Rider on Tax Freedom Day… The ever-analytical Richard Rider sends along some info from the Tax Foundation on Tax Freedom Day (TFD), and he focuses particularly on California. We’re losing ground (no surprise there), with this year’s TFD on April 30 butCA’s a week later.

TFD, of course, is the symbolic day upon which the average person would have paid all their taxes for the year, with the balance of the year their income to keep to themselves, if we paid taxes that way, of course. Given CA is one of the worst state’s in the nation, this info is of particular interest considering the legislature is once again considering an a "softening" of Prop 13.

Rider’s take:

Bad news — we Americans work two more days this year than last, with the nationwide Tax Freedom Day this year being 30 April, 2007. After some tax relief in the early part of the decade, thanks to desperately needed tax cuts (too bad spending mushroomed at the same time), the tax burden is once again rapidly growing.

For Californians, the news is even worse.… Read More

You have to figure that when there are train wrecks, they represent unavoidable, unanticipated situations that result in tragedy. After all, if you knew in advance that there was going to be a train wreck, you would do something about it, right? Well, there is a trainwreck coming for my own Republican Party, and it seems like we should be doing something about it now. If not, I predict that it will be horrible, and ugly, as trainwrecks can be… You see, one of Florida’s United States Senators, Mel Martinez, was elected to be the General Chairman of the Republican National Committee in January. For the most past, Martinez is a solid Republican and his credentials are strong. As a matter of fact, his close relationship with President Bush probably helps the RNC in many respects.

On the other hand, it may be more of a hindrance in some areas, where the RNC needs to make it… Read More

As the falling rain pings against my window here in North California, I am relieved that it will alleviatesome of the shortage of stored water predicted for this upcoming usage season in California. Dramatic reductions in water delivery, especially to Central Valley agriculture are very likely. Those in the cattle business are lamentingwhat has been the shortest rainfallduring this area’s winter months, [January being one of the driest on record in California]for as long as they can remember, with grazing lands short of foliage and already starting to turn to the summer brown. These rains in recent days can only help.

What else would help is some real action by humans on providing for their own water needs. Relying on rain dances, good luck, or if you’re the 1948 Boston Braves with only 2 reliable pitchers for a7 gameWorld Series, "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain", we canask for Divine intervention every rain year and do nothing with our God-given abilities to help ourselves.

Governor Schwarzenegger has made a firm commitment to building above ground water storage in this state, something we used to do, and do… Read More

According to Google, there are 538 articles online talking about the situation with Congressman John Doolittle.

But I digress. I thought if you were stopping by the FR this weekend, you might enjoy this video from the Heritage Foundation, on the big deficits that exist in funding current Social Security and Medicare obligations. It’s about two minutes long. … Read More

For quite some time, this website tracked all of Governor Schwarzenegger’s appointments — with a careful eye on partisan registration. We ultimately stopped because it was too disappointing. As a Republican Governor, I expected Schwarzenegger (like Wilson, like Deukmejian) to fill his open positions in state government with like-minded Republicans. By setting this standard for the Governor, I found myself being consistenly disappointed. The number of Democrats who have been appointed to judgeships is downright appalling. And on the plethora of non-judicial appointments, it was often the case where barely 50% of any given list (appointments typically are announced in groupings of 10 to 15) were GOPers, with most of the rest being Democrats, and a smattering of appointees to registered as Decline-to-State (one appointee wasn’t registered to vote at all!). I had one FR reader who follows things closely tell me that the numbers are even more misleading as a significant number of the Republican appointments are to positions like local Fair Boards thus ‘inflating’ the GOP numbers… This week, the Governor released two lists… Read More

For quite some time, this website tracked all of Governor Schwarzenegger’s appointments — with a careful eye on partisan registration. We ultimately stopped because it was too disappointing. As a Republican Governor, I expected Schwarzenegger (like Wilson, like Deukmejian) to fill his open positions in state government with like-minded Republicans. By setting this standard for the Governor, I found myself being consistenly disappointed. The number of Democrats who have been appointed to judgeships is downright appalling. And on the plethora of non-judicial appointments, it was often the case where barely 50% of any given list (appointments typically are announced in groupings of 10 to 15) were GOPers, with most of the rest being Democrats, and a smattering of appointees to registered as Decline-to-State (one appointee wasn’t registered to vote at all!). I had one FR reader who follows things closely tell me that the numbers are even more misleading as a significant number of the Republican appointments are to positions like local Fair Boards thus ‘inflating’ the GOP numbers… This week, the Governor released two lists… Read More

I just saw this on Red County/San Bernardino:

Breaking news from Washington, DC:

Just posted on Congressman David Dreier’s official Congressional website, both a press release and official letter in which the Ranking House Rules Committee Member urges President Bush to consider granting an executive pardon to imrpisoned Border patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

The controversial case of Compean and Ramos has generated anger and disbelief among anti-illegal immigration advocates. Many activists, commentators and public officials have called for a Presidential pardon of the two officers, and… Read More

Congressman John Doolittle held a conference call today with reporters to discuss the latest turn of events, with his home being searched by the FBI last Friday and his subsequent decision, yesterday, to temporarily step off of the House Appropriations Committee. Speculations was starting to arise (undoubtedly helped along with posts like Tom Ross’ today looking at the GOP "bench" in CD-4) that Doolittle might resign.

He was pretty clear, saying: "I have no intention of resigning from Congress and I have every intention of running for reelection again."

You can read the entire transcript of the call here.

As I have said before, and I will say again — I’ve known John Doolittle and his wife, Julie, for a long, long time. I have found him them both to be individuals possessing high level of integrity and strong moral principle. The fact that Julie was hired by someone who turned out to be a criminal does not make her one as well, nor does it mean the Congressman is either!

That… Read More