National Review's Radio Free California Podcast

Gavin Newsom talks tough but bows to popular pressure to ease the lockdown. Meanwhile, progressives say emergency orders to shrink the prison population, house the homeless, and hand out free laptops are their proof of concept for future governance. The failure of California’s first-in-the-nation ban on puppy mills is a lesson in dumb legislation. Bonus: The return of the Kamala Harris Klock.

David and Will break into your life with this urgent message about protests throughout the state — and the state of our own outdoors!

Gavin Newsom is governing by executive order, sometimes as a deregulating madman and sometimes as the Elizabeth Warren of the West. Who is he really? In other news: Will rants about journalists who support selective enforcement of the First Amendment. David says we can safely ignore headlines warning of the coming economic apocalypse.

As the economy slips into the red, Mitch McConnell says Senate Republicans won’t save the Golden State from its self-inflicted wounds, but David says Trump will order up 100 c.c.s of stimulus money stat. In other news: California government unions continue to press for advantage in the midst of a crisis, Governor Newsom has a $75 million relief check with your name on it — if you’re here illegally — and the real threat to America is utopian thinking.

Yes, union leaders, and CalPERS are bad, and viruses are worse. So why are David and Will so bullish on California — on humanity? Bonus! San Francisco gives us hope.

Special guest Edward Ring describes homeless living on the beach during the plague, the financial crisis coming to your city, and his hope that the economic shutdown will lead to a transformation in California politics.

Elon Musk, Dov Charney, and many other Californians aren’t waiting for a government rescue. In other coronavirus news, Riverside County issues more debt to pay off other debts exacerbated by the Wall Street meltdown, and in serving the public’s health, we ask grocers to ban reusable shopping bags in their stores. Bonus: Explore David’s utter contempt for partisan politics.

The only CPA in the state capitol, state Senator John Moorlach (R., Costa Mesa) has been warning Californians about the return of a bear market and its impact on state finances. Will talks with the senator about the relationship between the pandemic, the stock market, public finance -- and the real threat facing California.

David and Will discuss the remarkable statewide defeat of historically popular union-backed bond proposals, an LA Times investigation that reveals the state’s campaign to silence whistleblowers inside its troubled high-speed rail agency, and the University of California’s Reaganesque response to a graduate-student strike at UC Santa Cruz.

California’s Dem voters go for Bernie Sander but conversely appear to have killed a teachers-union-backed $15 billion bond. Meanwhile, California lawmakers tackle the state's decline with proposals to end gender segregation in toy stores, eliminate price disparities between men’s and women’s products, and replace the phrase “at-risk” with “at-promise.” Bonus! Will California do for pre-K education what it has done for K–12 (please, God, no!), and David breaks down a Supreme Court case that lefties fear will unravel the administrative state.