TRUMP, NEWSOM MUST STRENGTHEN AI PROTECTIONS

 CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2026 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“TRUMP, NEWSOM MUST STRENGTHEN AI PROTECTIONS”

 

It’s high time both President Trump and his frequent sparring partner Gov. Gavin Newsom both realize that the need for better controls on artificial intelligence easily trumps Silicon Valley’s alleged need to create whatever technologies will make the biggest profits.

 

One of Trump’s final acts of 2025 was signing an executive order for the federal government to take over all regulation of AI, a move spurred in large part by Newsom’s signing a few bills last fall that supposedly put sufficient controls on AI chatbots to keep them from becoming dangerous.

 

Trump doesn’t want Newsom or anyone else getting involved with this issue, which has seen some forms of AI encourage children toward unhealthy eating and other self-destructive behaviors including suicide. The idea, the president’s aides said, was to prevent states from passing “onerous AI controls” that might allow China to create more advanced forms of this technology than American firms like Google and OpenAI.

 

Yet, Trump has so far done nothing to rein in any harmful effects of AI, yet even proposing a single reform.

 

In reality, his move was just another knee-jerk reaction to prevent Newsom from taking leadership in a significant area and getting another leg up on Republicans in his still undeclared 2028 run for Trump’s current office.

 

One other reality: Newsom has not done nearly enough to protect Californians from some threats posed by AI, threats anticipated in science fiction stories as long ago as the 1940s.

 

Yes, he did sign a few new laws that will help a bit here. But there is nothing existential among them.

 

One new law requires computer and AI suppliers to ask customers for the new user’s age when setting up devices like smartphones and laptops. The suppliers then are supposed to apply the new user’s age to adjust content appropriately. 

 

Another requires some programs to flash warning labels about possible adverse mental health effects of social media posts.

 

And a third requires chatbots built into many new devices to remind users they are not talking to a human, but rather a machine. The same new law requires suicide prevention personnel to be informed automatically when users show signs of distress in their postings and questions.

 

But there are no guarantees here that companion chatbots – those that simulate human conversations, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT – will not remain capable of harming humans.

 

Newsom, under pressure from high-tech companies, vetoed another proposed new law that would have prevented companies from making companion chatbots available to children if they are known to be capable of promoting harmful behaviors like violence, anorexia or other self-harm.

 

Newsom took severe criticism for vetoing that measure, but argued it was too broad and could prevent children from having any AI access at all.

 

But even the mild measures he did sign were plainly too much for Trump and some of his corporate supporters.

 

For one thing, the laws Newsom approved are a tougher package than any other state has adopted, even if they’re still pretty weak. They displease companies like Google, Anthropic, Nvidia and OpenAI, which turned to Trump for an antidote to state regulation in their largest domestic market.

 

Trump’s response was to order all federal agencies to explore whether they can restrict grants to states that pass any AI regulations at all, of which California is the largest. He did not single out California, rather also criticizing other states. One was Colorado, which last year adopted a law that requires testing of AI programs and then notification of customers if any make consequential suggestions for people in their life decisions.

 

Rather than caving in to this sort of pressure tactic, Newsom should spend part of this year – his last in state office – encouraging California companies to adopt the kind of protections he vetoed last fall.

 

If he doesn’t do that, he’ll essentially be bowing to Trump, a situation that's always made him uncomfortable during the decade or so the two men’s careers have overlapped.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

MUSK’S ‘AMERICA PARTY’ GOING NOWHERE

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“MUSK’S ‘AMERICA PARTY’ GOING NOWHERE”

 

It’s no wonder President Trump last summer laughed off entrepreneur Elon Musk’s attempt to start a new third political party as revenge for Trump persisting in pushing his “big, beautiful bill,” which promises to increase the national debt by at least $3 trillion.

 

Since the Progressive (Bull Moose) party was founded by ex-President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 after William Howard Taft snatched that year’s Republican presidential nomination away from him, six other “third” parties have started up, none enjoying much success.

 

There were the Dixiecrats in 1948, founded by South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, managing to carry four states and 39 electoral votes before disappearing.

 

The American Independence Party of George Wallace did a little better in 1968, carrying five states and 46 electoral votes before disbanding nationally, even though a California affiliate remains as a minor party.

 

Businessman Ross Perot’s Reform Party won 19 percent of the popular vote in 1992, but took no electoral votes and gradually died out over the next few years.

 

The Green, Constitution and Forward parties have since done little better.

 

But Musk polled on his X (formerly Twitter) social media service and among 5.6 million supposed voters, reported there was 80.4 percent support for a new party.

 

Yet, political parties founded on revenge generally don’t do well, as the Bull Moose, Thurmond and Wallace efforts demonstrate. Make no mistake, Musk’s putative America Party bid (he’s still allegedly considering it) is based on revenge. Not only for his lost best-buddy status with Trump, but also because Trump’s bill eliminated virtually all federal tax credits for buyers of both new and used electric vehicles. Without those subsidies, no one knows how low sales of EVs like Musk’s Teslas might eventually drop.

 

Musk was very open about his threat to start a new party if Trump’s signature bill passed. “If this insane spending bill passes, the American Party will be formed the next day,” the California entrepreneur fulminated. Didn't happen.

 

Despite its name, Musk didn’t envision a sweeping national party to begin with. Rather, he said it would focus at first on two or three Senate seats and eight to 10 congressional districts, out of the 35 that Democrats now say they will concentrate on next year. The idea would be to create a new force in Congress that could control the balance of power there for at least two years.

 

If Musk really plans to spend a substantial part of his billions of dollars on this political project, he might as well just light a match to the money, for all the headway it’s likely to make.

 

Even Perot’s Reform Party, with its almost 20 percent share of national votes, never came close to electing a senator or representative.

 

Musk argues the U.S. government has become a “uniparty” controlled by Democrats and Republicans he says are complicit in unfettered spending and virtually unlimited, constantly rising debt ceilings.’

 

So far, the Musk effort looks rather inept. Experts say many early America Party filings submitted to the Federal Elections Commission appeared inauthentic, and Musk even admitted one filing in New York was fake.

 

Nor has Musk set a budget, although some analysts say the effort he outlined could cost $1 billion and take about 10 years to organize effectively.

 

That would be about four times what Musk spent in his well-documented and successful 2024 effort to target swing states which figured to have narrow election outcomes in order to assure Trump’s election.

 

But funding the America Party would be very different from kicking hundreds of millions into a Trump campaign, as Musk did last year. His effort won Trump’s gratitude and a license for Musk to make job cuts throughout the federal government while gaining access to previously confidential information.

 

But then Musk began to differ with Trump on a few issues, and their friendship cooled, as Musk’s loyalty to Trump was no longer absolute.

 

Meanwhile, Musk has no formal party structure, no platform and no realistic candidates for any of the yet-unnamed seats he covets.

 

All of which means it is rapidly becoming too late for Musk’s latest effort to accomplish much, no matter how much he might invest in it.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

IF CALIFORNIA GETS A GOP GUV, DEMOS CAN BLAME CANDIDATE EGOS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“IF CALIFORNIA GETS A GOP GUV, DEMOS CAN BLAME CANDIDATE EGOS”

 

By Election Day next November, political party registration in California will be about 40 percent Democratic, 24 percent Republican and 35 percent Independent or decline to state.

 

That’s close to where political preferences in this state have stayed pretty steadily since the late 1900s, when a tide of Latino voters became Democrats because Republicans led by then-Gov. Pete Wilson supported the 1994 Proposition 187, which threatened to deprive undocumented immigrants of public schooling, most medical care and other services. Much of the measure was later thrown out by the courts.

 

But not before Latinos had a strong scare, with some attacked at gas stations and many longtime residents feeling they had better become U.S. citizens, which 2.5 million of them actually did by 1999.

 

They turned California from a purple state where folks from either major party had a chance to reach public office into a solidly blue Democratic one where no Republican beside muscleman actor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been elected statewide in about 20 years.

 

So why are Republicans hopeful one of their two significant candidates for governor might get elected this year? It’s because of unjustifiably large Democratic egos.

 

Under this state’s Top Two “jungle primary” system, the first two finishers in any primary election reach the runoff election, regardless of party affiliations.

 

Right now, so many Democrats are running for governor that they could splinter their party’s June primary vote and leave two well-funded Republicans in the race – Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton – as the top two vote-getters and opposing each other next November.

 

The Democratic field includes former Los Angeles Mayor

Antonio Villaraigosa, former state Controller Betty Yee,

state schools Supt. Tony Thurmond and former state

Assembly majority leader Ian Calderon. Plus former

Orange County Congresswoman Katie Porter, current East

Bay Congressman Eric Swalwell, onetime California

Attorney General Xavier Becerra and billionaire 

environmentalist Tom Steyer, whose “Stick It to Trump”

TV commercials during last fall’s special election over

Proposition 50 were one reason for the redistricting

measure’s easy passage.

 

Democrats have never seen such a large field, and the 

splintering of party voters was visible in polls that found 

Porter recently running second behind Bianco with 11

percent of voters favoring her. Bianco was barely one

percent up on her, but many analysts guess most GOP

voters have not yet caught on to what they might

accomplish next year if they solidify behind one or two

candidates.

 

There’s one reason so many Democrats are now running: ego. Does anyone but Thurmond think he has a chance at the runoff? Does anyone think Yee can make it? Or Calderon, a termed-out state Assembly officer largely unknown outside his old Los Angeles County district?

 

Steyer has the money to make himself a major presence. Villaraigosa also could raise significant funds, as might Becerra, Porter and Swalwell. Even if all the other Democrats drop out before early spring, that would still leave five with at least some financial credibility splitting the party vote. It’s a recipe for Democratic disaster unmatched since Schwarzenegger ousted ex-Gov. Gray Davis in a 2003 recall election.

 

Some of these Democrats must reassess their own potential viability, which their egos appear to have inflated. Porter’s videoed outbursts against a questioning journalist and her own staff ought to eliminate her, even if all they've done so far is reduce her poll margin over other Democrats by about two points.

 

Becerra, Health secretary under ex-President Biden after leaving Sacramento, has been hurt by his failure to supervise his dormant campaign fund, which the FBI says was therefore raided by several Sacramento consultants, including Becerra’s onetime chief of staff, a 20-year loyalist.

 

If he couldn’t keep track of his own campaign money, how can Becerra expect to supervise California’s huge budget?

 

Get those two out, along with Yee, Calderon, Thurmond and Swalwell, and the threat to Democratic rule all but disappears. Leave them in and it’s devil take the hindmost.

 

If these supposedly dedicated Democrats really care about their party’s continued control of California and its ability to assert priorities like abortion on demand and gun control, it’s high time some of them left the field.

 

   -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

LARA SEEKS TO FULFILL INSURANCE COMPANY WISHES

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“LARA SEEKS TO FULFILL INSURANCE COMPANY WISHES”

 

As he prepares for his last year in office, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara is going all out to make it easier for insurance companies to fulfill their wishes, doing their bidding as he usually has during seven years as the state’s insurance boss.

 

He's now under investigation by the state Fair Political Practices Commission for accepting help with campaign expenses and travel gifts including a trip to Bermuda.

 

Far more damaging to customers, he allowed the cancellation of thousands of homeowner policies, forcing most of the rejected into the state’s last-chance Fair Plan, much more expensive than regular insurance.

 

Now he proposes to make himself the sole arbiter of how much insurance companies can charge for property and vehicle coverage. He wants to change rules letting consumer groups scrutinize and challenge rate increases sought by companies like State Farm, Allstate and many others.

 

The rules for challenges are set by the 1988 Proposition 103, which also made the insurance commissioner an elected official with a two-term limit. Lara’s tenure began in early 2019, so he must depart the office just after Jan. 1, 2027.

 

Meanwhile, he filed a draft resolution allowing himself to deny payments to groups that fight proposed insurance rate increases. Thirty-six public interest non-profits quickly urged him to withdraw that plan.

 

Lara essentially wants to defy Prop. 103, the state’s main insurance law, which requires the companies to pay consumer representatives (known as “intervenors”) legal fees and to compensate experts who testify in rate cases.

 

Lara seeks to circumvent that law by vetoing consumer groups’ payments if he finds their advocacy is “vexacious.” “duplicative,” “oppositional” or “irrelevant,” plus a few other adjectives.

 

Mainly, this is an effort to squelch or silence Consumer Watchdog, the group whose founder Harvey Rosenfield authored Prop. 103. That non-profit is the preeminent intervenor in insurance rate proceedings, saving consumers more than $6 billion in rates (compared to charges in other states) since passage of Prop. 103.

 

Lara and the insurance industry claim Consumer Watchdog and other such groups harm the California housing market by delaying rate hikes.

 

This makes no sense when you consider that the higher insurance rates go, the higher project costs will rise.

 

Meanwhile, national parent companies of California’s largest insurers, like State Farm and Allstate, refuse to tap much of their gigantic cash reserves to help their branches here pay claims from wildfires and other disasters.

 

For one example, State Farm’s parent, based in Illinois, had about $145 billion on hand in 2024, but reportedly contributed less than $2 billion for payouts to policyholders after last January’s Los Angeles County firestorms.

 

Apologists for Lara and the companies claim delayed insurance rate hikes impede new housing. They assert that when intervenors question rate increases, the time doubles for approval of new and higher rates.

 

Wrote one pro-insurance industry lobbyist, “when insurance costs balloon…, project costs don’t pencil out.”

 

That’s true, but it’s not the fault of consumer groups, which keep rates down as much as they can for as long as they can. State Farm, for example, right now is charging California customers $749 million annually for an “emergency” rate increase granted by Lara after the company months ago asked for $1.2 billion.

 

Only resistance from Consumer Watchdog delays part of State Farm’s request and other, similar, ones. Without it, the rates asked by the companies likely would have slid through without their having to justify any of their additional premiums.

 

It is plain illogical to argue – as lobbyists often do – that lower insurance rates raise project costs.

 

Critics of intervenors like Consumer Watchdog also complain the group has collected $14 million in fees since 2013 – which Consumer Watchdog says came to about 25 cents for every $100 it has saved insurance customers.

 

Meanwhile, Lara promised in 2018 not to take any campaign money from insurance companies. Later, he admitted taking such donations and refunded $83,000.

 

Here's something to look for in 2027 and 2028, long after the issue of intervenor payments is resolved: Will Lara end up as an insurance company official and how much might he be paid? That’s a legitimate question in a state where several past presidents of the Public Utilities Commission later became top executives of companies they once regulated.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.