This past year our GOP legislators have stood strong with no defectors — the toughest in recent memory. Indeed, this toughness was one reason I switched this year from the Libertarian Party to the GOP.

But with the coming “top two” system of elections, it’s probable a few RINO’s will slip into the CA legislature, replacing some GOP tough guys and gals. And, at this point, it takes only two in each CA legislative body to make the GOP TOTALLY irrelevant in the legislative process. One RINO (Brian Maienschein) is already a frontrunner in north San Diego to replace Nathan Fletcher, who is running for mayor of San Diego. This district is a strong GOP bastion — even after redistricting. Sadly, GOP legislators Joel Anderson and Brian Jones have for unknown reasons just endorsed Maienschein’s candidacy. Maienschein likely will be quietly backed by one or more of the public employee labor unions, thanks to his sterling service to same while screwing up San Diego as our city council critter. To but it bluntly, in fiscal matters, he was simply awful — a tool of the labor … Read More

Across the state, California community college officials and student activists have held coordinated protests. With the usual claimed victim status, they demand higher taxes to subsidize their academic fantasyland.

But these bureaucrats fail to tell the full story. It’s the CA community college STUDENTS (who benefit the most from the education) who should be paying more for their education — they’ve been over-subsidized long enough.

According to a March2010 national tuition survey sponsored by Washington state, California has the lowest community college tuition and fees in the country. Even with the increase in per credit tuition from $26 to $36, CA community colleges STILL charge students the lowest tuition — students are paying about a third of the national community college tuition average.

Based on a 15 credit (five course) semester, 2009-10 CA community college tuition and fees equaled $780. Next lowest was New Mexico at $1,125. Third lowest was North Carolina at $1,684. National average was $3,029. The highest state is New Hampshire which charges $6,262.

Adjusting for the new increased $36 per credit CA community… Read More

Liberals in CA vehemently dislike the CA initiative process. Indeed, they just tried to enact an effective ban on the process, but the bill was vetoed by Gov. Brown.

These mislabeled “progressives” dislike citizen-signed propositions, as such measures bypass the institution the Big Government advocates control throughout most of the state — elected officials. I doubt we’d be hearing the anti-proposition bleating from them if such were not the case.

Moreover, the feigned concern about improprieties in signature gathering ignores the benefits of a full vetting of the prop once it is on the ballot — especially compared to our chaotic state legislative procedures.

I recommend an informative, humorous out-of-print book (available at Amazon) by the late State Senator H.L. Richardson — “What Makes You Think We Read the Bills?” http://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-Think-Read-Bills/dp/0916054780

Most of us know that in the closing days of each legislative session, our intrepid CA elected leaders vote on literally hundreds of ever-changing bills — some even… Read More

During these tough economic times, we are seeing families forced into making tough economic choices about their budgets. Pretty much we all have a family member or a close friend who is unemployed. Of course the downturn in the economy has an effect on available public resources as well. At every level of government (well, maybe except in Washington where they can print more money) there is significant belt-tightening taking place — if not out of ideological conviction, then due to practical concerns.

Nowhere is the scarcity of resources becoming a bigger issue than in local government, where the decrease in tax revenues due to the poor economy is hitting county and city budgets hard. This is compounded infinitely by the out-of-control public employee pension benefits that are now heavily draining many city coffers — and the worst is yet to come on that front.

More than ever, the public needs clarity that their local elected officials are serving for the right reasons. Now is a time for self-reflection. The City of Orange yesterday took an exemplary step in showing leadership for cities all around the state to follow — by a unanimous vote… Read More

Republicans scored twin victories in two closely watched House special elections last night, signaling ongoing problems for the Democrats in regions essential for their success in any national election.

By far the biggest upset was in New York’s 9th district, a heavily Democratic New York City seat with the highest percentage of Jewish voters in America. Predictably, President Obama’s policies toward Israel took center stage in this fight and the resulting victory for political novice Republican Bob Turner over incumbent Democrat Assemblyman David Weprin demonstrates the biggest potential shift in a major Democratic voter block in recent memory.

When I was growing up on Long Island (my parents immigrated and settled with other families just outside of New York City), Democrat Mayor Ed Koch was an outspoken icon of liberalism. Yet, his endorsement of Republican Turner over Democrat Weprin in this special election crystalized the problem which President Obama’s Israel policy has created for his party. It’s not just Republican Jews who are upset, but Democrats and independents as well.

The… Read More

Ronald Reagan was served by giants of capitalism. Reagan’s famous Kitchen Cabinet was composed of self made entrepreneurs, ranging from Henry Salvatori and CC Moseley to Holmes Tuttle and Justin Dart. None were born rich. They loved America and helped give the world Ronald Reagan.

George Joseph, founding CEO for Mercury Insurance, announced today that he was spending some$8.1 million to promote an initiative that would give more choice to auto consumers to buy car insurance at lower rates. His initiative seems reasonable.

According to the Los Angeles Times Joseph will gather some 750,000 thousands signatures to change the law to allow more competition, for this June’s election in 2012. But who is George Joseph?

Joseph was born in West Virginia (same as Henry Salvatori) in 1921, the son of Lebanese immigrants. During World War II he fought as a B-17… Read More

I know how difficult it is for California Republican Legislators in these dark days. They are in the minority, a difficult position in any circumstance, and they are close to falling below holding one-third of the legislative seats, a threshold that would make them irrelevant to all decisions in the Legislature. They have just been through their first year with a new Democrat Governor, one who paid little attention to them, and redistricting is a seeming disaster ready to sink them into irrelevancy for the next ten years. I have seen this situation, I understand their feelings, I know what is going through their minds.

The first instinct is to whine. That was our first instinct in 1999. “Democrats don’t treat us fair, they don’t pass our bills, they break the rules to pass their own bills.” Guess what? They’re the majority. The majority rules. Time to stop whining.

The next instinct is to capitulate. “The only way to get a seat at the table is to give them what they want and to eat the crumbs.” Well, they are going to get the best, because they are the majority, and if our Republican Legislators take a seat at… Read More

As regular readers of this missive know, I am a lifelong Republican. Accordingly, I have never been to a Democrat campaign rally. That is to say at least until last week. Last Thursday, I attended one…..on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. President Obama made a special request to speak to a Joint Session of Congress and I assumed it would be a major policy address. Far from it. It was a campaign speech. There was scarcely little serious policy content present. The first indicator of this was when Obama asked us to “pass this right away”, a line which appears on the first page of an 8 page speech, before saying what was in his plan. That’s like demanding that someone buy something inside a box without telling them what is in the box. Another indicator of lack of substance was his repeated assertions that the $450 billion one-year cost of the bill would be “paid for”. He also made this assertion on the first page of his address. Three pages later he says, “It will be paid for. And here’s how: The agreement we passed in July will cut government spending by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years.… Read More