Hard Truths is a monthly newsletter about national, state, and local issues, with some sassy personal updates from the author – Heather Schmidt, M.PA – Public Policy Consultant, Political Analyst, and Mom of Three. Beginning in Spring 2025, this newsletter will be available in audio, video, or digital print versions. Please subscribe for newsletters and other updates!

Hard Truths

April 2025

Well…

It’s April 27th, and I have officially managed to get the newsletter out before the end of the month, albeit quite late. A whole lot of work, even more sneezing (thank you pollen season), the fury of Easter, and the existential dread of my birthday led to this 11th hour newsletter. Nevertheless, let’s cover what’s been going on…

National Nonsense

I have so much in my head about national, and in fact international, politics and current events going on. It’s hard to know where to start. Perhaps the smartest place is the most recent: the funeral of the Pope, which happened just this weekend. It was a formal affair, one meant to be as modest as possible, given the Holy Father’s abstemious lifestyle.

Trump and Zelensky reportedly had a semi-private meeting, the first since that big blow up at the White House. Semi-private, except of course in the middle of a huge hall with photographers present… There was also footage of Biden at the funeral. Some videos made him look spry, and another showed him gripping a Cardinal’s arm for dear life as they walked down the stairs. I simply do not know what to believe anymore about his condition. Maybe that’s the point.

Catholics are now fighting over whether the Pope’s wishes were truly met, while Democrats and Republicans argue over if the president was in his right to wear a blue suit and tie instead of black (there were many people there in blue). Since the Vatican decided to go against Pope Francis’s final wishes and embalm him so he wouldn’t look all decayed on display for the public, things have been a bit tense on the religious side of the Internet. They (the Vatican) apparently put out a statement saying to address his deteriorating state, they gave him some “special injections.” Of embalming fluid, when he explicitly said he wanted none. To me, the suit color debate seems petty in light of this flagrant violation of the Holy Father’s dying wish, but then who wants to deal with the fall out of a publicly decaying Pope?

Meanwhile, back at home, there is currently a lot of argument over the justification – or lack thereof – of the Trump Administration and Homeland Security deporting children. In the last week, a 2, 4, and 6 year old were all deported, with their parents. Suddenly – today – it clicked for me how insane people sound when they argue that children should not go home with their parents. I mean… hello? Obviously a rational reform that would allow parents to stay with their children born in the US is desperately needed, though until that comes, it sounds insane to complain that a parent took their kid with them when being sent back to Mexico, Venezuela, Honduras, or wherever… Are people actually arguing these children would be better off separated from their parents and put into US foster care?!

And this is the fundamental problem with Democrats… they lose the plot in their hatred of the “other guy,” and then lose elections because of it. Arguing over whether the suit at a funeral is the right shade of despair, and suggesting that a child is better off permanently separated from their parents, is the type of nonsense that make people stay home when it comes to Election Day. There are plenty of very legitimate and valid criticisms to be had of this Administration. Stick to those.

Finally, my favorite Tweet about national politics, posted just today:

From the Greatest State in the Nation

I maintain that California is the greatest state in the nation, but sweet Lord Jesus: HELP US.

I heard on a podcast the other day that between 75-80% of homes in Southern California are now being purchased in cash by either investment companies, or boomer parents buying homes for their kids. Starter homes where I live are at $1.1M. Who can put 25%, or even 10% down on that, especially when wages remain stagnant year over year, and Californians now have to earn at least $200,000 annu/ally to reach the middle class?

And amidst the gas prices and insane gas taxes, the California legislature is talking about implementing a mileage tax that in effect taxes the working class for how many miles they have to drive for work. At jobs far away from their affordable housing, of no fault of their own…

This is not sustainable. But speaking of podcasts, the guy who’s supposed to be fixing these problems is busy in the recording studio…

Just Local Stuff

I fear that between my head being full of allergy symptoms, and the inevitable week-long disassociation that comes with trying to cope with my birthday (I’ll get to that in a minute), I have been sort of tuned out on local stuff.

Though not so tuned out that I missed egregious waste and poor decision making by a couple of the county’s city councils.

In Oxnard, the mayor announced the installation of the first of four, new Oxnard city signs being installed at entrances to the city. The first was only up for less than a week, though, before some hoodlums and/or punk kids stole the electrical wiring out of the sign. Now, everyone knows copper is expensive, and beautification to some degree is important to help economic development, especially for local tourism and retail (major drivers of our regional GDP). But the city spending a whopping $16,000 on the repair, with no real and clear plan to prevent the theft from happening again, when many Oxnardians cannot afford the many amazing things this city has to offer themselves, is… both insulting, and insane.

In Camarillo, the city council is readying to raise utilities over the next several years. The growth of rates is said to deal with capitol improvements (usually funded through investments and bond measures), amounting to a whopping 70% for water and 80% for sewer. The only thing crazier than those increases is the excitement with which two incumbents up for re-election next year motioned and seconded opening the process of raising those rates. It’s almost like they have some reason to believe their seats are safe…

My understanding is that other cities will be following suit on raising rates in kind. For locals, we’ll be covering that in the coming months.

A Bit On Me

Never one to follow the masses, I’m going ahead and following them anyway over to Substack. These newsletters will still be posted here, and when I post a new blog that is NOT a newsletter, I’ll put out a notice here as well.

It’s just time to clean up my content, though, which meant separating my writing life from my politics life. That was the result of this year’s “what does it all mean and what am I doing” that led up to my birthday on April 15th.

The Substack is behind a paywall, but if you contact me HERE I’ll send you a coupon code for a free subscription. My 16 years of blog archives are already over there, and more will be up soon.

You can otherwise find it at the following link:

To be clear though, again: these newsletters are not moving. Same bat time, same bat channel for those.

And other than that, I’m just plugging along- a year older, though in many ways still fresh and new to the world around me…