Born in 1911, in a small town in Illinois, let’s join and remember our 40th President and what he stood for and meant to our country. I was in college at the time he ran for President in 1980, a very difficulttime with Iran and hostages, the Cold Warandthe Soviets,and runaway inflation and interest rates. I remembered the posters up around campus [they actually weren’t torn down back then, especially around the Ag Dept.] of Governor Reagan in the cowboy hat and the optimism in that smile and in his words.

Indeed, he gave us optimism that we could beat the ‘malaise’ we were suffering from. Even the USA Olympic hockey team beat the USSR in the Miracle on ice. That optimism even spilled over into Charlie Daniels hit song at the time "In America"

"…speaking for you and me, and some people from Tennessee, we got a thing or two to tell you all…" "…were gonna put her feet back on the path of… Read More

I am pleased to offer this guest commentary from Senator Abel Maldonado, who represents California’s 15th District along the Central Coast…

John Chiang: A Controller Out of Control By State Senator Abel Maldonado

If your tax refund check is delayed, blame State Controller John Chiang’s irresponsible spending. While you’re trying to find a way to do more with less, the state controller is continuing to do less with more.

On January 6, the governor vetoed the Democrats’ illegal budget. Phrases like… Read More

I am pleased to offer this guest commentary from Senator Abel Maldonado, who represents California’s 15th District along the Central Coast…

John Chiang: A Controller Out of Control By State Senator Abel Maldonado

If your tax refund check is delayed, blame State Controller John Chiang’s irresponsible spending. While you’re trying to find a way to do more with less, the state controller is continuing to do less with more.

**There is more – click the link**… Read More

I read yesterday’s Flashreport with all of the stories in the mainstream media about laying off, and furloughing, state employees, and the negative impact that is having on state employee morale.

But look what is happening in the private sector. Thousands of private sector workers are losing their job, which is having a negative effect on state income and sales tax revenue, and that drop in revenue is resulting in state deficits. These deficits leave the state with the options of cutting spending, raising taxes, or both. Raising taxes will reduce private sector spending, costing more private sector jobs, further reducing income and sales tax revenues, and quite frankly, reducing the effectiveness that any tax increase may have toward increasing state revenue. Quite frankly, raising taxes will make the short term revenue problems worse.

Cutting spending will cost government jobs, for sure, but lots of people are losing their jobs right now. Government workers, and government worker unions, think that somehow they ought to be immune from these economic ups and downs. They always want more spending when revenues are up, and they never want to cut… Read More

As someone who has been questioned from time to time by "less diverse" conservatives and GOPers about my musical tastes — such as "How can you possibly listen to liberals like Dylan, The Clash, John Lennon, The Ramones, etc, etc?" — well, I just have to share the following.

And, let’s not forget the founding fathers were punks as well.

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dtennapel/2009/01/31/republican-is-the-new-punk/

As a small group of great philosophers once said, "Hey ho, let’s go!"… Read More

Waste Watchers:Taxpayers Provide Free Housing for Paroled Child Molesters With state government teetering on the verge of declared bankruptcy, one would think that complimentary HBO and free hotel rooms for convicted sex offenders at taxpayers’ expense would be a good place to cut. According to a Jan. 17, 2009 report in the Contra Costa Times and a MediaNews analysis of bank drafts issued by parole agents and addresses registered on the Megan’s Law sex offender database, “State corrections officials spent nearly $22 million last year on apartments and motel… Read More

Senator Sam Aanestad has just released a shocking article about a state government program that is funding surgical abortion training for nurses and midwives. The main problem with this little program is that state law and the medical board prohibit nurses and midwives from performing surgical abortions. There are some stunning revelations in Senator Aanestad’s article: government waiver of legislature-approved laws simply to get more people performing abortions and the racist targeting of poor minority groups.

Regardless of where one stands on the abortion issue, we should all expect the medical profession to abide by the highest standards of conduct, for the safety of their patients. Targeting poor minority groups (by exploiting their financial plight) for this type of experimentation is unconscionable.

The program, the Healthcare Workforce Pilot Program #171, is coming up for renewal in March 2009. The Director of the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, David Carlisle, should stop this program immediately, for the… Read More

"He really didn’t used to be this bad," I can imagine Congressman Kevin McCarthy telling his fellow Republican Congressman from California at their weekly delegation meeting, as they absorb the fact that despite the fact that every one of them opposed President Obama’s pork-laden "stimulus" boondoggle plan, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger embraced the plan, signing a letter encouraging its passage.

Perhaps the next time that Governor Schwarzenegger is in Washington, D.C., he can stop by a meeting of the California GOPers. Of course, if he did, I would recommend that freshman Representative Duncan D. Hunter stop by the office of his local Assemblyman, Joel Anderson, who can make him some name tags.

It seems remarkably shallow if the only criteria that Governor Schwarzenegger uses on judging this terrible legislation is "how much welfare do we get for California government" — we expect the Governor to apply more sophistication, and reject this kind of redistributive, Keynesian policy… Read More