Below is a fine example of how to use carefully selected statistics – (im)properly presented — to make a point at odds with reality. The graphic below originated in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, so that media outfit bears ultimate responsibility for this flawed analysis.

But some local CA booster organizations are using this same misrepresentation to claim that California is doing better than Texas – a ludicrous assertion. More on that later. Here’s the original graphic that’s now being circulated, along with a link to the short accompanying article. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-06/californias-job-growth-outpaces-texass … Read More

The constitutional deadline is just two weeks away and the Governor and Legislature are busy negotiating the state’s next budget. With Democrats now holding enough seats in the Legislature to pass the budget without Republican input, we can expect a budget that reflects their priorities and grows the size of the government. Fortunately for them, budget revenues this year are exceeding expectations and multi-billion budget deficits appear to be a thing of the past—at least for now.

As you can see in the graph,… Read More

Some residents of Kings County, California are waiting with trepidation for the June 6, 2013 California High-Speed Rail Authority board meeting.

At that meeting, the board will vote on its “Preferred California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Alignment and Station Locations for Inclusion in the Fresno to Bakersfield Final Environmental Report (FEIR).”

Farmers will finally know which fields the bullet train rail line will bisect. And residents will know which buildings the High-Speed Rail Authority will demolish to make way for the rail line, adjacent support infrastructure, and elevated embankments for road crossings.

One Kings County structure targeted for demolition has special economic significance, so much so that it’s hard to believe the California High-Speed Rail Authority isn’t conspiring to destroy the building as part of a grand plan to elevate California as the zenith of enlightened civilization.

If the board selects the initially-proposed and still-preferred “eastern route,” the bullet train line will take out the Baker Commodities rendering facility in Hanford. Or to quote one dumbfounded Kings County opponent of the rail… Read More

Late last week and over the weekend United States Senator Rand Paul traveled first to Northern and then to Southern California. Last Friday, in the middle of his Golden State travels, we published an exclusive column from the Senator. Yesterday, after his trip through California was over, I had the opportunity to catch up with Senator Rand on the phone where he was kind enough to grant me an interview. We spoke for about twenty minutes on a wide range of topics including technology, privacy rights, immigration, gay marriage, domestic drone use, and more. The interview appears below.

Jon Fleischman (JF): Thank you, Senator, for agreeing to this interview. I publish the Flash Report website on California politics. Our readers are stranded conservatives in California who are watching with gross fascination as Rome burns in Sacramento. We are hopeful we can turn some things around here and we appreciate your time. You just returned home from your three-day visit from northern and southern California.… Read More

When Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa loses his job in July, he’ll also lose access to some swanky public housing. Zocalo Public Square is helping the mayor’s transition with its Adopt-a-Mayor program, a neighborhood competition to determine the best block in town. In the following piecepublished at Zocalo Public Square, I make the case for a micro-apartment.

Micro-House This Ex-Mayor Before the mayor decides where to… Read More

I started thinking about this column on Friday, when I was at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to hear a speech by United States Senator Rand Paul. I was reminded of one of President Reagan’s favorite stories… I can picture my hero — ever the optimist and a horseman through and through – smiling as he tells a tale that concludes with a little optimistic boy who upon encountering a pile of horse manure, excitedly starts digging into the much, laughing and clapping. When asked how he could be so happy when all around was nothing but horse hocky, the little boy cries out, “With all this manure, there’s gotta be a pony in here somewhere!”

This column is not about the onslaught of terrible bills that passed out of the Assembly and Senate during the last week; much will be written about those as they advance through the process (Assemblyman Don Wagner actually penned a column that runs today highlight a few of them). In this column, I’d like to focus upon what I believe was an important moment that occurred, a… Read More

The other day in this space I showcased a number of bad Democrat bills that had recently made their way through legislative committees on the strength of the Democrat supermajority. Today, I thought I would highlight a number of bad bills that not only got through the committee process, but that were actually passed off the Assembly floor. That’s right, a majority of supposedly responsible legislators in the nation’s most populace state actually thought these were good ideas and voted for them:

AB 1266 (Ammiano) – this bill allows boys to change in the girls’ locker room, use the girls’ bathroom, and play on the girls’ sports teams, if the boy feels like a girl. Seriously. According to the author, “all students in K-12 schools must be permitted to participate in school programs, activities, and facilities in accordance with the student’s gender identity.” Now, “gender identity” means the gender with which the student “identifies,” not necessarily the gender into which the student was born, and “facilities” means bathrooms and … Read More

This Wednesday, the 6th of June, the Western democracies will commemorate the Normandy invasion that marked the beginning of the end of Fascist tyranny in Europe. On the same date, Californians will also celebrate a second liberation, the passage of Proposition 13 which 35 years ago reined in the onerous property tax system and made the passage of new taxes more democratic.

After three and a half decades, polls show Proposition 13 as popular now as it was the day it passed. Still, a divide on the issue remains, with the overwhelming majority of average folks supporting the tax limiting measure and a minority – primarily special interests that benefit from government spending, politicians who are in the pockets of those interests, a few leftist professors from taxpayers supported universities and, of course, editors at some of the state’s largest newspapers – remain dogged in their opposition.

For most Proposition 13 opponents, like the public employee union bosses, their opposition is all about money and getting more of it from taxpayers. Others, in the “chardonnay and brie set,” object to the bottom up origin of the 1978 tax revolt that… Read More