8 minute read
Classical orator
California Matters
Gov. Gavin Newsom, newly inaugurated Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and legislative leaders are pledging decisive action on California’s homelessness crisis, which raises a pithy question: Why did it erupt during a period DAN WALTERS of strong economic growth?
The reasons often o ered include a moderate climate, the availability of generous welfare benefi ts, mental health and drug abuse. However, a lengthy and meticulously sourced article in the current issue of Atlantic magazine demolishes all of those supposed causes.
Rather, the article argues persuasively California and other left-leaning states tend to have the nation’s most egregious levels of homelessness because they have made it extraordinarily di cult to build enough housing to meet demands. SUMMARY Author Jerusalem Demsas contends the A new article progressive politics of in Atlantic California and other magazine lays states are “largely to blame for the bare the real homelessness crisis: reason California A contradiction at the core of liberal ideology has precluded and other blue states have a Democratic politicians, homeless crisis who run most of the cities where homelessness is most while red states don’t. acute, from addressing the issue.
“Liberals have stated preferences that housing should be a ordable, particularly for marginalized groups … But local politicians seeking to protect the interests of incumbent homeowners spawned a web of regulations, laws, and norms that has made blocking the development of new housing pitifully simple.”
Demsas singles out Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area as examples of how environmentalists, architectural preservationists, homeowner groups and leftleaning organizations joined hands to enact a thicket of di cult procedural hurdles that became “veto points” to thwart e orts to build the new housing needed in prosperous “superstar cities.”
While thriving economies drew workers to these regions, their lack of housing manifested itself in soaring rents and home prices that drove those on the lower rungs of the economy into homelessness.
“The small-c conservative belief that people
■ See WALTERS, page A5
Letters to the Editor
The Constitution is dead
EDITOR:
There is a Grand Canyon-sized rift between Republicans and Democrats regarding the Constitution. What appears to be the most signifi cant disparity is the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The left is hell-bent on changing this right from being able to defend one’s family from tyranny to hunting ducks, as if that’s what our founding fathers thought when they wrote the Constitution.
But while America is fi xated on this argument, the powers that be have destroyed our First Amendment rights. The revelation that Twitter employees were shadow banning Republicans isn’t the big story. It’s the fact that the government coordinates daily with the Democratic Party and the national media to silence anything negative against the government, cancel conservative points of view and purposely disrupt our election process.
Because the government controls the media, the First Amendment is dead. I don’t think we’ll ever get that right back again and the Democrats celebrate this fact.
KEN STEERS Cameron Park
Sense of decency
EDITOR:
Mr. Alger states in his letter captioned “E ciency” of Dec. 21 that the Democrats “established the Ministry of Truth in the Department of Homeland Security to ‘squelch’ disinformation” and he conveniently forgets — creating an alternative fact — to mention that the Disinformation Governance Board within DHS was already terminated in August of this year, after only a few months in operation.
Then, based on Twitter “revelations” — a reliable source of political news — he sees censorship and oppression of the opposition on the part of the FBI and the Democrats. Following a variation of Godwin’s Law, he suggests that the Democrats, to be more e cient along those lines, might “modernize along this model” of establishing a single agency — the Nazi Gestapo.
Mr Alger, I see two possibilities: either you don’t know what you’re talking about, or — more sinister — you are aware that the Gestapo was a terror organization that tortured and killed without restraint and created an atmosphere of absolute and pervasive fear and terror in Germany. If the latter is the case, I believe that you have lost any sense of reality, of proportion, any sense of decency, to suggest that an American democratic political party would consider using such means. However, having read your letters to the editor over the years, it does not surprise me to see you follow in the footsteps of a former president. ULRICH B. HACKER Camino
Kennedy assassination
EDITOR:
It’s no surprise that all the John F. Kennedy assassination fi les have yet to be released. To do so would reveal who was involved.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confi rmed that in a Dec. 16 tweet in which he accused the CIA of murdering his uncle, calling it a “successful coup d’etat.” The conspirators also arranged for the assassination of Robert Kennedy and more than likely the plane crash that killed John Kennedy Jr. and his wife.
Those conspiring to kill Kennedy included attorney Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA from 1953 to 1961 and someone Kennedy fi red. Dulles also helped draft the o cial lie about who killed Kennedy by being on the Warren Commission, the body set up to investigate the assassination.
Another conspirator was the FBI’s Director J. Edgar Hoover, who was in Dallas for what he termed “the big event.” Hoover knew Kennedy planned to fi re him as well.
Then there was Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy planned to replace Johnson as vice president when he ran for a second term. Johnson worried that without the protection of being vice president he faced political ruin and potential prison time.
But all these people were merely front men for the real power behind the throne like the Rockefellers and their cronies.
David Rockefeller admitted as much when he said: “The super-national sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.” … “Some even believe we (the Rockefeller family) are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty and I am proud of it.”
■ See LETTERS, page A5
Guest Column
2023 — Love yourself so you can truly love others
You can lose about 1 pound a week if you try. If you don’t try you won’t lose any.
If you need to save some money then you need to pay yourself fi rst. If you have a paycheck coming in then set a goal for $500 a month, if possible. Whatever the amount, it will grow if you are faithful each week and month of setting money aside. You can always fi nd a place to spend money. Even if you don’t need it, you have it just in case you might.
What do you want to accomplish in 2023? If you do not have a goal of some kind you will accomplish nothing. Maybe your goal is to just enjoy each day. Enjoy your food. Enjoy your family and friends. Make the best of each ay. These are good goals.
Be good to yourself in 2023.
Love others as you love yourself. If you don’t love yourself, it’s almost impossible to love others. Recently we have heard of more people committing suicide. They had given up on themselves but wanted to hurt or kill others before they GLENN MOLETTE killed themselves. It’s tragic when people so hate themselves that they want to hurt others. If people love themselves more then they won’t have so much venom and hate for others. One of the tools of the devil is to bring your life down to where you hate all the things you’ve done. He brings it up to you often so you can feel horrible about your life’s mistakes. People often have trouble forgiving themselves so they begin to binge drink, take drugs and hurt themselves to try to deal with their life’s pain. God has forgiveness and
hope for all. People don’t always forgive but God forgives As God forgives you then you must work on forgiving yourself, loving yourself and forgiving and loving others. You see, that’s a great formula. God forgives us, loves us and we are to forgive and love ourselves and then o er this same forgiveness and love to others.
In 2023 you might do something di erent. Maybe you want to embark on an adventure, change careers or just do better with all you have been handed. Often, all we need to do is focus on what we already have to do and do it a little better.
My prayer for our nation in the year ahead is that we might see politicians work together to accomplish worthy goals that will benefi t our country. I hope Ukraine can overcome Russia but other countries need to step up to the plate. America cannot fi ght everyone’s war physically or fi nancially. We must get control of our border. Our nation is being overtaken by millions of undocumented immigrants. Who are these people? Do they all really have noble intentions in America? We must bring back our jobs from China in 2023.
Throughout this year may you have a continuation of what we talk about and pray for during the Christmas season. May it be ongoing every day and may we share it with all along the way. Peace on Earth and good will to all people. May you fi rst fi nd it in your life so you can extend it to others. 2023 = Love Dr. Glenn Mollette is a national columnist and the author of 13 books.
