At the direction of the San Francisco Democratic Central Committee, and following in the footsteps of the Santa Cruz City Council, the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors is poised to pass a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. Read the Matier-Ross column on this here or read the resolution for yourself by clicking here (Item #44).

Left-wing supervisor Chris Daly cheerfully told the Chronicle that he was “just being a good Democrat” by introducing the resolution. Look for other liberal cities to follow suit (the city council of … Read More

I want to give a FlashReport ‘shout-out’ to my newly elected Congressman John Campbell. Campbell won the recent special election in the 47th District in Orange County. He replaced long-time Representative Chris Cox, who was tapped by the President as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Campbell will be a great Congressman, and he is off to a running start with the announcement that he has been appointed, as a freshman, to two key House Committees – the Budget Committee and the Financial Services Committee (and also to the lesser heralded Veterans’ Affairs Committee).

Of course, our first counsel to the newly minted Congressman would be to use his position on the budget committee to ferret our earmarks, pork projects, and seek to REDUCE entitlement spending, and shrink the size of the federal budget, returning control ($$$) back to the people. Well, this is preaching to the choir with Campbell. He’s a great conservative!… Read More

Yes, that’sright the Governor has appointed another Republican to the Los Angeles Superior Court. He also appointed a deputy DA who is decline to state. See the press relese here.Some newer readers may wonder why this is such a news item. These appointments makethe unofficialscore for judges 17 Dems, 9 Republicans and two decline to state types. See my previous post here.I suppose this is considered progress, but why do Republicans have to beg a Republican Governor to appoint Republicans?… Read More

The CATO Institute seeks to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace. Toward that goal, the Institute strives to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, concerned lay public in questions of policy and the proper role of government.

As CATO’s Director of Tax Policy Studies, Chris Edwards is a top expert on federal and state/local tax and budget issues. Edwards has penned a column entitled, "Busting the State Tax-Revenue Boom."

His piece is centered around the fact that when times are good, and state revenues are on the rise, state budgets grow. But then it becomes increasingly difficult for state’s to… Read More

My day-job is in media relations for the Sheriff’s Department in Orange County. I was working very late last night at our county’s Emergency Operations Center as we are battling some large wildfires in the eastern canyons of our county. Hence the late update of the homepage this morning.

You can read more about the fires here.

That said, I don’t have time to pen a commentary today, though I will give a quick ‘shout out’ to Republican State Senator Bob Dutton. He and I were speaking recently, and he was expressing his extreme frustration with the proposal to hike by $1 and hour the minimum wage mandate on California businesses. After our discussion, he sent me a column he has written on the subject, which is featured on the… Read More

My day-job is in media relations for the Sheriff’s Department in Orange County. I was working very late last night at our county’s Emergency Operations Center as we are battling some large wildfires in the eastern canyons of our county. Hence the late update of the homepage this morning.

You can read more about the fires here.

That said, I don’t have time to pen a commentary today, though I will give a quick ‘shout out’ to Republican State Senator Bob Dutton. He and I were speaking recently, and he was expressing his extreme frustration with the proposal to hike by $1 and hour the minimum wage mandate on California businesses. After our discussion, he sent me a column he has written on the subject, which is featured on the… Read More

Susan Hartley and John Witt are amazing. I don’t even know them, and since 95% of FR readers don’t hail from San Diego County, you probably don’t either. As a matter of fact, if you are from San Diego, you might not know that these are two GOP members of the County Board of Education. That said, they have, at best, betrayed their own political party by voting with a Democrat colleague to install a Democrat onto the County Board of Education. At worst, they may have violated state law in doing so… Let me explain…

I received a phone call last night from San Diego FR correspondent Barry Jantz just before 6 p.m. saying that current La Mesa-Spring Valley School Trustee Sharon Jones would be appointed to the vacancy on the San Diego County Board of Education. (As you know, Jantz has been covering the vacancy created by Ernie Dronenburg’s resignation extensively on the FR.) He indicated that the vote would be 3-1, that Bob Watkins would be in the minority, and that if he were wrong, he would eat his hat, take a photo of him doing so, and post it here.

About an hour and a half later, at… Read More

When I moved to the Bay Area in 2000, I was amused to have Governor Moonbeam as my mayor. At election time, I was suprised to find myself voting for the guy because Jerry Brown actually was the more mainstream of the two candidates (that’s mainstream for the Bay Area–both candidates loudly proclaimed their vegetarianism during the 2002 race).

With Brown termed out of office, it looked like City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente was going to be elected Oakland’s new mayor in 2006. De La Fuente has been madly holding neighborhood coffee klatches around the city and many people I know, even the few Republicans around here, have given him good marks after meeting him. The multiple rape charges against his grown son do pose a problem, but it is likely that voters may not hold the father accountable for the son’s sins.

But De La Fuente’s easy mayoral race got tougher when former… Read More