Tag: guest commentary

The 350 missiles fired at Israelis last weekend were fired by Iran, which has consistently pledged to annihilate Israel. This, of course, is a pledge to commit genocide, defined by Oxford Dictionary as “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” To constitute genocide, the United Nations states, “there must be a proven intent on the part of the perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”

Therefore, is Iran pledged to commit genocide? Check.

Since its very founding, Hamas has been doctrinally and operationally devoted to annihilating Israel by murdering Jews. On Oct. 7, when 3,000 Hamas gunmen funded by Iran invaded Israel and slaughtered 1,200 Israelis before being stopped, their mission was to slaughter their way to Tel Aviv, killing as many Jews as possible. Since then, their leaders have vowed to reprise that slaughter over and over until their mission is accomplished.

Attempted genocide? Pledge to achieve genocide? Check. Check.

But when Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, running for reelection and eager to placate the untethered wing of her party, stopped at the Islamic Center of Boston last week, she knew just who to charge with genocide.

Here’s a hint: It wasn’t Iran, and it wasn’t Hamas.

Asked about South Africa’s charge made in the International Court of Justice that it was actually Israel that, trying to defend itself against a genocidal campaign, was the party guilty of genocide, the oh-so-courageous Warren didn’t reply, “Say what?” or, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” or, “That simply isn’t a fair charge to make against Israel.”

What she said, in order to cave to an audience that demanded that she endorse the charge, was, “If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they’ll find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so.”

Ample evidence of genocide by Israel? Like what?

Perhaps it was the obvious intent to destroy Palestinians manifested by the young Israelis who were dancing at a festival when they were raped and executed gangland style en masse. Or the plain genocidal intent of the families sleeping in their beds that peaceful Saturday morning who were dismembered, blown to pieces or bound together and burned to death.

Warren occasionally recites the grudging boilerplate that “of course Israel has the right to defend itself.” She has “ample evidence” that Hamas deliberately causes the killing of Palestinians that it uses as human shields, and that therefore it isn’t possible for Israel to “defend itself” without harming civilians — because that is what Hamas guarantees. First year law students know what “proximate cause” is. A former Harvard Law professor surely does as well.

The charge that Israel seeks to kill civilians is one that is made routinely by Hamas’ defenders every time Hamas starts a war, like clockwork. This charge, let alone the risible charge that Israel seeks to destroy Palestinians as a group, has been repeatedly debunked by American military experts, who actually know what they’re talking about. Gen. Martin Dempsey, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rejected the charge shortly after the 2014 war started by Hamas. “I actually do think that Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties,” Dempsey told the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

Even Republican stalwarts like current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are starting to notice that something is shifting in the party. While McConnell announced recently that he would step down as Republican leader in the US Senate, in an interview last week he was adamant that he would continue to serve out his term in the Senate with one purpose in mind: “fighting back against the isolationist movement in my own party.”

He sounds worried.

What McConnell deems to be “isolationism” had for much of our history been called America’s traditional foreign policy. There have been  major exceptions, but until the emergence of the neoconservatives starting in the late 1970s we largely adhered to the words of John Quincy Adams that America, “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.”

Why is that? The idea had always been that we would have more influence on freedom worldwide by concentrating on demonstrating the benefits of a free-market economy and protection of our Constitutional liberties at home. The US would lead the world by example rather than leading at the barrel of a gun.

When we strayed from that idea we got disasters like Vietnam.

But then in the 1980s, the neoconservatives seized control of the foreign policy of the Republican Party (and eventually much of the Democratic Party). They were determined to remake the world in their image through the use of force.

The military-industrial complex and all the special interests loved this takeover because it meant a huge transfer of wealth from the middle class to them, the moneyed class. The American people at first accepted the hollow promises of the interventionist neocons, believing as they were told that it was the “patriotic” thing to do.

What we are now seeing – and it is evident in the polls as well as in speeches of our politicians – is a shift away from interventionism. The mood has changed, and more Americans are tired of being told they must sacrifice to save the rest of the world from itself.

Recently Col. Douglas Macgregor posted on Twitter, “We have lost $14 TRILLION over the last 20 year on dumb interventions in other countries. What good has it done?”

Many Republicans are asking that same question. What have we gotten for the first $100 billion to Ukraine? A victory for “freedom” like we were promised? No. We got rampaging inflation, decreasing standard of living, and demands for another $100 billion!

To state the obvious, California motorists are experiencing one of the state’s periodic spikes in gasoline prices.

California’s average price for regular grade gas has again topped $5 a gallon, according to the most recent American Automobile Association report. It’s more than $6 in some areas. The average is up about 20 cents from a year ago and is about $1.50 higher than the national figure.

I can attest to the differential, having spent part of March driving some 3,000 miles through four western states, mostly to visit national parks, and buying about 200 gallons of fuel along the way. All of my fill-ups were under $3.50 a gallon, with the lowest price being $2.99 in Wyoming.

The difference between California prices and those in other states raises, for the umpteenth time, is the question of why it exists.

A couple of years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom spent months vilifying oil companies as price-gouging enemies of the people and demanded that the Legislature punish them with taxes on excess profits. He couldn’t win approval the tax proposal, switched to seeking civil penalties, and ultimately had to settle for relatively toothless legislation directing the state Energy Commission to gather data, establish a reasonable profit level and assess penalties for exceeding it.

“Finally, we’re in a position to look our constituents in the eye and say we now have a better understanding of why you’re being taken advantage of,” Newsom said a year ago as he signed the bill. “There’s a new sheriff in town in California, where we brought Big Oil to their knees. And I’m proud of this state.”

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We have heard virtually nothing from officialdom about gas prices since, and Newsom apparently didn’t bring Big Oil to its knees.

The vast majority of the differential in gas prices between California and other states can be attributed to differing policies.

Severin Borenstein, a UC Berkeley economist regarded as the state’s leading expert on the issue, parsed the differential in a 2023 paper, pointing out that California’s direct and indirect taxes on fuel amount to nearly $1 per gallon – 70 cents higher than the national average in such taxes – and the state’s unique fuel blend to battle smog adds another dime.

That left what he calls the “mystery gasoline surcharge,” or MGS, of about 43 cents a gallon that cannot be directly attributed to oil prices or California’s taxes and other official factors. It may be a mystery, but at least some of it can be logically attributed to the relatively high costs of doing any kind of business in California – rents, electricity and other utilities, wages and regulatory overhead, for example.

Even if the MGS could be eliminated from the equation, California’s gas prices would still be at least $1 higher than those in other states.

Even horrible events sometimes bring good things. 

COVID-19 killed at least 3 million people worldwide, reported the World Health Organization. I contracted it myself three times. The first was quite bad, the others like a medium cold. A friend ended up in the ICU for a week. 

Yet here are four good developments to come from the coronavirus pandemic.Our American system of liberties was tested, and held firm.

In Jan. 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out President Biden’s mandate for 84 million American workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine. The court ruled on technical grounds the Occupational Safety and Health Administration exceeded the authority given it by Congress. 

I should point out that, although I didn’t get the COVID vax because I thought it was developed too quickly, I am not an “anti-vaxxer,” and in recent years have been jabbed for shingles, pneumonia, the flu and Hepatitis-B.

But I have Canadian friends who were forced to get the COVID vax to keep their jobs. That’s no freedom. For Americans, COVID was a freedom test we passed.

2. Telehealth reforms advanced. Formerly called telemedicine, the federal government’s own website, telehealth.hhs.gov, lists some of the post-COVID changes, such as, “There are no geographic restrictions for originating site for behavioral/mental telehealth services.”

In California, on April 3, 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-43-20, which relaxed regulations on “the use of telehealth services to engage in the provision of medical, surgical, or other health care services,” as well as for mental health.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last. In January this year, the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation released its 3rd Annual State Policy Agenda of Telehealth Innovation. California scored “improvements needed” in most areas. The best area was allowing “telehealth by any mode”; the worst was maintaining barriers to telehealth across state lines.

Co-author Vittorio Nastasi told me, “In 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1369, allowing cross-state telehealth services under very limited circumstances. This was a good step, but other states like Florida have gone much further.”

3. The economy survived a strong shock. Four years ago, federal and state policies shut down almost the entire U.S. economy, with most of the world following. The price of a barrel of oil fell below $0. On April 14, 2020 the International Monetary Fund branded it the “worst economic downturn since the Great Depression” of the 1930s. It warned, “April World Economic Outlook projects global growth in 2020 to fall to -3 percent.” President Trump and Congress spent $4 trillion on keeping the economy afloat – all of it borrowed money we’re still paying for. 

But as soon as the shutdowns lifted, the economy came roaring back. Why? As horrible as COVID was, it wasn’t the Black Death of 1346-1353, which killed one-third to two-thirds of Europeans, depending on locality. 

U.S. taxes remained relatively low. No vast new regulations were imposed. Industries weren’t socialized on the Soviet model. Although Trump got some new tariffs passed before the pandemic hit, they weren’t very high. America’s capitalist system quickly adapted to the new realities. That’s what markets do. It was another stress test America passed fairly well. 

4. School choice advanced. Libertarians like me writing on education have long criticized the dumbing down and radicalization of public-school curriculums caused by the power teachers’ unions. With their kids at home taking classes online, many parents were shocked at what they saw. 

Water policy in California is missing a north star. Think of the last time you started on a difficult journey without a plan for where you wanted to end up. Seems silly right, how could you possibly succeed if you don’t know where you are headed? Did you know that unlike in other sectors, we have no clear, single target that defines what makes up a sustainable, statewide water supply for 40 million-plus Californians? As a result, new proposals come out piecemeal, and we find ourselves trying to do the right thing in silos, without a clear idea of the big picture. With a statewide target in mind, hundreds of water agencies in California could begin working in unison to reach unprecedented heights.

For example, it was five months ago that the State Water Board announced its new, not-yet-final rules to reduce “urban water use” in California by 440,000 acre-feet — a 0.4% supply reduction at a multibillion-dollar price. “Making Conservation a California Way of Life” lays out complex requirements with granular targets for your water agency in a highly complex way, without effectively moving the needle for water supply resilience in a proportionate way.

While it is important that everyone of us take care not to waste this precious resource, “Urban water use” represents only 10% of all use in California. Moreover, since 2020, urban use is already down 9.7%. We don’t mean to say that we cannot possibly conserve more (we can) but, as the Public Policy Institute of California has said, “it is not enough to rely solely on conservation to meet demand.”

In the words of Sonja Petek, who led the LAO’s review of “…Way of Life,” “We’re certainly not saying that water conservation is not an important goal.” But given the complexity of “dealing with more limited water supplies,” conservation should be regarded as “one of the many tools in the state’s toolbox.”

What if by working together we can create a toolbox of water resource efforts that achieves a long-term sustainable water supply for the complex economy that makes California the place we know and love? Let’s chart our course by looking at the big picture and how we can be stronger together. Think of the potential if we prioritize new/updated infrastructure, groundwater recharge, wastewater treatment, and desalination, through a common vision of what we are trying to build — or the “blueprint” to bring us all together—a target to direct policy and coordinate implementation.

A groundbreaking and collaborative process begins with the courage to set the bar. SB 366 (Caballero) would provide that: a statewide water supply target that ensures sustainability for cities and towns, agriculture, and the environment. The bill would establish long-term water supply targets for the state to achieve by specific deadlines, and require that state agencies develop plans and milestones to achieve those targets. This work would be done in cooperation with local water agencies, wastewater service providers, and other stakeholders—creating an all-of-the-above approach to water management, rather than operating mainly on a mindset of scarcity we can turn the tides toward planning to ensure abundance.

We have seen success with other statewide target setting in other sectors, such as in transportation, where by 2035 all new cars sold in California shall be zero-emission vehicles; or in energy, where by 2045 the state shall use 100% clean electricity; or in housing, where by 2030 the state shall build 2.5 million new housing units. Why not an important target for water?

After weeks of negotiations, political dysfunction – particularly in the House Republican Caucus – tanked the bipartisan border security bill, which also would have funded much-needed aid to Israel and Ukraine.

However, despite this calamitous display of party politics, the government’s work to fix the crisis on our Southern border, as well as help our allies, cannot – and must not – be finished. 

As a matter of policy, the border security bill was a good deal for the country as a whole, Democrats and Republicans alike, California as a border state, as well as Israel and Ukraine, particularly the latter, which is experiencing dire shortages of ammunition due to stalled U.S. aid.

Indeed, the proposed bill addressed crucial national security concerns such as the flooding in of foreign nationals from countries like China and Venezuela, and would have also cracked down on drug trafficking, including the alarming surge of fentanyl related deaths in the United States, one of the biggest consequences of our porous border.

In terms of immigration policy itself, the bill would have put a cap on the number of border crossings per day and installed three ‘automatic triggers’ to shut down the border: If 5,000 migrants were caught within the course of a week, or 8,500 in a single day, as well as giving the President power to close the border if there were an average of 4,000 migrant encounters per day over a seven day period.

The legislation also would have tightened the nation’s asylum system, removing the courts from the migrant appeals process, and putting those decisions in the hands of a more conservative internal review board, a sure-fire win for Republicans. 

Of course, Republicans did not get everything they wanted. The bill took a long time to get to the House, and during that time, the border problem worsened. On top of that, the proposed bill does not automatically shut the border, nor does it go as far as the GOP may like, in terms of restricting immigration, and while they may have a point, politics is the art of the possible, and this bipartisan bill should be promoted for what it does do, not what it does not. 

In that same vein, it would surely be a mistake for Republicans to do what Trump did in 2018, holding out for a “perfect” deal that is effectively unachievable. 

The bill was even endorsed by the acting head of Customs and Border Patrol, as well as the union which represents border agents – hardly a bastion of the political left. And while neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, the deal was no less a good one for each party and a step in the right direction – one could even call it a compromise. 

Put another way, not only did the bill include red-meat for Republicans, it would have also addressed one of the greatest weaknesses of the Democratic party and the Biden administration to date – a perception that they are weak on the border. 

To that end, less than one-quarter (22%) of American voters say Biden, rather than former President Trump, is better able to secure the border, while a strong majority (57%) back the former president over the incumbent on this critical issue, per recent NBC News polling.

Far from being an outlier, the aforementioned NBC poll is one of a slew of polls which underscore how big of a vulnerability this is for Biden and Democrats: Across all recent polling, Biden’s approval on the issue of immigration and the border is a dismal 32% according to the RealClearPolitics average.

Perhaps that is why the deal was “dead-on arrival” when it hit the Republican-controlled House floor. The worst kept secret in Washington is that Donald Trump wants the border to be a hammer with which he can slam Biden, and unfortunately – but also unsurprisingly – Republicans are bowing to Trump, which is not only irresponsible, but also bad governance. 

While it is fair for Republicans to ask why it took so long for legislation to reach the House floor, this is no time for political games, especially given the inclusion of GOP priorities in the bill.

For Democrats, it appears that there is finally a realization that the border is a big vulnerability in 2024, which may explain why Senate Democrats agreed to some of the bill’s provisions. And while the House GOP is largely responsible for the bill’s failure, Americans will likely blame Democrats, as they are the party in power, reinforcing Republican messaging that Democrats cannot be trusted to handle the border crisis.

Moreover, for Democrats, the failure to pass funding for Ukraine hamstrings Biden’s ability to follow through on his promise since the start of Russia’s invasion, that the United States would not let Ukraine be defeated.

Closer to home, California would have benefitted dramatically from a deal. California is home to 10.4 million immigrants, 23% of the nation’s foreign-born population. And by a margin of more than 2-to-1 (62% to 30%), Californians do not feel the southern border is secure enough to prevent migrants from entering the country illegally, according to a UC Berkeley poll conducted last month.