Get free daily email updates

Syndicate this site - RSS

Recent Posts

Blogger Menu

Click here to blog

FlashReport Weblog on California Politics

- Or -
Search blog archive

Katy Grimes

Fraud, Public Corruption, Secrecy and Lies Rock Sacramento

One of the biggest scandals to ever rock Sacramento is currently taking place.

The monumental scandal was exposed last week by the local weekly newspaper,Sacramento News and Review. So far,The Sacramento Beeis silent on the scandal.

Despite civil-engineering experts who say most of the city’s water pipes are in perfectly good shape, the city of Sacramento is spending at minimum, $474 million to install Sacramento’s new water meters in several downtown neighborhoods, SN&Rreported.

While not unique to California, fraud, corruption and scandal is apparently how Sacramento city government rolls.

While Sacramento’s Mayor Kevin Johnson has dubiously distracted city taxpayers with his delusions of NBA arena grandeur, he and Sacramento City Council members have been orchestrating one of the biggest hustles the city has ever seen, behind closed doors.

This is the very same Mayor Johnson who… Read More

Katy Grimes

Election 2014: ‘Hope’ Finally Makes A Comeback For Reps, Strong Mayor Loses

Wow, what an election night. Hope makes a comeback… but not entirely in California.

As exciting as the nationwide races were, my favorite race was local: Mayor Kevin Johnson’s Strong Mayor initiative, Measure L, went down in defeat, 57-43 percent. Slam Dunk.

Despite the Sacramento media running months of constant free advertising for the measure, Measure L, which would have concentrated power in the Mayor, Chicago-style, and dramatically reduce the other council members’ powers, Sacramento voters voted “no.”

By midnight when I finally gave up and went to bed, the measure appeared to be defeated 57.31 percent to 42.69 percent. Unless more ballots magically appear, the fourth Strong Mayor initiative should be cooked… until Mayor Johnson resurrects it again for a fifth time.

GOP Takes US Senate

But… Read More

Katy Grimes

Statist CA Needs Leaders, Not Legacy-Seekers

Are you better off today than you were two, four or six years ago when progressive Democrats took over and expanded more of government? Of course not: As government grows, liberty decreases.

It was Thomas Jefferson who warned, “The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”

But elections are changing. Voters are changing. America is changing. California has been leading much of that change, and not in a good way. This election is a potential… Read More

Katy Grimes

Political Insider vs. Outsider Dynamic in Secretary of State Campaign

With many of the world’s largest technology corporations located right here in California, the state should be number one on the elections performance index. Instead, California ranks 49th.

Pete Peterson wants California to be back on top.

Peterson said the office of Secretary of State has not had committed, creative leadership for many years, and has regressed, rather than improved, in voter engagement and business engagement. Adding to the current mess, current Secretary of State Debra Bowen revealed she has been suffering with depression for years, has frequently been absent from the office, and hasn’t been doing her job overseeing the state’s voting.

The two candidates who are vying for the job have interesting contrasts.

Career Politician v. Citizen Representative

The race for Secretary of State between Republican Peterson, and Democrat Sen. Alex Padilla, is about a giant political insider, Goliath, versus the outsider, David. But remember, David slays Goliath.

If Pete Peterson applied for the job of Secretary of State, he’d be hired. By the voters. “Most people… Read More

Katy Grimes

De Leon: Reliance is the ‘American Way’

In some California parallel universe, the new Senate President Kevin de Leόn, announced last week during his flagrant swearing-in ceremony, “Reliance is the ‘American Way.’”

“Isn’t it time we shatter the great American myth about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps?” De Leonasked the crowd.The audience broke into rousing applause. De Leon continued, “It’s a fantasy. It’s simply not true.”

De Leon’s “extravagant bash” was held at the Disney Concert Hall… Read More

Katy Grimes

Reactions to Sac Bee Columnist’s Love Letter to Steinberg

Sacramento Bee News Columnist Marcos Breton wrote a love letterSunday Oct. 11, to outgoing Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg: “An argument could be made that Darrell Steinberg is the most accomplished politician Sacramento has produced in nearly a century,” Breton said.

With a legacy of special interest legislation, a delayed statewide water bond full of pork and wasteful spending, support of the $100 billion High-Speed Rail bungle, his dubious law firm connections, his mental health millionaire’s tax, the special interest bill he helped pass for… Read More

Katy Grimes

A Reality Check For “Environmentalists”

Immediately following Gov. Jerry Brown signing the bill by Sen. Alex Padilla to ban the use of plastic bags at grocery stores and tax paper bags, now the progressive left is whining about the plastic bag industry initiating a referendum process for a vote of the people for the November 2016 election.

The Sacramento Bee editorial board compared the plastic bag industry to a chicken with its head curt off: “It would explain why it hasn’t figured out that the ubiquitous single-use plastic grocery bag has just suffered a killing blow. Its days are numbered.”

And the Bee editors are still calling these plastic bags, “single use bags.” Perhaps all of the people who insist these bags are “single use” are the people who throw them out after just one use, rather than use them a second or third use at the grocery store. Do they instead purchase… Read More

Katy Grimes

Berkeley Busybodies Side With UFW Rather Than Farmworkers

The liberal busybodies on the Berkeley City Council are weighing-in again on an issue that has nothing to do with their city: Gerawan Farming in Fresno is in their crosshairs again.

While the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board has steadfastly refused to count thousands of ballots collected by Gerawan farmworkers, cast nine months ago to decertify the United Farm Workerslabor union, Berkeley is inserting itself in the labor dispute – on the side of the big labor union, rather than with the little, farmworkers, fighting for the… Read More

Page 12 of 21« First...1011121314...20...Last »