Shawn Steel will be speaking to the UCSD College Republicans this Monday night, at 6PM, in the Thurgood Marshall Room at the Price Center West on the UCSD campus.  Shawn is a former CRP Chairman and is currently the National Committeeman, from the California Republican Party, to the Republican National Committee.

You may recall that I encouraged  conservatives to contact Steel prior to the RNC Rules Committee Meeting last month:

Nathan Fletcher is a member of the Democratic Party.  This doesn’t surprise me.  I knew when he made the choice to throw the “independent” Hail Mary pass that, if he wanted a political future, he would have to (a) move to another state and try to woo Republican voters there or (b) join with the Democrats.  Getting elected in a big state like California is nearly impossible as an independent, especially one who holds competing positions within a 12-month period.

…or Massachusetts and the surrounding states?  …or the whole country?

I logged into Facebook last Friday evening as I rode the train home from downtown San Diego.  I was thrilled to see that the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing was apprehended.  Facebook friends were posting nice tributes to the Boston PD on their status updates.  I was even chastised by a progressive friend for stating on my update that “Friday was a great day in downtown San Diego but, more importantly, we funded a loan for a Navy veteran.”.  He thought I should have been using Facebook to celebrate the Boston PD’s heroic police work.

“Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree!”– Senator Russell B. Long

As the world mourns former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, I think it’s amusing to note that a new tax scheme ultimately did in her political career.  Thatcher abolished the “domestic rates” plan, an assessment based on the rental value of property, and instituted the “community charge” plan, a per capita levy.  The average Briton loved government as long as “the rich” were paying for it.  Britain’s far-left rallied against this scheme, called it a “poll tax,” and people rioted in the streets.

In my last post, I covered how the RNC rules change changed the Republican National Convention  from a volunteer-centric  political process to an autocratic, candidate-focused pep rally.  The Romney campaign team thought they had the general election in the bag and wanted to insure that a primary challenge, in 2016, would fail.  Many convention delegates were so focused on unseating President Obama that they ignored the danger of changing the Republican Party Presidential nominating process forever.  A large number of movement conservatives voted against this at the convention but were foiled by a scripted call on the voice vote.

The grassroots supporters of the Republican Party were pushed aside at the 2012 Republican National Convention (RNC).  Anticipating a Romney Presidency, Romney campaign attorney Ben Ginsberg put forth and lobbied for a permanent change, in the way RNC delegates were chosen, to guarantee that a (expected) President Romney wouldn’t face a primary challenge in 2016.   It was controversial.  Convention Chairman John Boehner read off of a script, called the rules change election by the script (rather than through the proper democratic process), and was booed by more than half the RNC delegates.

“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.”–  President Abraham Lincoln

President Obama used this Lincoln quote in his State of the Union address as a rationalization for an interventionist government.  But President Lincoln was actually promoting the virtues of restraint and jurisdiction when he said that.  Today, we articulate these virtues by asking, “What is the proper role of government?”

San Diego’s major newspaper, the UT-San Diego, called for the Solana Beach City Council to repeal the plastic bag ban today:

Now that Solana Beach officials have agreed to revisit parts of their plastic bag ban because shoppers are complaining about paying a dime for paper bags, we have a suggestion: Bag the whole thing.

We live in a kleptocracy where institutionalized theft is practiced by crony capitalists operating under an increasingly fascist system.  I can no longer refer to our government officials as socialists because socialists have the gumption to steal and operate private property.  The simple fact is that American government officials are lazy socialists, more accurately described as fascists.  They let people own property and the means of production but manage profits through favortism, regulation, and licensing.

Follow the timeline to see how Rotarian Fascism paid off for Duke Energy:

Duke guaranteeing $10 million line of credit for DNC: (March 12, 2011)

I’ll open up with what I thought was the best thing I read all week.  Zach Foster described how modern libertarians suffer from Back to the Future fantasies so much that they forget that they’re winning the argument:

 At the present time we’re faced with the great tasks of taking over the Republican Party, seizing the reigns of the State, and rolling back the size of government while restoring Constitutional liberties and a free market.  We can run away to 1920s Paris or we can make the best of the cards we’re dealt and have the courage to face our problems and undertake the tasks ahead of us.  Paris is just as beautiful in the rain today as it was in the 20s.  So is Washington D.C.  I could travel the world and visit every monument but I’ll always love my home town more.

The radicals on the Solana Beach Council are reconsidering their plastic bag ban.  Read all about it at The Del Mar Times .  You may recall that I exposed the unintended consequences  predictable  health hazard of  Lesa Heebner’s silly policy just a few days before the Solana Beach City Council considered a partial repeal of the ban.

Reusable grocery store bags can kill people while plastic bags don’t.  The sad thing is that Heebner and the rest of the City Council knew this; we told them about the Los Angeles County study (right here on SDROSTRA) before they voted to pass the ordinance.

Last night, the Republican Party of San Diego County endorsed three people for three different elections: Hector Gastelum for State Senate in District 40, Sandy Spackman for City Council in San Diego’s 4th District, and Harmeet Dhillon for Vice Chairman of the California Republican Party.  While local media could trumpet that each of those candidates might not look like the “traditional Republican base,” I’m less interested in their ethnicity than I am enthused about their ideas, outreach, and endorsements.

If you’re wondering what the future of the conservative movement looks like, Julie Borowski is the face of it.  She’s a 20-something,  limited government constitutionalist, who works as a policy analyst for FreedomWorks.  I met tons of young people like her last year and the Republican party needs to court them.

They hold differing personal opinions on gambling, prostitution, gay marriage, and drugs, but find common ground in the belief that it just ain’t the government’s business.  

Follow Julie on her blog, her Twitter account, her hugely successful YouTube channel, and her Facebook page.

What started as a ceremonial gesture to appease the radicals who influence the Solana Beach City Council, has now turned into a possible health epidemic.  Lesa Heebner’s radicals scared the rest of the City Council into passing a ban, using religious groups, anti-progress non-profits, and animal-rights groups, to produce on-line videos.  The thrust of Heebner’s message is that plastic bags kill whales – her solution was to coerce the Council into passing a city-wide plastic bag ban.

Press release from Stop Taxing Us alleges nefarious link between The MiraCosta College Foundation and the Yes on Proposition EE bond issuance campaign.

From the press release:

December 19, 2012:  (Carlsbad, CA)  The MiraCosta College Foundation appears to have violated the law and jeopardized its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status by making a large political contribution to the Yes on EE campaign.  Stop Taxing Us successfully defended the taxpayers from this 1.5 billion dollar tax hike.

The MiraCosta College Foundation was established as a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c) 3 in 1967 to receive and administer gifts and grants benefiting the college.  Contributions to the Foundation qualify for state and federal income tax deductions — and for estate tax savings.

Like most folks on the right side of the aisle, I’m thrilled that the Michigan Legislature and Governor advanced economic freedom by passing right-to-work legislation.  Closed shops, created by law (Wagner Act), are reprehensible. But as much as we don’t want to force workers to join unions, can we prevent business owners, from entering into agreements, with a labor union, which require union membership as a precondition of employment?

Let’s look at some examples:

Radio host Mike Slater sai, on his program today, that if you’re Mayor Bob Filner you answer that question by saying, “to create union jobs.”  I don’t disagree with Slater.  Filner is taking aim at the managed competition process, a program which San Diego voters overwhelmingly passed some five years ago.  While the voters told the public-sector unions to “compete or perish,” those unions pushed back on former Mayor Sanders to the point of obstructionism:

Free market competition fosters the highest quality products for the lowest possible consumer costs.  Republicans from the most local of volunteer precinct captains to the the Speaker of the House hold this tenet to be true.  Republicans decry centralized planning boards, death panels, executive orders, and TARP bailouts of banks.  But what happens when Republican elected officials engage in the same practice they decry?

We call federal policies, of restricting consumer choice in the light bulb industry  tyranny,  but when it comes to taxicabs, local Republican officials are doing the same exact thing.

Tony Young, current President of the San Diego City Council and Councilman from District 4, announced that he would be resigning his office to take over as CEO of the American Red Cross San Diego-Imperial Counties Chapter.  Voice of San Diego reports that his resignation will trigger a special election, leaving the opportunity for the Republican Party to lean the Council Republican:

Though the city council is generally considered nonpartisan, Young’s resignation will at least temporarily throw off the city council’s current political balance. With Young, Democrats hold a 5-4 majority and are more likely to help incoming Democratic Mayor Bob Filner usher in his new agenda. Without him, the council will be evenly split until the special election and there’s a chance District 4 voters could pick a Republican to take Young’s seat.

What the heck does SANDAG do?  Its mission statement, from its website:

The 18 cities and county government are SANDAG, the San Diego Association of Governments. This public agency serves as the forum for regional decision-making. SANDAG builds consensus; makes strategic plans; obtains and allocates resources; plans, engineers, and builds public transportation, and provides information on a broad range of topics pertinent to the region’s quality of life.

I said this Tuesday evening and I’ll say it again today; Barack Obama defeated Carl DeMaio and Bob Filner was along for the ride.  I’m not making excuses but it appears that the top of the ticket is going to have a lot of influence on the San Diego Mayoral general election in the future.

The North County Times explained that Interstate 8 was the dividing line in the San Diego Mayor’s Race.  In fact, DeMaio did even better than he did in June,  North of the 8, by picking up the Fletcher districts:

 
“We, the undersigned individuals, encourage all voters who value Liberty to vote for, donate to and volunteer time in support of Mitt Romney for President.  While Governor Romney’s views diverge from the conservative positions of our preferred candidate, we think it is important for all Republicans to come together at this time.  The party’s candidate represents a distinct alternative to President Obama, who stands in clear opposition to our core beliefs and the basic principles of our Constitutional Republic.”

Mark Powell is the reform candidate for the San Diego Unified School District Board.  He is endorsed the Republican Party of San Diego, The Lincoln Club, and San Diego Tax Fighters. The American Federation of Teachers, a labor union, put out a hit piece on him

The Voice of San Diego, hardly a house organ for the Republican Party, Lincoln Club, or San Diego Tax Fighters, rated that union-sponsored hit piece as “Huckster Propaganda”:

The statement that Powell was fired is untrue.