Note to Bill Hauf: The FEC wants to know how much, but they also want the decimal point in the right place… 50th CD candidate Bill Hauf, who remains in the race against Brian Bilbray, on one side of the ballot anyway, filed a couple of Federal Election Commission-required notices during the week. Under FEC rules, a federal candidate must fax a notice to his opponents when he donates to his campaign.

Hauf’s first such notice of the week showed personal contributions of $100,000 on 5/11 and $900,000 on 5/18 to his primary campaign. Let’s call that report the "Bilbray being in for a $1 million surprise". However, the second Hauf notice corrected the first, indicating his campaign had filed in error…the second loan was $90,000 (not $900,000), meaning he had only put in $190,000, not the originally-reported $1 million. Let’s call that one "Ooops". U-T Endorses Thompson Over Horn… Whether due to it being an election year, or his own actions… Read More

Based on his albeit spotty record, the Governor deserves re-election, but his unwillingness to frontally assault the public employee unions and define them before they define him is a fatal weakness in his campaign strategy. The other weakness is simply out of his control – President Bush has betrayed conservatives and they are a madder than hell about it and not about to reward a Governor who isn’t fighting for a conservative fiscal agenda. Witness the defeat of fourteen GOP incumbant Pennsylvania legislators this week at the hands of conservative primary challengers – a historic, and underreported event in political history. The tea is being delivered to the harbor and Republicans better get their act together or they will be fending off primary challengers all over the country in 2008. Frankly, I can hardly wait! Below is the text of an great op – ed piece from today’s Washington Post. It is a must read for all Flashreport readers.… Read More

Alex Brant-Zawadski is a young free-lancer who writes for the OC Weekly, primarily about the 241 tollway completion. While I completely disagree with Alex’s passionate opposotion to completing the 241, he is almost always ahead fo the mainstream media when it comes to reporting on new developments on this issue.

Now, this isn’t a really new development because I started thi spost more than a week ago, but still worth posting about.

Alex wrote on May 20 as to how Assemblyman Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara) has taken up the banner of stopping the extension of the 241 Tollway — a mere 3-hour drive south from his district. He’s even pasted this picture of a bulldozer cresting a pile of (formerly pristine) state park dirt:

This takes you to Nava’s stop the tollroad page and apress relase by Nava boasting of his (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to block completion of the 241. I recommend… Read More

It is hard to get poeple to run in districts with heavy Democratic registration. I have been involved in finding canidates such candidates. The 28th Senate District is such a district and yet Republicans have two candidates to choose from.

One is an activist, Cheryl Liddle. I saw her last Thursday when I spoke to the Beach Citites Republican Club. She is the one that should win, although saying she didn’t have a platform wasn’t such a good idea..

The other is David Anstrom, a homless guy, that lives in a limo with two dogs and wants to ban pesticides. He also has a fear of winning. (Heshouldn’t worry)I was thinking that Anstrom may fit the profile for the Governor to appoint to an environmental or homeless commision or something except…he’s a Republican. See the profiles here.… Read More

Mexican President Vincente Fox is coming to California this week. I’m sure he has economic development on his mind. Fox opposes a fence at the border. He probably isn’t facing an influx of Americans sneaking into his country. It’s how you vote, not whether you speak to legislation that is the measure of a legislator. The reality is that floor speeches are limited, so don’t use whether someone makes one or not to judge their support on an issue. The new Cal-EPA director for Governor Schwarzenegger was a senior staffer heading up legislative issues for recalled Governor Gray Davis. Why do we keep taking on officers from the HMS Titanic? Sent to me from a senior House staffer (re: immigration): “I agree with your comments, but I believe the stronger case is based not on the semantics but rather on the impact of the policies under consideration. Beyond being unfair to those who came here legally or are currently waiting to come here legally, amnesty would harm our country by promoting massively more illegal immigration and making it even more difficult to stop it and ofcourse all the … Read More

Today’s guest commentary is authored by Flash Report contributor Adam Probolsky. The top story today is the Governor’s appointment of Democrat Linda Adams as Cal EPA chief. I will let others make the ‘fox in the hen house’ analogies.

But this appointment is a further evidence that the Republicans need to develop some credibility on environmental issues and change the bellwethers on which the public judges whether someone cares about the environment.

Republicans need to change the conversation by totally debunking the idea that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska is bad for the environment, promote all the local Republican-lead initiatives (backed by developers) that preserve natural open space and habitat and improve water quality and yes, even acknowledge that Global Warming could, could be something we should at least look into.

**There is more – click the link**… Read More

Today’s guest commentary is authored by Flash Report contributor Adam Probolsky. The top story today is the Governor’s appointment of Democrat Linda Adams as Cal EPA chief. I will let others make the ‘fox in the hen house’ analogies.

But this appointment is a further evidence that the Republicans need to develop some credibility on environmental issues and change the bellwethers on which the public judges whether someone cares about the environment.

Republicans need to change the conversation by totally debunking the idea that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska is bad for the environment, promote all the local Republican-lead initiatives (backed by developers) that preserve natural open space and habitat and improve water quality and yes, even acknowledge that Global Warming could, could be something we should at least look into.

Caring about the environment is not part of the exclusive domain of the Democratic party.

Care to read comments, or make your own about today’s Daily Commentary?

Just… Read More

Yesterday, the House Republican Study Committee conservatives were successful in removing half a billion dollars inspending that exceeded the budget threshold in the budget just passed on wednesday night. This $507 million was disguised as emergency war spending but was actually for standard construction projects most of which were in the United States. The White House agreed that the money should be removed. Democrats admitted it was a "budget gimmick". I’m not sure we would have won this fight a year ago. This success reflects growing support in Congress for the idea that we are spending too much and also reflects the increased willingness of conservatives to make a stand.

Congratulations and thanks go out to Rep. Mike Pence (R-In), John Shadegg (R-Az) and Jeb Hensarling (R-Tx) who led the fight to save taxpayers a half a billion.… Read More