The buzz on cable news and national talk shows this week is the tragic murder of San Franciscan Tony Bologna and his two young sons at the hands of an illegal alien. The brutal and senseless slaying occurred June 22 when El Salvadoran Edwin Ramos (allegedly) shot the three men after their car accidentally blocked his car’s path at an intersection. Such a crime would normally be chalked up as another big-city-violence statistic except that the perpetrator is an illegal alien with a long criminal record.

It’s probably no coincidence that Ramos was hiding in the Bay Area; San Francisco is a sanctuary city, refusing to cooperate in deporting those who have broken the law to enter our nation. That means San Francisco’s government publicly and proudly defies its very purpose for existence: to protect its citizens from criminals. Outside of this fundamental purpose, government should play a very limited role in citizens’ lives. But instead of protecting its residents from savages like Edwin Ramos, the city has actually… Read More

Sometimes they’re easy. A bill comes to the floor and you just instinctively know how you will vote. Either it’s something you’ve always supported or always opposed or the bill is just clear-cut.

Such was not the case this week with the Housing Bill (H.R. 3221). This bill has been cooking all year and there were lots of moving pieces. In the end, it was over 700 pages long and was a grab bag of housing, regulatory and tax provisions. Some of these provisions I supported. Others I opposed viscerally. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. So, I broke out the major provisions of the bill into the categories of things I hated, things I was okay with and things that could go either way. Here is how I saw those things:

Provisions I can’t stand:

The bill requires that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac contribute 4.2 basis points of each new mortgage they make to an "affordable housing trust fund." This is a nearly $1 billion per year "slush fund" that would go primarily to organizations and community development agencies to promote low-income housing. This is just a huge handout to a small number of … Read More

Few blacks get elected outside of African-American neighborhoods. The last and only black Republican assemblyman was Frederick Roberts (pictured below, left), in the AD 62, Los Angeles, [1918 to 1934]. Roberts was the first black to serve in any California state office.

Abram Wilson is the Republican nominee in AD 15. Wilson was elected as San Ramon’s first Mayor in 2003. He competedfor the Guy Houston seat against several other well financed challengers.Three candidates… Read More

Barack Hussein Obama may have supported the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms in the U.S. Senate, but his decisionto reject "public financing," which gives him a significant financial edge in the Fall election, is surely not in keeping with his prior statements of support for campaign finance reform.

Regardless of his flip-flop, I don’t blame him, as I think public financing of Presidential campaigns is amisuse of taxpayers funds and I can understand a candidate wanting to build every edge they can in their campaign. I’m glad the requirement is optional. However, the "opt-out" is a loop-hole that BHO is taking advantage of, and because of McCain’s association with campaign finance reform, it is a loop-holeMcCain can’t use himself.

But the biggest loop-hole for BHO, (or "BO" for those who think using "Hussein" is too alarming) isn’t opting out of public financing. Rather, it is the Federal Election Commission’s regulation, known as the "News Story Exemption," that is giving Obama a very big media edge at the moment, and it is… Read More

A friend of mine won’t eat shrimp unless she knows its country of origin. This is because she heard that some chicken farms in China place their mesh-bottomed coups over shrimp ponds, feeding the shrimp with chicken droppings. Another friend of mine deadpanned “What’s wrong with that? They’re reducing their Carbon Footprint.”

Since liberals fear Al Gore-style global warming hype more than even terrorism, and they control the legislative and bureaucratic halls of government, the regulatory regime is seriously on the move at both the federal and state level to as much as triple the cost of every product, service or activity.

In fact, the federal EPA and the California Air Resources Board this week issued draft regulations that shed considerable light upon the brave new world where government would exponentially increase the cost of every product or service and control everything from landfills to lawnmowers.

According to Jeremy J. Broggi, Associate Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, the President in April “warned that the Clean Air Act and other existing statutes were the wrong way to address climate change, as… Read More

I’m on vacation, but this one jumped out at me….

Copley Press explores sale… Read More

Readers know I am not a big fan of most campaign finance laws, but the decision of Federal prosecutors to insist on a felony charge for alleged money-laundering by Los Angeles trial lawyer and Democrat activist Pierce O’Donnell is the right thing to do.

The Times reports today that O’Donnell faces money-laundering charges for reimbursing people for making contributions to John Edwards 2004 Presidential campaign. In my personal view, that in itself does not support a felony case against a first-timer, but there are least three other factors that I believe justify the federal grand jury indictment and a felony case against O’Donnell if he is found guilty:

1. This is not O’Donnell’s first brush with money-laundering charges. As the Times article indicates, O’Donnell took a misdemeanor plea for money-laundering in connection with former Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn’s first successful race for Mayor in 2001. That was a protracted procedure that started almost three years before the money-laundering activities alleged on behalf of Edwards. That is a "first… Read More

Jon asked me to comment on the debate over the "water" bond currently being proposed in the Legislature. Since there really is no water bond being proposed, the debate is a false one. We are already in a water crisis it is true. Democrats have done nothing to alleviate that crisis since sometime in Jerry Brown administration in the 70’s, that is true as well. About 6 bonds have passed since 1996 claiming to be water bonds, and they got Republican votes to get on the ballot because somewhere in the language of the bond, someone wrote the word water. Not one ounce of new water was created by any of those bonds, and not ounce of water will be created by the currently proposed bond. Simply calling a bond a "water" bond does not make it so. California needs new water, California needs it now, and nothing is being done about it, not by the administration, not by the Democrats, and not by those Republicans who insist that we have a "water" bond that doesn’t create an ounce of water.

Let’s start with a critical premise. A water bond that has above ground storage can be a revenue bond (which does not require a vote… Read More