You may well have seen TV news statewide of a structure collapse on a highway construction project up here in Butte County on Hwy 149, between Oroville and Chico. The early Wednesday morning accident was a result of a collapsing heavy-steel structure that would support the forms to pourconcrete upon for a new overcrossing where 70 meets 149. It was not a collapse of an actual overcrossing as first reported [or even hyped], nor justa scaffolding forpersonnel to work from.

A Fed Ex truck was struck by the falling steel girders, 3000 lbs each or more, as the driver was proceeding north. He was trapped for 3 hours as safety personnel worked to extract him, pinned under wreckage held down by the steel I-beams. The happy ending for him was only an ankle sprain, some cuts and bruises and a harrowing experience. He is already at home tonight with his family.

A construction worker atop the collapsing structure, rode it 50 feet down and he suffered several broken bones and is still hospitalized in serious condition.

A third injurya few minutes later, was to a woman who drove upon the scene and rearended a parked CalTrans vehicle and broke… Read More

Legitimate, real and important policy differences separate Senate Republicans and Democrats in the budget debate.

After it was clear that no forward momentum on a budget would take place (Senator Dennis Hollingsworth attempted to bring up GOP programmic changes and belt-tightening trailer bills to no avail), Senator Jeff Denham tried to bring up a motion to fund vital government services during this impasse. The Democrats voted as a block against this reasonable accomodation.

So to all of you TV, radio and newspaper reporters, you should report that it is the Democrats who want to use those in need of services as “pawns” to try and put on pressure for a bad budget resolution.

The Senate is in recess.… Read More

Earlier this afternoon, the fifteen members of the Senate Republican Caucus went down to Governor Schwarzenegger’s office to discuss the state budget. (Only in the State Capitol would fifteen people go downstairs instead of one man coming upstairs. Then again, he is the Governator. Besides, maybe they smoked cigars, and he does have the only smoking tent in the immediate vicinity…). Apparently the name of the game is still, "Do ANYTHING to get Senate Republicans to vote for the already-passed budget out of the Assembly — we don’t want to crack-open budget negotiations again!" So, we can assume that Governor’s "pitch" to Senate Republicans was made with a big blue pencil in his hand, making the case for how the Governor would trim the state budget over the ears a bit in order to satisfy concerns of GOP Senators. Unfortunately, one has to acknowledge that the blue-pencil (line item veto) approach has its limitations. Yes, the Governor could… Read More

Romney for President “Secure”:30 TV

Mitt Romney (VO): We should secure our border.

We should put in place an employment verification system.

And then when an employer is thinking of hiring someone the federal database immediately tells them whether they’re available to be working or not.

If they’re not you can’t hire them.

People that are here illegally are going to have to get in line with everybody else with no special pathway to becoming citizens

Legal immigration is great, but illegal immigration that we’ve got to end.

Thank you, and Amnesty is not the way to do it.

Mitt Romney (VO): I’m Mitt Romney and I approved this message.

Here’s the video:

[Publisher’s Note: We’re very honored that our own Duane has been tapped as… Read More

This from Christine Hanley of today’s L.A. Times

"Gore is the youngest of Tipper and Al Gore’s four children. He was arrested in 2003 on suspicion of marijuana possession while a student at Harvard University. He completed substance-abuse counseling as part of a program to settle the charge and was not convicted of a crime.

He now lives in Los Angeles, where he is an associate publisher of Good, philanthropy magazine aimed at young people."… Read More

This weekend Larry Dick’s campaign for the 60th Assembly District came to part of the LA County. Walnut Valley Water Board member Ling-Ling Chang and Pomona School Board Member Andrew Wong sponsored Larry’s Luau in Diamond Bar. In the audience were quite a few “Water people”. As water board member Larry is working that angle. Water is big business in CA and there is more money there than some might think. There were also a lot of GOP activists from the SGV Valley, many that were also at the last Curt Hagman events I was at. They must be checking out the field. See here. Assemblyman Huff was there saying very nice things about … Read More

An exciting new proposed ballot proposition that would eliminate the current "winner-take-all" system of apportionment of Presidential Electoral College votes and replace it with a regionalized system based largely on voting results in Congressional districts, has been filed with the Attorney General by "Californians for Equal Representation" by Sacramento-based attorney Thomas W. Hiltachk. The ballot measure, identified as the "Presidential Election Reform Act," and identified on the AG’s system as "Initiative No. 07-0032," would give increased clout in the Presidential election to more local areas of the state, and might also help a credible third party candidate to pick-up some electoral votes, without having to win the entire state.Congressional Districts inthe Bay Area, for example, which usually vote for the Democrat, might be counted on for their electoral votes, however, Congressional districts in southern counties that usually vote for the Republican, would not have their electoral votes necessarily wasted in a Democratic sweep of the state, as in the current system. And vice-versa, were thereto be a really… Read More

The fundraising numbers are coming in. In the 36th AD only Steve Fox’s are currently available. He raised a over 57K. He is an attorney and Hospital board member , so some of the donations come from….lawyers and medical.

Now, many candidates will loan themselves some money. Not Steve Fox. No games being played here.Fox contributed $37,864.18 to the campaign. There is no moving money around to look good. Just plain old burning the boats so you can’t leave.

We will see how that works out?… Read More