“Well, why, all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the administration. And now, all of a sudden, he’s raising these grave concerns that he claims he had. And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book.” No. That is not the words of an angry Republican talking about Scott McClellan. Those are the words straight from the horses mouth—Scott himself on March 22, 2004 talking about the book of former homeland security advisor Richard Clarke. Seems Scott has a different take now that he is the one on a book tour. I have known Scott for a decade, since the late 90s when I was the campaign Press Secretary for then-Governor Bush in Texas where Scott was running the campaign of his mother – Carol Keeton Rylander (aka “one tough grandma”) to be State Comptroller. She won and Scott came to work in the Governor’s state press office for Karen Hughes. He later joined us at the presidential… Read More

One of the most frequent e-mail queries that we get here at the FlashReport is from loyal readers wanting to know who are the "good candidates" to vote for when it comes to judges. Alas, it is often that our message back is that we just don’t know. Well, we are pleased to share with you that this election cycle, the California Republican Lawyers Association has worked hard an put together recommendations in many of the judicial races in counties around California… CRLA President Steve Baric penned this piece to introduce his organization’s recommendations (this piece first appeared on FR friend Steve Frank’s California Political News & Views website)… LINK… Read More

The recent dust-up between Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi certainly made for great political theater.

The nasty exchange of letters featured in FlashReport was priceless and certainly marks an early skirmish in a potential 2010 Governor’s race square-off between the two statewide officeholders (with due deference to the Attorney General and to the CEO of E-Bay). The lesson learned for Poizner is that sometimes important decisions are going to bring loud criticism. But if you stand on principle and stand your ground – as he did — then you will come out the winner. In fact, I have had numerous opportunities to praise Poizner for standing tall, most recently for his leadership in the defeat of Proposition 93 to weaken legislative term limits.

Poizner should not have been surprised by the criticism that came his way. It came… Read More

There is little to be surprised by in Fabian Núñez’ (D-Los Angeles) outlandish statements that those who questioned his expenses were motivated by race.

Núñez’ belated use of racial politics was an attempt to mask and avoid the truth: his poor judgment as a public servant. In an interview this past week, with the Spanish-language program, Voz y Voto on Univision, Núñez began to label those who had questioned his expenses as "anti-Latino groups who don’t like Latinos and sought to utilize this as a weapon to stir up the anti-Mexican, anti-Latino rhetoric."

Nunez’ outrage stemmed from a Los Angeles Times story that showed his expenses including $47,412 on air travel, $5,149 for a ‘meeting’ at a wine seller in the Bordeaux region of France, a total of $2,562 for two ‘office expenses’ at Louis Vuitton. In addition, the Sacramento Bee noted that Núñez also spent “$3,199 stay at the hotel Parco in Rome; and $798.75 for cookies at Goodie Tuchews in Sacramento, California.”

This is Part 2 of that Interview:

… Read More

Give me a break.

In perusing dozens of websites this morning to prepare FR’s main page, I came across this atrocious editorial from the Fresno Bee, basically putting pressure on Assembly Republican Leader to deliver his vote, and enough votes from his caucus, for Assembly Bill 3034, which changes around some of the details in a proposed mega-bond package for the November ballot for — high speed rail.

Come on! California is suffering from one of the worst over-spending problems in state history, with a build-up of tremendous pressure that will lead to an epic standoff as Democrats want to tax their way out of this problem, and Republicans fight to reduce spending.

Amidst all of this, legislators are supposed to "polish up" yet another borrowing scheme in the form of bonds to make a massive taxpayer subsidy into hi-speed rail?

Hi-speed rail may or may not be a good idea — but that depends on whether there is a market for it in the private sector. The last thing that the State of California needs to be doing is putting its taxpayers, and their children,… Read More

The recent dust-up between Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi certainly made for great political theater.

The nasty exchange of letters featured in FlashReport was priceless and certainly marks an early skirmish in a potential 2010 Governor’s race square-off between the two statewide officeholders (with due deference to the Attorney General and to the CEO of E-Bay). The lesson learned for Poizner is that sometimes important decisions are going to bring loud criticism. But if you stand on principle and stand your ground – as he did — then you will come out the winner. In fact, I have had numerous opportunities to praise Poizner for standing tall, most recently for his leadership in the defeat of Proposition 93 to weaken legislative term limits.

Poizner should not have been surprised by the criticism that came his way. It came… Read More

Well, we knew that newly minted Assembly Speaker Karen Bass was the Chief Lieutenant of former Speaker Fabian "Louis Vuitton" Nunez. While we expect, of course, for her to be just as liberal as Nunez, if not more so, we hope that the similarities between the two will be minimal from there. When King Fabian was in the room, he was the most important person there. If you had any doubts, you could just ask him and he would tell you.

One thing that is staying the same in the office of the Assembly Speaker is the Deputy Chief of Staff for Public Relations flaking as Bass has retained long-time FR "sparring mate" Steve Maviglio.

As a matter of fact, Maviglio will be regularly met on the battlefield by his counterpart in Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines’ office, Morgan Crinklaw. The two will be battling in out in a war of words regularly on the Capitol Weekly website. You can check out their first exchange here.

Both are capable spin-masters, but of course Maviglio has the… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…

Local Hero

… Read More