Before There Was State Street, There Was the Saddle

We love Santa Barbara; its people, its sense of community, and its extraordinary beauty. So have generations of visitors who come here to celebrate and experience a city unlike any other.

But Santa Barbara did not become important because of tourism.

It became important because of the Spanish military, the Mission, and the ranching economy. And horses were indispensable to all three.

Before California was American, or a property of Mexico, Santa Barbara was a Spanish military outpost. Spain established the Presidio, built the Mission, and introduced European ranching. Families whose names still define Santa Barbara today – De la Guerra, Ortega, Carrillo, and many others – arrived from Spain and helped build a community where horses weren’t simply part of life.

They made life possible.

Horses connected the missions, worked the ranches, moved cattle, hauled supplies, and built the local economy long before automobiles.

The horse wasn’t a footnote in Santa Barbara’s history. It was one of its foundations.

That heritage is exactly what Old Spanish Days celebrates.

Every August, horses once again fill our streets. Riders honor generations of ranching families and California’s Spanish and Californio traditions. Old Spanish Days describes El Desfile Histórico as “one of the largest equestrian parades in the country.”

But preserving history requires more than staging a parade.

It requires preserving the knowledge that makes the parade possible.

Last year I was blessed to be able to ride across one of California’s original Spanish land-grant ranches. It reminded me these traditions aren’t museum pieces.

They are living history.

I also learned firsthand that horses aren’t machines.

During a mountain ride, a rider ahead of me was struck by a low branch and thrown from the saddle. The narrow trail became blocked. Horses stacked up behind us with nowhere to turn around. As the delay grew longer, they became increasingly restless.

Only because the horses were exceptionally trained – thank you Los Padres Outfitters – there were experienced horsemen who calmly managed the situation.

That experience taught me something no committee meeting could.

Experienced horsemen understand how horses respond to heat, noise, crowds, confined spaces, waiting, and unexpected stress. Those instincts come from years in the saddle, not from reading procedures.

Which raises a simple question:

When planning one of America’s largest equestrian parades, shouldn’t the people who know horses best have a meaningful voice?

Over recent years, many Rancheros, horse owners, trainers, riders, and veterinarians believe their practical knowledge has not always been welcomed in planning the portions of the parade involving horses. Whether one agrees with that concern or not, it’s a fair question to ask. Equestrian expertise isn’t simply tradition.

It’s a safety resource.

Old Spanish Days was created not only to preserve Santa Barbara’s heritage but also to attract visitors, a mission it continues to fulfill today.

Fiesta and the Historical Parade draw thousands of visitors to Santa Barbara each year, benefiting hotels, restaurants, retailers, parking facilities, and countless local businesses. Old Spanish Days itself describes the celebration as providing a “substantial economic benefit” to the community.

If an event preserves Santa Barbara’s history, celebrates its unique heritage, and generates significant economic activity for the City, shouldn’t the conversation be about how to strengthen it rather than how to reduce its funding?

Santa Barbara has every reason to celebrate Fiesta.

It has every reason to invest in its success.

And it has every reason to ensure that the Rancheros, horse owners, trainers, and veterinarians who have preserved this tradition for generations have a meaningful voice in planning the equestrian portions of the parade.

The solution doesn’t require another committee or another layer of bureaucracy.

It simply requires inviting the people who already possess the experience into the room.

Their knowledge complements the work already performed by City staff and Old Spanish Days organizers, helping preserve both the safety and authenticity of one of America’s largest equestrian parades.

The goal isn’t criticism.

It’s collaboration.

By bringing together City staff, Old Spanish Days organizers, and the equestrian community, Santa Barbara can honor its history while ensuring this remarkable tradition continues to thrive for generations to come.

If Santa Barbara’s equestrian heritage matters to you, let City Hall know.

Email the Mayor and City Council at clerk@SantaBarbaraCA.gov.

Tell them why you love the Historical Parade and why preserving it matters. Encourage them to include Rancheros, horse owners, trainers, veterinarians, and other experienced members of the equestrian community in planning the portions of the parade involving horses.

Because traditions don’t survive simply because we celebrate them.

They survive because each generation chooses to preserve them.

If we’re going to celebrate the horses that helped build Santa Barbara, then the people who have devoted their lives to understanding them deserve a meaningful voice in carrying that tradition forward.

•••

Old Spanish Days is celebrated this year from August 5^th through August 9^th.

Viva La Fiesta!

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I, for one, am still celebrating our nation’s 250^th birthday. I recently wrote about Benjamin Franklin’s answer to the question of what kind of government were we going to have, to which he replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Of course, the basic principle of our Constitution posits that we are not solely governed by the majority as in a purely democratic system of government. The majority in a community, by popular vote, can neither decide to take your right to exercise your religion, or infringe upon your right to free speech or the right to assembly, nor can the majority vote to take your belongings away without just compensation. In fact, it is a fair characterization of our Constitution that the majority does not rule in instances such as these because our Constitution protects the rights of the individual from the majority.

Another way of saying all that is to quote John Adams, one of our country’s founding fathers, who declared that our form of government was “A government of laws, and not of men.”

The website socratic-method.com did a great job explaining that “by emphasizing the importance of laws over the influence and whims of individuals, Adams highlights the significance of an impartial system that governs societies. Simply put, it means that no one should be above the law, and everyone should be subjected to its power. This principle ensures equality, protection of rights, and the prevention of tyranny.”

Malfeasance At The Highest Level

Of course, our problem today has to do with a government based upon the subjective judgments, biases, and personal values of individuals in power. It is a system that Adams wanted to avoid above all, a government whose rules are arbitrary, inconsistent, and easily influenced by personal interests. In other words, a government prone to corruption, injustice, and the oppression of its citizens.

Hence, we know of the commonplace phenomenon of judges and prosecutors refusing to prosecute criminals. We are also witness to state and local governments refusing to cooperate with the federal government in matters pertaining to illegal immigration and crimes committed by illegal immigrants.

And, did you know, some 700 government officials in California have been convicted of criminal behavior, including Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff? And now, an unindicted co-conspirator with the former chief of staff, who wore a wire, is helping to build a case against the governor and his wife for alleged financial malfeasance.

County Supervisor Laura Capps and Assemblyman Gregg Hart are another current example of politicians whose rules are arbitrary and capricious. In this case, if you can’t beat them, change their job description!

Sheriff Bill Brown has been our sheriff since 2007. He is now in his fifth term. He is one of the most distinguished law enforcement officers in the nation. Sheriff Brown was elected by his peers as President of the Major County Sheriffs of America and began his two-year term on February 9, 2024. Sheriff Brown is also a past president of both the California State Sheriffs’ Association and the California Police Chiefs’ Association, the only person to have ever held both positions.

Nevertheless, Capps and Hart want to eviscerate the authority of the sheriff by passing legislation that would wrest authority of managing the jail and its 350-custody staff from the sheriff and transfer it to the Board of Supervisors.

Something similar has already happened at the state level pertaining to our state education system. In California, persons elected to statewide elected offices are called state constitutional officers. These offices are established by the California Constitution and are filled by individuals elected by the people of the state to oversee key functions of the executive branch. One of these offices is the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Because a Republican, Sonja Shaw, is slated to win this office in November, Gavin Newsom and company gutted the position ahead of the election. AB181 replaces the elected Superintendent of Public Instruction as the executive head of the California Department of Education (CDE) with a governor-appointed, senate-confirmed Education Commissioner who serves at the pleasure of the governor. The law provides that the CDE shall be administered through the State Board of Education and the Education Commissioner, rather than the State Superintendent. It vests all executive and administrative functions of the CDE in the Education Commissioner.

Don’t like our laws? Ignore them.

Don’t like election outcomes? Gut the office.

All this in the name of democracy?

So much for a government of laws, not men.

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Remembering Montecito and Santa Barbara

GROK offers this time line on the Fourth of July Pits, ending in 1989: History and Timeline Origins (late 1960s–1970s): The tradition started around 1970 or earlier, tied to relaxed beach culture, easy access to Leadbetter Beach (near the harbor and Shoreline Park), and 4th of July celebrations. Locals recall digging pits, bonfires (or fire-adjacent activities), sparklers, and growing fireworks use. Peak (1980s): It became iconic and rowdier, with massive crowds, elaborate setups, and escalating fireworks “wars.” News-Press photographers documented it extensively (e.g., 1981, 1987, 1988 photos).

The museum’s “Stars, Stripes & Santa Barbara” exhibits highlight these as part of local July 4 lore alongside parades and harbor fireworks. Decline and End (late 1980s): By 1989, it was called a “war zone” with heavy fireworks smoke. Increased enforcement, safety concerns, fire risks (in a dry area), litter/cleanup burdens, injuries, and alcohol-related issues likely led to stricter rules on digging, bonfires, personal fireworks, and beach activities. It largely ended or was heavily curtailed after that, shifting to more controlled celebrations focused on the official West Beach waterfront show.

Loweg

Santa Barbara

(Editor’s note: Yes, well, things happen, but still, I loved what I saw as controlled chaos when I and my family moved to Montecito in the mid-‘80s. There were no “participation” trophies being given out then. – J.B.)

The Wisdom of “Risking It All” for Independence

I agree that history should be taught in schools, and I cannot speak for others but at my small parochial school in rural Virginia, history was front, middle, and center stage, at all times.

One of our 1st grade school assignments was to write 500 words on our favorite President of the United States...or Robert E. Lee if we so desired.

I learned more about the day to day lives of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the opinions of strategy and tactics used by individual soldiers in Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, than most people know about members in their own families!

Yes, the founders of our country all had good and prosperous lives under King George III (just like many of us do under Newsom).

What would make a man risk his house, his family, his land, his wealth, everything he had ever built and known...even his very life and the lives of his family and people he had never met? ...all for what?

I often think about it in context of my own life, now. I don’t like or respect many in our government. I think many of them are vain, self-centered, foolish, incompetent morons who I wouldn’t put in charge of my child’s lemonade stand, yet alone an entire state or nation....but it’s not bad enough to risk it all to try to overthrow it.

I came close once during Covid when I learned that the POTUS and my state governor were going to try and force me to inject an experimental drug into the arms of my wife and child, who I swore an oath to protect. All I had to do was show fealty to the king, no?

They backed down of course, but that was as close to flipping my switch to seditious insurrection as I ever hope to get. But it got me thinking like an American again. Something I felt I had lost over the years since I moved from the mountains of Virginia where Robert E Lee was equally acceptable as any President, to Santa Barbara, where “not taking drugs” is considered “violence.”

Lucky me...Lucky them too

Eric Gordon

Santa Barbara

(Editor’s note: You aren’t alone I think we all lost a whole lot of respect for leadership after four years of Biden/Fauci! – J.B.)

The Google “Drive-By” ADA Scam

Regarding Pat Fish’s “The Dreaded Compliance Remediation Demand Letter,” there’s a sub industry doing ADA non-compliance lawsuits without ever leaving the office.

This is a real, well-documented practice — sometimes called “Google lawsuits” or an evolution of “drive-by ADA lawsuits.”

How it works: Some serial plaintiffs’ firms use Google Earth/Street View/Maps to zoom in on a parking lot and check whether it appears compliant — accessible spot markings, access aisles, van-accessible signage, slope — all without ever visiting in person. The “Google lawsuit” label comes from business owners who were sued over violations, like a missing pool lift, that appeared to have been spotted via Google Earth.

Why parking lots specifically: Common alleged defects include a parking-lot slope a fraction of a degree too steep, signage mounted at the wrong height, or missing access aisles — each treated as a separate violation, so damages add up fast. Exterior areas are popular targets because they’re visible without setting foot on the property.

Scale in California: Unruh Act damages (minimum $4,000 per violation) turn what elsewhere would be a simple fix-it notice into a claim worth thousands, and a small number of firms and plaintiffs generate a large share of the filings. Named firms in the space include Manning Law, Cal. Equal Access Group (which often cites parking and entry violations), Seabock Price, All Access Law Group, and others, each associated with recurring plaintiffs.

Legitimate defense side too: it’s worth noting there’s real disagreement here — disability rights advocates argue private enforcement is necessary because many businesses wouldn’t otherwise comply, while business owners argue the system has drifted from fixing barriers toward extracting settlements.

For business owners: the standard advice is proactive CASp (Certified Access Specialist) inspections and fixing obvious issues — a CASp evaluation can identify and fix violations before a plaintiff finds them, and in California can also reduce statutory penalties if used correctly.

J.A.

Santa Barbara

When “Compassion” Turns to Grift

In reference to Pat Fish’s “The Dreaded Compliance Remediation Demand Letter,” The Americans With Disabilities Act was landmark legislation when it was signed into law 36 years ago this month. Consequently, disabled people have access to places formerly inaccessible: museums, shopping in Costco, attending film and live theatre performances, ability to attend school and churches. It was a notable moment. Sadly, though, there are those grifters out there, simply in it for the greed and with no thought to the harm inflicted on small businesses. I recall a grifter team -- San Francisco-based attorney and his handicapped client. They operated around the state about 15, 20 years ago. They’d find a small business non-compliant and shakedown would commence, always over something trivial. They were successful for a time, including in compelling the closure of small businesses because the ask was prohibitive. Then they tried Solvang. Businesses there stood their ground, a judge saw it for what it was, a grift, and ended it. Why must miscreants sully even laws that were written from the basis of compassion and concern for our fellows. Sickens me.

Celeste Barber

Santa Barbara

Newsom is Number One in So Many Things

Love your Journal musings! As a current Cal resident ((you lucky dog) I had to do this one.

Peter Green

Glendale

(Editor’s note: Why, thank you, Peter; I do believe you’ve captured our governor perfectly. – J.B.)

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I used to live in Washington, DC. in the ‘70s. Lots going on then. We had Watergate. Vietnam. And ultimately, the Iran Hostage Crisis, which we’re still living with half a century later.

My wife at the time worked at the White House under both President Ford, and then President Carter. Washington was filled with intrigue and many historical events happening around me real-time… and I had a front-row seat.

That’s where I was inspired to pursue a career in broadcast journalism. And no, not from Woodward and Bernstein at the WaPo. I always felt they were more driven by typical journalistic activism and accolades, than by the pursuit of truth. Indeed, President Nixon was flawed, although I think history will eventually expose the real truth behind his fall.

We’ll see.

But among all the experiences I had living in our nation’s capital, the one that still haunts me to this day was a small exhibit in the Smithsonian History and Technology Museum, as it was called then.

It was a tree stump.

I spent lots of time visiting the various halls displaying our nation’s achievements. I watched the Air and Space Museum being built. And the I. M. Pei designed East Wing of the National Art Gallery (you know, the one with the sharp edge that people can’t help touching). And the Vietnam Wall, which was designed by another Asian American, Maya Lin. They held a contest for best design. Most were traditional above-ground monuments. She won, but it was very controversial at the time. I recall it was referred to then as “the gash of shame.” And now it’s one of the most popular memorials for visitors to D. C.

But back to the tree stump.

As I wound my way through the American Civil War section, I noted chairs and a table from the Appomattox surrender. President Lincoln’s famous top hat. And lots of uniforms and weapons and other artifacts of that grave collision of ideologies.

And then, around a corner in a small glass case, was a tree stump. It was about four feet tall. Perhaps a yard wide. And riddled with small chips and gashes throughout its severed top.

Chips made from lead mini balls, shot from rifles at close range. You can see some of the still imbedded lead slugs, collapsed and flattened.

The once living oak tree originally stood on the battlefield of Spotsylvania, Virginia. One of the bloodiest battles of the entire Civil War. And it was felled by small arms fire.

Hell fire.

Catastrophic.

Imagine being a soldier from the North, or the South, and experiencing a barrage of bullets so intense, that it cut down a tree at chest height. Your chest height.

As a West Pointer, my father would often talk about the Civil War. Both Grant and Lee were graduates of the Academy. And my father was clear to point out that the war wasn’t fought over just slavery… although that was an important component. Both generals were allegiant to their own states. Grant from Ohio. Lee from Virginia. One North. One South.

It was a war between the states.

And President Lincoln was tasked with the job of preserving the Union, and not allowing one group of states to secede from the whole. He paid for it with his life. Along with hundreds of thousands of an entire generation.

Indeed, we were divided by ideologies then.

And a nation divided, cannot survive.

But we did. Through much debate and pain and bloodshed.

And strong leadership.

Sound familiar?

I pray that we learn from our history. We can’t endure another civil war, even if bloodless.

And now the task is to vote… to prevent it. There are powerful forces that want to take that right from you… and everything else.

Learn from history.

Vote as if your life depended upon it.

And your family’s lives.

Because it does.

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This week I was shocked to experience every business owner’s nightmare: a lawyer’s Compliance Remediation Demand letter that alleged I was in violation of a law regarding an “estimated statutory exposure” which could make me liable for potential damages of $15,000 (or more).

I had received a first notice earlier but ignored it, presuming it was just spam. But this one declared “This is your second and final warning,” so I first went to Google and put in the name of the law firm and “spam” and holy smokes, it is actually a real law firm that specializes in threatening businesses about ADA compliance and website privacy tracking violations.

So, then I went to AI for advice from my cyber Guardian Angel, Super GROK. Oh dear. Oh dear. They are a listed law firm, and they specialize in ADA and violations related to website tracking pixels, cookies, and Google Analytics. It is a grift, going after small businesses to frighten them into paying to end the threat.

And what if I continue to ignore it?

GROK says they often follow through with a lawsuit in California Superior Court. So, if you do go to court, even if you win or it is dismissed, you’re on the hook for defense costs, and service of process. If you “lose” they can hit you with multiple statutory damages, as they claim CIPA violations at $5,000 each plus attorney fees, costs, and injunctive relief. It is a process; some cases settle or fizzle after remediation, others pay the demanded amount to remove the threat of worse. Like a plea-bargain, which is how so many court cases are resolved.

Well, that took my breath away. Ignoring it is not an option, and there is a California law firm that advertises that they specialize in responding to this firm. The last thing I want to do is get involved in anything legal. It might escalate and now is not the time to hit my business with a fine of any amount. So, GROK gently suggested the compliant approach: remediation and polite outreach to state I have fixed any issues and I’m a one-person small business so please accept my voluntary remediation and acknowledge my good-faith efforts.

I was in fact ignorant that all websites must sport a banner that lets you opt out of cookies and tracking. I have seen that, of course, and clicked “deny all” and never thought twice about it.

California “Invasion of Privacy Act” Pending

California bill SB690 specifically limiting this sort of predatory privacy lawsuits passed out of the Assembly’s Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection on 7/1/26 with a vote of 14-0. The statistics quoted say that in the past four years 3,700 CIPA (California Invasion of Privacy Act) shakedowns have been filed in California, with tens of thousands more estimated demand letters sent. At the last minute it was amended, and critics say it is the poster child for abusive lawsuits but now does not go far enough. “This closes one avenue for abusive legislation, however additional major pathways for frivolous lawsuits remain intact, leaving businesses across every industry vulnerable to predatory litigation.” SB690 aims to curb these exact CIPA/website tracking suits, yet we await it becoming law.

A version of SB690 passed the state senate last year, so our state representatives are well aware of the problem. Yet this law firm persists, and in response, there is a law firm known for specializing in responding to the threats.

All of us have heard the Urban Legend of the bitter guy in a wheelchair who rolls into the small family restaurant and extorts a free meal by saying if they don’t feed him, he will file an ADA complaint against them. I used to know an LA restaurant inspector and he told me he saw little Mexican restaurants that had pitiful signs in their windows saying “Please Señor Wheelchair don’t give us trouble.”

Because of knowing that guy really exists and is a danger to any business, I even wrote a stipulation into my business lease about being required to make changes to make the unit more ADA compliant. But it never occurred to me, until this week, that a firm specializing in threatening website owners might come after me.

So now I know this is just part of a large wave of CIPA-based demand letters and lawsuits. Critics call it “privacy trolling” and while it feels like a shakedown it is a technically legal activity, not illegal extortion. They send thousands of intimidating letters hoping for quick settlements, playing the percentages. The applicable privacy laws are often so old and broad – pre-dating the internet in some cases – that courts are still sorting out how far these claims can go. For there to be enough of them that a specific California litigation attorney can make a living actively defending businesses targeted by this specific company is a tragedy and a distortion of justice.

I contemplated whether writing about it for SB Current would be a jinx, but two days have gone by since I made the changes in my websites and sent my response letter back to them. I can only hope that I never do hear any more from them, that my tiny one-person tattoo studio is not a target they can expect to extort enough from to be worth the bother. Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I decided to do the journalistic catharsis of documenting the experience.

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On January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered perhaps the most prescient farewell address in American history.

“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

Eisenhower was a five-star general. Supreme Allied Commander.

The man who led the liberation of Europe.

He understood military power better than anyone alive.

His concern was not with the military.

Nor with industry.

His concern was what happens when government, industry, and the military, become so intertwined that they begin reinforcing one another beyond meaningful public oversight.

Sixty-five years later, his warning deserves an update.

The military-industrial complex hasn’t disappeared.

It has evolved.

Today it includes something Eisenhower could never have imagined:

Artificial intelligence. Space technology. Cloud computing. Autonomous weapons. Data analytics. Venture capital.

Call it… The Technology-National Security Complex.

This may be the defining power shift of the twenty-first century.

If you want to understand Washington today, don’t begin on Capitol Hill.

Begin in Silicon Valley.

The federal government no longer builds many of its most important technologies.

It buys them.

Increasingly, it depends upon them.

A relatively small group of companies now sit at the intersection of government, intelligence, defense and artificial intelligence.

The names are becoming familiar.

Palantir. Anduril. SpaceX. Scale AI. OpenAI.

None of these companies existed when the Berlin Wall fell.

Today, all of them influence how governments gather information, analyze threats, conduct military operations or develop artificial intelligence.

Some have become critical infrastructure.

The most interesting story is not any single company. It is the network.

It’s the emergence of an ecosystem whose members increasingly build the software, finance the innovation, advise the government, attend the same conferences—and, increasingly, shape the same future.

Former government officials move into venture capital.

Venture capital funds defense startups.

Defense startups become Pentagon contractors.

Intelligence agencies become customers.

Private conferences—from Dialog to Sun Valley, Aspen, Munich and beyond—bring together the investors, policymakers, military leaders and entrepreneurs shaping the next generation of national security technology.

This is not a conspiracy. It doesn’t need to be.

Networks operate through relationships.

Shared assumptions. Regular dialog.

One institution illustrates this transformation particularly well.

Most Americans have never heard of In-Q-Tel.

In-Q-Tel was created in 1999 by the CIA to function as the intelligence community’s venture-capital arm.

Its mission is simple.

Find promising technologies before America’s adversaries do.

Invest early.

Help intelligence agencies gain access to innovations emerging from Silicon Valley.

The CIA no longer merely buys the future. Through In-Q-Tel, it helps finance it.

Over the years, In-Q-Tel has invested across fields including geospatial intelligence, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, drones, and advanced analytics.

One early beneficiary of CIA support was Keyhole, whose mapping technology eventually became Google Earth.

Palantir’s early development also received backing through In-Q-Tel.

This is not hidden. It simply isn’t widely understood.

The revolving door has changed as well.

Once it revolved between Congress, K Street and traditional defense contractors.

Today another wing has been added.

Government. Silicon Valley. Artificial intelligence. Defense technology. Venture capital. National security.

The same people circulate through all of them.

The same conferences. The same advisory boards. The same investors.

What once looked like separate worlds increasingly resembles a single ecosystem.

The Dialog Society—part one of this series—offers a glimpse into that ecosystem.

Conversations across disciplines illustrate how influence now operates.

Peter Thiel named his data-analysis company Palantir after J. R. R. Tolkien’s “seeing stones”—crystal orbs that allowed rulers to observe distant events.

Palantir conference rooms are reportedly named after places in Middle-earth.

Palmer Luckey named his defense startup Anduril after Aragorn’s legendary sword.

Thiel’s venture-capital firm, Mithril Capital, borrowed its name from Tolkien’s mythical metal.

In Tolkien’s world, knowledge was power.

In Tolkien’s world, the Palantíri offered extraordinary vision—but never perfect truth.

It is an unexpectedly apt metaphor for the age of artificial intelligence.

Increasingly, those building the technologies that governments depend upon are speaking directly with those governing them.

The boundary between public authority and private innovation grows thinner each year.

Supporters argue this evolution is both inevitable and necessary.

Governments move slowly.

Technology moves quickly.

If democracies hope to compete with authoritarian powers investing heavily in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and autonomous systems, close collaboration with private industry may be essential. (Peter Thiel once remarked, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”)

Critics ask different questions.

What happens when governments become dependent upon technologies they neither own nor fully understand?

Who audits increasingly influential algorithms?

Who remains accountable when software shapes decisions affecting millions of people?

Who oversees the companies that increasingly help governments see the world?

Perhaps Dialog is simply an unusually interesting conference.

Perhaps Palantir is simply an unusually capable software company.

Perhaps In-Q-Tel is simply an intelligent way for the CIA to identify emerging technologies.

Perhaps all of these developments are exactly what modern government requires.

Perhaps.

But taken together they reveal something larger.

Power is migrating. Not away from Washington. But alongside it toward a new class of institutions that do not resemble governments, yet influence how governments function.

The old establishment has not disappeared.

It has acquired new partners.

And that is the twenty-first century version of Eisenhower’s warning.

The military-industrial complex did not vanish. It evolved.

Today it writes software. Launches satellites. Trains artificial intelligence. Funds startups. Advises governments. Builds autonomous weapons.

If you want to know where intelligence agencies believe the future is heading, don’t begin with tomorrow’s headlines.

Begin with the companies they are quietly helping to build.

Palantir. Anduril. SandboxAQ. Skild AI. Spread AI.

Notice the pattern?

None manufactures consumer gadgets.

All enhance the state’s ability to see... analyze... predict... coordinate... automate... and decide.

The architecture of power is no longer being built solely in Washington.

It is being coded in Silicon Valley.

The question is whether democratic oversight has evolved as quickly as the technology.

History suggests otherwise.

By the time the public notices where power has migrated... it has already unpacked its bags.

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Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins approved the request from Tennessee, West Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, and Nebraska, for a pilot program to study the potential health benefits of prohibiting the use of SNAP funds for the purchase of sugar-based foods as part of the Make America Healthy Again project.

Almost immediately – after virtually any Trump administration action – the now all too familiar five step dance begins:

1) A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) (which as non-profits pay no income taxes, but can pay their employees), in this case The National Center for Law and Economic Justice (whose contributors include General Mills), and the Hinder Cantor Lerner LL.P law firm,

2) “find” or “recruit” potential plaintiff(s), in this case a SNAP recipient in each of the five states,

3) find a friendly Obama or Biden appointed judge,

4) file a law suit requesting an injunction to block the program before the facts can be presented at a trial, and

5) the judge issues an injunction.

In Aragon v. Rollins the D.C. Federal District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, appointed by President Obama, issued an injunction preventing the implementation of the five states pilot program for SNAP.

SNAP

SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is the U.S. primary food security initiative. SNAP provides financial assistance for groceries to eligible low-income households.

Under SNAP, funds are loaded electronically onto an EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) card, which functions like a debit card and is accepted at most grocery stores and approved farmers markets.

Benefits can be used for staple groceries, produce, and seeds, but cannot be used for hot, ready-to-eat foods, alcohol, tobacco, or pet food.

In California, SNAP is known as CalFresh.

In Santa Barbara County, the Department of Social Services (DSS) processes applications, while other local organizations—like the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County or Family Service Agency—assist with applications.

Diabetes

It has been reported that an estimated 40.1 million Americans (12% of the population) have diagnosed or undiagnosed diabetes and roughly 115 million adults have Pre-diabetes.

Santa Barbara has been in the forefront of diabetes research since 1922 when the Santa Barbara based Sansum Diabetes Research Institute (SDRI) became famous for being one of the earliest manufacturers of insulin.

Latinos in the U.S. and Santa Barbara (where they make up nearly 46% of the population) are at a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Pilot Program

At the states’ request, Secretary Rollins approved a Pilot Program to study the effects of extending the list of prohibited products under SNAP—hot, ready-to-eat foods, alcohol, tobacco, or pet food—-to include certain sugar-based products.

For example, The Tennessee Department of Human Services (TDHS) received federal approval from the Trump administration to implement changes that promote healthier food options for households receiving SNAP benefits as part of a two-year pilot program to test whether clearer food standards improve nutrition outcomes.

Starting on July 31, 2026, SNAP benefits in Tennessee could still be used to purchase the following items:

• Fruits and vegetables

• Meat, poultry, and fish

• Dairy products

• Bread

• Cereal

• Other foods such as snack foods and non-alcoholic beverages

• Seeds and plants, which produce food for the household to eat

SNAP benefits would no longer be eligible to purchase the following:

—Processed Foods - Processed foods include foods altered from their natural state and that list the following ingredients as the first ingredient:

• Sugar

• Cane sugar

• Corn syrup

• High fructose corn syrup

• Exception: Single-ingredient sugars used for cooking and baking (such as granulated sugar or raw sugar) remain eligible.

• Soda & Energy Drinks – Beverages that list carbonated water and one of the above items as the first two ingredients.

The SNAP benefit amounts will not be impacted and recipients can still shop at the same stores.

Conclusion

The Trump Derangement Syndrome has reached the point where even a pilot program requested by five states to study the potential health benefits of reducing the use of SNAP funds to purchase sugar-based products may well require a 6-3 (there are two Obama appointed Justices and one Biden appointed) vote by the Supreme Court.

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In his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language, Orwell critiques the “ugly and inaccurate” state of contemporary English, linking it directly to political and social decay. Orwell rightly observed that vague, pretentious, and euphemistic language is often used to obscure truth, justify morally questionable actions, and manipulate public perception. Political language, according to Orwell, is designed to make lies sound truthful and violence respectable, using euphemisms and cloudy vagueness to conceal reality.

To wit, the goal of item #8 on the Santa Barbara County Supervisor’s agenda on July 8, 2026: “Identify tools to prohibit or regulate immigration enforcement facilities and detention centers.”

To do this, the board must legally “find” that these facilities pose an immediate threat to public safety, health, and welfare. That means, the supes, under the leadership of Laura Capps, are representing the lie that the authority of our federal government to enforce our laws is a threat to public safety as the supes seek to make the violence of illegal alien felons somehow “respectable.” George Orwell would have loved to use this illustration in his writings, including his novel “1984,” as an example of “doublethink,” in which citizens are forced to accept opposing truths simultaneously. That is because most of the people ICE are arresting are themselves a threat to public safety, health, and welfare.

Of course, this is just the last of many salvos from the Laura Capps-led Board of Supervisors. Capps and her pal Assemblyman Gregg Hart, a former county supervisor himself, are conspiring, by way of state legislation (AB 2257), to take away the management and oversight of the county jail from Sheriff Bill Brown. Besides accounting for the fact that Laura Capps thinks she is the smartest person on the planet, the two excuses given for this action include the charge that too many ICE arrests are occurring outside of the county jail and the millions of dollars in costs for excessive overtime incurred by deputies.

With respect to the sheriff’s alleged cooperation with ICE, this too is a lie. Every year, the sheriff is required to present to the supes, via the Truth Act, how many times ICE has requested an illegal alien detainee be handed over to them at the jail versus how many handoffs occurred. The joker in the deck, that Capps doesn’t like, is that if a federal warrant has been issued by a court, the handoff must occur regardless of her preferences. Hence, Capps would just as soon blow off the authority of the judicial branch as she would the administrative branch represented by Donald Trump.

Any sane person, that is, not somebody suffering from a maniacal attachment to illegal alien felons, would prefer a handoff at the jail for all illegal aliens sought by ICE rather than forcing ICE to hunt for these people on the streets and in their homes. But Capps and company can’t see the logic in that.

With respect to the apparent abuse of overtime by deputies, well guess what, the loophole that allowed some of that excess overtime to be realized was signed by the board of supes via an MOU with the deputy’s association. The supes therefore only have themselves to blame. As for the rest of the overtime, the supes cut the sheriff’s budget years ago and they have never regained the staffing they need to avoid the bulk of the remaining overtime being charged.

I, for one, wish the supes would stay in their lane and completely forego their constant political grandstanding and their maniacal obsession stemming from a bad case of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). After all, Obama and Clinton, and every other president in the modern era, deported criminal illegal aliens without a whimper from the Democrat Party. And, the fact remains, most of the criminals being sought by ICE have received final orders to deport meaning they have no opportunity for a further hearing or additional appeals. Either that, or they have already been convicted of serious crimes here or abroad which is just cause for their immediate eviction. No sane person would want to retain a murderer, rapist, or child molester, that doesn’t belong here in the first place.

The supes should save us the pain of watching their kabuki theater and instead focus on three things. Catch up on their $500 million maintenance deficit, i.e., go out and fix some potholes. Second, lessen the regulations hampering businesses from prospering and developers from building more housing. Third, recognize that the Constitution gives the feds supremacy over state and local governments, and likewise, defer to the fact that the voters have re-elected Sheriff Bill Brown multiple times because he is one of the most respected sheriffs in America, having served as President of the National Association of Sheriffs.

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One year later, the sky has yet to fall, but you’ve got to hand it to Rep. Salud Carbajal. In his recent letter to folks in the 24th District, he managed to pack more apocalyptic warnings into a few paragraphs than most people do in an entire election cycle. The One Big Beautiful Bill, signed last July 4 with fireworks and all, isn’t just bad policy in his view — it’s apparently a full-scale assault on the middle class, kids, seniors, veterans, apple pie, and pretty much anyone who isn’t a billionaire.

If you believed our current congressman, we’d be looking at bread lines, empty medicine cabinets, and a debt bomb that makes our current fiscal mess look quaint. As someone who’s watched Santa Barbara politics long enough to know the difference between a press release and reality, I figured it was worth taking a closer look. The bill’s first anniversary seemed like the perfect time. Turns out, the evidence is a lot less hysterical than Salud’s unhinged rhetoric.

Let’s start with the tax breaks Carbajal says were reserved for the “ultra wealthy.” Nice try. By making the core 2017 individual cuts permanent, bumping up the standard deduction, and keeping those lower rates in place, the law actually delivers its biggest percentage bang to middle-income households — the very people who rely on the standard deduction instead of hiring accountants to itemize. Typical filers saw their taxable income drop by thousands of dollars a year. That’s real money.

On the Corporate Side

Competitive rates and expensing rules encourage companies to invest here rather than ship jobs overseas. Remember what happened after the original 2017 cuts? Business fixed investment went up, and corporate tax revenue hit record levels by 2019. The 2025 version removed the annual tax-cliff drama that had everyone holding their breath. Early numbers show the same positive vibes continuing: capital investment holding steady and wages ticking up for working folks.

Not exactly Robin Hood in reverse.

Then there’s Salud’s healthcare horror story. Carbajal claims the bill strips coverage from children, seniors, and veterans, while kicking 10 million people off insurance. The actual reforms were more surgical: work requirements and regular eligibility checks aimed at able-bodied adults without dependents. States that tried this — Arkansas and Georgia — saw employment jump 5 to 12 percentage points in those groups, with barely a ripple for kids, the disabled, or the elderly.

Veterans’ Programs and Food Assistance

Untouched. Uninsured rates didn’t explode as predicted, and prime-age workers kept jumping back into the labor market. In other words, the bill encouraged people who can work to do so, without pulling the rug out from under those who truly can’t. Who knew that people would respond to incentives?

Same deal with food assistance. The claim that four million would lose SNAP benefits sounds alarming until you check the fine print and the history books. The 1996 welfare reforms cut caseloads by more than 60 percent, boosted employment among single mothers, and helped bring child poverty down. SNAP has had improper payment rates north of ten percent in multiple years — that’s real money not reaching the people who need it. The 2025 bill applied modest work or training rules only to non-disabled adults without young kids, keeping full protections for children and seniors. Not a gutting, just a bit of adult supervision for a program that had gotten far too loosey goosey with taxpayer funds.

Medicaid and SNAP

Carbajal’s biggest swing is the trillion-dollar gutting of Medicaid and SNAP, plus that scary $4 trillion debt figure. Again, context matters. The bill added guardrails against fraud and runaway expansion rather than slashing benefits for the vulnerable. That $4 trillion number comes from the same static scoring models that assume nobody ever changes behavior when the rules do — a track record that’s about as reliable as a coastal commission prediction on oil projects.

Revenue often beats those gloomy forecasts when growth kicks in, just like it did post 2017. The legislation also raised the debt ceiling to avoid the usual Washington game of chicken, while boosting border security, domestic energy production (good for prices at the pump), and defense priorities.

Funny how those parts didn’t make the congressman’s letter.

Big Bill More Beautiful Than Ever

One year in, the sky has stubbornly refused to fall. Employment and investment trends look solid. Safety nets for the truly needy are still there, just with a little more emphasis on work and efficiency. Families and businesses finally have some tax predictability instead of the usual short-term patch jobs.

Nobody serious thinks we shouldn’t protect the vulnerable or worry about the national debt. Those are real challenges. But pretending the only solution is writing bigger checks funded by tomorrow’s taxpayers — while ignoring what actually works on the ground — isn’t compassion; it’s just kicking the can down the road, leaving our children to deal with the mess.

Santa Barbara’s 24th District voters have heard enough of the same old script. They deserve straight talk and practical results. That’s one reason why pragmatist Bob Smith is running for Congress to replace Carbajal. Smith gets that representatives should work for all constituents, not just the ones who nod along to the party line. After 12 months, the One Big Beautiful Bill isn’t the monster Carbajal warned us about. It’s a pragmatic mix of growth, accountability, and targeted reform.

In politics, that’s about as beautiful as it gets.

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I have a large piece of the Berlin Wall. I’m looking at it right now. I acquired it as the wall was coming down. I had the distinct experience of living in Europe as the wall was being built…. then visiting Berlin when the wall was there… even going into East Berlin to “tour” through “Checkpoint Charlie” …. And then I joined the festivities as the symbol of communism collapsed… as was inevitable.

I consider it one of the greatest moments in history. A lesson learned for how not to run a country or countries.

Now, almost 40 years later, what is happening?

I first heard the term “progressive” about fifteen years ago. It was used by a woman I met named Kat Steyer, who was, and is, the wife of Tom Steyer, the failed billionaire candidate for president, and then failed candidate for governor of California.

Failed.

Thank God.

Oh, and God is anathema to progressivism…. But more on that later.

Anyhoo, I asked Kat Steyer what she meant by the term ‘progressive,’ and she said: “Oh, Tom and I are progressives because we are environmentalists and we believe in eliminating fossil fuels and helping the immigrants and so on and so forth.” And I said: “But Tom’s company where he gained his fortune, Farallon Capital, made its money investing in coal… and private prisons holding illegals. What’s progressive about that? Not to mention that he benefited from capitalism off the backs of fossil fuels and immigrants.”

She turned on her heels and walked away.

Hey, I have a joke. How many progressives does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: Just one to hold it, and then have the government twist the ceiling around it. Pretty funny, huh? I just made that up. Progressives are natural humor targets. They just don’t realize it, because they have no sense of humor.

I’m listening to all the traditional Democrats desperately trying to navigate the wave of progressivism-socialism-communism-weirdoism taking over their party. But many of them can’t escape being Jewish. It’s that Palestine thing. You know, that thing, to paraphrase Joe Biden when he couldn’t remember: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Biden: “That all men and women are created by the, you know, you know… the thing.”

Well, here’s the thing. What about our gay friends?

For whatever reason, many “progressives” support the Palestinians, and Hamas, and Iran, the very same people who would be the first to throw them off a building. Except for the gay ayatollah. He gets a pass. And 72 virgins when he dies. Not that he would care.

And they all claim to have a “big tent” to hold all the weird, creepy fringes of their once respectable party that I used to be a member of. But the only tents I see are strewn about the streets of the cities they control. Little tents.

And lots of poop.

And free needles.

Oh, and they want to get rid of the borders, and law enforcement, and welcome everyone from everywhere.

No strings attached.

Ok, then I vote to have these nincompoops, (emphasis on poop) take the front door off their white privileged house and put a sign outside saying: “Come on in and help yourselves, and stay as long as you want; we’ll pay for everything, including your sex change. And we promise not to call 911 for the non-existent police. Party on!”

There, done.

But of course, they’ll want them to clean the pool.

And trim the tall hedges that cover the iron fence.

No, not the fence at the border. That’s gone… under their rule. Just their fence, to protect themselves.

The Joke’s On Them

I don’t know…. It’s certainly a perplexing state of affairs infecting Democrats these days. Infecting, kind of like the Fauci virus. We know where it comes from. We can try to avoid it. But, what do you think, anti-progressive masks? Perhaps a vaccine? Bleach? You know, that bleach that President Trump was accused of recommending?

Good grief.

Probably would have been better than the vax we got. What a scam.

So where do we go from here? Well, getting back to that God thing I mentioned at the top of this tiny treatise… have faith. For every success, we have to endure many failures. That makes success all the more satisfying. Like watching the Berlin wall fall. And if we believe that our rights come from God, not “man/woman/they” (read government), then we have the upper hand.

Say a prayer.

Hope you enjoyed celebrating our incredible country on its 250^th anniversary of independence from “resisting” kings and oligarchs… and….

Maintain a sense of humor.

God is laughing at the progressives as we speak.

And they don’t get the joke.

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As an old boxer (which I’m not) might say, “I’ve decided to throw in the towel.” I’m going to go all in and will vote Democrat to support the party’s new socialist movement.

“How nice it would be,” I told myself, “to no longer worry about wanting to live the American dream.”

No more pressure.

For example, owning a home is overrated. I won’t have to worry about property tax, maintenance, mortgage payments, insurance. The government is going to take care of all that. In fact, I might even be sharing my new government-owned domicile – whatever it might be – with strangers.

I can make new friends.

Hopefully we speak the same language.

I will also enjoy shopping at the government-run grocery store and get stuff cheaper, maybe even for free. After all, who would stop me if I put a bunch of stuff under my arms and run out the door like so many of my fellow residents do? It may not be the best selection but hey, we all need to make sacrifices for the benefit of all.

And since I eventually won’t be able to own a car, I have the luxury of taking government-run buses. The smell might be a little rank, but I still have a few boxes of masks left over from the COVID days. I just need to avoid sitting on a needle and make sure I step over the poop.

Not a big deal. We all know life has its challenges. Geez, pardon my use of cliché. I also have the option of riding my bicycle to help the environment. It might be a bit challenging when it’s 100 degrees, raining, or freezing cold. That’s when my government secondhand clothing comes in.

And who are we to boast to the rest of the world that we shot a rocket with four astronauts around the dark side of the moon and back? I mean, that money could have been better spent on supplying more needles and drugs to the homeless to help them out. We could have upgraded their tents and provided WIFI. Shooting rockets is a waste of money. Probably didn’t even happen anyway. It was probably all A.I.

And what’s up with the stock market hitting all-time highs? By increasing in value even more people get richer. On second thought, that means more money the government can take to spread the wealth. A sweet bonus for the régime’s coffers. Those pesky 401K’s can be squeezed for a few more bucks, right?

I also think we should just give Iran a ton of money like Obama did. He had the right idea. Give them the moolah and they’ll play nice with us. It’s not our business if they want to make big bombs to melt millions of Americans. And maybe they’ll only charge a nominal toll to travel through the Strait of Hormuz. They’ll be reasonable. And all those executions of their own people, they’re probably justified. It’s important their citizens know their place. Unless that too was just A.I.

I’m all-in for getting rid of the police. The socialists will take my guns, which is a good idea since most people don’t know how to use them anyway. Except for the poor criminals who need them to make a living. We all just have to plan accordingly when a criminal breaks into your house. Be creative and pull a “Home Alone” on them. You can put paint cans over the door and thumb tacks on the floor. There are all kinds of things you could employ to make the bad guys run away scared. After all you can’t call for help. And, even if you did, no one would show up anyway.

New York mayor Mamdani could be on to something. What do Americans have to be patriotic about? Maybe he’s right when he says we’re all racists and only the white elitists get everything. Though I wouldn’t mind sharing the wealth with the likes of Beyoncé, LeBron James or Tiger Woods.

Maybe it’s time we also stop funding new technology. Why should America always carry the burden? Let other countries improve their lives on their own and then we can just steal their ideas.

Oh, and I’m going to start attending every march that I can. I need to get in more steps. It will be great exercise. If I add carrying a sign and shake it up and down, I’ll also get an upper body workout. I’m confident when hand-painted signs say things like “We don’t want kings,” or “ICE are Nazis,” it will make all the difference in the world.

We’ll change tons of minds.

And speaking of ICE. Oh my gosh. They need to be abolished for sure. Borders schmorders. Think of being able to go into Mexico and Canada without a passport and buy all their pharmaceutical drugs. They are so cheap. Canada is already a socialist country. They should be more than happy to meld us in for all their free stuff.

In that same vein, the U.S. needs to embrace the millions more of illegals who will be joining us, even the killers and rapists. They need love too. How cruel to want to send people back to their homes. Since we’ll be financially raping everyone and anyone who has any money, the U.S. treasury will be maxed out with cash. More than enough to feed, clothe, educate, house and pay the medical bills of our new residents. That’s what America is all about. We welcome the world with open arms and gratuities.

Everything will be free under the new United Socialist States of America. USSA, kind of has a nice ring to it. Also, a little familiar.

The planet will love us again. Though I’m not sure how those soccer players and recent world visitors will like the changes. They all seemed pretty happy and impressed with America the way it was.

As for those millions upon millions who joyfully celebrated Amerca’s 250^th birthday, they should all be ashamed. What were they so happy about?

Let freedom reign.

Peace out.

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Where Governments Increasingly Organize Information

The Dialog Society is where influential people gather.

If Dialog is where tomorrow’s ideas are debated, Palantir is where many of those ideas become operational.

The two are connected by one man.

Peter Thiel: Venture capitalist, Technologist, Contrarian.

Perhaps more than anyone else in Silicon Valley, Peter Thiel has argued that the future will be shaped less by politics than by technology.

Governments move slowly. Software moves quickly.

Bureaucracies preserve the status quo. Entrepreneurs disrupt it.

Whether one admires or distrusts that philosophy, it helps explain why the same individual would co-found both an invitation-only gathering where influential people exchange ideas—and a company whose software increasingly helps governments turn information into decisions.

One shapes conversations. The other shapes capability.

That is not a coincidence.

It is a worldview.

Most Americans have heard the name Palantir without quite knowing what the company actually does.

Unlike Google, Microsoft, or Apple, Palantir does not sell products to consumers.

It sells software to governments.

Military organizations. Intelligence agencies. Law enforcement. Border security. Public health departments. Financial institutions. Large corporations.

Palantir doesn’t manufacture tanks or fighter aircraft; doesn’t launch satellites.

It builds something more valuable.

Decision superiority.

Governments have always possessed mountains of information.

Tax records. Immigration files. Criminal histories. Battlefield reports. Satellite imagery. Financial transactions. Health records. Intelligence intercepts.

The problem was never collecting it.

The problem was connecting it.

Palantir built software that integrates enormous quantities of information that organizations already possess, revealing relationships that human analysts might otherwise miss.

Do you need to connect immigration records with airline manifests?

Palantir.

Need to coordinate battlefield intelligence?

Palantir.

Need to identify supply-chain vulnerabilities?

Palantir.

Need to transform thousands of disconnected databases into a single operational picture?

Palantir.

That is precisely what the company was built to do.

By almost every account it does it exceptionally well.

The name itself offers a clue to Thiel’s thinking.

In The Lord of the Rings, the Palantíri were magical “seeing stones” that allowed rulers to observe distant events.

They were immensely powerful.

They were also dangerous.

One never saw the entire truth. Only the portion visible through the stone.

Whether intentional or not, the metaphor is striking.

Palantir sees patterns others cannot.

Founded shortly after 9/11, Palantir set out to solve a problem intelligence agencies had struggled with for decades:

Too much information with too little understanding.

Its early development received backing from the CIA’s venture-capital arm, reflecting the post-9/11 belief that connecting information more effectively might prevent future attacks.

Since then, Palantir has expanded far beyond intelligence.

Today its software supports military planning, logistics, manufacturing, disaster response, healthcare, energy, finance, and an increasing number of civilian government functions.

Artificial intelligence has accelerated that evolution.

Supporters regard Palantir as one of America’s most important strategic technology companies.

Wars are fought with information. Cybersecurity depends upon information. Counter-terrorism depends upon information. Efficient government depends upon information.

Critics see something different.

They worry not merely about data but about concentration of capability.

When a relatively small number of private technology companies become indispensable to intelligence, defense, policing, immigration, and public administration, governments gradually become dependent upon software they neither own nor fully control.

It does raise questions.

Who audits the algorithms?

Who validates the conclusions?

Who remains accountable when software increasingly shapes decisions?

There is another dimension.

The revolving door.

Washington has always had one.

For generations it revolved between Congress, lobbyists, and defense contractors.

Today it has acquired a new wing.

Government. Silicon Valley. Artificial intelligence. Venture capital. National security.

Increasingly, the same people circulate through all of them.

The same conferences. The same investors. The same advisory boards.

The same conversations.

This isn’t merely a revolving door anymore.

It is an ecosystem.

Seen separately, Dialog is a conference.

Palantir is a software company.

Together they reveal something larger.

One assembles influential minds. The other assembles influential information.

Both reflect a distinctly twenty-first century belief: That tomorrow will be shaped less by legislatures than by networks, algorithms, and the people who build them.

None of this means Palantir dictates government policy.

But there is abundant evidence that technology companies have become indispensable participants in the machinery of modern government.

The twentieth century’s governments were built upon steel, concrete, and paper.

The twenty-first century is increasingly being built upon software.

Laws still matter. Elections still matter. Congress still matters.

But somewhere beneath them all—largely invisible to the public—software, i.e., Palantir, increasingly determines what governments know.

And what governments do next, based on what they know.

Next week: Part Three: The New Architecture of Power.

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Dear Mayor Rowse, Councilmembers Friedman, Jordan, Santamaria, Sneddon, Harmon and Gutierrez:

I write to you today to express my – as you might have guessed – extreme opposition to the Santa Barbara Rent Stabilization Ordinance. It will achieve nothing besides rent “stabilization,” and as written will have profound, transformative, and do lasting damage to all landlords, real estate investors in rental properties, rental property conditions, and the availability of rental unit stock itself.

In the very short term, this misguided, fact- and history-bare ordinance may momentarily provide stabilized rents for some Santa Barbara residents, but will predictably create degrading buildings, impoverished landlords, and accelerate the selling off of existing rental units.

These effects of rent control have been universal, well known, long-acknowledged and tremendously corrosive in every location that they have been tried.

As the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis states (Feb 12, 2024), “Microeconomics textbooks depict these rental price ceiling policies as causing supply to fall and demand to increase, leading to a shortage in the market. Suppressing the return on rental property investment does little to incentivize investors to increase the supply, or quality, of housing. Such policies may lead to a permanent change in the housing supply mix, pushing housing supply into the owned market and out of the rental market, and will make renting less affordable in the long term.”

The Brookings Institute in 2018 wrote, “While rent control appears to help current tenants in the short run, in the long run it decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative spillovers on the surrounding neighborhood. Caps on rents lead landlords to sell their rental properties to owner occupants so that landlords can still earn the market price for their real estate, as the return on their investments and assets consistently fail to meet real costs and market conditions.”

The National Multifamily Housing Council has, as one of its key precepts, an essay titled “The High Cost of Rent Control.” In it is stated “The profound economic and social consequences of government intervention in the nation’s housing markets have been documented in study after study, over the past twenty-five years. Nevertheless, a number of cities around the country continue to impose rent controls, usually with the stated goal of preserving affordable housing for low- and middle-income families. Rent control does not advance this important goal. To the contrary, rent control has actually reduced both the quality and quantity of available housing.

“When a community artificially restrains rents by adopting rent control, it tells builders not to make new investments and tells current providers to reduce their investments in existing housing, creating the perverse consequence of reducing, rather than expanding, the supply of housing.”

Now, to the specifics of Santa Barbara’s proposed “Rent Stabilization Ordinance.”

1) Section 26.90.040 states that landlords can raise rents no more than 60% of the Consumer Price Index, or 3% of existing rents, annually. WHY ARE LANDLORDS A PERSECUTED CLASS, THAT THEY ARE PENALIZED ON ALL COSTS OF INFLATION, MATERIALS, LABOR, TAXES, INSURANCE AND MORTGAGES?

Are there any other segments of our industries that are likewise handcuffed to lower-than-inflation prices that they can charge? Why not? It seems that landlords current and future are targeted unfairly simply by offering people a place to live.

2) Public Registry: All private information on landlords must now be entered into a public registry, for all to see and judge - Ownership history, Rents, Assets, Tax Base. And a landlord MUST publish this information in this public registry, or face charges of FRAUD - and be prevented from renting out their properties, prevented from pursuing eviction of deadbeat tenants, and prevented from advertising their properties. WHY MUST LANDLORDS EXPOSE ALL THEIR PRIVATE INFORMATION TO THE PUBLIC WHEN THEY CANNOT EVEN CHECK A POTENTIAL TENANT’S FINANCES OR RENTAL HISTORY, to help them assess a tenant’s ability to afford the rent? The question is - why would any landlord be foolish enough TO CONTINUE OFFERING THEIR PROPERTIES FOR RENT? Again - incredibly one-sided, and insanely unfair.

3) Section 26.90.070: Tenants may petition for lower rents, oppose their evictions simply by citing any dispute with the landlord or lack of repair or improvement not to their approval, or the rent calculation behind the rents they are charged. ONE COMPLAINT BY AN ADVERSARIAL TENANT CAN HALT EVICTION PROCEEDINGS AND FORCE THE PROPERTY OWNER INTO THE COURTS. Here we are again — incredibly one-sided, and insanely unfair.

4) Mortgage interest and property depreciation are excluded from calculated expenses — resulting in real losses to the land owner of upwards of 10-15% annually at current interest and depreciation rates. The ordinance provides a “right of petition” by the landowner, but the lawyering costs, time loss and aggravation are an undue burden placed upon this select group of individuals and is a prime disincentive for anyone to continue providing rental units to the public

5) Capital improvement cost pass-alongs are impeded by the ordinance’s cap of $100/month or 10% of the existing rent. This calculation removes the incentive for any land owner to make needed and desirable repairs and improvements to their properties.

WHAT SANTA BARBARA IS REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE IS THAT IT ISN’T LANDLORDS WHO ARE THE PROBLEM - IT IS THE DRACONIAN BUILDING CODES AND POLICIES THAT HAVE CREATED THIS HOUSING SHORTAGE TO BEGIN WITH.

No wonder no new housing is being built in this mad, mad, mad regulatory environment.

THESE SOCIALIST BUILDING POLICIES ARE CREATING THE HOUSING SHORTAGE - AND SANTA BARBARA’S PROPOSED “SOLUTION” IS TO INSTEAD TURN ON THE SMALL CLASS OF INDIVIDUALS WHO OFFER WHAT LITTLE HOUSING REMAINS FOR THE PUBLIC.

I am astonished that you Councilmembers who support these corrosive ordinances, and your staff, either do not know all this, or purposefully ignore the deep, old, and widespread evidence of these terrible policies.

It’s like the old Leftist saying - “Socialism/Communism is awesome - it just hasn’t been implemented correctly.” I wonder if the Councilmembers think that you are simply smarter than all throughout history, and you won’t be subject to reality, economics, and history? I am just appalled to see dangerous ideas like this “Rent Stabilization Ordinance” coming to fruition here.

We were thinking of renting our own house out while we go to Virginia to help with our grand babies who are due in a few months — but as my husband and I both instantly agreed — WE WOULD RATHER SELL OUR DREAM HOME — AGAIN — RATHER THAN RENT IT OUT UNDER THESE CONFISCATORY POLICIES, ACCEPT SUCH RISK AND HEADACHES, AND POTENTIALLY LOSE IT ALTOGETHER.

None of this is news. None of this is a surprise. None of this is unpredicted.

DO WHAT IS THE ONLY REALISTIC AND LOGICAL THING THAT WILL SOLVE SANTA BARBARA’S HOUSING CRISIS — LOOSEN YOUR DRACONIAN BUILDING REGULATIONS AND ALLOW HOMES TO BE BUILT SENSIBLY AND AFFORDABLY.

Thank you.

Elizabeth Crawford is a housing provider living in Goleta, CA

****

More on the upcoming Santa Barbara rent stabilization vote, and how you can get involved, here.

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These words of Benjamin Franklin, in response to the question of what kind of government the United States was to have, a republic or a democracy, are exceedingly prescient today, for we are surrounded, infected, and infested, by enemies within and without.

The four enemies I will focus on today (there are many more than four) are progressivism, the Democratic Socialists of America, radical Islam, and America’s four horsemen of the apocalypse (hedonism, nihilism, materialism, and narcissism).

Progressivism

Just in time for our 250^th birthday party, progressives in California are blowing up the basic premise of our constitution by fomenting class warfare. This rotten political ideology posits that virtually everything about America is either a lie or wrong. That is, the Constitution was a racist construct aimed at preserving white, male power. Progressives also believe it is wrong for people to become successful, but it is right to redistribute their wealth to people who have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.

California, like other blue states, is at the epicenter of progressivism. On the ballot this November is the so-called billionaire’s wealth tax which is not to be confused with an income tax. This class of earners are already paying more than their “fair share” of taxes. Together, the top 1% of earners (which includes multi-millionaires) in our state pay upwards of 45% of all income tax collected, some $122 billion annually SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, is behind the initiative, not because they are concerned about state and federal benefit cuts to the poor, but because their members stand to lose their jobs as a result of the cuts.

This tax taxes wealth, including the unrealized value of businesses, stocks, bonds, art, collectibles, and intellectual property. Of course, the problem here is that the billionaires are leaving and taking their companies, tax revenues, and jobs, with them. It is estimated that $1 trillion in assets have left the state, which means the state’s income tax revenue will crater unless the middle class makes up the difference via future tax hikes. In other words, our state economy is set to implode because of the unmitigated greed of public employee unions in this state who have additionally burdened us with upwards of $1 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are progressives on crack. Take for an example, Avila Chevalier, who just won the Democrat primary for New York’s 13th District, with the support and endorsement of the current leader of the pack, New York Mayor Mamdani. Avila Chevalier has been described by some as “like AOC, but to the left.” According to CNN, “Darializa Avila Chevalier, deleted a previous Twitter account that included thousands of posts and reposts expressing support for abolishing police, prisons and borders, as well as seizing private property and nationalizing major industries and calling into question Israel’s “right to exist.”

That begs the question, that people like James Carville are asking, why are DSA members allowed to run as Democrats?

Extinguishing the Flame of Freedom

Of course, the progressives are responsible for creating the circumstances that have led to the election of radicals like Mamdani and “the squad” (Tlaib, Omar, Pressley, and the like who are considered DSA “affiliates”), namely by flooding our country with poor immigrants from third world countries who constitute their main constituent voting bloc. That is, these immigrants are voting for fellow immigrants like Chevalier, Mamdani and Omar. For example, according to censusreporter.com, Chevalier won her party’s nomination by winning a district where 33% of the population is foreign-born, 55% of households speak a language other than English at home, and most of the people are poor, earning a paltry median income of $37,754. In other words, a constituency that would love to be the beneficiaries of the redistribution of wealth via a distortion of the American dream that can only survive by destroying the American dream.

It is not an accident that many of the leaders of the DSA and their affiliates are Muslim radicals that did not come here to assimilate but to conquer. I do believe there are many Muslims in America that wish our country no harm. They are not proponents of Sharia law, or jihad. They don’t support the genocide of Jews and the elimination of the Jewish State of Israel.

But, the fact remains, America, just like Europe, is being colonized by radical Islam. One illustration I can give you about this is a statement made by the UAE, a solid Muslim country. The UAE provides scholarships to its own citizens (UAE nationals) to study at foreign universities, in addition to supporting them at local institutions. However, the United Arab Emirates is restricting students from enrolling at UK universities amid fears campuses are being radicalized by Islamist groups, namely, the Muslim Brotherhood. Well, this radical movement is not restricted to our cousins across the pond!

Last year, “The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) released its landmark report, The Muslim Brotherhood’s Strategic Entryism into Western Society: A Systematic Analysis, at a high-level policy event in Washington, D.C., featuring members of Congress, senior diplomats, policy experts, and leading researchers. The report represents the first-of-its-kind comprehensive strategic assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood’s 100-year plan at its halfway point, mapping its ideological, institutional, and financial penetration into North America.

The 200-page analysis provides a detailed account of how the Brotherhood has spent five decades embedding itself within Western institutions while maintaining ideological opposition to democracy and pluralism. Drawing on authenticated internal documents, verified network mapping, and extensive case studies, the research reveals a coordinated, multi-generational project designed to influence policy, education, and civil society from within.

As stated, “the Muslim brotherhood is not simply a political movement but a transnational ideological project that adapts itself to Western systems while working to undermine them. The Brotherhood has learned to use the very freedoms of democracy as tools to erode it from within, exploiting the tolerance and openness of liberal societies as strategic vulnerabilities.”

Forgetting God

Of course, none of these things would be a problem for America or in America, were it not for the four horsemen of our apocalypse. As Robert George outlined in his report, “Solzhenitsyn’s Prophecy,” on the occasion of the 1978 commencement speech to Harvard graduates, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn offered a severe critique of American society. It was a time, as George noted, that anti-Americanism was flourishing both abroad and at home. Many Americans—particularly young Americans—had lost faith in their country, its institutions, its principles, its culture, its traditions, and its way of life. He viewed the West’s weakness, including its weakness in truly standing up to Soviet aggression, as the fruit of the materialism, consumerism, self-indulgent individualism, emotivism, and narcissism—in a word, the immorality—into which we had allowed ourselves to sink.

What is behind all this? According to Solzhenitsyn, the moral decline of the West has behind it the same factor that produced the horrors of communism, namely this: “Men have forgotten God.” People worship themselves, deify their own desires, fall into an idolatry of the self, because they have forgotten that there is something—indeed someone—higher.

They have forgotten God.

And, I might add, they have forgotten the warning of Benjamin Franklin as they can’t define what constitutes a constitutional republic even though their life and their freedom depend on it!

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I like milestones. I celebrate them.

Birthdays. Anniversaries. Major events.

We have a big one coming up. Among the biggest of the big. The country’s 250^th anniversary of its birth. Our official declaration advising King George that we no longer desire to be part of his kingdom, that we were our own country, independent of his.

It’s everything wrapped into one. A birthday. An anniversary. A major event.

And I’ve celebrated more than a few.

As Jackson Browne sings: “In ’69 I was twenty-one and I called the road my own.” Indeed, I did. In the summer of 1969 I hit the road in my 1953 Oldsmobile that I painted an American flag on.

I loved America, then and now.

But it was misinterpreted by some.

One was Maria von Trapp. Yep, that Maria von Trapp from the “Sound of Music.” She ran the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont, where I secured a dish-washing job for the summer between college semesters.

I parked that car one night – my “Flag Mobile” – where all the waitresses stayed. A big “no-no.”

Maria wasn’t happy.

But it wasn’t just about the girls. Her big complaint was that I was “defecating” the flag. She was Austrian and a new, very patriotic, American citizen.

I think she meant “desecrating.” I wasn’t… but I took my one week’s severance pay of $35 and bought some moccasins and hit the road once again down to the Jersey Shore.

Odd Jobs and Odd Places

I worked construction there, near the site of where the Hindenburg went down, in Lakehurst. I stayed at the Breakers Inn, a tired old 1920’s former resort hotel in Seaside. It was filled with hippies and “free spirits,” me among them.

And then on July 20^th, I drove the Flag Mobile to see a friend in New London, Connecticut, and watched the moon landing with her that evening.

Epic.

Then there was Woodstock. I bought tickets, but I didn’t want to wallow in the mud. I gave them away.

Maybe I should have gone.

Then on August 24^th I turned 21. I celebrated with a drink featuring an American flag in it and mulled over where I’d been, and where I was heading.

In America, we can all call the road our own.

So, a few years later, in 1976, I found myself living in Washington, DC. I had a company that designed restaurant interiors. My wife at the time (who just passed recently), worked in the First Lady’s office at the White House under President Ford. It was an unsettling time. We had just pulled out of Vietnam with the fall of Saigon. We were still dealing with a gas crisis and long lines. Mortgage rates were upwards of 9%. Inflation rates were around 6% and rising.

And we think we have it bad today?

But despite all that, we had reason to celebrate. We were turning 200. Our Bicentennial!

Celebrating America’s Bicentennial

I spent that July 4^th day and evening in 1976 on a boat in New York Harbor. It was filled with tall ships. Masts rising high. Flags flying. Sails full. And thousands of smaller boats. Millions of people all around. The Statue of Liberty was all lit up.

And then the fireworks. The Harbor was calm. The water mirrored the explosions in the sky.

Spectacular.

And here we are today. 50 years later. A half century. Can you believe it?

And we’re all still here. Our America. And you, if you’re reading this!

I include my own family… children and grandchildren. All thriving here on the Central Coast.

What a blessing. I am thankful every day. Who wouldn’t be?

For those who aren’t, I wish enlightenment for you. In this life, in this country, with our rights to live in liberty and pursue our dreams. Gifted to us by God, through our Founder’s wisdom...

Celebrate your good fortune.

Call the road your own.

Happy Birthday America! Don’t blow out the candles please.

There are wonderful things just waiting… on the road ahead.

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Taxes and left-leaning philanthropy keep pouring into blue states and their dominant institutions, yet they deliver the worst return on investment in America. Massive spending on education, health programs, diversity initiatives, and social services produces persistent failures in student outcomes, homelessness, fiscal balance, and basic governance. Fraud and waste flourish under weak (and, let’s face it, virtually non-existent) oversight. States like California and New York run enormous budget deficits, raise taxes repeatedly, and still demand more while results stagnate or worsen.

Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis offers a stark contrast. He just signed a $117.6 billion state budget that is smaller than the previous year—for the fourth consecutive year. Despite roughly similar populations (Florida: 23.7 million; New York state: 19–20 million), Florida’s budget is now less than half the size of New York’s ($237 billion). Florida’s rainy day fund stands full at $18 billion—more than triple what it was when DeSantis took office in 2019. The state has no income tax, property tax relief is advancing, and Florida continues to see strong population inflows as people vote with their feet. Education metrics have improved in key areas without the same levels of documented waste and fraud.

Why do blue states keep expanding budgets that deliver shrinking value? What happens when ideology overrides measurable outcomes and accountability remains optional? How long can taxpayers and donors subsidize systems that absorb billions yet produce ghost students draining aid, declining real enrolment, and endless new demands for cash?

Unrestricted Gifts Fuel Even More Overspending

California’s community college system shows the pattern clearly. State spending surged in recent years, with billions directed into aid programs and expanded services. At the same time, “ghost student” fraud exploded. Scammers used bots, stolen identities, and sophisticated schemes to enroll phantom students and siphon financial aid. Fraudulent applications reached 31.4% of the total in 2024. Real students lost seats and resources while legitimate enrolment continued to fall. Oversight struggled to keep pace as the system kept requesting more funding.

Santa Barbara City College provides a local window into the same dysfunction. In 2021, the college received a record $20 million unrestricted gift from MacKenzie Scott—the largest in its 112-year history. Internal reviews later revealed that roughly $10–10.5 million of that gift was quietly redirected to backfill the SBCC Promise program, despite repeated assurances that other funds were covering it. The spending lacked proper board or administrative approvals. As of early 2026, about $13 million remains.

Voters approved Measure P in 2024 to extend an existing tax rate and unlock up to $198 million for facilities. The campaign framed it as essential repairs and modernization without raising rates. In practice, the extension adds hundreds of millions more to the long-term property tax burden on Santa Barbara residents. Enrollment trends had been sliding for years. Maintenance budgets were cut sharply in prior periods, helping create the very backlog later used to justify the bond.

Priorities included a costly new physical education building while core upkeep lagged. The SBCC Foundation, still addressing the Scott gift accounting issues, contributed heavily to the pro-Measure P campaign alongside construction interests positioned to benefit.

Why cut maintenance for years, then manufacture a facilities crisis and demand more taxpayer and philanthropic dollars? How many accounting irregularities, priority reversals, ghost enrollments, and ideological side projects must pile up before institutions face shrinking budgets instead of automatic rescues?

If high taxes, state appropriations, and major gifts from donors like MacKenzie Scott have not produced proportional gains in student success or institutional health, why assume the next round will succeed where previous ones fell short?

Time to Fix the Broken Model

Florida demonstrates that a different approach works: smaller, disciplined budgets; full reserves; no income tax; property tax relief; and population growth driven by results rather than rhetoric. Education gains without matching levels of documented fraud and waste. The contrast reveals the ROI gap. Blue state ideology and spending often prioritize equity checkboxes and bureaucratic expansion while Florida emphasizes safety, core academics, and fiscal restraint that actually delivers measurable improvements.

Santa Barbara and California residents pay the price in higher costs, visible failures, and repeated cycles of shortfall claims followed by bigger asks. The broader model is broken. Real accountability would tie every dollar—whether from taxpayers or philanthropists—to clear, measurable improvements, with real consequences for failure. Institutions and states that neglect basics or tolerate large-scale fraud should receive less support, not more. Targeted, transparent fundraising and results-driven governance would reveal genuine priorities far better than blank-check bonds or unrestricted gifts that quietly backfill operations.

How much longer will taxpayers and donors fund systems that excel at consumption but struggle at delivery? Florida offers concrete proof that restraint and focus produce better outcomes. The evidence sits in the budgets, the fraud losses, the enrollment trends, and the results on the ground. Leadership willing to break the blue-state pattern, rather than repeat it, would serve students and citizens far better.

It would be good to remember this the next time yet another SBCC bond measure is proposed.

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My family (wife Helen, son Tim, daughter Lily) and I moved to Montecito on July 4, 1986, so this short recollection of Montecito and Santa Barbara seems appropriate, particularly during this time of year.

Our house on Middle Road was already 40 years old. The good news for us was that we had found the flat, usable acre I insisted upon, along with a good-sized swimming pool and a small one-bedroom “cottage” in the back. The single-story ranch home was designed in 1937, just 12 years after an earthquake shook the area, so the adobe-style brick walls were fitted with steel rebar every six feet, making it virtually earthquake proof. World War II held up its construction, and it wasn’t finished until 1946. The two-car garage was made of redwood, and all the flooring was real oak.

It was somewhat expensive for the time, but still within reach of a middle-class income earner.

The bad news was that the roof was made of cedar shingles, which were then already forty-years old. We hardly saw any rain that first year (there was talk of a drought), so it wasn’t until our second year in the house that we realized our roof was not rain proof.

Not at all.

We didn’t have enough pans to catch the water that leaked from the various points in the ceiling. The cedar was charming, but until it swelled with water, was unreliable, and since it hadn’t rained for nearly 20 months or so, it was dry and brittle. It wasn’t until the water had seeped into the wall-to-wall carpeting in the dining room and living room that we discovered the beautiful oak flooring underneath.

We polished the floors and replaced the roof with concrete shingles.

The house had three wood-burning fireplaces, which we used extensively, especially the one in the living room. We spent nearly forty friendly and comfortable years in that home and miss it still. The circle of friends we made over those years, some of whom have now passed on, made life in Montecito a consummate pleasure.

Our Christmas parties were special, as nearly 100 family, friends, and guests, crowded around impresario Peter Clark at the piano and Erin Graffy, who led the song fest, which always featured Barry DeVorzon’s “It’s Christmas Once Again in Santa Barbara.” Sadly, both Peter and Erin are gone now, but the memory of their blissful performances remains vivid and alive.

Fireworks, Couches, and TVs, on West Beach

The Santa Barbara we moved to was, for want of a better term, a Free Zone. Our first Fiesta featured open drinking of beer and margaritas along the entire stretch of State Street and a parade of one of the largest contingents of silver-tinged saddled horses and riders in the U.S. On the beach, particularly West Beach, families and groups of friends would dig deep holes in the sand big enough to include upholstered chairs and couches, dining room tables, even television sets, along with an array of personal fireworks and the groups regularly fired bottle rockets upon nearby sandlords and each other with equal firepower. It was mayhem on a virtual battlefield with Old Glory flying in front of nearly every campsite. There were no “enemies,” only joyful combatants.

I can honestly say that I too loved the smell of incendiary devices in the morning.

Back in Montecito, Montecito Association president Diane Pannkuk and Dana Newquist, owner of a funky little shop in the upper village next to the post office, called Montecito Video (and yes, we all rented our movies from him or from Captain Video on Coast Village Road), conspired to create The Village Fourth, a parade of residents who’d march down from the top of School House Road, through the parking lot at Montecito Union School and across San Ysidro to lower Manning Park. It was surely one of the shortest Fourth of July parades ever. We had no permits and never asked anyone’s permission, but the whole village seemed to have turned out. The only local media to mention that there would even be a parade (there had never been one before) was the Montecito Journal, which I had founded and owned at the time, so I was naturally proud of the turnout.

The local Boy Scout troop (33, I believe) headed up the parade and Dana managed to corral some of his car buddies to decorate their vehicles with patriotic bunting. Internationally known Montecito resident Jonathan Winters, in full U.S. Marine dress regalia, marched as our very first Village Fourth Grand Marshal. Even newly arrived mogul Ty Warner attended, throwing hundreds of his signature product – Beanie Babies – out to parade watchers from the back of his vehicle.

After directing traffic and the parade participants, Dana got behind the wheel of his vintage firetruck to bring up the rear and to signify the end of the march. As many of as could hop on (including me) the back jumped aboard. We were armed, naturally, with water pistols and other paraphernalia. Diane’s husband, Terry Pannkuk, loaded up with a giant water cannon, and a knockdown splash party took place with water balloons flying and squirt guns blazing as we negotiated the 600-yard parade route.

There were hot dogs, hamburgers, and freshly baked cookies waiting for us in booths in Manning Park before and after we all sang the national anthem with hands on hearts. I don’t remember who led the singing, but I believe it was a young lady from the Music Academy of the West. A Montecito Union-Cold Spring School tug-of-war, potato sack races, and a pie-eating contest ensued.

Those were the days…

•••

There are no more “open drinks” allowed on State Street, the Fiesta Parade has moved one street over. The Village Fourth is back after a short hiatus because of Covid-19, and Dana and Mindy Denson have made sure it continues, though the water guns and Big Squirts were banned after the pandemonium of that first pageant.

Gangbangers from Ventura and other parts discovered the fun of West Beach anarchy and trouble resulted; that too is now verboten.

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For years, if someone had whispered about an invitation-only gathering where billionaires, cabinet secretaries, intelligence veterans, military brass, AI pioneers, venture capitalists, journalists and Hollywood figures mingled behind closed doors, polite society would have rolled its collective eyes.

“Conspiracy theory.”

Then somebody—an insider—forgot to password-protect their internal communications.

Forget Bilderberg.

Forget Davos.

For 20 years, an invitation-only gathering called Dialog has quietly assembled many of the most influential people in America.

This isn’t a story about a secret society. It’s a story about how power is changing in America.

Founded in 2006 by billionaire investor Peter Thiel and entrepreneur Auren Hoffman, Dialog has spent two decades operating almost entirely beneath the public radar. Its annual gatherings were deliberately off the record, its guest lists closely held, its discussions protected by strict confidentiality.

Until now.

A remarkable security lapse has exposed internal documents that included guest lists, planning papers, internal rankings of attendees, contact information, and discussion topics for upcoming meetings. The irony was difficult to miss: an organization populated by cybersecurity experts, intelligence professionals and technology leaders, apparently left its own digital front door unlocked.

The leak also offered something far more valuable than names.

It provided a glimpse into a world that most Americans never see.

Unlike Davos, which thrives on publicity, or Bilderberg, whose existence is widely acknowledged despite its secrecy, Dialog has quietly cultivated influence away from headlines. It is smaller. More intimate. More Silicon Valley than the others.

Less interested in speeches, more interested in whispered conversations.

Those conversations attract an extraordinary mix of people.

Silicon Valley billionaires. Technology founders. Investors. AI pioneers. Defense officials. Current and former government leaders. NATO officials. Hollywood celebrities.

Republicans and Democrats.

The point is not ideology. The point is proximity.

Proximity to power.

Among the leaked session titles were discussions bearing names such as “Navigating WWIII,” “Build-a-Cult,” “Battlefield Technologies,” and “Bring Back Nuclear.”

Without transcripts or recordings, no one outside the room knows precisely what was discussed.

“Build-a-Cult” might have been a branding seminar. It might have explored internet communities, political movements, or marketing.

Likewise, “Navigating WWIII” could refer to geopolitical forecasting, investment strategy, or military planning.

What may prove more revealing than any individual discussion is something else uncovered by the leak.

According to multiple reports, Dialog internally evaluates participants, assigning scores based on influence, prestige, and perceived “value-add.” Those rankings affect invitations and introductions.

In other words, while the rest of us are distracted by and obsess over social-media followers, the world’s elite may have quietly developed their own private influence algorithm.

One can almost imagine what a report card might look like…

The leak raises larger questions—not because Dialog necessarily harbors sinister intentions, but because it illustrates how influence increasingly operates in the twenty-first century.

The most consequential conversations may no longer be held in congressional hearing rooms or public forums.

They occur at private conferences. Investment retreats. Technology summits. Invitation-only salons.

None of this is illegal. None of it necessarily implies conspiracy.

But it does suggest that an increasing amount of elite consensus forms beyond the view of voters—with the intention of extending it to voters.

That observation deserves scrutiny regardless of one’s politics.

Perhaps Dialog is simply an unusually exclusive dinner party populated by exceptionally accomplished people.

Perhaps.

Yet history has often been shaped by conversations the public never hears.

Example: A secret 1910 meeting among bankers and their pet politicians at Jekyll Island in Georgia that laid the groundwork for what became the Federal Reserve System.

Example: The nurturing of a European Common Market at Bilderberg that evolved into the European Union.

One of Dialog’s founders created a company that has quietly become one of Washington’s most powerful technology contractors.

Its name is Palantir.

If Dialog is where influential people exchange ideas, Palantir is where governments compile, analyze, and organize information—including information about their own citizens.

To understand America’s emerging power structure, you have to understand both.

Next Week: Palantir.

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A recent poll shows pride in America has fallen off. Not something to be proud of for our upcoming birthday. It’s primarily the Democrats, less than 30%, which is no surprise since many have veered so far off course from American values.

Socialists are taking over the Democrat Party and that crowd really hates America.

We’ve all been watching who would be proud to be an American, foreigners? Not the illegal kind sneaking in, but our invited guests for the World Cup. CNN around the world and the liberal press of Europe have always painted the United States with ugly colors. The soccer players are admitting they now know they’ve been lied to by their own media. I’ve been telling my German relatives that for years. Their view of America and Trump have been prejudiced like our own media has been doing to us for decades.

Not So “Dreadful” After All

The athletes who came here for the World Cup were expecting something dreadful. Instead, we’ve witnessed how they’re all blown away by what a great country and diverse land the United States really is. They can’t gush enough about it. From Brazilians to Aussies to Japanese.

America is fantastic.

The food.

The stores.

The beautiful landscape.

While a purple haired woman parading in the streets for some anti something march says America sucks. Or antifa burning their backyard down. Visitors from around the world sing our national anthem. I would be very happy to trade the American haters for example, with the young woman from England who said she was born in the wrong country. She said America feels more like her home.

When you raise a child, or are blessed with grandchildren, you are given the opportunity to view the world all over again through their eyes. You enjoy doing things you haven’t done in years. Watching the kids’ broad smiles and their faces light up when discovering something new. Things over time we have come to take for granted. That’s what we’re witnessing now.

Bigger, Cheaper, More Fun, More Free

Fans from around the world in America for the first time are showing us all over again how great we really are. Stores – filled with a vast assortment of food, despite what we consider higher costs – are still cheaper and in more abundance than overseas. Chain restaurants and fast food may not be our finest dining, but the soccer players have found their gastronomic Eden. The size of our meals. And BBQ. You would be hard-pressed to find Texas BBQ anywhere else like you do here. If it exists, I’m sure someone will let me know.

There was a comedian on AGT from France who said a friend told him to visit Las Vegas. The friend said it was just over there. Turns out just over there was five hours! Five hours in Europe he said he would be in Turkey speaking a different language and using another currency. America is huge. Its landscape as diverse as any place on the planet. We have everything from giant mountain ranges to low deserts, to miles of farmland, wide rivers and magnificent shorelines on opposite sides of this wonderful place we call home.

The joyfulness, the praise from our visitors has made me and so many others feel even more proud and more patriotic than ever. Perfect timing.

Socialism Really Does Suck

So why does a segment of our society and certain politicians continue to want to tear it down? What are they seeing that’s so horrible? Are they looking at the same America our world visitors are so enthralled with?

I find it extremely frightening that the socialist movement is gaining traction. This new wave of communist thinking is a complete 180 on how America survived and thrived for 250 years. These socialists go against every principle, belief, and freedom, we stand for. Our younger generation looks to these emerging communists like a Santa Claus. Give us free stuff because we don’t want to work for it and we deserve it. All you entrepreneurs who worked so hard to achieve financial success should give us some of your fruits. You have too much.

Anyone with a modicum of common sense and gray matter has learned from history that socialism sucks. It’s un-American. And yet this truth is replaced with naïveté. I have my phone; all is right with the world.

Our guests get to enjoy a couple weeks, what they describe as holiday, traveling our amazing country. See new sights and enjoy foods they’ve never had. And regale in our freedoms. They don’t even want to go home.

They’re not aware of a new form of evil bubbling up into the mainstream to disrupt and change what they’re all enjoying on their work vacation. These socialist parasites are America’s real enemy.

The ongoing mental illness over everything Trump has been so hardwired. To the point where displaying the American flag is now considered showing our president support rather than simply a symbol of pride. Liberals know they eat their own kind if you don’t stay in lockstep with their thinking. Borderline liberal “patriots” are afraid to give the slightest indication they could be supporting Trump. Even with just a flag. That’s not only sad but so very shallow and simple minded.

They lack the courage to embrace the land that affords them freedoms some countries can only dream about. Not even for a day.

When the fireworks go off and we stand saluting our flag, American patriots can do so with our hearts overwhelmed with delight. We don’t harbor any hate. We’re content because we know we’re blessed to be living in the greatest nation on planet Earth. That’s why everyone wants to come here, and hardly anyone ever wants to leave.

Happy Birthday, America!

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I must apologize for all the minutia in this piece, however, I feel it necessary to flush out the devil in the details as it pertains to all the ridiculous complaints about the SAVE Act, the passage of which is necessary to ensure the integrity of our elections.

Accordingly, what I will outline will serve to demonstrate that the requirements of the SAVE Act are scarcely more stringent than obtaining a CA driver’s license, and are virtually equal to obtaining a CA REAL ID. However, in the state of CA, what is required to prove identity to register to vote is, by comparison to all of the above, a contemptible absurdity.

The utter truth is that Democrats are lying when they say the SAVE Act will disenfranchise voters, especially minority voters, some 20 million of them, according to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Under the SAVE Act, individuals registering to vote in federal elections must provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship. Acceptable documents include:

REAL ID-compliant driver’s license (more on that later)

U.S. passport or passport card

Military ID card along with a military service record showing U.S. birthplace

A government-issued photo ID showing the applicant’s place of birth

In-person presentation is required for both in-person and mail-voter registration applications.

None of these requirements are stringent, considering the fact that in order to get on a plane or enter a federal building you have to have a REAL ID (or passport), which, in CA, can only be obtained with virtually the same documents and the same in-person verification process!

The REAL ID Act was enacted in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, following recommendations from the 9/11 Commission to establish federal standards for identification documents such as driver’s licenses. The Act passed the House 388-43. It passed the Senate 99-0.

That brings up the question of why Democrats didn’t oppose REAL ID for the same reasons as they oppose the SAVE Act, relatedly claiming it would disenfranchise minorities?

That is, to obtain a California REAL ID, you must provide proof of identity, your Social Security number, and prove your California residency. You must bring all the documents to complete your application at a DMV office so that they can be verified.

The key requirements for a California REAL ID include:

1. You must present an original or certified document showing your full legal name and date of birth. Acceptable documents include a valid U.S. passport, original or certified birth certificate,

2. You need to provide your SSN using documents such as a Social Security card, W-2 form, or pay stub showing your full SSN,

3. Proof of California Residency: Applicants must present two documents showing their full name and California residential address.

Acceptable documents include:

Rental or lease agreements

Utility bills (gas, water, electricity, cable)

Deed or title to residential property

Vehicle or vessel registration/title

Bank or insurance statements

To get a plain old ordinary driver’s license in the state of CA, the required documentation is pretty much the same as all of the above. You need proof of identity, Social Security number, and California residency, along with passing a vision and driving test.

Key Requirements

1. Proof of Identity:

You must provide one original or certified document showing your full legal name and date of birth. Acceptable documents include an unexpired U.S. passport, a certified U.S. birth certificate, or a valid permanent resident card. If your legal name has changed, bring a certified document linking the old and new names, such as a marriage certificate or court order,

2. Social Security Number:

Applicants must provide their Social Security number, verified electronically by the DMV. Acceptable proofs include a Social Security card, W-2 form, or pay stub showing the full number.

3. California Residency:

You need to prove California residency. For a standard license, one document is required; for a REAL ID, two documents are needed. Acceptable documents include utility bills, rental or lease agreements, mortgage statements, bank statements, or employment records, all showing your name and California address

I said all that to indicate that complying with the SAVE ACT is similar to the process of getting a regular driver’s license or a REAL ID.

Yet, consider the fact that California allows first-time voters, who can’t provide a Social Security number or driver’s license to prove identity while registering to vote, to register using such things as a gym membership card, a credit or debit card, or a prescription drug label. The law states, “Any doubt as to the sufficiency of proof or a document presented shall be resolved in favor of permitting the voter or new registrant to cast a regular ballot,” knowing full well that, for instance, a prescription drug label doesn’t come with either a photo ID or an address.

California politicians have the obvious choice to run their state elections in a manner that would be abhorrent in most banana republics, but they certainly have no prerogative to use these lax verification procedures when federal election results are at stake, and that is what the SAVE Act is all about.

Please support its passage.

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Got a Santa Barbara event for our community calendar? Fenkner@sbcurrent.com