As I mentioned below, Meg Whitman has launched her campaign – and she has also launched MegWhitman.com (a URL that she does own). You can check it out – to answer everyone’s OBVIOUS first question – green is the campaign color with some orange thrown in. Below are two videos featured on the site – the first of which is an introduction by Whitman, and the second is that one is one of those videos that you could imagine being played to a Silicon Valley audience before Whitman makes her entrance – you see these kind of videos at major tech conference. Makes sense, right? I don’t know about you — but as a blogging commentator, I’m looking forward to this primary!

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Acting I am sure in his capacity as a private individual and not as Chairman of the Placer County Central Committee, Tom Hudson today filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission where, if I can try to summarize the charges in one sentence, Hudson asserts that Whitman, prior to today, has been running (and spending money in support of) a de facto Gubernatorial campaign for which she did not report income or expenditures. It goes on from there. Here is Hudson’s press release, and attached are the documents filed with the FPPC.

Needless to say, the timing of the complaint is hardly coincidental.

It will be up to smarter people than me to look into the allegations and sort them out. I pass this along in the interests of passing along "news" that comes across my e-mail folder.

I will close by saying that it seems like whenever the FPPC acts, it is always way after the fact and a fine is… Read More

It’s a busy day in the e-mail box today. No doubt to bolster up Steve Poizner supporters in response to the official announcement by Meg Whitman that she is officially a candidate for Governor, Poizner’s Campaign Chairman, retired State Senator Jim Brulte, sent this out…

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I’ve heard, like others, of a reputed "deal" on the State budget struck by Big Five negotiators, to be announced Monday. If it includes new taxes and fees, it will be an outrage, and the final nail in the coffin of a State Republican Party dying a slow death for 20 years. The tax issue is all this Party has left, and to cede it to a bunch of leftists, in the middle of a financial crisis, would be monumentally stupid.

But Mike, we need more revenues, you say. No we don’t. If you believe that, then you believe taxes are too low right now, and that the economy can withstand new taxes and fees. Anyone accepting either premise is either completely ignorant, or worse, intellectually defective.

Assembly leader Mike Villines and Senate leader Dave Cogdill have held out too long and worked too hard to accept a compromise. Eight years of compromise is precisely what put us here in the first place, and another compromise will plunge a… Read More

It’s a busy day in the e-mail box today. No doubt to bolster up Steve Poizner supporters in response to the official announcement by Meg Whitman that she is officially a candidate for Governor, Poizner’s Campaign Chairman, retired State Senator Jim Brulte:

Dear Friend:

If you’re like me, you think California is headed in the wrong direction. Every day the news gets worse and our great state slips further and further behind.

But the good news is that strong, tested leadership can turn this around.… Read More

I’ve heard, like others, of a reputed "deal" on the State budget struck by Big Five negotiators, to be announced Monday. If it includes new taxes and fees, it will be an outrage, and the final nail in the coffin of a State Republican Party dying a slow death for 20 years. The tax issue is all this Party has left, and to cede it to a bunch of leftists, in the middle of a financial crisis, would be monumentally stupid.

But Mike, we need more revenues, you say. No we don’t. If you believe that, then you believe taxes are too low right now, and that the economy can withstand new taxes and fees. Anyone accepting either premise is either completely ignorant, or worse, intellectually defective.

Assembly leader Mike Villines and Senate leader Dave Cogdill have held out too long and worked too hard to accept a compromise. Eight years of compromise is precisely what put us here in the first place, and another compromise will plunge a… 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