Well, it’s been almost seven long years since the voters of California placed their economic and political future into the hands of Arnold Schwarzenegger. With the State in far worse shape than when he inherited the Davis mess, one could make the case, easily, that when he declared himself to be "post partisan" his chance at becoming effective as Governor ended.

We can all have a romantic vision of post partisanship, but it doesn’t work, and never will. Politics is bloodsport. We are never, ever all just going to "get along". My chief complaint with this Governor is that a man with business experience and a supposedly center right disposition could get his ass handed to him over and over again by leftist legislators with nary a clue on how to run an economy or a government. Arnold had truly been a girly man during his term. He’s got one chance left now to make amends and not leave California hanging over a cliff.

This is the year to shut the State government down in order to make the budget work. There’s no revenue, and there has been no reform of State spending. Taxes can’t be raised unless the… Read More

In the State of the State address yesterday, Governor Schwarzenegger talked about using tax incentives on the purchase of green technologies as a means of creating jobs. This is not simply a theoretical notion. The fact is, there are several initiatives throughout the U.S. that could make this piece of the Governor’s plan a reality, and the President and CEO of two of them will be my guest on Go Green Radio tomorrow.

Robbie Diamond is the President & CEO of Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) – www.secureenergy.org – , and the Electrification Coalition – www.electrificationcoalition.org -, both nonpartisan, not-for-profit groups of business four star military leaders committed to promoting policies and actions that facilitate the deployment of electric vehicles on a mass scale in order to combat the economic, environmental, and national security dangers caused by our nation’s dependence on petroleum.

Among Robbie’s distinguished group of… Read More

*Note, this post has been updated to include a statement from Senator Walters (below). For those looking for responses to the State of the State Address from particular legislators, I provide links to releases with that information below.

I pulled the quotes from the other Republican women so that I can say we gave attention to all six. : Senator Mimi Walters, Laguna Niguel At a time when our state, and our nation, is suffering from a severe recession, it is critical that we implement policies that will encourage business to remain in California. The economic foundation of our state is… Read More

I just spoke with a longtime FR Blog reader who told me they had only discovered a couple of days ago that we feature original content on our main news aggregation page. Yes, almost every day we have original columns you won’t find anywhere else! Today we have an AFP-CA video and columns from Steve Poizner Sam Aanestad and Brian Nestande that you won’t want to miss.

So if you stop by the FR blog regularly – great! But at least once a day visit the main page, too!

LINK TO MAIN PAGE

In response to the announcement from Senator Bob Dutton that he has secured commitments from his colleagues to be the next Senate Republican Leader, the current Leader, Dennis Hollingsworth, provided the FlashReport with this statement:

"In order to ensure an orderly succession of leadership, it is necessary that our caucus be thinking about a new leader. I am happy that Senator Dutton appears to have the support of the caucus to be the next leader. With that in mind, we will hold an election and provide for a smooth transition later this year."… Read More

Yesterday conservative GOP Assembly candidate Paul Hegyi emailed his supporters with the news that he would be suspending his campaign for the GOP nomination for the State Assembly in the Central Valley’s ___ Assembly District. Last year, Hegyi came in second to former San Jouquin County Supervisor Jack Sieglock, who went on to (barely, like by around 500 votes) lose to Democrat Alyson Huber, resulting in an unfortunate and unexpected Dem pickup in the Assembly. Last year Hegyi and Sieglock both announced that they would again be seeking the GOP nomination in AD __, setting the scene for a showdown this June — with the winner going up against Huber.… Read More

One of our loyal FlashReport Blog readers is apparently Ana Matosantos, Governor Schwarzenegger’s Director of Finance (who has a featured column on our main page today). After perusing the blog, she sent this submission over for your reading pleasure… Setting the Record Straight Ana Matosantos – Director of Finance In the debate over California’s spending on prison versus higher education, the following facts may be helpful.… Read More

Text of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s State of the State Speech Prepared text of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s State of the State address:

I want to begin with a true story from which we can draw a worthwhile lesson.

As you might guess, the Schwarzenegger household is something of a menagerie.

An Austrian bodybuilder, a TV journalist, four children, a dog, the normal goldfish and hamsters and so forth — and in recent years we added a miniature pony and a pot-bellied pig.

It’s not unusual for me to look up from working on the budget or something to find a pig and a pony standing there staring at me.

Now, the dog’s food, which we keep in a canister with a screw-on lid, sits on the top of the dog’s kennel.

The pony has learned to knock the canister off the top of the kennel, and then he and the pig wedge it into the corner.

There’s this ridge on the lid… Read More