I will be making presentations on 527s, Independent Expenditures, Issue Advocacy, and Tax-Exempt Organizations and Politicial Activity, at an Election Law Seminar to be held onApril 16 in Santa Monica at the DoubleTree at 1707 4th St. in Santa Monica.

The day-long event will include presentations on California and Federal election law, voting systems and voting procedures, initiatives and referenda, and a practicum on regulation of political advertising and voter persuasion.

Confirmed speakers include Chuck Bell, senior partner of Bell, Hiltachk, LLP and general counsel of the California Republican Party; Daniel Lowenstein, a tenured Professor of Election law at UCLA Law School, one of the co-authors of the California Political Reform Act, and the first Chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission; Robert Stern, another co-author of the California Political Reform Act, principal drafter of the City of Los Angeles’ ethics and public campaign finance laws and President of the Center for Government Studies; and political consultant Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of the California Target Book. The moderator of and another presenter at the event is Janice… Read More

I will tell you that it is really awesome to have Ray Haynes as a contributor to the FlashReport. His columns are thoughtful, and usually “nail it” when it comes to politics and policy here in the Golden State.

On Tuesday, Ray had a column that ran in the D.C. Examiner, Big Companies Use Earth Day Camoflage To Greenwash Profits, which fascinated me — enough to share it with FR readers.

The piece (fully reprinted below) talks about the hypocrisy of big companies that “greenwash”, which is defined over on Wikopediaas, "…the act of misleading… Read More

I will tell you that it is really awesome to have Ray Haynes as a contributor to the FlashReport. His columns are thoughtful, and usually “nail it” when it comes to politics and policy here in the Golden State.

On Tuesday, Ray had a column that ran in the D.C. Examiner, Big Companies Use Earth Day Camoflage To Greenwash Profits, which fascinated me — enough to share it with FR readers.

The piece (fully reprinted below) talks about the hypocrisy of big companies that “greenwash”, which is defined over on Wikopediaas, "…the act of misleading… Read More

Claremont is in Eastern Los Angeles County . It is a mix of college town and senior centers. It’s nice place, but it’s going to get uglier. The town fathers have found a scourge that needs to be removed from the city. Too many adult bookstores? I don’t think they have any? Too many liquor stores? Nope.

The answer: Too many day spas and nail salons. And yes tanning salons.

You wouldn’t know it but, there are Republicans on this City Council that are going along to limiting these kinds of establishments to second floors of commercial buildings and yes alleys.

Everybody wants to enter an alley on the… Read More

The size of California State government is ENORMOUS. All of the debate that we hear about is focused directly on the 100 BILLION++ general fund of the state budget. But if you want to look at the big picture, you need to add to this number TENS OF BILLIONS in additional state spending that is not included in this discussion – in “special funds” where funds come in from taxes that are not called taxes (they call them by a pseudonym, “fees” and say they take only a majority, not a 2/3 vote to enact) and these taxes go to specific programs, and then they are “moved off-budget” into this other (ignored in the current debate) corner, out of sight. Let us also not forget the BILLIONS OF BILLIONS of already authorized bonded indebtedness that occurred and will continue to occur, without so much as another vote of the people (or in the case of those scandalous “prison bonds” – without a vote of the people). All of this adds up to just a VAST and MASSIVE amount of money that California taxpayers, present and future are going to be coercively paying (or in the case of the… Read More

The size of California State government is ENORMOUS. All of the debate that we hear about is focused directly on the 100 BILLION++ general fund of the state budget. But if you want to look at the big picture, you need to add to this number TENS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in additional state spending that is not included in this discussion – in “special funds” where funds come in from taxes that are not called taxes (they call them by a pseudonym, “fees” and say they take only a majority, not a 2/3 vote to enact) and these taxes go to specific programs, and then they are “moved off-budget” into this other (ignored in the current debate) corner, out of sight. Let us also not forget the BILLIONS OF BILLIONS of already authorized bonded indebtedness that occurred and will continue to occur, without so much as another vote of the people (or in the case of those scandalous “prison bonds” – without a vote of the people). All of this adds up to just a VAST and MASSIVE amount of money that California taxpayers, present and future are going to be coercively paying (or in the case… Read More

DeMaio Council Bid Has the Unions a Tad Scared… Never repeat the negative, they say. But, I can’t pass up the efforts to which some will go in attempts to kill the San Diego City Council candidacy of government watchdog Carl DeMaio. To many, he would be the Tom McClintock of the San Diego City Council. To some, that is good, to others, well…they just can’t stomach someone on the council that is willing to stand up so honestly and strongly to the back-scratching foolishness, complete failure of fiduciary duty and outrageous lack of concern for our tax monies that caused the city’s fiscal mess in the first place.

An anti-Carl website was launched last week, which I would ignore if it weren’t so amusingly inept. Perhaps the best way to cover the "effort" is to repeat San Diego Tax Fighters Chairman Richard Rider’s reaction:

If you want to see just how much Carl DeMaio scares the crap out of the labor unions (both public and private labor unions), go to this amazing, LITERALLY slimy… Read More

I got Boom! for Christmas. I resisted reading it for three months until I finally gave in a couple weeks ago. It was worth it because it is not like other books that I have read on the sixties.

In other books on the decade like "Reunion: A Memoir" by Tom Hayden or "Sixties: Years of Hope and Days of Rage" by Todd Gitlin you get a very different view of the time. From those book the reader would believe that Tom Hayden and his student protester buddies defined the entire decade. After reading Brokaw’s more than 600 page review of the era and some of the impact it is having on the present day it is clear to me that Hayden over time will be viewed as an interesting historical footnote and nothing else. Brokaw makes only three minor mentions of Hayden in the entire book.

Boom! defines the sixties as the period of time that spans from the assassination of President Kennedy in November of 1963 until the resignation of President Nixon in August of 1974. The book does give great importance to the roll of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement in setting the stage in the time prior to the August 1863 March on… Read More