Progressives may have created California’s direct democracy process, but it’s been conservatives who have perfected the use of it. Whether its landmark property tax reform or recalling an inept governor, limited government’s biggest victories have been through initiatives, referendums and recalls.

Ironically, today’s progressives thwart the direct democracy process with unconstitutional bureaucratic impediments to signature gathering. Most notable of these restrictions is a residency requirement for signature gatherers. Petitions require a massive amount of signatures in a short window of time. As someone who is actively involved in these campaigns, I know that in some cases it would be impossible to gather enough signatures without using out-of-town signature gatherers. Case in point, a San Clemente referendum to overturn a city ordinance banning second story additions. The City of San Clemente … Read More

The East Bay Express has done a number of stories exposing Don Perata’s personal use of campaign funds. If you need a refresher, look no further than right here to get a reminder of how Don Perata outdoes even Fabian "Louis Vuitton" Nunez when it comes to living the "high life" on the backs of one’s campaign donors (we won’t even get into the tactics allegedly used to "extract" money from those doing business before legislature). Yesterday, the EBE’s Paul Gammon, on their blog, proclaimed Don Perata to be the "Hypocrite of the Year" for his moxie in attacking Senator Jeff Denham for allegedly "living large" of of campaign contributions. As Gammon says in his post, … Read More

The original oil tycoon John D.Rockefeller is crucified by historians for creating anti free trade monopolies but he has alsoproduced a miserable family lineage.Look at the great grandson Jay. Embarrassing.

Witness Senator Jay Rockefeller D-West Virginia. He just apologized to Sen. McCain for the most blatant insult of the political season. Have a read of an interview published yesterday and see if you agree.Rockefeller belies the democrat’s claim they represent the poor. Most of the fabulous wealthy senators are democrats. And who knew about how busy the Clinton’s have been since taking the White House furniture?

"McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet," Rockefeller said. "He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they (the missiles) get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care… Read More

Over at Capitol Weekly, they have a story up about how BIG LABOR passed a resolution demanding that Fabian Nunez give back $4 million to the California Democratic Party (we all know the CDP is a wholly owned subsidiary of the unions). Intepreting statements in the piece, it seems doubtful that Nunez is giving anything back.

But, let’s just say that Nunez would prefer to return the funds back in the form of some of his favorite products.

With their four million bucks, Nunez can buy the labor bosses:

139 bottles of rare Mouton Rothschild french wine ($28,750/bottle). 740 Monogram Motard Firebird hand bags by Louis Vuitton ($5400/purse). 548 Nights in the Belle Etoile Suite at the exclusive Parisian Hotel Meriece ($7300/night).

That said, it’s most likely that if the union bosses get anything, it will be 16,339,869 of these.… Read More

Once the LA Times only bright spot, Mike Ramirez won his second Pulitzer earning the distinction as one of America’s best cartoonist.

Ramirez who presently works with the Investor’s Business Daily, handing the pro business journal its first Pulitzer. Ramirez was removed from the Times, as further evidence of the LA Times market deterioration, but the IBD picked up Ramirez. Mike Ramirez’s clever political cartoons are syndicated to over 450 newspapers.

The big question is why the Flashreport doesn’t carry the prize winning cartoons?

You can see Ramirez’s work at http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:Ek_dpjmNAIYJ:www.investors.com/editorial/cartoon.asp+%22michael+Ramirez%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us . Or google him.

… Read More

Tomorrow (Tuesday), Orange County Supervisors will consider taking positions on the two eminent domain ballot measures that will appear before voters in June.

By most accounts, most observers expect the Board of Supervisors to unanimously endorse Proposition 98, the ballot measure that protects all private property from eminent domain abuse and oppose Prop. 99, the phony alternative measure placed on the ballot by public agency associations representing politicians and developers.

According to sources, this news will be overshadowed by the news that Board of Supervisors may also decide to withhold its dues to the California State Association of Counties (CSAC) until the taxpayer financed organization addresses complaints first reported in the Orange County Register (to read article, click here) that they, along with other such government associations, have funneled more than $4 million from anonymous sources to qualify Prop. 99 and to fight Proposition 98.

While CSAC and the California League of Cities continue to profess innocence, the Orange County… Read More

Tomorrow (Tuesday), Orange County Supervisors will consider taking positions on the two eminent domain ballot measures that will appear before voters in June.

By most accounts, most observers expect the Board of Supervisors to unanimously endorse Proposition 98, the ballot measure that protects all private property from eminent domain abuse and oppose Prop. 99, the phony alternative measure placed on the ballot by public agency associations representing politicians and developers.

According to sources, this news will be overshadowed by the news that Board of Supervisors may also decide to withhold its dues to the California State Association of Counties (CSAC) until the taxpayer financed organization addresses complaints first reported in the Orange County Register (to read article, click here) that they, along with other such government associations, have funneled more than $4 million from anonymous sources to qualify Prop. 99 and to fight Proposition 98.

**There is more – click… Read More

Damage Control by Eric Dezenhall and John Weber is an excellent book if for no other reason than it tells the whole story of the 1982 Tylenol recall case and why it is not the only way to handle a corporate crisis.

Dezenhall is the CEO of Dezenhall Resources in Washington DC. One of the areas that they specialize in is crisis communications.

This book has many lessons for those that are involved in politics about the way to handle a problem.

The one thing that stood out is something that has always baffled me about the California business community. Why do they continue to give campaign money to the people that attack them? It can’t be because they support what the person stands for.

Dezenhall mentions a client that wondered how this attack group was able to afford to challenge the client. The truth was that the client was trying to buy peace. This is something that rarely works.

This is a great book that is a quick read. Most of the principles involve… Read More