Some random thoughts to start off the weekend:

• There was an article in Capitol Weekly this week in which Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante was whining about something the Governor did or didn’t do.  I so don’t care about what he says that I didn’t even link to it.
• There is a Supervisor in San Bernardino County named Jim Harnsberger.  He is always in trouble for the lamest things.  He reminds me of the character Pig Pen in the Peanuts comic strips.
• I was genuinely surprised this week that Senator John Kerry, after making a campaign appearance for Francine Busby in San Diego, didn’t swing by the Stockton area and make an appearance for another big supporter of his, “Republican” Pete McCloskey who is challenging conservative Rep. Richard Pombo.
• Apparently, in California you can get the death penalty if you rape a girl, and then kill her.  But if you just kill the girl, and then rape her, you can’t.  Democrats in the Assembly Public Safety Committee voted down a bill to allow the post-death rape to also allow for ‘special circumstances’ and a possible death penalty in those cases.  Why is it that the more something makes sense, the more likely it is to be killed by Mark Leno’s committee?
• Earlier this week, a thousand protesters walked by my office in Santa Ana.  Unlike the previous week when they were out waving Mexican flags, this time they were waving the Stars and Stripes.  But when you listened to them, they were still all chanting in Spanish.
• This week was “Green Arnold” week.  Thank God its over.
• State Senator Bill Morrow, whom I have known for a long time, is one of the most honorable and genuine people that I know.  He would have made a great Congressman.  Too bad he won’t get a chance to prove me right.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday likened his stance on immigration to that of President George W. Bush.  POTUS supports a guest worker/amnesty program that insults all of those around the world waiting for their entrance visa to immigrate to the right way.   Time to pick a new immigration reform role-model.
• My mom, a volunteer Medicare counselor for seniors, is still trying to explain an extremely dysfunction prescription drug benefit.  Much of the time, the ‘sausage factory’ in DC results in horrific public policy.
• Republican State Senator Abel Maldonado, in his ballot argument for why he should become State Controller, points readers to a website to see if they have unclaimed assets in the possession of the state.  Someone checked out the website and actually Maldonado himself had $2,000 waiting to be claimed.  I think he should buy his kids something special with the money.
• After this weekend, George Plescia will become the new Assembly Republican Leader.  You have to wonder if Kevin McCarthy regrets giving it up, given that he is virtually unopposed in his bid to replace Bill Thomas in Congress.
• Any positive juice that Senator Dave Cox might have hoped to get by endorsing Tony Strickland for Controller was more than offset with his support of Tom Harman, the stepchild of the open primary measure.
• Somebody asked me this week if I knew how to get in touch with former GOP Assemblyman Bill Hoge.  He and I used to be very close – last I saw of him was a video that was sent to me where he was talking to some horse-racing conference, introducing himself as a professional gambler.
• My brother just accepted a job in Palo Alto.  He’s a pretty liberal Democrat.  Now if I can just set him up for weekly lunches with FR contributor Bill Whalen who also makes Palo Alto his home, just maybe we can start to bring brother Rick around…
• Believe it or not, Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa uses a dial-up connection to get on the internet at home.  It must take him quite a while to download this webpage, with all of those flash-ads.  We’ll have to start a collection to get him DSL.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 14th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.