Boxer/Pelosi DC/CA TALKING POINTS This war is the result of the Bush Administration's failed diplomacy. | Uh, we support the troops. | A tax cut in wartime is a risky scheme. | We’re not extreme, our ideals represent the ideals of ordinary Californians.

OC Register Budget Index $62.2 million: The amount needed per day through June 30, 2004, to balance budget. OC Register

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theBlogs

CRO Blog contributor commentary 4/5/03 SFDA Ouch! The American Street-Jay Talking 4/4/03 Wesson’s Consulting Books. Practical Art. 4/3/03 Marin v. LeBoxer. LeBoxer Block. Bennett at UCLA. 4/2/03 Scalia in a Skirt. Eurocrats Rule. The People is Stupid. After LeBoxer. High and Mighty Times. 4/1/03 Puff Nancy. Underdog Vindicated. 3/31/03 Governor Lockyear. UnWeasel. 3/30/03 Uh, Where’s the Smoking Fajita? 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 3/28/03 In defense of Proposition 13. If keeping it intact is unfair, how fair is an $8,400 property tax bill? 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. 4/5/03 Max It Out. 4/4/03 Fixin’ Workers Comp. 4/3/03 Don’t Blame Us, We’re Bureaucrats 4/2/03 Lord Gray Squeaks By. 3/31/03 Rehabilitate Workers' Comp. 3/30/03 Are We Gonna Go Bust? 3/29/03 Unions tell Lord Gray to forget about it. go to The Fabulous Budget

4/5/03 Banana Boats for Saddam. 4/2/03 MCI’s Favorite Dissenter. Right Wing Hollywood. 3/28/03 Ms. Sarandon, stay home. 3/27/03 Less Moore, please. The Great One is great. 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. go to Celebrity Brigade

4/4/03 Bruins for Saddam! Yellow Ribbons Offensive. 4/3/03 Molotovs for Peace. 4/2/03 Oh, Yeah, Blood for Oil. We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! 3/31/03 Libertarian Rants. Touristas Unite! 3/30/03 Resist! 3/28/03 House Whip Weasel. 3/27/03 Touristas. Fools of San Francisco. go to The Western Front

4/4/03 75K and Counting. 3/30/03 Onward! 3/26/03 The paperwork’s done. 3/17/03 With friends like these. go to The Recall Follies

4/2/03 Gored by Their Own Ox 3/21/03 The House condemns the 9th Circuit ruling. 3/16/03 Spitzer slams early release. 3/14/03 9th gets an adult. go to JurisImprudence

The Week: 3/30/03 – 4/5/03

CRO Column
The Arrogance of Power
by Assemblyman Ray Haynes 4/4/03 | I always thought that debate in a republic such as ours would center on great ideas concerning our future. We would disagree, and engage in the debate to convince people that our ideas were better, and that we “deserve” power because society would be better off if our ideas, rather than the ideas of those who disagree with us, were implemented. Lately, in California at least, political debate has descended into a discussion of who ought to be in power, not why. Political debate is no longer intended to be a tool to educate voters, but rather an exercise in the maintenance of power through manipulation. [more inside]

CALIFORNIA EXPORTS
From National Review
Bowling Truths
Michael Moore’s mocking.
by Dave Kopel 4/4/03 | In the field of mockumentary filmmaking, there are two giants. Rob Reiner created the genre with his film This is Spinal Tap. Michael Moore has taken the genre to an entirely different level, with Bowling for Columbine. [more at National Review]

From OC Register
Fluent - But Not Fluent Enough
Schools have financial incentive to refuse to recognize student gains
By Lance T. Izumi 4/4/03 | With public education, there always seems to be a dark cloud that comes with every silver lining. Take the recent test scores showing a significant jump in the number of non- English-speaking students, also known as English- language learners, who have become English-fluent. That good news is offset by the fact that many school districts refuse to redesignate large percentages of these newly English-proficient students as being fluent in English, a refusal that results in the continued academic ghettoization of these children. [more at OC Register]

SAVE SADDAM – The Celebrity Brigade
From Page Six NY Post
Rise of Lunacy at CBS
by Richard Johnson 4/3/03 | The scraping sound you hear next month will be Hollywood's anti-Americanism hitting bottom with the CBS movie "Hitler: The Rise of Evil." Executive producer Ed Gernon says he sees the miniseries - starring Robert Carlyle, Peter O'Toole and Julianna Margulies - about Germany falling under Hitler's rule as a cautionary tale for, you guessed it, the American people during the Bush administration. Gernon tells the upcoming TV Guide that he, Margulies and director Christian Duguay believe it's a good idea to look at the Bush White House through the prism of the Germany's genocidal psychopath. A fearful American public's cooperation with Bush's policies, Gernon tells TV Guide's Mark Lasswell, is "absolutely" similar to post-World War I Germany's acceptance of Hitler's extremism. "I can't think of a better time to examine this history than now." CBS president Leslie Moonves disavows the filmmaker's highly paranoid views and says he doesn't subscribe to the Bush-Hitler parallel. [at NY Post]

THE FABULOUS BUDGET
From OC Register
And Now, The Local Income Tax
The latest bad idea from the big spenders in Sacramento is a doozy
by Jon Coupal 4/3/03 | As we approach April 15, our enmity toward income taxes becomes especially acute. Despite modest federal tax cuts, the majority of hard-working Americans pay more than ever. This is especially true in California, which has firmly established - and is building on - its reputation as a taxpayer torture chamber.
Just when state taxpayers think they've seen it all, along comes another appalling idea. The latest is Assemblyman Mark Leno's proposal, which would, for the first time, authorize local governments to impose an income tax. [more at OC Register]


SAVE SADDAM – The Celebrity Brigade
From FrontPage
Mike Farrell: Art of Deception
by Jean Pearce 4/3/03 | By now, Mike Farrell probably figures he’s got the nation fooled. For over 20 years, the Hollywood actor turned peace activist has flawlessly played the part of the pacifist patriot with America’s best interests at heart. Farrell is quite convincing when he’s in character, as he has been since he propelled himself to the forefront of the Iraq war protest movement. Without batting an eye, Farrell will tell you how much it would pain him. [more at FrontPage]

SAVE SADDAM – The Western Front
From The Volokh Conspiracy
And We Should Listen To Them On This Because…?
[Eugene Volokh, 8:06 AM] 4/2/03 | Some UCLA faculty members are gathering signatures in order to try to get the UCLA Faculty Senate to enact an anti-war resolution:

The undersigned joins in this petition to call a special meeting of the Division (that is, of "all members of the UCLA Division of the Academic Senate, which includes emeriti and numbers about 3300 faculty members") to consider adopting the following resolution, to be sent in a letter to President George W. Bush:

We, the faculty members of the University of California, Los Angeles, say to the President of the United States, that we:
1. condemn the U.S. invasion of Iraq;
2. deplore the doctrine of preventive war the President has used to justify it the invasion;
3. reaffirm our commitment to addressing international conflicts through the rule of law and the United Nations;
4. oppose the establishment of an American protectorate in Iraq; and
5. call for the establishment of a post-war representative government in Iraq, answerable to the United Nations, which guarantees to Iraqis inalienable personal, political, and civil rights.

Let's set aside the merits of the matter, and focus on the role of the UCLA Faculty Senate here. [more at The Volokh Conspiracy]

SAVE SADDAM – The Western Front
From Front Page
Robert Scheer, Gucci Marxist
From his perch at the Los Angeles Times, Berkeley radical Bob Scheer fires scuds at his native land.
by John Perazzo 4/2/03 | For nearly two decades Robert Scheer has been a "national correspondent" and then regular columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where he has specialized in national security issues.

From one of the most powerful press platforms in the country, Scheer articulates, on a weekly basis, the left's corrosive assertions about the moral deficiencies of our nation, our president, and our efforts in the war on terrorism. [more at Front Page Magazine]


SAVE SADDAM – The Celebrity Brigade
From National Review
Oh, That Robin!
“Mork” weighs in on the war.
by Dave Konig 4/2/03 | Irrepressibly nutty beloved comedy genius Robin Williams has broken his 12-day silence to speak out against the war in Iraq. The improvisational juggernaut (star of the box-office smash Patch Adams) has delighted audiences for what seems like 40 or 50 years now with his fast-paced, unscripted impressions of southern preachers and flamboyant hairdressers. Using the same finely honed comedic instincts exhibited in the box-office smash Bicentennial Man, rapid Robin recently reeled off the following zany zingers. As a service for those National Review Online readers who are not in show business and don't "get" the jokes, I will offer a helpful explanation following each gag:

ROBIN ON BUSH: "We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like; 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself." [more at National Review]

FREE THE VALLEY
From LA Daily News
Lauritzen's Lark
Incoming school board member takes aim at good schools
4/2/03 | Going into last month's elections for the Los Angeles school board, a widespread concern about candidate Jon Lauritzen was that, if elected, he would become a stooge for the teachers union that bankrolled his campaign.

Since winning the election over outgoing board President Caprice Young, Lauritzen has done little to diminish that concern.

Although he doesn't take office until July, Lauritzen has already started doing United Teachers Los Angeles' bidding -- at the expense of parents and students in the San Fernando Valley and their hopes for quality schools. [more at LA Daily News]

SAVE SADDAM – The Western Front
From City Journal
Can’t We All Just Stay Home?
War protests divert police resources from homeland security and endanger us all.
by Heather MacDonald 4/2/03 | …To date, it’s the anti-war protesters who have burdened police forces by far the most egomaniacally. San Francisco cops in full riot gear worked 16-hour shifts chasing anarchists as they shut down the city’s financial district last week. More than half the department took part in trying to quell the crippling “street action” that illegally took out intersections, bridges, and commerce. The Sheriff’s Department, the Fire Department, and the 911-call center—also first responders to a terror strike—found themselves almost as overwhelmed by the violent protests. Had al-Qaida struck San Francisco at that moment, it would have confronted an exhausted police force and an urban infrastructure already engulfed by deliberately created chaos. [more at City Journal]

From OC Register
The Loons at PETA Have a Cow
Attack on TV ad, 'chicken Holocaust' the latest displays of fanaticism
by Doug Gamble 4/1/03 | The only thing that bothers me about the "Happy Cows" TV commercials that run throughout California is that the cows seem happier than I am and their lives look a lot more interesting.

But the fanatical People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has more serious problems with the humorous ads that show cows lolling around in lush pastures and engaging in snappy patter. In a lawsuit aimed at forcing the campaign off the air for false advertising, a cheesed-off PETA contended that most California dairy cows live in filthy, grassless fields and are forced to give too much milk.
more at OC Register

SAVE SADDAM – The Celebrity Brigade
From Front Page
Hell's for Heroes
by Julia Gorin 4/1/03 | Ever more Americans have been expressing dismay over our international standing since George W. Bush's election to office. Exasperated statements like "Ever since this guy took office, everyone has turned against us!"; "We're alienating the rest of the world!"; "Even our allies hate us!" grace the national dialogue regularly.

Paraphrased in a whiney tone, that is to say: "Ohmygod! Everyone hates us! No one else is doing it! This is not the way to be popularrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

Kids sounding like this usually get smacked. In Hollywood, they get applauded.
more at Front Page Magazine

SAVE SADDAM – The Western Front
From Weekly Standard
Hear No Victory, See No Victory, Report No Victory
The Los Angeles Times goes to war.
by Hugh Hewitt 3/31/03 | The Los Angeles Times, often called the Lost Angeles Times or the Left Angeles Times, escapes the sort of scrutiny that Andrew Sullivan and others apply to the New York Times because the "West Coast's leading newspaper" simply doesn't matter much on the East Coast (and increasingly not so much in its own back yard).

Had the New York paper run with a front page like Sunday's LA Times did, Sullivan would have been at work for a week playing catch up. It is as though the editors had agreed on an "All setbacks, all the time" policy, regardless of the actual news from Iraq.
more at Weekly Standard

From LA Daily News
He Was A True American, And A True Marine
by Chris Weinkopf 3/31/03 | When Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez set out to do battle against the Iraqi Republican Guard just outside Umm Qasr, he was probably unable to think of much other than the task at hand: Freeing a port so humanitarian aid could soon make its way to the oppressed people he and his fellow Marines had come to liberate.
Certainly he didn't expect to become one of the first American servicemen to die in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Nor could he have imagined that he would end up providing the definitive answer to a tired political debate that had for too long divided his countrymen back home.

Sure enough, Gutierrez would end up not only giving his life for his country, but also giving us a lesson on what it means to be an American.

On that day, Gutierrez, an immigrant from Guatemala, laid to rest a line of thinking that's all too common stateside, including in his home state of California.
more at LA Daily News

SAVE SADDAM – The Western Front
From SF Chronicle
Right Side of the Argument
Lonely are the Republicans
by Leslie R. Guttman 3/30/03 | Whether you agree with the war or not, there's no question the soldiers in Iraq are courageous. Another type of bravery -- although far safer -- can be found on the UC Berkeley campus: A tiny contingent of Berkeley College Republicans sits in front of Sproul Hall, badly outnumbered by protesters applauding anti-war speakers.
more at SF Chronicle


From SF Chronicle
Muchas Gracias
Debra J. Saunders 3/30/03 | In 1998, leftist activists ganged up on Proposition 227, which mandated English immersion classes for most limited-English students. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and CA opposed the measure.

It didn't matter, as the Los Angeles Times had reported, that in the preceding year 1,150 state schools failed to promote any limited-English students to English fluency. President Clinton's Education Secretary Richard Riley told The Chronicle the measure was a "disaster." Gray Davis, then a candidate for governor, opposed 227. So did his two Democratic rivals and state schools chief Delaine Eastin.

Activists accused then-Gov. Pete Wilson of race-baiting in supporting the "wedge" measure. Pundits warned that to the extent Republicans supported 227, the GOP would alienate Latino voters. GOP gubernatorial nominee Dan Lungren came out against 227.

California voters approved the measure by 61 percent of the vote.
The voters, you see, wanted results, not excuses.
more at SF Chronicle

SAVE SADDAM – The Celebrity Brigade
When Americanism Meant More Than Socialism
In Supporting Roles
When top stars and directors enlisted in the war effort in the 1940s, it was a different Hollywood -- and America.
by Lynn Smith 3/30/03 | The most thrilling part of 1943's Academy Awards ceremony, wrote columnist Louella Parsons, had nothing to do with the Oscars. Rather, it was the sight of two dreamboats -- Tyrone Power and Alan Ladd -- in their private's uniforms, marching onto the Cocoanut Grove stage after the national anthem. The movie stars presented the flag, along with a list of 27,677 names -- all members of the motion picture industry who also had signed up for the armed forces.

Today, it's hard to imagine stars such as Ben Affleck or Josh Hartnett signing up for a tour of duty in Iraq. A celebrity who wants to take a political stand is much more likely to speak out in public or flash a surreptitious peace sign -- eliciting as many jeers as cheers. But in World War II, everyone -- Hollywood movie stars and directors included -- was expected to pitch in and support the war effort.
more at LA Times

THE FABULOUS BUDGET
From OC Register
State Should Heed History
Davis' approach to cutting budget deficit went disastrously awry in 1930s
by Veronique de Rugy 3/30/03 | Gov. Gray Davis wants to hike sales and income taxes $8.3 billion to help close California's budget deficit of at least $26 billion. In addition, Davis wants to add $1.10 in taxes to each pack of cigarettes, and raise assorted fees. He is also calling for minor program cuts in the wake of the spending frenzy of the last four years, during which time the state budget ballooned nearly 40 percent.

The push for tax increases over spending cuts is a lose-lose idea that follows in the policy footsteps of Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. In the 1930s, they pursued tax increases based on the mistaken idea that a balanced budget would help the economy. Yet the high tax rates they approved hurt the economy and made the deficit higher, not lower. Higher taxes were a bad idea then, and higher California taxes are a bad idea now.
more at OC Register

The Week: 3/23/03 – 3/29/03

SAVE SADDAM – The Celebrity Brigade
From American Spectator
Pundit or Saint?
by George Neumayr 3/28/03 | If Michael Moore speaks for the forgotten working class, why did stage hands at the Oscars boo him so loudly? In Moore's oddball Op-Ed in Thursday's Los Angeles Times ("I'd Like to Thank the Vatican..."), he blames a couple of stage hands for starting the "melee."

They "started some loud yelling," he says. Then some people in the bleacher seats -- also presumably from the ranks of the obscure -- joined in the jeers, leading Moore supporters, according to Moore, to counter-boo "the booers." The orchestra didn't want to end his speech, he says, but had to strike up "its tune" to stop the "cacophony of yells and cheers and jeers."

Aren't the stage hands and the bleacher-seat booers supposed to be Moore's people?
more at American Spectator

From the Weekly Standard
Michael Moore's Revenge
As antiwar protests spread in California, the largest state in the Union becomes more and more politically irrelevant.
by Bill Whalen 3/28/03 | IF YOU ASSUMED California's antiwar fetish crested the moment Michael Moore thanked the Academy, dissed the president, and took his Oscar home, guess again.

Politicians here in America's dream factory have made breaking with the majority on Iraq a reliable source of amusement and amazement--as much a daily staple of the California Experience as the tanning index, surf reports, and the Lakers.
more at Weekly Standard


SHADOW CONTROLLER
From OC Register
In Defense of Proposition 13
If keeping it intact is unfair, how fair is an $8,400 property tax bill?
by Tom McClintock, Shadow Controller 3/28/03 | Just for fun, take the current value of your home and multiply it by 2.67 percent. Look hard at that number, and then imagine paying it this year as property tax. This isn't a theoretical exercise - if not for Proposition 13, that's what you would now owe to the county tax collector.

Prop. 13 made two critical changes in California property taxation. It reduced the tax rate from the average 2.67 percent to 1 percent. And instead of basing the tax on your home's current value, it based the tax on the price you paid for it.

The difference is staggering. Suppose you bought your home five years ago at the median price of $186,490. Today that home is worth $316,000. The Prop. 13 property tax paid on that home today is roughly $1,900. Without Prop. 13, the property tax would be $8,400. How long do you think you could keep up with those taxes?
more at OC Register

CALIFORNIA EXPORTS
From Eonline
The United States Is Strong in the Hearts of Americans at This Moment When We Are Under Siege
by Ben Stein 3/28/03 | It was an hour to remember, an hour when I got to see the mood of America at a given moment--on the eve of war, as an ungrateful world was kicking around its saviors. Let me take you back to how it happened and how it went.

By a series of strokes of luck, I am a "celebrity judge," along with Naomi Judd and Ahmet Zappa ( Frank's son ), on a successful CBS talent scout type show called Star Search.
more at Eonline

CALIFORNIA EXPORTS: FILM=LIFE
From World Magazine
Tears of the Left
Bruce Willis's new action movie implies certain ideas that make liberal critics queasy.
by Andrew Coffin 3/27/03 | Tears of the Sun at heart remains an action film—it really doesn't touch on the subtleties of American interventionism or the horror of genocide and ethnic cleansing (although its effects are graphically represented). What really bothers most critics, I think, are two very simple points implied by the film's story: that it is possible to make cultural distinctions and that some good can come from American military action. These ideas should be irrefutable and harmless at face value, but in fact make liberals mighty queasy.
more at World Magazine

SAVE SADDAM – The Celebrity Brigade
From Opinion Journal
On Oscar Night, Hollywood Thanks Everyone But The Troops.
by Michael Medved 3/26/03 | The most prominent personalities in the antiwar movement resist all efforts to classify their angry activism as anti-American. But Sunday night's Oscar extravaganza obliterated such defensive distinctions. For 3 1/2 hours, the entertainment elite indulged in the usual orgy of self-congratulation with only hostile or dismissive reference to epic Iraqi battles involving thousands of U.S. troops. They offered no hint of gratitude, affection, loyalty or connection to the superpower that sustains them.
more at Opinion Journal

SAVE SADDAM – The Celebrity Front
from BillOReilly.com
Yes, You're Entitled to Your Uninformed Opinion
by Bill O'Reilly 3/26/03 | Since Hollywood liked the Pianist so much and since many actors are so outspoken about current historical events, I would like to give Susan Sarandon, Julianne Moore, Martin Sheen and all the other anti-war stars a short historical quiz.
more at BillOReilly.com

SAVE SADDAM – The Celebrity Brigade
From TechCentralStation
The Moore the Scarier
By Debbie Schlussel 3/25/03 | He calls Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft the "real axis of evil." He blamed 9-11 attacks on too many White people and not enough Black men on the planes.

And in his Oscar Night diatribe, film-maker Michael Moore used his win of an Academy Award to rant against a "fictitious" President Bush, "fictitious election results," and the War on Iraq, which he claimed was for "fictitious reasons."

"We live in fictitious times," he said when picking up the award for best documentary for his anti-gun film "Bowling for Columbine."

And Michael Moore should know. Because everything from his "working-class Joe" persona to his so-called documentary, for which he won the award, is largely fictitious. Michael Moore is the master of the truly fictitious.
more at TechCentralStation

SAVE SADDAM – The Local Front
From SF Chronicle
Tantrum
by Debra J. Saunders 3/25/03 | IT'S RATHER choice that the anti-war group Direct Action to Stop the War is complaining about "increased repression from the San Francisco Police Department."

Their so-called peace demonstrations certainly were designed to repress -- that is, "subdue" or "restrain," according to my dictionary -- people in San Francisco. Activists boasted they wanted to close the Financial District to end "business as usual." So they sabotaged public transit and blocked intersections to gridlock city traffic.

Protesters vomited in front of the Federal Building. They scared off customers who would have spent money in city stores. While they claim to care about the poor and infirm, they've sucked some $900,000 daily from a city that is facing its worst deficit ever.

They've taunted police. They've resisted arrest. They've announced they want to practice civil disobedience. Then they complain when they are arrested.
more at SF Chronicle

FABULOUS BUDGET
From OC Register
Budgets, Books and Bombs
Let's be clear on the causes of the California budget crisis
by Ray Haynes, State Assemblyman 3/25/03 | If you want a striking example of the poor job the education system is doing for at least some of our students, you need look no further than the anti-war rallies and walk-outs being held on campuses around the state.

Beyond the typically shallow "No Blood for Oil" and "Regime Change in America" signs is an increasing number of signs that seem to be making a connection between the war in Iraq and the California budget crisis. Signs that say things like "Fund Books, Not Bombs" or "Don't Fire Teachers, Fire Bush" are either intentionally or ignorantly misplacing blame for cuts in California's schools on the war overseas.
more at OC Register

SAVE SADDAM – The Celebrity Front
From Weekly Standard
Judy Blue Eyes: What the Left Sees
Could it be that the arts community lacks sufficient imagination to comprehend the horrors of Saddam's Iraq?
by Hugh Hewitt 3/25/03 | Singers with enough talent can overcome their politics, and Judy Collins has enough talent. So on Oscar night, the wife and I dragooned a younger couple, like the time my parents dragged us to hear Perry Como, and off we went to an auditorium on the campus of Claremont College to hear Judy and David Crosby in concert.

The largest quarter of CSNY played the opening set, an hour long display of guitar mastery and a surprising command of the higher vocal ranges. Crosby was a miser when it came to familiar tunes, though, and his time onstage left the audience a little restless. He veered towards politics just once, and the crowd tensed. But this was a night on which Americans had been taken prisoner and some of them perhaps executed. Only the oafish Michael Moore, with all of the gravity of Pat Paulsen but none of the humor or intelligence, could miss the significance of such events. Crosby explained that even dissenters from the war loved the country and he sang "My Country Tis of Thee." Really. He left it at that.
more at The Weekly Standard

FABULOUS BUDGET
From Sacramento Bee
Iraq War May Be A Memory By The Time State Solves Budget Crisis
by Dan Walters 3/25/03 | California's chronic budget problem entered the crisis stage in December when Gov. Gray Davis declared that the state faced an immense, $35 billion deficit.

As it happened, Davis' pre-Christmas declaration coincided with the escalation of America's confrontation with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein into near-war proportions.

At the rate things are going, however, Iraq not only will be conquered but Baghdad will be hosting the Super Bowl as well by the time Davis and state legislators come to some kind of conclusion about the deficit-ridden state budget.
more at Sacramento Bee

SAVE SADDAM – The Local Front
From LA Daily News
Safety Gear Better Than Vapid Talk
by Chris Weinkopf 3/23/03 | In the last full day before the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Los Angeles City Council voted to buy $4.4 million worth of emergency equipment for city safety workers to wear in the event of a chemical or biological terrorist attack.

The vote marked not only a prudent bit of planning, but also a tacit admission. It's as though council members were finally owning up to the obvious: The anti-war resolution they pompously passed less than a month ago was as intellectually bankrupt as it was politically irrelevant.
more at LA Daily News

Moore Is Less

SAVE SADDAM – The Celebrity Brigade
Shame on You, Mr. Moore! Shame on You!
The 'Bowling for Columbine' auteur had every qualification to make his antiwar speech at the Oscars. That didn't make it any less stupid.
by James Poniewozik 3/24/03 | One can hardly say that about Michael Moore. In fact, there is not much reason that anyone cares about Michael Moore except for his political opinions... No. His speech was stupid for entirely different reasons. Time.com

CALIFORNIA EXPORTS
Hollywood Is Hell
By George Neumayr 3/24/03 | Why would America's enemies ever target Hollywood? That industry of parasitical pacifists is far more useful to them strong than scattered. As the actors bloated themselves at award ceremonies this last weekend -- celebrating artistic "independence" in one breath, condemning American "unilateralism" in the next -- 15 or so U.S. soldiers died. The contrast between Hollywood's "All That Jazz" weekend and pictures of dead American soldiers was obscene.
more at The American Spectator

CALIFORNIA EXPORTS
Oscar Goes to War
Some celebrities held their tongues at the Academy Awards. Others showed us exactly what they think about the president, America, and the cause of freedom in Iraq.
by Jonathan V. Last 3/24/03 | On a Sunday when 16 Americans were killed in action and another 5 were captured and paraded about by the Iraqi military, Hollywood was nearly indifferent to the peril endured by those whose job it is to make the world safe for movie stars to play in it. Weekly Standard

CALIFORNIA EXPORTS
Stupid Academy Award
by David T. Hardy 3/24/03 | The Michael Moore production Bowling for Columbine just won the Oscar for best documentary. Unfortunately, it is not a documentary. David Hardy

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

SAVE SADDAM – THE CELEBRITY BRIGADE
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. FrontPage Magazine

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. whole column

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. FrontPage Magazine

§

And some
Lingering Observations

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

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.
more at National Review

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


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