There have been some interesting developments in the 18th Assembly race over the past couple of days. GOP candidate Jill Buck is running against Mary Hayashi, a left-wing public health activist who only recently moved to the area. On Friday, two of the local papers ran a front-page article announcing that Buck had been invited by Alameda Co. Supervisor Gail Steele, a Democrat, to attend a major Democrat event on Sunday (today)., the Hayward Demos Democratic Club Fall Festival. Here’s an excerpt from the article that ran in the Tri-Valley Herald (FYI-the on-line version didn’t seem to have any punctuation):

"Neither Sundays hostess, Alameda County Supervisor Gail Steele, nor club spokesman Harry Scott sees anything wrong with having the opposition present.

If she appears, we wont… Read More

As everyone who reads this site undoubtedly knows, a few weeks ago a few of my ‘friends’ on the left-wing side of the political spectrum launched their new website, the California Majority Report. Actually, I spoke on several occasions with the Democrat activists who were putting this site together, giving them some general input on a collegial level. They invited me to come up to Sacramento last month to their big, glitzy "launch party" which was attended by a couple hundred members of the Sacramento liberal elite, including many socialist-policy-embracing officeholders like State Senate President Don Perata, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and many others. This group was so left-wing that former Gray Davis/Steve Westly advisor Garry South stuck out as the reasonable one of the bunch. One cannot help but try to make a comparison between this new website and the FlashReport.… Read More

The San Diego Regional Airport Authority is finally on the run. Good. After reports late last month of SDRAA’s $16.9 million of expenditures thus far for an airport site selection process that has failed miserably to achieve what was tasked by the legislature, it is time to rein in one of the most significant boondoggles in San Diego history.

As I posted in June, the Airport Authority has placed on the November ballot an advisory vote for joint use of Miramar with the Marines, a significant waste of a public vote, considering the military’s long-standing opposition to any such scenario. No matter. SDRAA does what it likes, apparently, given state legislation creating and tasking its mission for site selection of a new airport. Close to $17 million later, and the Authority’s answer is to ask San Diegans to… Read More

As everyone who reads this site undoubtedly knows, a few weeks ago a few of my ‘friends’ on the left-wing side of the political spectrum launched their new website, the California Majority Report. Actually, I spoke on several occasions with the Democrat activists who were putting this site together, giving them some general input on a collegial level. They invited me to come up to Sacramento last month to their big, glitzy "launch party" which was attended by a couple hundred members of the Sacramento liberal elite, including many socialist-policy-embracing officeholders like State Senate President Don Perata, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and many others. This group was so left-wing that former Gray Davis/Steve Westly advisor Garry South stuck out as the reasonable one of the bunch. One cannot help but try to make a comparison between this new website and the FlashReport.… Read More

All of liberalism is one gigantic irony. Irony number 4,382: the big leftist organization is domiciled at www.moveon.org. Why this is hysterical is that the Democrats can’t Move On from anything. The latest evidence of this is the new ad by the California Democrat Party with clips of Arnold’s speech in New York in support of the re-election of George W. Bush. Of course, Arnold was polling at 70% at the time, and things change. But if all the Democrats have is some tie to Bush by Arnold, and this is the "big" reason to elect Angelides, it is truly pathetic. Democrats: Bush beat your asses twice, and he isn’t on the ballot in November. I can understand why you want to hide your candidate, but this is ridiculous and it isn’t going to work. If you can’t think of any other issues to run on just read conservative blogs and you will find plenty of good advice there.… Read More

With the thousands of appointments that the Governor makes, it is a frequent occurance that a release comes out from his office announcing another group of appointees. For a time I was actually posting those here, with a partisan breakdown. I stopped doing that because there were to many folks being appointed from the Party of Hillary Clinton, and it was bad for morale.

That said, as I said above, you get an indicator about someone and where they are coming from based on their voter registration. You can even try to make some generalizations when you see that someone has registered as a Decline To State voter…

So what does it mean when someone is appointed who is not registered to vote AT ALL?

I’ve never seen this before, but in the most recent list of appointees, the first appointee listed is Doctor John Chin of Sacramento, who is named to the California Medical Board in the Division of Medical Quality. The last line of this first paragraph is… Read More

Most of us are confounded by the teenage drug user who cuts herself to ‘let the demons out’.

Likewise we should be equally disturbed by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson’s recent sit-down with the Sacramento Bee during which he pronounced his intention to sponsor legislation that would ban fund raising at certain times of the year.

There are so many things wrong with this idea.

**There is more – click the link**

View Full Commentary… Read More

Most of us are confounded by the teenage drug user who cuts herself to ‘let the demons out’.

Likewise we should be equally disturbed by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson’s recent sit-down with the Sacramento Bee during which he pronounced his intention to sponsor legislation that would ban fund raising at certain times of the year.

There are so many things wrong with this idea.

For one it raises the question: What is fund raising? Is a reception where people come and bring checks? Is it going to your fund raiser’s office, sitting down and making phone calls? Is it speaking to a constituent in the district at a chamber of commerce mixer and accepting an envelop with a check from an event you had several weeks before? Perhaps its all of them. I wonder if a legislator has a campaign strategy session with key supporters and business leaders during this ‘black-out’ period, would he or she be banned from mentioning the fact that they need to raise $300,000 before the Primary Election?

… Read More