Ireland is my kind of country. Literally. My dad’s dad’s line traces 11 generations to the family crossing to America in 1634. And his grandmother through his mother was born on the Emerald Isle. So I’m here enjoying a vacation and a pint of Guinness while doing some ancestry research at Trinity College in Dublin. Now is a good time to be here. The weather is great, everybody is excited that England made the soccer finals, and the Irish guy who won the U.S. Open last weekend in California’s Pebble Beach just made a triumphant return yesterday and is all over the news. And they love Americans. Yesterday my driver from the airport made a big deal of congratulating me on America’s World Cup victory over Algeria. I diplomatically accepted the congrats on behalf of all Americans but I’m glad he didn’t ask me the name of the striker that scored the winning goal. I love the Irish because they are such rebels, and I identify with that characteristic. A story in the Irish Times today discusses a planned visit of the 84 year old Queen of England later this year, which would be the first visit ever of a British monarch to the Irish… Read More

Republican Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee came oh-so-close to winning the special election in State Senate District 15 outright tonight — capturing 49.7% of the vote. However, because Blakeslee did not win an outright majority, he will be in an August run-off that will feature himself, Democrat John Laird, and two third party candidates — a Libertarian and an independent. Blakeslee is well poised for an August victory, but it will be an expensive endeavor, to be sure. But given how close the Democrats are in the State Senate to the 2/3rds vote to raise taxes, it will be a very expensive loss for all California taxpayers should Laird somehow prevail.

You can read a lot more detail on the results in this Capitol Weekly story. (I guess one should add the caveat that there are invariably some absentee and provisional ballots outstanding, so it’s not impossible for Blakeslee to close in… Read More

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I am sure that the coalition of big labor unions that has and is going to fund most of the effort against Republican Meg Whitman’s campaign for Governor had this "vision" that they could attack and pummel Whitman, and that she would sit idly by. Umm, no.

Today the Whitman for Governor campaign launched their first piece exposing Jerry Brown for the long time, problem creating politician that he is.

Here is the ad…

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As changes at the Union-Trib continue with last week’s seventh round of staff layoffs, it appears no stone is being left unturned as management determines the future of the paper, including its online content. Check out yesterday’s entry by Chris Reed on America’s Finest Blog…

Let’s hope the mucketies at the paper find continued value in pushing the blog medium forward and allowing it to expand, not gutting it. Reed’s blog gives some unique political perspective and more of a cutting edge approach than can be found in the traditional broadsheet.

If anything has held AFB back from more of a following, it’s been the U-T’s lack of hi-liting and marketing it, so more readers would know it was there.

All of these things take money, of course, something not as abundant as a few years ago, especially in the world of newsprint. However, the future of news is in the far less costly electrons of on-line content, as compared to paper and ink.

It would seem a step backwards to end a blog… Read More

In my campaign for the State Assembly, we made a promise to the Director of San Diego’s Partnerships With Industry that if elected, our office would employ an individual with a developmental disability. We kept that promise and are proud to take part in First Lady Maria Shriver’s WE Include Program, which focuses on opening doors to employment for individuals with developmental disabilities In April of 2009, Jay Bariuan joined our team. He came via a referral from Partnerships With Industry—an organization that pairs developmentally disabled adults with good jobs in the San Diego area.… Read More

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

State Senate President Darrell Steinberg has a great idea, if you are into higher taxes. He wants to shift the responsibility for a lot of the state’s social welfare program spending to local government. With that little gem, he also wants to lower the threshold for local tax increases from a two-thirds vote to a majority vote. You can read a lot more about it in this story just filed by Katy Grimes over at the Pacific Research Institute Cal Watchdog site.

In my book, that is a shell game designed to avoid "right sizing" government spending in California to be in line with the current tax system.

While it is not an easy task to dismantle significant component parts of California’s modern welfare state, it’s really the only viable option. Increasing taxes, whether at the state or local level, would be a travesty. There are two reasons why we are where we are… Because liberal… Read More