Once I was pulling into the parking lot of a state regulatory agency and I spotted a bumper sticker on a car that read: Visualize Industrial Collapse. I don’t know if the car belonged to an employee or to an activist-type who was visiting the agency, but the image made an impression on me in that it didn’t really matter whose sticker it was. What occurred to me was that the most extreme believers in any cause tend to have the tenacity to push harder than the rest of us, and over time that means they get results. Case in point, our infamous left wing, gerrymandered legislature and its beloved cause du jour, global warming.

Assembly Bill 32, currently being considered in the waning days of session in the State Senate (you can lookup and read the bill here), would establish caps on "greenhouse" emissions in the state. Yet if you read the legislature’s own analysis of the bill, they have no idea what the caps are going to be and what the economic impacts will be (maybe they don’t care). The bill would create a new, unaccountable state bureaucracy to… Read More

When I received a call today, letting me know that the Governor had signed SB 1441, I was stunned. I don’t think that I could have summed up my feeling better than what Mike Der Manouel says below.

I called Karen England with the Capitol Resource Institute, who has been a point person for conservatives, keeping an eye on this legislation. I asked Karen if she would pen something for FR readers to help everyone understand exactly what Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law.

Mike Spence’s note below, where he talks about how every single GOPer in the State Assembly (conservative and moderate alike) voted against this bill, was very sobering. I cannot express my disappointment in this bill-signing…

Here’s Karen’s piece… What the Founding Fathers Gave, Arnold Takes Away…… Read More

**Update 9:40am — I received a voicemail from Senator Tom Harmon’s District Director who informed me that the Senator is not a co-author of the bill, and does NOT support it. So my earlier intel was not correct, and I want to get this out there. Maybe someone out there can send me an official list of legislators authoring/co-authoring AB 523 and we can get that information out there, too.

THE 2006 LEGISLATIVE GOLDEN TRASHCAN AWARD GOES TO… The final days of the 2006 legislative session are upon us, with hundreds of pieces of questionable legislation being negotiated and bartered about as the days turn to hours before no more bills can be passed on to the Governor. This year, the FlashReport is awarding its Golden TrashCan Award to Assembly Bill 523, that would change California State Law to allow… Read More

Referencing Nicholas Romero’s great post below, I am personally glad to know that my own assemblymember did not sign on to the Save Pluto bandrocket (same guy that refused to co-author a reso for Bob Dylan’s birthday a few years ago…yes, there is a connection, if you grasp at straws).

To be sure, those that did join this noble cause du-jour likely believe themselves to be "tradtional," in the sense that they grew up with planet Pluto in their science books, so what was good for them should be sacred for our kids. We’d hate for our children to be led astray by some "Anti-Pluto Agenda" in the schools, in which a lack of traditional planet values forces them into a life of universal unrest.

Or, on the other hand, if you read the Pluto reso, you may see that it is written with the same mockery of those who would be "psychologically" impacted or offended by having to drive by a latin cross everyday.

Yes, fortunately, it is the other hand….this is a joke, a nuanced jab at the Dems.

Be that as it may, if you really want to… Read More

Luce and Hunter will not be forgotten…. The GOP, the San Diego Community and the nation lost two Republican icons this past week with the deaths of Gordon Luce on Monday and R.O. Hunter yesterday.

A civic powerhouse, bank executive Luce served as a cabinet member in Governor Ronald Reagan’s administration and as State Party Chairman in 1974. He headed Great American Bank for 21 years, instrumental in the growth and development of San Diego.

Mr. Hunter in recent years was known by many as Congressman Duncan Hunter’s father.Yet, it was the elder Hunter that once "retired" to give a year of his life free-of-charge to the national GOP, assisting in the developmentofprecinct and outreach programs. A WWII Marine veteran, he was also regarded as the mastermind behind son Duncan’s 1980 upset defeat of Congressman Lionel Van Deerlin in what was regarded a safe Democratic seat.

My deep regrets are extended to the Luce and Hunter… Read More

Reports of Wednesday’s blow up on the Assembly floor over still more domestic partnership legislation has further lionized members like Dennis Mountjoy and Jay La Suer — with conservatives, at least — while demonizing them with the left.Thursday’s SDUT story has La Suer calling the debated bill a “part of the homosexual agenda.”

Not surprisingly, his office has received a few phone calls as a result. Some of those callers are demanding to know if La Suer’s staff has a copy of the Homosexual Agenda. Realizing they were going to get nowhere with a rational answer, Jay’s trusty staff started telling callers they didn’t have a hardbound copy.

I think the appropriate answer might be, "No we don’t, but would you like to see my official Vast Right Wing Conspiracy membership card?"

For the record, calls and emails to La Suer’s office are tallying at least 4-1 in… Read More

Mike Sprague the able political writer for the Whittier Daily News and San Gabriel Valley Tribune pens his Saturday political column. The column is important beacuse it mentions me and the infamous Bill Leonard moment at the CRP Convention and FR’s Winners and Losers column. See here.… Read More

THE 2006 LEGISLATIVE GOLDEN TRASHCAN AWARD GOES TO… The final days of the 2006 legislative session are upon us, with hundreds of pieces of questionable legislation being negotiated and bartered about as the days turn to hours before no more bills can be passed on to the Governor. This year, the FlashReport is awarding its Golden TrashCan Award to Assembly Bill 523, that would change California State Law to allow the scheme of a former Orange County Congressman to come true — subsidizing a public television station with a de facto gift of millions of dollars – at the expense many thousands of Community College students…

STORY OF AN ORANGE COUNTY SCANDAL …A FOUNDATION WANTS THE TAX PAYERS TO SUBSIDIZE THEIR PURCHASE OF A TV… Read More