Welcome to us.

That's California for welcome to the June 23rd edition of National Reviews Radio Free California

podcast.

I'm Will Swame, President of the California Policy Center.

You can find my colleagues and me at California PolicyCenter.org.

You can find my friend and co-host David Bonson right here.

He's an economist, the host of the Capitol Record podcast, author of the book,

full-time, work in the meaning of life.

And, of course, he's founder of the eponymous investment firm, the Bonson Group.

Hello, David. Hello, Will. We are in different parts of the country. Yes, I'm up in Fresno,

landed, ran in. You can see my bags over there behind my shoulder, just got into the room,

set up. It's a million degrees here in lovely Fresno. You're in Grand Rapids for Acton?

I am.

So you're not in your normal spot of Irvine, California.

I'm not in my normal spot of New York City.

We're both in two different places, but we are both in God's country.

All right.

I love that.

We could start, in fact, with your feelings of enthusiasm in the moment or maybe a lack of.

Just really quickly, I just wanted to note something. I won't take too long on it. But this is today, you and I are recording Monday, June 23rd. June 24th of 1846, David, you're going to love this. The real first and only battle of the California Republic, that brief period when rebels in

California raised the bare flag, Republic flag, and went to war against their Mexican overlords.

And in this brief interaction, there was a battle called the Battle of Olimpali,

...