Federal Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is on record that California’s High-Speed Rail project could “potentially” be funded by the pending $2.3 trillion infrastructure program. State rail bosses were pleased but in his Sacramento Bee report, Tim Sheehan outlines some problems with the bullet-train project.

It began in 2013, but more than 500 pieces of property have yet to be acquired, and “contractors cannot build on land that the state does not yet own.” As with Hedley Lamarr’s railroad in Blazing Saddles, the “rightful owners” stand in the way, and land is hardly the only problem facing the rail project.

The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is a hot topic these days. President Biden recently announced plans to place additional limits on current Second Amendment rights with the argument that those restrictions can “address the gun violence public health epidemic.” Second Amendment defenders (here’s an example) argue that further restrictions on firearm ownership restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens but would be ineffective in reducing gun violence.

The debate on the effectiveness of gun control measures to reduce firearm violence distracts attention from the real motive behind gun control. Nobody wants more gun violence, so focusing on gun violence shifts the debate in favor of gun control. What the proponents of gun control really want is control, and the gun violence argument is merely a means to the end that they actually seek–a disarmed population. Arguments that look at the facts to see whether gun control achieves those ends are ineffective persuaders, because gun control advocates want regulation, regardless of its effectiveness.

Shame on the State of Vermont. Under the state’s plan for distributing the COVID vaccine, all blacks, indigenous people, and people of color are eligible to get the vaccine. Only whites 40 years and older and eligible to get the vaccine. So, imagine a 39 year-old white father of four who is the sole breadwinner for his family and fears being sick and out of work. He can’t get the vaccine under state policy but a black man in the same circumstances can.

When President Joe Biden was sworn into office on January 20, 2021, the U.S. government’s total public debt outstanding stood at $20,751.9 billion. The chart below shows who Uncle Sam borrowed all that money from on that date:

On Friday, the Supreme Court in Tandon v. Newsom (2021), granted a request for injunctive relief related to California COVID restrictions banning Bible study and prayer meetings in private homes when more than three households are represented. The vote was 5-4, with Chief Justice Roberts and the Court’s liberal wing voting in the minority.

The divisive issue was whether California’s regulation was one of general applicability treating religious conduct as well as the state treats comparable secular conduct. The majority found that the regulation did not treat religious conduct as well as comparable secular conduct. As a result, strict scrutiny (showing that the regulation is narrowly tailored to further a compelling state interest) was triggered.

If you ask most people, the way the government is supposed to work is simple. The people identify a problem they want the government to fix. The government hires and deploys people to fix it, using tax dollars to pay them to get the job done. Problem solved!

Except that’s not what happens. More often than not, the problem doesn’t get fixed. Elected officials and bureaucrats will often claim that is because they don’t have enough tax dollars. They say if only they had more, they could hire more and better people to fix the problem. Then, the problem will be fixed. Problem solved!

“Certain San Francisco artists may receive $1,000 a month under a new city program, the latest in a series of universal basic income initiatives cropping up in cities across California,” writes Faith Pinho of msn.com. Anybody eager for the extra $1000 might wonder who the “certain artists” might be. 

They must be “San Francisco residents under certain income thresholds who faced economic loss during the pandemic.” The recipients can be from “every artistic tradition,” but the artist’s work must be “rooted in a historically marginalized community.” So the money has nothing to do with the quality of the artist’s work, only the nature of their “community.” 

There’s only one reason to require COVID vaccine passports: to coerce people into getting the vaccine. While vaccination is not required, a passport requirement would say, “Whether you get the vaccine is up to you, but if you want to travel or shop or do anything outside your home, a passport is required.”

For those who are concerned about getting the virus from unvaccinated people, get vaccinated! Unvaccinated people pose a very small threat to those who have been vaccinated. Sure, the threat’s not zero, but any time you are around other people, you could catch a cold, or the flu, or Ebola, from them. You could get hit by their cars or knocked down if they bumped into you on the sidewalk. The risk to the vaccinated from being around the unvaccinated is small compared to other risks of being in places where other people are present.

After a failed bid for governor in 2018, Delaine Eastin is running for chair of the California Democratic Party. Eastin’s campaign website bills her as a “Champion for Education,” but state Democrats, millennials in particular, may be unaware of Eastin’s record in that field. 

“Delaine is the former State Superintendent for Public Instruction,” the website explains. On Eastin’s watch, from 1995 to 2003, the California Department of Education gave more than $20 million in federal funds to a consortium of community-based organizations (CBOs), primarily for English-language instruction for immigrant children. 

Government bureaucrats enjoy many benefits at taxpayer expense. One of those benefits is qualified immunity (or executive immunity), which exempts them from civil lawsuits for misdeeds on the job.

Think of qualified immunity as serving as a protective veil for bureaucrats. It empowers government officials to engage in unethical behavior they otherwise would not. That’s because the privilege of qualified immunity protects them from the cost of defending their individual misconduct. Piercing the government veil by allowing victims to directly sue these perpetrators for their on-the-job misdeeds can be a powerful tool for government accountability.