Club for Growth has a post today on their blog about Brian Bilbray’s about face on the issue on congressional earmarks. They point out what he said in the campaign and his FOUR votes againt ammendments proposed to curtail congressional pork. See post here.

One of the reasons CRA opposed Bilbray in the primary was his past history as a congressman. Despite the many assurances that things would change they didn’t. Business as usual

Bilbray wasn’t alone in continuing these congressional practices. Only Dan Lungren voted for a couple of the ammendments. The rest of the GOP delegation voted four times to protect secret earmarks and pork spending projects. Then they all voted for a bill that had 1500 earmarks.

When Democrats were in power, the GOP stood as the check on uncontrolled wasteful spending. But who will check the GOP???… Read More

The state constitution requires that the legislature pass a budget by June 15, which is today. Will our well-paid, full-time legislature fulfill to its constitutional duty? Not according to the Democrat’s fearless leader, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. What’s holding up the budget? According to Nunez, it’s the Republicans’ darned obsession with illegal immigration. The Assembly Reps have said that they won’t vote for the Democrats’ effort to expand the state-funded children’s health programs to include illegal immigrant children.

In the Governor’s revised budget proposal, he added an additional $23 million in general funds and personnel to expand coverage to 24,000 uninsured children of the working poor. According to the Assembly Republican Caucus, the Democrats, in negotiations leading up to a legislative vote, expanded the Healthy Families program to cover illegal immigrants and families of four with annual incomes of about… Read More

Well, we just adjourned a bit ago, losing a chance to make some positive history, passing the budget by the true constititional deadline.

The June 15 constitutional deadline will expire at midnight on the $100,000,000,000.00+ California State Budget proposal with no actionover onthe Senate floor or on our side on the Assembly floor. The sticking points being cutting back over a billion in late spending additions and the inclusion of $24 million for health care benefits for children of illegal immigrants…the latter being a huge philosophicalproblem for Republicans and a non-starter for pretty much any Republican support of a budget proposal with such funding in it.

The trouble is both sides know that the 2/3’s vote required to pass the budget won’t happen with that in there. Potentially, it could’ve been on time without this game being played but the mentality is that the effective deadline is really June 30 as after that,people, state employees, contractors with the state, start not to be paid on July 1 and the complaining then moves the legislature to act.

The fight over the illegal immigrant children… Read More

There are those in politics that rely on polling data and those that rely on instinct and the "feel" of the electorate. I don’t think its a stretch at all to say that the situation for Republicans in general is beginning to "feel" like an improving trend. Of course, we had nowhere to go but up. It’s nice to see the downward slide stop for now.

It all starts in Washington, where the mood of the electorate is set by whether or not we see leadership. The electorate has been very, very dour as of late, butthe President has had his best week in a year and one senses he might be on a small roll right now. Although the basic competency of Congress has not changed, and it is still light years from solving any major problems facing the country domestically, the overall situation seems stable for now. The President’s improving polling numbers validate the "feel" of the current situation.

Here at home, many of the components of a re-election for Arnold Schwarzenegger are in place. He has the opponent he wants, a hardcore liberal who wants to raise taxes, sign job killing legislation and pursue policies that… Read More

There are those in politics that rely on polling data and those that rely on instinct and the "feel" of the electorate. I don’t think its a stretch at all to say that the situation for Republicans in general is beginning to "feel" like an improving trend. Of course, we had nowhere to go but up. It’s nice to see the downward slide stop for now.

It all starts in Washington, where the mood of the electorate is set by whether or not we see leadership. The electorate has been very, very dour as of late, butthe President has had his best week in a year and one senses he might be on a small roll right now. Although the basic competency of Congress has not changed, and it is still light years from solving any major problems facing the country domestically, the overall situation seems stable for now. The President’s improving polling numbers validate the "feel" of the current situation.

Here at home, many of the components of a re-election for Arnold Schwarzenegger are in place. He has the opponent he wants, a hardcore liberal who wants to raise taxes, sign job killing legislation and pursue policies that… Read More

Tonight was the must-attend OC Republican Party Annual Flag Day Dinner fund raiser. Tonight’s event was bigger than ever–over 1100 attendees. The dinner also raised about $400,000 for the County Party.

Governor Schwarzenegger was the keynote speaker. He did a good job. He told some funny stories and worked the crowd–two things he has always been good at. He mostly avoided talk about present day public policy issues–a smart move on the part of his staff.

Then came the red meat–talk show host and syndicated columnist Dennis Prager kept the entire crowd in their seats and silent (except for applause) for a 45-minute passionate speech about conservatives vs. liberals and he explained the meaning behind so many things in the news today. At almost any event, especially political dinners the crowd thins as the hour gets later. Not tonight–every one of the 1000+ attendees were eyes front and listening to every word Prager said.

All the statewide GOP nominees (except for McClintock) were in attendance as were most of Orange County’s legislators.… Read More

Willie Brown on Angelides (in today’s Sac Bee):

“…Phil is a smart guy. But he doesn’t look good on TV and doesn’t sound good on radio. They need to keep him in places like Dinuba and Chico, where they don’t have modern communications with the rest of the state and no one can see or hear him."

Phil Angelides campaign button: $1.40 "Phil Angelides for Governor" water bottle: $9.17 "Phil Angelides for Governor" hoodie: $56.07 Willie Brown’s campaign advice for the Angelides campaign: priceless!… Read More

Here are some thoughts that came to mind as I packed this morning for my vacation:

If I were a poor or homeless person in San Francisco, perhaps now would be the time for me to be upset with the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. After all, the Board has helped to make The City a Mecca for those seeking to live on government assistance by their extraordinary efforts to redistribute wealth. Their latest? Now they have voted to set aside $2 million to fight the effects of the potential efforts to crack-down on the nation’s criminal alien problem. What kind of a welfare state do we live in when the homeless nationals of other countries soak up all of redistributed wealth? Last night at the OC GOP’s Annual Flag Day Dinner, commentator Dennis Prager pointed out that one of the problems that we have is that the left in America is unprepared to call the phenomenon of Islamo-fascism evil. Prager pointed … Read More