WINNERS: The GOP Senators who stepped up and told the President: "Amnesty, proposed by a Republican, is still amnesty." LOSERS: The "dirty dozen" Republican Senators that cast the pro-amnesty vote: Bennett, Craig, Graham, Gregg, Hagel, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, Snow, Specter. WINNERS: Grassroots activists all around America who got active, and made a difference with their lobbying of Washington politicians. THE BIG LOSER: President George W. Bush. My faith in the judgement of the George W. Bush has been profoundly, negatively impacted by this totally outrageous and misguided effort. WINNERS: All legal immigrants to the United States, whose journey to come here would have been immeasurably cheapened with an amnesty for the lawbreaking… Read More

My initial commentary on war profiteer Michael Moore’s visit to the State Capitol a few weeks back drew the ire of liberals all over the state. Now a new op ed in the Wall Street Journal adds to the mountain of evidence of Canada’s failed single payer health system. I dare say there is as much evidence of the disaster of single payer throughout the world as let’s say – global warming!

So let me use the liberal line on this: the debate is over. Single payer health insurance funded by government is an abject failure.… Read More

maintaing his position as King of the Nanny State, The Governor signed AB 951. AB 951 bans allalochol on rafts on certain holidays on the American River. See press release here.There is no word on whether you can set up a tent in the middle of the river and declare yourself free from such laws.

You can see my take on the ill-advised law here.You can see a defense of the law by the Sheriff of Sacramento here. You will notice that out of 10,000 people average compalints involving 1% of the people. Now they will spend more sources targeting the others AND force some people to drink on other nights while there is no law enforcement around. Arrest law breakers don’t make more people break the law!… Read More

I think that when the voters put term limits in place, one reason that many did so was because being an elected legislator should not be a career. Rather, it should be an opportunity for those who have had very real life experiences to spend a six or eight years in Sacramento, and then they would return back to the private sector, allowing other noble citizens to step forward and give of their time.

Long gone are the days of ‘career-politicians’ who serve twenty, thirty or in some cases over forty years in the legislature. Long gone are the kind of parochial politicians who use their offices to milk millions out of political supporters to enhance their lifestyles, and to live supremus alius – above others. Willie Brown is and his kind are long gone, right? WRONG.

I was absolutely floored today when I received a copy of a complaint filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) against State Senate President Don Perata… Read More

History and arts are full of examples of how the acquisition of power leads to the corruption of the individual who seeks and obtains power. The Stars Wars movies are an anthology of how one person seeks to obtain power for good reasons (to save the life of the woman he loves) and it turns him into the evil Darth Vader. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is about how the power of the one ring can destroy anyone who wields that power, and that the only way to preserve society is to destroy that power. Indeed, the story of the recent Republican reign in Congress is the story of how the acquisition and maintainence of power led to corruption at a variety of levels. Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff were not the worst of the offenders. The worst was those who used their power, and the massive federal budget, to try to ensure their continuance in power. Earmarks, pork in the common parlance, are the source of that corruption. Subtle though it may be, the use of other people’s money to buy support for the maintainence of power is the worst kind of corruption there is, and Republicans, who promised not to engage in that kind of behavior, deserved to lose Congress for… Read More

Who Runs California?

Special elections for the House in one-party districts are often very low-turnout affairs, with victory going to whichever special interest group cranks up the most supporters on behalf of its preferred candidate. That was certainly the case in Long Beach, Calif. this week when voters selected a replacement for Democratic Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald who died in April of cancer.

The two major competing special interests, I mean candidates, were State Assemblywoman Laura Richardson, who like Ms. Millender-McDonald is from a long-powerful African-American machine, and State Senator Jenny Oropeza, with her own base in the district’s strong Hispanic population. Ms. Richardson wound up winning the first round by 38% to 31% over Ms. Oropeza, positioning herself for a certain victory over a hapless Republican in the August runoff.

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Former State Senator Republican Leader Jim Nielson, who retired from the Senate back in 1990, has decided that he is ready, once again, to serve the residents of the "North State" (as FR blogger Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa likes to refer to his sprawling 2nd District). This morning Nielson (pictured to the right, with Tom McClintock in the background), the youngest Senate GOP Leader in California history, is currently serving as a Deputy Commissioner of the California Board of Prison Terms. The Second Assembly District is ‘safe’ GOP territory, and LaMalfa is currently in his third and final term (though gearing up for a State Senate run himself in 2010).

As someone who served many years in the State Senate, we’ll be looking more at Nielson’s record as a Republican. That said, I do remember that Nielson co-authored (with Paul Gann) the Victims Bill of Rights. And in recent years, we’ve… Read More

For anyone following the current debate in Washington with the President, Teddy Kennedy and others trying to push through a terrible amnesty bill, this video below is a "must see" — Ronald Reagan’s former Attorney General and close friend Ed Meese contemplates on what the Gipper would think of this current proposal… ALERT: AP is reporting that the amnesty bill wen’t down – 14 votes short of what it needed. YEAH!… Read More