COVID-19 is a dangerous if somewhat overblown threat — especially lethal to those over age 60. As geezers, my wife and I (mid-70’s) have decided that we want to see our kids and young grandkids every couple of months in our home.

They stay overnight. Usually 2-3 nights each visit. My wife and I are functional, active senior adults with all our marbles. We are in reasonably good (far from perfect!) health who fully understand the very real risk to us both. And it DOES scare us.

There are steps that we take to significantly reduce the risk. But the risk remains. Here’s what we do:

We have a “whole house fan” that can draw air from outside and then blow it out through the attic. On full blast, it’s like being outside. Even at a lower speed, it still provides a healthy flow of fresh air. Originally installed to reduce A/C costs (cutting our A/C bills by about 85%), we find it’s a wise option to employ during this pandemic. Tough to use in winter, but we live in a temperate climate and dress for the discomfort when it’s … Read More

President Trump has spent a lot of time harping on voter fraud. He may be correct that there were inappropriate actions done by voters and election officials, but he and his team were unable to prove that to our courts in order to overturn the election. Our election laws will be dealt with in a future column. For now, we must address an issue that impacts our elections in an even more meaningful way. That is how our national press censors (suppresses) newsworthy stories that impacted the 2020 election and possibly beyond.

In a prior column, I stated that the Biden campaign skirted answering questions from the national press and they allowed Biden and his campaign to do such. It was obvious that Biden would continue in the same manner once he was president. So far in the transition he and his staff have continued in the same manner. His communications staff allows one opportunity a week for the press to answer questions and then handpicks friendly members of the press to ask a meager five questions. Biden gave his first full interview to a late-night TV host who at one time was funny. The peculiar aspect is they made such a big deal out of hiring a female-only… Read More

Vote Note on the Covid Relief and Omnibus Spending Package: When Its Too Good To Be True…

The covid relief provisions in this bill are immensely popular – they provide $600 direct cash payments to individuals earning up to $75,000, (plus $600 per child), a $1,200 per month bonus to unemployment benefits, and $325 billion in PPP forgivable loans to businesses.

But I cannot in good conscience vote for it. When something seems too good to be true, it usually is.

If the aid were targeted to those who have been devastated by the lockdowns, it might be justified. But the bill makes no such distinction. Neither the personal nor first-time PPP grants are contingent on the recipient being financially harmed by the lockdowns. (Although the second round PPP grants do to some extent). The aid is wholly inadequate for those who were harmed and wholly unnecessary for those who weren’t. In effect, this becomes a massive wealth transfer from victims to non-victims.

For example, the waiter whose income has been slashed will get the same $600 as the government bureaucrat who’s been enjoying a steady paycheck at home. A thriving law firm qualifies for… Read More

When I was younger, I was involved in various charities. I went to meetings, did fundraising calls and generally spent a lot of time involved in various nonprofit organizations. The endless meetings with people droning on became unappealing over time. We were still sending checks and donating our used goods, but some aspects of these organizations where people ruled by the size of their wallets and there were crosscurrent purposes became unattractive. It caused me to alter my path to helping people.

My journey started with a contractor from a major construction project. Near the end when we needed him most he took a leave due to medical issues. His substitutes failed us which ended up in a legal dispute. We were able to connect with him and found out that he had ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), a devastating progressive disease over which we have made little progress the last 80 years. He and I started having regular conversations and became fast friends while I tracked his situation. He made every effort to fully live his life with a positive attitude. Our conversations became a regular part of my life and we met for lunch when we could, even during the… Read More

Here’s a bizarre SAN DIEGO U-T story detailing how absurdly expensive the city’s homeless shelter is during this pandemic. It’s bizarre because the newspaper is actually acting like it’s a NEWSpaper!

The key point is the taxpayer cost per homeless person. It comes to a mind-boggling $210 per day per homeless person (presumably including feeding costs). That’s $76,650 a year! Apparently for couples, it’s DOUBLE that cost. A family of four? Don’t even think about it.

If it weren’t for the pandemic, it would be cheaper to book our homeless on luxury cruises — where the low-end cost can vary from $100 to $200 per person per day. Probably bigger group discounts could be negotiated. BTW, that cruise ship comparison is MY observation — not the U-T’s.… Read More

Since mid-January of 2020, we have been harangued with breathless rantings from leftist politicians and their propaganda arm, affectionately known as the “mainstream media” surrounding the spread of the disease they call “Covid-19” (an ominous name for a new strain of the flu, of which there have been hundreds). Their hysterical hype have told us that millions of us were going to die, that our intensive care units in hospitals would be overrun, that there was no avoiding this pestilence, that we couldn’t talk, sing, or visit with each other, or engage in any other of the basic signs of humanity, like shaking hands or hugging, because we would kill each other with this dreaded disease. We were told we couldn’t go to church, or even earn a basic living, or else we would kill our neighbor. We have been ordered to stay locked in our homes and, should we decide to leave our house, we were forced to dress up like bank robbers to avoid catching or spreading the germs that could kill off our entire society.

None of the prognostications of the imminent demise of the human species by this perilous plague have come true, but we are still being… Read More

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