** WITH UPDATES **

Following is the transcript of a Q&A today at Gov. Schwarzenegger’s press conference regarding his opposition to President Bush’s proposal to put the National Guard along the Mexican border.

For more than a decade, Senators Feinstein and Boxer have been proponents of sending the National Guard to protect our borders from the constant flow of illegal immigration.

I’ll tell you that at first glance, it seems like a fine idea to me. But Gov. Schwarzenegger makes a good point by saying that many of our National Guardsmen have been serving in Iraq and it’s unreasonable to ask that they come home only to serve another mission along ourborders. They need to get back to work and back to their families.

I’ll be on Fox News Monday morning at 9:20 AM PST, probably talking about this very issue. So send me your comments because I’m curious to know your thoughts.

GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER May Revise Border Issues May 12, 2006

Q. President Vicente Fox is in Austria today, and he will be in… Read More

"Arnold got his groove back yesterday when he announced his budget would give schools an additional $5 billion,” said GOP strategist Karen Hanretty. "He’s taken an issue away from the powerful teachers union … and he’s getting a significant amount of unanticipated revenue, which will pay down the structural deficit.” (San Francisco Chronicle, 6/12/06)

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the minute Gov. Schwarzenegger agreed to give education an addition $5 billion (money the CTA says Arnoldowed and for which they spent tens of millions of dollar on political ads last year to convince voters thathe broke his promise) thatCTA turned around and sunk $1 million into an IE against gubernatorial hopeful Steve Westly (as blogged about today on www.NewWestNotes.com).

Of course I have no knowledge of any deal that may have been made, but by all accounts it appears to be an impressive piece of political maneuvering by the new Team Arnold. Very impressive,… Read More

Maybe I owe FlashReport’s readers an apology. Somehow I hadn’t noticed that San Jacinto Councilman Jim Ayres’ Assembly campaign website contained inaccurate information about the candidate’s military record. If I had noticed, I could have pointed it outbefore the L.A. Times came alongwith today’s headline: "Candidate’s Military Record Embellished".

I have to admit I had heard that thismight be coming. I get a lot of calls from opposing campaigns telling me this or that about one of the other candidates. The 65th Assembly District Republican Primary has been no exception.

Today’s L.A. Times makes this hand wringing irrelevant with the following statement: "…On his website … Ayres said he was awarded a Southwest Asia Service Medal for valor and a Cold War medal."

… Read More

There were a couple of positive legislative developments in Washington this week. First, there was the passage of the arcanely named tax reconciliation bill. This bill extends the 2003 tax cuts.

These tax cuts include the 15% tax rate on capital gains and dividend income and an extension of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) exemption. The AMT exemption had already expired and the 15% capital gains and dividend rate was scheduled to expire in 2008. The legislation which passed in the House (244-185) and the Senate (54-44) this week extends the AMT exemption for the current year (2006) only and extends the capital gains and dividend rate through the 2010 tax year. The bill included about 30 other assorted tax provisions which are narrower in their focus.

Now, I would have preferred to, and the House could have passed a permanent extension of the 15% rate, but the Senate would not have done so. Therefore, a 2 year extension was the best that we could get. This is policy by incrementalism. Republicans have not been particularly good at this in the past. But it works. We have the tax rates through 2010 and we can always try again next year for permanence. Furthermore,… Read More

President George W. Bush will be addressing the nation Monday evening, primetime, to discuss his plan for dealing with illegal immigration. I’ve been on the phone and email all morning sort of getting a feel from folks far more connected to me, and here’s what I came up with. Speculation is part of his program will be some kind of ‘guest worker’ program that includes those illegal aliens currently in the United States. The program will fall short of amnesty, but offer a path to citizenship.

More important will be the President’s plan to deal with increasing security on the border. After all, all the plans in the world to deal with the illegal aliens that are already here don’t mean a hill of beans if several thousand more of them are allowed to cross every night. In fact, the new plan to offer amnesty or guest worker status will probably cause another increase in illegal aliens, like the last few amnesty plans did.

We’ve already been burned once, I think around the time of the last campaign, when the President talked about all the new Border Patrol agents that would be placed on the border. For the most part, they… Read More

We knew this little gem was hiding somewhere. Carla Marinucci is one of the state’s better political writers, out of the stable of good talent over at the San Francisco Chronicle. I had heard that she was making the rounds at the recent Westly/Angelides pillow fight-debate where voters really only discovered a pair of lackluster, unimpressive politicians, hopping over each other to so who could out-liberal the other (okay, those are MY words, not Carla’s).

Anyways, I had been keeping an eye out for Carla’s story, which I knew would be fun reading. She didn’t let us down (though perhaps her techies did, as this story was posted too late to make the morning summary of stories).

So, without further pitch, Carla’s take on the debate starts out:

Democrats’ dustup brightens outlook for Schwarzenegger in November

The Democratic candidates for governor didn’t… Read More

This is a huge boost to the Jeffries campaign in the 66th Assembly District. Besides his rock solid conservative credentials and decades of being involved in the local GOP (unlike one of his opponents), The Press Enterprise is correct- we don’t have enough folks in Sacramento that understand water issues.

Riverside County Press Enterprise Endorses Kevin Jeffries for Assembly66th Assembly District: Another Republican seat, this district includes Riverside, Temecula, Murrieta and Lake Elsinore. We support county GOP Chairman Kevin Jeffries. Jeffries has a strong grasp of Inland issues after 17 years in local government, including seven years on the board of the Western Municipal Water District. Jeffries in 2004 helped cut a water tax on property owners, and his expertise on water policy — in a thirsty, growing state — would be a rare commodity in Sacramento.

PS. My wife does his fundraising… Read More

One of the joys of being old political talent is discovering new political talent. I have discovered one in Dan Centinello, currently serving as the campaign coordinator for Assembly candidate Kevin Jeffries. Dan is from New York where he wasChairman of the New York State College Republicans. He found his … Read More