The President of the KOCE Foundation, Dr. Jo Ellen Allen, has taken the time to pen a rebuttal to my commentary from yesterday. She takes umbrage at what she feels was a factually misleading piece penned by me.

I will let you read Jo Allen’s piece (click the attachment below) for yourself, but apparenlty we are going to be doing a he-said, she-said on some of the most basic facts in this case.

I will restate that despite what Allen says:

Daystar was and is willing to pay considerably more for KOCE than the Foundation is prepared to pay – to the tune of millions and millions of dollars; and, Daystar’s offer was in CASH, not a complex web of financing with a few million down, the rest to follow after five years, and, oh yes, a sweetheart deal with a zero percent interest rate!

I will make my point succinctly — government, whether at the federal, state or local level, should not be in the business of televison. Government shouldn’t be producing television programming, nor should tax dollars be taken from one person to provide entertainment for… Read More

Yesterday, the FlashReport awarded its 2006 Golden Trash Can Award to Assembly Bill 523 which represents an outrageous effort by the Coastline Community College District in Orange County to make a de facto gift of nearly $20 million in public funds to finance a bid by KOCE television’s Foundation to buy the public broadcast station, which is being sold by the college district to generate funds. I won’t go over all of the details again, but I will encourage FR readers to read the piece. Since writing iy, I have not been provided with the actual Appellate Court rulings which are very clear when you read them. Presiding Justice Sills, who penned the opinion for the court, voids the sale of KOCE to the KOCE Foundation — the bit provided by the Foundation was for much less money than the other bidder, televangelism provider Daystar.… Read More

Yesterday, the FlashReport awarded its 2006 Golden Trash Can Award to Assembly Bill 523 which represents an outrageous effort by the Coast Community College District in Orange County to make a de facto gift of nearly $20 million in public funds to finance a bid by KOCE television’s Foundation to buy the public broadcast station, which is being sold by the college district to generate funds. I won’t go over all of the details again, but I will encourage FR readers to read the piece. Since writing iy, I have not been provided with the actual Appellate Court rulings which are very clear when you read them. Presiding Justice Sills, who penned the opinion for the court, voids the sale of KOCE to the KOCE Foundation — the bit provided by the Foundation was for much less money than the other bidder, televangelism provider Daystar.… Read More

Gilliard, Blanning, Wysocki & Associates ent out this e-mail this monring to California slate mail consultants:

Dear slate vendors,

It has come to our attention that the consultant for the NO on Prop90 campaign is attempting to interfere with slate contracts we have secured on behalf of YES on Prop 90. They reportedly have asked slate vendors to refund our deposits, questioned our intention to pay balances and linked their NO on 90 efforts to those on behalf of another initiative campaign they represent.

Their unethical actions, if they continue, will result in legal action on our behalf. … Read More

When I received a call today, letting me know that the Governor had signed SB 1441, I was stunned. I don’t think that I could have summed up my feeling better than what Mike Der Manouel says below.

I called Karen England with the Capitol Resource Institute, who has been a point person for conservatives, keeping an eye on this legislation. I asked Karen if she would pen something for FR readers to help everyone understand exactly what Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law.

Mike Spence’s note below, where he talks about how every single GOPer in the State Assembly (conservative and moderate alike) voted against this bill, was very sobering. I cannot express my disappointment in this bill-signing…

Here’s Karen’s piece… What the Founding Fathers Gave, Arnold Takes Away…… Read More

I just about fell out of my chair about 10 minutes ago. This Governor signed SB 1441, a perfectly hideous bill, so out of the mainstream of social thought that one has to wonder what the calculation is, exactly. What is the political purpose? Are there minions of newly energized transvestites now going to push Arnold over the top in November? Probably not one tenth of the number of conservatives that will stay home in this election, in effect saying "to hell with it".

You can view a summary of the bill here, but I have to tell everyone bothering to read this, including the Governor’s fundraisers, to quit calling because I ain’t coming and I ain’t giving. I can understand triangulation, but this is the freaking gutter. Had you worked the minimum wage deal and this bill signing into the text of the Governor’s speech last… Read More

SB 1162 ended up passing 42-34, all Republicans voting no, plus 3 Dems along for the ride. Good veto bait for the Guv…wonder why they gave him that to tout this fall.… Read More

Once I was pulling into the parking lot of a state regulatory agency and I spotted a bumper sticker on a car that read: Visualize Industrial Collapse. I don’t know if the car belonged to an employee or to an activist-type who was visiting the agency, but the image made an impression on me in that it didn’t really matter whose sticker it was. What occurred to me was that the most extreme believers in any cause tend to have the tenacity to push harder than the rest of us, and over time that means they get results. Case in point, our infamous left wing, gerrymandered legislature and its beloved cause du jour, global warming.

Assembly Bill 32, currently being considered in the waning days of session in the State Senate (you can lookup and read the bill here), would establish caps on "greenhouse" emissions in the state. Yet if you read the legislature’s own analysis of the bill, they have no idea what the caps are going to be and what the economic impacts will be (maybe they don’t care). The bill would create a new, unaccountable state bureaucracy to… Read More