Things are not always what they appear to be…..particularly in Washington. Sometimes, the real reason that a bill is changed, or shelved, or amended is not what the spin and press reports say. Two such instances have occurred here recently. The first has to do with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which was finally passed by the Senate and was signed into law by President Bush last week. This bill has been held up in negotiations and partisan fighting all year. Most people believe that the hold up was because civil libertarians were fighting to insure that no wiretapping of phones is done without appropriate court orders or that the privacy ramifications of this bill were being debated. Not true. A compromise was reached on all of those issues months ago. The hold-up on this bill was for an entirely different reason. After 9/11, the phone companies were contacted by the federal government and asked to provide certain phone records that the government would use in its surveillance activities. The phone companies, remember that this is in the aftermath of 9/11, complied. Recently, a group of trail lawyers determined that these… Read More

Let me start by saying thanks to FR Publisher Jon Fleischman for welcoming me back to the Flash Report Blog. As Jon has mentioned previously, I was FR’s first San Bernardino County correspondent almost three years ago. After 14 months I left in order to focus on becoming a San Bernardino County Supervisor. Now that I’ve achieved that goal, I really appreciate this opportunity to return and pick right back up where I left off — almost two years later.

So what’s changed since we last talked?

One thing for certain has changed, I thought as I perused the latest news accounts of the Iraq situation vis-à-vis the Presidential candidates. And that is, how much things have changed in Iraq. And as Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Iraq today, it also strikes me how little his approach has changed during that same time. I’m pretty sure this is because his position is still the politically popular (albeit wrong) one.

Obama’s 2006 visit to Iraq (his first and only other visit besides today’s) was marked by the… Read More

When she was only a teenager, Trinie Bowling spied on the Japanese in her native Philippines during World War II, reporting back to officials on enemy movements. Little did she know that her deep-seated patriotism would years later lead to an unabashed love of country in the United States, and as a "political guerilla" for the Republican Party.

After emigrating to the United States, Bowling became a stalwart activist for the GOP.

She met Congressman Duncan Hunter’s father, R.O. Hunter, severalyears ago at a new citizens’ swearing-in ceremony and became a new citizen GOP recruiter on behalf of both Republican Women’s Federated clubs and the local GOP. Bowling has now been a fixture in local Republican circles for more than three decades.

All of her hard work culminated in a thank you from President Bush on Thursday at Travis Air Force Base. During his California visit, Bush took the time to meet Bowling and personally thank her for service to country and party.

At 79, Bowling has been diagnosed with cancer and knows she doesn’t have long to live. "I’ve been looking forward to this for quite a… Read More

I had a chance to get to know soon-to-beAssemblyman (and fellow FR blogger) Curt Hagmanthis past weekend and see him in action.

I’m impressed.

I’m not able to give you the when, where, what and why’s of our encounter – it would complicate the very significant issue we were trying to fix – what I can say is that Curt showed right away he is a driven problem solver and absolutely knows what he’s talking about. He has solutions that are common-sense and a plan of action to get it done.

Something happened that I’ve not seen before at the meeting that speaks volumes about the leadership of Curt. A very high ranking government official asked this not yet an Assemblyman to come to Sacramento to work with them to work on the issue.

I wish I could say who it was – because in the 14 years I’ve been in government, I’ve never seen this dynamic happen. To be honest, most "nominees" aren’t paid attention to much – because they don’t have a vote yet.. Curt transcended that easily.

I’m always glad when I run across people that have given themselves to… Read More

Oh boy. This the second time in just a couple of weeks that I have agreed with something said by lame-duck Senate President Pro-Tem Don Perata. The first time we agreed was when he said that we need to resolve the state budget issue before we turn our sights to the water crisis and a massive bond measure proposed by Governor Schwarzenegger and Senator Feinstein.

It’s being reported over on the SacBee’s Capitol Alert website (registration required) that Perata says the he is opposed to borrowing more money in order to deal with the budget crisis. I couldn’t agree more with that particular sentiment. Now we have a huge chasm of disagreement from there. Perata doesn’t want borrowing, he wants a massive increase in taxes on Californians to allow for a permanently bigger and fatter state government. I, on the other hand, want to see real and deep cuts to government agencies and programs, rolling back the unprecidented growth in California government over the past few years.

If I end up agreeing with Perata any more, we may have to invite him to blog for… Read More

The President Thursday visited the western Shasta County area to view the fire damage and ongoing threat to people and infrastructure that the fire poses. It started with a briefing with CalFire, US Forest Service, National Guard, Rural School officials, many local firefighters, as well as some of us local electeds. The Marine helicopters were posed waiting for the arrival of Air Force One, the sound of whichthe airport didn’t seem big enough to accomodate.

Soon, The President joined us in the hanger for the briefing, shaking hands with all of us gathered [yeah!]before viewing the maps of the fire and damaged areas with the fire personnel before the helicopter flight, which would include Shasta Dam, a federal Central Valley Project structure, whose electricity generation andtransmission infrastructure had been threatened from shutdown by fire. Accompanying the President on the flight out from D.C.and then the copter ride was our local Congressman Wally Herger, along with… Read More

We are pleased to offer commentary this morning from longtime FR friend Lanci Izumi. Lance is Senior Director in Education Studies for the Pacific Research Institute. The piece was inspired by the recent headlines about the alarmingly high drop-out rates in California’s public schools…

THE DROPOUT DISASTER: WE TOLD YOU SO By Lance Izumi

In 1997, the Pacific Research Institute released the first of its ongoing California Index of Leading Education Indicators, which included a chapter on California’s dropout rate. The Index warned that the state Department of Education missed legions of dropouts… Read More

I have had the good pleasure of knowing both George and Sharon Runner going back to long before either was in the State Legislature. As a matter of fact, both were among my supporters back in the mid-90’s in my successful campaign for State President of the California Republican Assembly. At the time, George was President of the Antelope Valley Republican Assembly.

Anyways, I make no bones about the fact that the purpose of the FlashReport is both to promote the conservative cause, and to help my friends.

So when I got a phone call from Senator Runner, asking if I would be interested in having him join the FR blog pen as a legislative correspondent — well, I said yes quicker than you could imagine.

George is a good conservative, and a smart guy. I guess now we will all be able to judge whether, with those qualities as ammunition, he will make a good blogger!

His first post (of many to come) will be on the blog soon. Please welcome to the FR blog Senate Republican Caucus… Read More