During these tough economic times, we are seeing families forced into making tough economic choices about their budgets. Pretty much we all have a family member or a close friend who is unemployed. Of course the downturn in the economy has an effect on available public resources as well. At every level of government (well, maybe except in Washington where they can print more money) there is significant belt-tightening taking place — if not out of ideological conviction, then due to practical concerns.

Nowhere is the scarcity of resources becoming a bigger issue than in local government, where the decrease in tax revenues due to the poor economy is hitting county and city budgets hard. This is compounded infinitely by the out-of-control public employee pension benefits that are now heavily draining many city coffers — and the worst is yet to come on that front.

More than ever, the public needs clarity that their local elected officials are serving for the right reasons. Now is a time for self-reflection. The City of Orange yesterday took an exemplary step in showing leadership for cities all around the state to follow — by a unanimous vote… Read More

Republicans scored twin victories in two closely watched House special elections last night, signaling ongoing problems for the Democrats in regions essential for their success in any national election.

By far the biggest upset was in New York’s 9th district, a heavily Democratic New York City seat with the highest percentage of Jewish voters in America. Predictably, President Obama’s policies toward Israel took center stage in this fight and the resulting victory for political novice Republican Bob Turner over incumbent Democrat Assemblyman David Weprin demonstrates the biggest potential shift in a major Democratic voter block in recent memory.

When I was growing up on Long Island (my parents immigrated and settled with other families just outside of New York City), Democrat Mayor Ed Koch was an outspoken icon of liberalism. Yet, his endorsement of Republican Turner over Democrat Weprin in this special election crystalized the problem which President Obama’s Israel policy has created for his party. It’s not just Republican Jews who are upset, but Democrats and independents as well.

The… Read More

Ronald Reagan was served by giants of capitalism. Reagan’s famous Kitchen Cabinet was composed of self made entrepreneurs, ranging from Henry Salvatori and CC Moseley to Holmes Tuttle and Justin Dart. None were born rich. They loved America and helped give the world Ronald Reagan.

George Joseph, founding CEO for Mercury Insurance, announced today that he was spending some$8.1 million to promote an initiative that would give more choice to auto consumers to buy car insurance at lower rates. His initiative seems reasonable.

According to the Los Angeles Times Joseph will gather some 750,000 thousands signatures to change the law to allow more competition, for this June’s election in 2012. But who is George Joseph?

Joseph was born in West Virginia (same as Henry Salvatori) in 1921, the son of Lebanese immigrants. During World War II he fought as a B-17… Read More

I know how difficult it is for California Republican Legislators in these dark days. They are in the minority, a difficult position in any circumstance, and they are close to falling below holding one-third of the legislative seats, a threshold that would make them irrelevant to all decisions in the Legislature. They have just been through their first year with a new Democrat Governor, one who paid little attention to them, and redistricting is a seeming disaster ready to sink them into irrelevancy for the next ten years. I have seen this situation, I understand their feelings, I know what is going through their minds.

The first instinct is to whine. That was our first instinct in 1999. “Democrats don’t treat us fair, they don’t pass our bills, they break the rules to pass their own bills.” Guess what? They’re the majority. The majority rules. Time to stop whining.

The next instinct is to capitulate. “The only way to get a seat at the table is to give them what they want and to eat the crumbs.” Well, they are going to get the best, because they are the majority, and if our Republican Legislators take a seat at… Read More

As regular readers of this missive know, I am a lifelong Republican. Accordingly, I have never been to a Democrat campaign rally. That is to say at least until last week. Last Thursday, I attended one…..on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. President Obama made a special request to speak to a Joint Session of Congress and I assumed it would be a major policy address. Far from it. It was a campaign speech. There was scarcely little serious policy content present. The first indicator of this was when Obama asked us to “pass this right away”, a line which appears on the first page of an 8 page speech, before saying what was in his plan. That’s like demanding that someone buy something inside a box without telling them what is in the box. Another indicator of lack of substance was his repeated assertions that the $450 billion one-year cost of the bill would be “paid for”. He also made this assertion on the first page of his address. Three pages later he says, “It will be paid for. And here’s how: The agreement we passed in July will cut government spending by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years.… Read More

George Skelton of the infamous Times, today seems critical of the Howard Jarvis, Inc. headed by Jon Coupal. Gov Brown attempted a last ditch tax increase but couldn’t get any senate Republicans to come on board. Seems these republicans wanted Coupal’s ‘endorsement’—good idea.

The Gov met with Coupal and your wallet is safe. No deal. Couple simply could not justify a good reason for a tax increase.

Sadly, two assembly republicans broke from the conservatives and voted for the Brown tax. Said tax increase passed the assembly. That made Skelton happy. But Brown could not peel off any republican senators. That tax bill died—and properly so. Congratulations to the senators, the folks at Jarvis and to Jon Coupal.… Read More

Since I am in the business of aggregating relevant California political news and opinion, I spend more time that any sane person should scanning the opinion pages of California’s major daily newspapers. As it does on every day that I am putting together the links for the FlashReport’s main page, yesterday I found myself reading the editorial page of the San Diego Union Tribune. To be honest, I have been disappointed to see what I would consider a significant move to the political center, and sometimes behind, from a paper that was one reliably center-right, and on some issues, even more so to the right… With no further lead-in, here is a column I have penned in response to the lead editorial in the Union Tribune that ran yesterday, on the 10th Anniversary of the tragic terrorist attacks on our nation…

The lead editorial in the San Diego Union Tribune yesterday, entitled The Tragedy After 9/11, was a lamentation piece expressing sorrow for the increased partisan divide in America over the last 25 years,… Read More

Upon visiting the Drudge Report today, I was shocked and appalled to read this headline: “Man Ticketed For Directing Traffic At Backed Up Intersection During Outage.” Without even knowing where this absurd story took place, I had a sneaking suspicion it was in California. Sure enough, it occurred in Pasadena this last week. Apparently the traffic light at a major intersection malfunctioned and traffic was backed up for more than a mile, with drivers waiting 30 minutes to get through. So local citizen Alan Ehrlich jumped into action and began directing traffic. According to an eyewitness, within 10 minutes, he had cleared up the traffic jam.

This seems like the responsible thing for a citizen to do. See a problem in your community and take action to resolve it, right? Well, in Commie-fornia, responsible citizens cannot be tolerated and when police arrived, they TICKETED Ehrlich.

As the news article… Read More