Two weeks ago, I had a chance to sit down with Gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman for the better part of an hour. Our interview covered a number of policy areas, including global warming/AB32, eminent domain, gun control, abortion, and overall philosophy about government. Because I brought a digital recorder along, Flash Report readers can enjoy these direct excerpts from the interview.

THIS IS THE THIRD INSTALLMENT OF THIS INTERVIEW. YOU CAN READ PART ONE (ON THE ENVIRONMENT, GLOBAL WARMING, AND AB 32) CLICK HERE. YOU CAN READ PART TWO (ON PROPERTY RIGHTS) … Read More

Longtime Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Weintraub will soon be departing the payroll of the Bee… While he will still have columns there, he is also going to be a regular columnist for the Left Coast edition of the New York Times (well, until they figure out Dan is not a lefty) and he will work on other various projects. We wish Dan well, and hope that much of his focus remains on California policy and politics. When he does, we'll link it on our main page!… Read More

First, they banned our cell phones (with the exception of First Lady Shriver), now they want our GPS, satellite radio and garage door openers. The California Air Resources Boardhas approved a "Cool Cars" regulation that will require car windows to have an advanced glazing in order to block the sun’s heat, supposedly reducing the need for air conditioning. This was the same government agency that earlier this year floated the idea of banning black cars in California for the same reason.

Unfortunately, as withso many brilliant government ideas, the regulation was adopted before this window glazing technology was completely tested. Turns out the glazing can interfere with GPS, garage door openers, cell phones and satellite radios. The regulation will even be imposed on soft-top vehicles, leading to speculation Jeep may stop selling its soft-cover vehicles in the state. Sun roofs would be tinted so dark they would essentially be black (forget driving PCH with that California sunshine beaming down on you).… Read More

In 1996, then Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian introduced a bill that would give public employees the option of moving from the current "defined benefit" pension system to a "defined contribution" system. The major difference between the two system is that under a defined benefit system, the contributions are made to a fund, managed by someone else (in Californias case, a union elected board, with a couple of Governor appointees and appointees by the Controller and Treasurer, both union controlled Democrats), and the payment that is made to the retiree is defined by the state. A defined contribution system is a 401(k) system. It allows the investments to be controlled by the employee, and the benefit the employee receives depends on how smart the employee was in making the investment.

Kaloogians bill passed the Republican controlled Assembly at the time, and ended up in the Democrat controlled Public Employee Retirement Committee, of which I was the Vice Chair. A whole host of government employee union lobbyists (a group I used to refer to as the "Red Brigade") showed up in the committee to oppose the bill. What was most interesting… Read More

Massive news reports show that CAIR [Council of American Islamic Relations] the notorious terror apologist group, recently invited by Sen. Darrell Steinberg to celebrate theend of Ramadan in the Rotunda of the State Capitol, is in the hot seat again.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/63023-republicans-accuse-muslim-advocacy-group-of-trying-to-plant-spies

… Read More

Two weeks ago, I had a chance to sit down with Gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman for the better part of an hour. Our interview covered a number of policy areas, including global warming/AB32, eminent domain, gun control, abortion, and overall philosophy about government. Because I brought a digital recorder along, Flash Report readers can enjoy these direct excerpts from the interview. THIS IS THE THIRD INSTALLMENT OF THIS INTERVIEW. YOU CAN READ PART ONE (ON THE ENVIRONMENT, GLOBAL WARMING, AND AB 32) CLICK HERE… Read More

FlashReport Reader:

On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Western Conservative Political Action Conference (Western CPAC), I am pleased to announce that we have just confirmed that Andrew Breitbart of Breitbart.com, Breitbart.tv, and BigGovernment.com has confirmed that he will be giving opening comments on a star-studded political technology panel that I will be hosting this Saturday. "This Saturday," you ask??!! YES, WESTERN CPAC WILL BE TAKING PLACE THIS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY RIGHT IN THE HEART OF ORANGE COUNTY CALIFORNIA. If you haven’t already, you should check out our website here which is chock-full of information on the event.… Read More

Over the past week or so Meg Whitman has been announcing various interest-group coalitions from around California supporting her campaign for Governor. Just yesterday she announced statewide law enforcement leaders.

Later this morning she will roll out her Agriculture Coaltion Leadership Team. But we have a "sneak peak" here for FlashReport readers… Agriculture Coalition Co-Chairs Jesse Alderete, President, California Farm Labor Contractors’ Alliance Mark Borba, Owner, Borba Farms… Read More