Tip O’Neill’s quip that all politics is local is often quoted. But is it really the case? If it is, why isn’t the leading issue in the immigration debate the anti-immigrationists’ assault on the rights of other native-born Americans and others lawfully living in the USA? These people, who apparently greatly outnumber the anti-immigrant zealots, have natural rights to hire immigrants, to rent them houses and apartments, to sell them goods and services, to welcome them into schools, churches, community organizations, and homes. With such overweening arrogance do the anti-immigrationists presume to deny others these rights.

This is a completely local matter, wholly apart from the harm caused to would-be immigrants when they are denied entry into the USA. Strange to say, the anti-immigrationists purport to occupy the high ground in the debate, constantly bemoaning the impositions on their rights that admission of the immigrants would allegedly entail. But they do not occupy the high ground merely by ignoring the manifold ways in which their policy preferences would trench on the rights of American citizens and other legal residents.

Federal judge Reed O’Connor has ruled that the “individual mandate” of Obamacare is unconstitutional, and since that mandate is “essential to and inseverable from the remainder of the ACA,” that nixes the Act entirely. This comes six years after Chief Justice John Roberts cast the deciding vote to leave the ACA intact, but there’s a lot more going on here than O’Connor’s ruling and the appeals that will surely follow.

As we noted, health journalist Emily Bazar of the Center for Health Reporting tried her best to broker Covered California, the ACA’s biggest state subsidiary, for California consumers. They found a dysfunctional computer system, difficulties signing up and leaving the various plans, contradictions with the tax laws, pregnant women having their pre-natal checkups cancelled, and a lot more, including cronyism and massive waste.  Bazar would up blaming the ACA for “widespread consumer misery,” hardly an endorsement of what was supposed to be a “signature” plan. For the namesake, the plan was doubtless more far reaching.

In a recent meeting with Democratic Congressional leaders, President Trump threatened to shut down the federal government if they did not appropriate money to build “the wall” between Mexico and the United States. But when he was running for president, one of his campaign promises was that the Mexicans would pay for the wall. Why should we appropriate any money for the wall when the Mexicans are going to pay for it?

President Trump has an answer for this. He says the wall will be paid for indirectly by the Mexicans through the gains the United States will get as a result of renegotiating NAFTA, our trade treaty with Mexico and Canada. But the president’s argument makes no sense.

If we actually do benefit from a renegotiated NAFTA, those benefits will come regardless of whether the wall is built. So any benefits from a renegotiated trade deal will not be paying for the wall, even if, as President Trump conjectures, the benefits from the trade deal are greater than what he wants to spend on the wall. We could get the benefits of the trade deal without incurring the expense of the wall.

Californians might want to look past the holidays and mark their calendars for January 10, 2019. That day the Federal Communications Commission meets in San Francisco and will consider a plan by the California Public Utilities Commission to tax consumers’ text messages. Jamie Court of Consumer Watchdog told reporters the text tax is “just political B.S.” Jamie Hastings of wireless industry representative CTIA went on record that a tax on texts is “bad for consumers.” Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council told Newsweek “It’s a dumb idea. This is how conversations take place in this day and age, and it’s almost like saying there should be a tax on the conversations we have.”

The CPUC budget has increased from $670 million in 2011 to $998 million in 2017, so the regulators are not short on revenue. The CPUC wants the text tax to fund programs that make cell phone service accessible to low-income individuals. Consumers might recall that in 2012 the CPUC approved a plan to give free cell phones to the homeless, but it’s not clear if owners of “free” cell phones would be subject to the new text tax.

The FCC claims it has no authority over texts, but there’s no telling what those federal regulators might do on January 10 in San Francisco. As  FreeGovernmentCellPhones.net noted in 2013, “the FCC has announced several changes to correct eligibility problems and made millions of additional Americans eligible for free government cell phones.” With largesse like that, nobody should rule out FCC approval of a tax on text messages.

Meanwhile, Californians might also mark their calendar for April 1, 2019. That day retailers outside of California will start collecting taxes on online purchases, even if they have no presence in the state. So no more bypassing California sales tax by shopping online. California’s sales and income taxes are the highest in the nation, and may soon be joined by a tax on texts. To paraphrase Spinal Tap, talkin’ bout taxes, my gov’s got ‘em.

To borrow a line from ABC’s reality shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, and with all due apologies to host Chris Harrison, this may be the most dramatic season of Federal Government Shutdown Theater ever!

According to The Hill‘s Jordan Fabian, the fireworks started on December 11, 2018, shortly after President Trump unexpectedly invited the cameras into his meeting with Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer:

Several years ago, I asked a limo driver in Sydney, Australia which celebrity impressed him the most. Without hesitation, he volunteered Lady Gaga, who was then on her acclaimed Monster Ball Tour. Lady Gaga was reverential when she talked about her fans, and how important they were to her career. No other celebrity, he said, showed more authentic respect and appreciation for their fans. This humility and grounded authenticity may well be the touchstone for her compelling performance in A Star Is Born, earning her a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination for best actress (in a movie—drama).

Movie remakes tend to make eyes roll, but the newest “retelling” of A Star Is Born is worth watching, and not just because of Lady Gaga’s performance. The movie earned five Golden Globe nominations and is a thoughtful, updated mix of themes from the previous versions. This version, co-written and produced by Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, American Sniper) in his debut as a movie director, serves as a relevant reminder of the toll that substance abuse and addiction takes on human creativity, relationships, and identity. The fact that Lady Gaga and Cooper, who also plays the tarnished rock star Jackson Main, provide compelling performances allows this film to shine despite its flaws.

Larry Wallace, a longtime aide to U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, has resigned but there’s plenty of backstory here to be told. Danielle Hartley, an assistant to Wallace in 2011, complained that Wallace harassed her and forced her to perform demeaning tasks. Hartley’s complaints to a supervisor brought only retaliation, so she filed a lawsuit. When the Sacramento Bee inquired about the $400,000 settlement, Wallace resigned and Harris claimed she knew nothing at all about the lawsuit, which just might be a stretch.

When Harris was district attorney of San Francisco, Wallace was her personal driver, quite the perk for a city DA. When Harris was elected state Attorney General, she brought on Wallace to oversee her security detail. After election to the U.S. Senate, Harris made Wallace a senior advisor in her Sacramento office. Yet, Harris, who led the charge against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, supposedly knew nothing about the harassment. As for Danielle Hartley, she got plenty of pushback beyond the job site.

Bohemian Rhapsody just picked up two Golden Globe nominations, and its success is unlikely to stop there. Rami Malek (Night at the Museum films, Papillon 2017, Mr. Robot TV series), who plays rock icon Freddie Mercury, turns in a nomination-worthy performance, and the movie is strong with subtle themes not necessarily appreciated when it was released in the U.S. in early November. The movie, which scored a best film nomination as well, is really the story of how the band gave life and meaning to one of the 21st century’s most iconic rock performers and the role audiences played in keeping the band fresh and successful.

To be sure, Mercury’s awe-inspiring talent, charisma, and theatrics overshadowed Queen’s other three members. But director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men, Valkyrie) and screenwriter Anthony McCarten (The Theory of Everything, Darkest Hour) have weaved together a complex tale on film that ensnares audiences in Mercury’s life while drawing out the group dynamic that made Queen so successful. More subtly, the movie represents an important nod to the virtues of commercial music, and the validation artists receive when they connect directly with their audiences.

Following the funeral of former President George H.W. Bush, politicians in Washington, D.C., returned to Capitol Hill to engage in what has become a different kind of ceremonial performance, one that’s become something of an annual tradition since passage of the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act: federal government shutdown theater.

Stop me if you’ve heard how this goes before. Nearly every year, after politicians serving in the Congress are unable to come to an agreement on both how much money to spend and on what, they run into an artificial deadline that they set up many weeks earlier, after which, without a spending deal, the nonessential agencies that employ about 20 percent of federal government bureaucrats may be closed for business.

If they reach a deal before that artificial deadline, then nothing happens. If they don’t reach a deal, those agencies may be closed for up to one to three weeks until a “miraculous” compromise is reached that involves the federal government spending more money on more things.  The furloughed bureaucrats go back to work, where they get fully paid for all the hours they didn’t work while being on furlough, with their “unscheduled” time off not counting against any of their generous vacation benefits.

“Labor pushes to protect California ruling that redefines who is an employee,” reads the headline in the Sacramento Bee. The December 3 story refers to “organized labor and its allies,” who are out to bolster a state court decision on independent contractors. Organized labor is the default media code for unions, and readers might get the impression that unions are the same as labor. That is not the case and it’s not even close.

According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 15.5 percent of wage and salary workers in California are union members. A full 84.5 percent of California workers, the vast majority, are not union members. Unions are not the same as “labor” and better described as a special interest. For decades, government employee unions had been confiscating money from non-members and using it for political causes the non-members oppose. The U.S. Supreme Court put a stop to that in the recent Janus decision, but the abuses are much more extensive.

California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board had been acting as an advocate for the United Farm Workers, imposing a contract on growers and refusing to reveal the results of the worker’s 2013 decertification vote at Gerawan Farms near Fresno. Last summer an appeal court ruled that the ALRB, composed entirely of government appointees, must reveal the results. As it turned out, the workers voted 1098 to 197 to reject the UFW as their representative, a triumph for the workers over an axis of union and government goons.

Government employee unions still wield incredible power. They demonstrate outside the state capitol proclaiming “This is our house!” Court decisions still tilt to their favor but that is not always good for consumers. The decision to change independent contractors into employees forced a nail salon to increase the cost of manicures and pedicures. And as hairstylist Anthony Gianotti told reporters “they’ve just destroyed the pay structure for the barber and cosmetology industry.” California maintains a state Board of Barbering and Cosmetology with a mission to “to ensure the health and safety of California consumers.”