We’ve intercepted an e-mail sent from the Blackberry of Senate President Darrell Steinberg to the Blackberry of Speaker Karen Bass… From reading it, it’s clear that lack of unity among Republicans in the capitol is helping his cause of ultimately raising taxes…. DATE: 6/27/09 13:57 TO: superbass@unionforever.com FROM: icutmypayhaveyou@healthcareforeverykid.com RE: Our Unlikely Ally in Sam Blakeslee Karen — Divided Republicans mean "opportunity knocks" for us. I know that the union chiefs keep calling us — but there is hope that… Read More

The inimitable Mike Spence blogged on RedCounty.com that Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth and former Sen. Ray Haynes as strong primary challengers to Rep.Mary Bon-Mack:

Fellow Red County Contributor has clearly articulated the need for a GOP Primary challenge to Mary Bono-Mack.

His suggestions of former legislators Bonnie Garcia and Jim Battin make sense. Battin definitely would be a great candidate. I submit that Senator Dennis Hollingsworth and former legislator Ray Haynes be approached as well.

This Congressional District 45 is not just a Palm Springs district. It stretches down to Murrieta and Temecula through wonderful place like Hemet and Moreno Valley. Both Hollingsworth and Haynes do live in the Congressional District.

You can read the rest of Mike’s post here.… Read More

For the past week Americans has been watching with rapt attention the drama unfolding in Iran after its national election. Millions of Iranians have taken to the streets to demand their freedom. Many have died in their quest for something we as Americans so easily take for granted. Last weekend Iranian-Americans took to the streets of Los Angeles, which has the largest community of Iranians in America, to express their support for a free Iran.

In providential timing, a movie is being released today that exposes the cruel treatment of women under Iran’s regime: The Stoning of Soraya M. My Townhall article this week talks about the movie and how simply going to see the film expresses support for those suffering under Iran’s despotic government. The film will open in several California cities, with more openings next weekend.

Those in Orange County will have a great opportunity to see the film and participate in a Q & A discussion with the director and two… Read More

Another friend e-mailed me to recommend recently termed-out state Sen. Jim Battin as a preferable primary challenger to Rep. Mary Bono-Mack, rather than former Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia.

Jim Battin served three terms in the Assembly and two in the state Senate, and is currently eying a run for Lieutenant Governor. Jim amassed a solid conservative record, but my most vivid impression of him was during the fight to bring down Assembly Speaker Doris Allen in 1995. That fracas separated the men from the mealy worms in the Assembly GOP Caucus, and Battin was always right on the front line. That spirit left long-lasting positive impression on me.

Clearly, Battin still aspires to political office, and that same fighting spirit would prove a valuable weapon in a primary battle to take out Bono-Mack.

I don’t know what, if any, relationship Garcia or Battin have with Bono-Mack. Different readers will have different takes on which they would prefer as a primary challenger… Read More

I am sure most California politicos didn’t miss the above-the-top "I love Meg Whitman" piece penned a couple of months ago by Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard. I think it is ironic that one of the most prominent advertisers on the Weekly Standard’s website is now eBay. I know because every day that I compile links for the FR’s main page, the Standard’s website is one of my stops.

This morning I had to refresh my browser on their page exactly once to ditch the Joe Scarborough ad, and get the eBay ad you see below. Now to be fair, perhaps they were there before the cover-story puff-piece on eBay’s former Chief Executive Officer — and I just wasn’t looking for them.

My favorite theory is that the eMeg story gets forwarded around to all of Whitman’s former employees and such, and someone in advertising says, … Read More

Well, I guess Debra Bowen and the Los Angeles District Attorney are being bipartisan in enforcing voter registration rules. Last week they nailed a GOP voter registration collector, Mark Jacoby, for voter registration fraud and this week they filed charges against well-known southern California liberal Latino activist Nativo Lopez for allegedly fudging on his own voter registration. According to Martin Wisckol’s well researched article in the Orange County Register today, Lopez is facing felony charges for being registered to vote at a Los Angeles address while actually living in Orange County.

Bowen and the DA did the same with poor Mark Jacoby, a guy who makes his living collecting signatures on petitions, (a dirty business) and he plead out to a misdemeanor. But his plea surprised me. "Voter registration fraud" is really not the same as "voter fraud." "Voter fraud" is about stopping dead people and illegals from voting. In these "voter registration fraud" cases, Bowen and the LA District Attorney are enforcing laws that require people who are registered to vote to… Read More

Last night around 7pm I started to get a flurry of emails from FlashReport readers — they couldn’t get onto the website! I tried it out myself and, sure enough, it was slow as molasses. I quickly reached out to our ace team of programmers at Cloudspace (they are located in Orlando, Florida so it was a bit later there) — and they got on it right away.

Their first report to me was that the site had ground to a virtual standstill because of a massive volume of traffic coming to the site. I thought this to be a little odd, for a Thursday night.

Soon after that first report, the answer came back. It turns out that in a commentary I wrote for FR a couple of weeks ago I had a graphic image of the cover of Michael Jackson’s 1984 "Thriller" album — and for some reason, when one did a Google images search for this, the image on my site came up number two! Anyways, as folks around the web sought out that particular graphic they would start to link from their websites and emails to that file. This then led to others grabbing the link and so on and so on. The exponential effort led to a site overload.

The problem has… Read More

The Accidental Congresswoman has outlived her uselessness. GOPRep. Mary Bono-Mack needs a primary challenger, stat.

"Cap and trade" — the energy tax that constitutes the largest tax in American history (a category in which it has some stiff competition) has passed narrowly, thanks to the votes of 8 Republicans.

Absent those 8 Republicans, this tax hike would have failed.

One of those Traitorous 8 was Rep. Mary Bono-Mack. She votted "no" on the earlier test vote, then flipped to a "yes" on the final vote.

Thanks for nothing, Mary. It is inexplicable to me how anyone calling themselves a Republican would vote for this ginormous tax levy to fight a climate phenomenon that no one — no one — has proven is the result of man-made activity.

Mary Bono needs a primary challenge. A serious challenger who can win and send her packing off to… Read More