On Monday I featured a letter from Assemblyman Chuck DeVore advocating Tom Bordonaro for Vice Chairman of the California Republican Party. Below, Tony Strickland weighs in on behalf of another candidate, Tom Del Becarro…

Dear California Republican Party Member, As you know, CRP elections are approaching. Please join me as well as seven past CRP Chairs, over forty past and present County Chairs and more than 1000 party activists around the State in endorsing Tom Del Beccaro for CRP Vice Chair. … Read More

Almost everyone has heard and commented about Assemblywoman Sally Lieber’s bill to ban spanking – but as a new father I couldn’t resist weighing in. First disclosure: my mother spanked me a few times as a child – and for those who have heard stories of my childhood, it’s good thing she did. Second disclosure: I am a new father of twin girls and I cannot imagine spanking either one of my daughters. But I surely do not need a Legislator to tell me how to raise my children. Let’s be clear: there is no excuse for and no punishment strong enough for abusing a child – but there is a bright line between abuse and a swat on the behind. (Another disclosure: for years I volunteered for FamiliesFirst – a non-profit foster care agency that dealt with severely abused children.) Lieber’s bill does nothing to address the problems of child abuse or child exploitation – it’s more pomp and fluff to make a do-nothing legislature feel like it’s doing something. Perhaps Leiber can explain why she supported legislation that allows landlords to rent apartments… Read More

Assemblywoman Sally Lieber is proposing legislation that would prohibit schools from admitting female students into the 6th grade unless the girl has received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Remember, Lieber is the same legislator who is grabbing headlines these days with her spanking legislation.

This HPV vaccine push is coming from the Planned Parenthood types who believe that most children become sexually active around 11 or 12. Certainly, there are those children who do starting having sex that young–but they are not the mainstream. Moreover, even if they are, we do not need the schools to be requiring this vaccine. This should be between the student, her parent(s) and her physician.

I’m sure that Lieber and others will argue that it is the norm to have schools require students be vaccinated, but these vaccines are generally for highly communicable diseases that have posed major threats to the public health in the past.… Read More

When the California Medical Association hired Trial Lawyer and former Senator Joe Dunn, it looked like another "friendly" special interest buying into the "alligator theory." Please democrat legislators don’t eat me, but eat the others first.

But it was nice when Joe Dunn, now the newly minted Executive Vice President for the CMA briefed the Directors of the Los Angeles County Medical Assn. Dunn declared Arnold’s Health Plan is presently DOA last week.

First, contrary to what we heard about Speaker Nunez, Dunn says there are few legislators willing to "sponsor" the bill. And, Arnold has re-discovered how to get a whole lot a people across the spectrum mad at him at once. Arnold needlessly took on the public safety [cops] community which gave him hell over pension reform [ an idea he quickly abandoned…but the damage as done in the 2005 Initiatives].

Secondly, Arnold’s biggest prior booster the state Chamber is a rare display of fortitude loudly screamed against the employer mandate. The Hospital Association is ready to fight the 4% tax, the leftist California Nurses Assn are opposed. Blue… Read More

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore sent me his thoughts on the CRP Vice-Chairman’s race, asking that I share it with FR readers. I thought about it a bit, as the FR is not supporting a specific candidate between the three contenders – Tom Del Beccaro, Tom Bordonaro and Jalene Forbis. But I decided to go ahead and print DeVore’s piece, and I have invited the other candidates, if they have a similar ‘third party supporter’ who wants to e-mail something to get posted, they could do so as well. So, here is DeVore’s take: Why I support Tom Bordonaro for CRP Vice Chairman I have been attending California Republican Party… Read More

One of the most frequent questions that I get from folks it how to go back and look at a previous day’s "issue" of the FlashReport. Specifically, how to toggle to the news from yesterday, or last Thursday, or even a day last year. The answer is actually quite simple. The graphic in this e-mail is a capture of the upper right hand corner of the FlashReport. If you look next to the date, there is a small toggle button. You can use this toggle to go to any day’s FR main news page that you would like. You will also pull up the Daily Commentary for that day in the side window as well. Try it out!

Now when you go on vacation, or if you don’t go online over the weekend, you can easily go back and make sure you are caught up on all of the relevant news stories!… Read More

Last night, I had the opportunity to sit next to Tony and Audra Strickland at the wedding reception of a mutual friend. Tony, of course, is a former State Assemblyman and was the GOP nominee for State Controller last year. His wife, Audra, currently represents the 37th Assembly District as a member of the California legislature. The wedding was at the stately and amazing Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where there is so much history — this hotel was the epicenter for much of Los Angeles’ rich political and ‘Hollywood’ history (the Academy Awards were held there for many years back in the Golden era of motion pictures. In chatting with Tony, he shared with me that on Friday, he had opened up a campaign committee and will be seeking the Republican nomination to succeed State Senator Tom McClintock in that Ventura County-based district, that stretches up into Santa Barbara County. Needless to say, the Strickland name has become quote familiar to residents in that area, and Tony becomes the immediate front-runner. His recent run for State Controller has helped to keep his name ID ‘current’ in the minds of… Read More

Governor Schwarzenegger’s health-care plan/debacle is raising a lot of concern from free-market oriented groups all around the country. Today’s major column from noted Wall Street Journal editorial writer John Fund, a native Californian, is required reading for anyone following the politics of the Governor’s proposal. Fund not only takes to task the Governor’s healthcare proposal, but really lays him out for having the audacity to call the billions of dollars in tax increase within it "fees" — it belies all credibility.

But if that isn’t enough, in today’s issue of National Review on line, there are not one, not two, but three columns blasting the Governor’s proposal as an embrace of liberalism and as an embrace of big government.

Today’s Golden Pen comes from the San Diego Union Tribune, which rightly points out that the Schwarzenegger Administration should be making plans now to deal with the massive impact of having to properly account of unfunded pension liabilities. There is no doubt that this will create massive red ink for the state, and we should be factoring this into the state’s… Read More