During a news conference yesterday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in discussing the GOP’s unhappiness with the left-wing Democrat activist the governor has chosen as his chief of staff, asked his party faithful to not judge him by his hires, but by his actions.

Here is the problem. Schwarzenegger cannot and will not be aware of every decision Ms. Kennedy will make in his name. She will take action, on his behalf, that will not reflect the principles for which people elected him. This is a woman who has been a true-believer and a party activist for the other side. Susan Kennedy may have made big business happy during her term on the PUC and she may be smart as a whip, but in the end, she is a die-hard, committed liberal.… Read More

Yes kids, we face, as conservatives, a mortal onslaught of horrendous ballot initiatives in the next year, led by the ridiculous “Universal Preschool” initiative this June. But looming in the background, and with a much larger scope and impact, is a property tax initiative sponsored by super rich Silicon Valley leaders, to raise property taxes on everyone in the State. Shrouded under the cloak of fail a safe “education” and “child friendly” ballot title, (we should sue the sox off of the Attorney General to have this farce changed), the proposal would solve a problem that doesn’t exist – a mythical shortage of funding for public schools. You can read an informative article by Jon Coupal on the subject at http://www.hjta.org/HJTACalCommentaryV3-50.pdf.

Batten down the hatches mates, the pirates are coming to loot and pillage once more!… Read More

In this blog and other news sources, there is an ongoing dialog about which GOP legislators are conservative or moderate or liberal. I think it might be instructive to take an actual look at the recently released 2005 California Republican Assembly Scorecard. I write this because I took the time today to actually read the votes that the legislators are judged on for the card. The votes pretty fairly expresses a range of "conservative" fiscal and social issues, including minimum wage hikes, 2nd Amendment questions, gay marriage, taxes, illegal immigration, and the budget.

And after reading this, and looking at the votes and scores of our legislative delegation, it can be pretty fairly concluded the the Republican Senate and Assembly delegation are as a whole pretty conservative. Basically a 94% vote means the legislator disagreed with the CRA position once – and usually that was on the somewhat unusual issue of spaying/neutering of dogs. I… Read More

[Publishers note to Mike, and to the other contrubutors – I agree with everything in this post, but our mantra here on the FlashReport website is, "ALL California politics, ALL of the time." This post, of of course, is more about international politics. I won’t delete the post as I don’t operate that way, but to my team – please remember that we have a focus on this website. Of course, when Mike talks about ‘peace through capitulation’ below, I pray for our Governor to have the strength to continue to fend off Democrat attempts to grow government, through higher taxes or bonded indebtedness. – Flash]

Liberals, who know less about democratic government than anyone I know, continually sneer at the US’s attempts to export democracy around the globe. They want to achieve piece through capitulation, which has never worked in the history of mankind. The following account of the Iraqi election should make all real Americans proud.

By JAMES TARANTO

Ho Hum, an Election We were up late last night, and just after 1 a.m. EST we… Read More

Some claim that although the City of San Diego and its politicians are in the headlines oft of late, and even sometimes the butt of late-nite TV jokes, that most of the city’s businesses and citizens are not impacted by their government’s sorry state.

Far more say the opposite, that the woes of municipal gummint are indeed negatively impacting business, which in turn is resulting in less tax revenue for the city. Downward spiral.

In yesterday’s Voice of San Diego, retired CEO Gary Sutton weighs in, penning "Jobs Aren’t Leaving SD? Right…" Read it here.

Former mayoral candidate and government watchdog Richard Rider says this of the article:

(It is ) an excellent article on the City ofSan Diego’s declining health. Not just the city government’s deteriorating services and fiscal meltdown, but as a center ofcommerce. San Diego midsize businesses either die or leave town.

Perhaps most… Read More

Retired State Senator Dick Mountjoy is thinking of running for the United States Senate. Dick Mountjoy is a retired State Senator that represented the Eastern San Gabriel Valley during his career in the legislature. Before that he was a councilman in Monrovia. In 1994 he was re-elected to the State Assembly and elected to the State Senate in special election at the same time. That was the year the Republicans won 41 seats in the Assembly. He couldn’t resign without giving the Democrats the edge. After the Horcher betrayal, Willie Brown threw him out of the Assembly and into the Senate. In 1998 he ran statewide for Lt. Governor losing the GOP primary. After he was term-limited out of the State Senate, he headed the California Republican Assembly preceding yours truly. It’s obvious there is no … Read More

The ultimate ranking guide to your legislators has arrived. The CRA Scorecard is out and about. The publisherordered me to giveeveryoneaccess to the rankings. There werenine lawmakers who received a perfect 100. The rest well… You’ll have to look.… Read More

**If you don’t read anything else today, don’t miss this article from Capitol Weekly. Purely insightful journalism from Shane Goldmacher, if I do say so!

GOP BOARD TO MEET WITH GOVERNOR Today the Board of Directors of the California Republican Party will meet in Sacramento. Usually the Governor sends a representative to these meetings — but today’s meeting will have the Governor participating in the meeting – which is appropriate – given that the reason for the meeting was the Governor’s hiring of a Democrat activists as his Chief of Staff. Republican volunteers around California are reeling from the news – dismayed that the Governor they toiled to elect in the recall election has brought one of Gray Davis’ top advisors back into the Executive Offices of the Governor.

So,… Read More