Today’s front page story of the New York Times about the new importance of California in presidential politics as a result of moving our primary to February includes a quote from former State Senator Jim Brulte. Brulte’s comment is pretty simple: a candidate who campaigns in California will learn more about our state and be "a better president for California." As a result of the new primary, all the major presidential candidates are spending time in California seeking to be "our President."

And here today and this weekend in Washington, D.C. at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference at the venerable Omni Shoreham Hotel on Calvert Street, a bevy of the leading Republican presidential candidates are also seeking to be "our" president — the "conservative" one. With one major exception.

Every leading candidate, with the exception of John McCain (who has now passed on attending three separate conferences staged by National… Read More

Bad Bill Alert! (well, actually, silly bill alert)

Sometimes good intentions lead to really terrible laws. Everyone wants people to be responsible and save for the future. But making a law that gives $500 to every baby born in California (regardless of their parent’s legal residency status) in hopes they will save it is just plain silly.

SB 752 authored by Democrat Senator Darrel Steinberg and co-authored by Republican Senator Bob Dutton will give every newborn $500 – which will cost taxpayers a whooping $283 million per year – in hopes that their parents will be encouraged to save for their children’s future. Another nanny-state bill that believes that people aren’t capable of taking care of themselves, so the government should.

Notwithstanding this literally pays illegal immigrants $500 to come to California and have a baby, it also fails the math test. In an article in the… Read More

The California Republican Assembly sponsored a Tele-Townhall with State Seneator Tom McClintock last night. What is a Tele-Townhall?? Basically it is a new way to communicate and get your message out. Instantly thousand of autodials can go out to a phone list and then patch through all the individuals to a conference call type event. Then our star, in this Tom McClintock” can discuss ideas and get feedback from the listeners. The listeners can ask questions. It has a radio talk show kind of feel. It is much more personal than a “live chat”. Last night’s call was for CRA members past and present. We had around 1500 connections. Those that weren’t home got a message referring them to the website. Tom was in Saramento; I was in West Covina then later driving to Fullerton as the call progressed. While at home on the computer, the hosts could see a panel that included who wanted to ask questions and how many people were on the call at any given moment. It was pretty cool. … Read More

Stealing a thought from Joe Justin. I thought I’d title this postafter a song by the BusBoys. Whoreading thisremembers the BusBoys?

I was blessed to see them live at the one of the Inauguration balls of GeorgeBush- the first. (I’m not making this up) Horrible weather-great set.

Anyways, if you are a member of the Los Angeles UnifiedSchool Board and you honoring someone what do you say?

Well, if you are outgoing LAUSD member David Tokofsky you tell everyone their hometown was “friendly” to Nazis and the KKK. Like Westchesterwas Berlin in 1933 or something. … Read More

A h/t to Los Angeles Times blogger Bob Salladay who pointed out that in the most recent batch of Gubernatornial appointees, there is one, Gregory Bell, 21, of Los Angeles, who was appointed to the State Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency, who sticks out because instead of being listed with his party registration (or DTS), his appointment is annotated with, "Bell is not registered to vote."

Of course, the Governor’s office knew this fact from the get go, as I just reviewed the application form and you are asked whether you are registered to vote as one of the screening questions. Apparently there is no right or wrong answer to this question, it would seem. I was curious about this, and so I thought, since I report on political news that I would just pick up phone and call Mr. Bell to ask him about this. I reached him at his place of work, at the Los Angeles County Children’s Planning Council, where, according to the Governor’s release,… Read More

I don’t agree with Democrat Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez on much. As a matter of fact, I think that I would be hard pressed to agree with him on just about anything. But in an AP story today penned by Erica Werner, the Assembly Speaker unloads on the recent DC trip of Governor Schwarzenegger. You can read the whole story here, but here is the choicest excerpt:

Nunez also commented skeptically about Schwarzenegger’s newfound advocacy for what the governor calls "post-partisan" politics. While in Washington, Schwarzenegger repeated the phrase he coined earlier this year, referring to himself as a governor who accepts ideas from all sides.

"What he’s talking about sounds good theoretically. I think in practical terms the way I read it is it’s just semantics. Post-partisanship – what does that mean? I don’t know. It’s some word he made up," Nunez said.

"But I think he has a claim, in some ways, to that new term because… Read More

I know I’ve been posting fun — not serious — stuff of late, but some things are just too outstanding to pass up. Consider John Hoy’s email today with the subject header"Another great story promo from the SD Union-Tribune online edition," referring to this:

Dismemberment details emerge

The suspect arrested today in the brutal murder-dismemberment of a man in the South Bay area is described by his former boss at a local porn store and others as polite and thoughtful.

Not that the story itself is fun or oustanding, but consider that the online promo writer was able to package the words brutal, murder, dismemberment, porn store, polite and thoughtfulall into one tightly-wrapped sentence.

Hey, whatever sells readership, but someone needs to hire that guy as a political hit-piece writer.

For extra credit, tell me from where I derived the title of this post.… Read More

The Assembly did not take up SB 113-Calderon today, nor will it happen Monday, perhaps not til the following Monday, March 12.… Read More