As a lifelong Republican I am sad that almost all of my blogging is criticism of my own Party. This Congress failure to act on so many issues is disturbing, and energy policy is it’s latest debacle.

Today’s A1, above the fold piece in the Fresno Bee regarding Congress’ intent to investigate price gouging by oil companies was downright laughable. As usual, the Congress is a day late and many dollar short. We’ve known about our energy situation for years, yet we refuse to go get resources underneath our own soil. It’s a joke. As I wrote for the Lincoln Club of Fresno County website in June, 2004, the President has failed to lead on energy policy and he can’t blame the Senate.

When a President fails to issue any vetoes during his term he has a hard time leveraging his own Party, thus, the Senate largely ignores his wishes. If a few more of these GOP Senators, plus red state Democrat Senators has tougher opposition, it might be different. Instead, this White House gets bullied around on too many fronts.

The President could send a shock wave… Read More

The Long Beach election of April 11th is over…almost. As FR readers know the election came down to the last ballots in several races. See previous post here.The one race local Republicans werestill watching was Council District #3. In that race long time GOP activist Norm Ryan was in a battle to get to the June run-off. It looks like he came up short….but of course there is a recount going on. Read the story and results here.… Read More

A few months ago I published a popular blog about the drive times between cities in California during one of my wretched drives from San Diego to Sacramento. I must have gotten 100 responses with various anecdotes and personal travel times, so I thought I’d post on the topic again today.

Yesterday evening my wife, our daughter and I left downtown Sacramento at exactly 3pm… bound for San Diego. There was stop stop and go traffic for a bit in Sacramento and outside of Stockton, but we reached Stockton at 3:45, Modesto at 4:15, and Fresno at 5:30. My average speed was probably 70mph. We stopped at one of the innumerable and ersatz food stops for 15 minutes in Tulare County to grab a burger and jump back in the car. My 2 year old preceded to eat 3/4 of the burger then got a kick out of throwing the rest at the back of my head. Outside of Fresno my speed was closer to 80 or 85mph – we reached Bakersfield at 7:15, 4 hours and 15 minutes after we left Sacramento. Interestingly, I drive a Volvo and I had only used 2/5 a tank of gas at this point.

My next jump was over the Grapevine and along the 5 past downtown LA, which had little traffic. I passed… Read More

Today’s Commentary is penned by FlashReport contributor Tom Ross. Ross, a longtime political consultant and activist, is a Sacramento Area contributor for the FlashReport. Jon Fleischman, who normally pens this page, is on vacation… FROM TOM ROSS…

There are some good reports today on the new independent expenditure (IE) campaign that is being launched by the Tsakopoulos family on behalf of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides. As always, Bill Bradley is on top of the development and discusses the problems the ie campaign faces — paying more than candidate campaigns for the TV commercials and the believability that this is really independent.

Kevin Yamamura in the Sac Bee reports that the IE is… Read More

Today’s Commentary is penned by FlashReport contributor Tom Ross. Ross, a longtime political consultant and activist, is a Sacramento Area contributor for the FlashReport. Jon Fleischman, who normally pens this page, is on vacation… FROM TOM ROSS…

There are some good reports today on the new independent expenditure (IE) campaign that is being launched by the Tsakopoulos family on behalf of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides. As always, Bill Bradley is on top of the development and discusses the problems the ie campaign faces — paying more than candidate campaigns for the TV commercials and the believability that this is really independent.

Kevin Yamamura in the Sac Bee reports that the IE is… Read More

Jessica’s Law co-authors Senator George Runner and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner (R-Lancaster) today joined San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmus (pictured speaking) and Fourth District Supervisor Gary Ovitt, both Statewide Co-Chairs of the initiative effort, at a kick-off event for a Child Safety Task Force comprised of government leaders from throughout the county. The Task Force will begin planning for local implementation of the initiative should it be approved in November.

The guest of honor at the event was Mark Lunsford (pictured in baseball cap), father of nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford, for whom Jessica’s Law is named. Jessica was sexually assaulted and murdered last year by a convicted sex offender in Florida.

A key provision of Jessica’s Law would prohibit registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of places where children congregate or assemble. Specific locations identified in the initiative include schools and parks. However, at the discretion of local governments,… Read More

I would rather not report outside my assigned San Diego bailiwick, but there appears to be a news blackout from my OC peers (both in the FlashReport and OCBlog) in re the Harkey – Harman race and the ongoing hand recount requested by the Harkey campaign. Why the blackout from both very connected news sources, I can’t imagine – the coverage up until the morning after the election was blow by blow – down to the republishing of press releases, website foibles, mail, and chamber of commerce straw polls.

Both camps have been camped at the OC Registrar of Voters for a week and a half now. As of this morning approximately 75% of the Election Day ballots have been recounted by hand. That’s about 20% of the total votes. Harkey won on Election Day, so if she were going to pick up some votes, this would be the place. Her campaign challenged some 46 ballots, which were reviewed this morning by the Registrar of Voters. Not one of the Harkey campaign’s challenge to any ballot was upheld. Not one. You see, OC isn’t Kansas City under Pendergast, and it isn’t Tammany Hall under Tweed. The Orange County Registrar of Voters is fair,… Read More

Some rumblings and grumbling, as the President’s visit to Stanford is a few hours away.

1) Good article in this morning’s Chronicle _http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/21/BUGGKICDG41.DTL_ (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/21/BUGGKICDG41.DTL) on the various tech programs floating around in Congress. Watch and see if Reeps and Dems can come together and hammer out a deal that includes more federal spending for math and science, visas for foreign tech workers, and making permanent the federal R&D tax credit.

2) Such a deal underscores an urgent White House need: the President calling a meeting with congressional leaders and delivering a lecture that falls somewhere between Robert DeNiro swinging a baseball bat Moe Howard slapping around Larry and Curly. The clock’s ticking at the both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to get something before the midterm elections and the topic’s are stacking up: tax cuts, immigration reform. The President shouldn’t let tech fall between the cracks.

3) The President is at Cisco in a short while. Last month, Treasury… Read More