Author: Californiacontrarian

Whenever I go to a sporting event, I like to sit as close to the action as possible. Starting after Trump’s inauguration, there is going to be a real contest in Illinois.
From The Epoch Times:
“President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for border czar, Tom Homan, said plans for a large-scale operation to deport illegal immigrants would begin in Chicago, warning local officials not to stand in the way.
“We’re going to start right here in Chicago, Illinois. If your Chicago mayor doesn’t want to help, he needs to step aside,” Homan told the crowd at a Dec. 9 event in Chicago co-organized by the Northwest Side GOP Club. “But if he impedes us—if he knowingly harbors or conceals an illegal alien—I will prosecute him.”
While the specifics of the operation remain unclear, Homan has said that the effort would prioritize the removal of criminals and gang members.
However, he has urged other illegal immigrants to self-deport, warning it’s just a matter of time before they’re caught and deported. He also has vowed to recommend that federal funds be blocked from cities that do not assist ICE agents in their efforts.
Among the critics is Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who in his first public remarks on the results of the presidential election said that city officials would continue to shield illegal immigrants from deportation and that he would not allow Chicago police officers to cooperate with ICE.”

Well it looks like it will be one helluva a battle and I am looking for Holman/Trump to be victorious over the blow-hard mayor of Chicago. Similarly in the braggart category the governor of Illinois is also bloviating.
Much like Chicago’s mayor, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has also vowed to oppose any efforts to deport illegal immigrants. Pritzker’s spokesman, Matt Hill, issued a statement to multiple media outlets in response to Homan’s remarks.
“It’s no secret that Illinois will face countless, baseless attacks over the next four years from the Trump administration,” he said in the statement.
“Rather than responding to every ridiculous boast from Trump lackeys, Gov. Pritzker is focused on what he was focused on during the first Trump term: leading our state with competence instead of chaos.”

Again, I’m betting on Homan/Trump competence as opposed to Pritzker’s chaos!
I can’t wait for the gloves to come off so that I can witness from my front row seat the actual war-of-words evolve into some real action.
12/11/24

I am in an especially good mood this morning probably because of all of the good things that have happened over the last few days. First off Donald Trump went right into lion’s den with his first national interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” No, I did not watch the entire Sunday interview, but one of Trump’s responses to a question said it all for me. When he was asked about his plan for retribution, he simply answered that his success would he his retribution. That, my friends, is the response of a true leader!
Then came the other two pieces of good news at about the same time on Monday. First, Daniel Penny was exonerated on all charges. If he would have been found guilty, say goodbye to any future Good Samaritan acts in the future. Hopefully, this case will be the nail in the coffin of Soros’ Manhattan D.A., Alvin Bragg.
Next the probable killer of the UnitedHealthcare CEO was arrested in a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. Hopefully the Soros-backed NYC D.A. will press charges.

All-in-all a good couple of days, and I hope they just keep coming,’ and my mood remains good. Only forty-one days until the official Trump inauguration.
12/10/24

Even before being inaugurated as the 47th President of the U.S., Donald Trump is already acting diplomatically.

From The Epoch Times:
On the evening of 12/7 met with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at The Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris.
Macron was seen giving a thumbs-up as Trump and Zelenskyy flanked him for a photo opportunity at the presidential palace.
Macron had planned to meet with Zelenskyy, and the French president’s office said he proposed the three-way meeting shortly before Trump’s arrival. (Trump and Zelenskyy are among numerous world leaders gathering in Paris for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral, after it was severely damaged in a 2019 fire.)

“The world’s going a little crazy right now and we’ll be talking about that,” Trump said ahead of the meeting.
Trump has signaled he would prefer to quickly negotiate an end to the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war, but with questions remaining about how he would halt the fighting.
If anyone will be able to negotiate an end to the war, my money is on Trump!

From Daybreak Insider:
“Trump showcased his unorthodox approach to foreign relations, focusing on strengthening bilateral ties, asserting America’s interests, and laying the groundwork for his America First agenda. Trump and world leaders discussed various topics, including defense and global security. His blunt style indeed left an unmistakable impression on the worldwide stage.
While world leaders are waiting on him to arrive, President Trump is busy greeting U.S. marines stationed in France. World Leaders are lined up to meet President-elect Trump (X).
He is literally putting America First!
Again my money is on Trump!
12/9/24

I just read a story about the importance of family to some individuals, and thought that what Jordan Garner did was worth writing about.
As background, Jordan’s grandfather, Graham Gessey, passed away in 2023. He deeply loved his wife of 30 years, Rosalie Gessey, who served as his caregiver in his last years. Rosalie and Graham traditionally went out for “coffee dates,” and
since the next day was Graham’s birthday, Rosalie was in mourning. “I’m going to have coffee alone because there’s no ladies [here] that want to have a coffee with me,” she messaged him.
“I almost started crying when I saw that message,” Jordan said.
Since Rosalie had enjoyed near-daily coffee dates with Graham when he was alive, Jordan was determined to continue the tradition. Before long, he was in his car making the 12-hour drive from Sydney to the Sunshine Coast, in Queensland. “It was probably one of the toughest drives I’ve had to do in my life because it was raining; it was windy,” he said.
Rosalie, unaware that her grandson was coming to see her,
When he reached Queensland, he surprised some other relatives before making his way to a coffee shop he knew she planned to visit. Armed with flowers and a picture frame, Jordan waited, hiding around the corner. At just the right moment, he greeted his grandmother, who was shocked to see him.
“When she saw me, she instantly just started tearing up,” Jordan said, adding that he had to hold back his own tears as she gave him a hug. He described the look on his grandmother’s face as “priceless.”
“That was probably the happiest moment I’ve had this year, and it was awesome,” Jordan said. “It was honestly the most amazing, amazing day.”

How many would drive twelve hours to surprise their grandmother on a day of her mourning? My guess … “not many,” and for this reason Jordan Garner is a grandson that we can all hold in high esteem.

12/8/24

A Presidential election has just occurred and another will occur in four years. As some of us know the electoral college and the relative apportionment of Congressional seats is dependent on the census which is taken every ten years.
From Daybreak Insider:
“Oversight Committee Conducts Hearing Into Census Bureau for Refusing to Ask if Residents are U.S. Citizens”
Committee Chairman Rep James Comer opened the meeting by saying, “The Census Bureau’s Post-Enumeration Survey—which measures Census count accuracy—revealed significant errors in 14 states. These errors predominantly benefited Democratic-leaning states in the allocation of congressional seats and electoral college votes.
“In contrast to the 2020 census, no states were found to have had such errors in the 2010 census.”

For some inexplicable reason while the census asks a list of mundane questions, it does not ask whether or not individuals are US citizens.

From X:
Rep. Jim Jordan GOES OFF on the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau for not including a citizenship status question.

“Are you getting welfare?

“Do you work for the government?

“Do you have a mental illness?

“Are you deaf?

“Are you blind?

“What’s your race?

“What’s your sex?

“You can ask all those questions, but the one question that might, let’s just say might, have an impact on how we apportion congressional seats (Citizenship Status), we can’t ask that one.

“Oh, that seems stupid.”

Yes, it certainly is stupid, and should be changed. Hopefully a Republican congress will change this.

12/7/24

One of the things that these innumerable sanctuary cities and states have apparently not thought much about is what to do when the sh** hits the fan. Donald Trump will soon officially be our president and he has vowed to not respect these so-called sanctuary dictums.
From CBS News:
Tom Homan, selected by President-elect Donald Trump to be the “border czar” in the new administration, traveled Tuesday to the U.S.-Mexico border with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, blasting the Biden White House’s reaction to the immigration crisis and vowing Trump’s planned mass deportations will be conducted.
‘Let me be clear: There is going to be a mass deportation because we just finished a mass illegal immigration crisis on the border,’ Homan said.”

El Cajon is a city just east of San Diego. El Cajon is not a sanctuary city, but is in California which is a sanctuary state. A potential dilemma?
Bill Wells is the mayor of El Cajon and he anticipates problems:
“The State of California is threatening to take pensions and charge police officers with felonies if they comply with federal deportation laws. While the Trump administration is working to enforce immigration laws, California seems intent on blocking these efforts.
“Here in El Cajon, we are NOT a sanctuary city, yet our officers are being put in an impossible position. If they comply with federal immigration authorities, they risk felony charges and losing their hard-earned pensions.
“This is unacceptable. No officer should have to choose between doing their duty and jeopardizing their future. As Mayor of El Cajon, I’m doing everything in my power to protect our officers and stand against these dangerous policies.”

Unless I am mistaken, I do not think that there has been any voting by the citizens of California with regard to California being or not being a sanctuary state.
Indeed this is a potential unacceptable predicament for the police officers in El Cajon, and El Cajon is just the tip of the iceberg. Do police officers in these non-sanctuary cities in California have to wait until someone is killed or raped by an illegal before they are allowed to cooperate with the Feds? How long will it be before the state of California realizes the error of its ways?
Fasten your seatbelts! My money is on Trump and Homan.
12/6/24

The other day I read two stories that indicate a dichotomy in larger corporations.
First, earlier this week the Wall Street Journal ran a very satisfying story yesterday headlined, “Walmart Rolls Back DEI Programs.” The sub-headline added, “Retail giant will wind down Center for Racial Equity and prevent sellers from listing some LGBTQ-themed items on its website.” It’s not just Walmart. Walmart swings massive momentum as the world’s largest retailer, dictating preferred terms to a vast root system of suppliers and manufacturers. Could the nation’s long DEI nightmare officially be over? Has the tide, at long last, finally turned?
From C and C:
A now-familiar name appeared in the Journal’s article: conservative filmmaker and anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck. Robby tweeted about how the Walmart turnaround went down. He contacted Walmart management and told them he planned to run a story on their DEI programs. Walmart management asked for an emergency meeting with Robby, and when they met, Walmart reviewed a long list of planned DEI rollbacks.
Illustrating the power of a single committed conservative activist, Robby Starbuck has now been involved in deleting DEI from corporate policies at: Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley Davidson, Polaris, Indian Motorcycle, Lowe’s, Ford, Coors, Stanley Black & Decker, Jack Daniels, DeWalt tools, Craftsman, Caterpillar, Boeing, Toyota and now WALMART.”
Here the “woke” Walmart awoke.

On the other hand from Daybreak Insider:
“Geico is the latest company forcing their employees to undergo re-education. A company memo obtained by the X page, “Libs of Tik Tok” revealed Geico employees must complete a mandatory training course on gender ideology. In order to keep their jobs, workers are reportedly forced to introduce their pronouns to every customer they engage with. “I’m happy to help you today. I do want to let you know I use he/him pronouns. Let’s see about adding your new car to your policy,” read a sample scenario featured in the memo. The insurance company instructs employees to “correct” customers who dare to misgender them.”
Here if the “woke” (Geico ) continues, it will only get closer to broke!
So here we have a dichotomy. Whereas Walmart is getting smarter, Geico is getting dumber. Geico may have good commercials, but only lulus in the front office. I look for Geico to end this gender ideology nonsense, before Robby Starbucks gets wind of what they are doing!
12/5/24

Are we only one of a few countries that allows pharmaceutical advertising on television? If you were not aware, in only New Zealand and the in the USA is pharmaceutical advertising allowed on television.
When I was in practice, I thought that this type of drug advertising was a bad idea. A bad idea? For whom? Certainly not for the drug makers, but rather a bad idea for the patients to be the first on the block to be taking these new drugs. (It was always my modus-operandi to wait on prescribing these new drugs until the experiences of others proved or disproved their effectiveness, and demonstrated their side-effects.) The drug advertising caused patients to implore their physicians to prescribe these expensive new drugs, which for the most part were only partially paid for by the patient.

I bring this up now because of what RFKJr has in mind.
From Townhall:
“One of Kennedy’s first orders of business would be to target pharmaceutical advertising, in which prescription drugs can be advertised directly to consumers or direct-to-consumer (DTC). The United States and New Zealand are the only countries permitted to do this. As part of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) priorities, the former Democrat said he would issue an executive order banning pharmaceutical advertising on television.”
Still from Townhall:
According to an analysis, Big Pharma would “almost certainly” see their drug sales take a hit from a DTC ban because the return on investment for the ads is significant, with “estimates ranging as high as 100-500 percent, depending on the drug”
From the Daily Caller:
“Spending on DTC pharmaceutical advertising in the United States ballooned to more than $7 billion in 2023, with ad buys on weight loss and diabetes drugs surpassing $1 billion for the first time.”
In my opinion another good idea from JFKJr.
12/4/24

Headline from Fox News:
“President Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, after the first son was convicted in two separate federal cases earlier this year. The announcement was made by the White House on the evening of 12/1/24 . The pardon applies to offenses against the U.S. that Hunter Biden “has committed or may have committed” from Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 1, 2024.”

Think back, how many times over the past year or so did Joe Biden proclaim that he would not pardon his son, Hunter?
And now Biden’s pardoning of his son extend back to January, 2014? This makes me wonder if there more charges in the pipeline going all the way back to 2014? Could 1/1/2014 have anything to do with the Burisma shenanigans … to me, obviously ‘yes!’

How many times did White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre (KJP) vociferously state when asked about the President pardoning his son? … “No. No. It’s a no. It will always be a no. Biden will not pardon his son Hunter.”
In a way I feel somewhat sorry for KJP as President Biden has made her look like a blathering fool!

One wonders what Biden would have done about Hunter’s pardon if he had been reelected in 2024? Is his doing this on 12/1/24 this just another part of Biden’s revenge for his party stabbing him in the back? His obvious nepotism will hurt the Dems for years to come. How can anyone trust anything a Dem says in the future when the leader of their party has lied over and over again?

However this erosion of trust is extending beyond just the American voting public all the way to Dem supporters because of Kamala Harris.
From the Washington Examiner:
“Some Democrats are complaining as Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed campaign begs one-time supporters to dole out more funds to dig it out of the red. Harris made headlines for raking in a staggering $1.5 billion during her abbreviated campaign. But after the dust settled on her subsequent defeat at the polls earlier this month, the vice president made news again for running up $20 million in debt. Forced to send out a deluge of fundraising emails to cover the losses, the Harris campaign’s continued requests for donors to dig deeper nearly four weeks after the election has some of her colleagues saying the tactic could ‘erode trust.’ ‘I understand that the Harris campaign is in a very difficult position with the debt that they have, and so sometimes you just have to make practical decisions,’ Mike Nellis, founder of the Democratic digital firm Authentic, told Politico. ‘But yeah, I think that stuff like that erodes trust’”
How many big time Dem donors in the future will again be willing to invest millions and have their largesse be wasted? Does Kamala realize how much damage she is doing to future Democratic candidates by begging for more money after the fact?

Even though I know that Hunter Biden was guilty of a whole lot, his pardoning by his father will prove to be more than just a big-time erosion of trust for the Democrats.
From C&C:
“Hunter’s pardon opens the way for pardoning the J6 prisoners (and possibly others). It was a brilliant political move. Brilliant, that is, if Joe Biden were trying to help President Trump.”
Was this pardoning of his son and potentially helping President Trump, just another example of “Biden’s revenge?”
12/3/24

Is the 2024 election a turning point in the state of consciousness of the USA voters? As everyone is aware Donald Trump shellacked the Dem’s candidate. Does the trouncing of the Harris/Walz ticket indicate that the American voters have awakened from the semi-coma of 2020? (If one believes that the 2020 election was on the up-and-up, then the 2024 result would indeed represent a true reversal. However, I don’t and I think that the first hint of the American voter’s awaking actually began in 2016.)
This leads me to wonder when the California voters will wake-up. Thus far California is reliably blue, but what has just recently happened may be what is needed to wipe the sleep out of the eyes of Californians. What happened?
From the California Globe:
“On November 8, 2024, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed new special blend mandates for California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The new standards require that refiners produce, and retail gas stations sell, a new California special blend in 2025. The CARB contends that the new special blend is necessary to achieve carbon and methane emission reduction targets.
“By its own admission, the CARB projected that the new special blend could increase the retail price of gasoline by $0.47 a gallon… California regulatory and legislative actions could conservatively cost the California consumer an extra $222.00 to $449.00 a year for regular grade fuel, more for premium. To compensate for the expected increases in retail gasoline prices, the average Californian driving an internal combustion vehicle will have to earn an additional $600.00 to $1,000.00 a year in pre-tax income to “break even” with 2024 prices, depending on the grade of gas they purchase?”
Worse yet, still from the California Globe:
“A study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center found that the CARB underestimated the impact the new fuel standards would have on gas prices. The Kleinman Center expects the price of gas to increase 65 cents per gallon in 2025, 18 cents more than the CARB estimate.”

My question is whether or not California voters will continue to act like sheep and will continue to elect Democrats … or will the actions of the appointed, but non-unelected, CARB be a turning point in California.
One can only hope!
12/2/24