NEWS & COMMENTARY

June 27, 2008

Remember, don't put all your eggs in one basket in November's General Election

On the one hand, Bush 43 appointed Roberts, but only after one of the most concerted, expediently organized grassroots efforts we have seen in modern history, when Harriet Miers' nomination was derailed and extinguished and Roberts' nomination was moved forward and successfully completed. Leadership for the coalition of grassroots activists in position, Bush followed this turn of events with a formidable nominee in Alito.

On the other hand, we can look at the un-likelihood of McCain leading for any coalition of social and free market conservatives if we look at California's experience in backing Schwarzenegger for Governor. He has been on the wrong side of liberty in regard to property rights, energy, education reform, and free market solutions for healthcare to name just a few examples.
We, a lot of committed conservatives, supported him as the lesser of two evils. We knew he was green, but thought his professed discipleship of Milton Friedman would guide his principles of leadership and that he would do no harm to the economy for the sake of advancing green policy. We were wrong. He's caused major damage, not just to California's economy but, because of the size of CA's market and economy, to the US economy, by ushering in green policies that are costly, and do not have a sensible cost/return factor. He has come out against two property rights measures that would have stopped the powers that Redevelopment Agencies have over defenseless individual property owners, he supported an initiative to impose a statewide takeover of the healthcare industry and has expanded government and spending instead of limiting its powers and reducing its size as promised.

I think we need to look at our prospects via our numbers of purveyors and protectors of liberty in the Senate and Congress, and not count on McCain to be our point man.

He gave us McCain Feingold, and backed cap and trade to curb 'global warming.' These are not small transgressions. Both strike deeply at the heart of a free society and the political economic policy fundamental for its existence. He says he'll protect the Bush tax cuts, even though he opposed them when they were passed in the Congress.

We can only hope that he understands and believes the dynamic relationship between taxes and a strong economy. It would be great if he really does back saving the Bush tax cuts and eliminate earmarks. We need to have a strong enough team in Congress to support him on these two issues.

We also have to pay equal attention to the task of electing and re-electing candidates to congress, to protect our Constitutional liberties and freedom. We won’t have control over the Judicial Committee, but we’ve seen how it doesn’t require a majority to obstruct policy or nominees whom we oppose. We need to have enough representatives who can defeat efforts to impose cap and trade, nationalizing our energy resources and production and other draconian policies that will kill jobs and wipe out people's disposable income and savings. Healthcare is at high risk for becoming socialized.

It's hard to disseminate free market ideas that promote liberty when we're graduating pubic school educated citizens who can't read, write or think critically, and don't know what distinguishes a Free Republic from a Democracy.

Manny Miranda, who was a key figure in the campaign to derail Harriet Meier’s thinks McCain would be solid on nominees to the bench. I hope he's right. Meanwhile, I'd like to see more analysis of our overall chances of holding the line in the Congress, against the Democrats and their leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.


June 26, 2008

Immigration:  Hispanics love freedom, liberty, oportunity, their children, and want the best for them and for themselves.   Now, if only the God fearing Republicans would embrace Hispanics, such a powerful union would be born...

I wrote the following in response to a post that set me off, acknowledging Nicole for some things but dismissing her for marching with the immigrants during the marches. I am so frustrated with the damage perpetrated to the Republican Party's standing before Hispanics, on account of a blind rage over illegal immigration.

In CA, Nicole Parra is a moderate Democrat. Unlike the majority of Democrats in the Legislature, she recognizes the importance of small business in our State economy. She also understands very clearly, that small business owners, of all ethnicities make up an important part of her support base and that they create jobs and opportunity.

She's endured humiliation from Senate pro Tem Perata to stand her ground. My mom was born an American Citizen, but my father is from Mexico, and I grew up in LA. I can tell you it's hard to be a conservative Republican if you have any relatives, cousins, aunts, uncles, god parents, who are here illegally, or immigrated here legally but who have family in Mexico. People like me are going to always have compassion in how we see illegal aliens in this country. We see our own families in them. Those of us, who share in our Christian Faith, love the sinner even if we hate the sin. We want for there to be opportunity, and we respect justice and truth. We don’t respect or respond to language that disparages our families or our neighbor’s families, which often extend beyond our U.S. border.

We, a a majority, are Christian, and revere the sanctity of life, and we don't like to be told what to do. We want to protect the sanctity of our family, and want to protect our children from immorality. Individual liberty appeals to us. The possibility to be own boss is appealing to many of us. Free enterprise and entrepreneurship appeal to us. We care about our children and want for them to get the best education possible. We are sympathetic and inclined to support charter schools and vouchers, when given a choice.

Republicans could easily thrive in California as a Party, if we focused on rescuing children from failing, dangerous, abusive public schools and if we focused on winning support from legal immigrants on the other 90 percent of critical issues we face— energy, water, property rights, education, family and parental rights.

Instead, the loudest message that gets across to Hispanic immigrants, legal and illegal, is a caustic demand for 100 percent agreement on immigration policy or else.

We could win hearts and minds if we stood with the parents in predominantly Hispanic districts, whose children are trapped in failing public schools, if we encouraged them, and supported and coached them to fight for charter schools and quick immersion classes in English and better trained and experience teachers, as opposed to the high costs of small classrooms with new and inexperienced teachers.

Instead, these parents who don't have the organization or know-how are ignored and left to the Left, to drown in the failure which is funded by our tax dollars. My adopted party ignores them. Too busy criticizing any politician who shows any deviation from a zero tolerance for illegal immigration and this includes that any proposed policy that includes any pathway to citizen is hysterically dismissed as amnesty.

We spend almost half of California's budget on public education and get a negative return. More than seventy percent of the kids in public schools are below grade level in every subject, in every grade.

Children aren't learning how to read or write or what distinguishes us, a republic, from a democracy. They don't learn the tools that would make it possible us, outside of the Left dominated pubic school system, to disseminate powerful ideas that promote and advance individual liberty and freedom, and support the middle class, the essential cornerstone of a free society.

If the loud choir of anti-illegal-immigrant brethren, of my Republican Party would stop being so viscerally contemptuous of Hispanics, whom they feel compelled to qualify, between legal and illegal, and focus on securing liberty through limited government--for all, for free market health care solutions for all, and a sound education including American Government and proficiency in reading, writing and math, for all, we would thrive as a party, and Hispanic legal citizens would be engaged in our concerns for regulating immigration such that it was viable and mutually beneficial for all of us. After all, it's not as if our party is anti-immigrant, right?

If a charter school teaches in both Spanish and English, but gets grade level or above results in the fundamental learning disciplines that’s great! Sound ideas for truth, liberty and justice are powerful in any language—ask a successful missionary.
Look at the important fundamental principles and values we share and let us build bridges and make inroads or we will all perish.

Our party currently holds on to the power to derail tax increases by a margin of one in the Senate. We’re not much better in the Assembly. We are at a precipice and to continue to alienate and repel Hispanics is to give up.

We change our paradigm, not our values, now or we become completely irrelevant, and that outcome will not help anyone—except the purveyors of Big Brother.

May 28, 2008

Overwhelming Majority of Americans Oppose Lieberman-Warner Global Warming Proposal,

New Poll Suggests

Clinton, McCain and Obama at Odds With 90%+ of Americans

The poll, conducted by the Public Opinion and Policy Center of the National Center for Public Policy Research, found that 65% of Americans reject spending even a penny more for gasoline in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The number rejecting raising gas prices in an effort to combat global warming has increased by 17 percentage points -- or 35% -- in just over two months. The National Center conducted a similar survey in late February.

An additional 13% oppose spending more than 5% more for gasoline to attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A study commissioned jointly by the American Council for Capital Formation and the National Association of Manufacturers estimated that the Lieberman-Warner proposal would increase electricity prices by between 13% and 14% by 2014. Other econometric studies indicate that Lieberman-Warner would push electricity costs even higher.

When gasoline and electricity price increases are taken together, 90% of Americans reject Lieberman-Warner plan's costs -- even the low-range of the projected costs.

Opposition to higher gas prices was particularly pronounced among minorities, with 72% of blacks and 72% of Hispanics opposed to paying any more for gasoline to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This compares with 64% of whites opposed to paying more.

Hispanics led the way in opposition to higher electricity prices, with 77% opposed to spending any more for electricity, compared to 71% of whites and 69% of blacks saying they were not willing to spend more. (To read more about the study, click here.)

May 28, 2008

from the WSJ's Political Diary Subscription Newsletter: 

He's Seen Their Kind Before

The Senate is poised to debate a controversial "cap and trade" system that would put an overall limit on U.S. carbon emissions in an effort to combat global warming. Czech President Vaclav Klaus, an economist who has studied Europe's experience with cap-and-trade, flew into Washington yesterday to tell the National Press Club just how bad an idea it really is.

Mr. Klaus is the author of a new book, "Blue Planet in Green Shackles -- What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?" He argues that the regulatory ambitions of today's global warming crowd "resemble very much the dreams of communist central planners" who ruled his country from 1948 to 1989.

"The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is no longer socialism,'' he told the National Press Club. "It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism. Like their [communist] predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality. In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat -- this time, in the name of the planet."

After his talk, Mr. Klaus was asked why so many scientists seem to have climbed onto the global warming bandwagon. He replied that the careers and funding sources of many scientists now are dependent on "climate alarmism" and climate alarmists have become an interest group with the power to intimidate into silence skeptical colleagues and public figures. The climate issue, he added, "is in the hands of climatologists and other related scientists who are highly motivated to look in one direction only."

Yesterday, Mr. Klaus demonstrated that he remains one influential figure more than happy to challenge the conventional wisdom in public. He noted that he had several times challenged Al Gore to debate but had been refused. Mr. Gore has said that such debates would only elevate the skeptics, but he may have another motivation for avoiding Mr. Klaus. As the late William F. Buckley once put it, "Why does bologna reject the grinder?"

-- John Fund

May 28,2008

Our Collectivist Candidates

By David Boaz
The Obama-McCain shtick about self-sacrifice is distinctly un-American.

...."Or this year's Republican nominee. John McCain also denounces "self-indulgence" and insists that Americans serve "a national purpose that is greater than our individual interests." During a Republican debate at the Reagan Library on May 3, 2007, Sen. McCain derided Mitt Romney's leadership ability, saying, "I led . . . out of patriotism, not for profit." Challenged on his statement, Mr. McCain elaborated that Mr. Romney "managed companies, and he bought, and he sold, and sometimes people lost their jobs. That's the nature of that business." He could have been channeling Barack Obama."

..."Mr. Obama wouldn't send us into the military. All he wants is our souls. As his wife Michelle said at UCLA on February 3, two days before the California primary, "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. . . . That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

There is a whiff of hypocrisy here. Mr. Obama, who made $4.2 million last year and lives in a $1.65 million house bought with the help of the indicted Tony Rezko – and whose "elegant suits" and "impeccable ties" made him one of Esquire's Best-Dressed Men in the World – disdains college students who might want to "chase after the big house and the nice suits." Mr. McCain, who with his wife earned more than $6 million last year and who owns at least seven homes, ridicules Mr. Romney for having built businesses.

But hypocrisy is not the biggest issue...."  Opinion Journal.com, 5-28-2008

May 23, 2008

Mario Sevilla and The San Jose Mercury News have put up a great map of the Santa Cruz Mountains fire at Google maps.   Here's a link if you're looking for information on the fire.  Click here

May 6, 2008

I get a lot of questions about Prop 98, and 99.   "What about rent control?"  people ask me.  "Won't Prop 98 abolish rent control?" No.  It won't.  It phases it out.  If you live in a rent control unit, you're safer if Prop 98 passes than not.  Why?  Because you're not protected from the local or state or federal government using eminent domain to take the property you call home, to convert it to something that is of 'greater' benefit to the public.  

The best piece that I've read on 98 and 99, I love because it's straight and simple.  It's clear, and it's based on fundamental principles.  It's a short op-ed published today in the Sierra Sun:

My Turn: Prop 98 protects private property rights 

By Don Casler

May 5, 2008

The campaigns for Propositions 98 and 99 on the June 3 ballot are getting heated, and it would be no surprise if most California voters are confused by the two eminent domain-related measures. Link

May 5, 2008

Cinco de Mayo: RNHA Commemorates Cinco de Mayo

The Republican National Hispanic Assembly (RNHA) commemorates “Cinco de Mayo” for the historical event it represents. On May 5, 1862, a band of Mexican freedom fighters, which were outnumbered by an overwhelming force of European soldiers, fought the battle of Puebla . They defeated the European troops and eventually won independence from Spain in 1867. link

March 21, 2008:  David Mamet, welcome brother.

One of my favorite movies I watched this past year is The Lives of Others.   It is gripping, moving, stirring, haunting, loving, tender and poetic.   Irony upon irony, the dark oppressive tyranny of socialism, collectivism, stateism, all that our liberal leaders and their fans and enablers push us toward and romanticize, it exposes, in a story who's three main characters are an actress, (artist), a writer and playwright (artist) and a dedicated secret police official (statist).   If only all of our most talented artists could heed the lessons of this story... (link)

March 4, 2008

I was so lucky to be a witness to the convergence of so many accomplished  scientists and concerned leaders at the 2008 Conference on Climate Change, in NYC.

One of the attendees and speakers who impressed me profoundly, was Hon Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic.   He knows tyranny.  He was humble in his address, but the truths he spoke were explosive, if only a person will dare to hear or read his words and consider an alternative point of view, to that which marches forward with great stride and force and peril to our ability to live free of tyranny...You can read his message here( http://www.nzcpr.com/guest88.pdf) and here:

From Climate Alarmism to Climate Realism

Speech by Hon Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic

A MUST READ:  It is a primer on the essense of the issue of "climate change" and politics sweeping our country and the world.

Energy Keepers Energy Killers: The New Civil Rights Battle

by Roy Innis, Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

It's easy to understand how fundamentally important clean, reliable, affordable energy is to our ability to live free, eat well, be comfortable, have heat and cooling, and be able to commute, and to travel, to see our families who live across the state, country and world, especially now with gas prices in some areas at over $4.00 a gallon.   People are curtailing their travel for leisure, eliminating expenses not vital or basic, and a large growing number of  low income families are not making ends meet.   Their dollars are not going far enough for basic needs. (link) 

3-11-08

I got this great email today from my cousin Lupe.   It's making the rounds around all my cousins, and their families, which is exciting to me.  It's great to know that people are talking about taxes. 

Just some interesting information about how much Federal Tax you paid then and pay now:  

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html Check the figures yourself!


Taxes under Clinton 1999                Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $8,400           Single making 30K -- tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $14,000         Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $23,250         Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K - tax $16,800       Married making 60K - tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $21,000       Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $38,750      Married making 125K - tax $31,250

If you want to know just how effective the mainstream media is, it is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is "sticking it to them" and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever.  If a Democrat is elected both of them say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts.  A good portion of the people who fall into the categories above can't wait for that to happen. 

This is like the movie "The Sting" with Paul Newman-you scam somebody out of some money and they don't even know what happened.  Now this is effective, if dishonet, marketing, but maybe a better word is "brain washing."  (author unknown, but check the figures yourself at the link above)

I was so excited to meet Sr. Villa.  He reminded me of my grandfather, Pablo Montelongo, although my grandfather was a soldier who fought alongside Nava Villa's father, Pancho Villa, and they were all from Durango, Mexico, like my grandfather, and my dad.  I've always held this fancy of being a modern day warrior, an adelita, like the adelitas of the Mexican Revolution.  They cooked, carried and fired arms, and they stayed by their men...My cause as adelita is as a warrior for liberty and freedom...

Ernesto Nava Villa, son of Pancho Villa, 92, and me. Oct 20, 2007

September 30, 2007

Memo to Republicans: Reach out to minorities or lose

By Leslie Sanchez

The gaggle of Republicans vying for the GOP presidential nomination certainly represent the party's varying ideological shades. As a group, they aren't radiating “bold colors,” as Ronald Reagan famously advised was an important quality for a national leader. But they do reflect the many divergent groups within the broader Republican coalition.

The Republican Party has a problem with minorities

That coalition – when it holds together – has won five national elections since carrying Reagan to office in 1980. When it split, as it did in 1992, it allowed the Democrats to win the White House. (read the article here)

September 20, 2007

DIARY OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL EXTREMIST

The second of 2 Parts penned exclusively for The Flashreport

Yesterday, I wrote about the celebrations taking place this week surrounding the 20th Anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, and what it means to all of us in California.

We can't simply laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, because that's what the extremists want. Maybe they don't see the humor, but by dismissing these things as merely silly we implicitly accept their larger and dangerous purpose.

Just when you think that all of the left's political inanities have been exposed and expunged (Communism, Keynesian economics, socialized medicine, new math, look-say reading methods bilingual education, etc.) along comes global warming. (More)

September 19, 2007

AN "INCONVENIENT TRUTH" ABOUT THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL
Or... SORRY TO RAIN ON THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
The first of two parts...authored exclusively for The Flashreport

Global Warming is hot news in California these days, and cool politics as well. With Governor Schwarzenegger all but insisting this questionable scientific scare even exists, and Attorney General Jerry Brown slapped down trying to sue auto makers for raising the planet's temperature, it seems as if we are just now entering the dawning of the age of climate issue politics.

But, the truth is far scarier, for this specious so-called “reasoning” has been around for a long time. More

Saturday, September 15, 2007

WSJ--Opinion Journal  on line

Hot Topic  (yup, it's like the forest fires we get now in the West as a result of radical enviromentalists driving dangerous policies that cause historically high temp inferno blazes)

Hispanics and the GOP
How to lose elections in one Lou Dobbs lesson.

Saturday, September 15, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Between 1996 and 2004, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote doubled to more than 40%, only to fall in last year's midterm election to less than 30%. The most recent polls show Hispanics breaking for Democrats over Republicans by 51% to 21%. What gives?

To understand this remarkable erosion of Latino support for Republicans, look no further than the most recent Presidential debates. While GOP candidates debated the urgency of erecting a fence from California to Texas along the Mexican border, Democrats debated in Spanish on Univision.

To reverse current trends, the GOP need not resort to ethnic pandering, which is the left's metier. But Republicans would help their cause tremendously if the party at the very least adopted a welcoming stance toward Latino newcomers.

(read the rest of the story here)

Ruben Navarrette pens comentary on a variety of topics, but I especially anticipate his columns that address being Latino and politics... Here are few recent articles by him, that resonate for me: 

Sept. 12 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
The puzzle of the Latino identity : I've long thought that someone should make a documentary on the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the Latino experience in the United States.

Sept. 9 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Calderon's messages on immigration : Americans and Mexicans have more in common than you might imagine, and that's not necessarily a positive thing. People in both countries respond to illegal immigration into the United States in ways that are dishonest, insulting and counterproductive, and they spend too much time blaming each other for situations they helped create.

Sept. 5 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
A fair deal for Mexico's truckers : I've hit a fork in the road in my thinking concerning the unrelenting campaign by the Teamsters to deny Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways.

September 6, 2007

Take the Hit From a Bad Mortgage

S.F. Examiner Conmentary

by Martha Montelongo

 It's never a pretty picture when investments go bad. So it is with so-called subprime mortgages made to borrowers with imperfect credit.

Losses are mounting, and some lenders are looking for a bailout. Government should say no.

Some investors seeking a higher return lend to homebuyers with credit problems who aren't eligible for conventional mortgages.  (read more)

June 21, 2007

Government Retirement Benefits Reform Initiative Filed
Would Save Hundreds of Billions and End Pension Fund Abuses

SACRAMENTO -- The California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility today filed with the Attorney General's office a pension and retiree health care initiative that would save state and local government agencies hundreds of billions of dollars in retiree benefit costs and would end the expensive abuses which have increased costs and run up huge deficits for public defined benefit pension plans.

(more)

The Fable of Chicken Little: "The Sky is Falling! The sky is falling!" The stupid chicken ran around scaring everyone who naively and blindly listened to her, into trusting the  Fox to show them the way to safety! 

Class, do you remember that story?  Hope you didn't fall for Hollywood's recent attempt to make Little out to be a hero... If so, tisk, tisk... there may be hope for you, but you're pathetic.

Here's a movie and a report to see you through the fear mongering your government is using to scare you into handing over your wallet and your welfare in the name of saving the planet: Don't be chicken-- check it out:

An inconvenient truth, or convenient fiction?   

Fundraiser's timing questioned

S.F. lawmaker holds event a day before panel he chairs will deal with billions in spending.

By Jim Sanders - Bee Capitol Bureau

Last Updated 12:15 am PDT Thursday, May 31, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A3

"Assemblyman Mark Leno, the head of the powerful Appropriations Committee, denied the fundraiser would influence his decisions on legislation."

"Assemblyman Mark Leno sparked ethical questions Wednesday by holding a $1,000-per-person fundraising event just one day before the committee he chairs decides the fate of more than 600 bills totaling $8 billion in spending."  (More)

Dan Walters: Misleading term-limit words OK'd
By Dan Walters - Bee Columnist
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Sacramentan Al Reeder was attending a community celebration one weekend in April when a man approached him "with an armload of papers, asking if I would like to sign a petition."

The petition for which signatures were being sought was, Reeder learned, an initiative measure regarding legislative term limits, and the signature gatherer "stressed the idea that term limits for politicians would be decreased from 14 years to 12 years." Reeder says he was aware that such a measure was being proposed and asked some questions, but the man, he says, expressed ignorance about the details. Reeder didn't sign.

As an unusual but powerful business-labor-political coalition called the Committee for Term Limits and Legislative Reform gathers signatures, money and -- it hopes -- momentum to alter the state's 17-year-old term limit law, it is fundamentally misleading voters about its effect. (More)

Bob Suhr: Keep term limits as they are

Santa Cruz Sentinel

Sunday, May 13, 2007

It would appear that the public has finally found out the real reason for the early presidential primary in February 2008. Without it, Senate President Don Perata, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Santa Cruz County's John Laird, chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, will have been termed out of office in 2008, along with another 31 incumbent legislators. However, this primary will include an initiative, and if passed by the voters, will extend their terms in office — Nunez and Laird's for six more years, and Perata's for four more years.

The beauty of this initiative for these government careerists is the public face indicates that it is being promoted by the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Teachers' Association. The legislators, thus, did not have to appear to be submitting their own term-limits measure.

This certainly indicates that the present term-limits program in California is working, for neither one of those special interest groups would promote an initiative that would reduce its power or influence. (continued)

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Ballot Deceit
The Press Enterprise Editorial Page
Friday, May 11, 2007

California voters depend on clear, objective language to judge the merits of ballot initiatives. That principle is enshrined in state law. So Attorney General Jerry Brown has a legal responsibility to use unbiased wording to summarize a measure that would amend California's term-limits law, slated for the February 2008 ballot.

U.S. Term Limits, a national term-limits advocacy group, sued Brown on May 3 over the ballot language, alleging the attorney general wrote an "intentionally inaccurate and misleading" summary of the measure. It's tough to disagree. (continued)
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Term-limit summary's misleading
By Dan Walters - Bee Columnist
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

California's legislative term limits have been a mixed blessing at best. A cogent argument can be made for changing them to allow lawmakers to serve longer in one legislative house, rather than jumping back and forth.

Why, then, would legislative leaders and business and labor groups promoting a term limit overhaul mislead voters about what their ballot measure would do? Even more important, why would Attorney General Jerry Brown go along with that trickery by writing an official summary of the measure that echoes the misleading propaganda?

Voters, apparently disgusted by a corruption scandal in the Capitol, enacted term limits in 1990, restricting legislators to three two-year terms in the Assembly and two four-year terms in the Senate, for a maximum of 14 years in legislative office. (continued)

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U.S. TERM LIMITS FILES LAWSUIT OVER MISLEADING AND BIASED TITLE AND SUMMARY FOR PERATA/NUNEZ INITIATIVE TO WEAKEN TERM LIMITS

Wednesday, May 9, 2007 (check this out)

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Nannygate

Sunday, April 15, 2007

From cell phones to cigarettes, it's a scandal how many laws on the state Legislature's list for 2007 would tell you how to live your life. It will take more than a spoonful of sugar to make these intrusions palatable.

There's this:

The Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

And there's this:

The Declaration of Dependence: "We hold these truths to be generally agreed upon, that all men are regarded not exactly equal (some being more in need than others), that they are permitted by their Government to exercise some rights, but, more importantly, are required by their Government to conform to certain behaviors to achieve freedom from Want, freedom from Responsibility and freedom from Unhappiness."

Our assumptions dictate our conclusions. If we assume people's rights come from government, we logically can conclude it's OK for government to decide everything people must and must not do. 

But if we assume people's rights are unalienable and God-given (as the Declaration of Independence says), we end up with a far different conclusion. We logically can conclude government may do only what it legitimately is authorized to do (as the Declaration and Constitution say). (Click here to read more)

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Blood on the hands of US Drug users

Mexico's War

April 11, 2007  WSJ Opinion Journal's Political Diary

George W. Bush went to the U.S.-Mexican frontier to highlight his proposal for immigration reform this week. But on the other side of the border, a different U.S.-Mexico issue is getting most of the headline ink.

Since taking office in December, Mexico's new President Felipe Calderon has launched an all-out assault against the nation's organized crime networks, which supply U.S. narcotics demand. Given the money to be made under prohibition, it's not surprising that the drug cartels are not yielding easily. Rather, they've been fighting back with increasingly extreme terror tactics and threatening to turn Mexico upside down.

The month of March was one of the bloodiest on record for the country's "war on drugs." According to the Dallas Morning News, more than 50 people were killed in drug violence in a single week -- and not in only in notoriously rough cities like Tijuana but in traditionally stable locales such as Monterrey in the state of Nuevo Leon, which saw the brutal killing of a police officer, a police commander and numerous civilians. April hasn't started off too well either. On Good Friday, a reporter for the Mexican television station Televisa, who had just finished a radio interview in Acapulco, was shot in the back three times and killed. According to Reuters, local Mexican media also reported 12 other execution-style killings in Mexico on Good Friday. The killers have grown more vicious in their messages to would-be snitches, leaving behind severed heads, corpses with ice picks driven through them and most recently a Veracruz victim who had been castrated.

It's worth noting that lowly policemen, hundreds of whom are reported to have been handing in resignations around the country, are not the only targets. Last month Mr. Calderon confirmed that he and his family have been receiving serious death threats since he launched his "war." Nevertheless, Mr. Calderon says he's not giving in and that the war could last longer than his six-year term. If so, it looks like an awful lot of Mexicans are going to die for the cause of stopping Americans from using drugs.

                                                                                 -- Mary Anastasia O'Grady
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A Powerful One-Two Punch Against Legislature by US Term Limits

 by Jon Fleischman- Publisher

3-22-2007 10:53 am

"...Activist Anita Anderson has submitted another initiative to the Attorney General's office. The new proposed initiative is aimed squarely at one of the Legislature's key perks - gifts to legislators. Anderson 's first initiative would eliminate tax-free per diem for legislators. The new proposal is a sweeping ban on gifts to legislators from lobbyists, lobbying firms, or from "any entity that, during the previous twelve months, has employed a lobbyist or retained a lobbying firm or is a member of a trade association that employs a lobbyist or lobbying firm." That means no more junkets to Hawaii , golfing trips to Pebble Beach , or tickets to Kings basketball games or the Academy Awards." (Read the Flashreport Blog Entry here)

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California Focus: Perata locks out diversity of thought

Correa, 2 other senators punished for daring to fraternize with moderates

By MARTHA MONTELONGO

Orange County Register

Thursday, March 22, 2007

The political party of "tolerance and diversity" is not so tolerant or diverse when it comes to Latino legislators and their views about economic policies that affect small businesses.

March 5, state Senate President Don Perata, D-Oakland, locked three senators out of their offices, one for the entire day, to teach them a lesson. Perata refused to comment but Democratic aides let it be known to reporters that the lockout was intended to punish the three lawmakers for disobeying the leader's unwritten but well-known rule forbidding fraternizing with what has come to be known as the "moderate Democrat" caucus, aka the Mod Squad. The three sanctioned senators, all Latinos, were part of this moderate group when they served in the Assembly. (More)

3-19-07:

A proposed bill to change term limits would allow elected officials to serve for 12 years in the same seat in the Assembly or in the Senate, and would restart the clock for all of the incumbent legislators who under present law, are termed out of their currently held seats.  It would shut the doors on a crop of new and hopeful candidates who have been waiting for their turn to serve in office. 

Currently, elected officials may serve three 2 year terms in the assembly, and 2 four year terms in the Senate. 

The proposed bill, looks certain to pass both CA state houses, and to be signed by the Governor.  Proponents argue that it would stop the "musical  chairs" politicians engage in as a result of the existing term limits.  Opponents however point out the myraid of problems with changing the term limit laws from what they are now. 

The diversity we have acheived in the legislature is the result of term limits.  The term limits Initiative passed by the voters in 1990 opened the doors to an exponential growth in the number of minority and women legislators never before realized in the state of CA.  Ethnic diversity however, is insignificant if diversity of ideas is to be stamped out by allowing the ruling faction of the two dominant parties to lock down district office seats for 12 plus stretches at a time.  Senate Pro Tem Perata could essentially hold his seat until having served a total of 26 years!  Assembly Speaker Nunez could serve for 18 years in his leadership position. 

These two leaders demonstrate their iron fisted way of steering policy and agenda items by embarrassing and punishing their house members who express individual leadership, into submission. 

Term Limits Target of Measure:  Musical Chairs could diminish (So would opportunity and diversity of ideas and opinions)

WSJ Political Diary--Subscription E-Mail News Daily Publication

March 15, 2007

Term Limits vs. Perk Limits

California's legislature is getting ready to water down the state's 16-year-old term limit law by allowing members to serve up to 12 years in either house and by "grandfathering" in the existing Assembly and Senate leadership, allowing members, in effect, to restart the clock on their service.

Term-limit advocates can't do anything to block this incumbent-protection scheme from being placed before voters on February's primary ballot. But they believe they can defeat the proposal partly by promoting a countermeasure to stir up old populist resentment of legislative perks. The measure would strip away a legislator's cherished tax-free $153-a-day allowances for lodging and meal expenses incurred while the legislature is in session. The per diems add up to more than $30,000 a year for a typical solon.

Anita Anderson, a San Francisco political activist, says she believes the payments are a rip-off since often the legislature is gaveled into session and then immediately adjourned just so members can claim reimbursement for that day's "expenses." Ms. Anderson says she plans to publicize examples of per diem abuses if the legislature persists in trying to weaken term limits.

It's not as if state lawmakers will be able to plead poverty if the per diems vanish. They already earn $113,098 a year plus such perks as a state-leased car. That makes Golden State solons among the best paid in the country. Legislators I spoke to say they look forward to weaker terms limit that would enable them to stay in office a few more years. However, they should also consider how much less comfortable legislative life might be if they have to brown-bag their lunches and sleep on a friend's couch when convening in Sacramento.

                                                                                                   -- John Fund

How can letting Perata stay in his position for another 12 years help CA when he rules with a hammer and uses ruthless tactics to assure he controls the policy agenda?

Capitol divided over lawmakers' lockout Some see Perata's plan as display of strength to impose party discipline

By Steven Harmon and Steve Geissinger Oakland Tribune 03/19/2007

SACRAMENTO — It's been panned as a childish prank against fellow party lawmakers, a potential opening to a coup, even as an indication of Senate leader Don Perata's jitters over an apparently renewed probe into possible charges of political corruption.

But the Senate president pro tem's move this week to lock three Southern California members of his party out of their offices for a day was also seen as a show of strength, a shot across the bow of would-be moderate spoilers, and as striking a blow for liberals intent on passing strong environmental, health care and civil

justice bills this year. (More)

Big Sister, Big Brother Anyone? 

3-9-2007

I don't know what's up, if it's just some sort of convergence of consciousness, or someone put out a memo itemizing the stupid ideas that have been proposed in the last couple of months in Sacramento, but in the last two days, there are three news articles about law officials who are incompetent at dealing with the matters of un funded government employee pensions, prisons overflowing and felons being released, and California being financially broke and instead want to micro manage us!

Lawmakers in Sacramento busy themselves conceiving laws to regulate us ordinary-mind-our-own-business-citizens to death, to save us from ourselves, and they use our hard-earned money, forcibly expropriated by a shameless burden of taxes, fees and more "fees" for their ridiculous notions, with impunity.

1.Moving Ever Toward the Nanny State

SF Gate Friday March 9, 2007

WHEN REVIEWING the list of 2,760 bills introduced thus far in this legislative session, I am reminded of the old saying, "No man's life, liberty or property is safe while the Legislature is in session." (Mark Twain said that) Link

2. Sacramento baby-sitters

It's times like these when we long for the days when serving in the state Legislature was a part-time job. With too much time on its hands, the Democratic majority seems to be whittling wood instead of carving meaningful policy. (Continued)

3. Big mother is watching with new laws in mind

Democratic proposals to regulate behavior draw Republican scorn.

The mother of all special elections in CA is afoot 

3-6-07

The Democratic led Legislature has passed the bill to move the Presidential Primary up to February 8th.  It's sponsor, State Senator Calderon's statement concerning the reasoning and justification for its cost to CA taxpayers is jawdroppingly brazen and candid:  “The expense would be well worth the billions of federal budget dollars that potentially could come back to California by choosing a candidate sympathetic to our needs.”

You have to believe that our problems and issues are only resolvable with money from Washington, and not the direct result of waste and misappropriations, and poor and constrictive policy which drives manufacturing and small business from CA or deters its growth and vibrancy. 

Wouldn't it be something if Senator Calderon said his reason for wanting power and influence over DC was to lower the amount of tax dollars that are taken from California and our vibrant spirit and enterprise?  Wow!  What if he said he wanted us to have influence over the next president so that we could effect change in DC such that we could keep more of our hard earned income, in State, in our personal budgets and households, and our small businesses?   We've got a better shot at that if we don't move up our presidential primary.  Afterall, our voters have elected this type of legislator, who I'll bet never meets a tax increase or a fee for the average Jose, he doesn't like.

He loves to spend it, and the power--that's why he sees sugarplums in his head, at the thought of the Legislators having more influence in Washington. 

As for the cost of this special election, the first of two primaries in '08 we will have in CA, the second in June for State and local office elections,it is projected at nearly $90 million dollars.  Calderon's response to concerns regarding the cost to the local counties is arrogant and unsettling: " [He] pointed out that the Legislature did reimburse counties for their costs associated with the 2005 special election and expressed confidence that “we will do the right thing again.” 

Senator, can we get that in writing, as in a bill signed by the Governor?  And can you tell us how we will pay for it, not counting the billions that could "potentially" come to us from the Nation's taxpayers' money in Washington DC?  After all, you guys all promised that you'd take care of redistricting, but you killed that initiative last year in the legislature, and you can't seem to abide by our wishes to limit terms in office to keep you from becoming permanent and to encourage public service from the public sector, not professional career politicians, thank you. 

The most audacious thing about Calderon's statement is what he doesn't say, that their primary intention for this 'special' and super expensive primary, has everything to do with their self serving, self agrandizing aim to expand their amassed power in the Legislature by extending their terms in their currently held offices. 

This special election primary will allow them to put their measure to extend their terms in their currently held offices, on the ballot, and if passed, will allow many of the currently termed out officials to file in time to run for yet another term in June.  

SPECIAL REPORT

New Study Details Devastating Effects of

Eminent Domain Abuse on African Americans

Arlington, Va. - “Eminent domain has become what the founding fathers sought to prevent: a tool that takes from the poor and the politically weak to give to the rich and politically powerful,” concludes Dr. Mindy Fullilove in her new report released today titled, “ Eminent Domain & African Americans: What is the Price of the Commons? ” The report is available at http://www.castlecoalition.org/publications/index.html .

COMMENTARY

Thomas Sowell writes about tragedy of socialized medicine where it is now practiced, in Canada and England . I remember a reporter with Canada 's equivalent of our PBS interviewing me on health care, a few years ago. When I said people with fatal disease have to wait three to six months for care that is timely, and they die where they most likely could have lived, had they not had to wait so long...

His response was the same as that which politicians and supporters of Universal Socialized Medicine all know, but don't like to talk about or admit, that it is necessary to sacrifice very sick people to die for having to wait too long, as a trade off for the greater benefit of all people getting free basic health care. 

 So don't get cancer, or leukemia or heart disease, or liver disease, or any condition that requires urgent medical intervention and surgery to save your life. Because at that point you are a martyr who is collateral damage for a system that kills efficiency and strangles innovation, and throws us backward. 

Socialized medicine anyone?

By Walter E. Williams
February 14, 2007

Problems with our health-care system are leading some to fall prey to proposals calling for a nationalized single-payer health care system like Canada's or Britain's. There are a few things we might consider before falling for these proposals.
London's Observer on March 3, 2002, carried a story saying an "unpublished report shows some patients are now having to wait more than eight months for treatment, during which time many of their cancers become incurable." Another story said, "According to a World Health Organization report to be published later this year, around 10,000 British people die unnecessarily from cancer each year -- 3 times as many as are killed on our roads."
(more)

February 14, 2007

Schwarzenegger's Folly

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants all Californians to have medical insurance. So he's going to force them to have it.

Schwarzenegger abandoned his opposition to mandated employer-based health insurance and embraced the idea as his own. "Everyone in California must have insurance. If you can't afford it, the state will help you buy it, but you must be insured," Schwarzenegger said last month .

Of course, his "solution" won't solve the problem. By making medical care look cheap to people, expanded insurance will push prices up even faster. Everyone will end up paying more. But politicians benefit because the costs will be hidden.

(more)

The Most Expensive Special Election in the History of California, brought to you by the politicos who want to undo the will of CA voters for term limits 

February 2, 2007

Legislative leaders, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate Pro Tem Don Perata, led the fight to defeat the redistricting initiative which was on the special election ballot in November of 2005. They slammed it and Governor Schwarzenegger, for wasting the taxpayers' money.  It cost taxpayers between $45 and $60 million dollars. Nunez and Perata assured the voters that the special election was unnesseary and that they planned to deal with redistricting through the Legislature and that it would be a priority. 

The same two leaders, Nunez and Perata, killed redistricting during  the next  legislative session, in 2006.

Now we're supposed to believe that this time, they'll really give us redistricting, if we just let them hold another special election, so that they can extend their time to rule over us, although they're not calling it a special election. They're calling it the California Presidential Primary for '08.

It needs to be called the Politicos' $90 Million Dollar Special Election to Extend Term Limits 2008 Primary.

This will be the most expensive special election in CA