In case our Guest Editor and Los Angeles County Correspondent (along with Mike Spence) Brandon Powers needed some positive affirmation that he picked a good opinion-piece to feature as the Golden Pen Award Winner today on the main page, today’s Wall Street Journal Political Dairy selects a quote from the piece to feature in its daily e-mail:

Quote of the Day II

"Democrats are poised to take back the House. If that happens, however, conservatives will find several silver linings in the outcome…. The Congressional wing of the [GOP] lost its reformist zeal years ago and has been trying to win elections based on pork and incumbency. An election victory would reward that strategy, leaving the congressmen even less interested in restraining… Read More

Republican Assemblyman John Benoit, who hails from Riverside County, is a pilot and actually commutes back and forth from his district to Sacramento in his own Cessna plane. Today the Riverside Press Enterprise has a pretty cool story about it, and how he will sometimes take other legislators to and from work, who happen to "live on the way."

Benoit is pictured here in this photo from the PE helping Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy onto his plane (I guess as the crow flies, Bakersfield is somewhere in between Sacramento and Riverside County). Anyways, you can check out the full story here, including an actual video of the Assemblyman coming in for a landing at Sacramento’s Executive Field (don’t get too excited about the video, though it is novel).… Read More

PROP. 90 – HAYNES AND ACKERMAN HAVE TWO DIFFERENT POSITIONS ON THIS MEASURE This November, there are a host of measures on the ballot. As you will hear from the contributors to this site over the next six or so weeks, most of them are worthy of a heave-ho, and a a "vote no" — but there are a few items on the ballot that we’ll be encouraging you to vote FOR. One of these is Proposition 90, the Save Our Homes Initiative. We’ve covered it on these pages before, and we will do so again. It is a measure that is about property rights, and about curbing the current system of abuse that is rampant — where government agencies trample the rights of private home owners. Is the measure perfect? Most aren’t? And legislating from the ballot … Read More

PROP. 90 – HAYNES AND ACKERMAN HAVE TWO DIFFERENT POSITIONS ON THIS MEASURE This November, there are a host of measures on the ballot. As you will hear from the contributors to this site over the next six or so weeks, most of them are worthy of a heave-ho, and a a "vote no" — but there are a few items on the ballot that we’ll be encouraging you to vote FOR. One of these is Proposition 90, the Save Our Homes Initiative. We’ve covered it on these pages before, and we will do so again. It is a measure that is about property rights, and about curbing the current system of abuse that is rampant — where government agencies trample the rights of private home owners. Is the measure perfect? Most aren’t? And legislating from the ballot … Read More

Today will be my final Flash Report post. I am off to work on a few other new ventures, including being a candidate for seat on a local water board here in Southwest Riverside County. Another great commentator and Riverside political insider, Barry Nestande,is going to take on the task of Riverside County Blogger. Best of luck to Berry. It has been a great experience being part of the first wave of Bloggers at the FlashReport. Thanks again for the oppertunity Jon.… Read More

That’s right. In one week we will see if voters in Rosemead will recall the last part of the council majority that voted to allow Wal-Mart to come to the city. See past posts about lawsuits and the recall here.

To their credit, Wal-Mart has stepped up to the plate and spentover $200,000 to protect those that voted for it. That is a lot of profit from toliet paper. But with union and leftist attacks on Wal-Mart increasing they have to go to bat for those willing to allow them to compete. See article here.The San Gabriel Valley Tribune today also editorialized against the recall. They rightly pint out that this development brings much needed sales tax revenue and shopping access to Rosemead. By the way ,over 35% of employees will be Rosemead residents. (Hope Wal-Mart supporters registered them to vote). See editorial here.

Of course, the Wal-Mart grand opening is any day now.… Read More

Public Opinion Strategies is a nationally-recognized polling firm that specializes in political opinion research. I have known their California point-man, Steve Kinney, for many years. We have worked together on many campaigns, and I highly value his work, and his opinion. So when I heard that POS had just completed a survey that included questions on race for State Controller, I gave him a call right away. You see, there could not be a more stark contrast between two candidates than we have with Republican Tony Strickland (pictured to the left) and Democrat John Chiang (pictured below). The office of the Controller has a lot of important responsibilities, and based on the gerrymander of the four Board of Equalization districts (two are solid Dem, two are GOP), whomever is the occupant of the Controller’s office will be the deciding… Read More

This afternoon Phil Angelides’ Campaign Manager, Cathy Calfo, fessed up on behalf of Phil Angelides that their campaign was, in fact, the source of the recorded information ‘leaked’ to the Los Angeles Times. Calfo says she neither she nor Angelides has prior knowledge that this was being done, and were not pleased. They also acknowledge that over four hours of audio recordings were downloaded from the Governor’s website, of which only six minutes has so-far been released.

You can read more detail where I found out about this, over on Dan Weintraub’s blog.

Looks like Angelides has successfully moved the media spin away from his penchant to tax everything over to his enethical behavior.

As an aside, I wonder how it feels for… Read More