Over the Fourth of July one could not help think of the brave few men who took on the greatest empire on the Earth in order to be free. It is no coincidence that after gaining independence the Founders went about guaranteeing God given rights from a potentially tyrannical new government. The Second Amendment and the right to bear arms guaranteed the First amendment and all others. Recently over the last couple years and just last month the United State Supreme Court has struck down laws that infringed on that right.Unfortunately, the California State Legislature hasn’t gotten the message about protecting our freedoms. Below are three bills that passed the State Assembly (over my objections in committee and on the floor). These bills are now awaiting action in the State Senate. While the Senate is on a break,… Read More

It seems like every year I write this commentary, or something like it, which is a statement for both ongoing dysfunction in state government, and/or the ongoing ineffectiveness of my columns to impact human behavior.

Once again the legislature has let the Constitutional deadline for adopting a state budget pass by, with July 1st being a blip in the rear-view mirror. Once again, instead of staying in Sacramento, the Democrat leadership of both the State Senate and the State Assembly have sent home their respective members on "summer recess" subject to being able to return to the Capitol within 24 hours should some sort of ‘break through’ take place on the budget.

Let me first say that newly minted Assembly Speaker John Perez was apparently full of hot air when he publicly committed (see the video here) to an open and transparent budget process. I have been waiting for extensive, open budget hearings that are bipartisan in nature, and reflect the fact that if the legislature is going to actually produce a budget, there needs to be an understanding that the budget committee needs to… Read More

The legislature, in its infinite and collective bi-partisan wisdom, pushed through onto the ballot a fat, bloated so-called "water" bond. With literally billions of dollars of wasteful spending inside of it, we have dubbed this $11 billion package the "Water Porkulus" — and feel strongly that it should be rejected by voters.

Apparently the proponents of the Porkulus are very concerned about how voters will receive this big Christmas Tree of legislative spending, because now they are advocating that it be moved off of the November ballot, and kicked to 2012. We say that the package should be pulled all together, as a menace to both taxpayers, and to real cost-effective solutions to our state’s water woes.

FR’s cartoonist, Eric Eishenhammer, has drawn up a great cartoon on the water porkulus, we hope you enjoy it…

… Read More

Flying through Vegas this weekendI noticed this hand dryer. It is a little blurry (people don’t like cameras in restrooms).A rebel in the spirit of 1776 placed a sticker on it that says.

"Please push button and listen to a short message from the President"

Made my day.… Read More

According to our friends (NOT!) at the liberal Huffington Post, yours truly is the, "latest GOP official to criticize the Aghan War."

Only at the Huff and Puff can they make a whole blog post over a very public "tweet" from my Twitter account the other day.

What did I tweet? "For what it is worth, I’m an officer with the CA Republican Party and I can’t figure out what we are achieving in Afghanistan, at least not for the economic cost to US Taxpayers. Since I am not particularly isolationist, it means my government is failing to communicate well."

I’m open to being educated on the issue. And I admit that I spend most of my time following California politics, not international affairs.

I have been l listening to a lot of remarks from my good friend U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher on the subject, and he seems to make a lot of… Read More

Rule 5 of the Republican National Committee establishes the office of Chairman of the Republican Party, states he or she shall be a full-time, paid employee, and shall serve as the "chief executive officer" of the Republican National Committee. The rule states that the Chairman can be removed by a 2/3rds vote of the entire Republican National Committee (made up generally by two representatives per state), and, most interestingly, that the Chairman "need not be a member of the Republican National Committee."

Michael Steele, the former Lt. Governor of Maryland, has been a disaster as Chairman of the RNC. Early in his term, reports surfaced that he was using his position, for which he is already paid handsomely from the funds people like you and I give to the party, to obtain paid speaking gigs for tens of thousands of dollars on the side and pocketing the money. He even signed a contract with a professional talent agency to book such speeches. Illegal? Probably not. Immoral? Possibly, depending on your morals. Bad judgment? Absolutely.

More recent evidence of bad judgment in RNC management found its way to… Read More

[A version of this commentary appeared on FR early last year. This column has been revised and updated – Flash]

It seems to me that Californians are getting what they asked for in State Controller John Chiang. The contrast between selecting Chiang or his opponent, taxpayer advocate Tony Strickland, on the November 2006 ballot could not have been more stark. While Strickland was openly supported by a cadre of pro-taxpayer organizations and leaders, the bulk of Chiang’s support came from the left-wing of the Democrat Party, and most significantly, from public employee unions eager to have yet another “tool” in an important state constitutional office, ready to be put into play should the need arise. (Below, left, is a photo of Chiang standing with all of his union supporters after being… Read More

[A version of this commentary appeared on FR early last year. This column has been revised and updated – Flash] It seems to me that Californians are getting what they asked for in State Controller John Chiang. The contrast between selecting Chiang or his opponent, taxpayer advocate Tony Strickland, on the November 2006 ballot could not have been more stark. While Strickland was openly supported by a cadre of pro-taxpayer organizations and leaders, the bulk of Chiang’s support came from the left-wing of the Democrat Party, and most significantly, from public employee unions eager to have yet another “tool” in an important state constitutional office, ready to be put into play should the need arise.… Read More