaster isn’t “natural,” really, or not entirely. It is, in fact, the...
By Will Swaim