As liberal a city as San Francisco is, one would think the left-wing bleeding-heart political leaders there who so loudly advocate for the homeless would by now have solved the problem of homelessness and also dealt with the City’s asocials and aggressive panhandlers in a consistent and caring way, getting these folks the help they need and off the streets. Indeed, it seemed like some progress had been made in recent years — at the insistence from the hotel association. But judging from our recent vacation interlude in downtown S.F. this weekend, the unfortunate, and the freaks, are stillmasters ofthe streets, day and night on weekends, in stronger numbers than ever. This sad situation can’t be good for business in San Francisco, and it demonstrates how heartless liberals can be in insisting on peoples intangible rights above all rather than delivering tangible, substantive programs to actually improve people’s situations.

We decided to take a long weekend in San Francisco to "recharge the batteries." My grandmother and father were born in The City, and I grew up in the Bay Area, so we have some history there. We thought it… Read More

With only two weeks to go, there is one issue the candidates for CRP officehardly seem to talk about and yet it affects every other aspect of whattheir ability to finish their campaign promises. The CRP is in debt! Not just a little debt, but I’m told and have seen figures that amount to $4.6 million. This is unprecedented for the CRP. Yet, no one is really talking about it. The CRP has clearly earned the "Biggest Party Debt Award". To give some perspective the RNC with all their spending ended $3 million debt. See here. It has now been paid off. When will the CRP’s? … Read More

The LA Times has a story today about the Trung Nguyen Photoshop incident.

The story broke on Red County/OC Blog and was developed and moved forward by the larger OC blogosphere.

Not that you’d know it from the LA Times article, which completely ignores that fact and give no credit to the blogs. Most LA Times readers will think the LAT got the scoop.

Read more about it here and here on Red County/OC Blog.

UPDATE (5:00 p.m.): I got off the phone a little while ago with Jeff Gottlieb, City Editor of the OC edition of the LA Times. Jeff was very gracious. He said it was the policy of the Times to give credit where it is due and that it was an omission in this case, for which he apologized.

That was a classy thing to do.… Read More

While there are many things I don’t like about living in the Bay Area, one of the biggest is that Congresswoman Barbara Lee represents me in Washingon, D.C. As painful as it is, I subscribe to her constituent email so I can be fully appraised of her goings-on in DC. Today I received the following e-mail from Rep. Lee:

Congresswoman Lee Wields the Gavel Congresswoman Lee will serve as presiding officer of the House today, wielding the gavel and overseeing debate on the House floor between 11:00 AM -1:30 PM Pacific (2:00-4:30 PM Eastern). You can tune in on C-SPAN (Ch. 23 on Comcast, 53 on Castle Cable, 350 on DirecTV, and 210 on Dish Network), or at http://www.c-span.org/watch.

As if having Nancy Pelosi as speaker wasn’t bad enough…..

… Read More

One the of the brighter lights on the GOP side of the aisle, especially when it comes to economic issues, is certainly businessman Steve Forbes. Forbes is well know, and well respected, for his policy acumen. In his magazine, Forbes pens an opinion column. Well, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s governmental foray into healthcare has made the top of Forbes’ most recent column:

If Chuck DeVore’s no-terrorism-apologists-in-the-classroom legislation isn’t enough to make the left cringe this session (see blogdevore), Joel Anderson is now putting the screws to CalPERS, wanting to divest retirement funding in terrorism, specifically businesses investing in Iran. Joel announced AB 221 Monday and will hold a press conference on the bill this morning.

As well, his op-ed on the subject appears in the Union-Trib this morning. Anderson writes:

Given (the existing) legal restrictions, and the laser-like focus of America on fighting terror since Sept. 11, how can public employee retirement systems in the United States continues to invest hundreds of billions of public employees’ taxpayer-funded retirement funds in corporations doing business with countries that support terrorist groups? Why do we not do everything we can to assist our government in unplugging the life support of terrorist regimes?

I believe that California’s citizens and public employees will be appalled to learn that Iran, which is being sanctioned by the United… Read More

I waited until today to write this in the hopes that one of the candidates for vice chairman of the California Republican Party would have gotten their act together enough to engage in a real campaign including a genuine effort toward getting the job.

But alas at this point none of them have.

The election is Feb. 11 at the CRP Convention in Sacramento. Campaigning for party office is very different than running for say city council or water board, even if the town or district is very small (the CRP is made up of 1600 members). However, a campaign for CRP office can be just as expensive or even more so. Smart candidates raise funds, do direct mail, have volunteers and run operations at the convention where voting takes place. Those who are well funded, hire staff. For instance, even though he is running unopposed, current CRP vice chairman Ron Nehring who is up for the job of chairman, has a paid campaign manager–the best there is, Jimmy Camp.

Candidates for CRP office have the challenge of corralling votes among a highly aware and engaged population of voters. The business of getting these votes is very much based on personal… Read More

Here are some thoughts from 30,000 feet – as I am flying up to Sacramento for a quick trip to the State Capitol…

The real “hidden tax” in the health care arena is not this number that accounts for the costs of uninsured people who nevertheless receive health care services. Oh, that is a troubling situation to be sure, and we need to figure out a way curb the ability of those who choose not to have coverage to get services for free (“free” is code for “from other taxpayers”).

The real “hidden tax” comes from what John Graham, the Director of Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute, refers to as “overinsurance.”

It is estimated that one-quarter to one-third of health care is wasted because almost nobody has the right incentives to use it wisely. Our third-party payer system takes away any incentive for patients with health care plans to be concerned with whether they “over use” their coverage. In fact, many do because there is an incentive to “get more” from their coverage.

According to Graham, this “hidden tax of… Read More