Fresno County based physician Linda Halderman weighs in on Arnold Care, on the American Thinker website.

Its a must read.… Read More

Last night, I had the opportunity to sit next to Tony and Audra Strickland at the wedding reception of a mutual friend. Tony, of course, is a former State Assemblyman and was the GOP nominee for State Controller last year. His wife, Audra, currently represents the 37th Assembly District as a member of the California legislature. The wedding was at the stately and amazing Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where there is so much history — this hotel was the epicenter for much of Los Angeles’ rich political and ‘Hollywood’ history (the Academy Awards were held there for many years back in the Golden era of motion pictures. In chatting with Tony, he shared with me that on Friday, he had opened up a campaign committee and will be seeking the Republican nomination to succeed State Senator Tom McClintock in that Ventura County-based district, that stretches up into Santa Barbara County. Needless to say, the Strickland name has become quote familiar to residents in that area, and Tony becomes the immediate front-runner. His recent run for State Controller has helped to keep his name ID ‘current’ in the minds of… Read More

There are a number of stories today about a likely scenario where a truly bi-partisan agreement* in Sacramento may lead to the California Presidential Primary being moved up to the first Tuesday in February in 2008, clearly increasing the relevance of Californians in influencing the selection of Party nominees for President and Vice President. I’ll be weighing in on this issue later in the week. Unspoken of in these stories, however, is a subtext that I have heard bantered around that by having a statewide Presidential election in February, 2008, separate from legislative elections that would still take place in June, legislators hope to take a crack at loosening California’s term limits laws, passed by the voters, which say that a legislator can serve only three terms in the Assembly, and two terms in the Senate. I can only say that the legislative placing a measure on the ballot to relax their own terms is a fools errand. Term limits are popular with the electorate, and there is simply no practical way voters are not going to see a move such as this to be anything but self serving. I guess language could be placed in the measure that says that relaxed… Read More

There are a number of stories today about a likely scenario where a truly bi-partisan agreement* in Sacramento may lead to the California Presidential Primary being moved up to the first Tuesday in February in 2008, clearly increasing the relevance of Californians in influencing the selection of Party nominees for President and Vice President. I’ll be weighing in on this issue later in the week. Unspoken of in these stories, however, is a subtext that I have heard bantered around that by having a statewide Presidential election in February, 2008, separate from legislative elections that would still take place in June, legislators hope to take a crack at loosening California’s term limits laws, passed by the voters, which say that a legislator can serve only three terms in the Assembly, and two terms in the Senate. I can only say that the legislative placing a measure on the ballot to relax their own terms is a fools errand. Term limits are popular with the electorate, and there is simply no practical way voters are not going to see a move such as this to be anything but self serving. I guess language could be placed in the measure that says that relaxed… Read More

Californian Republican National Committeeman Tim Morgan, yesterday, was elected Treasurer of the Republican National Committee. He penned this commentary from his hotel room at the Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C., and we feature it today…

This has been a bittersweet meeting of the Republican National Committee. On the one hand, we lost the election last fall and Democrats now control Congress just up the street from where we’ve been meeting. House Minority Leader, John Boehner of Ohio, on behalf of his colleagues in Republican leadership, said during the Thursday luncheon that he apologized for the Republican apostasy in forgetting the small government principles that secured our control of Congress in 1994. I was sitting with the Ohio Party Chairman and his staff who concur with Mr. Boehner’s assessment of the political situation here. … Read More

For several years now after each gubernatorial election, the UC Berkeley’s Institute for Governmental Studies hosts a post mortem seminar featuring members of the winning and losing campaign teams. This afternoon, members of the Westly, Angelides and Schwarzenegger campaign teams gathered on the Cal campus to discuss their perspectives on the ’06 primary. While there was nothing earth shattering said, there were some highlights worth sharing:

* The Wesley and Angelides staffers couldn’t make enough jokes about California’s new Democratic governor. Jude Barry, Wesley’s campaign manager, cracked, “This past year proved that it was a good year to be a Democrat. Two people proved that…Phil Angelides and Arnold Schwarzenegger."

* The animosity between the Westly and Angelides campaign teams was apparent, especially between Gary South (Westly) and Paul Maslin and Katie Merrill (Angelides). Gary South… Read More

On yesterday’s show, Rush Limbaugh commented on both John Fund’s column and a New York Times article about a Federal Appeals Court decision that invalidated a Maryland healthcare bill. Given the news, it appears Schwarzenegger’s health care plan / tax on doctors could be in some serious trouble before it ever really gets off the ground.… Read More

It would appear that the Governor is prepared to draw a line in the sand over whether the payroll and income tax increases that he proposes as part of his government-mandated healthcare proposal are, in fact, taxes!

The plan, in an of itself, is a repudiation of a lot of rhetoric that we have heard from Arnold Schwarzenegger going back to well before his election as Governor, as he has touted himself as a strong advocate of the free-market system. You can ask any of the centers of free-market thought from around the United States — the Cato Institute, the Foundation on Economic Education, the Heritage Foundation, the Reason Foundation, the Pacific Research Institute, the Claremont Foundation, and even our friends at the Wall Street Journal — I have personally spoken with or corresponded with folks from all of these bastions of free-market thought — and they are consistent with their opposition to the Governor’s proposal.

That said, the Governor apparently seems intent to refuse to allow the tax increases that would pull in billions of dollars in coerced revenue into state coffers to actually be called taxes. Governor, we have news for… Read More