PAY-AS-YOU-GO: GREAT IDEA! Today, at 11am, Assembly Republicans will release the details on a new "pay-as-you-go" infrastructure proposal, which is summarized today in the lead piece on the FlashReport – and exclusive column from Assembly Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (pictured to the right). This plan, which McCarthy’s staff says has been blessed by Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, represents a major effort by legislative Republicans to fund infrastructure projects in each budget, rather than relying exclusively on a ‘max out the state credit card’ approach to borrowing as much as possible. This proposal just makes the dynamic in the Capitol that much more confusing. The Governor has proposed and aggressive borrowing plan, the lynchpin of while is a massive $68,000,000,000.00 ($68 billion) general obligation bond package to go to voters. Some Democrats (unbelievably) has said… Read More

PAY-AS-YOU-GO: GREAT IDEA! Today, at 11am, Assembly Republicans will release the details on a new "pay-as-you-go" infrastructure proposal, which is summarized today in the lead piece on the FlashReport – and exclusive column from Assembly Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (pictured to the right). This plan, which McCarthy’s staff says has been blessed by Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, represents a major effort by legislative Republicans to fund infrastructure projects in each budget, rather than relying exclusively on a ‘max out the state credit card’ approach to borrowing as much as possible. This proposal just makes the dynamic in the Capitol that much more confusing. The Governor has proposed and aggressive borrowing plan, the lynchpin of while is a massive $68,000,000,000.00 ($68 billion) general obligation bond package to go to voters. Some Democrats (unbelievably) has said… Read More

The ACLU announced Tuesday that a New Jersey boy has been granted the right to wear skirts to school in protest of his high school’s "no-shorts" policy.

This wasin no small part thanks to intervention by the ACLU. The 17-year-old had been sent home for wearing shorts on the first day of school in October. The reason he was wearing shorts because one of his legs had been injured and in a brace during the summer. One articlepoints out that the student, Michael Coviello, "(has) been on the school’s mock trial team for four years," (hint: ‘future lawyer’), "…sings in the choir, plays the drums in the school band and is a member of the golf team." As if those activities somehow prove the kid to be macho. Actually, the article was trying to make the point that Coviello isnot normally rebellious. Yeah, right.

Anyway, the brouhaha apparently could have been avoided if the school had just used the… Read More

GOP Congressman Howard "Buck" McKeon (Santa Clarita) represents the 25th District that includes portions of LosAngeles andSan Bernardino Counties (okay its has Mono and Inyo too.) McKeonhas joined Congressman Dan Lungren as a signer of the petition to have elections for several House leadership positions. He was one the signers released publicly by supporters of the vote that could change many House leadership positions and becomes the second California Congressman associated with this possible overthrow of leadership. See the story here.

Supporters of a shake-up in leadership say they have 30 of the 50 votes needed to force a meeting. McKeon is on the Armed Services Committee and is senior member of the House Education and Workforce Committee. He isn’t your normal rabble-rouser and his support for a vote shows thatleadership has some problems. You can see FR Publisher Jon Fleischman’s commentary on the topic here.

Will there be athird Congressman… Read More

Everyone knows that Kevin McCarthy’s political machine includes the Abernathy’s and Western Political Research. What most people have forgotten is that ten years ago these very same people helped Willie Brown keep power by helping Republican puppets, Doris Allen and Brian Setenich. These consultants should be banned from party services not raking in money because they are connected to the GOP Miniority leader. See the whole post here.

Not thatMcCarthy is trying that hard to recruit candidates for a GOP Majority now. See my previous post here.… Read More

Now that we have the comment feature active, I will be posting an intro to all of our featured columns on the blog so that readers can comment…

FEES v. TAXES: MORE THAN AN ACADEMIC DEBATE by Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assocation Among tax experts and policy wonks, there has always been a debate about what constitutes a “fee” as opposed to a “tax.” The general public might have some vague notion of a difference between the two but, more times than not, they just don’t care. If a citizen pays a $10 “fee” for something, that $10 has left his or her wallet just as surely as if they had paid a $10 tax. … Read More

When Gavin Newsom was running for mayor, he was criticized by the left for being too pro-business. After his gay marriage stunt, you don’t hear the lefties criticize the mayor much…until this week. Newsom vetoed an anti-landlord bill sponsored by Supervisor Chris Daly last Friday afternoon, before leaving for an international trip. The bill would have required property owners to disclose evictions of disabled or elderly tenants to at showings and open houses. Newsom supported an amendment which would have required sellers to notify serious buyers that a disabled or elderly tenant was evicted in order to sell the property (which in itself is a silly law), but the Board refused to change the measure.

Newsom’s staff has said that he also will veto another Daly-sponsored bill which would require property owners to appear before the Planning Commission before being allowed to… Read More

HOUSE REPUBLICANS GET AN "F" – BUT THERE IS A CHANCE TO IMPROVE This morning, in the wee hours, I read a column from Sacramento Area Congressman Dan Lungren, in which he feels that there should be a new election for all of the GOP leadership, from Speaker on down. But from reading the first paragraph of his column, I’m not sure he wants to do this for the right reasons. You see, the second sentence says it all:

Lungren, who is ‘back’ in Congress, re-elected after being out of the House for over a decade, should have an outsider’s perspective – I guess… Read More