With the announcement of John Doolittle’s retirement comes more bad news for Nancy Pelosi and House democrats. Dean Andal, challenger to vulnerable democrat Jerry McNerney has received the endorsement of the Club for Growth which will guarantee an even heavier flow of financial resources into the 11th Congressional District.

Andal, in his time in the State Assembly and on the Board of Equalization, has crafted a strong pro-taxpayer record in favor of lower taxes and cutting wasteful government spending. Just this week, Andal revealed at a meeting of the South San Joaquin Republican Club that he had raised over a half million dollars already for this race and is running hard on the economic issues of taxes and cutting wasteful spending.

Club for Growth President Pat Toomey had this to say about the race in his release announcing the Club’s support for Andal:

"Dean Andal has an impressive record on economic issues with the potential to be a superstar if elected to Congress. His principled fight against wasteful government spending and his tireless work on behalf of taxpayers will be a vast improvement over Rep. McNerney. While this… Read More

I came to the conclusion John & Ken were intellectual frauds during the 35th Senate special election back in 2005, when they viciously and dishonestly turned on then-state Sen. John Campbell and propped up Jim Gilchrist like puppeteers.

So it was interesting to read this website posted by former KFI talk show host John Ziegler called TheRealKFI.com.

In it, Ziegler chronicles his career at KFI, the key role John & Ken played in his forced exit and his opinion, based on observing them for four years, that J & K are entertainers pretending to be a couple of Howard Beals.

A friend e-mailed the link to me, and the site must be getting overwhelmed with traffic because when I clicked the next page it usually wouldn’t load until after several attempts.… Read More

UPDATE: 845am – Associated Press is also now carrying this story. Congressman John Doolittle is holding a press conference at 10:30 a.m. this morning, and it has been widely speculated that he will be announcing his retirement from Congress at the end of the year.

That said, David Drucker over at Roll Call has decided to "call this one early" through sources, with the story that Doolittle, is in fact, hanging up his political shoes.

Here is the story: California Source: Doolittle to Announce Retirement Today Thursday, Jan. 10,… Read More

Later today, the Governor is going to unveil is proposed 2007-2008 budget. Based on the portions of his State of the State Address from earlier in the week, it sounds like a budget proposal that our readers will like.

Although the State of the State left us in a doubt as to the Governor’s reasons for proposing pretty heavy cuts in state government (we here at the FR feel that significant cuts in state government levels would be a good thing whether the state had enough tax income or not — because we also think that taxes are too high in the Golden State), we are pleased that for very pragmatic reasons, the Governor has pulled out his red pen.

In order to spend more time heaping anticipated praise on the Governor’s proposed budget, I thought I would take a little bit of time to focus some sharp criticism on one small part of the Governor’s plan — a proposal to tax property insurance premiums for every policy, residential and commerical in the state. This proposal would increase the size of state government by over a hundred million bucks a year, said moneys to go towards helping the state’s efforts to fight… Read More

Later today, the Governor is going to unveil is proposed 2007-2008 budget. Based on the portions of his State of the State Address from earlier in the week, it sounds like a budget proposal that our readers will like.

Although the State of the State left us in a doubt as to the Governor’s reasons for proposing pretty heavy cuts in state government (we here at the FR feel that significant cuts in state government levels would be a good thing whether the state had enough tax income or not — because we also think that taxes are too high in the Golden State), we are pleased that for very pragmatic reasons, the Governor has pulled out his red pen.

In order to spend more time heaping anticipated praise on the Governor’s proposed budget, I thought I would take a little bit of time to focus some sharp criticism on one small part of the Governor’s plan — a proposal to tax property insurance premiums for every policy, residential and commerical in the state. This proposal would increase the size of state government by over a hundred million bucks a year, said moneys to go towards helping the state’s efforts to fight… Read More

The California State Budget — some thoughts…..

In general, I think the Governor has made a respectable effort to implement a 10% cut to state agencies – a level of cut that should have been taken years ago to eliminate the structural deficit.

There are fewer gimmicks than previous budgets – which is good,but because he has included$430 million in revenues from the2007 Tribal compacts, it is critical that these compacts go into effect this year and that the voters approve Props 94 – 97. And speaking of Indian gaming, I am flat stunned that the Governor would fail to include any funding for local gaming mitigation grants from the Special Distribution Fund. This is a… Read More

To add to Doug’s brief comment’s below, I would add a few thoughts. First and foremost, we will have more comprehensive coverage of the Governor’s Budget Proposal tomorrow, including an exclusive column from the Governor’s DIrector of Finance, Mike Genest (who has penned several columns for the FR). If you are overanxious, and want more detail on the budget proposal right now, the Governor’s office has set up a website on his budget proposal, which you can go to here.

The very briefing 30,000 foot summary — in order to bring down state spending, the Governor is proposing an across-the-board cut of 10% from every state agency, department and program that is financed via the state’s general fund (some large areas such as transportation, get their funds from other sources). The Governor’s idea is that it is better to "spread the pain" than it is to cut too much from any one area.

While this strategy makes sense from a marketing point of view, since it is rather easy to explain (I just did it in one paragraph), it is a controversial approach because it… Read More

My tens cents, summed up in a couple of sentences, can be found at the end of this article from The Hill on the Doolittle retirement announcement.

I will expand greatly on the situation in a future post, but here you go…

Doolittle says he will not seek reelection By Jackie Kucinich and Aaron Blake The Hill January 10, 2008 Embattled Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) announced Thursday afternoon that he would not seek reelection, yielding to pressure from his Republican colleagues to step aside amid… Read More