Speaking of shooting, not that anyone was, veteran North County consultant Jack Orr fired off this interesting missive to media outlets, entitled "Oceanside: The gang that can’t seem to shoot straight"…

Just when you thought Oceanside politics couldn’t get any goofier, the Mayor and two members of the Oceanside City Council (Wood, Sanchez and Mackin) are proposing a Lobbyist Registration and Reporting Ordinance.

That’s O.K., in principle, but unfortunately the ordinance is inspired by Mayor Jim Wood’s irrational and intense dislike and/or distrust of lobbyists in general, and of me especially. I might add that the Mayor seems to hold the news media in low regard as well. Consider the section of the ordinance which seems to exclude members of the news media:

In addition to excluding public employee labor union lobbyists from registration and reporting requirements, Sec. 16C.6 (b) provides the following so called exclusion for the news media:

"Any newspaper or other periodical of general circulation, book publisher, radio or television station (including… Read More

The Fresno Bee has started a new blog here which I encourage those reading this column to look at. In its post yesterday, the blog referred to a potential challenge to local Congressman George Radanovich from a presumably wealthy challenger on the Democrat side. I have long opined that Radanovich as well as other California incumbents are safe from Democrat challengers but that taken as a whole, the House may be up for grabs due to inaction on illegal immigration, and profligate spending that would make Democrats blush. But I have never opined that GOP incumbents are safe from strong primary challengers, because many of them are not safe. If a wealthy Republican threw $2 million into a race against any GOP incumbent it would be far more interesting than a race against a Democrat… Read More

RICHARD POMBO: A REAL HERO You never know what you are going to find as you sift through almost 50 websites early each morning – that’s a big part of the fun of putting together the main page of the FlashReport each morning. Will it be a crisis? A scandal? A major piece of breaking news? Well, today I was extremely pleased to see a major profile in the San Diego Union Tribune of one of California’s greatest assets, Congressman Richard Pombo, who hails from the Stockton area. I’ve known Richard Pombo since he was ‘just’ a rancher, with his modest 500 acre spread in Tracy. Pombo is just the kind of politician that you would expect a conservative like me to really like. With the strongest foundations possible — his faith and his great family — Pombo went off to Washington to try and make a difference. His commitment to voters was straight from his conscience and… Read More

RICHARD POMBO: A REAL HERO You never know what you are going to find as you sift through almost 50 websites early each morning – that’s a big part of the fun of putting together the main page of the FlashReport each morning. Will it be a crisis? A scandal? A major piece of breaking news? Well, today I was extremely pleased to see a major profile in the San Diego Union Tribune of one of California’s greatest assets, Congressman Richard Pombo, who hails from the Stockton area. I’ve known Richard Pombo since he was ‘just’ a rancher, with his modest 500 acre spread in Tracy. Pombo is just the kind of politician that you would expect a conservative like me to really like. With the strongest foundations possible — his faith and his great family — Pombo went off to Washington to try and make a difference. His commitment to voters was straight from his conscience and… Read More

On Friday, the Governor appointed three new Judges in Los Angeles County. As part of our effort to look a the Governor’s appointments with an eye on the partisan registration, here they are (the original release is here):

Thomas T. Lewis, 56, of Thousand Oaks, has practiced family law as a partner with the law firm of Rehwald, Rameson, Lewis & Glasner since 1984. He was previously an attorney with the law firms of Rehwald, Rameson & Smith from 1980 to 1984 and Freeman & Freeman from 1978 to 1980. Lewis has also served as a judge pro tem for the Los… Read More

I am sick to my stomach this morning, reading the stories that detail the actions of former Congressman Duke Cunningham.

When he first resigned as news came out about how he had used his office for personal gain, I made my opinion on this very clear. After all, like so many others, I had walked precincts for Cunningham and gotten to know him. During my many years of being a volunteer leader in conservative and Republican politics, I had always been proud that we had a decorated veteran, and a conservative stalwart like "Duke" in Congress. Anyone involved or interested in public policy or politics needs to read these articles today. It is overwhelming that one person can have combined so much greed with so little ethical standards. We’re talking millions. We’re talking about handwritten memos detailing how much personal take the Congressman would need to award government… Read More

For those who do not know, after my interest in politics, two other areas of passion for me include travel and wine. I consider myself to be a wine ‘enthusiast’ — having a modest collection of my own. I’ve been a member of the Free the Grapes organization for many years. These are the folks fighting make sure that all Americans, regardless of which state they call home, have the ability to order wine directly from wineries and wine producers. You see, going back to the days of Prohibition, there are a lot of states that have prohibitions on the direct-shipping of wine to consumers or to businesses. Many states have what they call a ‘3-Tier’ shipping system, which means that states require wine shipments to go through a distributor, and then on to the consumer. This is an antiquated system that is really government regulation that forces wine consumers to spend more on their wines, as this… Read More

According to the Alliance of Western Milk Producers, Governor Schwarzenegger has asked dairyman Dennis Leonardi to resign his position on the Northern California Water Resources Board because he sells his milk to Humboldt Creamery, which has a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NDPES) permit. There is a state law disallows any board member from receiving more than 10% of their income from an organization that holds an NPDES. Leonardi’s business does not hold the permit–the creamery he sells his milk to holds the permit. I do not believe that this is a new law that was enacted after Leonardi was appointed so the question is: what changed between when Leonardi was appointed and now? The Alliance, which calls this situation a "travesty," believes that the governor’s office is interpreting the law too… Read More