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Jon Fleischman

GOP Assemblywoman Olsen Drops Thousands Of RoboCalls Into SF Blasting Senator Leland Yee

What started as a dispute on Twitter has now escalated into a full-on political battle between one of the legislature’s most liberal members and one of its most conservative. In her inaugural tweet, newcomer to Twitter Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen of Modesto, a Republican, tweeted that she was proud was the only one in the 80-member Assembly to score a perfect zero from the Sierra Club (an achievement of which any rational personal can be proud, as the Sierra Club is an extremely liberal group). It didn’t take long for the Adam Keigwin, Chief of Staff to one of the legislature’s most liberal members, Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco, to harass Olsen on Twitter because of her tweet. Yee recently was the recipient of the California Sierra Club’s coveted Phil Burton Treehugger Award.

Apparently Assemblywoman Olsen then attempted to get a hold of Senator Yee directly, by calling his cell phone, to discuss things. Alas, Yee must have been too busy speaking to the #OCCUPYSF rally to return her call. She is still waiting for a… Read More

Jon Fleischman

Brown Talks About Public Employee Pension Reform, But Can He Deliver?

Yesterday in Los Angeles at an event with famed philanthropist and felon Michael Milken, Governor Jerry Brown said that he would soon be releasing details of his own pension reform plan, adding that his proposal will include a constitutional amendment and by necessity be put in front of the voters for approval. This comes on the same day that legislative leaders announce the formation of a special committee to review the issue of reforms to the public employee pension system. It is worth noting that the six-member legislative committee that has now been magically formed is stacked with four pro-union votes, thus guaranteeing that no policy recommendations will come from the committee that are not signed off on by the bosses at California Teachers Association, the Service Employees International Union, et.al.

Read More

Jon Fleischman

Senate Referendum Efforts Benefits From Over $1 Million In Donations To State GOP

Our sources have confirmed that this week the California Republican Party has received over a million dollars in donations that will be used to super-charge the signature gathering process to refer to the voters the State Senate lines drawn by the California Redistricting Commission. This is not “committed” funding — we have confirmed that these donations have already been put into the party’s bank account. With this significant amount of recent funding, along with funds already raised and commitments forthcoming, I would guess that the referendum effort is probably just a few hundred thousand dollars away from securing all of the… Read More

Jon Fleischman

Thursday Random Thoughts

Pundits have written that one intra-party show-down due to redistricting is a face-off between Republican Congressmen Gary Miller and Ed Royce. Apparently, however, Gary Miller still hasn’t gotten the memo. We’ve been nosing around and no one can tell whether Miller is actually going to challenge Royce or not. While Royce has been his usual Energizer-Bunny self, racking up endorsements and holding high profile events, Miller’s side of things has been dead silent, causing many to question whether Miller is actually going to run at all. Miller’s website still touts his endorsements from his 2010 run. Federal Election Commission reports have come out and in the latest reporting period, Miller pulled in $54,789, leaving him with $1,007,753 in the bank. During that same period of time Royce raised $352,878, and has $3,048,573 in the bank. In reviewing Royce’s report, it is impressive that nearly $200,000 of the funds he’s recently raised came from individual donors (with about two-thirds of that coming from the OC, but also a third coming from Los Angeles County). This is significant because local donations are a strong measure of … Read More

Jim Battin

Is Your Postman About To Become Your Pharmacist?

Just when we thought we had seen the worst of the recent economic downturn, the local economy is likely to get yet another jolt from a little-talked-about merger that is winding its way through the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The merger is in the area of pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) companies, and involves two of the largest companies in the business: Express Scripts, Inc., and Medco. If this goes through, the emerging company will be the elephant in the room when it comes to PBMs.

Fears are that this kind of consolidation of power will have ramifications beyond driving up the prices of medicine for patients. It might also trigger the closure of pharmacies, both locals and chains, which will be hard pressed to compete with this mail order giant.

What does that mean for our little corner of the earth? If the merger happens, you might be getting your prescriptions by mail order. For those who like their local pharmacist or rely on their pharmacy to have their blood pressure taken or to receive their vaccinations, you’ll have to come up with another plan – or maybe your postman can help. And I hope you like mail order… Read More

Jon Fleischman

Top 20 Bills To Veto – The Final Score – Governor Signed 15/20

Last month we published our annual Top 20 Bill To Veto column. Senators Doug LaMalfa and Mimi Walters culled through every bill that was sent to the Governor at the end of the session, and the worst of the worst made our list. You can read the original column here. Below we have pulled the actual 20 bills and and indicated the Governor’s action. The Governor signed 15 of the bills and vetoed the other 5.

Assault on the Family

SIGNED! AB 433 (B. Lowenthal) – Requires the state to issue a new birth certificate to California-born, but now out of state residents that have undergone sex-change surgery. Also allows them to petition the court to have their new gender recognized as such.

SIGNED! AB 499Read More

Meredith Turney

Do “Latino Rights” Trump Free Speech in California?

As a media figure, you know you’re having an impact when your opponents try to boycott you. Just ask Lou Dobbs or Glenn Beck. It seems LA’s talk radio kings, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, of KFI AM 640, have now attained such influence.

They’ve grown accustomed to Governor Brown taking jabs at them and their politically active audience. Now, several “Latino rights groups” are trying to get the duo off the air. For SoCal locals, John and Ken have become the go-to radio hosts discussing the out-of-control progressive policies bankrupting California and killing citizens’ freedom. In recent years, their loyal audience has become increasingly vocal, calling politicians and other politicos when directed by the radio hosts.

One of the topics of their ire is AB 131, the California Dream Act, by Senator Gill Cedillo. In their daily radio program, John and Ken have been expounding on the lunacy of offering college scholarships to students whose parents aren’t legal citizens, taking money from… Read More

Jon Fleischman

Happy Birthday To The Americas, And To California’s Initiative Process!

619 years ago today, the three Spanish ships — the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria — weighed anchor off the of coast of what would eventually be called the Bahamas and Italian explorer Christopher Columbus and his expedition became the first westerners to discover the Americas — the new world. This day is celebrated through all of the Americas with a holidays. Well, with a few exceptions. In South Dakota it is Native American Day. In Hawaii, they use this day to celebrate their discovery by Polynesian explorers. And, of course, in the People’s Republic of Berkeley, today is indigenous people’s day.

100 years ago today, Californians changed their State Constitution to include several reforms, including the ability for the people to exercise direct democracy in the form of ballot initiatives and the referendum (the ability to take any new law and take it to a vote of the people). A century ago, these reforms were enacted in response to the domination of state government by a small group of wealthy business interests (most notably the railroad tycoons).

Today, the initiative and referendum continue to be a tool available… Read More

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