CEO Cal Policy Center, cohost National Review's Radio Free California podcast, founding editor OC Weekly. USC football. Opinions may change with new info.
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Will Swaim
California’s Peculiar ‘N-Word’ Case Against Tesla
California's Civil Rights Department claims that the Tesla factory in Fremont is a "racially segregated workplace." The state's lawsuit deserves closer scrutiny.
A Modest Proposal for the Purification of California History | National Review
In time, we may discover that no California city, mountain, river, civilization, or human being has a sufficiently spotless history to merit commemoration.
Will California Democrats Finally Defeat John C. Frémont? | National Review
California's proposal to remove John C. Frémont's name from a state park highlights the difficulties of judging complex historical figures. Frémont's record encompasses exploration, conquest, anti-slavery politics, emancipation, and violence against Native Californians - a history better examined in full than reduced to heroes and villains.
Gavin Newsom Walks the AI Tightrope
The California governor embraces the tech’s possibilities with one hand, imposes a mountain of regulations with the other. On a single day last week, Gavin Newsom showed that he remains one of the nation’s great political athletes, executing a Summer Olympics–grade threading of the artificial intelligence needle.
Court Challenge Over Orange Unified Ballot Statements Backfires on Union Allies
Teacher union activists are like dogs that chase cars—they wouldn’t know what to do if they caught one. Take the recent case of Darshan Smaaladen, a teacher union ally in the Orange Unified School District in Orange County. Trying to protect union-friendly board incumbents in the heat of a political campaign that ends November 3, she took three challengers to court, arguing that the challengers misstated the district’s failure rate in student testing.
Gavin Newsom Walks AI Tightrope with State Regulations
In Newsom's California, artificial intelligence is apparently dangerous enough to require an expanding apparatus of government regulation but trustworthy enough to answer questions about government itself.
California Profs Endorse Violence, Forget Constitutional Oath
'You cannot call yourself a revolutionary and not be talking about training with weapons,' one professor said.
Los Angeles Should Follow San Francisco’s Path to Recovery — Says Man Who Helped Set Back Both
A former aide who served and defended two disastrous DAs now offers advice on urban governance. Alex Bastian has lived and worked in California’s two most important cities, and he has advice for Los Angeles: Be more like San Francisco.
Gavin Newsom’s climate zeal has made him a patsy for China
A big swirling bucket of the latest rumors, celebrity news and Hollywood gossip. The premier celebrity gossip app. The only apps that gives you a comprehensive real time celeb news stream. Gossip Bucket aggregates and streams the latest gossip news and headlines from the top sources in one place.
Gavin Newsom’s climate zeal has made him a patsy for China Original
It’s no secret that California Gov. Gavin Newsom hopes to win the White House in 2028. What’s strange is that he thinks his record on China and climate change will help him get there. “China is not screwing around,” Newsom wrote in a typical helium-filled rant on X last week. “The United States has become a footnote. Supply chains, manufacturing, influence — China is flooding the zone all across the globe.
California schools turn to child sacrifice
Archaeological evidence and 16th-century Spanish accounts show that the Aztecs of Central Mexico sacrificed children to appease the rain god Tlaloc. Appalled by the ritual, one of those Spaniards, the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún, reported that Aztec priests regarded the terrified children’s tears as a favorable omen, believing their abundant weeping foretold abundant rainfall and a good harvest. Human technology and fashions change.
Will Swaim: California schools turn to child sacrifice Original
Archaeological evidence and 16th-century Spanish accounts show that the Aztecs of Central Mexico sacrificed children to appease the rain god Tlaloc. Appalled by the ritual, one of those Spaniards, the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún, reported that Aztec priests regarded the terrified children’s tears as a favorable omen, believing their abundant weeping foretold abundant rainfall and a good harvest. Human technology and fashions change.
California’s Forgotten 1776 Story
Two hundred and fifty years ago, in the space of 365 days, in one of history’s best two-for-one deals, the world got Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and the Declaration of Independence. There’s a third reason to celebrate 1776. That same year, on November 1 – All Saints Day for the liturgically inclined – the Spanish priest Father Junipero Serra established the Mission San Juan Capistrano, the seventh of Spain’s 21 California missions.
Will Swaim: America’s 250th and the Fight for Liberty in California
When I told a friend recently that I was sorry to hear she was getting a divorce, she replied, “You wouldn’t be sorry if you really knew my husband.” When I admitted that I knew him but not really, she followed with a painfully detailed catalog of his offenses and promised that I’d get an invite to what she calls her Unwedding Party — “Capital ‘U,’ capital ‘P,’ ” she added. The Declaration of Independence (capital D, capital I) is a little like that.
In California, Organized Labor Might Just Defeat Itself | National Review
Polymarket betting predicts that the measure's backers, Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, will withdraw their "2026 Billionaire Tax Act" before the June 25 filing deadline.
Why the Paramount-Skydance deal is good for California
By now, almost every Californian with eyeballs and a memory of the recent past can tell you the story of the failed High-Speed Rail – how voters in 2008 approved a roughly $33 billion project to carry passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in lightning speed beginning in 2020. We’re six years past that deadline and about three times over budget with no end in sight. In this tunnel’s end, there’s no light.
Will Swaim: Why the Paramount-Skydance deal is good for California Original
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By now, almost every Californian with eyeballs and a memory of the recent past can tell you the story of the failed High-Speed Rail – how voters in 2008 approved a roughly $33 billion project to carry passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in lightning speed beginning in 2020. We’re six years past that deadline and about three times over budget with no end in sight. In this tunnel’s end, there’s no light.
Will Swaim: As state burns cash, Tom Umberg is fiddling in Orange County
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The Legislative Analyst’s Office is out with a smashing revelation: the spendthrift state legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom have run up massive deficits that will force the next governor – Democrat, Republican or whatever billionaire Tom Steyer is today – to cut spending dramatically.
Will Swaim: Federal court ruling exposes AG Rob Bonta
An adverse legal ruling by a federal court in Texas may mean legal trouble for California Attorney General Rob Bonta in more than one way. The Texas court’s decision not only allows Exxon to continue to prosecute a serious defamation lawsuit against Bonta, but a key finding by that court may also implicate him in multiple violations of California anti-corruption laws. Bonta hoped to persuade Eastern District of Texas Judge Michael J.
The process is the punishment: Sacramento’s war on Orange County
If the new legal threshold for government audits is “public attention” rather than evidence of legal violations or evidence of fraud, corruption or waste, then every government office is in the carnival dunk tank – including the state legislature. In this case, of course, the “public attention” standard means merely that state and local teacher unions object to a board they don’t control. Consider just three examples that have focused the minds of teacher union activists.
Federal court ruling exposes AG Rob Bonta | Swaim
“Good luck finding a state judge who will prosecute the state’s top law enforcement official.” This article is only available to subscribers Standard Digital $1 for 1 year Offer valid for non-subscribers only
The process is the punishment: Sacramento’s war on Orange County
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... California’s teacher unions aren’t accustomed to losing elections, but they’ve lost control of the Orange County Board of Education, the state’s third largest county board. In just five election cycles, the Orange County board slipped the grip of teachers unions, and is now a 5-0 board of average citizens laser-focused on student achievement and parent rights.
Will Swaim: Federal court ruling exposes AG Rob Bonta Original
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... An adverse legal ruling by a federal court in Texas may mean legal trouble for California Attorney General Rob Bonta in more than one way. The Texas court’s decision not only allows Exxon to continue to prosecute a serious defamation lawsuit against Bonta, but a key finding by that court may also implicate him in multiple violations of California anti-corruption laws. Bonta hoped to persuade Eastern District of Texas Judge Michael J.
California’s Attorney General Faces Texas Justice
Exxon Mobil’s defamation case against Rob Bonta looks likelier to go to trial. Brandon Bell/Getty Images Exxon Mobil sued California Attorney General Rob Bonta for defamation in January 2025, citing Mr. Bonta’s claims in late 2024 that the oil giant’s plastics recycling programs are a scam.
California’s Attorney General Faces Texas Justice
11 hours ago Washington’s conduct in the Iran war is accelerating global chaos and deepening America’s dangerous isolation. Whenever and however America’s war with Iran ends, it has both exposed and exacerbated the dangers of our new, fractured, multipolar reality—driving deeper wedges between the United States …
Who’s Your Daddy?
It’s been an amazing week in California news, both for what’s in it as well as what’s not. The Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday that sex-assault claims are so widespread in Los Angeles Unified schools that board members took a break from their liquidation of the bourgeoisie to ask Evil Wall Street bankers to finance another $250 million for settlements. That brings the district’s total budget for its apparently popular sex-with-kids program to $750 million.
Newsom Has His Own Massive State Fraud Problem
California’s scandal dwarfs Minnesota’s. Tim Walz perp-walked himself out of the Minnesota governor’s race this past week, beset by evidence that fraudsters have plundered his state’s federally funded food, housing, daycare, and Medicaid programs. It’s “what has been described as the nation’s largest COVID-era scheme,” says Fox News, with the U.S. attorney in Minnesota estimating “the fraud could exceed $1 billion and rise to as high as $9 billion.” The “nation’s largest COVID-era scheme”?
The Los Angeles Times Misses the Forest Fire Scandal for the Trees
The real story is not ‘climate change.’ Most good news editors, whether they admit it or not, believe themselves Michelangelo’s heirs — men and women who chisel off the unnecessary bits of a reporter’s copy in order to reveal the angel within. Sadly, the Los Angeles Times often seems bereft of these judicious hacks.
When Past Meets Present: Russian California and the Monroe Doctrine
During this week’s Radio Free California podcast, cohosts David Bahnsen and myself discussed the return of the Monroe Doctrine, now offered as the logic behind the Trump administration’s decision to blow up Venezuelan drug boats and to invite that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, to step outside. It’s unlikely most Americans know that the doctrine, which President James Monroe announced in his December 2, 1823, address to Congress, was a direct response to events in California.
California Teachers’ Union Ruins an Earnest Effort to Confront Antisemitism
And in so doing, has helped demonstrate why California’s schools, once among the best in the nation, are now among its worst. California has a problem with antisemitism in its public schools, but the proposed remedy — a massive new regulatory agency outlined in a bill on the governor’s desk — will do approximately nothing to end the madness.
The Week in Populism
The British philosopher G.K. Chesterton is most famous for his mystery series featuring Father Brown, a Catholic priest who moonlights as a detective. But geeks also rightly honor his anti-populist defense of time-honored principles neatly summed up in what we’ve come to call Chesterton’s Fence.
The Public-Sector Union Behind L.A. Immigration Agitation
Mr. Huerta is charged with conspiracy to impede an officer, which can carry up to six years in prison. Following his arraignment Monday, he was released on a $50,000 appearance bond. By then he was already being hailed as a hero by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the state’s largest newspapers, and union leaders from the United Farm Workers, the Los Angeles teachers union and the California Federation of Labor. Even the Screen Actors Guild voiced its support.
Opinion | The Public-Sector Union Behind L.A.’s Immigration Agitation
SEIU California expands its membership and its coffers by trying to bring open borders. The week’s riots in Los Angeles kicked off with the June 6 arrest of David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union’s California chapter. You might expect a union boss to favor immigration enforcement in the name of protecting his members’ jobs. But SEIU California has built its brand—and its business—by obliterating the line between legal and illegal immigration.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Will
Contact Will, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack