Last week, Board of Equalization Member Michelle Steel penned a column that appeared on the Fox & Hounds Daily website, where she well articulated why members of the State Legislature should reject a proposal from Governor Jerry Brown to create a point-of-sale lumber tax for Californians. Yes, you read that right, yet another tax being proposed by this Governor, which is definitely not what we need.

First and foremost, let me personally extend my sympathies to those California producers of lumber that… Read More

Mitt Romney will soon announce his choice to replace the hapless Joe Biden as the next Vice President of the United States. The announcement is a great opportunity to refocus attention on the clear choice Americans face in November, between more of the same from Obama-Biden and a new direction with “America’s Comeback Team.”

I’m in Washington, D.C. today and anticipation of the “veep” announcement here is approaching a fever pitch – it’s expected any day now.

The Republican Party is blessed with a long list of strong leaders who are well qualified to serve as Mitt Romney’s governing partner in the new Republican Administration: Gov. Chris Christie, Gov. Susana Martinez, Rep. Paul Ryan, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Sen. Rob Portman, and many more.

During his many visits with the California Republican Party I got to know Mitt Romney, and I’m 100%… Read More

Ultra-liberal Assemblywoman Julia Brownley is at it again — she has decided once again to try and prevail upon the state legislature and Governor that it is in the state’s interest to ban the use of 100% recyclable plastic grocery bags and charge (read: tax) people for other bags. This is not the first time she has attempted to do something like this — most recently in the 2010 legislative session, she authored AB 1998, also a statewide plastic bag ban. Faced with a strong wall of bipartisan opposition two years ago, AB 1998 failed to garner enough votes to pass the State Senate. I would urge state legislators to similarly reject Brownley’s latest effort.

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Only hours after the Democratic National Committee announced that the 2012 platform would endorse same-sex marriage, a group of black pastors came out swinging, and saying that they feel betrayed by President Barack Obama.

“We voted for Obama. We campaigned for Obama. But he has left our founding purposes,” Rev. William Owens Sr., the founder of the coalition of African American Pastors, told World Net Daily. “With all of the problems in America within the black community – education, jobs, business, the economy – with all of our problems, he chooses to get in front of same-sex marriage,” he continued. “That flies in the face of the African-American community.

“We feel betrayed.”

Could same-sex marriage issue fil-A the Dems?

Simultaneously, the Chick-fil-A controversy exploded, but in a good way.

Gay rights activists and other partisan liberals plan a national “Kiss In” at Chick-fil-A restaurants today to protest the restaurant owners’ position on traditional marriage. In a stunt worthy of junior high school antics, organizers are asking all gay activists to show up at Chick-fil-A locations and kiss one other… Read More

Yesterday, I wrote about the continuing problem of special funds, and how the bureaucracy has used them basically as a slush fund. The scandal surrounding the Department of Parks and Recreation is only the tip of the iceberg. Those funds now constitute close to $50 billion in state spending, and they, by and large, escape legislative scrutiny, because legislators are told these funds pay the “cost” of providing direct government service to people taking advantage of those services. They don’t, but legislators don’t look.

We now find out that, through the Parks scandal, that there are funds that are hidden and manipulated. Two political appointees resign “in disgrace,” and everyone announces how upset they are about these deceptive practices. But the question is, who did it? These funds have accumulated over the years. Did two recent appointees of Governor Brown really cause this problem?

Of course not. What goes unreported, and what the real problem in state government is the permanent bureaucracy. The folks who year… Read More

The rumors about Democrat Bob Filner signing Republican political consultant Tom Shepard to run his San Diego mayoral campaign became reality on Wednesday.

The U-T San Diego posted astoryabout the move last night. A blog post went up on San Diego Rostra about the same time. And there was Tony Krvaric’s email blast. The chair of local GOP didn’t mince words. His subject line: “BREAKING: Tom Shepard betrays our reform effort and signs on with Bob Filner!”

Krvaric closed by saying: “PS. The Republican Party of San Diego County will not do business with him ever again as long as I remain chairman. Elephants don’t forget – and principles matter.”

Shepard is a friend and a mentor. We’ve worked together. I admire and respect him. He took the loss in the June primary hard — he represented Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, who finished third behind DeMaio… Read More

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In the statewide election that took place earlier this month, something happened in a race for the State Assembly that should matter to every reader of this column, whether you live in Butte County to the north, or San Diego to the South, whether you live on the Central Coast or in the Central Valley. An attempt was made, using the new “top-two” election system created by Proposition 14, to knock off a conservative, incumbent member of the State Assembly whose only crime was that he was, literally, too conservative. Here is what happened…

As you know, after the decennial census process was complete, all of the political boundaries for California legislative districts were redrawn (with the passage of Propositions 11 and 20, this was now done by a so-called “independent” California Citizens Commission. This didn’t turn out so well for the GOP, but that I have written about elsewhere. In the heart of Orange County, freshman Assemblyman Allan Mansoor saw his current 68th District carved up quite a bit. Mansoor, of course, chose to run in the new 74th District, where he lived, which contains the city of Costa Mesa, where he served… Read More

I was very pleased to see my friend and a blogger on this site, Shawn Steel, make the Wall Street Journal. This is a big deal. Because there is a pay wall over at WSJ.com, I took the liberty of reprinting the piece below. Congratulations, Shawn!

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