There was quite a bit of chatter going on in the State Capitol when conservative Assemblyman Bob Huff put up the lone GOP vote for SB 974. This legislation would require those shipping goods into California’s ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland to pay an estimated $400 million a year into government coffers to pay for infrastructure investment around those ports.

Since this vote was controversial, we reached out to Assemblyman Huff to ask him why he voted for this bill, that was rejected by his Republican colleagues. In response to our inquiry, Assemblyman Huff penned this piece to explain his position, and his vote…

We’re placing a link to Huff’s piece here on the FR blog in case those reading it would like to publicly comment.… Read More

Know of a liberal college student needing summer work? At U.C. Santa Cruz , my daughter’s school this Fall, i found this announcement posted throughout the campus.

Wow, for helping kicking out the GOP of the White House, any student can get up to $8000 as a summer campaigner. After observing politics a while I’ve never seen such a deal. This year the Dems are swimming in money. Barak just announced his take in June was over $50 million, outdistancing McCain 2-1. Even the hapless DNC, forever broke under Chairman Dean is matching nicely against the RNC, just a few weeks after the Obama takeover of those operations.

And that money doesn’t even includethe fabulous 527s, those underground secretive money laundering operations, which are overwhelmingly in the dem camp. Strange ironies for McCain-Feingold. Billionairesfor Obama, re their donating history includesEli Broad, real estate [93% for dems], Ron Burkle, supermakets and FOB [ 98%]; Charles Kushner, real estate and felon, [98%]; George… Read More

The City of Newport Beach has one of the most threatening and unconstitutional campaign ordinances on its books I have ever seen. And by golly, they just might repeal it tonight!

I blogged about the law here last February and provided four detailed reasons why it was unconstitutional. The lawis Municipal Code section 1.30, which criminalizes all "writings," direct-mail and flyers distributed to 200 or more people in Newport Beach within 14 days of an election, unless copies are filed with the City Clerk within 2 hours of distribution, and supported by evidence of how they were distributed. The penalty is six months in jail, a $500 fine, or both.

The law is aimed atlast minute "hit pieces" and is specifically intended to force public disclosure of such mailings, and all late mailings, to give opponents the opportunity to "respond to statements" that are "untrue, or believed to be untrue." The law became an issue in the February municipal election in Newport Beach when supporters of Measure B, the successful "City Hall in the Park" initiative, which was opposed by the majority of… Read More

Know a college student needing summer work? At U.C. Santa Cruz , my daughter’s school this Fall, i found this announcement posted throughout the campus.

Wow, for helping kicking out the GOP of the White House, a student can get up to $8000 as a summer campaigner. After observing politics a while I’ve never seen such a deal. This year the Dems are swimming in money. Barak just announced his take in June was over $50 million, outdistancing McCain 2-1. Even the hapless DNC, forever broke under Chairman Dean. is matching nicely against the RNC, just a few weeks after the Obama takeover of those operations.

And that money doesn’t even includethe fabulous 527s, those underground secretive money laundering operations, which are overwhelmingly in the dem camp. Strange ironies for McCain-Feingold. Billionairesfor Obama, re their donating history includesEli Broad, real estate [93% for dems], Ron Burkle, supermakets and FOB [ 98%]; Charles Kushner, real estate and felon, [98%]; George Soros,… Read More

Back in January, when the McCain campaign was going around soliciting supporters to serve as potential delegates to a Republican Convention nearly 8 months, and a competitive primary later, it was a challenge, I’m sure. Especially since back then, McCain was not on the top of the polls.

As the rubber now meets the road, and those who agreed to be submitted as delegates have to actually figure out of they can go (you know, take a week of off work, and come up with a bunch of money for lodging, delegation fees, etcetra), there have been plenty of changes and substitutions from the original list of delegates and alternates.

Attached you will find (as a .pdf file) an updated list (as of 7/11) of California’s McCain Delegation* to the Republican National Convention.

Senator Ackerman – we see you’ve made the list. If the Democrats in Sacramento are willing to accept more significant cuts in state spending, perhaps you’ll even get to go! … Read More

Tom Kaptain operates two slates. One Democratic and one Republican. The Republican slate Citizens for the Common Good included a chance for people to pick their VP candidate. There were 2146 responses out of a million pieces mailed. And the winner was Romney by a landslide.

Here are the results:

Mitt Romney 1,186 Mike Huckabee 450 Joe Lieberman 192 Bobby Jindal 86 Chris Cox 66 Kay Bailey Hutchinson 56

Thanks to Peggy Mew for counting and compiling the returns.… Read More

Things are not always what they appear to be…..particularly in Washington. Sometimes, the real reason that a bill is changed, or shelved, or amended is not what the spin and press reports say. Two such instances have occurred here recently. The first has to do with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which was finally passed by the Senate and was signed into law by President Bush last week. This bill has been held up in negotiations and partisan fighting all year. Most people believe that the hold up was because civil libertarians were fighting to insure that no wiretapping of phones is done without appropriate court orders or that the privacy ramifications of this bill were being debated. Not true. A compromise was reached on all of those issues months ago. The hold-up on this bill was for an entirely different reason. After 9/11, the phone companies were contacted by the federal government and asked to provide certain phone records that the government would use in its surveillance activities. The phone companies, remember that this is in the aftermath of 9/11, complied. Recently, a group of trail lawyers determined that these… Read More

Let me start by saying thanks to FR Publisher Jon Fleischman for welcoming me back to the Flash Report Blog. As Jon has mentioned previously, I was FR’s first San Bernardino County correspondent almost three years ago. After 14 months I left in order to focus on becoming a San Bernardino County Supervisor. Now that I’ve achieved that goal, I really appreciate this opportunity to return and pick right back up where I left off — almost two years later.

So what’s changed since we last talked?

One thing for certain has changed, I thought as I perused the latest news accounts of the Iraq situation vis-à-vis the Presidential candidates. And that is, how much things have changed in Iraq. And as Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Iraq today, it also strikes me how little his approach has changed during that same time. I’m pretty sure this is because his position is still the politically popular (albeit wrong) one.

Obama’s 2006 visit to Iraq (his first and only other visit besides today’s) was marked by the… Read More