Another friend e-mailed me to recommend recently termed-out state Sen. Jim Battin as a preferable primary challenger to Rep. Mary Bono-Mack, rather than former Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia.

Jim Battin served three terms in the Assembly and two in the state Senate, and is currently eying a run for Lieutenant Governor. Jim amassed a solid conservative record, but my most vivid impression of him was during the fight to bring down Assembly Speaker Doris Allen in 1995. That fracas separated the men from the mealy worms in the Assembly GOP Caucus, and Battin was always right on the front line. That spirit left long-lasting positive impression on me.

Clearly, Battin still aspires to political office, and that same fighting spirit would prove a valuable weapon in a primary battle to take out Bono-Mack.

I don’t know what, if any, relationship Garcia or Battin have with Bono-Mack. Different readers will have different takes on which they would prefer as a primary challenger… Read More

In a previous post, I called for a serious candidate to step forward and challenge Rep. Mary Bono-Mack in next year’s Republican primary.

Bono-Mack was one of only eight Republican House members to vote for the ":cap and trade" energy tax — the largest tax hike in our history, and a staggering transfer of wealth and control to the federal government. Without the votes of Bono-Mack and those seven other Republicans,m cap-and-trade would have failed.

It is simply unimaginable that any Republican with even a marginal adherence to GOPprinciples would vote for this monstrosity. We Republicans tend to cut our incumbents slack on the occasional stray vote, but some are so over-the-line, and so destructive of liberty, that they demand more than criticism. They call for someone to step forward and challenge that incumbent in the defense of basic party principles.

A fellow conservative blogger, Erick Erickson of RedState.com, suggested former Assemblywoman… Read More

The Accidental Congresswoman has outlived her uselessness. GOPRep. Mary Bono-Mack needs a primary challenger, stat.

"Cap and trade" — the energy tax that constitutes the largest tax in American history (a category in which it has some stiff competition) has passed narrowly, thanks to the votes of 8 Republicans.

Absent those 8 Republicans, this tax hike would have failed.

One of those Traitorous 8 was Rep. Mary Bono-Mack. She votted "no" on the earlier test vote, then flipped to a "yes" on the final vote.

Thanks for nothing, Mary. It is inexplicable to me how anyone calling themselves a Republican would vote for this ginormous tax levy to fight a climate phenomenon that no one — no one — has proven is the result of man-made activity.

Mary Bono needs a primary challenge. A serious challenger who can win and send her packing off to… Read More

For the past week Americans has been watching with rapt attention the drama unfolding in Iran after its national election. Millions of Iranians have taken to the streets to demand their freedom. Many have died in their quest for something we as Americans so easily take for granted. Last weekend Iranian-Americans took to the streets of Los Angeles, which has the largest community of Iranians in America, to express their support for a free Iran.

In providential timing, a movie is being released today that exposes the cruel treatment of women under Iran’s regime: The Stoning of Soraya M. My Townhall article this week talks about the movie and how simply going to see the film expresses support for those suffering under Iran’s despotic government. The film will open in several California cities, with more openings next weekend.

Those in Orange County will have a great opportunity to see the film and participate in a Q & A discussion with the director and two… Read More

The more I think about the idea of approved roughly $3 billion in stand-alone cuts to education in the 2008-09 FY, I am gelling on the fact that to the extent that these cuts that represent just over 10% of needed cuts to fix the state's fiscal imbalance, they also push out any imperative to make other cuts for at least a month…

I am NOT a “policy” guy, I admit that. So that gives me license to do some generalizing. In the Governor's proposal to deal with the $24 billion problem, rougly $17 billion of his proposals are cuts, with a presumption that said cuts will go into effect on July 1. If we were to approve the $3 billion “kick the can” proposal advocated by Capitol Democrats and Assembly Republicans, this would ensure that Dems wouldn't have to face more cuts for at least a month…

So, 1/12 off of $17 billion… (I'm not near a computer or calculator). Let's call is $1.5 billion.

So already the “savings” from the immediate non-comprehensive cut has been “discounted” by 50% before you add in inevitable other costs associated with pushing out a real… Read More

Well, I guess Debra Bowen and the Los Angeles District Attorney are being bipartisan in enforcing voter registration rules. Last week they nailed a GOP voter registration collector, Mark Jacoby, for voter registration fraud and this week they filed charges against well-known southern California liberal Latino activist Nativo Lopez for allegedly fudging on his own voter registration. According to Martin Wisckol’s well researched article in the Orange County Register today, Lopez is facing felony charges for being registered to vote at a Los Angeles address while actually living in Orange County.

Bowen and the DA did the same with poor Mark Jacoby, a guy who makes his living collecting signatures on petitions, (a dirty business) and he plead out to a misdemeanor. But his plea surprised me. "Voter registration fraud" is really not the same as "voter fraud." "Voter fraud" is about stopping dead people and illegals from voting. In these "voter registration fraud" cases, Bowen and the LA District Attorney are enforcing laws that require people who are registered to vote to… Read More

Praise is due this morning to Governor Schwarzenegger and Senate Republicans for putting the brakes on a partial budget fix yesterday that would have kicked the proverbial can on fixing the budget shortfall projected for the coming fiscal year. As we have said, the top priority of Capitol Republicans must be a $24 billion comprehensive fix — lest we end up back at it in the Spring, with pressures high to raise taxes.

I get that there are some decent policy reasons to want to enact this particular group of cuts now. But, guess what? There is always and excuse or a reason to look to the short term instead of the long term.

Hopefully today the leadership teams of Senate and Assembly Republicans are meeting with each other and with the Governor. Republican unity and focus on the end goal with be required to protect taxpayers in this crisis.

Democrats have hopefully learned that they will need to put up a complete fix to this budget situation if they want GOP approval. Delaying this, whether for weeks or months, is not an option.… Read More

Last night around 7pm I started to get a flurry of emails from FlashReport readers — they couldn’t get onto the website! I tried it out myself and, sure enough, it was slow as molasses. I quickly reached out to our ace team of programmers at Cloudspace (they are located in Orlando, Florida so it was a bit later there) — and they got on it right away.

Their first report to me was that the site had ground to a virtual standstill because of a massive volume of traffic coming to the site. I thought this to be a little odd, for a Thursday night.

Soon after that first report, the answer came back. It turns out that in a commentary I wrote for FR a couple of weeks ago I had a graphic image of the cover of Michael Jackson’s 1984 "Thriller" album — and for some reason, when one did a Google images search for this, the image on my site came up number two! Anyways, as folks around the web sought out that particular graphic they would start to link from their websites and emails to that file. This then led to others grabbing the link and so on and so on. The exponential effort led to a site overload.

The problem has… Read More