The folks over at Washington Watch have created a searchable federal earmarks database for each state, detailing the earmarks of each state’s congressional delegation. California alone has 2,400 earmarks from our delegation. Although their requests don’t seem quite as numerous as the Democrats’, Republicans are unfortunately feeding at the trough too.

h/t Capitol Morning Report… Read More

This just off the transom..

HJTA’S JON COUPAL HITS THE AIRWAVES TODAY AT NOON

Enjoy an hour of news/talk with California’s foremost taxpayer advocate from noon to 1 p.m. this afternoon. Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association president Jon Coupal will guest host the "The Capitol Hour with Eric Hogue" today, Friday, on KTKZ Radio (1380 AM), out of Sacramento. Jon’s guest in the first half hour segment will be Marcia Fritz of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility who will discuss the out-of-control pension benefits given to public employees in California. In the second half-hour segment, Jon’s guest will be Gabriella Holt, President and CEO of Citizens for California Reform, who is leading the effort to return California to a part-time Legislature. Not in the Sacramento area? To hear the broadcast live, click here.… Read More

You have to scratch your at the appointment by Speaker Karen Bass of ultra-left win San Francisco Democrat Tom Ammiano (pictured left) to serve as Chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. While it is not that surprising that Bass made a change in the leadership of this key committee, given that the now-former Chairman was Juan Arambula, a Central Valley Democrat who quit the party of Obama and is now registered DTS, it is eyebrow raising that the Speaker tapped someone so clearly to the far left of public sentiment on law and order issues to replace him.

But wait, there’s more. Believe it or not we have a downtown San Francisco "dream team" of criminal… Read More

You have to scratch your at the appointment by Speaker Karen Bass of ultra-left win San Francisco Democrat Tom Ammiano (pictured left) to serve as Chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. While it is not that surprising that Bass made a change in the leadership of this key committee, given that the now-former Chairman was Juan Arambula, a Central Valley Democrat who quit the party of Obama and is now registered DTS, it is eyebrow raising that the Speaker tapped someone so clearly to the far left of public sentiment on law and order issues to replace him.

But wait, there’s more. Believe it or not we have a downtown San Francisco "dream team" of criminal… Read More

During these long days of economic hardship, somewhere along the way the "green jobs" industrywas anointed the Holy Grail of job growth; the savior of economic revitalization.

But really, green jobs have not served in much more than a feel-good, buzz-word capacity, according to many experts, including Joel Kotkin, presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University who said in a recently published op-ed in Forbes that "All told, green jobs constitute barely 700,000 positions across the country – less than 0.5% of total employment.

He goes on to say: "Indeed a recent study by Sam Sherraden at the center-left New America Foundation finds that, for the most part, green jobs constitute a negligible factor in employment – and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future."

Don’t get me wrong; I do not oppose solutions that improve our environment – but I believe we must allow the free market to prevail in creating a truly robust green industry and we should oppose government intervention vis-à-vis… Read More

New signs of unrest amongst the super hard left who dominate the California Democrat Party;

Their target is President Obama’s handling of… Read More

Are you maximizing your opportunities to stay "plugged in" to the FlashReport? If you arent, you may be missing out on the best way to get the latest on California political news.

FR Twitter Feed: FR Publisher Jon Fleischman (finally) downloaded Twitterberry to his PDA — which means that he is now, on a regular basis, sending out tweets of 140 characters or less to those "following" us on Twitter. Click here to get to the FR Twitter Page.

FR Facebook Page: Join hundreds of others who have become part of the official FlashReport group on Facebook. When things get heated up, we’ll send stuff to this group that no one else… Read More

Our freedom to do things that might otherwise seem unreasonable is as essential to democracy as orderly elections, the cumbersome legislative process, and the awkward but effective republican form of government.

This push-pull is what we’re seeing in recent days as everyday Americans take to the streets, town hall meetings, and as my FR colleague Carl Fogliani reports, even to everyday appearances by elected officials.

If you believe the rhetoric of Democratic party leaders and activists, the behavior exhibited by so many Americans is well, "un-American." But if you believe that representative government is by design perhaps ugly, awkward and confrontational, then what you are seeing is something greater: the real deal–it is uniquely American.

By now we’ve all seen the video of Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee answering, and conducting, a phone call essentially interrupting a constituent who asks a direct, albeit assertive, question. Then there is the videos of counteless other members of congress being confronted by angry constituents–such as that of the "dean" of the House, Rep. John Dingell facing the… Read More