Today we feature a guest commentary from Lew Uhler, President of the National Tax Limitation Committee: REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS ARE CALIFORNIA TAXPAYERS’ FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE By Lewis K. Uhler, President, National Tax Limitation Committee All California taxpayers owe a debt of gratitude to the Republic legislators who are standing resolutely against tax increases. Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines typifies the Republican attitude and commitment in his recent comment: “Consistently we’re listening to the Democrat leadership and, frankly, the governor, talk about raising taxes. And I’m just tired of hearing it. We’re… Read More

From the Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary E-mail — good news!!

Free to Blog

It isn’t every Tuesday that DailyKos and the Heritage Foundation find common cause, but that was the case after a Federal Election Commission ruling this week that exempts political bloggers from rules governing political organizations. The decision, great news for bloggers, also highlights the proliferation of chronic whiners that the campaign finance laws have produced. Politicians and their allies increasingly are resorting to lawsuits and regulatory complaints in an attempt to silence opponents and critics.

In this case, the whining was done by a Hillary Clinton supporter who complained that a pro-Obama blog called "Iowa True Blue" was working hand-in-glove… Read More

About a third of FlashReport daily readers are signed up for our Daily Update E-mail, and while that is thousands of readers, we encourage the rest of you to consider signing up.

The e-mail is sent out once a day, right after the main page is updated with the day’s current news — with a convenient link to take you straight to the site.

Also, in each daily update e-mail, we include a listing of all of the headlines that appear on the main page. We just upgraded the email so that it also indicates which news source the headline is from (as we do on our main page).

We also, on occasion when it is merited, will send out breaking news alerts to the list. But that is quite infrequent.

If you would like to sign up for this free daily e-mail, you can click here.

Oh yes, you have our guarantee that your e-mail address is kept confidential, and this list is NEVER sold, rented or given out to anyone else.… Read More

Ever heard of Californians Sharing In The Solution?

This morning Shane Goldmacher over at the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert has posted up a letter signed by 48 Californians who invite a state tax increase, and point out that they feel they each make enough money that they would be impacted by such an increase (according to Goldmacher, each makes over $164,500 a year — see Goldmacher’s post here, see a .pdf of the letter here).

To these folks, I would say that if they want to "chip in" more money from their disposable income to contribute to the state’s general fund — let’s get contribution envelopes out to these folks.

But it is a bit pretentious, and in fact outrageous for these folks to presume that because they can afford to pay more money to the government (to offset overspending) that it means that others can afford and should be willing to do so as well.

Ahhh, what could be more welcoming to legislature than a letter from people… Read More

FR Blogger Adam Probolsky recently traveled to El Salvador. Typical of Adam, while the rest of us would be lounging about, Adam can be seen in the clip below, in a suit, being interviewed on local El Salvador television. Since I don’t know Spanish, I can’t tell you what Adam is saying as he has been translated into El Salvador’s national language — but clearly he is labeled as being a "Republican Senator" — which is great. Maybe at least in El Salvador, we’ll have someone to offset the liberalism of Feinstein and Boxer. If only we could get Adam a vote in D.C… … Read More

Courtesy of the pent-up angst of some of Senator Bob Dutton’s interns. Too bad this isn’t a game. The efforts to raise your taxes are very, very real. Thank goodness for the resolve of our legislative Republicans!… Read More

Yesterday I blogged on rumored circumstances surrounding the very real mid-day locking up of Senator Carol Migden’s Capitol Office.

Well, ace-Capitol reporter Shane Goldmacher turned his talents on finding out what actually took place. You can read the fruits of his labor here (free registration required).

The nickel tour — Migden was apparently yelling at her staff so loudly (who does that?) that Senate officials came over, informed employees of their rights, and sent everyone home. Today a bunch of temp workers are in the office.

I’m no fan of Mark Leno — I think he (and Migden) are whacked out liberals who think socialism is the wave of the future. That said, Leno may be a liberal, but he is not emotionally unstable, which may very well be the case with Migden. So in the context of this whole incident, I guess it’s best that he "took her out" — I don’t think California taxpayers can afford to… Read More

[PUBLISHER’S NOTE ADDED TO BARRY’S POST: I am aware of errors in the scoring of Senator Tom Harmon, and of Assemblyman Bob Huff as well in CW’s ratings. Once we know all of the errors, we’ll get something comprehensive up on the site – Flash]

Assemblyman George Plescia just contacted me about yesterday’s Cap Weekly rankings, which were linked from the FR main page. He is rightfully irked by the scoring, since it incorrectly shows he voted FOR the 2008-09 budget. Per George:

Let’s make it clear there was a HUGE mistake. It says I voted for the 2008/09 budget with a tax increase. I obviously voted AGAINST the tax increase budget. Therefore my score is more conservative than printed. We have made Capitol Weekly aware of the mistake.

Good. And, let’s further make it clear that he voted… Read More