Last night over 400 of us attended a party celebrating the retirement of long time Riverside County executive officer Larry Parrish. It was a well done affair; a fitting tribute to one of the real classy guys. Part and parcel to his class act, Larry is an incredible manager of people, a stickler for high ethical standardsin government,and a master of implementing vision.

Larry Parrish is the Hank Aaron of executives. Hank was below the radar of baseball recognition for most of his career. He had simply been going to work and hitting a lot of home runs, but not talking very much about it. One day, somebody says, "Hey, Hank Aaron is going to break Babe Ruth’s home run record!" And he did.

Larry is stylishly low key, deflects praise back on his Board of Supervisors, and just goes to work every day. Riverside County will recognize his accomplishments for years to come.

My family has been around Larry for 28 years, since he was the chief executive officer in Orange County while my dad was a county supervisor in the 80’s. He managed a county on the crest of hyper growth, just as Riverside is now. My dad says Larry is… Read More

Few blacks get elected outside of African-American neighborhoods. The last and only black Republican assemblyman was Frederick Roberts (pictured below, left), in the AD 62, Los Angeles, [1918 to 1934]. Roberts was the first black to serve in any California state office.

Abram Wilson is the Republican nominee in AD 15. Wilson was elected as San Ramon’s first Mayor in 2003. He competedfor the Guy Houston seat against several other well financed challengers.Three candidates… Read More

Few blacks get elected outside of African-American neighborhoods. The last and only black Republican assemblyman was Frederick Roberts (pictured below, left), in the AD 62, Los Angeles, [1918 to 1934]. Roberts was the first black to serve in any California state office.

Abram Wilson is the Republican nominee in AD 15. Wilson was elected as San Ramon’s first Mayor in 2003. He competedfor the Guy Houston seat against several other well financed challengers.Three candidates… Read More

A friend of mine won’t eat shrimp unless she knows its country of origin. This is because she heard that some chicken farms in China place their mesh-bottomed coups over shrimp ponds, feeding the shrimp with chicken droppings. Another friend of mine deadpanned “What’s wrong with that? They’re reducing their Carbon Footprint.”

Since liberals fear Al Gore-style global warming hype more than even terrorism, and they control the legislative and bureaucratic halls of government, the regulatory regime is seriously on the move at both the federal and state level to as much as triple the cost of every product, service or activity.

In fact, the federal EPA and the California Air Resources Board this week issued draft regulations that shed considerable light upon the brave new world where government would exponentially increase the cost of every product or service and control everything from landfills to lawnmowers.

According to Jeremy J. Broggi, Associate Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, the President in April “warned that the Clean Air Act and other existing statutes were the wrong way to address climate change, as… Read More

I’m on vacation, but this one jumped out at me….

Copley Press explores sale… Read More

Apparently there is a crowd of state employees holding a rally at the State Capitol, unhappy with the impending action by Governor Terminator to axe 20,000 positions and take 200,000 other state employees down to the federal minimum wage (with full repayment of missed income after the budget is passed).

I would like to direct all of these folks here, where you can get lots of ideas on how to streamline and reduce the size of California government, back to a level sustainable by revenues. This will faciliate a speedy end to the budget stalement that we have right now.

Remind the politicians in the Capitol that state spending is up like 40% over the past few years, and that it is outrageous that they have outstripped growth in state revenues by that much.

As for me, I’ll call up my State Senator this afternoon. I would think we should eliminate non-vital components of state government, and I will suggest one to him. Perhaps placing before voters an end to the Coastal Commission. That’s a great place to start!

In the meantime, you should ask your union (who takes money out of each of your paychecks)… Read More

You never know who you’ll run into in DC!

Leaving a luncheon at the National Press Club a little while ago, I was surprised to bump into Cindy Sheehan in the hallway outside the restaurant. She’s in town promoting her run for Congress against Speaker Pelosi and also in support of an impeachment hearing set for tomorrow in the House Judiciary Committee. Strangely, it’s on about the ten year anniversary of the last House impeachment proceedings which reminds me that both Cindy Sheehan and a certain former president have a fascination with interesting iterations of the verb "to be" (see last sentence of her blog posting – holy pluperfect, Batman!).

The press tables (about 20 seats) were overwhelmingly occupied not by reporters but by a crowd that looked straight out of Slab City compete with the floppy-brimmed hats, Tevas and bright colored T-shirts like the oxymoronic "veterans for peace." I also noted only three tripods for broadcast cameras: two were compact, digital cameras like those used by most multi-media blogs or web sites (eg: not network… Read More

Readers know I am not a big fan of most campaign finance laws, but the decision of Federal prosecutors to insist on a felony charge for alleged money-laundering by Los Angeles trial lawyer and Democrat activist Pierce O’Donnell is the right thing to do.

The Times reports today that O’Donnell faces money-laundering charges for reimbursing people for making contributions to John Edwards 2004 Presidential campaign. In my personal view, that in itself does not support a felony case against a first-timer, but there are least three other factors that I believe justify the federal grand jury indictment and a felony case against O’Donnell if he is found guilty:

1. This is not O’Donnell’s first brush with money-laundering charges. As the Times article indicates, O’Donnell took a misdemeanor plea for money-laundering in connection with former Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn’s first successful race for Mayor in 2001. That was a protracted procedure that started almost three years before the money-laundering activities alleged on behalf of Edwards. That is a "first… Read More