As a staunch conservative, attending the largest Democratic Party event has been quite an experience. There’s the obvious hostility towards John McCain and all Republicans. But there’s also a shocking amount of ignorance about important issues like national security. It’s actually quite sad to engage in discussions with people so close-minded that even broaching issues perceived as conservative or Republican elicits vitriolic reactions.

But apart from the clash of worldviews, there are many lighthearted, humorous occasions that accompany every political convention. For instance, running into the “Nader’s Raiders” in front of the capitol and being invited to their party this week. Nader for President sponsored the huge liberty bell balloon advertising his plea to be included in the upcoming presidential debates.

No political convention would be complete without a vast variety of paraphernalia, many very clever and funny.… Read More

Demonstrating a complete lack of engagement in what should be a hands-on negotiating process towards a state budget, John Laird, the Chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee is partying up in Denver.

I guess Laird figures, as an ultra-liberal, that he is not going to support more cuts — I’m sure he’s ready to fly home to vote for a tax hike (don’t worry, there aren’t votes for one).

If Laird wants to avoid being booed in Denver, he’d best keep it quiet that he is, “that nut from California that wants to massively increase taxes on beer…… Read More

I’m sure many of you have heard of the colloquial expression, “That is a false choice…”

For those who haven’t heard of the expression, a “false choice” is when you provide two options, insisting that you have to choose one of them, when there are other viable options.

A false choice is what is being presented to Californians in the current budget debate when saying that to solve the budget crisis, we either need to raise taxes, or we need to raid special funds.

The painful reality for Democrats is that the other choice — the obvious choice — are more cuts — the kind of cuts that require a serious look at eliminating state departments or agencies, eliminating bureaucracy. Serious reduction in state spending means eliminating expensive state jobs.

The false choice must be discarded, and all of the pressure in this budget debate must be placed on more shrinking of a state government that has increased in size by 40 percent in just five years.… Read More

Anthony York of Capitol Weekly is blogging from the DNC Convention in Denver. He just let us know that Hillary blew off (due to a "scheduling conflict" her welcoming remarks to the California delegation). Keep an eye on Anthony’s blog posts here.

Oh yes, for fair and biased coverage, look for Meredith Turney’s occasional updates on the FR Blog, and longtime FR friend and former State GOP Chairman Mike Schroeder’s blogs from Colorado… Read More

SB 1407 was revised. This is Ron George’s Judicial Council and liberals trying to go around the people with a revenue bond to build more courthouses. The fees fall on those that really don’t burden the court system.They unjustly fall on motorists, which is why AAA opposes the bill.

Well, the bill got a little worse in the last session of the Assembly as Democrats ammended the bill to say that once the $10 billion in bonds are paid off the fees don’t go lower they go to on going operating costs.

That’s right it’s about dinging the little guy to finance the operations for unnecessary lawsuits and rewarding courts that aren’t even open nights and weekends.

SB 1407: More debt without voter approval, more bureaucrats without accountability. Hooray.… Read More

Much has been written about the August budget put forward by Governor Schwarzenegger last week. At his press conference announcing his plan, the Governor said that his budget plan was “a fiscally responsible compromise” and will “put our state on the road to fiscal sanity.”

In reality, after spending some time looking it over, and discussing it with state policy experts in more detail, the Governor’s proposal will do nothing of the sort. It includes more borrowing and higher taxes on hard-working Californians so the liberal majority in the Legislature can increase spending by billions of dollars. Worse for taxpayers, his plan will still leave California with a $7 billion deficit next year.

The Governor said that more borrowing in the budget is “not a wise idea and I will not do that.” This is very confusing because on the face of it — well, it’s not true. When I look over the plan, I see billions in… Read More

Much has been written about the August budget put forward by Governor Schwarzenegger last week. At his press conference announcing his plan, the Governor said that his budget plan was “a fiscally responsible compromise” and will “put our state on the road to fiscal sanity.”

In reality, after spending some time looking it over, and discussing it with state policy experts in more detail, the Governor’s proposal will do nothing of the sort. It includes more borrowing and higher taxes on hard-working Californians so the liberal majority in the Legislature can increase spending by billions of dollars. Worse for taxpayers, his plan will still leave California with a $7 billion deficit next year.

The Governor said that more borrowing in the budget is “not a wise idea and I will not do that.” This is very confusing because on the face of it — well, it’s not true. When I look over the plan, I see billions in… Read More

Monday’s schedule calls for our floor session in the afternoon, 1PM [or so] and also a key hearing of the Special Session Committee on Water. A couple water bond ideas will be heard [containing real storage?] as well as a bill on assessingthe green house gas effects by building water supply.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday have nothing scheduled other than we are "on call of the Speaker." Friday has a floor session scheduled with Sunday being the last possible day to handle this years legislation [that is, without extraordinary steps to take any up after, such would require a super-majority to bring up]

Should be an interesting week, with bonds proposed and late nights likely.… Read More