Remember when you were younger and you and your friends would build jumps for your bikes? I visited this track described below and believe me, it was great! When I was there there were no beer cans and nobody was doing drugs – just a bunch of great riding going on. And then county code enforcement bulldozed it. Furthermore – in Riverside County, all million plus square miles of it, off road vehicle use has been banned. Period. I am convinced that government will not rest until allfun has been wiped off the face of the earth.

From today’s Riverside Press Enterprise… A group of Inland kids banded together last fall and built a bicycle motocross course on an empty lot.

Taking the initiative to create their own fun, they spent hours digging trenches and building towering mounds, upon which they rode their bikes to perform spectacular jumps.

Even some adults whose property overlooked the site were impressed by the camaraderie of the neighborhood kids

Today’s Valley Times revealed that Bill Ayers will be part of the St. Mary’s College speakers series this month. Assuming that the theme of the series must be something to do with domestic terrorism, I read on, sure I would see Ted Kaczynski on the line up. Evidently, he was booked.

In actuality the theme of the speakers series is “Against the Grain,” and the other speakers include a woman who is overweight and proud of it – she wrote a book called “Fat! So?”; a man who (sniff, sniff) gave up his life of luxury to live off solar power; the founder of a group of “outlaw bicyclists” that he believes are creating the future today; and a “premiere hip-hop historian and deejay.”

Wow, way to be totally boring and irrelevant to what’s happening in the Bay Area, St. Mary’s! I can’t think of a single reason that anyone would attend such a lame speakers series when unemployment is crushing us, home values are falling off the charts, and to top it all off…the Governor is thinking about taxing golf! We’ve got real problems, and you’re encouraging your students to go “against the grain”?

If you want to serve the needs of your… Read More

It amazes me that there continue to be calls for raising taxes to resolve a state budget fiscal emergency that has been caused by OVERSPENDING. It also amazes me that hiking taxes continues to somehow be “on the table” in budget negotiations. Raising taxes in this situation should be a non-starter for two very basic reasons. The first of which is that while I admit that there is never a good time to raise taxes (Californians are already burdened with practically the highest tax burden in the entire nation), certainly hiking taxes in the middle of a recession has to be the stupidest idea I have over heard. The second reason is that raising taxes requires the votes of Republican legislators. What Republican, in their right mind, would respond to our state’s OVERSPENDING-CREATED financial mess by punishing taxpayers, and violating their pledge not to do so?

If there was ever a line-in-the-sand issue, this is it. In adverse times comes real opportunities for reform – and while many want that… Read More

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be looking at the various upcoming races for California Republican Party office, in advance of the State GOP’s organizational convention taking place in late February in Sacramento. At this coming convention, approximately 1500 delegates will vote for the offices of Chairman, Vice Chairman, and for Regional Vice Chairmen up and down the state. I am the current Vice Chairman for the Southern Region, and so I am pretty engaged in this process.

We have asked all of the known candidates for party office to submit a column, that we are going to publish here on the FlashReport. If it is a race where I have weighed in with an endorsement, we’ll share that, too. Which is certainly the case with our first profiled race for Vice Chairman, Central Valley Region.

Well, actually, I am not sure I would call it a race. I am pleased to endorse and recommend the re-election of Laura Gadke, who is seeking re-election to a second term (due to term limits, you can only serve two terms). Laura is a strong conservative, and is the kind of leader who is part of the solution, not part of the problem. I have heard… Read More

Michael Steele, former Benedictine Monk, county Republican chair, state chair, elected Lt Governor of very blue Maryland has won the overwhelming support of members of the California Republican Party.

The RNC chair’s race takes place this Friday. Only 168 people get to vote. After months of campaigning, with some rough campaigning [See my prior posts on the RNC race… Read More

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be looking at the various upcoming races for California Republican Party office, in advance of the State GOP’s organizational convention taking place in late February in Sacramento. At this coming convention, approximately 1500 delegates will vote for the offices of Chairman, Vice Chairman, and for Regional Vice Chairmen up and down the state. I am the current Vice Chairman for the Southern Region, and so I am pretty engaged in this process.

We have asked all of the known candidates for party office to submit a column, that we are going to publish here on the FlashReport. If it is a race where I have weighed in with an endorsement, we’ll share that, too. Which is certainly the case with our first profiled race for Vice Chairman, Central Valley Region.

Well, actually, I am not sure I would call it a race. I am pleased to endorse and recommend the re-election of Laura Gadke, who is seeking re-election to a second term (due to term limits, you can only serve two terms). Laura is a strong conservative, and is the kind of leader who is part of the solution, not part of the problem. I have heard… Read More

Here is an interesting read from Stateline.org, a political website. The story, "Strapped states eye prison savings," is a rather long piece that examines what other states are doing to mitigate prison crowding.

Unfortunately for the people of Kentucky, the governor and legislature decided that saving money was more important than protecting citizens when they passed a law to release 1,800 felons early from prison — some of them rapists, murderers and other violent criminals.

Without giving specifics the article also mentions that lawmakers in some states are using satellite tracking (GPS) to monitor less dangerous offenders like drunken drivers. GPS is a vanguard tool for law enforcement agencies. For local jails, it allows the sheriff to place less dangerous offenders on house arrest while wearing a GPS ankle bracelet, allowing the more dangerous offenders to spend their full sentence behind bars.

The governor signed a bill last year (that I authored with Democrat Senator Gloria Romero) that allows the Los Angeles sheriff to place prisoners on involuntary house… Read More

As regular readers of this blog know, I supported the Rescue Plan (TARP program) last October and believe that this program, along with the aggressive monetary actions by the Fed, prevented a collapse of our still damaged financial system. I also support a large stimulus plan in order to hasten a bottom to this economy and hopefully save many people their jobs, homes, and businesses.

But the Democrat’s $825 billion stimulus plan now working its way through the House, is nothing short of awful. We are expected to vote on this plan on Wednesday, and in all honesty, I refuse to call it a “stimulus” plan since it contains so few stimulative characteristics. Instead, I will hereinafter refer to it as the “Big Spending” plan.

Let me explain.

The purpose of any stimulus plan is to take the recession which we are currently mired in and make it shorter and shallower. If the stimulus doesn’t do that, then it will have a negative effect since it will increase borrowing, increase deficits, and generally retard medium and longer term growth… Read More