Comedic actor Jon Lovitz, formerly of Saturday Night Live, used to portray a great character, Tommy "The Liar" Flanagan. Tommy was a member of the "Pathological Liars Anonymous" who once lied on-screen about being the "official spokesman for NBC, yeah." But in the last few days you’d think Tommy The Liar was working for the Brown for Governor campaign.

Brown’s campaign is just full of lies. Real life spokesman Sterling "The Liar" Clifford lied about me during this campaign season, saying I was a "birther" to try to sully efforts to get information out on television about Brown’s performance in office. That was clearly a lie, with about 24 news stories directly to the contrary, but the lies just kept on coming despite being confronted with the truth. And they got their flunkies at the San Francisco Chronicle to help spread the lies, too.

The Brown… Read More

As a candidate, if you’re spending more time campaigning on Facebook and Twitter than you are making fundraising phone calls and engaging in direct voter contact, it could be you deserve to lose.

(Oh … if you don’t know the definition of direct voter contact, you really are in trouble.)… Read More

Governor Schwarzenegger, today is the last day for you to act on legislation on your desk. As you know, along with State Senator Mimi Walters and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, the FlashReport has urged to specifically veto the Twenty Worst Bills on your desk. Many of these you have saved to today, the last day to act. We urge you to veto them all!

Among those bills still on your desk are the two that I think are truly the worst of the worst — so bad I gave them the FlashReport’s "Golden Trashcan Award" – a dubious distinction. Assembly Bill 1602 and Senate Bill 900 establish the California Health Benefits Exchange — and are what we call the "Rush To Obamacare" — as these bills put an onerous centralized health care bureaucracy in place (with serious taxpayer accountability issues) — and does so in a hurry (Obamacare doesn’t require some of what is in these bills be enacted until 2014).

The… Read More

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Due to technical issues that are hard to understand, let alone explain, our main page will not be updated until the late morning. Our apologies.… Read More

Californians got to see the two top candidates for governor–Republican Meg Whitman and Democrat Jerry Brown–debate the issues tonight. Televised statewide, the event gave voters achance to see both candidates in action and learn more about the differences between the two.

It was one of the better debates this state has seen in recent years. I believe that is because both candidates are genuinely decent people who respect the voters and the democratic process. They both clearly have a strong desire to improve the state’s economy and budget situation.But their approaches are vastly different.For those of us who see the economy, budget reform and improved education as our top issues, Whitman clearly is the stronger candidate.

Tonight at 6pm is the first (and arguably most important) debate between Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown. You can watch it online here.

I will be live-tweeting throughout the event here.… Read More

Last night my good friend Lance Izumi joined Meg Whitman (and a few other friends and fans) at a special movie preview of “Waiting for Superman.” Izumi, for those of you who don’t know him, is the senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy and co-author of the book “Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice” (and is featured on the FR home page today.) He is also featured in the new "Waiting for Superman" movie, which was made by Academy-award winning documentary director Davis Guggenheim ("Inconvenient Truth").

Whitman has seen the film and thinks it is a must-see for people who care about kids and… Read More