During Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first campaign for governor, one of his biggest backers, super wealthy Warren Buffet, famously said his property taxes on his Laguna Beach home were not high enough. The comment caused California homeowners to question Arnold’s bona fides as a conservative so he threatened to make Buffet do 500 sit ups for his transgression. While the controversy blew over, there seems to be no record of Buffet making a voluntary additional payment to the county tax collector to assuage his conscious.

Most California homeowners don’t have Buffet’s wealth and rightfully believe they are already paying enough to finance local services. But still, the question of just how California property taxes measure up against other states is the source of a lot of angst and disinformation. (Rumors have it that some on the far left are preoccupied with this subject as they look for opportunities to force the “evil landowning elite” to pay their “fair share.”)

For years, the curious could consult information made available by the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank whose mission is to educate taxpayers about sound tax policy and the… Read More

While California Gov. Jerry Brown has ignored thousands of California farm workers who don’t want to be unionized,Wisconsin became the 25th Right-to-Work state.

Happy Labor Day Gerawan farm workers. In one of the most significant labor relations fights in the country, proceedings have turned ugly, with many questioning the legal tactics and scruples of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

TheAgricultural Labor Relations Boardsays it exists to protect the rights ofallagricultural employees, including those not wanting labor organization representation, as is the case with Gerawan Farming employees. However, Gerawan farming employees say they have not received any assistance from the ALRB.

Whenever they can, labor unions historically try to gain control over entry into the labor market. “Such measures are for the purpose of holding down the supply of labor in the field and thereby enabling those fortunate enough to be admitted to it, to earn higher incomes,” wrote George Reisman of the… Read More

Evidence of the liberal bias of MSM is overwhelming. But sometimes the best examples is what these networks and newspapers DON’T report. Consider this example.

The media gave the 10thanniversary of Hurricane Katrina extensive play last month. Naturally there was heavy emphasis on the failure of FEMA, with a generous amount of blame dumped on hapless George Bush (none of which I have a problem with).

But what the MSM has largely ignored are the doomsday predictions all the networks were hyping after Hurricane Katrina — the coming massive hurricanes from global warming. Katrina was declared to be definitely the product of global warming, and just the start a series of disastrous mega-hurricanes — all caused by global warming.

Unfortunately for MSM and global warming alarmists, it didn’t happen. Not even close. In the following 10 years there was a DEARTH of U.S. hurricanes, or big hurricanes.

Okay, okay — they made a mistake. The smug assertions and prognostications were poppycock. Hey, anyone can be gloriously, fatuously, obnoxiously wrong.

But what’s… Read More

Conservative activist Carl Laurence Olson, 71, passed away quietly in the San Fernando Valley on August 23 of multiple myeloma, and his smiling face and unabashed zeal for the conservative cause will be missed. I first met Carl when we were both active in conservative and Republican volunteer organizations in California in the 1970s. Carl had an outstanding background he did not brag much about. He was proud to have been a Lt. Commander in the Navy, and would talk about that, and he served in Vietnam, and worked at NBC in Burbank for eight years. But he also graduated from Pomona College and held an MS in Journalism and an MBA from the Ivy League’s Columbia University in New York City. Those are pretty big accomplishments, of which he was rather modest.

After serving in the Reagan Administration at the Department of Health and Human Services, Carl came back to California and became active in several nonprofit advocacy organizations he founded or co-founded, including State Department Watch, and the Fund for Stockholders’ Rights. He sued the California Automobile Association in a long, drawn out litigation for essentially rigging their board of… Read More

Arnold Steinberg, a political strategist and analyst, is the author of graduate texts on politics and media.

USA Today reported nearly five months ago that the visionary and brilliant libertarian entrepreneurs Charles Koch and David Koch and their team had identified five presidential candidates with the “right message and a good chance of getting elected.” Those five were Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, and U.S. Senators Ted Cruz (Texas), Rand Paul (Kentucky) and Marco Rubio (Florida).

About the same time, I had discussed the growing field of possible candidates with leaders of the conservative movement, and also conservative journalists and elected officials. Several focused on Walker because “he took on the unions…and we need a governor, not a senator who hasn’t run anything.” Some hoped that Walker or someone else would… Read More

As Vice Chair of the California State Board of Equalization (BOE), I regularly hear from small business owners who are caught off guard by tax liabilities. This isn’t surprising given the complexity of California’s tax laws. Even the most well-meaning, knowledgeable business owner can run into problems.

Because of this, I regularly host free small business and nonprofit tax seminars throughout my district to help business owners avoid these “tax traps.” (In fact, we’re hosting a series of events in the coming months designed to help small business owners be successful. Learn more at www.boe.ca.gov/events.)

For those of you unable to attend one of these free seminars, here are the top five tax traps to avoid:

1. Getting Stuck with a Prior Owner’s Tax Bill

Buying a business or stock of goods? You could become responsible for the seller’s unpaid tax, interest and penalties up to the purchase price of the business or stock of goods. Before buying a business, protect yourself from this liability by requesting a certificate of tax clearance by… Read More

[Publisher’s Note: As part of an ongoing effort to bring original, thoughtful commentary to you here at the FlashReport, we are pleased to present this column from Don Giottonini.]

As co-authors of Assembly Bill 96, Republican Assemblymembers Brain Maienschein (R-San Diego) and Marie Waldron (R-Escondido) need to answer why they would support a new law that promotes asset forfeiture by devaluing property now legally owned and deprives individuals of their property without compensation or due process.

In 1977, California banned the sale of ivory and with the multiple layers of state, federal and international laws. That law is part of a vast and complex web of state, federal and international laws already in place to protect elephants by drying up the black market ivory trade.

In this legislative session, under the direction of Assembly Speaker Toni Akins (D-San Diego) and State Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), Maienschein and Waldron’s AB 96 would go back 100 years from 2016 and make it illegal to own, possess or transfer ivory even if that ivory was legally purchased or… Read More

California embarked on a “grand experiment” in 2011 with a massive prison downsizing. Responding to a 2009 order by a federal three-judge panel, California had to reduce its overpopulated prisons by 25 percent within two years. This amounted to a reduction of nearly 46,000 prisoners, within a very short time period. The state appealed but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the mandate in May 2011, in a 5-4 decision. In a dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said it was “perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.”

… Read More