Here are a few links to the top California political stories today…

We would like to wish our readers a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hannukah, and a great New Years. The FlashReport is currently in our “holiday break” mode, where we offer much more limited coverage. This takes place annually from the Friday before Christmas through New Years. Traditionally the political news coverage is very slow, and it gives the elves here a chance to recharge their batteries before we return full steam ahead on Monday, January 3rd.

The FlashReport Weblog on California Politics will be up and running during our seasonal break, and so we encourage you to keep an eye on it. Some of our bloggers will still be posting, and if there is breaking news or a particularly “yummy” political story or column, that’s where we’ll point it out to you!

Thank you so much for making 2011 the most successful year yet, by any measurable standard, for the FlashReport. We had more blog posts and more featured columns than any other year. We’ve had more readers (by far) than we’ve had since we began as an e-mail newsletter in 2001. We’ve had more visibility in terms of being… Read More

The recent disclosures by ProPublica about how the Democrats manipulated the redistricting process is not news. Anyone with half a brain could have predicted it the day the Redistricting Commission was approved by the voters (proof of the truth of this statement is that I did predict it, and I know a lot of my Democrat friends think I only have half a brain). John Burton’s response that the report was bulls**t was also predictable. What do you think John would have said? “After serious reflection, and deep soul searching, I have come to the conclusion that this report was seriously flawed” Yeah, right.

What was also predictable was that the media would become the Democrats’ toadies by criticizing the report. The easiest way to describe that response can be summarized with the media saying “Yeah, so, the surprise is what?” Basically, they are saying that if the Republicans got bamboozled in the process, it was Republcans’ own fault. One commentator called it “political malpractice” for the Republicans not to organize the way the Democrats did.

In some ways, I agree with the press. That the Democrats… Read More

The media has been slow to catch on, but slowly, way too slowly, people are beginning to realize there is an ugliness to Consumer Watchdog.

Let us strip away the veneer immediately. Consumer Watchdog has much less to do with protecting the consumer and much more to do with enriching the corporate lawyers who make up their top management. Under the imprimatur of protecting consumers in the State of California, or being gadflies for justice, these snakes who, in some circles, have managed to be labeled butterflies, have enriched themselves to the score of millions of dollars. So let’s be clear here, Consumer Watchdog is a sham organization whose ultimate victims are the very consumers they purport to champion. And of course the organization’s founder, Harvey Rosenfield, a trial lawyer and protege of wacky Ralph Nader, has become a wealthy man while “looking out” for all of us.

Earlier this year, even the most liberal policymakers were forced to step back and repudiate the Consumer Watchdog’s actions. In an example of the kind of nastiness they purport to reject, Consumer Watchdog created a controversy from a ten-second… Read More

The recently passed California Dream Act is another giveaway by liberal state politicians. It helps bring one more beholden group into their camp. It shifts some Cal Grant college funds from legal to illegal state residents. It turns out the cost projections are now four times higher than when the bill was recently passed, according to the state Legislative Analyst Office — expected to hit $65 million in 2013.

As a result, the GOP and Tea Party are on the warpath, concentrating on putting a repeal of the Dream Act on the November, 2012 ballot. Some conservative talk show hosts seem obsessed with the injustice, and with the rectifying proposition. The Internet is alive with the outrage at the Dream Act.

So what’s in it for the public employee labor unions? In a word, misdirection.

Apparently most California right wingers are now focused on a $65 million misappropriation, largely distracted from where the HUGE cost overruns are occuring — the state and local governments’ insane overcompensation of public employees. Labor union bosses across the state surely are delighted… Read More

In a couple articles posted this afternoon, ProPublica “How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission” and one in the San Jose Mercury News and probably many others by now, the funny stuff going on behind the scenes with how Califonia’s districts were reapportioned this year comes to light. In the ideal, I still believe that Prop 11 and Prop 20, that removed the map-drawing responsibilities from the Legislature to the hands of an ideally independent commission are the right way given many decades of history in US redistricting shenanigans. As you read through the history of this years’s commission efforts in the articles and other media, one would likely realize the commission didn’t work out well either and should’ve had more of its members vote ‘no’ on the final map proposals instead of being in love with their final work product. [Stopping a corrupted process and tossing it to the courts would not be a “failure.”] Post-map testimony provided by Commissioner Dr. Michael Ward would cause one to suspect the smoke from a possible fire. Indeed, Californians ended up with commissioners who APPLIED… Read More

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and A Happy New Year! I usually end my final missive of the year with these wishes. But, since the rest of this e-mail is loaded with lumps of coal, I thought I would start out with the happier note! Now, on to details that could just as easily have been provided by Ebenezer Scrooge.

Post-Thanksgiving, there were basically two issues remaining for Congress this year. I will address each separately:

Funding the Government: A bill to fund the government for the balance of this fiscal year passed both Houses on a bipartisan vote and is expected to be signed by the President very soon. The total spending in this bill was determined by the “debt limit agreement” in August. So, all that had to be worked out were the specifics within that number ($1.043 trillion). So, that means no government shutdowns before September 30, 2012. Additionally, it is standard practice in election years to fund the government from October 1st through at least the end of November on a Continuing Resolution (CR) rather than try to get enormous spending bills done weeks before an election. So, I expect that next year… Read More

North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the nation at 3.5%. Ten counties in ND have less than 2% unemployment. They have an oil and gas extraction boom going on, though their low unemployment rate predates that growth in oil and gas jobs.

Critics like to claim that ND is having a temporary boom that will shortly be followed by a bust. But while ND certainly is benefiting from an oil and gas boom, the depletion rate is slow, and the expansion of wells is dramatic — they’ve barely started their boom. This boom ain’t busting for many, many years to come. The petroleum extraction in ND is essentially now illegal in anti-business, “pro-environment” CA.

But perhaps more interesting is SOUTH Dakota (SD), which has no oil and gas boom. Their unemployment rate hasn’t been over 5% in over a decade — and currently is 4.5%. The state is very business friendly with low taxes (including no corporate or personal income tax). They “steal” businesses from neighboring high-tax Minnesota with monotonous regularity.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has tracked the state unemployment rates since 1976. In South Dakota, unemployment peaked in… Read More