theBlogs

CRO Blog contributor commentary 3/21/03 Jackie Goldberg: Hitler and Bush. 3/20/03 The sound of losers. I quit! You’re fired! 3/19/03 The show must go on! 3/17/03 Democrats for Saddam. 3/14/03 Cal Dems gonna split on war? Nah. Hillary fundraiser gets nailed. Lahane snatched. UCI prof dazed and confused by Prager. go to CRO Blog

The Shadow Controller ...blogging mcclintock “The policies that turned a $9 billion surplus to a $24 billion deficit in just 18 months are continued and expanded in a state budget which, though just three weeks old, is already unraveling before our eyes." -Tom McClintock 2/23/02 3/14/03 The plea to save police and fire services is a disinformation scam to let loose the Car Tax. 2/21/03 A history lesson: raise the sales tax and watch retail sales plunge. go toThe Shadow Controller

...it's the spending, Stupid. 3/21/03 Money laundering the budget. 3/17/03 Lord Gray’s clean hands. 3/13/03 Times says “cut,cut,cut” go to The Fabulous Budget

3/20/03 Save Saddam Fashion Accessories. Let the stars rip way on Oscar night. 3/19/03 Chicks: we don’t care if you’re sorry. 3/17/03 Martin Sheen: Don’t hate us because we’re famous. Calling them out by name. 3/15/03 The President of the Left go to Celebrity Brigade

3/21/03 Hey Rep. Stark, it’s not too late to be a human shield. Golden State sorta human shields. Pukers4Peace. 3/20/03 Rushing to the streets of San Francisco to scream in the night. 3/14/03 Save Saddam at the Cal Dem confab. Anarchists for Saddam. go to The Western Front

3/17/03 With friends like these. 3/13/03 Visionless/ Opportunistic? 3/11/03 64% unfavorable, but recall lacks momentum. go to The Recall Follies

3/21/03 The House condemns the 9th Circuit ruling. 3/16/03 Spitzer slams early release. 3/14/03 9th gets an adult. 3/9/03 Debra Saunders and 3 strikes. Chemerinsky makes the wrong case. 3/7/03 Volokh on Megan’s Law 3/6/03 9th Circuit now has its own special view of parole. go to JurisImprudence

The Week: 3/16/03 – 3/22/03

OC Register Budget Index
Today's deficit index: $49.4 million, the amount needed per day through June 30, 2004, to balance budget. Fluctuates with changes in economy, taxes, state service levels and the time the state has left to correct the problem.
Budget Update at OC Register

CALIFORNIA EXPORTS
From Opinion Journal
Unmoored From Reality
An ideological con artist is the favorite for an Oscar.
By John Fund
3/21/03

With Hollywood in a fever pitch against the war in Iraq, Michael Moore is likely to win the Oscar for Best Documentary at Sunday's Academy Awards. "Bowling for Columbine," Mr. Moore's work of anti-American propaganda, has grossed over $15 million, an amazing sum for a film billed as a documentary. But the film, a merry dissection of America's "culture of fear" and love of guns, is filled with so many inaccuracies and distortions that it ought to be classed as a work of fiction.

Mr. Moore is naturally a big hit among the French. The jury at the Cannes Film Festival created a special, one-time only award to honor his film and then gave it a 13-minute standing ovation. "Not since Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer have we seen such a successful export of anti-Americanism," observes Andrew Sullivan in London's Sunday Times.
more at Opinion Journal

SAVE SADDAM – THE CELEBRITY BRIGADE
From FrontPage
The Shame of Hollywood
By Tammy Bruce
3/21/03

While most of us are disgusted by the hypocritical attitudes of actors during this time of life and death, it really shouldn’t surprise us. They’re what I term in my new book The Death of Right and Wrong “malignant narcissists.” People like Susan Sarandon, Dustin Hoffman, Selma Hayak and others cannot see beyond themselves, while they then wrap their fear, self-obsession and hate in the banner of “peace” or “justice.”

The fact that the Oscar® show isn’t being cancelled is only one indication of the absurd hypocrisy the Leftists in Hollwyood represent. The awards producer has insisted that the truncation of the pre-show red carpet extravaganza is to de-glam the proceedings, but people in this town know the real reason. The privately acknowledged reality is that the actors are afraid to be in public and afraid to be asked questions about the war. At first, scores of celebrities demanded to be allowed to enter the back door of the Kodak Theatre because of concerns of terrorism, and the risk it posed being too close to “regular” people.
more at FrontPage Magazine

SAVE SADDAM – THE WESTERN FRONT
From FrontPage
San Francisco Street Subversion
By Brian Sayre
3/21/03

As the day progressed, their point became more clear - to cause as much havoc as possible. Despite the best efforts of the San Francisco police force, they were unable to clear the streets, no doubt because of their refusal to lower themselves to the protestors' violent level. By mid-morning, at Post and Grant, people pushed cars out to blockade the street. By noon, crowds were roving up and down Market, blocking traffic - and just when the police had restrained a large number by the Federal Building, and were preparing for a mass arrest, a 'Black Bloc' of anarchist protestors assembled elsewhere and began their own march. Leading a march reportedly two thousand strong, this black-clad mob headed for the Financial District, opening a fire hydrant and breaking windows - windows of police cars, windows of the Federal Building.
more at FrontPage Magazine

SAVE SADDAM – THE HOME FRONT
Why Can’t We Be More Like the French?
The California Assembly can’t bring itself to support the troops and the President.
by Streetsweeper
3/21/03

With our troops in harm’s way – rushing headlong toward the liberation of Iraq and the disarmament of Saddam Hussein – the progressive ideologues in the Assembly can’t bring themselves to voice support the President and our troops.

Quoted from the Bee Jackie Goldberg reminds us of her deep seated political animus for the President ["It's not about supporting the troops; it's about embarrassing people who hold a different viewpoint and trying to shut up dissent in America," said Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles. "It's a very un-American thing to do." | Goldberg said she does not blindly buy the argument that everyone should rally behind the president once fighting breaks out. | "That's exactly what the Germans did around Hitler," Goldberg said. "And look how the world condemns them now for being quiet. ... Nobody wants our troops to be killed, but supporting them is getting them out of there."]

It’s great to know that so progressive and that we have so much in common with the French.

CALIFORNIA EXPORTS
From American Prowler
Motion Pinko Arts and Sciences
By The Prowler
3/19/03

On Sunday night, the Academy Awards will allow all winners to make a political speech -- if they choose to do so -- of between 45 seconds and one minute in length.

"As long as it's in good taste, we're happy to let these citizens speak their minds. Obviously our government doesn't care about what they say, or else we wouldn't be going to war," says a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in New York.
more at The American Prowler

FROM THE SF CHRONICLE
Wilson for Senate
By Debra J. Saunders
3/18/03

Former Governor Pete Wilson has been enjoying himself since he was term- limited from office. He's had his fun. He has learned to drive again -- not that he's an ace behind the wheel, according to my sources.

So it's time for Wilson to get back to work: He should run against Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

The California Republican Party needs the win -- and Wilson is the most likely person to deliver it.
more at the SF Chronicle

FROM THE OC REGISTER
Incoming: a Deluge of Democrats
Early primary makes state a magnet for would-be presidential nominees
by Doug Gamble
3/18/03

If a visitor asks for directions in Anytown, California, over the next 11 months, they might sound something like this: "Go down a block, turn left at John Kerry, continue on past Dick Gephardt, hang a right at Joe Lieberman, go another block past John Edwards, take another left at Howard Dean, and it's right across the street from Al Sharpton."

California is going to see so many Democratic presidential candidates so often between now and next March's primary that municipalities might want to consider installing "Caution: Democrats crossing" signs on street corners.
more at OC Register

CALIFORNIA EXPORTS
Our Academy Award Predictions
We think that socio-politics will guide the voting.
Streetsweeper (posted 3/17/03)

Here at CRO we’ve put a political barometer against the Academy nominee list and come up with our own prediction of how progressive Hollywood will vote. The upcoming ceremony is a perfect opportunity for a Tinseltown message to America. You see, for Hollywood 9/11 is over – it was a “tragedy” and it’s behind them, sort of like the credit roll at the end of a disaster flick. This Iraq thing is bad, the evil corporate U.S. – led by an illegitimate President – is going to spill blood for oil. Hollywood has a unique opportunity to make a statement. Sure, some of the winners will spout cocktail napkin ideology from the podium, but collectively the members have an opportunity to speak to the world with their votes.

Okay, maybe we’re way out on a limb, but here’s the basic idea. “The Hours” is a glorious vision of core Hollywood “American Beauty” values with a heavy dose of feminism and bisexuality. Perfect. “Chicago” is a Watergate-era anti-government romp with Fosse sexuality. See? “Gangs of New York” creates a new mythology of the Irish worker class that fits with the socialist worldview of Academy voters and it’s got proletariat sex. Got it?
go to whole column

FABULOUS BUDGET
FROM L.A. DAILY NEWS
Davis Crafted
by Chris Weinkopf
3/17/03

A fresh take on an old philosophical riddle, courtesy of state leaders in Sacramento: If a tax goes up, but no one votes to raise it, can anyone be held accountable?
Gov. Gray Davis is hoping the answer is no.

Desperate to fill his 11-figure budget deficit, the governor has long been itching to triple the state car tax, but didn't want to take the political heat for socking the average California family to the tune of an additional $124 a year -- and a lot more for families owning more than one car or newer models.

For a while, he tried dumping the responsibility onto state controller and would-be successor Steve Westly, but Westly would have no part of it. Two months into office, he wasn't about to commit political suicide.

So last week, the two Democrats came up with a compromise: No one would raise what's euphemistically called the "Vehicle License Fee." It would raise itself, like a tree -- a tree in the forest, one that no one can hear.
more at LA Daily News

The Week: 3/9/03 – 3/15/03

SAVE SADDAM: the celebrity brigade
FROM NATIONAL REVIEW
The President of the Left
No, he’s not president. Martin Sheen only plays one on TV. But ...
By Andrew Stuttaford
Posted 3/14/03

If there is anyone more sanctimonious than The West Wing's Jed Bartlet, it's the moralizing old ham who plays him. But prissy, preachy Martin Sheen wasn't always this way. There were times, back in the depths of the wicked, whacked-out 1970s, when today's straitlaced star was a boozer, a three-packs-of-cigarettes-a-day man, and who knows what else. It was also the decade when he gave two of the greatest performances in the history of American cinema. As the restless, murderous Kit Carruthers, Sheen was an astonishingly convincing guide to the beauty, brutality, and strangeness of Terrence Malick's hypnotic Badlands. In Apocalypse Now, he took audiences on a different journey, this time deep into a heart of darkness so profound that it engulfed not only the character he portrayed but also, ultimately, Sheen himself.

The making of Apocalypse Now was — like the war it described — a chaotic, prolonged nightmare, with the tropical heat of its Philippines location only adding to the pressure on an actor "interiorly confused" and also busy partying far, far too hard. By the end of filming, Sheen had suffered a heart attack so severe that he was given last rites. But the "white light" that was, reportedly, a part of his near-death experience seems to have had an effect roughly equivalent to that more famous light seen on the road to Damascus. He cut back on the drink, reconnected with the Catholic Church, and, in the ominous words of a profile in the London Daily Telegraph "took up politics." While his movie career seemed doomed never to regain its former heights (forget Damascus, the road from Apocalypse Now to Beverly Hills Brats can't have been easy), when it came to politics, Sheen shone.
more at National Review

THE SHADOW CONTROLLER
Car Tax Distortions
The Shadow Controller says that the Car Tax is not linked to police and firefighters.
By Tom McClintock, Shadow Controller
posted 3/14/03

California's spending lobby has recently erupted into a veritable Mount Vesuvius of misinformation over the state's car tax. It amounts essentially to this: Unless the car tax is immediately tripled, police and fire protection will be decimated.

Come now.

In the five years since the car tax was reduced, local governments have not lost a penny of funding, and they won't in the future. It would take a vote of the Legislature to approve such a reduction, and both houses have already unanimously rejected the idea outright.
more at The Shadow Controller

FROM FRONTPAGE
Bay Area Activism
Robbing the Cradle for the Revolution
By Brian Sayre
3/13/03

Sarah Sloan is a bespectacled young woman in her early 20s, who looks like a typical college student. When she is speaking to audiences whom she wants enlist in the movement that has become her life, she presents herself as one of the chief organizers for International ANSWER, the main group behind the anti-war protests. She speaks both at rallies and in high schools to oppose the war.

But there is much more to Sarah Sloan than this. International ANSWER, is a front for the Worker's World Party, a self-styled "Communist Party," whose mecca is North Korea. Sarah Sloan is a functionary of this party. This is how she can make statements that seem more appropriate to an al-Qaeda communiqué, than to a "peace" organizer: "This is our task: to abolish NATO. And, moreover, to abolish the Pentagon."
more at FrontPage Magazine

FROM AMERICAN PROWLER
Spike Strip Tragedy
by George Neumayr
3/12/03

Last Sunday 22 illegal immigrants from Mexico piled into a stolen Chevrolet pickup and led the California Highway Patrol and the U.S. Border Patrol on a chase near San Diego which reached speeds of 95 miles per hour. The wobbly vehicle darted on to a central divider, traveled eastbound on a westbound interstate, and then spun out of control after the driver tried to bypass a police spike strip. The car flipped, resulting in the death of the driver and one other passenger and injuries to the other 20 passengers, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Guess who the Mexican Consulate in California is blaming for the crash: the reckless bordercrossers who imperiled innocent motorists and their own lives? No, Mexican officials lay the blame on U.S. authorities. The CHP and Border Patrol are guilty of "gross negligence" for using spike strips, says Consul General Rodulfo Figueroa.

This is crassness of staggering proportions. And yet such crassness largely defines Mexico's policy toward the United States. Mexico says its policy is based on "self-interest." Try shameless selfishness. In their mindless nationalism, Mexican officials won't give even the slightest nod to justice.
more at American Prowler

FROM FRONTPAGE
On the Tinseltown Beat
Hollywood Honors A Stupid White Man
By Jan Golab
3/12/03

By awarding Michael Moore for his film “Bowling for Columbine,” The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has once again demonstrated Hollywood’s leftist gulag mentality. “Columbine” is filled with inaccuracies, deliberate misrepresentations and outright lies, a fact already detailed in numerous published reports. A “documentary” filled with fiction, “Columbine” is an entertaining (and admittedly well-written) work of anti-gun propaganda.

Like most organizations on the left, the WGA has chosen to pursue agenda over truth. Like the Pulitzer Prize, this award was granted for excellence in the pursuit of liberalism.
more at FrontPage Magazine

CRO COLUMN
Two Worlds
By Hugh Hewitt, Principal CRO Contributor
3/12/03

March 9 was a beautiful, sunny Southern California Sunday, with tip-off at 12:30: Lakers vs. 76ers at Staples. Nearly 19,000 in attendance. A match between Kobe and Iverson, a test of Shaq's returning game.

CAMP 93, Kuwait – Navy construction battalions are finalizing plans to quickly build camps in Iraq for thousands of Iraqi prisoners of war, in an effort that is also designed to keep Saddam Hussein from being able to claim that captured soldiers are being mistreated ... Using aerial reconnaissance and other intelligence, Navy Seabees have already picked tentative locations for POW camps, although those plans could change depending on what happened on the battlefield.
–Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2003

The crowd is always the same. Penny Marshall with her baseball cap under the basket. Dyan Cannon wandering down behind the players. Barry Diller next to Jimmy Smits. And Jack, of course, though he was late. Church must have gone long. And thousands more of L.A.'s finest rising and falling stars and players and deal-makers, excruciatingly casually dressed.
whole column

FROM FRONTPAGE
Why Hollywood Hates Conservatives III
By Steve Feinberg
3/11/03

Being a conservative never has been easy in Hollywood. Being anything in Hollywood never has been easy. Now, things have been ratcheted up a notch and Hollywood is going after conservatives with frenetic bloodlust. Conservatives think that a war with Iraq is the only way to rid the world of the terrorist thug, Hussein, and to free a tortured and frightened people; that they may live their lives without the threat of being annihilated by that psychopathic clown with a hat fetish. Hollywood believes that UN inspection teams should go on forever -- like taxes, Route 10, and The Tonight Show. It believes that we are rushing to war; we believe that twelve years of broken resolutions are enough. Hollywood has forgotten about September 11th. Conservatives haven't. Hollywood is concerned that terrorists are being mistreated by America; conservatives are concerned that America is being mistreated by terrorists.
more at FrontPage Magazine

FROM AMERICAN PROWLER
Big Man on Campus
by George Neumayr
3/11/03

Ronald Reagan was "America's version of Adolph Hitler," says Todd Boyd, a tenured professor of hip-hop at the University of Southern California. Reagan was "a sad-ass actor" and "white in the worst possible way."

The Los Angeles Times calls Boyd "Notorious PhD." He will show up for class in sunglasses and a cravat, or more casually "wearing a blue Orlando Magic jersey over a gray T-shirt," reports the Times.

Tenure has given Boyd the green light to behave like a jackass, says the Times: "He says it was upon winning tenure six years ago that he decided to follow his instincts, figuring he had nothing to fear."
more at The American Prowler

FROM FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE
The Terrorist Popular Front
By David Horowitz
3/10/03

…At Stanford University, to pick one site, hundreds of students went on "strike" and 26 Stanford professors cancelled their classes in sympathy with the strike.

The National Youth and Student Peace Coalition has a website (www.nyspc.net) where the Stanford organizers of the strike are plainly listed (www.nyspc.net/strikelist.html) as the Stanford Labor Action Coalition and the Young Communist League - the youth branch of the Communist Party, U.S.A. Clara Webb, the president of the Stanford Young Communist League is listed as the contact person for both organizations…
more at Front Page Magazine

FROM THE OC REGISTER
Feds Shouldn't Bail Out State
Aid from D.C. would only prompt lawmakers to overspend even more
by Richard Vedder
Adjunct scholar with the American Legislative Exchange Council
3/10/03

Facing an unprecedented $26 billion budget shortfall, Gov. Gray Davis and state lawmakers are clamoring for a massive federal bailout. Some sympathetic congressional leaders offer support, arguing that a federal bailout would relieve the state's deficit while providing economic stimulus. Don't believe it. A federal bailout is the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
more at OC Register

§

And some
Lingering Observations

From SF Chronicle
Kuehl-Care is wrong Rx for Californians
Sally C. Pipes, President Pacific Research Institute
3/5/03

A new plan for a system of government health care in California is being touted by its author as a grand idea. That is a strange description for a measure that would be costly, counterproductive and a danger to the well being of all Californians.
more at Pacific Research Institute

CALIFORNIA EXPORTS: FILM=LIFE
American Prowler – The Life of David Gale
None Dare Call It Idiocy
By George Neumayr
3/5/03

Kevin Spacey, who stars in the anti-death penalty movie The Life of David Gale, made a blunder on Charlie Rose a few weeks ago. He told the truth. Rose was interviewing Spacey, the movie's director Alan Parker, and a few other members of the cast. Spacey said the movie's message in the end is "muddled." The others quickly corrected him. The proper word is "ambiguous," they told him.
more at American Prowler

FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Boycott Jim Hahn's L.A.
by Arnold Steinberg
3/4/03

"We ought to focus on sidewalks, not Saddam," prudently observed Los Angeles Councilman Jack Weiss. "I didn't run on a foreign policy platform."

Yet, nine of the 15 members of the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution against U.S. policy on Iraq.

"We're not a bunch of crazy councilmen," argued Councilman Ed Reyes, who inexplicably can discern stupidity from mental illness. Further, council members are not pro-Iraq, just pro-United Nations. How convenient.
more at The Washington Times


FROM THE AMERICAN PROWLER
The San Francisco Creep
By George Neumayr
3/4/03

San Francisco's latest fiasco -- the city's police chief and three of his top commanders have been indicted for allegedly covering up a police brawl over steak fajitas -- revolves around the city's crackpot district attorney Terence Hallinan. San Franciscans are asking: How did things come to this? The answer is simple: You elected a cop-hating former felon as your district attorney! more at American Prowler

From the Washington Times
As Pesky as France, But with Better Wine
By Wesley Pruden
2/21/03

SANTA MONICA, Calif. Not so long ago California was the mother lode of American politics, the place where both parties came to find issues, candidates and luck. Think Earl Warren, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan. Even, for one brief shining five minutes, Jerry Brown.

The only California pol with pizzazz now is Martin Sheen, the ersatz president of television's "West Wing," and his pizzazz is ersatz, too. But he's a celebrity, and celebrity is about all California has left from the glory days.
more at the Washington Times

From The Weekly Standard
The Boxer Rebellion
by Hugh Hewitt
2/12/03

CRO Contributor Hugh Hewitt previews the political climate facing the reelection of the Senate's most liberal member - our very own Barbara Boxer.

...If there were intelligence, grace, or good humor behind this hard left record, Boxer might be a more formidable candidate, but she lacks any of the qualities that can soften a fanatic's edge. Weekly Standard

FROM THE CLAREMONT INSTITUTE
Saving Democracy in California
by Ken Masugi
1/6/03

The opening of the California State legislature should strike fear into friends of liberty. While it is true that this particular legislature will be more inclined than previous ones to regulate and tax, and encourage moral license, similar fears have moved Californians going back to the Gold Rush days. whole column at Claremont.org

AND ELSEWHERE...