It’s a beautiful Sunday, and I am going to go visit my parents today. So we’ll dispense with a Sunday Commentary. What? You want a little something? Well, here are some factoids to mull over, when you think about WHY conservatives are disallusioned with GOP ‘progress’ in Washington, D.C. It will also set the state for a discussion about whether a California based "What can government do for you with your tax dollars" campaign centered around bond measures will further depress conservative turnout in the Golden State:

Total federal spending has grown 67 percent since the Republican revolution of 1994 — from $1.5 trillion in 1995 to almost $2.5 trillion last year. Over the last 10 years discretionary spending — the 40 percent of the budget the Congress and the president control — has increased 65 percent. Since Mr. Bush became president, it has jumped 49 percent. Even excluding spending related to Katrina, defense and homeland security, discretionary expenditures jumped 22 percent. Pork-barrel projects in the federal budget grew from 1,439 in fiscal … Read More

It’s a beautiful Sunday, and I am going to go visit my parents today. So we’ll dispense with a Sunday Commentary. What? You want a little something? Well, here are some factoids to mull over, when you think about WHY conservatives are disallusioned with GOP ‘progress’ in Washington, D.C. It will also set the state for a discussion about whether a California based "What can government do for you with your tax dollars" campaign centered around bond measures will further depress conservative turnout in the Golden State:

Total federal spending has grown 67 percent since the Republican revolution of 1994 — from $1.5 trillion in 1995 to almost $2.5 trillion last year. Over the last 10 years discretionary spending — the 40 percent of the budget the Congress and the president control — has increased 65 percent. Since Mr. Bush became president, it has jumped 49 percent. Even excluding spending related to Katrina, defense and homeland security, discretionary expenditures jumped 22 percent. Pork-barrel projects in the federal budget grew from 1,439 in fiscal … Read More

It seems Jeremy Baca, candidate for the 62nd Assembly District, gave a little speech Friday. As is usually the case whenever a member of the Baca clan is the subject of a Democratic Party meeting, shortly after Baca’s talk the audience erupted into a shouting match over the subject of endorsements.

According to a report yesterday by Andrew Edwards of the San Bernardino County Sun, the son of U.S. Rep. Joe Baca and brother of Assemblyman Joe Baca Jr. told the San Bernardino Democratic Luncheon Club – which apparently argues about everything up to and including what to have for lunch – that he believes students should be allowed to take the California High School Exit Exam in languages other than English. “Students perform at a certain level when a comfort zone is created,” he was quoted as saying.

Sounds great, except of course for the fact that a key component of the test is proving 9th grade level competency in English. If only this guy had been voting on California public education policy when I was taking my second year of high school Spanish. I would have loved… Read More

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