“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Author Unknown

Risk and Uncertainty: A lot of new uncertainties have been added in the last few weeks. Will the Japanese reactor meltdown, and what effect will that have on nuclear energy supplies? Will the Japanese economy slump further, and how will that impact U.S. growth and jobs? Who is going to control Libya, or Egypt, or Bahrain or Saudi Arabia in the future? Will the answer to that question affect the world’s oil supplies or prices? And, how will that affect our economic growth? Will the governments of those countries be friendly to the West or will Islamic fundamentalists rule and sponsor more attacks and terrorism?

It can be scary to turn on the news these days. These threats and risks are real. And, they are largely out of our control.

But, there are other risks out there. Will our debt swamp the country and send us into a government-led collapse? In order to avoid collapse, will the Fed print more… Read More

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When I attend the CRP conventions, I am here (and I am here, at the Hyatt Hotel looking out from my room at the dome of the State Capitol) as a very active participant in the process. While I am not running for party office (after two terms as the elected Vice Chairman, South, of the party, I am prevented due to term-limits from running again, and am not seeking higher party office), I am very involved in a lot of the goings-on here.

CRP Conventions are a prime networking opportunity for Republican leaders from all over our large state to get together and network — and is also the time when we consider important decisions about the future of the California GOP.

This weekend is the party’s biennial organizational convention, which means that we will be electing all of our party officers.

Running uncontested for the office of Chairman is Tom Del Beccaro who hails from Contra Costa County. Currently the CRP’s Vice Chairman, Tom has been actively engaged in the leadership of the CRP for many years now. He has his own website on politics, worth a visit, called Political… Read More

As delegates arrive today for the California Republican Party’s Convention in Sacramento, it will be the hope of those gathered that there will be no special election for the purposes of asking the voters to (once again) reject tax increases. A look back will reveal that the last seven times that California voters have had a chance to do so, they have rejected higher taxes.

That having been said, there is still an unfortunate possibly that some deal gets struck and we end up with a special election for June of this year. That said, in addition to anything that would be placed on the special election ballot as part of an ill-advised deal, there are two ballot measures that have already been qualified and will appear on the state’s next ballot. One is a tobacco tax measure. The other is a measure championed by the AFL-CIO to weaken California’s term-limits law.

This weekend the CRP has an opportunity to take positions on ballot measures, and so I have teamed up with Lew Uhler, President of the National Tax Limitation Committee, to introduce the following resolution to the CRP’s Initiatives Committee for consideration,… Read More

Currently the Senate is contemplating the SB 69 Omnibus budget package. It relies on the oft mentioned tax increases that Gov. Brown has packaged. "Letting the people vote" is the mantra that forgets that they have voted in Nov 2010 and even on these exact same taxes in the package back in the May ’09 special election to not extend them for then 2 years, now 5 more. Because of Prop 25 the bill itself will pass today with a simple majority, not 2/3 as needed before. The taxes to ‘pay for it’ will not be brought up until later.

Earlier some of the cuts included a prison release package as part of the budget savings[AB 109] which passed off theis floor. "Low level offenders" would now be the worry of local jailors. Many that had been subject to parole accountability, would no serve time in local jails with NO probation upon release. Some offenses include: felony ID theft, cruel or inhumane child abuse resulting in traumatic condition, knowingly selling firearms to criminal street gang members, sale of controlled substance to minor, and many more types of offenders.

Much… Read More

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The American Conservative Union’s annual ratings of Congress give California Congressmen Darrell Issa, Duncan Hunter II and Ed Royce perfect scores of 100 on the “conservative” side, and also laud Ken Calvert, Dana Rohrabacher, Gary Miller, Brian Bilbray, and John Campbell, among others, for their scores of above 80% conservative on all votes in the Congress in 2010. Both Loretta and Linda Sanchez scored “zero” on the conservative scale. More information is at www.conservative.org.… Read More

Miami Dade County in Florida is big — even by California standards — home to over 2.5 million people. Yesterday the voters in this populous county in the most southeastern corner of the United States recalled their Mayor (in Florida, they elect a countywide Mayor who is the top County executive). Just two years after winning in a landslide election, Republican Carlos Alvarez was given an unceremonious "heave ho" by the voters. And what was his offense? Alvarez supported tax increases while presiding over increase benefits for public employee union members. The unemployment rate in Miami Dade County is 12% — much like many California counties.

This episode should be instructive to politicians around the entire country. We are in a terrible recession. It means that everyone has to make do with less. It means… Read More