I was struck by an excellent column by Timm Herdt of the Ventura Star. He posed a very insightful question, “Are efforts to better collect taxes that are already owed the political equivalent of actually raising taxes, or are they designed to ensure fairness for those who are already paying their full share?” I say the answer is they are tax increases, but so small as to be inconsequential. Fairness is pursuing individuals who falsify their tax returns and purposely do not pay. Raising other people’s taxes is not fairness.

Herdt focuses on several issues, like the proposed “Amazon tax” that would require internet retailers with affiliates in California to collect sales tax on behalf of the state for sales that they do not make. Another is a proposal to assess penalties on high-income taxpayers who are denied eligibility for certain tax credits. Under the bill (SBX8 32), those who unsuccessfully claim credits that defy “reasonable basis” in an “excessive amount” – both undefined terms – face a 20% penalty of the amount claimed, if the taxpayer makes over $250,000 a year. At the same time, the bill would allow people who short-sell… Read More

Yesterday several interesting discussions took place at the Public Lands Steering Committee of the National Association of Counties in Washington, D.C. A disturbing trend I’m seeing is that a subject that increasingly comes up in meetings involving federal land managers is Global Warm- er … I mean ‘Climate Change’ (which is the term that attributes any change in the weather to greenhouse-gas emitting – read breathing – human beings).

One speaker, Tom Tidwell, Chief of the USDA Forest Service, claimed that climate change has increased wildfire seasons by a month, and that it has caused more frequent and severe fires and droughts. When a county commissioner asked him whether the lack of proper forest management resulting in overgrowth had anything to do with the fire problems, he didn’t seem as convinced of that possibility even though intellectually it makes more sense to a lot of people.

Later in the discussion a resolution was introduced to oppose the federal government’s plans to establish a "cap and trade" system for controlling greenhouse gases. I was quite pleased to see the resolution pass.… Read More

FlashReport’s in-house cartoonist, Eric Eisenhammer, has made as the subject of his latest work the latest effort from the left (can you say Berkeley Study?) that asserts that if you were worried about second hand smoke, you really need to be worried about third hand smoke. Seriously.

Look for a slew of legislation on this as the advocates of the Nanny State who firmly occupy the State Capitol look for another opportunity to trample on the liberty and freedom of Californians.… Read More

On the Inga Barks radio program on Kern Radio, AM 1180, State Senator Roy Ashburn told Inga and listeners that he is gay, and asked that people pray for him.

We’ll work on getting the audio as soon as possible.… Read More

Meg Whitman’s campaign for Governor has released a new video on job creation… … Read More

On Saturday morning I was reading through MSM websites gathering news stories, and almost did a double-take when I came across one story filed by Phil Willon on the Los Angeles Times website — the headline said that the Los Angeles City Council had relaxed a tax on business.

The reason for the double-take, of course, is that the Mayor and almost all of the City Councilmembers of Los Angeles are liberal Democrats who undoubtedly are looking for more ways to gauge money from area businesses, not provide relief from taxation.

When I read more, however, it became very clear to me what was going on. The specific issue was the City Council providing tax relief to "internet-based" businesses. Or put another way, these are businesses that can very easily pick up and leave Los Angeles and not materially impact their business-model.

*Note: Updated to include endorsement of Damon Dunn.* Delegates to the California Republican Assembly’s convention endorsed Steve Poizner for Governor and Chuck DeVore for United States Senate.

The CRA’s endorsement is significant, and so congratulations go to Poizner and DeVore. Poizner was endorsed on a second ballot — DeVore won straight out. It takes a 2/3 vote of delegates to receive an endorsement.

Notable was that the candidates that were not endorsed – Meg Whitman in the Governor’s race, and Carly Fiorina and Tom Campbell in the U.S. Senate race – all were at the convention. The campaigns of Whitman and Fiorina were running drills, complete with staffers on the ground, to try and prevent the CRA from taking positions in these races.

Also endorsed in his contested primary for Attorney General was conservative favorite John Eastman and for the contested Board of Equalization race in District 2, Senator George Runner. This latter endorsement is a… Read More

Last Tuesday, thousands from throughout the state andnation were saddened to hear the news that the body of missing 17-year-old Poway High School student Chelsea King had been found after a frenzied five day search. Those from Poway and the rest of San Diego County were particularly stunned. Many of us had been glued to the story, while holding out hope that she might be found alive, even though a sexual predator had been arrested in the case.

The community at large, many coming out by the thousands to search for Chelsea, grabbed on to the hope that whatever rape- and murder-related evidence the Sheriff’s Department had in its possession might somehow be wrong, lacking an actual body.

The photos of Chelsea on the news and on storefront windows throughout the county represented the picture of all our children, any one of them out for an afternoon run on a nice, lake shore trail in a relatively safe community, only not to return home.

We all gasped to learn that this terrible act was… Read More