Vote-by-mail ballots go out today (at least in Orange County, and voters will begin marking their choices in a number of competitive races in Orange County. One of those is the race to succeed Supervisor Pat Bates in the 5th Supervisor District.

There are five candidates running, but the contest to make the November run-off is widely viewed as being between Mission Viejo Councilman Frank Ury, Laguna Niguel Councilman Robert Ming and Dana Point Councilwoman Lisa Bartlett. [Let me disclose up front that I am strongly supporting Ury.]

While Ury has been picking up steam since the new year, Ming’s campaign – after a burst of momentum during the last few months of 2013 — has begun to slow and lately has been dogged by a series of embarrassing revelations.

Pay Yourself First Ming sprinted to an early fundraising lead, in large part by personally loaning his campaign $50,000. However, his campaign disclosure report for January 1 – March 17 of this year showed he had already paid himself back $10,000. – meaning nearly all of the $12,449 he raised during that period went to retire his campaign debt to… Read More

Republicans respect and value hard work, believing every man and woman who aspires to live the American Dream deserves the opportunity to control their destiny through hard work, tenacity and a good heart. I’ve found this to be true from my own experience.

My family came to the United States from Taiwan when I was a boy, fleeing persecution and following their aspiration for a better life. My mother and father rolled up their sleeves and invested everything they had to open a restaurant in San Jose. Through years of scrubbing dishes and busing tables, I learned the value of hard work early in life. The lessons shaped my philosophy and… Read More

Just two months ago this column criticized Sacramento for subsidizing those politically connected companies that are part of the “in” crowd with millions in tax credits while maintaining high taxes on less glamorous industries. Auto maker Tesla has recently been “gifted” $35 million in this fashion and both Democratic and Republican lawmakers are lining up to ingratiate themselves with movie moguls while bearing offerings of hundreds of millions in tax subsidies.

Now we have a new… Read More

As I walked out of the Capitol Thursday, May 1 at just after 5:00 pm, I noticed a fledgling labor rally beginning.

It was May Day, the date chosen by the Socialists and Communists for International Workers’ Day.

But there weren’t any of the usual purple shirt-wearing protestors – this crowd was a real potpourri of odd people, including a group of leathered, old hippies, acting as if their brains had been fried years ago by drugs.

As I was walked past, guest speaker Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, was introduced.

Dickinson, a Democrat from Sacramento, is known as a good friend to labor. Dickinson took the microphone and began to speak as if there were thousands of purple-shirt SEIU members in the crowd.

“The direction we are going is putting the wealth of this country in the hands of fewer and fewer, at the expense of everyone!” Assemblyman Roger Dickinson said.

So compelling was his statement, I stopped to write it down. But that was about as much as I could take; I didn’t stick around for the rest of the speech. I knew where it was going.

Income “inequality”

Democrats across the country… Read More

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It is no secret that for generations, China, India, and other nations have had a strong cultural preference for bearing male offspring. Boys are viewed as a blessing – future working men who can provide for their parents. Girls are often treated as a burden. As a local Telugu saying goes in India, “rearing a daughter is like watering a neighbor’s tree.” In China, a fascist one-child policy has only served to intensify the desire to have a son instead of a daughter.

As a result, the United Nations now estimates that as many as 200 million females worldwide have had their lives ended either through sex-selection abortion or infanticide, simply for being the “wrong” gender.

The sex ratio in India is now 112 males for every 100 females. In China there are now 120 boys for every 100 girls.

What has come to be known as “gendercide” is proving to have disastrous societal effects, where sex trafficking flourishes as a result of tens of millions of young men unable to find a spouse.

While this practice is rightly shunned from afar in the United States, most elected officials here have turned a blind eye to the fact that “gendercide”… Read More

With budget cuts and tuition increases in the University of California system over the past several years, students have made significant sacrifices. One sacrifice they should not have to make is the quality of their education. But consider my experience at UC Berkeley.

In my final semester in spring 2013 I took a class taught by Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor. I majored in political economy and thought his class would be a good fit. Even if I didn’t agree with his political ideologies, I thought Reich would provide insight on policy issues from his days working with President Clinton. But the celebrity professor didn’t deliver.

In an auditorium that holds 800 students it was nearly impossible to find a seat unless you arrived early. The classroom consisted of several hundred enrolled students but also many outsiders not affiliated with the university. On several occasions, I walked into class with all the seats filled, folding camping chairs set up in the back, and the aisles crowded with students. Paying students who are taking the course for academic credit should not be forced to sit in the aisles.

I understand that Reich wants to… Read More

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If it’s spring then it must be time for the California Teachers Association (CTA) to make another one of its frontal assaults on charter schools, the independent public schools that promise better results in exchange for greater freedom to operate. The CTA’s chosen vehicle this time around is Democratic Assembly Member Ed Chau’s AB 1531, which eliminates the autonomy of charter school governing boards and gives control of charter boards to local school boards that are often dominated by the teacher unions.

Under the state’s current law, charter schools appoint the members of their governing boards. AB 1531 would radically change this process.

Under the bill’s provisions, the chartering authority, which in most cases is the local school board, “shall appoint a majority of the members of the board of directors,” which would be drawn from a pool of nominees contained “in the charter petition, charter renewal, or material revision application.” Thus, school boards, many of which are grudgingly supportive or openly hostile to charter schools, will have the final say on the composition of the decision-making majority on charter school governing… Read More

The list of businesses leaving California for greener pastures is long and growing. And now we can add Toyota to it.

The word ‘leakage’ is the new politically correct term used by legislators, the Governor, bureaucrats and the California Air Resources Board, to describe what happens when California businesses leave the state because of tax increases and stupendous regulations… as if any of them really know what it means for a business to make the difficult decision to close a location, terminate hundreds of employees, and physically move equipment, machinery, offices and records. And, the CEOmust figure in the cost of business interruption, as a business’s productivity will be undoubtedly be reduced after a move.

Who is “leaking?”

Apparently California is ‘leaking’ businesses… as if businesses and middle class families are dribbling away, or… Read More