5th Assembly District Race Update – Andy Pugno in Almost Complete Control

It started on March 3rd when Senator Dave Cox and Assemblymember Roger Niello endorsed Andy Pugno. This significance of these two endorsements was huge.

It meant that the Sacramento Republican Establishment was not able to recruit a more Moderate Republican candidate and they yielded to Pugno.

Then on March 9th – Niello Made it official and it was determined that there were going to be five Republicans in the primary.

When the CRA was called to endorse, I stood up for Andy Pugno and then blogged about why I stood up for Andy Pugno.

Pugno raised a boatload of money and pulled the establishment in with him – kicking and screaming…

Cop Killer Clemmon’s Clemency Kills Gov. Huckabee’s Political Hopes

Gonna run for President in 2012 Mike? Good luck with that.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s hopes for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination have been dealt a major blow by his 9-year-old decision to commute the sentence of Maurice Clemmons – the man suspected of killing four police officers near Seattle early Sunday.

“It will be extremely damaging,” said Diana Banister, a Washington-based publicist for Republican causes and candidates. “His GOP primary rivals will use it to their advantage against him.”

Mr. Huckabee, who has led in some early polls for the Republican nomination, faced similar questions during the 2008 Iowa Republican caucuses over the case of Wayne DuMond, another Arkansas convict to whom he offered clemency in 1997 and who subsequently was convicted of murdering a woman in Missouri.

“It will be the Republican version of the Willie Horton issue that GOP surrogates used against Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate in 1988,” Ms. Banister said. Read the rest: Washington Times

A Whole Lotta People Marched Against Spending In Washington 9/12/2009

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Schwarzenegger to Sign Bills Closing Deficit Next Week

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he supports the plan the Legislature approved today to erase a $26 billion deficit that pushed the most-populous U.S. state to the brink of insolvency.

The Senate and Assembly passed the package of more than two-dozen bills though a marathon 18-hour session. Schwarzenegger told reporters afterwards that he will sign the budget reduction plan within days after using his line-item veto authority to trim spending and bolster state reserves.

Passage of the plan promised to end a two-month partisan battle over how to eliminate holes that emerged in the $100 billion budget just months after spending cuts and tax increases were enacted in February. Voter refusal in May to authorize borrowing against the state lottery added $5 billion to the gap. Without a balanced budget, California paid bills with IOUs to avoid running out of cash, and the ratings on $72 billion of bonds were cut close to high-yield, high-risk junk status.

“This is not an easy budget but it’s a necessary budget,” Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said. “California has experienced an unprecedented drop in revenue, and we must learn to live within our means.”

The package cuts spending by $15 billion, including $6 billion from schools and community colleges, $3 billion from universities and $1.2 billion from prisons. It also raises $4 billion, in part by accelerating personal and corporate income- tax withholding and increasing the amount withheld by 10 percent.

Father Of The Main Stream Media Dies-Goodbye Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite, icon of the American TV news, dead at 92.

“He told it the way it was, more than an anchor, he was an icon, the voice that Americans trusted most”. -CBS News, the Saturday Early Show

How far we’ve come. Cronkite spawned the evening news as his 15 minute nightly broadcast was extended to 30 minutes. Competitors ABC and NBC launched their news programs.

Over the the years much of the American public became addicted to their 30 minute nightly news fix. The network news departments and their titans like Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley and others decided what stories to present, and how to present them. For years ABC, CBS and NBC drove American opinion with their monopoly.

When the first 24 hour Cable News Network launched, everything changed. The big three lost their monopoly. Over the years, as more cable news outlets launched the influence of the big 3 network’s nightly news waned.

Somewhere along the way it became fashionable for reporters to become part of the story, instead of simply reporting it. And since then, the news, especially where politics is concerned has deteriorated into a cacophony of ideology where reporters try to influence the landscape of American opinion.

“And that’s the way it is…. ” Walter Cronkite used to say as he signed off each night, and people believed him. Was there really that much integrity back then, or is it just how we want to remember it?

That may have been the way it was, but it sure isn’t the way it is, anymore.