Banning Councilwoman and 65th Assembly candidate Brenda Salas is set to announce she’s been endorsed by Sen. Tom McClintock, the GOP’s presumed nominee for Lt. Governor.

The endorsement of the conservative GOP stalwart could help Salas fend off criticism of her past Democratic Party affiliation.

It’s probably worth a mention that McClintock’s district director, Joe Giardiello, is Salas’ campaign consultant. I’m told the senator also interviewed at least one other candidate: San Jacinto Councilman Jim Ayres, considered by many to be the frontrunner in the race.

Salas also welcomed additional help last week from San Bernardino County Supervisor Gary Ovitt, who has loaned his district director, Josh Candelaria, and constituent services rep Naseem Farooqi to run Salas’ ground game.

In other A.D. 65 news, Yucca Valley Councilman Paul Cook has retained former CRP Development Director Mike Fresquez to boost his fundraising effort. Fresquez specializes in finding "new money" and is said to be quite good at it.… Read More

It’s been a week since the F/ETCA Board of Directors ignored the apocalyptic warnings of the environmental Left, shrugged off the limp admonishment of the Schwarzenegger Administration and endured the excruciating pontification of Irvine Councilman Larry Agran to approve the 241 tollway completion.

Enviro Poll Offensive Since then, as they prepare their lawsuit against the F/ETCA, the environmmental Left continued its PR offensive with a poll, commissionedby the National Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club.

Fairbanks, Maslin, Maulin & Associates poll shows that 73% of Californians oppose building the 241 through San Onofre State Park (h/t to 241 opponent Alex Brant-Zawadski at The Blotter). The poll, the FMMA memo and F/ETCA response are attached.

To which the F/ETCA responds thus:

The San Diego Union Tribune has just announced that ex-Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham has been sentenced to a term of 8 years and 4 months in prison. He is taken into custody, and ordered to pay $1.8,000,000.00 in restitution.

Read more about it here: SD U-T article.

Sometime very soon, Randy "Duke" Cunningham will receive his sentence from the judge. The maximum penalty is 10 years in prison. Frankly, a truly remorseful Duke Cunningham should just accept the judgment of the court, and serve the time he is given.

But even now, after everything he has admitted to doing, he has his lawyers trying to lesson his sentence, to shave as much as 40% off of the decade behind bars that is his due. From the San Diego U-T:

You may have read in my commentary yesterday that there is currently a controversy underway in the race to succeed the disgraced Duke Cunningham in the 50th Congressional District in San Diego County. The issue at hand is that one of the candidates, former Congressman Brian Bilbray (pictured), is a registered federal lobbyist, but really isn’t keen on listing that particular profession as his ballot title. So Bilbray, who has made about a third of his lobbying income over the past six years from an immigration reform group, filed as his ballot title: "Immigration Reform Advocate" – which apparently didn’t pass muster with the Secretary of State’s office. After some back-and-forth, the Secretary’s office signed off on "Immigration Reform Consultant." Well, the predictable next chapter in this story has now… Read More

Today’s A1, above the fold Fresno Beestory on Fresno City Police Chief Jerry Dyer potentially entering the County Sheriff’s race is a bombshell and will no doubt change the dynamics of the race. According to the Bee, Dyer is seeking a ruling from the State Attorney General’s office to find out whether he can can serve simultaneously as Police Chief and Sheriff. Should he receive a favorable ruling, he’s probably in the race and most likely the presumed front runner. The issue? Consolidation of services between the Sheriff’s office and Fresno PD. It’s an issue that has been talked about to death, but as Police Chief and candidate for Sheriff, Dyer could make it happen. He is very visible and respected in the local area.

Declared candidates with some strength behind them areSheriff’s Captain Colleen Mestas, who seems to have good community support and "under the radar" support from Congressman Radanovich’s operation; Clovis City Mayor and Clovis PD Captain Jose Flores, a recent Republican… Read More

Dis you the English language was Dead in Los Angeles?

Hawthorne is a city in the western part of LA County. It is in a Dem District near LAX.

Now a councilwoman, Ginny Lambert, there is leading the crusade to force business owners to include English on their signs. Remeber when voters added that English would be the official language of California? That turned out well.

Here is the article.By the way Lambert is a Republican.… Read More

* Governor Schwarzenegger’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Dunmoyer (pictured), attended the meeting of the California Republican Lawyers Association last weekend at the State GOP confab in San Jose. Dunmoyer spent over a half hour talking to the group, and to its leaders, both publicly and privately. He made it clear that the Governor’s administration would like to appoint more Republicans, and specifically would like to work with the CRLA towards that goal. He said that he looked forward to working with CRLA to set up a specific process to engage them in the process of making suggestions for potential nominees, and would work with the group to get them information ahead-of-time on locations of vacancies. In response to this, the (very excited) CRLA members, according to their Los Angeles County Chairman Adam Abrahms, have already set up a new program, forming their own "Mini-JENY" Commission – aimed at being able to give the administration the names of Republicans to consider for… Read More