I love politics. Every once in a while you get these "say what?" moments, where you turn your head and actually say to the person next to you, "did you just see that?"

Earlier today, we reported that Tom Hudson had filed a complaint against Meg Whitman with the FPPC (you can see that a couple of blog posts down).

Just off of the transom is the press release below, sent out about an hour ago, announcing that Steve Poizner has endorsed Tom Hudson in his bid for party office.

That’s hardball politics.

POIZNER ENDORSES TOM HUDSON FOR NORTHERN VICE CHAIRMAN

Senator Dave Cox also Joins the Team

Insurance Commissioner and candidate for Governor Steve Poizner has added his full support to the growing campaign for Tom Hudson for Northern Vice Chairman of the California Republican Party. State Senator Dave Cox has endorsed Hudson as… Read More

UPDATE: 6:30am – Reliable sources tell us that former Governor Pete Wilson will be announced as Whitman’s Campaign Chairman.

ORIGINAL POST: 12:01am… Deborah Perry Piscione, CEO of BettyConfidential.com spoke with Meg Whitman over the weekend, who told her that she would announce her campaign for California Governor today, Monday, on her campaign website. Check it out here. Her local papers – the Chronicle and the Mercury News, heck, the FlashReport — we all got scooped in terms of getting the official word from the candidate herself, and getting it up online.

Well, I guess it’s off to the races sometime today!… Read More

A mere64 pages this morning… It has been said there is more sheer information in one Sunday edition of the New York Times than the average person learned during their entire lifetime in the Middle Ages. By comparison, the ongoing death spiral of the San Diego Union-Tribune makes you wonder why they need modern printing presses at all, if the amount of content could have been produced pre-Gutenberg. Today’s Sunday UT is all of 64 pages, not counting the huge ad sections and marketing inserts.

Randy Dotinga at voiceofsandiego.org provides some further excellent analysis in The Paper’s Been Cut in Half. Worth the read.

When is free speech not free speech?… On a college campus, of course. Or, perhaps, in a federal courtroom. Maybe both:

A federal judge ruled yesterday that a nondiscrimination policy at San Diego State and Long Beach State universities required for formal campus recognition does not… Read More

First went my sister and her family. Then followed my mother. Then my grandmother. Even one of the cities I represent is looking at possibly going there.

Where? Arizona.

As I mentioned in my last blog, although San Bernardino County’s High Desert has a lot to offer in the way of incentives – from affordable land and labor to business-friendly local governments – the limits of our local discretion are illustrated by the economic struggles of the City of Needles, which I represent.

A small town located across the Colorado River from Arizona and Nevada, Needles was until recently studying the feasibility of seceding to one of the other two states because of California’s higher costs for gasoline, workers’ compensation insurance, auto insurance, corporate, sales and personal income taxes, and myriad overzealous laws and regulations, just to name a few.

“More power to ’em,” I wrote, “although I’ll continue to do the best possible job for them as long as… Read More

It is my hope that Republican legislators will apply the same degree of sophistication to their approach on voting on a Big 5-agreed-upon "deal" that those of us on the outside will use to analyze the proposal and the votes on all of its component parts.

First and foremost, since not all FlashReport readers are intimately aware of how these budget votes tend to take place — it is not one bill, but series of bills all tied together that make the budget "package" deal. So what happens is that one bill may lay out modifications to state spending, another bill might contain tax increases, and other bills may contain other miscellaneous parts of the package.

Knowing that a deal is carved up this way is important in analyzing who supports the package — because, and this is critical, for ANY PART of the package to be enacted, it ALL must be enacted. This is the manner in which the Democrats can ensure their any votes they put up for spending CUTS don’t go into effect unless Republicans put up the necessary votes for TAX INCREASES — or visa versa I suppose.… Read More

It is my hope that Republican legislators will apply the same degree of sophistication to their approach on voting on a Big 5-agreed-upon "deal" that those of us on the outside will use to analyze the proposal and the votes on all of its component parts.

First and foremost, since not all FlashReport readers are intimately aware of how these budget votes tend to take place — it is not one bill, but series of bills all tied together that make the budget "package" deal. So what happens is that one bill may lay out modifications to state spending, another bill might contain tax increases, and other bills may contain other miscellaneous parts of the package.

Knowing that a deal is carved up this way is important in analyzing who supports the package — because, and this is critical, for ANY PART of the package to be enacted, it ALL must be enacted. This is the manner in which the Democrats can ensure their any votes they put up for spending CUTS don’t go into effect unless Republicans put up the necessary votes for TAX INCREASES — or visa versa I suppose.

I lay all of this out because it is being reported in the San… Read More

The Editorial Page of the Los Angeles Times yesterday mentioned only three people by name: President Obama, Governor Schwarzenegger, and… this website’s publisher, Jon Fleischman.

They wrote about Jon’s efforts to censure Republican legislators who end up voting for a budget deal that includes a tax increase. And believe it or not, they’re not the biggest fans of the idea.

But I think Jon will be okay. I don’t think he’ll shed too many tears because of the Times’ objections.

In fact, I’m guessing Jon views getting trashed by the Times as a high honor.

So for that Jon, congrats.… Read More

I am pleased to offer this guest commentary from Senator Abel Maldonado, who represents California’s 15th District along the Central Coast…

John Chiang: A Controller Out of Control By State Senator Abel Maldonado

If your tax refund check is delayed, blame State Controller John Chiang’s irresponsible spending. While you’re trying to find a way to do more with less, the state controller is continuing to do less with more.

On January 6, the governor vetoed the Democrats’ illegal budget. Phrases like… Read More