Over the course of the past year, there has been a narrative developing… Everyone makes light of the fact that "you never know what Jerry Brown is going to say" — which is certainly true. But as his eccentric behavior exhibits itself more and more often, and his campaign theme starts to become "Tales of the Bizarre" — I think that more and more serious people are going to question Brown’s core competency. I was in elementary school when Brown was last Governor, so I don’t know if these "behavior issues" were pervasive then as well (were they?). Whether comparing Meg Whitman to former Nazi propaganda chief and genocidal maniac Joseph Goebbels, or now beating the rhetorical snot out of long-time ex-President Bill Clinton…

Oh well, it does make for good blogging.

So the Whitman campaign releases this commercial, which includes great clips from the 1992 Democrat Presidential debate, where Clinton takes off the proverbial gloves on his then fellow Presidential aspirant Brown…

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The Steel(e) showwas front and center in Los Angeles Thursday night at the Jonathan Club for the LA County Lincoln Club ‘ s 13th annual Spirit of Lincoln award dinner. After an Invocation byBoard of Equalization Member Michelle Steel, Republican National Committeeman and Lincoln Clubs Secretary Shawn Steel introduced Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele for a upbeat talk on how we are going to kick (donkey) in the November 2nd elections. Steele said… Read More

Emotion regarding social issues is clouding the political judgment of political observers and the local press in the race for the 5th Assembly District between Republican Small Business Owner Andy Pugno, Democrat Community Physician/Educator Richard Pan, and Peace and Freedom College Student Elizabeth Martinez. So the Pugno campaign will attempt to provide some facts for people to consider about the race, the district and the candidates. Pugno Fact #2 In 2008, Peace & Freedom candidate Karen Martinez won 8% of the vote for Assembly District 5 in a 3-way race. This year it is again a 3-way race with Peace & Freedom candidate Elizabeth Martinez (her daughter) on the ballot. Polling shows the third-party candidate pulling 10% of the vote, almost totally from liberal voters. Pugno Fact #1 In the June primary election more than 42,000 votes were cast for Republican candidates compared to just 35,000 for Democrats. 7,000 votes is a substantial difference.

Note: I am the general… Read More

A couple of otherwise mostly-missing-from-the-mainstream missives from the San Diego area (and other places)…

Do 9/11 Responders Continue to Die?… A Fox News story indicates that about 900 emergency and rescue responders have died since 9/11, at least implying many of the deaths are a result of illnesses related to response conditions. Missing from the article is any reference to how this compares to death rates among emergency responders in general. Yet, on the surface, the numbers alone would seem to be staggering. Some may say suspect, lacking any context. What do you think?

9 Years Later, Nearly 900 9/11 Responders Have Died, Survivors Fight for Compensation Nine years have passed since Al Qaeda orchestrated the deadliest attack ever on U.S. soil, claiming nearly 3,000 lives.

But reports from the New York State Health Department suggest the carnage may not have ended that day.

More than 800 responders to the World Trade Center ruins have died — some, advocates say, from illnesses related to their heroic… Read More

[Cross-posted from RedCounty.com]

The Lincoln Club of Orange County has entered the fray in the 47th Congressional District, hitting liberal Democratic incumbent Rep. Loretta Sanchez with this mailer zapping for wasting taxpayer-dollars on globe-trotting junkets while voting for Obama’s unprecedented explosion in federal spending:… Read More

This just in from the O.C. Lincoln Club (pardon the cut and paste of a release — blogging from an airport…)… And before you ask, this mailing was created by FR friend Jim Bieber and his team over at Bieber Communications…

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It’s been almost a decade since the terrorists struck the World Trade Center, shocking the entire nation and the world. It was the worst act of terrorism ever committed on American soil. In all, nearly 3,000 people were tragically killed.

But it isn’t the terrorists we remember most. It’s the heroes – especially the brave passengers on United Flight 93, such as Tom Burnett, of Pleasanton, whose last words were captured in a phone call to his wife, saying:

“Our flight has been hijacked. The terrorists have knives and have stabbed someone. They indicate they are going to crash our plane into the capitol building in Washington, D.C. I know we’re all going to die, but we are going to do something, I love you honey."

A mother whose daughter worked on Capitol Hill wrote on a memorial website that she believes her daughter’s life was saved by these brave men and women. They did not go gently into the night, but fought the terrorists, and gave up their lives, saving countless others who might have died if the hijackers had been successful.

Something important was gained from the sacrifice… Read More

Back in July, I was on the dais for a Joint Economic Committee hearing on the topic of energy. At one point during the hearing, one of my Democratic colleagues from New York made the statement that we could get rid of all oil usage in this country by using solar power.

This is a nice thought, but one not rooted in any understanding of reality. I then presented the challenges and opportunities facing our energy policy and challenged my colleague’s assertion with the three panelists (from MIT, Texas A&M, and a New York consulting firm – 2 Democratic panelists and one Republican). All three agreed with me.

If you take the emotion and proprietary interests out of it, our energy solutions are much clearer and in less dispute than conventional wisdom would have you believe. This is the first in a 3-part laptop report on energy discussing where our opportunities do and do not exist.

The first thing to understand is that we must separate the solutions for fixed source energy generation (electricity and heating) from the solutions for mobile source energy generation (trains, planes, and automobiles). The solutions for fixed energy are much easier… Read More