The California state legislature has once again shown itself to be to the left of Europe. Last Friday the International Herald Tribune (what, you DON’T read it?) reported, “European Union finance ministers on Friday rejected a proposal to impose a windfall profit tax on oil companies benefiting from record prices that are cutting consumers’ purchasing power.”

Now, the EU’s reasoning for rejecting the tax is a little twisted, but that’s to be expected.

Said one EU minister from the Netherlands, “We already tax oil. If you tax companies when they make high profits, what do you do when they make low profits? You would then be giving them a subsidy when the oil price is low.”

This is exactly the sort of “it’s-our-money-not-yours-we’re-just-letting-you-borrow-it” logic you’d expect from the EU. Regardless, they did the right thing albeit for the wrong reason.

It remains to be seen if the California legislature will follow suit.

On Sunday, Assemblyman Johan Klehs (D-San Leandro) attended a candidate forum where he promoted his windfall profit tax legislation that,… Read More

ARE THESE EIGHT GOP LEGISLATORS THE NEW FACES OF "BIG GOVERNMENT" CONSERVATISM? … Read More

Putting aside Bill Hauf’s entrance (re-entrance?) in the CD 50 race for a moment,let’s look at some of the Roach decision fallout/reaction/response/spin/you-name-it:

Jimmy Valentine, producer for Roger Hedgecock, ran this in today’s FlashFax (not to be confused with the FlashReport)… ROACH BAILS!! Let’s see it be the 8th of May, less than a month away from the June 6th primary, and finally Eric Roach, having consulted with the so-called gurus of conservatism, decides to abandon his quest for the 50th. Roach is toast. After the wrangle that he put everybody thru with his consulting and undermining Bilbray for weeks on end via his surrogate Jon Fleischmann (Flash Report: not to be confused with Flash Fax) we suspect he’ll find a welcome mat in the GOP about the same time that Ted Kennedy is welcomed aboard.

A firm grasp on reality does not appear to be a republican virtue. Local folks very late understanding that the House really is in jeopardy. The 50th is a very rare open seat (Delay’s in Texas open as well) that has no incumbent to claim automatic… Read More

Today there was a lunch meeting at what was undoubted a political ‘hot spot’ in Washington, D.C. At this lunch was none other than Ken Khachigian (pictured to the right, who in his current incarnation is the Chief Strategist for GOP Attorney General candidate Chuck Poochigian, though you could look back and see names like Reagan, Deukmejian, and Herschensohn to see the kinds of candidates Ken has helped in the past). Joining Ken for lunch were several reporters from Human Events Magazine.

[Let me shamelessly plug Human Events for a moment. As you know, I keep an obsessive eye on California politics. For me, my weekly edition of HE that comes in the main is a Godsend. I kick up my feet in front of the fireplace at home, in the cushy leather chair, and in 30 minutes I really know what is going on in the nation’s capitol. Anyways, you can check out HE Online right here. You can always visit their site via the Websites Menu… Read More

That’s right. I got the calls informing methat deep pocketedBill Hauf will run for the 50th Congressional District in the primary against liberal lobbyist Brian Bilbray. Hauf came in6th on the GOP side, so there isroom for improvement.How does this shake things up?… Read More

In his Saturday commentary, Jon Fleischman shared the fact that he is struggling to be enthusiastic about Congress when as he writes, “our record is presiding over the growth of government.”I know the conservative base shares these same concerns.Well as the newest member of Congress and the newest fiscal conservative in Congress, I am not happy about the way Congress spends your money either.I won’t attempt to defend the recent growth in government, but I can tell you one thing: we absolutely cannot afford the alternative. I am a member of the Budget Committee, and at this year’s committee mark up of the budget 18 out of 19 Democratic amendments offered would have increased spending.Did you see would-be Speaker Pelosi’s performance on Meet the Press yesterday morning?Did it sound like her party was going to be the one to slow down spending and keep taxes low?If you need a reason to get enthusiastic, just spend a little time thinking about what a Democratic Congress really would look like. … Read More

Circulation of the Los Angeles Times continues to drop! Except for an editorial they ran by me on Feb. 14. See it here. I don’t read the Times like I used too. I stopped paying for the paper after they went after the Boy Scouts.

Below is the a post from LA ObservedThe funny part is the Times spin that they aren’t spending as much on students. They wouldn’t want young people to get hookes on the Times at an early age. That may help circulation! Beside you have to be 21 to drink alcohol.

Circulation drops again * The Los Angeles Times lost another 5.4% of its print readers in the March-to-March comparison, falling to 851,832 daily copies sold. Other local papers are not included in today’s media coverage so far. USA Today, the New York Times and even the Chicago Tribune were up slightly, but most of the country’s big metro papers shed readers—the national circulation erosion is being put at 2.2%. For the Times, at… Read More

It’s 3 days later after the bonds were approved for the November ballot and we still don’t know what the language is that will be in them. But I’m sure further ‘tweaking’ will make them just right, that all the dollars for levees will go to levees and transportation moneywill go for roads. The silver lining of the whole event in the early Friday hours was the element of Pay-As-You-Go that made it through, concerning levees. This will be controlled by the Governor through DWR and I’m confident that this 1/2 Billion dollar appropriation will go well under their oversight, unlike the unknown that will occur when the flood bond dollars will have to be appropriated by this Legislature asprojects move along. I can only imagine the priorities besides actual levee work This Body will spend it on.

We all know there is a bunch of money, unexpected ‘new revenue’ under this current budget cycle,[due to things like holding the line on taxes and regulations, improved workers… Read More