California
April 2, 2026 — Bill Glahn
From the New York Post, San Francisco human rights boss accused of corruption arrives in court. The Post reports, [Sheryl] Davis, former head of the city’s Human Rights Commission, was arrested Monday alongside her boyfriend James Spingola on charges of multiple felony counts of misappropriating public funds and conflicts of interest. The Post adds, They are accused of diverting millions in funds meant to uplift the black community after the
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April 2, 2026 — John Hinderaker
That is the title of a City Journal article by Chris Rufo and others. Exposure of industrial-scale fraud in Minnesota has led to heightened awareness of theft of taxpayer funds in other states, with California at the top of the list. The City Journal article is long and detailed; here are just a few highlights: California is a cash machine. The state collects some of the country’s highest income, business,
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March 31, 2026 — John Hinderaker
The City of Los Angeles is a microcosm of the flight of population away from high-tax blue states: Tens of thousands of residents are fleeing Los Angeles County, raising fresh questions about the region’s future as economic pressures mount. The region recorded the largest population drop of any in the nation between July 2024 and July 2025, according to newly released estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The data, published
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March 28, 2026 — John Hinderaker
Karen Bass might be the worst public official in the United States. But who is running against her for Mayor of L.A.? Spencer Pratt, most notably. I have actually heard of Pratt because, years ago, my daughters watched reality TV shows like The Hills. Pratt has now emerged from post-reality TV obscurity to oppose Bass. Strange as it seems, he may be the best alternative to the current disaster. To
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March 27, 2026 — Scott Johnson
The interview clip with David Friedberg below has attracted more than 2,000,000 views on X. Friedberg is the CEO of Ohalo Genetics and another company or two as well as the co-host of the All-In podcast. I think it’s fair to say he is a smart guy. In the video he asserts that California is “functionally bankrupt.” His point relates at least indirectly to the so-called billionaire tax that is
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March 19, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Well, it’s a longie but a goodie. Matthew Hennessey is the editor of the Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression newsletter. He is a pereceptive gentleman with a sense of humor to boot. Hennessey writes in this morning’s edition (links and emphases omitted): * * * * * This is one of those things to which you hesitate to call attention, for fear of ruining it. A UC Berkeley Institute
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March 17, 2026 — Scott Johnson
The absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco wrote Exit the King. It stands out in Ionesco’s canon as a play whose plot is straightforward and focuses on depletion rather than accumulation. In that sense it resembles the proposed billionaire tax that threatens to make its way onto the California ballot this November. We have been following the proposed tax and its federal counterpart in several posts on Power Line (with more to
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March 6, 2026 — Scott Johnson
We have been following the progress of the proposed tax on the wealth of billionaires that theatens to make its way onto the ballot in Callifornia this November. It represents a bald form of “the danger of democratic theft” that John and I discussed in our 2005 essay on the income tax: Given that poorer citizens always outnumber the rich, political philosophers have long worried that government based on majority
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March 2, 2026 — Bill Glahn
From the California Post, Trump shares apocalyptic footage of San Francisco under Gavin Newsom — and how nice it was decades ago. You can see the dueling videos here: The Post quotes President Trump, You can’t go into San Francisco. It’s not livable. Fifteen years ago, it was the best city in the country, one of the best cities in the world, and now you can’t do anything. I performed
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February 24, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Reading the February 26 issue of The Spectator World, I find Lionel Shriver’s column on California’s looming billionaire tax. I have taken up both Ms. Shriver and the billionaire tax on Power Line in recent days. We don’t want to miss this. Online, the Spectator has headlined her column “No one is safe from a wealth tax.” (In the magazine it’s headlined “The creeping tentacles of a wealth tax.”) Here
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February 23, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and the author of books including, perhaps most prominently, Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (2014). I reviewed it for National Review in “A new old regime” and subsequently posted a Power Line interview with Professor Hamburger about the book here (more here). In connection with what I’ve been calling Califoria’s (looming) billionaire tax, Professor Hamburger has
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February 23, 2026 — Scott Johnson
John Howard Griffin risked his health to darken his skin and report what it was like to be a black man in the Jim Crow South, circa 1959. He published the expanded version of the resulting Sepia magazine series as Black Like Me in 1961. I read it in the original 1962 paperback edition published by Signet Books. It made an impression on me and millions of other readers. Griffin’s
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February 20, 2026 — Scott Johnson
The Billionaire Tax Act is vying to make it on to the ballot this November in California. I wrote about it in “Robert Reich’s ressentiment” and cited the Pirate Wires profile “The Secret NIMBY Millionaire Behind California’s Asset Seizure” in my conclusion. I commented that it’s the kind of profile that might give ad hominem argument a good name. The proposed asset tax is dangerous, deceitful, disingenuous, “dumb” (i.e., stupid),
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February 19, 2026 — Bill Glahn
It’s a Hollywood epic worthy of Cecil B. DeMille, From the New York Post, Legendary director Steven Spielberg is latest billionaire to flee California in another blow to state. The Post reports, The legendary “E.T.” director and California resident has moved to Manhattan amid a billionaire exodus from the Golden State — as voters eye a controversial wealth tax. But the move, first reported by the LA Times, allegedly had
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February 17, 2026 — John Hinderaker
For a generation or more, the great rivalry among states was between New York and California. New York was the traditional center of business and finance, California the upstart home of the entertainment industry, followed by technology. But California and New York are now dying. Individuals and companies are fleeing both for greener pastures. Palantir is the latest California-born tech company to move to Florida, although it stopped off briefly
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February 10, 2026 — John Hinderaker
The world is indeed turned upside down, or at least the United States is. Consider this story from Northern California: A Northern California school placed a teaching intern on leave for celebrating US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Facebook comment as a mob of angry locals threatened to damage her property. Sarai Jimenez, a special education teaching intern at MacQuiddy Elementary in Watsonville, endorsed the presence of ICE officers
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February 1, 2026 — John Hinderaker
The adage holds that if you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul. For a long time–during the 1980s, for example–I thought this saying was too cynical. There were lots of Americans who didn’t think government was an excuse for theft. Nowadays, “too cynical” is not a phrase I find myself using. Today, you can’t be cynical enough. Thus, a solid majority of
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