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Jon Fleischman

Nanny State, U.S.A.

For today’s Commentary, we feature a great column from Jonathan Garthwaite, the Editor-In-Chief of Townhall.com, a great website for conservative thought…

NANNY STATE, U.S.A.

This week San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic grocery bags from city supermarkets and drug stores. San Francisco generates an estimated 180 million plastic bags each year, and the city counsel wants them gone. Grocery shoppers will have to find an alternative within six months.

Reducing the number of nonbiodegradable plastic bags tangled in neighborhood streets and piling up in landfills for hundreds of years is a noble undertaking, but San Francisco’s government imposed bag ban is one more in a series of nanny state edicts from government upon the governed.

What’s a "nanny state"? If you want a dictionary… Read More

Mike Spence

Congressman McKeon targets illegal alien union workers.

The bumpersticker of some could read Live Better/ Work union/ Be an illegal alien.Congressman "Buck" McKeon introduced legislation that would prevent illegalaliens from casting votes for union representation in the workplace. See article here.

Makes sense if we deport them and fine the business.… Read More

Confusing Youth and Commitment for Bully Tactics

When a young person is elected to office, some people see the future of our democracy. Others see unrelenting ambition, somehow a bad thing.

It is a constant battle for young people in politics to balance the perceptions of the older generations. Too often youth and ability and commitment are mistaken for bully tactics. While there might be merit to this perception once in while, most of the time it’s just because of an… Read More

Mike Spence

Does your Doctor’s Medical Group Want you Dead?

The answer is: It all depends on how sick or disabled you are.

Assisted Suicide is surely an emotional issue. AB 374 would allow doctors to help kill their patients. It has never passed in the legislature, but this year the Speaker is pulling out all the stops to pass it.

A look at the groups that support legalizing assisted suicide in California includes the usual suspects like the ACLU and California NOW. You can see the list below. Also, several homosexual rights groups are supporting the bill. (Maybe people are genetically born to committingsuicide rather than it really being a choice?) One group really stands out. It is the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG). This group has as its members many managed care groups. They include the Sutter Medical Group, the Northern and Southern Permanente Medical Group, the Cedars-Sinai Medical Group and many more. See complete list here. Health Net of California is … Read More

Jon Fleischman

Today’s Commentary: Since when is insuring the Success of the Olympic Games a proper function of State Government?

Funds in the possession of the government at every level must be treated with the utmost care. After all, these are not moneys freely given into the custody of federal, state and local officials. On the contrary, government coffers are filled, by and large, by money coercively taken from people in the form of many different taxes. For fiscally responsible policy makers, this burden weighs heavily, as they ask themselves, before every vote taken to spend or commit these dollars, "Is this spending necessary?" or, "Is it right to spend money we have taken by force on this particular spending project?" A principled conservative policy-maker would look at every spending proposal, and ask, "Could this money be better spent by an individual?" After that, they might ask, "Is this spending something that should be taking place not at my level of government but perhaps a level of government that is closer to the people?" But perhaps the trickiest part for policy makers is to avoid the temptation to throw principled fiscal policy out the window as opportunities come along to supplant… Read More

Jon Fleischman

Since when is insuring the Success of the Olympic Games a proper function of State Government?

Funds in the possession of the government at every level must be treated with the utmost care. After all, these are not moneys freely given into the custody of federal, state and local officials. On the contrary, government coffers are filled, by and large, by money coercively taken from people in the form of many different taxes. For fiscally responsible policy makers, this burden weighs heavily, as they ask themselves, before every vote taken to spend or commit these dollars, "Is this spending necessary?" or, "Is it right to spend money we have taken by force on this particular spending project?" A principled conservative policy-maker would look at every spending proposal, and ask, "Could this money be better spent by an individual?" After that, they might ask, "Is this spending something that should be taking place not at my level of government but perhaps a level of government that is closer to the people?" But perhaps the trickiest part for policy makers is to avoid the temptation to throw principled fiscal policy out the window as opportunities come along to supplant… Read More

James V. Lacy

AIP County Chair pays for Gilchrist’s $15,000 bond

The Orange County Chairman of the American Independent Party, Mark J. Seidenberg, was tapped for $15,000 in personal cash by Jim Gilchrist, to allow Gilchrist to post the bond that Judge Randell Wilkinson of the Orange County Superior Court required of him before he would make final the "partial" preliminary judgment order issued last week in theon-going"Minuteman" case over control of the organization.

Gilchrist’s request for a writ of possession to regain control of Minuteman Project, Inc. assets was denied by the Judge, as was his request to enjoin Defendants Marvin L. Stewart of Long Beach, andBarbara Coe, and Deborah Courteney of Orange County, from claiming they are members of the Board of Directors of Minuteman. But Gilchrist won a partialinjunction against the Defendants to enjoin them from using his signature for fundraising or spending Minuteman funds, at leastuntil a April 25 hearing, where appointment of a court receiver to manage the organization will be at issue. Gilchrist opposes receivership, and the Defendants favor it.

Seidenberg claims he had just gotten off a flight back home from Dublin, Ireland,… Read More

Morality and Politics

I had a fascinating phone call from a constituent of mine. The gentleman was calling to object to my vote concerning the Assisted Suicide bill which passed out of the Assembly Judiciary Committee this week (I voted no). The gentleman also objected to my comments wherein I stated that I had a right to assert my morality into the political question. Those comments were offered in rebuttal to comments made by the Author of the bill who suggested that we, the committee members, shouldn’t be interjecting our different moralities into the question of whether physicians should be allowed to prescribe life-ending drugs. To my constituent’s way of thinking, the author was right. I, on the other hand, completely disagree.

There has long been debate about whether a representative in a republican form of government should vote the way a majority of his constituents want, or whether that representative should vote his conscience. Most of the time there is no real problem because a representative is often elected precisely because they share the conscience and morality of the ones who elected him. However, in those instances when there is a divide, how should… Read More

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