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Dems need to get unified, get to work

It seemed to take forever, but the Democratic National Committee recently released their autopsy of their ill-fated 2024 presidential campaign. It's bitter medicine, my Dem friends, but, as Momma used to say, take a spoonful, it'll do you good. As midterm elections loom, and as the party girds its loins for what will be a millennial battle to retake the White House, Democrats would do well to recall the great humorist Will Rogers' assessment of their 1924 convention, which is widely remembered as the longest and "wildest" in the nation's history. Although the Democrats that year ...

Forget the rainbow, let’s taste the vinegar

My mind wanders, and sometimes I just follow behind it, seeing where it goes. Driving to the gym recently, I debated bringing in my water bottle before remembering there was a water fountain inside. I started thinking about the person who designed the fountain itself, about the ...

Celebrating 250th birthday with some thoughts

This summer, the United States celebrates its 250th birthday. In 1776, few people believed this new version of self-government would last. After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of government the Founding Fathers had created. "A republic," he replied, "if you can keep it." If... It's rare that a new form of government lasts dozens of years, let alone 250. How did America do it? In my new video, people give reasons: "In the U.S. Constitution, you see a lot of phrases like 'Congress shall not ...' or 'No law shall be passed ...

Advice for US Senate candidate

Now that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has roundly defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican runoff primary for Cornyn's U.S. Senate seat (Paxton won by 25 percentage points), the real battle begins. Paxton's opponent on the Democrat Party ticket is James Talarico, a former teacher and member of the Texas House of Representatives who holds a master of divinity from the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Politicians routinely ignore the extent to which their religious faith is inconsistent with their personal behavior or their policy prescriptions. But Talarico is ...

Ballot measure extends state’s taxing power.

Californians will face two competing tax measures this November. The first is the Billionaire Tax Act, a onetime, 5% levy on the accumulated net worth of the state's richest residents. Lesser known is the Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act, which would draw constitutional lines around what Sacramento can and cannot tax, prohibiting new levies on retirement accounts, personal savings and individually owned assets and banning retroactive taxation. Everyone with even just a little bit of money set aside – not just the California billionaires targeted by the wealth ...

Golden state no longer land of dreams

Many years ago, sometime after Ronald Reagan replaced Pat Brown as governor of California, I was driving up the coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco and visited Hearst Castle, William Randolph Hearst's epic mansion in San Simeon. It was state property then, donated by the Hearst family, and the uniformed guide struck me as knowledgeable, competent and proud of her work. Some time later, I wrote articles arguing that California, not yet the highest-tax state but never a tax haven either, was proof that big government could provide competent services. For a generation under ...