There are two things for which Legislators have the only responsibility: (1) ensuring we have an adequate legal structure to protect citizens from those for whom crime is a way of life; and (2) spending the money entrusted to them by the taxpayers in an effective, efficient and responsible manner. California’s Legislative Democrats have failed on both counts. This is my recommendations to California Republicans on how to demonstrate these failures to the voters of the state of California

The last two posts on Prop. 36 have one message – campaign on an anti-crime policy and connect all the Democrats in the Legislature to the current crime spree throughout the state, but particularly in the urban areas of this state. In my time in the Legislature, we used to do this by motions to withdraw from committee, which became such an effective tool of connecting members to their real “pro-crime” agenda that the Democrats changed the rules to make these motions almost impossible. Now the only real argument that can be made is that each Democrat supports the Speaker, who then appointed the chair of the Public Safety Committee, allowing that Chair to… Read More

Proposition 36 makes the very rational argument that criminals should be incarcerated for their crimes. When done timely and right, the arguments in favor of incarceration move even the most uninvolved voter to vote, and, when the arguments are framed correctly, those uninvolved voters turn out and vote Republican. That was the strength of three strikes.

When combined with Proposition 187, the “cut off government benefits to illegal aliens” initiative, the voters of California were faced with two very straight forward and powerful examples of the failures of the left. In 1994, crime was out of control, and the borders were unprotected. Voters had enough of the left’s vision for California, and they reacted, strongly, punishing the ruling Democrats, and delivering a majority to the Republicans in one house of the Legislature for the first time in 24 years.

2024 has the potential for making Republicans relevant again. Crime and illegal immigration are top on the minds of the voters of California. With Proposition 36 on the ballot, and an emphasis on illegal immigration in the legislative districts, Republican candidates have a mix of… Read More

Between 1960 and 1994, California saw a 500% increase in all forms of crime. The root cause of this increase in crime was a systematic decrease in prison sentences, literally cutting the average time a convicted criminal spent in prison by over 50%, then granting a variety of different methods of reducing the time of the sentence, methods like “good time” or “work time” reductions to those sentences. A convicted criminal would often be sentenced to a determinate sentence of 5 years, and end up spending less than half of that in prison.

The left constantly reinforced the attitude that prison sentences don’t deter crime. They have always seen criminals of some sort of modern Jean Valjean, a noble hero, driven by economic circumstance to steal bread to feed his or her family, while those who believe in the rule of law as some puritanical Javert, who care not about the person who broke the law, but only about enforcing the law.

After the passage of three strikes in 1994, the crime rate dropped by 50% in one year, for the first time in over 30 years. The law had a real effect on the criminal class. For the incorrigible felon,… Read More

If you are feeling like you have whiplash, you should. It’s been fascinating to watch how quickly certain elements of the Democrat party, including their in-house press organs called the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico etc., turned on the guy. And there are some major concerns and duplicity central to their reaction. President Biden looked terrible and spoke terribly on June 27th. If you have watched him since then, he looks better and is better able to handle speaking in public. He certainly was much better in his interview with George Stephanopoulos. You would not hear this from the press because once they turned on him, they totally turned on him. It is not because he cannot do the job he was elected to do. We have been questioning that from day one. To them Joe Biden had one use and one use only – defeating the evil Orangeman. If he cannot defeat Trump let’s get him out, facts be damned. First, let us look at the polls. Biden has been slightly behind all year. That is based on the climate in the country. No matter who was running with these policies they would be behind. Americans have been battered by the destructive… Read More

Thankfully, a long time ago I decided to read political press coverage “across the political spectrum.” Had that not been the case, I clearly would have missed reading Nell Scovell’s column in the Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-real-man-jerry-seinfeld-misses-is-guilty-bad-boy-hunter-biden? It is clear from Scovell’s analysis that Seinfeld’s comment about wanting to be “a real man” and his “real man” icons from his youth that he has no understanding of his toxic masculinity and how negative it is for everyone around him. How fortunate that Scovell enlightened Seinfeld that he is validating none other than Hunter Biden as a “real man” at his worst moments. God knows there are plenty of those. Let’s take a look at this analysis. Scovell cites a comment and some behavior Seinfeld mentioned as one of the four people who come to mind as real men. She has no idea what he actually meant by that. She asserts her own conclusions. It is doubtful that he knew the information shared by Scovell about Sean Connery… Read More

In 2023, I twice wrote that Mr. Trump should not run for president in 2024. I have many problems with the man. There are better candidates, ready to be president, who could run and defeat the worst president of the last 165 years. On the other hand, I am confident that Trump is a vastly superior candidate to the current president. Electing Biden for another four years would be debilitating for our country in both domestic and foreign affairs. I feel violated by what happened in New York City. For analysis of this “show trial” I relied principally on three legal experts: Jonathan Turley, Andy McCarthy, and Alan Dershowitz. Two of these men are Democrats. All three think the same way as I do about Donald Trump. All three spent time in the courtroom and were appalled by what took place. None of the three has ever seen a judge behave and make decisions like the evil Juan Merchan. They have never seen a judge maneuver a case that should have never been brought by the equally evil Alvin Bragg. As Jonathan Turley stated after the trial, “Even after sitting in the courtroom watching the trial and the verdict, I still have no idea what Trump was convicted… Read More

We Americans travel to Europe more than any other place on earth outside the United States. We do it because it is still the closest to us culturally, politically, and militarily. We feel more comfortable jetting off to London or Florence than we do in other parts of the world. The Beautiful Wife and I try to mix it up more than most people we know, and travel to all the continents somewhat “in rotation.” This year it was Europe, but we focused on an area to which many don’t typically travel — the Balkan countries. We ended up in 12 countries although three of them were just a passing glance. Those being Croatia to exchange cars, Italy for a quick trip to Trieste (BW spent more time in Italy as she stuck around attending a cooking school in Tuscany) and our separate overnight Heathrow stays on our way back to the States. All three countries were previously visited. One thing that was quite noticeable while walking around the various countries (especially the seven new to us) is everyone kind of looked the same. While walking the streets and attending local restaurants, you really could believe you are in the United States. The people dress… Read More

The Legislature is required to adopt the budget by June 15, according to the Constitution. With that deadline quickly approaching, one would think that the press would be doing a countdown, telling us what is going on in Sacramento and telling us all about the meetings and proposals about the budget. It should be a daily update. Except it is not. Why not? Because the Democrats, who run everything in Sacramento screwed up the last three or four budgets, and the chickens are coming home to roost. They are trying to figure out how to solve the problem without cutting their pet programs or raising taxes in an election year. Their past actions have created this screw up of monumental proportions and the entire Sacramento power structure and their sycophants in the media are doing their best to hide the size of the problem or the depth of their incompetence that led to this situation.

Up to this point, behind closed doors, they have tried to blame the federal government for delaying the filing of tax returns in 2023 and unpredictable fluctuations in revenue receipts in the last three years, but the fact is the legislature and the governor’s office have been… Read More