I complained here earlier this year about the Dana Point City Council’s vote to implement a new additional hotel tax and taxing district last year during the middle of a recession and at a time of the highest unemployment in recent state history. The city already imposed a 10% "transient occupancy tax" on top of the 8 3/4 % state sales tax. The new tax adds another $3 a night to a hotel bill. Republicans on the council who voted for it claimed the hotels themselves wanted the new tax. Then, after implementation of the new tax district, the biggest alleged supporter of the tax, the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort, bankrupted itself. I’m sure the new tax had nothing to do with the bankruptcy, but it was a sad poetic justice to the shaky justification offered by tax-raising Republican Lisa Bartlett and Joel Bishop for their votes.

But the Dana Point tax-raisers actions pale in comparison to what is going on in San Francisco. Tourism in San Francisco has been troubled since the 9/11 attacks. And I don’t see The City’s tourism recovering too quickly given the implementation of the 2006 "health" tax that has… Read More

There’s literally so much going on, it’s nearly impossible to know where to start. Nearly…

Unhand me, or I’ll send out a Press Release… The news resulting in the biggest political buzz over the last several days was an "incident" in the 40th Senate District Democratic primary race between Assemblymember Mary Salas and former Assemblyman Juan Vargas, with a cameo by Congressman Bob Filner.

Filner has been known toget a laugh in recent years whenhe walks on stage donning boxing gloves at the annual Congressional Delegation Luncheonput on by the San Diego Chamber. So, when he attended Friday morning’s press conference with Senate candidate Salasso the two could jointlycastigate their agreed-upon nemesis Vargas, someone should have told him to bring a couple of pairs for the campaign workers.

Apparent attempts by Vargas staffers to noisily gain a ringside seat to the presser resulted in a bit of a scuffle, it seems. A couple of hours later, Salas shot out a press release accusing the Vargas campaign of assault, as well as landing one of her people in the… Read More

Traditional Values’ Ben Lopez is on to something good.

Lopez is pushing legislation to enact a Ronald Reagan Day, on Reagan’s birthday February 6 of each year.

AB 2412… Read More

Assembly Republican Leader Martin Garrick just released his weekly radio address… The transcript is below, and below that is a player if you would prefer to listen to his remarks…

Hello, I’m Martin Garrick with this week’s radio address from the State Capitol. This week, I want to share with you a story that illustrates a problem that many job-creating businesses are having in California. A recent article in Forbes magazine highlighted the challenges faced by McAfee, a company that is a shining example of a California success story. McAfee is headquartered in Santa Clara and is a leader in the computer security software business. … Read More

A big chunk of the California Electorate say they don’t care if a candidate regularly uses marijuana on a recreational basis.

A new poll we conducted found that 40% of Primary Election votes don’t care about marijuana use among candidates and seven percent say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who smokes pot. That means that over 50% of voterswould beeither indifferent or more supportive of candidate if all they knew was that he or she did the drug.

There are some pretty big differences when you delve into the numbers. Republicans are less likely to support the pot smoker than Democrats, same for women v. men.

Check out the full report here (after you get some munchies of course).… Read More

There’s an informative article on Carly Fiorina in the online version of the WSJ Magazine written by Amy Chozick.. I "lifted" this great photo of Carly and her two dogs. Did you know that Carly lived abroad for a year? Read the article to find out about that and much more… It begins… “I hated to break a commitment. People were expecting me,” Carly Fiorina says of why, just hours after being diagnosed with cancer early last year, she traveled to Sacramento to deliver a speech at the California Republican Convention. At the time, she didn’t know it was breast cancer or how advanced the disease was. Then, last October, as she finished up grueling radiation therapy and prepared to enter the U.S. Senate race, Fiorina and her husband of 25 years, Frank, flew to Pittsburgh to attend the funeral of his 35-year-old daughter, Lori Ann, whom Fiorina had helped raise since she… Read More

Abel Maldonado (or as John Seiler calls him, "Unable Abel") made his first appearance television appearance as California’s appointed Lt. Governor last night on the Steve Colbert show. It’s worth watching as Colbert basically mocked Maldo and his "open primary" ballot measure — going as far as to give it a tongue-in-cheek endorsement after confirming that nothing in it keeps candidates from spending however much they want on television advertising… It is extremely disappointing to me that while it is clear as day that our problems in Sacramento are that the Democrats are in charge, Maldonado sees the problem as being that HE is not in charge..

Without going on further, here you have it…… Read More

I'm happy to be at a luncheon today at Morton's Steakhouse in Anaheim in support of USA Volleyball. The Mens team has been training in Anaheim since 2005 and last year the Womens team relocated here from Colorado Springs. I have never felt so… short! It's pretty cool that so many of the players are sporting Olympic Gold Medals!

FR readers will recognize two of the major forces behind USA Volleyball here in the OC. One is Mike Schroeder, the former State GOP Chairman, who has headed up the fundraising efforts to make things viable — and the other is Anaheim Mayor and former Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle.

I'm already anxious to head off to the 2012 Games in London to watch both teams compete — and hopefully bring home the Gold!… Read More