Are you maximizing your opportunities to stay "plugged in" to the FlashReport? If you arent, you may be missing out on the best way to get the latest on California political news.

FR Twitter Feed: FR Publisher Jon Fleischman (finally) downloaded Twitterberry to his PDA — which means that he is now, on a regular basis, sending out tweets of 140 characters or less to those "following" us on Twitter. Click here to get to the FR Twitter Page.

FR Facebook Page: Join hundreds of others who have become part of the official FlashReport group on Facebook. When things get heated up, we’ll send stuff to this group that no one else… Read More

Before going on Sean Hannity’s "Great American Panel" on Fox News a few weeks ago, I was waiting in the "green room" before the live broadcast. While waiting to go on set, I had the privilege of meeting Daniel Hannan, a British Member of the European Parliament who had just finished a TV interview himself. For those of you who don’t know, this is not a Member of the traditional British Parliament. Countries that are part of the European Union (EU) are able to send delegates to the European Parliament in Brussells, Belgium, where the 27 member countries decide what the EU will do and not do.

Anyway, he asked about President Obama’s socialized medicine plan and what might become of it. After we discussed that for a minute, he gave me a few facts about the socialized medicine plan in Britain, known as the National Health Service:… Read More

During these long days of economic hardship, somewhere along the way the "green jobs" industrywas anointed the Holy Grail of job growth; the savior of economic revitalization.

But really, green jobs have not served in much more than a feel-good, buzz-word capacity, according to many experts, including Joel Kotkin, presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University who said in a recently published op-ed in Forbes that "All told, green jobs constitute barely 700,000 positions across the country – less than 0.5% of total employment.

He goes on to say: "Indeed a recent study by Sam Sherraden at the center-left New America Foundation finds that, for the most part, green jobs constitute a negligible factor in employment – and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future."

Don’t get me wrong; I do not oppose solutions that improve our environment – but I believe we must allow the free market to prevail in creating a truly robust green industry and we should oppose government intervention vis-à-vis… Read More

New signs of unrest amongst the super hard left who dominate the California Democrat Party;

Their target is President Obama’s handling of… Read More

Last night, Congressman Dennis Cardoza was scheduled to address a meeting of the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau. After a local radio show mentioned this fact, Cardoza cancelled his appearance which led to a cancellation of the meeting. While Democrats in safe districts host town halls, it’s obvious the folks representing vulnerable districts are under strict orders from their handlers to hide.

Cardoza likes to tout that he is a bluedog. I propose that Cardoza resign from the bluedogs and start his own group of Congressmen who are currently in hiding. He could call it the "bluechickens." His first member could be fellow Democrat Congressman Jerry McNerney, who has completely disappeared from the district after he cast a YES vote for the government takeover of our healthcare system.

Under pressure, his spokewoman said he is conducting a "tele-townhall" this evening when pressed by the Tracy Press as to why he wasn’t having townhalls. She even called it part of his listening tour…AFTER HE HAS VOTED FOR THE BILL! I’m sure that will be a tough one. We all know that tele-townhalls have a screening mechanism… Read More

Jon’s commentary today featured the new coalition of small businesses that have formed to combat the ridiculous and dangerous energy policies being imposed upon Californians by the California Energy Commission. The coalition, Californians for Smart Energy, held a press conference in Sacramento today to discuss how the CEC’s latest limits on our energy consumption are further hurting our economy. The press conference mostly covered a lot of the details Jon mentioned in his commentary: the new limits on TV electricity usage would essentially ban big screen TVs in our state. Looks like Super Bowl Sunday will become a major travel day in California as citizens visit friends or family in other states who are allowed to have their big screen.

During… Read More

Those who have any question about why Texas is becoming an attractive place to which Californians are moving, check out this study by the American Legislative Exchange Council (this isn’t new, it’s a few months old).

Just to see if U-Haul is still having to pay its employees to drive empty trucks back to California, I checked to see if it is still vastly more expensive to rent a truck going FROM California to Texas than visa versa.

To rent a 26′ truck from West Los Angeles to Austin – $2,151. To rent that same truck from Austin to West LA – $678.

That should be very telling…… Read More

FlashReport readers will recall that I recently bestowed the “honor” of our Golden Trashcan Award to policy being put forward by the California Energy Commission (CEC) to ban big screen televisions in the name of Orwellian efforts to reduce energy consumption by – you!

Since I wrote that commentary, I noted that a new coalition has formed to fight this lame-brained idea, and others like it – Californians for Smart Energy. Today members of this coalition held a news conference outside of the CEC’s offices to oppose the big screen ban, and it arbitrary energy limits on televisions.

That’s right, a bunch of unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats now want to control what TVs we can or cannot buy here in the “Golden State.”

Californians for Smart Energy is a… Read More