How ironic that successful international movie star and businessman Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is literally volunteering his time as Governor of California, has overnight become the largest donor to the campaign to pass Proposition 14, the "Top Two" initiative, which purports to somehow make things work "better" in Sacramento.

The reason for the irony is that Proposition 14 is truly the "wealthy, special interests empowerment act" where the vastly wealthy people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the vastly wealthy special interest groups that dominate state capitol politics (starting with the public employee unions and big business) will significantly increase their influence.

Why is this? First and foremost, Proposition 14 makes it a whole lot more expensive to campaign for public office, while doing nothing to make it any easier for a candidate to raise money. So this really advantages those players in system who have money to spread around.

Let’s also remember that the stated purpose of this measure is to decrease the role of "ideologues" in the legislature. This will play right into the hands of the… Read More

The Los Angeles Times posted an astonishing article today about the Assembly’s refusal to disclose the salary figures for staff members. Well, to be more accurate, the manner in which such information is disclosed.

Apparently the Assembly’s chief administration officer, Jon Waldie, will only hand out printed copies of the data; he refuses to send electronic versions. So, essentially, only those who can get a hold of Mr. Waldie in person can obtain data that is required by law to be publicly disclosed.

FR readers, I wanted to apologize for a couple of days of light blogging on my part. Yesterday I took the day off, after getting the main page up, for some much needed R&R. Today I am in the Coachella Valley for the memorial service of longtime friend and FR contributor Barry Nestande, who so tragically lost his life last Friday (he passed of an apparent heart attack while working out).

I’ve just pre-written a fun item that will pop up around 1000am, and Mike Spence has a good post in the queue!… Read More

Yesterday in Havana, Cuba, that country’s long time totalitarian dictator Fidel Castro praised the passage of the Obama/Reid/Polosi health care bill, calling it a, "miracle."

Seriously.

While it may disturb "normal" Americans that the head of a country where freedom and liberty are merely parts of whispered fables, there is one California Congressman who is undoubtedly quite proud of Castro’s encouragement.

Democrat Congressman Jim Costa, from California’s Central Valley, proudly displays a photo of himself with Castro on the wall of his Washington, D.C., office (see photo).

You have to wonder what other aspects of government-controlled life in Cuba that Costa is interested in bringing here to the United States…… Read More

Some significant events took place in the 59th AD GOP Primary race in the last couple of weeks.

On the endorsement front: The Recall Anthony Adams Committee announced support for Anthony Riley. This coupled with the Howard Jarvis endorsement gives him a couple of good district wide endorsements.

At the Lincoln Club debate last Friday Corey Calaycay announced support from his former boss Senator Bob Margett.

Chris Lancaster picked up LA County Supervisor Mike Antonovich and the Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. All are solid endorsements.

On the money end only Calaycay and Lancaster met the 50K threshold to file electronically. The difference between the two is about 50K. Lancaster loaned 100K and Calaycay loaned 50K. So far most of the money has been spent on slates. Lancaster does have Chris Jones on the payroll.

The Lincoln Club debate was not as heated as in past years. All but Tim Donnelly were able to attend. Ken Hunter, Chris Lancaster, Anthony Riley and Inver Bye all sounded conservative themes. Hunter’s grassroots campaign had RINO hunting licenses for people. Nice touch. I have a couple trophies on the wall myself. A… Read More

You can follow my tweets @flashreport or click on the Twitter Feed button on the main page.… Read More

Fighting LA traffic to voluntarily step foot on the University of Southern California campus aside (sorry Dan Schnur), I'm looking forward to testifying this morning before the Fair Political Practices Commission's Subcommittee on Whether and How to Regulate Political Speech on the Internet (ok, that's my title).

I will try to avoid using the opportunity to rage against Constitutionally questionable laws that restrict and contort the free speech rights of citizens, who should be free to give of their property freely to political candidates or causes of their choosing. These laws, among other flaws, lead to more and more vastly wealthy candidates or candidates promoted by special interests emerging as candidates as severe limits make it more and more diffucult for an average person to raise the funds necessary to wage a competitive campaign.

Anyways, I digress. My testimony this morning will focus on the challenge of trying to restrict or regulate paid political speech in a dynamic and quickly evolving arena – the Internet. Oh, I have faith in the government to try and slap reporting requirements and an ID number on more and more… Read More

Quote of the day: "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." – Theodore Roosevelt, April 23rd, 1910

Now what?: Unless you have been hiding somewhere for the last 24 hours, you know that ObamaCare passed late last night. So now what?

First of all, lawsuits are already being filed by states and others challenging the constitutionality of various provisions in the bill. The provision attracting the most attention is the one… Read More