From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail… … Read More

A brief commentary on the state budget, and the request of Governor Brown for a GOP term sheet… (Disclaimer: This is only my second attempt to cut video at my desk.)

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With a h/t to commenter Colin Parenton a blog post over at the venerable SD Rostra website, we present to you the banner across the top of Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher’s official website — containing a tremendous panoramic view of the San Diego city skyline! Of course, downtown San Diego isn’t exactly a stone’s throw from Fletcher’s home and his Assembly District. Yet another sign that a run for San Diego Mayor is in the cards for the second-term Assemblyman…

We’re actually not compulsive-obsessive about Nathan’s future plans here at FR, we just thought it a fun observation, and a great way to give a shout out to the Rostra.… Read More

This column appears today in Capitol Weekly… GOP Convention: Opposition to Special Election Taxes By Jon Fleischman Last weekend about 1,500 Republican leaders from all around California gathered at the Hyatt Regency Hotel across the street from the state Capitol for our biennial organizational convention. As is pretty much always the case, if you read the headlines blazing across MSM newspapers and reporter blogs, you might think that the convention was a bloodbath of epic proportions. It was not, of course. I spent a lot of time at the convention talking to delegates… Read More

U.S. Representative Tom McClintock has sent the following letter to President Obama concerning recent U.S. military actions in Libya… March 23, 2011 The Honorable Barack Obama President of the United States The White House Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear Mr.… Read More

Assembly Speaker John Perez is a product of his environment. He spent his entire adult life working full time for labor unions (most recently the United Food and Commercial Workers) before being elected to the legislature (he never even lived in his Assembly District until he moved there to run). If you look at his voting record, he votes the left-wing/union position 100% of the time.

As the Speaker, Perez should be focused exclusively on figuring out how to resolve California’s short-term and long-term state budget mess, right? Wrong. (Apparently).

While I won’t criticize him for his odd habit of collecting ducks (seriously), it seems like every legislative session he introduces a bizarre, obscure piece of legislation about which he becomes… Read More

Here is today’s lesson in our bilingual education program. For all the complaints that conservatives have about bilingual education in schools, it is actually a bigger problem in one really important area-government budgeting. Government budget experts do not communicate in English. Yes, the words they utter have English-like sounds, and the markings they make on paper have English-like appearance, but the sounds and the marks they make do not have English meanings. It is a foreign language, spoken every day in the halls of power around the country, and no one complains about it.

For instance, when they say they wish to "implement new sources of revenue," that means they want to take more money from you or your neighbor. For instance, they may wish to "increase user fees." They will say that it is only fair for the user of a service to have to pay for that service. Like the DMV. Why, the car tax is simply a user fee. Of course, if you don’t pay the fee, you can go to jail (because if your car is not registered you can be arrested), but you are using this valuable government… Read More

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