No state in modern times has transitioned from a worker freedom state to one that forces workers to join a union and pay dues to labor bosses. All the momentum across the country in the last two decades has been in the opposite direction: allowing workers the right to choose a union – or not.  That's why what happened last week…

The latest Census Bureau data on population changes in America should have been a wake-up call to lawmakers in blue states and cities. The Census data provide even further evidence that "soak the rich" tax policies have incited a blue-state meltdown.  California, New York and Illinois all lost the most population last year. These states…

When New Yorkers complain about announced cuts to police protection and sanitation, Mayor Eric Adams weasels back, "Don't yell at me, yell at D.C." Adams is trying to shift the blame to President Joe Biden and the Democrats' open-border policy. Don't fall for it. The surge of migrants accounts for less than half (42%) of the city's looming…

New York City residents have thrown in the towel. Gotham's quality of life is plunging, but only 11% of registered voters turned out in last Tuesday's local election. Nearly all incumbent members of the New York City Council skated to reelection.  New Yorkers are voting with their feet, abandoning the city instead of going to the polls to demand…

We’ve reached a point when leftist politicians openly sacrifice the working class in furtherance of their partisan agenda, a downward class warfare.   This week, Joe Biden finally ended months of speculation by announcing a student loan bailout for borrowers earning up to $125,000 annually.  For perspective, $125,000 puts someone…

Boldness be my friend! Arm me, Audacity, from head to foot. – William Shakespeare, “Cymbeline” (1611) It’s unlikely that California Governor Gavin Newsom, still reeling from a humiliating voter recall and rolling disintegration of the state he governs, had those words of the deceptive character Iachimo from Shakespeare&rsquo…

Remember the Texas Democrats? Last month, 51 Democratic state lawmakers boarded private planes in Austin, headed for Washington, D.C. Their purpose was to stop a Republican elections bill they characterized as "Jim Crow 2.0" by fleeing the state and thus denying the legislature a quorum. Now it's been a month. It's tough to be away from…

Texas is the latest state to have a big fight over reforming its election laws. Remember that in Georgia, some Democrats – like President Joe Biden – said a Republican-passed law that made several commonsense changes to election practices was "Jim Crow on steroids." You won't be surprised that some Democrats…

In a letter sent today to the California Assembly’s Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, a coalition of consumer, small business and other policy organizations, led by the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF), expressed opposition to Assembly Bill 286, legislation that would impose statewide pricing caps on commissions and other fees charged…

From Pennsylvania to California, Americans are relearning what Lord Acton warned about over two centuries ago: power corrupts. Giving governors "emergency powers" to fight COVID-19 is destroying our civil liberties and endangering our lives. The stench from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's nursing home carnage and months-long cover up is…

January 8, 2021   The Honorable Charles D. Baker, Jr., Governor Commonwealth of Massachusetts Room 280, Office of the Governor 24 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02133   Re:  H.B. 5250 Section 98(a) – Price Controls on Food Delivery   Dear Governor Baker:     On behalf of the Center for…

California's state legislature just passed, and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed, Assembly Bill 3121 to explore providing reparations to California's African American population — 155 years after the abolition of slavery. Apparently, when California's one-party government cannot find solutions to current existential crises, it turns to divisive…

As infernos raged this week and California descended further into its self-created dysfunctional abyss, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti tweeted the following alert:   It’s almost 3 p.m.  Time to turn off major appliances, set the thermostat to 78 degrees (or use a fan instead), turn off excess lights and unplug any appliances…

The same weekend that Orthodox Jews in Monsey, New York, were fighting off another knife-wielding anti-Semite thug with chairs and coffee tables – they were fortunate that the perpetrator hadn't brought a firearm, like the killer who targeted a yeshiva in Jersey City only a few weeks earlier – Jack Wilson, a 71-year-old congregant and security…

From 1967 to 2019, Republicans controlled the California governorship for 31 of 52 years. So why is there currently not a single statewide Republican officeholder? California also has a Democratic governor and Democratic supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature. Only seven of California's 53 congressional seats are held by Republicans…

Have you heard about the hottest (no pun intended) can’t-miss pickup line in California singles bars these days?  “Hi.  I’ve got electricity.”  Or how about the latest billboard ad campaign from Texas, luring businesses and residents desperately fleeing California?    “Move to Texas. …

For over six years, California has had a top marginal income tax rate of 13.3 percent, the highest in the nation. About 150,000 households in a state of 40 million people now pay nearly half of the total annual state income tax. The state legislature sold that confiscatory tax rate on the idea that it was a temporary fix and would eventually be phased…

Californians brag that their state is the world's fifth-largest economy. They talk as reverentially of Silicon Valley companies Apple, Facebook and Google as the ancient Greeks did of their Olympian gods. Hollywood and universities such as Caltech, Stanford and Berkeley are cited as permanent proof of the intellectual, aesthetic and technological…

"Frontier justice" costs too many citizens of all races, creeds, and backgrounds their freedom and their lives. In the old days of the Wild West, vigilantes worked outside the judicial system to punish rivals regardless of their guilt or innocence. Today, outlaws operate inside the bureaucracy to secure criminal convictions at all costs.…

As the Oklahoma attorney general's office fights to keep hidden from public view the results of secret hearings on the DNA science flaws and falsehoods in former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw's case, two prominent experts have stepped forward to shed bright light on the government's myriad mind-boggling failures. Forensic scientist…

Amendment II  A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.  You'd assume that the explicit terms of the Second Amendment would resolve any debate over the individual right to keep and bear arms.  All too often throughout American…

"People Moving from New York Outnumber Arrivals by Nearly Two-to-One, Report Says."  That was a recent Albany Times Union headline highlighting the ongoing mass exodus from deep-blue New York:  United Van Lines reported Tuesday that nearly two-thirds of the moves involving New York households were outbound, a higher proportion…

If you're employed, beware. An alarming attitude is sweeping the nation that your paycheck is fair game to fix any social problem. Left-wing legislators across the nation are mandating deductions from everyone's paycheck to fund paid family medical leave programs. The programs are used mostly by women to stay home with their newborns. Sounds warm and…

California Governor Jerry Brown has announced he will issue an executive order that mandates statewide water rationing. “This executive order is done under emergency power,” Brown, a Democrat, said while appearing on ABC’s This Week. “It’s requiring action and changes in behavior from the Oregon border all the way to…

In an era when most liberals are busy trying to grow government, Democratic leaders in Minnesota just struck 1,175 laws from the books. Democratic Governor Mark Dayton pitched the idea of a legislative “unsession” last fall as a way to update and simplify the state’s regulatory structure. Dayton, who is running for reelection this…

California has long prided itself on being a leader in promoting greater fuel efficiency in automobiles. The Golden State incentivized sales of hybrid and electric cars by allowing single-occupant use of its carpool lanes to drivers of low- and zero-emission vehicles. The “California Global Warming Solutions Act” (i.e. AB 32) seeks to fight…

Defenders of federalism — the practice of devolving as much power as practicable to state and local governments, consistent with the 10th Amendment to the Constitution — often cite as their mantra the phrase of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who wrote in his 1932 dissent in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann that "a single courageous…

For all of the Democratic Party’s success in turning Colorado into a swing state, the recall of two pro-gun control state senators offers an instructive lesson about what happens when liberals overreach.  On Tuesday night, State Senate President John Morse and his colleague Angela Giron, both Democrats, became the first elected officials…

Liberals incessantly claim fealty to “science,” while falsely caricaturing libertarians and conservatives as the ones stubbornly ideological and averse to real-world facts.  Scientific method, however, involves objective observation and testing beliefs against results.  In that vein, it is liberals who prove habitually impervious…

This week, Illinois ended its dubious distinction as the final state prohibiting citizens from carrying concealed firearms.  The change was compelled by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which ruled last year that Illinois’s draconian restrictions on the individual right to keep and bear arms amounted to a violation…