Orange County has given birth to and/or nurtured its share of people and organizations that have powerfully impacted the Republican Party — for good or ill.

Richard Nixon was born here, and Ronald Reagan’s political home base was here.

The state’s two leading GOP groups — the Lincoln Club of Orange County and the New Majority — also originated here.

**There is more – click the link**

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Last week, not much work done in the Assembly, both Mondayand Thursday floor sessions canceled.Committees did meet and more needed, quality legislation…cough…was sent onits merry way to its next committee. Budget talks started to de-ice though not enough to make it happen substantively last week.

With the apparent progress onremoving of budget $ going to health care benefits for the childrenof illegal immigrants [another reward for those that break and enter our sovereign nation’s ‘property line’], we can hope for the budget to start to wrap with the constitutional deadline of the 15th long gone,perhaps the ‘fiscal deadline’ of the 30th can be met…as long as Republican principles are met in this process. These werestated very well by Jennifer Nelson in her Budget Priority post previously on the 21st: -Drop this new inappropriate expansion of government of illegal immy health benefits from this budget proposal -Pay down debt with this one-time windfall ‘surplus’ money, [first, in my opinion, preferably to repay $ filched from the voter passed Prop 42 Trans fund…eliminate… Read More

San Francisco’s pending city budget is a great illustration of the Democrat’s priorities, both at the local and state level. Who are the the biggest winners in the new city budget? The public employee union, of course!

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, salaries and benefits for city employee will get a whopping 10.6 percent increase. City jobs will grow by 2 percent, up 646 jobs.

But the places that will get the new positions tell the real story. Take a look at the true winners in this budget:

— Municipal Transportation Agency: 157.15 — Public Health Department: 128.48 — Public Utilities Commission: 75.5 — Human Services Agency: 60.5 — General Services Agency – City Administration: 45.13 — General Services Agency — Public Works: 31.5 — Police: 18 — General Services Agency — Telecommunications & Information Services: 17.34 — Airport: 14.5 — District Attorney: 10 — Trial Courts: 10.6 —… Read More

There’s an intriguing scandal on low boil in the orderly City of Irvine, involving the city’s sister program, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, the Shanghai Communique and possible Communist Chinese investment in Irvine’s Great Park.

Yep — never a dull moment in that dull city’s politics.

I’ll try to make this long, twisted tale short — readers can fill in the blanks with my generous servings of hyperlinks.

Irvine Mayor Beth Krom — who is apparently the only person in Orange County unaware she is a pawn of liberal Irvine Councilmen/Evil Genius Larry Agran — went to Communist China along with another councilman and an Irvine staffer, Valeire Larenne, whose job it is to tend to sister city stuff. The purpose was to cement a sister city arrangement with a Shanghai suburb called Xuhui.

Now, Irvine has had a… Read More

Considering I started my vacation yesterday, let me start by saying this installment of Sunday San Diego will be relatively brief. With that said, if anyone besides fellow FR correspondent Joe Justin can reference my chosen blog title today to anything other than the fact I am penning a short entry while gone, please email me here. I’ll note the correct guessers in a future Sunday San Diego.

Well okay then, here are a few comments about – and links to – some SD news tidbits of note in the last week…

CityBeat’s Dave Rolland does about 30,000 column inches on Aguirre… As if San Diego City Attorney Big Mike needs the press. Be that as it may, Rolland of the left-wing San Diego CityBeat does a fairly impressive, extensive interview with Aguirre. You know the writers at CB think they’re all modern day, alt-journies, especiallywith questions such as this posed to their subjects:

"In the classic Greek sense of the term, loosely defined, a tragic figure is… Read More

I don’t think most observers would disagree that the re-election of Governor Schwarzeneggeris important to the Republican Party in California. While I generally think of him more often than not as a populist rather than a straight partisan, and regularly disagree with some of his decisions, more often than not he acts as a bulwark against the anti-business interests which dominate both houses of the California legislature.

While it’s often more exciting and certainly more emotional to discuss Sacramento’s actions on issues like gay marriage, or illegal immigration, or getting rid of Indian names in local sports teams, the truth of the matter is that give or take 98% of the legislation that works its way through the legislature is business related, education related, or purely symbolic or honorary rubbish. Generally, as soon as this Governor was elected, much of the most crazed left-wing anti-business bills stopped being written, or started perishing in committee. This is not to say that some bad bills did not make it through the process, and that he didn’t even sign some of them into law, but the raw flood of anti-business legislation that I… Read More

I think most observers would agree that the re-election of Governor Schwarzeneggeris important to the Republican Party in California. While I generally think of him more often than not as a populist rather than a straight partisan, and regularly disagree with some of his decisions, more often than not he acts as a bulwark against the anti-business interests which dominate both houses of the California legislature.

While it’s often more exciting and certainly more emotional to discuss Sacramento’s actions on issues like gay marriage, or illegal immigration, or getting rid of Indian names in local sports teams, the truth of the matter is that give or take 98% of the legislation that works its way through the legislature is business related, education related, or purely symbolic or honorary rubbish. Generally, as soon as this Governor was elected, much of the most crazed left-wing anti-business bills stopped being written, or started perishing in committee. This is not to say that some bad bills did not make it through the process, and that he didn’t even sign some of them into law, but the raw flood of anti-business legislation that I experienced in… Read More

It’s been one year since the Supreme Court’s infamous Kelo decision, and it looks to be about one week until we have certification of the million signatures submitted in California to qualify our own November “court hearing” on the matter.

The signatures are coming in at about 79% valid, according to Assemblywoman Mimi Walters’ office, signaling a nice cushion over the nearly 600,000 needed for qualification.

Walters, of course, as a first-term Orange County legislator, had the smarts to become the honorary chair of the Protect Our Homes Initiative, California’s response to the Supreme’s astounding decision to tell all of us that government knows better than we what is best for our property. Heading up an effort, by the way, that raises $2.2 million and garners a million signers in 100 days will do something for a career, more so than the stature a few pieces of legislation will… Read More