[To mark this observance of Veterans Day, we are featuring a guest commentary by a good friend of the FlashReport, Nathan Fletcher, a Marine Corps veteran himself and candidate for State Assembly from San Diego. Tragedy nearly struck his family over the weekend…]

Saturday was off to a normal start for me—up early, cup of coffee, breakfast and the news. It was peaceful, regular and quiet. I had a busy day scheduled, but was enjoying my early morning routine. Across America I suppose many people were awakening to the start of a three day weekend—maybe even enjoying a lazy Saturday morning. If you were scanning the headlines one of the first stories you might have seen was about a Navy helicopter that had gone down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on Friday night.

No doubt that story brought a moment of pause—hopefully a silent prayer for those on board and for their families. Perhaps it reinforced the significance of the Veterans Day weekend. Hopefully it reminded all who heard that there are hundreds of thousands of brave men and women who… Read More

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 the Great War ended. On battlefields throughout Europe corpses rotted, as did much of the claim and spirit of civilization of The West.

To understand the impact of the war on the great colonial powers it’s instructive, and horrifying, to look at the raw and bloody price we of The West paid for this conflict. The British, for example, had 850,000 solders killed, and another 1.6 million wounded of 45 million people. An entire generation of young men lay under the fields.

From time to time, and always on the November 11th, I like to look up a poem I stumbled onwhen I was youngerthat I find particularly moving… ‘Armistice’ by Paul Dehn. Read it once, it’s quite a bore. Read it a few times and… Read More

It doesn’t seem to matter what the issue is, Americans seem to have truly lost their minds – incapable of looking at history as a road map for the future, or a predictor of outcomes. The current oil price crisis is a great example. With literally hundreds of years of oil under our own land, we continue to finance communists, Islamic terrorists, and countries hostile to the concept of freedom and democracy by deliberately remaining dependent on oil from these rogue regimes.

Why won’t we get our own oil, which we know is readily available? Because we are stupid. Democrats in Congress, with the aid of northeast "Republicans", have continually blocked national energy policy in the US Senate that would have the effect of increasing domestic supplies.

The President of the United States needs to declare a national emergency and sign an Executive Order opening up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge NOW so we can get our own supply of oil in the near future. Without even the threat of this happening, foreign oil producers will continue to gouge American consumers and destroy the domestic… Read More

Mitt Romney has had a great week in California.

First, on Wednesday night, the Young Republican Federation of California’s Board of Directors voted to endorse the Romney campaign – becoming the first grassroots group in the state to endorse Governor Romney.

To add to that, just minutes ago, the California Republican Assembly joined the YRFC by overwhelmingly voting to endorse the Romney campaign.

By a vote of 148 – 73, CRA took a big step in showing clearly that the conservative base of the Republican Party is coalescing around Governor Romney.

Primary elections are traditionally dominated by the bases of each Party – and within California, there aren’t more representitive voices of the conservative base than YRFC and CRA.

Like I said, it was a big week in CA for Mitt Romney.

(posted from my Treo)… Read More

Courtesy of The Hill, we can share this information with you, on which California Congressional Delegation members have endorsed a candidates running in the Democrat or Republican Presidential primary: A few surprises:

Not one California Democrat Member of Congress has endorsed Barack Obama Only one of Duncan Hunter’s California colleagues, Gary Miller, has endorsed his candidacy. Hillary has not been endorsed by Barbara Boxer. It’s surprising that only Dan Lungren has endorsed McCain, given that for a time, he was the frontrunner. Chris Dodd’s four California endorsements isequal the entire Democrat delegation of his home state of Connecticut. Despite Fred Thompson’s splash into the GOP primary, he’s "endorseless" when it comes to the CA GOP Congressional delegation. Only four Republican candidates have California Congressional endorsers. Only two Democrat candidates have California Congressional endorsers.: Given the unpopularity of Congress these days, perhaps those with no … Read More

Courtesy of The Hill, we can share this information with you, on which California Congressional Delegation members have endorsed a candidates running in the Democrat or Republican Presidential primary: A few surprises:

Not one California Democrat Member of Congress has endorsed Barack Obama Only one of Duncan Hunter’s California colleagues, Gary Miller, has endorsed his candidacy. Hillary has not been endorsed by Barbara Boxer. It’s surprising that only Dan Lungren has endorsed McCain, given that for a time, he was the frontrunner. Chris Dodd’s four California endorsements isequal the entire Democrat delegation of his home state of Connecticut. Despite Fred Thompson’s splash into the GOP primary, he’s "endorseless" when it comes to the CA GOP Congressional delegation. Only four Republican candidates have California Congressional endorsers. Only two Democrat candidates have California Congressional endorsers.: Given the unpopularity of Congress these days, perhaps those with no … Read More

When you are a popular politician, especially one that likes to do "big things" it is always more challenging and thrilling to be on the offense. But in order to be a winning team, you have to not only get excited about your offensive game, but your defensive game as well. The reality is that with this massive fiscal crisis facing California state government, Governor, it is time to bench your offensive team, and huddle with your defensive team and figure out how we are going to keep California in the game.

Clearly you have a prefered agenda of items that you would like to pursue, including increasing government’s role in health care, and implementing a lot of regulations to reign in man-made production of carbon dioxide. But the reality is that, with these two agenda items in particular, they are going to make California’s financial crisis worse, not better.

On healthcare, it is simply not credible to say that you are going to create a massive new government program with upwards of 14 billion… Read More

When you are a popular politician, especially one that likes to do "big things" it is always more challenging and thrilling to be on the offense. But in order to be a winning team, you have to not only get excited about your offensive game, but your defensive game as well. The reality is that with this massive fiscal crisis facing California state government, Governor, it is time to bench your offensive team, and huddle with your defensive team and figure out how we are going to keep California in the game.

Clearly you have a prefered agenda of items that you would like to pursue, including increasing government’s role in health care, and implementing a lot of regulations to reign in man-made production of carbon dioxide. But the reality is that, with these two agenda items in particular, they are going to make California’s financial crisis worse, not better.

On healthcare, it is simply not credible to say that you are going to create a massive new government program with upwards of 14 billion… Read More