Children in California and the U.S. have bigger problems than spanking and stranger danger.

According to leading child advocacy organizations, as many as 1 in 6 girls will be sexually abused before age 18, and 1 in 8 boys will suffer the same fate. A variety of national statistics show that between 85-92% of all sexual abuse cases involving victims who are minors are perpetrated by someone the child knows and trusts.

While the physical abuse of children upsets us, and cases of abduction like the recent one in Missouri and the case of little Jessica Lunsford scare us, the facts demonstrate that public policy largely ignores a far more prevalent and destructive epidemic of harm to our children.

I sit on two local boards involving prevention of child abuse, and when I talk to adults about preventing child sexual abuse, I can see from the tears in the eyes of both men and women in the crowd that the statistics are accurate. My first campaign press conference in 2006 was at the Calico Center in San Leandro, which conducts the forensic interviews for Alameda County children as young as 2 years old who have been sexually abused. They see hundreds of children per… Read More

Last night, I had the opportunity to sit next to Tony and Audra Strickland at the wedding reception of a mutual friend. Tony, of course, is a former State Assemblyman and was the GOP nominee for State Controller last year. His wife, Audra, currently represents the 37th Assembly District as a member of the California legislature. The wedding was at the stately and amazing Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where there is so much history — this hotel was the epicenter for much of Los Angeles’ rich political and ‘Hollywood’ history (the Academy Awards were held there for many years back in the Golden era of motion pictures. In chatting with Tony, he shared with me that on Friday, he had opened up a campaign committee and will be seeking the Republican nomination to succeed State Senator Tom McClintock in that Ventura County-based district, that stretches up into Santa Barbara County. Needless to say, the Strickland name has become quote familiar to residents in that area, and Tony becomes the immediate front-runner. His recent run for State Controller has helped to keep his name ID ‘current’ in the minds of… Read More

Last night, I had the opportunity to sit next to Tony and Audra Strickland at the wedding reception of a mutual friend. Tony, of course, is a former State Assemblyman and was the GOP nominee for State Controller last year. His wife, Audra, currently represents the 37th Assembly District as a member of the California legislature. The wedding was at the stately and amazing Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where there is so much history — this hotel was the epicenter for much of Los Angeles’ rich political and ‘Hollywood’ history (the Academy Awards were held there for many years back in the Golden era of motion pictures. In chatting with Tony, he shared with me that on Friday, he had opened up a campaign committee and will be seeking the Republican nomination to succeed State Senator Tom McClintock in that Ventura County-based district, that stretches up into Santa Barbara County. Needless to say, the Strickland name has become quote familiar to residents in that area, and Tony becomes the immediate front-runner. His recent run for State Controller has helped to keep his name ID ‘current’ in the minds of… Read More

In a Presidental race, contributions are limited to just $2,100 per person,and no corporate or union funds are allowed. While large donors can still provide funds for "party-building" or "issues advocacy" or "independent expenditures," the use of such funds can be tricky legally, and is qualified in one way or another. The only direct and unequivical support one can give to a candidate for President of the United States remains the $2,100 contribution of personal funds.

Unless you own a newspaper.

The Federal Election Commission has a long-standing rule that exempts newspapers from the prohibitionagainst corporate expenditures in support of a candidate in a Federal election. It is found at Title 11, Section 100.132 of the Code of Federal Regulations, News story, commentary, or editorial by the media, and reads in pertinent part as follows:

"Any cost incurred in covering or carrying a news story, commentary or editorial by any broadcasting station…..newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, is not an expenditureunless the facility is owned or… Read More

Fresno County based physician Linda Halderman weighs in on Arnold Care, on the American Thinker website.

Its a must read.… Read More

Back on October 30 of last year, Duncan Hunter announced his intent to explore a presidential bid. Even before his morning press conference that day, the FlashReport was up with a first-in-the-nation analysis of the prospects for Duncan’s successor in CD 52. By the time Roll Call picked up the FR story three days later, another name was in the mix — Duncan’s son Duncan, a First Lieutenant in the Marines who was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and since honorably discharged. And, Duncan D. Hunter seemed solidly in the mix since the Congressman himself told FR that his son was a name that shouldn’t be left out of any analysis.

For the record here, despite other blog sites saying over a month later"You heard it here first" about Duncan’s son possibly running, in actuality, Roll Call was the first to have it, after FR provided RC reporter… Read More

Californian Republican National Committeeman Tim Morgan, yesterday, was elected Treasurer of the Republican National Committee. He penned this commentary from his hotel room at the Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C., and we feature it today…

This has been a bittersweet meeting of the Republican National Committee. On the one hand, we lost the election last fall and Democrats now control Congress just up the street from where we’ve been meeting. House Minority Leader, John Boehner of Ohio, on behalf of his colleagues in Republican leadership, said during the Thursday luncheon that he apologized for the Republican apostasy in forgetting the small government principles that secured our control of Congress in 1994. I was sitting with the Ohio Party Chairman and his staff who concur with Mr. Boehner’s assessment of the political situation here. … Read More

There are a number of stories today about a likely scenario where a truly bi-partisan agreement* in Sacramento may lead to the California Presidential Primary being moved up to the first Tuesday in February in 2008, clearly increasing the relevance of Californians in influencing the selection of Party nominees for President and Vice President. I’ll be weighing in on this issue later in the week. Unspoken of in these stories, however, is a subtext that I have heard bantered around that by having a statewide Presidential election in February, 2008, separate from legislative elections that would still take place in June, legislators hope to take a crack at loosening California’s term limits laws, passed by the voters, which say that a legislator can serve only three terms in the Assembly, and two terms in the Senate. I can only say that the legislative placing a measure on the ballot to relax their own terms is a fools errand. Term limits are popular with the electorate, and there is simply no practical way voters are not going to see a move such as this to be anything but self serving. I guess language could be placed in the measure that says that relaxed… Read More