Some of the more interesting items in relevant to California in the D.C. press today:

Sen. Boxer and Sen. McConnell wage a war of words, noted here in Politico. Elsewhere in Politico, Eamon Javers and Jim Vandehei look at the ins and outs of the stimulus bill in a piece entitled: "The case for doing nothing." Rep. Darrell Issa takes issue with the plan here in an op ed placed in the paper.

Over in The Hill, the paper notes that the hedge fund industry is ramping up hirings to shore up political support for things to come. The paper’s Susan Crabtree writes on a recent Carribean trip attended by several democratic lawmakers that may have pushed the edge of the ethics envelope, here.

Finally as noted on Drudge and elsewhere, Republican Rep. Peter King (New York) has sponsored legislation requiring that telephone cameras make a clicking sound when a photograph is taken to prevent any… Read More

Last week the Treasury Department finalized its $1.5 billion loan to the financial armof Chrysler (a privately held firm ). That follows a $6 billion government "investment" in General Motors lending arm, GMAC.

The money came from the $700 billion "Troubled Asset Relief Program," which even some California Republican Congressmen supported. But conservative national Congressional Republicans are upset that the money for the auto bailout is coming from "TARP," and among the reasons is the fact that it allows a sort of "shell game" to occur, where some members can claim to the public that they opposed the auto bailout (but really supported TARP, which is funding the auto bailout), or supportedthe auto bailout, (but opposed TARP). It is all a mess, because some members actually do try to play games with their votes, and try to "have it both ways." It gets confusing to a less informed, "outsidethe Beltway" public. When I worked for Howard Jarvis he would occasionally refer to the Congress as "535 clowns." Ithink that is a bit harsh, however, when I… Read More

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Today at noon, President Obama came up to Capitol Hill to meet with the 178 Republicans in the House. First, I was impressed because he was on time. OK, it’s a little thing but it is a little pet peeve of mine. President Bush was always on time and sometimes early. Governor Gray Davis was always late when I was in the California legislature.

But I digress. Then, it took a few minutes while Members of Congress went up to him to get his signature. Yes, your representatives are no different from everyone else when it comes to famous memorabilia either. Once all that was dispensed with, we got down to business. The President spoke for about 15 minutes and then took questions for half an hour.

Let me first say how impressive a man he is. I have never been in a small room with him before. He is very poised and confident and seems genuine. I doubt that there was a person in the room who did not come away from the meeting liking him. I never met President Clinton, but he had a reputation for his ability to charm a room. A fellow Congressman who had served during the Clinton presidency told me that as good as Bill Clinton was (and… Read More

Remember when you were younger and you and your friends would build jumps for your bikes? I visited this track described below and believe me, it was great! When I was there there were no beer cans and nobody was doing drugs – just a bunch of great riding going on. And then county code enforcement bulldozed it. Furthermore – in Riverside County, all million plus square miles of it, off road vehicle use has been banned. Period. I am convinced that government will not rest until allfun has been wiped off the face of the earth.

From today’s Riverside Press Enterprise… A group of Inland kids banded together last fall and built a bicycle motocross course on an empty lot.

Taking the initiative to create their own fun, they spent hours digging trenches and building towering mounds, upon which they rode their bikes to perform spectacular jumps.

Even some adults whose property overlooked the site were impressed by the camaraderie of the neighborhood kids

Today’s Valley Times revealed that Bill Ayers will be part of the St. Mary’s College speakers series this month. Assuming that the theme of the series must be something to do with domestic terrorism, I read on, sure I would see Ted Kaczynski on the line up. Evidently, he was booked.

In actuality the theme of the speakers series is “Against the Grain,” and the other speakers include a woman who is overweight and proud of it – she wrote a book called “Fat! So?”; a man who (sniff, sniff) gave up his life of luxury to live off solar power; the founder of a group of “outlaw bicyclists” that he believes are creating the future today; and a “premiere hip-hop historian and deejay.”

Wow, way to be totally boring and irrelevant to what’s happening in the Bay Area, St. Mary’s! I can’t think of a single reason that anyone would attend such a lame speakers series when unemployment is crushing us, home values are falling off the charts, and to top it all off…the Governor is thinking about taxing golf! We’ve got real problems, and you’re encouraging your students to go “against the grain”?

If you want to serve the needs of your… Read More

It amazes me that there continue to be calls for raising taxes to resolve a state budget fiscal emergency that has been caused by OVERSPENDING. It also amazes me that hiking taxes continues to somehow be “on the table” in budget negotiations. Raising taxes in this situation should be a non-starter for two very basic reasons. The first of which is that while I admit that there is never a good time to raise taxes (Californians are already burdened with practically the highest tax burden in the entire nation), certainly hiking taxes in the middle of a recession has to be the stupidest idea I have over heard. The second reason is that raising taxes requires the votes of Republican legislators. What Republican, in their right mind, would respond to our state’s OVERSPENDING-CREATED financial mess by punishing taxpayers, and violating their pledge not to do so?

If there was ever a line-in-the-sand issue, this is it. In adverse times comes real opportunities for reform – and while many want that… Read More

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be looking at the various upcoming races for California Republican Party office, in advance of the State GOP’s organizational convention taking place in late February in Sacramento. At this coming convention, approximately 1500 delegates will vote for the offices of Chairman, Vice Chairman, and for Regional Vice Chairmen up and down the state. I am the current Vice Chairman for the Southern Region, and so I am pretty engaged in this process.

We have asked all of the known candidates for party office to submit a column, that we are going to publish here on the FlashReport. If it is a race where I have weighed in with an endorsement, we’ll share that, too. Which is certainly the case with our first profiled race for Vice Chairman, Central Valley Region.

Well, actually, I am not sure I would call it a race. I am pleased to endorse and recommend the re-election of Laura Gadke, who is seeking re-election to a second term (due to term limits, you can only serve two terms). Laura is a strong conservative, and is the kind of leader who is part of the solution, not part of the problem. I have heard… Read More