Our family always looks forward to Thanksgiving. This year we are particularly due to the challenges of 2020 and all the things we are thankful for including the Dodgers winning the World Series. Our beloved governor, Gavin Newsom, issued mandatory requirements for a safe Thanksgiving. We as a family have decided to comply with them completely as we always want to follow the guidance of our government for which we are also very thankful.

The first thing we did was sit down and determine who could be included. The rules as outlined on the California Department of Public Health website say clearly that gatherings of more than three households are prohibited. That means we could only have one household from my side of the family and one from the Beautiful Wife’s. Since BW has more households on her side I left it to her to make the final cut.

We had to give the ax to Aunts and Uncles. My Aunt Ethel had to go as well as BW’s Uncle Fred. We actually were thankful for this rule here. Fred and Ethel invariably end up getting in a fight over something that happened in the 1950’s that no one else can remember. They yell at each other from across the table.… Read More

We have now confirmed what it takes for a Democrat to get elected President in this country. There must be either a national crisis or an international pandemic occurring concurrent with the election. In 2008, Barack Obama won because the Republicans’ inept candidate mishandled the reaction to the loan crisis. Without an international pandemic, Joe Biden does not defeat Donald Trump.

For years we have been told that the MSM, educational institutions and the Entertainment community are turning out Left-wing robotons destined to give control of the country to socialist fanatics too stupid to understand their political philosophy is an international failure. The American people once again rejected that thinking. Republicans will hold the U.S. Senate, picked up seats in the House and added a Governorship. The Republicans added control of state legislatures despite over $50 million being spent by Eric Holder’s operation to attempt to win control there. Even if Joe Biden becomes president, he will have a narrow lane from which to operate.

No matter what happens, Donald J. Trump woke up many Americans to the reality that our government seems to not be operating in… Read More

In the midst of this California blue wave debacle, I found some remarkably GOOD news. Mind you, I’m not a “good news” sort of guy.

Let me be clear: California is doomed. I don’t expect that to change for decades, if ever.

I write regularly about which states are best for fiscally sane, limited government, liberty loving Californians to flee to. Almost all are better than California, though some are MUCH better than others.

If I can talk the rest of my family into departing for another state (Tennessee is my favorite), we’ll be out of here. So far, I’m having no luck.

But I digress.

Democrats win the overwhelming majority of the partisan races in the state. And by a wide margin. That’s NOT the good news.

The good news is the voters’ response to the statepropositions. See the chart below.

While the final vote totals will change, the results are generally favorable to REPUBLICAN positions. Even where the GOP position on a prop lost, it was a close contest. This is doubtless a surprise to most of our CA MSM and politicians.

It gets more interesting when… Read More

This might be late, since the election is tomorrow, but I voted for Donald Trump (by mail), because I believe he deserves re-election.

I will begin by noting that I did not support Trump in the 2016 run for the Republican primary. I was a Ted Cruz guy. I didn’t support Trump because I had foolishly supported Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor in 2003, and I thought Trump was going to be another Schwarzenegger type faux Republican. I voted for Trump in the general election (because who, in good conscience, could vote for Hillary Clinton), but I did not think he would win. Boy was I surprised that not only did he not turn out to be a faux Republican, he has been an actual conservative, and deserving of conservative and Republican support for re-election.

The unfortunate part of being a Republican is that there are always those in the party who find virtue in hating the Republican that the mainstream media hates. These Republicans claim to stand on principle, and stand up for the “party of Ronald Reagan” when they do this, and, of course, they receive all the adulation and attention (many for the first time) that the media heaps upon… Read More

Liberal California columnist Joe Matthews just wrote his typical “mo’ money” column. Already Joe is unhappy that, according to him, “only” four billion dollars of Prop 15 loot will end up going for education. He wants a breathtaking FIFTY billion for education — money coming from totally “reforming” (actually gutting) Prop 13. But he never explains why we need more education spending.

https://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2020/10/what-our-split-roll-obsession-has-cost-us/

Do you know the name Tommy Devito? Sure, you do. He was a founding member and lead guitarist of the Four Seasons. He was in the group before Frankie Valli. He died September 21st. If you every saw Jersey Boys, you know Tommy did not live the life of a monk. It is quite fascinating that he was able to make it to the age of 92. His cause of death: COVID-19. That was quite illuminating to read. One would think after his life and at his age something else was going on there, particularly at age 92. It made me think if Keith Richards were to die, it would be declared from (you guessed it) COVID-19.

Yes, the numbers are engineered to make things look worse than they are. Dr. Birx stated early on that if any person who tested positive from COVID-19 at the time of their death, REGARDLESS of whatever other diseases or illnesses they had, would be added to the death toll. Now they just want to gin up the totals. Last time I saw figures, 50 colleges had just short of 70,000 people diagnosed as having COVID. The number hospitalized had jumped to three.

Yes, like when FDR told us not to fear, Trump stated we should not fear COVID. He was not only right; he was acting like a… Read More

The history of government in this world tilts almost totally towards authoritarianism. A free society is the exception, authoritarianism is the rule.

People, driven by fear, are often willing to give up their freedom for protection from some amorphous, imagined, unseen or even perceived evil, and there is usually someone in government willing to capitalize on that fear to consolidate their power. In a constitutional Republic, those in position of government authority need more than just the bald assertion of power to institute an authoritarian government. Throughout history, authoritarians have used many excuses to displace the legislative process and consolidate power, and many have used an emergency as a reason to displace constitutional processes, because those processes “are just too slow” to deal with the effects of the emergency. If a political officeholder has authoritarian tendencies, any excuse will do. That is why the exercise of emergency powers in a free society must be strictly limited in scope and in time. The potential for abuse of freedom is just too great.

Which leads to the discussion of the corona virus responses by our… Read More

I can’t find a definitive study or conclusion about the effect of the coronavirus on the lost life expectancy of the people who die. It’s something that is NOT being mentioned or considered by the press or pundits. One early study claiming that the coronavirus cut 10 years off the average infected dead person’s life has been totally debunked. But my searching finds nothing else so far.

I would think that this factor should be an important consideration. We know that the OVERWHELMING majority of COVID-19 deaths are very senior people who usually had other major health problems and a limited life span to begin with. But beyond that general observation, nobody seems to be studying the longevity factor.

As is my wont, I’ve been digging around on the CDC website. I found some bizarre figures on the TOTAL national weekly “excess deaths.” In their data on the coronavirus, CDC defines the aggregate “excess deaths” as the percent of weekly TOTAL deaths compared with the previous three years’ average deaths.

Clearly COVID-19 has increased the total deaths this year. I’ve included the weekly… Read More