If anyone wants to share with us what is in the water that Republican State Senator Roy Ashburn is drinking these days, please share it with us. For years now, a longtime FR friend (with a healthy dislike of the “Bill Thomas Machine” in the greater Kern County area), Ashburn has been a reliable conservative in the legislature, and a team player.

Lately, however, he seems to have “senioritis” – and this ailment is causing him to act in a peculiar and most unfortunate manner. Right now, more so than at any point than I can recollect, legislative Republicans have unified around a common line in the sand – that our state’s fiscal woes have been directly caused by year after year of massive spending increases (40% growth in less than 4 years) – and that California taxpayers should not be punished by the legislature’s overspending with the imposition of new or higher taxes.

Only one… Read More

I was born in L.A. long after George Putnam had got his start, but he was still on T.V. broadcasting usually conservative opinion as I was a young man. He later went to back radio. To his credit he was on e of the first I heard talk about the impact of illegal immigration. TodayGeorge Putnampassed.

He was pioneer in the field and an L.A. Legend. Over 70 years in the entertainment/new biz. R.I.P.

Here is County Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s view on the patriot Putnam.

… Read More

Cloudspace Blog Process's test 3 —

=BD =BE… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary:

The Sun King

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, thinks he has a partial solution to America’s dependence on high-priced foreign oil. But he says liberals and environmentalists are rejecting it.

Mr. Rohrabacher — who notes 130 pending applications for solar power projects on federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management — has introduced a bill to allow the building of such plants without environmental-impact studies. He tells me that though the BLM has lifted a moratorium on new solar projects on public land that it imposed in 2005, applications are still being clogged up in a bureaucratic pipeline and no new permits have been issued to date. "We need… Read More

Charlie Gibson interviewed Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for ABC’s Nightline. I found it to be an interesting exchange, and worthy of sharing. You can see it here. Since she can pronounce "Ahmadinejad" — she’s certainly more qualified than me to serve in the White House…… Read More

California’s 10th Assembly District was one of the top three Republican ‘defense’ seats during the 2002 legislative elections. But, after handily carrying the district, incumbent Alan Nakanishi has had little problem holding the seat in subsequent elections.

That is all likely to change this year. The Democrats have moved the 10th Assembly District near the top of their wish-list, and for good reason. First, the seat is open, which always makes for a more interesting contest. Second, a once six-point Republican partisan voter registration advantage has shrunk to just two points.

The 10th District is located in the San Joaquin Valley, split over four counties — El Dorado, Amador, Sacramento and San Joaquin. Compounding matters for Republican strategists, not only was there a pretty brutal GOP primary contest back in June, but this seat… Read More

California’s 10th Assembly District was one of the top three Republican ‘defense’ seats during the 2002 legislative elections. But, after handily carrying the district, incumbent Alan Nakanishi has had little problem holding the seat in subsequent elections.

That is all likely to change this year. The Democrats have moved the 10th Assembly District near the top of their wish-list, and for good reason. First, the seat is open, which always makes for a more interesting contest. Second, a once six-point Republican partisan voter registration advantage has shrunk to just two points.

The 10th District is located in the San Joaquin Valley, split over four counties — El Dorado, Amador, Sacramento and San Joaquin. Compounding matters for Republican strategists, not only was there a pretty brutal GOP primary contest back in June, but this seat… Read More

This morning it is my unfortunate duty to unveil a new website address for the so-called California Taxpayers Association. Until now, you could only access their website by going to www.caltax.org. But we here at the FlashReport officially unveil www.taxcal.org, which will take you straight to the home page of this group which has endorsed huge multi-billion dollar sales tax increase proposed by Governor Schwarzenegger as part of a “compromise budget” that seeks to punish California taxpayers for years of massive over-spending.

It speaks volumes about TaxCal (our new name for the group) that now, during a time when pro-taxpayer groups are rallying behind our strong Republican legislators, that they have broken ranks and embracing bigger, fatter state government. This is exactly the time when you get to learn who are real taxpayer advocates, and who are not.

The decision to endorse the Governor’s tax plan was made by TaxCal’s super-top-secret Board of Directors. Well, I don’t… Read More