Tag archives: politics
With three important races happening in our semi-rural town, the MJ reached out to each candidate running in a Montecito election and politely requested their statement. Here is what they had to say… Montecito Fire Protection District, Board At-large Five candidates are running for two director seats. Candidate | Description Listed in County Election Filings […]
The midterm elections are proof that we are still a democratic constitutional republic. President Trump is afraid that our free and fair election process will actually work and deprive him of control of Congress. If Republicans retain control over the House of Representatives and the Senate, Trump will praise the electoral process as being fair […]
In January of 2018 Montecito had a front row seat to the tragically high price we can pay for living in a small slice of paradise sandwiched between the beautiful Santa Ynez Mountains and the sparkling Pacific Ocean. We also came to understand why what’s going on in the insurance industry matters. State Sen. Ben […]
Election seasons are the winter fall of our discontent when politics rears its ugly head and hypocrisy runs amok. We are in the middle of that discontent as we approach the mid-term elections. Billions are spent in the scramble for power. Politicians offer vague platitudes as solutions while they accuse their opponents of things they […]
Across the U.S., Democrats Are Poised for a Midterm Election Triumph. In Santa Barbara, the Party Is Looking for Its Own Blue Wave. Article II, Section 6 of the California Constitution states that all county, school, and city elected offices in the state “shall be nonpartisan.” What a quaint notion. Political parties won the legal […]
We are closing in on the November 3 midterm elections, and you know what that means. Welcome to the circus! Endless political ads. Useless debates. Polls that will be mostly wrong. Talking heads. Shock. Dismay. Claims of a mandate. Blah, blah. You might want to ignore it until the day after, November 4, to see […]
Recently a new word just popped up courtesy of the NY Times: “microlooting.” Microlooting is a word that justifies petty theft (shoplifting) as a political statement. The idea is that as long as you are stealing from “big corporations” it is a protest. NYT reporter Nadja Spiegelman interviewed The New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino and […]
“Most of what passes for ‘investment advice’ is nothing more than speculation about an unknowable future.” – Joe Calhoun III, Alhambra Investments. “Economics is an entire scientific discipline of not knowing what you’re talking about.” – P. J. O’Rourke. “What passes as sensible economic commentary by politicians, pundits, and preachers is but a torrent of […]
In December 2024, the USPS changed the rules about how mail-in ballots will get collected, postmarked, and eventually counted. This had a profound effect on the number of ballots that can be rejected. Statewide, the number of mail-in ballots disqualified due to these changes increased by 400% between 2024 and the 2025 special election (Prop […]
The mind of your Independent Mind columnist has been adrift this week. Too much going on to take it all in. So, I am going to report on two things I can’t get out of my head. Rent Control The City of Santa Barbara ignored my generous offer of help on the issue of rent […]
I want our political leaders to succeed in making our lives better. That is their job. One wonders why they seem to fail at this task and just make things more complicated for us. After all, when our political leaders make mistakes, it is we citizens who bear the consequences. They rarely have skin in […]
“Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way.” New York Times columnist Ezra Klein wrote this article immediately after Kirk’s assassination. Klein wrote, “You can dislike much of what Kirk believed, and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking […]
Recent politics looks like a bad movie we’ve seen too many times. Not quite a disaster movie, and some of it borders on comedy, but more like the Gong Show (for those of you who can remember it). I realize this may sound like disgruntled sarcasm on my part. Mea culpa. But, how could one […]
American politics has devolved into a meaningless Red and Blue Punch and Judy show. You know, the puppet show where all Punch and Judy do is argue and beat each other with sticks. Look at it as a metaphor for contemporary politics. Politicians at the state and federal level can’t get beyond their need to […]
This is a follow-up to my recent articles (“The Kids Don’t Know…” and “Barbarians at the Gate”). The “Kids” article decried the fact that critical thinking skills are not being taught to our children which has led to fuzzy thinking about socialism. “Barbarians” was the political manifestation of that fuzziness with a Democratic Socialist receiving […]
Donald Trump is everywhere in the news lately. He dominates the daily headlines. Thus the title to this article (yes, I stole it from the movie). He’s hard to avoid. The fact that Trump is in the news constantly is an important issue. He is the news. That is because of powers relinquished by Congress […]
New York City Democrats just nominated a very woke socialist, Zohran Mamdani, for mayor. They say he has a good shot at winning. I’m not surprised. After all, NYC is a liberal/progressive bastion. They’ve already got AOC (Andrea Ocasio-Cortez), the Congresswoman representing much of the Bronx. Most democratic socialists want free stuff like health care, […]
We are back from a road trip from Kentucky to Boston, immersing us in American history. The idea of a “Deep State” goes back to the 1950s in what Eisenhower called the “Military Industrial Complex.” But the actual term “Deep State” didn’t gain much traction until Trump’s first term. Trump uses it to refer to […]
What ideologies do you associate with the Democratic and Republican parties? Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s it seemed pretty simple to me. Democrats stood for massive investment in the public interest. From Franklin Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, they invested in big infrastructure projects. And invested in human needs with Head Start, Social Security, […]
I watched the entire inauguration ceremony, and this article is written on that day. You would have to be dead to not appreciate the ceremony and its symbolism. Yes, it was mostly a Trump lovefest, but it was more than that. It was another peaceful transition of power of our Republic. No riots or coups […]
