Memo Date: April 2, 2008 To: Assemblyman John Benoit From: Jon Fleischman RE: Understanding Liberals I saw that yesterday, on a party-line vote, Assembly Democrats rejected your Assembly Bill 2389 which, put simply, would require that welfare recipients in California must submit to random drug tests, and if they they fail, be enrolled in mandatory treatment, or lose their right to welfare. You are to be commended for bringing forward such a common-sense measure, but I think that we all knew, unfortunately, that it was destined for defeat. It is not a coincidence that Democrats opposed this bill, while your Republican colleagues supported it. You see it goes to one of the basic core differences between the… Read More

Our friends at Citizens Against Government Waste release their annual pig book profiling Congress’ prolific spenders. It speaks for itself, read up here.

Bill McKay was on Capitol Hill testifying in support of public spending for the arts yesterday, from Roll Call.

Oil company executives were on the Hill yesterday testifying about why they make so much money and gas costs so much (or at least that was the presumptive judgment of some inquisitors). No word on whether powers controlling oil producing and exporting states or environmental organizations will be called to testify about their impact on the production, refinement and distribution of petroleum products. Here is how the Politico covered it.

Politico also looks at the inside maneuvering to pass financial services oversight legislation.… Read More

The infamous Los Angeles "Unified" School District is a national disgrace that keeps getting worse.LAUSD is a virtual prison for failure.

Today’s LA Times reveals that high school students in LA, less than half graduate. In Oakland failure rate is 54.4 who do not graduate.

Both school districts have been under union democrat control for over 50 years. Despite endless spending experiments the unions keep… Read More

Today’s front page of the Flash Report features an article from the San Diego Union Tribune about possible DMV tampering with voter registrations. Apparently several Republicans in San Diego were dismayed to learn that although they thought they had registered as Republicans at the DMV, when they arrived to vote in February’s primary there was no record of their registration with the GOP. Secretary of State Debra Bowen is investigating allegations that the DMV transferred the Republican registrations to nonpartisan.

Reading this article brought to mind a bill currently being considered in the legislature: AB 2371 by Assemblyman Joe Coto.

Every year lawmakers introduce legislation that will “make it easier” for voters to register or re-register, as if it so difficult to register right now. AB 2371 would require that anytime someone who is not registered to vote applies for a driver’s license, instruction permit, junior permit or identification card, or who files an… Read More

[Cross-posted from OC Blog]

The bitter battle between Corona Mayor Jeff Miller and Rancho Santa Margarita Mayor Neil Blais to win the GOP nod in the 71st Assembly District is well on its way to being OC’s nastiest June contest.

Lately, the Blais campaign is going over that fine line between political hard-ball and sleazy politics.

For example, twice in the past week I’ve received a press release from the Blais campaign basically accusing Jeff Miller of public corruption.… Read More

I don’t know if I should be excited or disappointed that our main page April Fool’s joke has been so popular. It’s only been up three hours and I literally have OVER 200 emails from FR readers telling me "you got me" or "boy did I fall for that one" or some other variation on the theme.

I’m excited because it’s always fun to successfully execute an April Fools Day "Gotcha" — I’m disappointed because in order to pull that off, you need to throw out a scenario that is so plausable that people want to believe it.

It’s too bad that a joke about the Governor leaving the GOP is so believable to so many. Sigh.… Read More

I have always kept my hand in and paid attention to Inland Empire races. Without question, you’ve got to be tough to win Republican primaries down there. I stumbled across a website that continues that tradition, www.nonestande.com.

For Assembly race viewers, this battle between Brian Nestande and Kelly McCarty to succeed John Benoit should be highly entertaining.… Read More

Welcome Back Congress. Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back. And not a moment too soon. Lockheed and Boeing pull out the heavy artillery in the ongoing Air Force tanker spat. Lockheed runs full page ads in most DC papers today signed by more than a dozen former high-ranking Air Force general types, from the Politico, here.

A variety of immigration battles wages as high tech companies begin looking for much-needed workers allotted a limited number of H-1B so-called "highly skilled" visas, from NY Times, here.

The GAO issues a report on the cost of defense construction, here, from the Post. (subscription may be required)

Closer to home, relatively, Wonkette hails Cesar (Chavez) on his birthday and notes the candidates comments, here.

The Hill reports that an aide to frequent GOP-basher Rep. John Murtha used campaign funds to purchase a… Read More