This past weekend it was reported that former Congressman, Ambassador and Assemblyman Wayne Grisham passed away at age 88. Grisham represent various southeast cities in his elected capacities over his long career. My first paid political job was for Wayne Grisham. Back in ancient history as a soon to be graduating UCLA student, I went to the schools job bank and saw a list for “community representative’ at Grisham’s Assembly Office. This was after towards the end of his career. He had been defeated for Congress in a primary with David Dreier and return from Kenya to win to a place in the assembly. I put together a resume an applied. I spent hours on the resume and turns out I had the perfect qualifications for the job. I had legs. The job entailed going door to door on… Read More

Today’s Antelope Valley Press has a story that is sure to further undermine Darren Parker’s longshot challenge to Sharon Runner.

(You can visit the AV Press here.)

Today on the front page of the Drudge Report, the banner headline is a link a New York Times story talking about "quiet conversations" taking place about seeing how to possible change federal law to allow state governments to utilize some sort of bankruptcy-type approach to reorganizing debt. The Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert blog has a story on that here.

From where I sit, this is really all about a massive problem (that is not exclusive to California and local governments within the Golden State) — where politicians, largely those elected BY the political donations of public employee unions, have committed governments to long term employment contracts that are simply not affordable, or realistic. Of course I am referring to all of these overly generous defined benefit programs (I should note that not every government employee has a gold-plated plan, but a whole lot do).

Efforts to… Read More

Yesterday the Pasadena Star-News ran article about the City of Arcadia and the planned speaker for the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast. I served as a consultant on Mayor Peter Amundson’s campaign the two times he ran, so I know a little more about this than some. The “controversial” speaker is the Rev. H.B. London. The Rev. London is a Vice-President of Ministry Outreach/Pastoral Ministries for Focus on the Family and worked in the Arcadia area. Tradition has let the Mayor invite whomever he/she wanted to speak at this event or the variations that have taken place. Someone from Focus on the Family is a good fit, because Focus was founded in Arcadia by Dr. James Dobson before growing into the amazing international ministry that it is. But you see the problem isFocus on the Family, the … Read More

Thirty years ago today, Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President of the United States of America. Take twenty minutes to hear or read the speech.

When you read the warnings on debt, freedom and of course Reagan’s declaration that,” government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Can you not think of our situation today?

And for those pundits that talk about the new normal of unemployment and economic decline should take note of Reagan’s insight.… Read More

I confess, I don’t read Calbuzz too often, unless I am mentioned in it. Their latestattack on Flashreport and its publisher is intellectually dishonest, and typical of what leftists do. Let’s just take the begining of the post, where our friend, and Flashreport publisher Jon Fleischman, is referred to as a "knuckle dragging blogger".

Now, we’re not surprised by this. Leftists cannot comment, or argue any political point, without insult. Arrogance and condescencion are key elements of their communication style. They believe they are educated, moral, and singularly authorized to have an opinion based on their self appointed standing in the world. Me, I just laugh at them.

Their heroes are people like Pelosi, Obama, Reid, Brown, etc. Need we say more? They personalize disagreements on policy, engage in psychotic projection on motive, and are hostile to facts, history and evidence.

Here is a catalogue of the other insults in the post: "tinhorn barons and viscounts…yeoman,… Read More

California lawmakers keep trying to squeeze more money out of our overtaxed, overregulated economy. Instead of helping private sector jobs survive they are chasing them out of the state.

Take for instance Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner’s proposed legislation to force out-of-state online retailers to collect sales tax on purchases made by Californians. This ill-conceived measure would backfire by killing jobs and making our state’s budget problem worse.

If this law passes, 25,000 California small businesses called "affiliates" could lose their business relationships with out-of-state online retailers as has already happened in other states. Many California affiliates would simply have to move their businesses to another state.

As Forrest… Read More

FR friend and Assemblyman Tim Donnelly has produced an awesome video, worth a few minutes of your time. Our favorite part is when he takes the entire section on the California Air Resources Board and literally rips it out of the massive budget document… He then tells the folks at CARB, "Don’t worry, we’ll recycle this," as he drops their budget into his office shredder…

Check it out…

1.18.11 Asm. Donnelly / Budget Shreding from CA Assembly GOP on Vimeo.… Read More