Bush/Fox Photo Caption Contest

This should be a fun one. The person to come up with the best caption for this photo will receive from me a half ounce newly minted Liberty Dollar. I'll keep the contest open through the weekend. What do you think each man is thinking to himself in secret. I don't want people to hold back. Let's have some fun with this. I badly need some humor after the week that was this week.


I'll get it started with mine....Fox: "who's your daddy...what's my name, say my name bitch" Bush: "Vincente, Vincente!" (BTW, this was a take off from one of my all time favorite comedies, American Pie)

****4/3/06 UPDATE**********

After further review, the winner is Chaz Lamrusco with this funny blast:

Fox: Welcome to Fantasy Island, Mr.
Bush, where your every dream will come
true!

Bush: Thank you Mr. Fox! Where is
Tatoo today?

Fox: I believe he is in your country
waiting for your guest worker program
to start.

Email me Chaz with your personal info and the half ounce Silver Liberty is yours.

Bush & Illegal Immigration

It's ironic that President Bush is down visiting his boss Vicente Fox in Cancun, Mexico while the illegal immigration debate has reached a boiling point. I myself am getting fed up with the disengenuous arguments the other side is making. This debate is not about immigration, but ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. We are a nation of immigrants, but they need to do it the right way. Why is it easier now to emmigrate illegally than the other way around? It just boggles the mind.

OC Sheriff Deputies Endorse Bill Hunt Over Mike Carona

I awoke this morning and found out through the Register that the OC Sheriff deputies have scorned their boss Mike Carona and have endorsed Lt. Bill Hunt instead. This is absolutely huge news. The dam has burst for the Sheriff. His own employees do not have confidence in him anymore so why should OC voters? It's time for the Sheriff to do the honorable thing and pull out from this race.

Things You Can Count On....

The sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Death & taxes, you betcha. John McCain selling out the GOP party...ding ding ding. We have a winner. The spectacle in the Senate Judiciary committee yesterday was extremely disappointing, but not unexpected. McCain managed to also pass out his open border kool-aid to Sens Graham, Brownback, DeWine, and Specter. We are now reaping what we sown by letting Arlen Specter have the gavel to the Judiciary Committee. I do have faith though that the House will not cave in conference. I will be taking all the names of GOPers who sell out the party and the country on this upcoming vote. They will get no support from me at all in the future.

R.I.P Lyn Nofziger and Caspar Weinberger

The Reagan era has lost two former top aides in the last twenty four hours. First we had the news that Lyn Nofziger had succummed from cancer and then this morning we heard that Caspar "Cap" Weinberger had passed away as well. It is very sad to see the passing of two great people. The world is a safer because of these two. They leave a legacy of peace through strength. Ronald Reagan has had the biggest impact on the way I view the world than any other person.

Student Immigration Protests Turn Violent In Santa Ana

It was only a matter of time until these gang members/criminals/students in Santa Ana got violent with their immigration protests. Jay Lawrence of KFI is reporting that rocks and bottles were thrown at the Santa Ana PD and other law enforcement officers charged with keeping the peace today. I'm sure this won't hurt their argument to deep six the current immigration bill pending in Congress. Bottomline, just start arresting all these losers/criminals. They're not learning anything anyways in school except to wave Mexican flags and chant "Si se puede". Losers

Big News.....Sort Of

I have been invited to be a contributing poster over at California Conservative. This is a good opportunity for me to spread my message of principled conservatism to a much wider audience. They receive a couple thousand unique hits every day as opposed to my measely 100. I thank California Conservative for the opportunity. I will start posting over there probably by tomorrow.

Invasion USA

This is what happens when the laws are not enforced. You have half a million illegal aliens marching and protesting in Los Angeles that think they're entitled to citizenship because they're only doing jobs that Americans won't do. I welcome this debate. It's about freakkin time that people get activated on this issue. There is still time left to save this country. We don't even need H.R 4437 to do this although it would be nice to have in the arsenal. All we have to do is enforce the current laws already on the books.

UCLA Is Going To The Final Four

If you would have told me at the start of the season that my beloved Bruins would be punching a ticket to the Final Four in Indianapolis, I would have told you to keep smoking what you were smoking. It is true though. The most storied program in college basketball is going to the national semifinals to play a very good LSU team. Again tonight we played suffocating defense. If we would have hit some of our free throws, it wouldn't have even been as close as it was, but a win is a win. I'll be emailing the UCLA athletic department first thing tomorrow morning to see if I can get a press pass to blog the game. Why not try? I'll keep everyone posted on what happens.

Immigration Debate Is Heating Up

This has been a big week for news about illegal immigration. Suffice to say that I am very happy that people are finally giving this issue the attention it deserves. All sides are weighing in with their opinions. In fact this weekend in L.A and other big cities there is a huge rally of all the La Raza and MECHA types protesting H.R. 4437. I was driving into work the other day listening to Bill Handle's morning show news and I was laughing my ass off as were all the morning hosts about all the stories of illegal immigration right now. It was literally one after the other. They played soundbites of President Bush, a Costa Mesa store owner complaining about her business dropping off because the illegals are scared they're going to get caught(hehe), and a few miscelaneous quotes from the students who ditched school up in LA to protest the new proposed law. Yes things are definately heating up. It reminds me of 1994 during the Prop 187 debate. Back then you had all these same idiots at rallies holding their Mexican flags and shouting in Spanish. Meanwhile they do this and the silent majority of voters who want the laws enforced just get more resolve to have the laws enforced. If these protesters love Mexico so much, they need to deport themselves back there.

That's What I'm Talking About!!!!

I think I just lost a few years off of my life with UCLA's performance tonight. That was one of the finest victories in UCLA history and there has been a lot of them. They were getting their ass kicked all over the floor for most of the night until the last ten minutes. They were down by 11 with just a little over three minutes to go. I was changing the channel on every stupid play the Bruins made down the stretch. Luckily for me I kept it on with two minutes to play. They kept battling until the final whistle. Props to Mater Dei alum Cedric Bozeman for that key steal with thirteen seconds left. What a great game. This calls for a little rendition of Sons of Westwood:

We are the Sons of Westwood,
And we hail the Blue and Gold;
True to thee our hearts will be,
Our love will not grow old.
Bruins roam the hills of Westwood,
By the blue Pacific shore;
And when they chance to see
a man from USC,
Ev'ry Bruin starts to roar.

U! (3 claps)
C! (3 claps)
L! (3 claps)
A! (3 claps)

U-C-L-A! Fight! Fight! Fight!

Follow Up Re: Central Committee Meeting

A lot is being said over at OC Blog about Santa Ana Police Chief's endorsement of Sheriff Carona. Did he endorse or not endorse? As Tim Whitacre said in the meeting, Carona never called and asked for Chief Walter's endorsement. Carona's people were desperate to try to prop their guy up before the committee vote. Here is Tim Whitarce's response to all the naysayers a few minutes ago:

Wow, that sure is some objective reporting, Jubal and Probolsky. How come I never got a phone call and "interview" for this newsworthy article?

It's such NOT a surprise to see Probolsky to go at any length to make his "poll" read the way his client wants...

Regardless, I am still swamped and therefore will be brief until later.

Yes, I had a conversation with Solorio. I called all of my council members and spoke with them. No, the conversation with Solorio has not been presented accurately.

At the Central Committee Meeting - where everything was pre-arraigned by Mike Schoreder, Jon Fleischman and the Executive Committee - to go Carona's way (except for the outcome, thank God), I was given minutes notice as to the format and procedure for the night's event.

Before the meeting, Mike Schroeder personally tried to strong-arm Senate Candidate, Lupe Moreno, to withdraw her support of Lt. Bill Hunt or not speak on his behalf.

Jon Flieschman tried to do the same with Rosie Avila. Additionally, both worked over others as well with their "gentle" fear and intimidation tactics.

Team Carona already had their speakers lined up and primed with what to say. Carona, Schroeder & Fleischman even pathetically brought up Erin Runion, the mother of the brutally murdered 5 year old, Samantha, to plead with us to endorse Carona.

I spoke on behalf of Lt. Bill Hunt, who was at a previously scheduled fundraiser, for ten minutes.

One of the statements I made was, "Sheriff Carona is going try and tell you that he is endorsed by my Chief of Police, Paul Walters. The truth is, Mike Carona has never called Paul Walters to ask for his endorsement."

THAT IS THE TRUTH! Carona has never called Cheif Walters for an endorsement. In fact, Carona has not spoken to Cheif Walters in quite some time now.

IF THAT WASN'T TRUE, Jubal and Probolsky, THEN WHY DIDN'T CARONA REFUTE WHAT I HAD TO SAY WHEN HE GOT UP TO SPEAK

WHY DIDN'T JON FLEISCHMAN, who was the last speaker before the vote, SAY ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY?

IF the endorsement of Cheif Paul Walters was SO IMPORTANT, than WHY DIDN'T TEAM CARONA PASS OUT SIGNED COPIES OF THE ENDORSEMENT to all of the Central Committee Members in the same dramatic fashion as the
Jim Lacy letter?

Why did we have to wait until after the Central Committee Meeting to "see a copy" of the undated, sparsely worded, signed statement on plain white paper, here on the ever objective, OC Blog?

I will gladly sit down and take a lie detector test with Mike Carona, Jon Fleischman, Mike Schroeder, Adam Probolsky and Democrat Jose Solorio at the same time, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.

Let's do this as soon as possible since you people are so hungry to see the "truth" previal. We can invite all major media so that the results can be immediately made known.

Shame on the lot of you. You have no honor, no integrity. You will stoop to any level to try and intimidate and destroy good people.

Well, this Marine has his bayonet fixed and is standing between you and the flag. You want the flag? You have to get through me!

It's time to Restore Integrity and Trust to the Sheriff's Department.

Semper Fi,

Tim Whitacre

New World Record Largemouth Bass Caught

I read about this story today and it brought back a lot of memories of growing up bass fishing with my dad out various lakes in socal. The monster bass weighed in at 25lbs 1 ounce. It was caught down in San Diego county at Dixon Lake. This is a huge deal in the competitive bass fishing world. Bass fishing is big business and the angler who caught it stands to pocket some serious coin in endorsements for breaking the world record. There was also some controversy on how the bass was caught, but that will be sorted out by the IFGA. Here is a picture of the beast.

OC GOP Central Committee Roundup

This is a report from humble servant, the Powder Blue Report on what went on at the OC Central Committee meeting tonight. This is the first meeting I've been to in a long time. If tonight was any indication, I will be making many trips back there for all the intrigue going on. I saw a lot of familiar faces as we arrived. Jon Fleischman was kind enough to introduce Lynn and I to the Sheriff, Mike Carona. It was great to finally meet the top law enforcement officer of the county. I wished him well in his race even though I am supporting another candidate. It's nothing personal against the Sheriff. As I've said before, I think we need a fresh face for the office.

As the meeting wore on, it became apparent that the battle lines were drawn for the question of who gets the party's endorsement for Sheriff. Both Sheriff Carona's people(Fleischman & Schroeder) and Lt. Hunt's people(Tim Whitacre & others) were working the room vigorously to line up last minute support and hand out literature on their guy. Tim Whitacre gave the best speech of the night. He hit all the points that needed hitting. I'm proud to associate myself with a man of such integrity. Erin Runnion spoke for few minutes on behalf of Mike Carona and the Sheriff finished off his time by listing his accomplishments(or lack thereof) in office. Points were made about the Sheriff's endorsement of Nativo Lopez. This doesn't sit well with all the 69th district central members. I liked the line that one of Hunt's speakers said..."would Ronald Reagan have endorsed Nativo Lopez?" Ouch! Allan Mansoor also spoke and he endorsed Bill Hunt. I'm liking the Mayor of Costa Mesa more and more. The best speaker for the Sheriff was actually Jon "Flash" Fleischman. In the end, drumroll please....the Sheriff did not get the 2/3s majority needed for an endorsement. The vote was 31-17. They needed four more votes. I should say that there was also a contested vote on a motion by Tim Whitacre to have the vote on a secret paper ballot. That vote needed a simple majority and failed on a 28-24 vote. In the end, I'm proud that the Sheriff did not receive the coveted endorsement of the county party. I was proud to see a plurality of central committee members stick up for integrity.

Lastly, I'm going to crackback on the Hyatt Irvine for not having a wireless signal at the hotel. I wanted to liveblog the meeting, but there was no wireless signal. Memo to Hyatt management: you might want to join us in the new millennium and have a wireless hookup for your hotel guests. How does a major hotel not have a wireless signal hookup for business people that stay at the hotel? I'm out

Bruins In The Sweet Sixteen

That was a heart stopper of a game last night down in San Diego. Alabama has a great team coached by former Bruin assistant coach under Jim Harrick, Mark Gottfried. The Bruins now move on and play Gonzaga up in Oakland Thursday. I had a chance to see some of that game and the Bruins will have their hands full. Anyone have any extra tickets for Thursday's game???

OC GOP Machine At Work(and on display!)

So I fire open the OC Register this morning while fine dining at IHOP here by my house and started busting up laughing at Peggy Lowe's article about the Sheriff's race. Apparently Flash or Mike Schroeder forgot to take out their email thread to each other and it accidentily got forwarded to Peggy Lowe at the Register.....(best Homer Simpson voice)dooooooh! Busted. The OC GOP machine was in full damage control mode about Lt. Bill Hunt's ballot statement. It seems that they persuaded another insider GOP activist errr I mean citizen, Ron Young(husband of Mary Young) to file a complaint about it. It was fun to get an inside look at how politics is played at the highest level in county government. I gotta give credit to the Hunt team for baiting team Carona into this fight. Now Lt. Hunt is getting all kinds of free publicity from this fiasco. He couldn't have written it any better. I don't know what team Carona was worried about. No one reads ballot statements, except political geeks like me and few others. Now everyone that reads the Register is aware of their keystone cops routine. I'm out

Chuck DeVore Endorses RINO Daucher Over Lupe Moreno

This one is a hard pill to swallow. I don't agree at all with Chuck's endorsement, but then again the race is already lost according to a few higher ups in the party who have spoken to me in confidence. To me this race is a chance to have a good debate on what policies are best for the 34th SD and who the best person is to carry that banner. That person IMO is Lupe Moreno since Van Tran is now not running. I guess we'll have to wait another six more years until this seat is redistricted in 2012 to have a chance to win it in 2014. If Daucher is the nominee, I'm flat out predicting a blowout loss to either Correa or Umberg. The conservative grassroots are not going to be motivated enough to get out there and do the grunt work necessary to to win this seat. The New Majority guys are certainly not going to dirty their hands with this either. Who does that leave to help get out the vote(sound of crickets chirping)? I congratulate the Dems on a fine win.

March Madness Has Arrived

I love this time of year. I like it even more because my beloved UCLA Bruins are playing the Belmont Bruins today at 2pm down in San Diego. UCLA has a #2 seed and should go far in the tournament. I have them going to the final four in my office pool.

The Odd Couple

No I'm not talking about that television show from the 70's, I'm talking about an op ed in this mornings OC Register by Tom Tancredo and John Campbell. You have no idea how happy I am to see John Campbell teaming up with Tom Tancredo on this issue. If Mr. Campbell follows through and votes against a compromise guest worker bill, he will have my unqualified support. I am starting to get the feeling that the last election actually meant something to Campbell. That he actually gets the sentiment of the voters here in the 48th CD. I personally think that he doesn't want to go through another bruising election like the last one and figures that even if he may be for a guest worker program, he is going to vote against it because he knows it the right thing to do politically. He is right about the politics of this issue right now. I think John & Ken must be disappointed though because it would have made for great radio to beat up on Campbell some more if he votes for the guest worker bill. We still have Dreier to kick around though.

McCain Is Embarassed in Early Straw Poll

I saw this headline and it brought a smile to my face. Granted it is way to early to say who may get the GOP nomination in 2008, but early organization is important and McCain has a lot of fence mending to with conservatives if he is going to have any chance. Of course McCain has swore off his chances with me and others a long time ago with his call for amnesty for illegals. He also did not vote for Bush's tax cuts. I could go down the list of things that piss me off about McCain, but for now it just makes me happy that he got smacked down in Memphis over the weekend.

Bruins Are Pac 10 Champs In Basketball

The difference between Steve Lavin and Ben Howland is the difference between night and day. There is no comparison. UCLA plays hard defense now. They routed Cal yesterday to win the Pac 10 Championship and a probable No. 3 seeding in the NCAA tournament that starts later this week. I watched the entire game yesterday from the friendly confines of my couch. Here is a wrap from the game by LA Times uber sports columnist Bill Plaschke. I also want to give props to former Mater Dei standout Cedric Bozeman who also had a huge game yesterday.

I'm Declaring War In The 35th Senate District

Tom Harman is the first person to go negative in the race for the 35th SD and I am declaring all out war on him. I got home early from the office today, I opened my mailbox, and there it is....Tom Harman blasting Diane Harkey for buying her Cal Border Police Co-Sponsorship and claiming that he is great on illegal immigration. This is the same Tom Harman that voted give illegals tuition benefits. The mailer is flat out BS and I'm calling on all good Republicans to make sure that you tell all your friends to vote for Diane Harkey. Maybe someone can post the link over at OC Blog of the mailer. There is a precinct walk this weekend for Diane here in Irvine and around the district and I urge all activists to engage now or get left with six years of bad representation in Sacramento in the Senate.

Treasury Dept. Robs Peter To Pay Paul

This is a symptamatic story of what is wrong in Washington. The government has maxed out the national credit card at $8.2 trillion. The Treasury Dept is starting to take money from the civil service pension fund to cover the bills until Congress caves in and raises the debt limit again. How about cutting spending guys? Did you ever think about that? How about reducing the size of the government? This is exactly why we don't need any more "go along get along" Republicans elected. And God forbid President Bush lead the way and start vetoing some bloated spending bills.

Howard Kaloogian For Congress

I have given this one a lot of thought lately. I have heard from the Bilbray people, the Morrow team, and Howard's crack squad of advisors. I listened to Darrell Issa pontificate at the recent CRP Convention that Howard has a big ego. With all due respect Congressman, you have a nice sized ego also. Most Congressmen and women have sizable egos. So what! Personalities aren't nearly as important as how you will vote when you get back to DC IMO. It's important to have good personal relationships with other members. I get that. It seems like everyone I speak with who is against Howard or is for one of the other candidates cracks back on Howard for having a big ego, but they never say anything about his record. Howard Kaloogian is the guy in my opinion who is going to go back to DC and fight for all conservative values. He's not going to go back and "bring home the bacon" or fight for just one conservative cause(cough, cough,......Brian Bilbray). Howard has most of the important conservative endorsements save for the CRA. Credit to Bill Morrow who did receive the CRA endorsement. If Howard was not in the race, I would probably be writing tonight about my endorsement of Bill Morrow. The icing on the cake for Howard today was the support that the San Diego Minutemen gave him. I look forward to helping Howard get his message out for the rest of the campaign.

CRA & Ray Haynes

I'm sorry I missed all the fireworks at the CRA Convention over the weekend. It sounds like Ray Haynes got stopped cold from receiving the coveted CRA endorsement for his run at the Board of Equalization. I like Ray Haynes and what he has done for conservative causes in California. Having said that, his endorsement of Christy Christich in the 70th AD primary has really hurt him with conservatives. This is important for me because I live in the 70th AD and I would have had six more years of RINO representation had she beat Chuck DeVore in the primary. I can't forgive him for that. Therefore, I am pulling for Michelle Steel to win this race against Ray.

Anyone Notice The Silver Market Today?

In case you didn't, it rallied past $10/ounce and closed at a 22 year high. I hope at least some of you hacks out there that read this have bought some silver or gold lately. It's not to late to start. It is really going to start to breakout from here. I prefer owning the best unhedged mining companies which are Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp.(symbol: CDE and Goldcorp...symbol: GG). You'll also want to own some physical bullion in the form of bars or coins. If you really want to take full advantage of the move higher, you can call me up at the office and we can discuss speculating in silver & gold futures. This strategy is not for the faint of heart, but you get maximum leverage with the least amount of investment dollars.

I also want to address the kool-aid drinkers who make policy at the Federal Reserve who say that inflation is under control. It obviously is not. They are lying to the people. It sounds good to say there is little inflation, but all you have to do is look at the commodities or real estate market to realize the fallacy of that logic. Prices are going higher for raw materials in the future, so anyone who wants to jump on the bandwagon, I suggest that you don't wait much longer.

Cardinal Mahoney "Wags The Dog" On Illegal Immigration Issue

I want to preface this post by saying that I am a lifelong Catholic. I went to Catholic schools my whole life(1st through 12th grade). Lynn and I got married in the Catholic Church. I have received all of the sacraments of the Church except for Last Rites and Holy Orders(becoming a priest). After this post, someone from the Church may wish I was read those rites because I am officially going Chernobyl on Cardinal Mahoney. This guy is wagging the dog on illegal immigration to divert attention from all the pedophile/molestations/rape cases going on in the LA Diocease IMO. I am really pissed off about this if you couldn't tell. This man(and I use that term loosely) has the absolute gall to call for his priests to break the law if the immigration bill currently making its way through Congress passes as it is right now. The man is a criminal already in my book for all the cover ups he has been enabling/abeting for all the diocease's pedophile priests. To this day he still has not released the personnel files of the priests under suspicion/and or already convicted.

Today in his Ash Wednesday sermon, he called for his priests to break the law. I have a question for the Cardinal/enabler...how many illegals does this country have to accept from other countries(read Mexico mainly) until we are in good graces with the Church? He said that it is unfair that families of illegals sometimes wait fifteen years or more before they come here to the US. Here's an idea Cardinal, why don't they go home to where they came from. Then they can be re-united with their family right away and they won't be breaking the law anymore. He also broke out this beauty...

At this particular moment in our history, there seems to be these strident voices that are very much anti-immigrant

. No Cardinal, I am anti-illegal immigration. I don't have any problem with legal immigration. This man needs to be defrocked an sent into exile a la Boston's former Cardinal Law. He is an absolute embarassment to the Church. Someone shut him up before more collateral damage is done to the Church.

Bartlett/Lopez Family Announcement

My sister Jaime and huband/my brother-in-law Junior, just brought into this world a new daughter named Jaiden Ann Lopez. She weighed in at a respectable 8lbs 5 ounces. Congratulations Jaime & Junior. This makes me an uncle/tio for the third time. I'm so proud of you guys. I can't wait to see her tonight.

City of Orange Cracks Down On Illegals

I happened to catch the Mayor of Orange and his police chief of the city of Orange on John & Ken yesterday talking about their experiences of cracking down on illegals. This story has not gotten a lot of publicity until recently. I just want to jump on their bandwagon and thank them for having the courage to arrest the illegal lawbreakers and refer them over to ICE for deportation. In an era of political correctness on illegal immigration, these guys are definately the exception. I also want to give props to the Orange Home Depot. I have been pretty harsh on them for their recent propensity to set up day labor sites on a lot of their properties, but the Orange store is the exception. So the city of Orange gets my profile in political courage this week. Good job guys.