The Governor has pledged to sign one of the FR ‘TWENTY WORST BILLS’ TODAY! SAY IT ISN’T SO!

The Governor has announced that today he is going to sign legislation to stiffen the regulation that the State of California imposes on businesses, large and small, mandating that they pay their employees more money.

This is a bad idea for so many reasons, but given the fact that state government finances are precariously tied to the health of the California economy, this kind of regulation is exactly what we DON’T NEED. Hiking the wage mandate on employers causes employers to have to let some employees go, and increases their costs which will lead to some businesses that are on the edge to shut down or move their operations out of the state.

Yes, it is true that if Angelides were Governor, we would be looking at the larger increase in the wage mandate, and an indexing of the wage to the rate of inflation (making it automatically increase in the future).

I will end on this sobering note:… Read More

Today Governor Schwarzenegger has an opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Times on the immigration issue, where he counsels all people who are engaged in the public debate on the illegal immigration issue to stay ‘civil’ in their discourse. I was reading through the column early this morning and would have spilled my coffee, if I had some, when I read this paragraph:

This afternoon Phil Angelides’ Campaign Manager, Cathy Calfo, fessed up on behalf of Phil Angelides that their campaign was, in fact, the source of the recorded information ‘leaked’ to the Los Angeles Times. Calfo says she neither she nor Angelides has prior knowledge that this was being done, and were not pleased. They also acknowledge that over four hours of audio recordings were downloaded from the Governor’s website, of which only six minutes has so-far been released.

You can read more detail where I found out about this, over on Dan Weintraub’s blog.

Looks like Angelides has successfully moved the media spin away from his penchant to tax everything over to his enethical behavior.

As an aside, I wonder how it feels for… Read More

Public Opinion Strategies is a nationally-recognized polling firm that specializes in political opinion research. I have known their California point-man, Steve Kinney, for many years. We have worked together on many campaigns, and I highly value his work, and his opinion. So when I heard that POS had just completed a survey that included questions on race for State Controller, I gave him a call right away. You see, there could not be a more stark contrast between two candidates than we have with Republican Tony Strickland (pictured to the left) and Democrat John Chiang (pictured below). The office of the Controller has a lot of important responsibilities, and based on the gerrymander of the four Board of Equalization districts (two are solid Dem, two are GOP), whomever is the occupant of the Controller’s office will be the deciding… Read More

That’s right. In one week we will see if voters in Rosemead will recall the last part of the council majority that voted to allow Wal-Mart to come to the city. See past posts about lawsuits and the recall here.

To their credit, Wal-Mart has stepped up to the plate and spentover $200,000 to protect those that voted for it. That is a lot of profit from toliet paper. But with union and leftist attacks on Wal-Mart increasing they have to go to bat for those willing to allow them to compete. See article here.The San Gabriel Valley Tribune today also editorialized against the recall. They rightly pint out that this development brings much needed sales tax revenue and shopping access to Rosemead. By the way ,over 35% of employees will be Rosemead residents. (Hope Wal-Mart supporters registered them to vote). See editorial here.

Of course, the Wal-Mart grand opening is any day now.… Read More

Tax, Spend, and Make Way for Speaker Pelosi

If serving up a platter of pork is how Republicans expect to win back their voters in the weeks ahead, they might as well hand over the gavel to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid right now. The half-trillion dollar budget bloat of the last five years is precisely what has placed the GOP majorities in the House and Senate in mortal danger. Tom Feeney, the second-term Republican House member from Florida, recently told us: "Sometimes I think we’d be better off with those old headlines reading ‘Republicans Attempt to Cut Federal Programs for Widows, Orphans and Grandmothers.’"

He was only half joking. Republicans are at risk of losing the House and Senate in no small part because of the untrammeled spending spree. Since 2001 the federal budget has risen by $750 billion. The increase over the… Read More

If yesterday’s post wasn’t enough…

I received an email from a reader as follows:

I’m not yet decided on the airport issue, but it is persuasive that all of the region’s delegation is against the proposal.I really wonder if the argument that somehow not having the Marine Air Station here weakens national defense is really sound. The presupposition is that to relocate the base would therefore weaken us as a country, and I just find that a "stretch" of logic. Arguments that it might be expensive to relocate the base, or that we might be negatively impacted by the loss of this government facility may be sound, but that our national defense posture would suffer is just not convincing.

It just seems to me that the real issue is who needs the location the most, assuming that the existing airport will not meet our needs indefinitely. It’s a very complex matter with lots of considerations that "cut both ways." I just sincerely question the national defense argument.… Read More

We met last week to consider local races, candidates and issues, as well as the Propositions scheduled for November.

The most significant news from our meeting is the strident opposition to all of the bond measures appearing on the Statewide ballot. The votes weren’t even close. Review our ballot endorsements here. And we will actively campaign against the bonds. I plan on actively mentioning my opposition at every public opportunity.… Read More