A scandal is brewing in Riverside County that is beginning to break into a big story.

What if I told you that supporters of a candidate for Congress dropped tens of thousands of dollars into a new charity group, which then hired this candidate to be the charity’s Executive Director, paying the candidate the vast majority of the funds apparently raised by the group?

This is no hypothetical situation, based on a legal complaint filed with the office of Attorney General Kamela Harris, which was shared with the FlashReport, it would appear that former Congressional candidate and Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet (pictured, right), who ran unsuccessfully in California’s 45 District and lost to popular incumbent Mary Bono Mack, was the beneficiary of tens of thousands of dollars in salary from Pride Parents Palm Springs.

It is unclear what, if anything, Pride Parents… Read More

The President, yesterday, unveiled his budget for fiscal year 2012 and forward. It is an amazing abdication of leadership. He never gets to an annual deficit below $600 billion, even in spite of rosy economic projections that are substantially higher than those given by almost anyone else. He has a number of tax increases and few spending reductions. But, the blatant omission is of any significant reform to any of the entitlement programs in spite of his comments during the State of the Union that this is necessary.

I will have more comments later in the week about the President’s newfound lack of initiative on anything. But, here is a floor speech I gave yesterday about our budget challenges and the reactions to them.

Click to Watch Video… Read More

The Senate Republican Caucus has released a report on the Sunset Review Process that is a great overview and reminded me of my experience for 10 months as Secretary for State and Consumer Affairs last year. My conclusion regarding consumer licensing boards and bureaus would be to make the default choice of the review to be elimination of them all. The state’s 38 licensing boards and bureaus give consumers a false confidence that every license holder will provide quality service while the truth is that the best the board can do is certify that the person passed a test or got a degree and that they have no criminal record. This is far from quality service. Worse yet, when a complaint is made against a license holder the accused has all of the same rights as in criminal court which creates a burden on the board staff to administer and unfairly pits the accuser against the professional. The result is often that the accuser’s personal life is on trial. If ever the accusation is found to be justified the licensee gets a restricted license or loses it for a period and… Read More

Regular readers of these missives may have noticed that I have not been as prolific recently in these writings as is customary. That is not because I don’t love you anymore, or because you fell off the e-mail list (which is rather obvious since you are reading this now). And, it is not because I have had nothing to say. Quite the opposite. There is a bunch going on back here in DC, and being in the majority means that I am busier with it all than has been the case the last 4 years. I could tell you about the State of the Union speech (it was quite insubstantial) or the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac proposal from the White House (with which I mostly agree mainly because it doesn’t arrive at a conclusion on how to proceed) or any number of other issues. Instead, I will give you a brief update with my perspective on the two most burning issues right this minute (it is Sunday as I write this).

Egypt: Blame it on, or credit, the internet and Facebook. Totalitarian or authoritarian regimes governing a populace with few rights and less prosperity are not new. In fact, most countries have been governed this way for centuries. But,… Read More

The Taxman Cometh: Number One Mailer in Country out of San Diego… Kudos tolead consultant John Wainio and supporting consultants Jim Sills and Tish Sjoberg for recently nailing down First Place in the Nation with a coveted Reed Award from Campaigns and Election magazine in the "Direct Mail, Republican Advocacy" category. Their winning mailer was produced to benefit last year’s successful Re-Elect County Supervisor Bill Horn effort. The piece takes on Horn Challenger Steve Gronke forhis record as aVista City Councilman. (See a larger version here.)

Sills writes about the mail piece, "The Taxman," on San Diego Rostra:

"Unnamed, but clearly responsible, is the Late, Great George Harrison who penned this… Read More

Let the purges begin.

Young Americans for Freedom announced they were purging Ron Paul from their Advisory Board. I couldn’t help but wonder what all the great purges that took place in YAF would have looked like had Al gore "invented" the internet back then.

I admit to being a member of CAL-YAF during my college days, but I was involved more in Students for America, which the Los Angeles Times Magazine described as "even more conservative". That said there have been many purges of verysuccessful conservatives.

Perhaps FR Publisher Jon Fleischman and FR writers Jim Lacy, Barry Jantz, "Shawn" Steel and maybe others I missed could share some history with folks.

Off with their heads!… Read More

Note to State Senator Mark Leno, and the host of other liberal politicians who really, really hate that California’s Constitution includes voter-approved taxpayer protections. There is a sound policy reason for why it takes a two-thirds vote in order to raise taxes — it is to prevent majority tyranny.… Read More

FR friend Shane Goldmacher has a starting blog post over at the Los Angeles Times Politi-cal website where he reveals that the California Department of Public Health (which collects money from a tax on cigarette passed by voters back in 1988 to then use for a number of purposes including anti-smoking education) made a decision to run a taxpayer funded anti-smoking ad — during the Superbowl!

The decision to place and fund this ad was apparently made by Colleen Stevens at the state health department. From the Goldmacher piece… For her part, Colleen Stevens, chief of the Tobacco Control Media Campaign at the California Department of Public Health, said she was thrilled by the Super Bowl exposure. The year’s football game drew a record 111 million viewers nationally, according the Nielsen’s estimates. The state’s ad aired at least in Los… Read More