After years of litigation – costing millions of taxpayer dollars – the California Department of Education has finally settled with a whistle-blower turned former employee. This whistle-blower claimed retaliation by the Department and former Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin when he reported massive fraud in the department.

According to the Sacramento Bee (April 23, 2008), the California Department of Education paid "$4.25 million to the former worker who said he suffered retaliation after he reported corruption to then Superintendent Delaine Eastin." The trouble began when the California Department of Education dished out millions of dollars, not to California’s classrooms, but to people seemingly just trying to make a buck off the system. "The case centered on corruption in a program that handed out money to community-based organizations between 1995 and 2000 to teach English and citizenship to recent immigrants. Some of the schools that got grant money didn’t even exist."… Read More

Late last week, California’s esteemed Lieutenant Governor, Democrat John Garamendi, took a break from his statewide "we need taxes not spending cuts" tour to fire off a petulant letter to his successor as Insurance Commissioner, Steve Poizner. The subject? Garamendi is upset because after reviewing them since he was elected to office, Poizner has determined that a bunch of last minute regulations that Garamendi adopted literally on his way out of the office were in need of revision, which he is doing. I will spend more time soon delving into the policy issues involved with these regulations. For your Monday morning entertainment, though, I want to encourage you all to take five minutes to read the back and forth between Garamendi and Poizner. Garamendi’s letter, which you can view here, reads like it was written by a small child, at least in… Read More

Late last week, California’s esteemed Lieutenant Governor, Democrat John Garamendi, took a break from his statewide "we need taxes not spending cuts" tour to fire off a petulant letter to his successor as Insurance Commissioner, Steve Poizner. The subject? Garamendi is upset because after reviewing them since he was elected to office, Poizner has determined that a bunch of last minute regulations that Garamendi adopted literally on his way out of the office were in need of revision, which he is doing. I will spend more time soon delving into the policy issues involved with these regulations. For your Monday morning entertainment, though, I want to encourage you all to take five minutes to read the back and forth between Garamendi and Poizner. Garamendi’s letter, which you can view here, reads like it was written by a small child, at least in… Read More

Today the Governor announced that he is taking steps to make the State Capitol "wi-fi" friendly, with the first phase being a wireless "hotspot" in the Governor’s Press Conference Room on the first floor. Outstanding. The next phase of his plan is to make some portion of the Capitol cafeteria a "hot spot" – which is cool. These are great first steps.

But the big project, to which any project to bring wireless to the State Capitol must include, is making the Senate and Assembly Chambers wireless, so that people up in the galleries (or the press corps or guests in the back of the chambers) can access wireless. After this, it should be the Committee Rooms where the most influential meetings take place.

Speaking on behalf of the blogging community, it really would enhance our ability to live-blog about the goings-on in state government.

Now I don’t know where the boundaries are between where the Governor has jurisdiction to create "hot spots" versus the legislature — but someone should get right on this!… Read More

The San Diego blogs and echo chamber have been alive in recent days over city attorney candidate Brian Maienschein’s mailer declaring that he “will oppose any effort to make San Diego a Sanctuary City” for those illegally in this country. The only catch is that according to the Feds, the City of San Diego is already on the vaunted sanctuary list, meaning that the locals "will generally promote policies that ensure (illegal) aliens will not be turned over to federal authorities." According to several irate bloggers and commenters on Red County San Diego, Maienschein has done nothing to change that status in his two terms as a councilmember.… Read More

Saturday night in Red Bluff, the annual Party dinner event went very well. We had as our keynote speaker our state Republican Party chairman, Ron Nehring. It was a very successful event thanks to the Tehama Central Committee and the Tehama Republican Women. Attendance was pretty good, everyone seemed to have a good time enjoying some great tri-tip, BBQ’d righton sight, and each others company. We were joined during the evening by our Congressman Wally Herger, several local electeds, and all the candidates seeking to replace mewhen I get tossed from the Assembly this November. It went so well, therewere not even any arrests!* Ron has been very dedicated to getting around to our north state counties as state party chairman to articulate the Party’s goals and stress theimportance of all 58 counties being engaged.

We appreciate Ron’s presence up here in all these small town areas, you know the ones with jus little airstripslike what Earl’s crop duster flies off’n, or with just itty bitty 2 lane roads in ’em…come to think of it we do have that new-fangled I-5 freeway runnin through here…it’s got… Read More

The last two books I’ve read don’t seem to have much in common at first but upon further thought I think they have everything to do with each other.

Over at the Red County Book Club I came across The Immigration Solution by three authors that write different chapters. Amazon then got me started on Kevin Phillips’ Wealth and Democracy.

First of all, some parts of the The Immigration Solution seem a little sensationalized to me. It has some interesting facts but some that I question. Some of the personal stories that are presented to illustrate a point come up short. It is also not as well sourced as I would like. However, the book does deal with the real problem of illegal immigration.

The best part of the book was the second chapter about the different demographics of the people coming to this country today as opposed to… Read More

I read arecent post by Sacramento Bee writer Steve Weigand over on the Bee’s Capitol Alert Website (it’s free and FR recommended, but registration is required)… There Steve belittles legislative Republicans for celebrating Tax Freedom Day earlier this week (the day in the year when, for Californians, you have finished earning enough money to pay your combined federal, state and local tax burden for the year if everything earned to now went to pay those taxes and fees). Steve end’s his comments thusly:

Anyway, the Reep lawmakers gathered in the Capitol press conference room to repeat the party mantra: Taxes are bad, Proposition 13 is sacred and Democrats and bureaucrats are to blame for the Golden State not being more golden. "California has the fourth-highest tax burden in the country," huffed Assemblyman Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar.… Read More