Earlier this week, I penned a commentary where I pretty well laid out California Supreme Court Justice Ron George for making a number of contributions to the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign in 2008, aggregating to $2300. I drew the conclusion that George had made these contributions based solely on information taken off of the Federal Election Commission website, where a search of Ron George produced a listing of these donations to Clinton, identifying the giver as Ronald George, with an employer and occupation of State of California/Chief Justice (the graphic is a clip straight from the FEC website).

As it turns out, Chief Justice George did not make any contributions to the Presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, and that the information that is presented on the Federal Elections Commission website is not accurate. To be more specific, the FEC relies on campaigns to file specific donor information, which they then upload to their site,… Read More

OK, tales of the bizarre. So I linked to a website of conservative activist Aaron Park who had posted up documents about a 1990 case where Abel Maldonado had a judgment against him in the Santa Barbara County Superior Court over not making child support payments. But then 30 minutes later Park pulled down his post (pressure from..???). So I have pulled my blog post on it, as I am not comfortable leaving a dead link active on my site. Had to delete a tweet as well. Sigh.… Read More

[As you read this, please note that the Hillary Clinton Campaign has acknowledged to Chief Justice George’s attorney that he appears on their campaign reports in error. So my story was based on inaccurate information on the FEC website, and my accusation was, as it turns out, unfounded. See more here – Flash] Back in 1977, when I was ten years old, you were "cool" if you were listening to an awesome new song by The Eagles — Hotel California. You were "un-cool" if you were "jive dancing" to Andy Gibb. Star Wars debuted that year, and Elvis Presley moved on to Graceland in the sky. Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown was Governor of California, and that was the year that he… Read More

I just got off of the phone listening in on a press conference called by gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner. I was going to try and write up the issues he raised in the event, when I got a press release from Poizner’s campaign. I don’t do this often, but for the sake of getting information out quickly, I will reprint the release below… Interestingly, Poizner files a complaint with, among others, Attorney General Jerry Brown, the likely Democrat nominee for Governor.

Whitman campaign’s threats and intimidation cross the line; FBI, U.S. Attorney, and AG Brown are notified of the Whitman campaign’s attempts to cancel the election. Republican candidate for governor Steve Poizner today revealed intimidation tactics from Meg Whitman in which her top political advisor threatened to spend… Read More

Famed politico and senior level Whitman for Governor consultant Mike Murphy fired a shot across the bow of the S.S. Poizner, in response to the accusations leveled by Poizner this morning (see the blog post below this one). Murphy’s statement: "After reading the ridiculous charges made by Steve Poizner during today’s strange press conference, all I can say is that I’m starting to worry about Commissioner’s mental condition. It is true that I have been trying to find a way to avoid a costly and unnecessary Republican primary. I believe it is important that Republicans across California unite around Meg Whitman to defeat Jerry Brown in the fall. It is also true that I am not the only one with this view. Many Republican leaders are more and more concerned that the Poizner campaign, now 28+ points behind in the… Read More

[As you read this, please note that the Hillary Clinton Campaign has acknowledged to Chief Justice George’s attorney that he appears on their campaign reports in error. So my story was based on inaccurate information on the FEC website, and my accusation was, as it turns out, unfounded. See more here – Flash]

Just a few minutes ago, I got off of the phone with Beth Jay, the Principal Attorney for Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George. She called me in response to my commentary this morning taking the Chief Justice to task for what appear to be many contributions to the Hillary Clinton for President campaign back in 2008.

While telling me that she can understand why I could have reached the conclusion that Justice George had made those contributions (hmmm, because the FEC website identified… Read More

A good friend of the FlashReport, an attorney who does a lot of reporting compliance work, offered the following observation on this flap over the Chief Justice being the victim of a "drive by reporting…"

I could see how an incorrect occupation/employer would end up listed on a campaign report. Our firm prepares dozens of these reports per filing period, and for a committee as large as Hillary’s, the recordkeeping is astronomical. In an attempt to comply with reporting requirements, we often resort to google when we can’t reach a donor to obtain their address (in CA has to be a street address), occupation and employer. If we find a match that appears accurate, we go with it. Especially at the CA level, there is no “best efforts” rule like there is at the federal level – in CA, if you don’t obtain the street address, occupation and employer, the contribution has to be returned. At the federal level, the committee need only show that it made its “best efforts” to obtain the information, and can keep the contribution in the absence of the information being collected – so… Read More

As far as the “jobs, jobs, jobs” mantra, we can spend with borrowed money, which is not popular with voters, or we can look at what is right in front of our noses. To stop the hemorrhaging of jobs, the obvious thing for government to do is lower the cost of labor by cutting back on payroll taxes paid by employers and workers.

I plugged in data for an imaginary California worker making $45,000 a year who is single with no deductions and here is how it breaks out:

Gross pay (per month): $3,750 Federal income tax: $543 FICA (social security): $232.50 Medicare: $54.38

So already out of a gross pay of $3,750, this hypothetical Californian has over $829 taken out by the federal government before he gets a dime. But we need to add California’s payroll taxes.

California has four State payroll taxes which are administered by the Employment Development Department (EDD). They are Unemployment Insurance and Employment Training Tax, which are employer contributions, and State Disability Insurance (SDI) and Personal Income Tax… Read More