For the next three days, Democrats are reportedly going to hold online town hall meetings about the state’s budget. Here are ten questions that I’m guessing would NOT make it past the screeners:

1. You’ve known that the state had a $19 billion deficit since back in January, why did you just get around to agreeing on a plan this month?

2. On March 5, right after being sworn in as Speaker of the House, Speaker Perez told the Los Angeles Times that he would be making “huge, devastating, difficult decisions” over the “next fifteen days” to close the state’s deficit. What were those decisions and why weren’t they enough?

3. On March 16,… Read More

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In the San Francisco Chronicle this morning, there was a headline that caught my eye — Whitman softens stance on U.S. Healthcare Law.

What? Whitman is warming up to Obamacare? NO WAY.

Here is a section of the article where you can see the distinction that the reporter is trying to draw between the then vs. now answer:

FlashReport readers anxiously awaiting my post-convention write up will need to wait until tomorrow’s issue. As is often the case, because I am not only writing about the GOP confab, but was a participant in it, I get home not only totally spent (both emotionally and physically) – but I also had to get up in the wee hours to pull together our main page for today.

I will take a moment to share some broader observations about this event. First and foremost is that in talking to the delegates on hand, there is resolve in working to ensure that the GOP tide that is clearly sweeping the nation crash straight into California and sweep a lot of Democrats into the ocean. Meg Whitman delivered a great speech to enthusiastic delegates on Friday night and Carly Fiorina dazzled a large lunchtime crowd with her excoriation of Barbara Boxer. I had the handy FlashFlipCam at the lunch, so here is a great clip of Carly on fire….

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Several of our FR bloggers attended this weekends CA GOP confab in San Diego, California. Look for some post-script notes in the coming days. For my part I’ll start working on a comprehensive post-convention write-up, to run tomorrow or Tuesday. I’ll also work on trying to upload some video I took of some of our great candidates.

Later this week we will also be publishing our much-beloved "Winners and Losers of the Convention" column!

So, here is your chance for input. If you went to convention, drop me a note. What were your favorite parts? Who did you think had a particularly stellar weekend? Or maybe the opposite? Nominations for winners? losers? All of your input is confidential and you will not be mentioned. If you are uber-paranoid in the upper right hand corner of the site is a button to send us information anonymously.

Jon… Read More

Today every member of the State Assembly will have a choice between freedom and big government. Today is the last day to vote on amendments for the regular session of the State Assembly. SB 810 is Senator Leno’s gigantic single payer health system that dismantles private insurance and gives control over you health to the State. It is worse than what was passed by Congress and will drive jobs and businesses out of state with new taxes.

Today I will propose an amendment that would replace this socialized health care scheme with language that would protect our freedom from Washington D.C. ’s health care plan the language is similar to Virginia ’s that is working its way through the… Read More

Continuing to show an impressive level of support from Republican elected officials, CRP Vice Chairman candidate Steve Baric was endorsed yesterday by most Republican State Senators. Steve was also endorsed by twenty Assembly Republicans (see those names here).

While not all Senators were around when a letter was circulated on Baric’s behind by longtime FR friend Senator Tony Strickland, most Senators were… Signing on with Baric were incoming Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton, George Runner, Jeff Denham, Tom Harma, Mark Wyland, Bob Huff, Bill Emmerson, and Sam Aanestad. Of course Strickland signed first…

Steve is still tracking down the other Senators to try and get all of their support. When I spoke with Steve this morning, he was already down at the Manchester Hyatt in San Diego, ready for a great convention. No doubt he will be spending most… Read More

I personally believe that the bigger liar to Congress is California’s Henry Waxman, and not former pitching ace Roger Clemens. The churlish California Congressman has told some real whoppers in the Capitol, such as the time he took George W, Bush to task for lying to Congress about the justification for the war in Iraq. Waxman made media hay out of the so-called “16 words” of a Bush State of the Union speech that said British intelligence had reported Saddam Hussein was looking for some uranium. The statement was true at the time it was made, but Waxman’s mode of operation in that case was to lie about what he said was a lie to promote his anti-war agenda. Are you following me? Clemens may have taken steroids – I don’t know. Like Barry Bonds, at the time he might have taken them, they were legal. Clemens problem was responding to a Waxman subpoena. Regardless, if the requirement to get indicted in Washington is to tell lie to Congress, I’m sure the only member of Congress who wouldn’t be in jail today would be Ron Paul, who wouldn’t have the needed mental capacity.… Read More