This Governor is in the habit of rolling out Judicial appointments in big batches. Until this week, his last batch of new Judges was announced back in May — twenty of them. I have made no bones about that fact that it is galling to me that the Governor, who was elected with all of the support of the Republican Party, loves to appoint registrants of the party of Barack Obama to the bench. In that May batch, it was 9 Republicans and 8 Democrats. It is a very sad situation for GOP donors and activists that we have to settle with a bare majority of Judicial appointments from our Republican Governor. It truly makes you scratch your head..

Well, actually, we have now set a new low for GOP appointments — less than 50%. Monday the Governor announced 30 new appointees to Judicial posts around Californian. You can see all of them here.

We think that it is fair to assume that someone’s party registration is a good way to generalize their beliefs about the proper… Read More

This Governor is in the habit of rolling out Judicial appointments in big batches. Until this week, his last batch of new Judges was announced back in May — twenty of them. I have made no bones about that fact that it is galling to me that the Governor, who was elected with all of the support of the Republican Party, loves to appoint registrants of the party of Barack Obama to the bench. In that May batch, it was 9 Republicans and 8 Democrats. It is a very sad situation for GOP donors and activists that we have to settle with a bare majority of Judicial appointments from our Republican Governor. It truly makes you scratch your head..

Well, actually, we have now set a new low for GOP appointments — less than 50%. Monday the Governor announced 30 new appointees to Judicial posts around Californian. You can see all of them here.

**There is more – click the link**… Read More

The following article appeared in Roll Call ($$) yesterday. Since I had a quote in the piece, I’ve highlighted it below.

The Farm Team: Dominoes Fall When Schwarzenegger, DiFi Leave By David M. Drucker Roll Call Staff First in a three-part series Conservative Republicans need not apply. If ever someone was going to write a help-wanted ad seeking Republicans with a realistic chance of winning a Senate race in California, that sentence would most certainly deserve top billing.… Read More

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

The Governor continues to stand firm on his demand that any budget must include real spending reform. That is outstanding.

While these days we need to take the Governor’s resolve on a day by day basis, it is heartening to see him continuing to advocate this needed reform of state government, to prevent future overspending.… Read More

When it comes to dealing with the impacts of illegal immigrants on cities and counties, there’s a right way and a wrong way. In San Francisco we see both a wrong-way city and a wrong-way county.

By way of example, San Bernardino County has discovered that San Francisco, a self-designated “sanctuary city”, was until recently dumping illegal-alien juvenile criminals into group homes in San Bernardino County. Read about it here.

Illegal immigrants are by definition law-breakers, but a significant number of them also break other laws of the United States. These offenders often find themselves in our jails.

Of course Congress hasn’t summoned the courage to lead on this issue – or at least lead in the right direction. So starting with the aftermath of the 2005 controversy over the McCain-Kennedy bill, the idea of local governments taking control of their own public safety relative to illegal-immigrant criminals began to resonate. Since the federal and state governments won’t send the right message – that illegal immigration (especially when committed by people who commit other crimes as well)… Read More

Today the Congress is preparing to vote on a massive mega-billion dollar "bail out" of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae" – along with billions of other "gifts" to those impacted negatively by the mortgage crisis ("gift" – paid for with our tax dollars). Congressman Ed Royce (R-Orange County) just sent over this well written piece on this ill-advised legislation:

Socializing Risk While Funding the Left By U.S. Represenative Ed Royce Today the House of Representatives passed one of the largest taxpayer bailouts in decades. After advocating for strong GSE reforms for the better part of a… 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