There seems to be something particularly egregious about something I read about in today’s Los Angeles Times, DWP proposes hiring former Assembly speaker Nuñez to help lobbyists.

Apparently the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, a public agency, is looking to spend big bucks to hire former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to provide "strategic advice" on how the agency should be navigating through the regulatory maze that has come about with the passage of AB 32, the legislation that requires state government to enact rules limiting people-caused actions that produce carbon emissions.

The irony hear, which should make FR readers cringe, is that Nunez himself was an absolutely critical player, while Assembly Speaker, in the passage of AB 32 in the first place.

Or to put it another way — are we creating a new "industry" in California — which is where… Read More

This weekend the excellent "OC Watchdog" series of the Orange County Register focused on a recent report on nonprofit pay released by an organization called "Charity Navigator" which revealed, among other things, that more than a few Orange County and California based nonprofits are paying pretty hefty compensation to corporate insiders, some have questionable management practices favoring corporate "insiders," and that Attorney General Jerry Brown iskeeping an eye on the situation.

For example, Costa Mesa’s Trinity Broadcasting Network is reportedly paying television preacher Paul Crouch as much as $419,500 annually, and it has a lot of relatives working for the nonprofit in various capacities, as does the Irvine-based Ayn Rand Institute, which is raising questions. A Santa Ana outfit named "Association for Firefighters and Paramedics" is spending 97% of its annual $3 million of funds raisedon fundraising and overhead, and $125,375 on its CEO, and has drawn the ire of the Attorney General, who is suing it for deceptive fundraising.

Persons who can exercise… Read More

"The insight of conservatism is the lasting power of America’s founding principles. The Claremont Institute articulates these principles with brilliant clarity, and challenges each and every Lincoln Fellow to live up to them. There is no better training ground for a lifelong campaign in the trenches of political warfare."

This week, I have the honor and privilege to have been selected to be one of twelve participants in the Claremont Institute’s Lincoln Fellowship Program. I am very excited about it – frankly, it’s a really big deal for me.

First and foremost for those FlashReport readers who are not familiar with the Claremont Institute, the mission of the Institute is to restore the principles of the American Founding to their… Read More

"The insight of conservatism is the lasting power of America’s founding principles. The Claremont Institute articulates these principles with brilliant clarity, and challenges each and every Lincoln Fellow to live up to them. There is no better training ground for a lifelong campaign in the trenches of political warfare."

This week, I have the honor and privilege to have been selected to be one of twelve participants in the Claremont Institute’s Lincoln Fellowship Program. I am very excited about it – frankly, it’s a really big deal for me.

First and foremost for those FlashReport readers who are not familiar with the Claremont Institute, the mission of the Institute is to restore the principles of the American Founding to their… Read More

Former Democrat turned Decline-To-State Assemblyman Juan Arambula of the Central Valley queried the Legislative Analyst, Mac Taylor, as to the sum total of California state governments aggregated liabilities (all of our long term debt). The response that Arambula received from Taylor is attached below, and is a "must read" for all FlashReport leaders. The amount of liability is nothing short of staggering, and Taylor organizes the types and specifics of the liabilities in a way that is easy to digest — even for non policy-wonks (like me).… Read More

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Next Monday the legislature will reconvene after their summer recess. Californians can then look forward to a marathon session of more attacks on their pocket books and freedom. One of the bills that’s working its way through the system is SB 54, by Senator Mark Leno. When the bill was introduced in January, it was designed to ban health insurers from charging individuals higher premiums based on their gender. The bill made it all the way through the Senate and into the Assembly—without any amendments—until June 30th, when it became a “gut and amend” bill. For those unfamiliar with the legislative jargon, a gut and amend essentially means that a bill’s content is completely removed and replaced with an entirely new subject, or the author is changed.

After its gut and amend, SB 54 went from a bill about healthcare to a bill that will… Read More

It should be alarming to everyone that, according to a new report, California’s Hidden Deficit: Unemployment Insurance Fund Owes $2.6 Billion, released jointly by ProPublica and the California Report, that state government is going into massive, multi-billion dollar debt to (to the tune of $30 million more each day) in order to pay out what appear to be unsustainable benefits ($$) to those who have lost their jobs. You can read the report here, and listen to it here.

According to ProPublica…

Seventeen states have been forced to borrow federal money because their unemployment insurance trust funds have run dry — but even among this group one state stands out from the rest.

California, which now owes $2.6 billion,… Read More