http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8GY0hu0vCs
A Lively Chat Between Dan Jacobson of Environment California, Linda Adams, Former California EPA Secretary and now Partner with Clean Tech Advocates, & Loren Kaye, Head of the California Foundation for Commerce and Education
Nothing remotely felonious about Sen. Ricardo Lara’s recent fundraising invitation, which can be seen in larger form by clicking the image to the left.
That said, the artwork on the Los Angeles Democrat’s solicitation might be a bit unappetizing to some.
But it’s certainly no crime to host a $1,000-a-head “Pig-Roast-a-Palooza.”
Unless potential gastrointestinal consequences are considered.
-30-
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Congressman Paul Ryan is headed to Baltimore later this week to speak at a fundraiser for the Maryland Republican Party. Ryan and Congressional Republicans are well known for their controversial “Path to Prosperity” budget plan. Mr. Ryan and the Maryland GOP want to move the country—and Maryland—backward by reinstating many of the same policies that [...]
Regular readers to Texas Watchdog may have noticed there hasn't been much posted to the site over the past several months. The reason is simple: We've run out of money to keep delivering our award-winning local journalism.
We’ve had many generous donors since we launched in the summer of 2008, but a key donor for our operation in 2012, the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, announced last year they would not be supporting independent journalism operations in 2013. We remain grateful for their support.
We were unable to secure the funds we would need to continue operating as an independent journalism site on a meaningful level.
Although closing down our site is quite sad, I look back at our time launching and growing Texas Watchdog as a bright point in Houston — and Texas — journalism.
Texas newspapers, TV stations and websites regularly partnered with us and published our stories. We truly regret that we will no longer be able to continue to fulfill our mission of providing them with free, nonpartisan enterprise and investigative journalism with punch and impact.
I’m proud to say that the journalists whose bylines you’ve gotten to know at Texas Watchdog have all landed on their feet. And you can continue reading their top-notch reporting:
They include:
Jennifer Peebles. Jennifer is managing editor of digital operations at the Washington Examiner. She continues to be active with the Society of Professional Journalists at the national level. On Twitter: @jpeebles.
Steve Miller. Steve’s new book, Detroit Rock City: The Uncensored History of Rock n’ Roll In America’s Loudest City, hits stores June 25 and is available for pre-order at booksellers everywhere, including Amazon. He’s written in recent weeks for the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting and covered the Cleveland kidnappings for The Daily Beast. He writes a monthly column on transparency for MLive and the Lansing City Pulse. His Web site is Avalanche50.com. On Twitter: @penvengeance.
Mark Lisheron. Mark is a national reporter for Watchdog.org, a news site funded by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. You can also catch his byline on American Journalism Review. On Twitter: @marktxwatchdog.
Lynn Walsh. Lynn is an investigative producer for WPTV, the NBC affiliate in West Palm Beach, Fla. She has been nominated for four Emmy awards and continues to be involved with both the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association. On Twitter: @lwalsh.
Mike Cronin. Mike is a reporter for American Public Media's Public Insight Network in St. Paul, Minn. On Twitter: @michaelccronin.
Lee Ann O’Neal. Lee Ann crunches data for the U-T San Diego investigative unit and provides freelance computer assisted reporting for publications around the country. On Twitter: @leeannoneal.
On a personal note, it has been a great honor to work alongside all of them. Pound for pound, I believe we had the best enterprise journalism team in Texas.
Thank you to all our readers and donors who made that possible!
As for me, I am now a journalist for the the U-T San Diego Watchdog team and hope to bring some good ol’ Texas journalism to sunny southern California. My work email is trent.seibert@utsandiego.com and my personal email is seibert.trent@gmail.com. On Twitter: @trentseibert.
Trent Seibert
Regular readers to Texas Watchdog may have noticed there hasn't been much posted to the site over the past several months. The reason is simple: We've run out of money to keep delivering our award-winning local journalism.
We’ve had many generous donors since we launched in the summer of 2008, but a key donor for our operation in 2012, the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, announced last year they would not be supporting independent journalism operations in 2013. We remain grateful for their support.
We were unable to secure the funds we would need to continue operating as an independent journalism site on a meaningful level.
Although closing down our site is quite sad, I look back at our time launching and growing Texas Watchdog as a bright point in Houston — and Texas — journalism.
Texas newspapers, TV stations and websites regularly partnered with us and published our stories. We truly regret that we will no longer be able to continue to fulfill our mission of providing them with free, nonpartisan enterprise and investigative journalism with punch and impact.
I’m proud to say that the journalists whose bylines you’ve gotten to know at Texas Watchdog have all landed on their feet. And you can continue reading their top-notch reporting:
They include:
Jennifer Peebles. Jennifer is managing editor of digital operations at the Washington Examiner. She continues to be active with the Society of Professional Journalists at the national level. On Twitter: @jpeebles.
Steve Miller. Steve’s new book, Detroit Rock City: The Uncensored History of Rock n’ Roll In America’s Loudest City, hits stores June 25 and is available for pre-order at booksellers everywhere, including Amazon. He’s written in recent weeks for the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting and covered the Cleveland kidnappings for The Daily Beast. He writes a monthly column on transparency for MLive and the Lansing City Pulse. His Web site is Avalanche50.com. On Twitter: @penvengeance.
Mark Lisheron. Mark is a national reporter for Watchdog.org, a news site funded by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. You can also catch his byline on American Journalism Review. On Twitter: @marktxwatchdog.
Lynn Walsh. Lynn is an investigative producer for WPTV, the NBC affiliate in West Palm Beach, Fla. She has been nominated for four Emmy awards and continues to be involved with both the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association. On Twitter: @lwalsh.
Mike Cronin. Mike is a reporter for American Public Media's Public Insight Network in St. Paul, Minn. On Twitter: @michaelccronin.
Lee Ann O’Neal. Lee Ann crunches data for the U-T San Diego investigative unit and provides freelance computer assisted reporting for publications around the country. On Twitter: @leeannoneal.
On a personal note, it has been a great honor to work alongside all of them. Pound for pound, I believe we had the best enterprise journalism team in Texas.
Thank you to all our readers and donors who made that possible!
As for me, I am now a journalist for the the U-T San Diego Watchdog team and hope to bring some good ol’ Texas journalism to sunny southern California. My work email is trent.seibert@utsandiego.com and my personal email is seibert.trent@gmail.com. On Twitter: @trentseibert.
Trent Seibert
By Anthony Wright
Saturday, the California Legislature passed historic legislation to expand Medi-Cal to over one million Californians, as well as key budget trailer bills that restore many dental services to over three million Californians and other key improvements in Medi-Cal.
The bills the Legislature passed included the major Medi-Cal expansion bills (AB1x1/SB1x1), and budget bills such as the main health trailer bill that includes the restorations to dental and other benefits (SB77/AB82), the reallocation of county safety-net dollars (SB80/AB85), and another to reinstitute the Managed Care Organization (MCO) tax to help fund health in the budget (SB78/AB83).
The debate over immigration reform continues to rage in the nation’s capitol. There are three sides to the current debate – Republicans who are pushing for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, Republicans who are opposed to anything that looks or smells like amnesty, and finally the Democrats, who are content to watch the various facets on the Republican Party go after each other.
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley has been a vocal opponent of the immigration reform package that is being backed by a group of moderate Republicans in the Senate. This isn’t the first time Grassley has had a ringside seat to an immigration rodeo in the U.S. Senate. In 1986, Grassley support President Reagan’s immigration reform act that granted amnesty to over three million undocumented immigrants.
Grassley now regrets supporting the 1986 amnesty and has thus attempted to put some teeth into the legislation that is currently making its way through congress. Last week, Grassley offered an amendment that would have required that the border be secured before any illegal/undocumented immigrant is grated any form of legal status. Unfortunately, Grassley’s amendment was dead on arrival in the Judiciary Committee and on the floor of the senate.
While most Americans would agree that securing the boarder is the most realistic and commonsense approach to solving our immigration problems, the Republicans who are looking to pass immigration reform know it’s a deal breaker for Democrats. That should give all Americans pause. If there is no desire to actually secure our boarders, are we not effectively allowing anyone who takes up residence in the United States to be come a full fledged citizen as long as they jump through all the right hoops?
If you think we have entitlement problems now that the baby boomer generation is reaching retirement age, just wait until Marco Rubio, John McCain, and Democrats open the United States up for citizenship on demand.
As one would expect, Congressman Steve King is doing his part in the battle to block the immigration reform proposal in the House of Representatives. King is leading a group of 70 Republican members who are opposed to ANY immigration reform bill passing in the House.
King and others believe that the reconciliation process would strip any boarder enforcement mechanisms that the House would put in the bill. It is also likely that the final version of the bill would likely have enough votes to pass the House as long as Democrats support it. As Glenn Beck said during an interview with King on Thursday, any immigration bill passed by the House would be a “Trojan Horse” that would grant amnesty to all undocumented people living in America.
Grassley and King have done a tremendous job of advocating for their position on this subject, yet many Republican leaders seem hell-bent just to do something on the issue of immigration in hopes to help them at the ballot box in future elections. The news media, political commentators, and some influential Republicans have propelled an argument that Republicans will not be able to win national elections in the future without the ever expanding Hispanic vote.
Oddly enough, even some Democrats are worried about Republicans’ chances at that ballot box. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez recently told Politico, “I would tell my Republican colleagues, both in the House and the Senate, that the road to the White House comes through a road with a pathway to legalization. Without it, there will never be a road to the White House for the Republican Party.”
Shouldn’t the moderate Republicans in the Senate or the power brokers pushing for immigration reform be a little skeptical of their own legislation when someone like Menendez offers the GOP political advice? Despite the fact that this guy has a major sex scandal dogging him, he still has the gall to tell Republicans what medicine they should take.
All Republicans need to take a step back and re-examine this issue.
Pandering to a specific ethnic group or any group of voters is not leadership, nor will it help Republican candidates win elections. Yet, moderate Republicans in the House and Senate, the Republican National Committee, and National College Republicans all want to do just that, pander for votes.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think Republicans should ever look at voters based on color or nationality. Even though the Democrats have mastered race and gender politics, I find the practice to be demeaning. Are we so foolish to think that every white man is alike? Do you really think that every woman holds the same views on every issue? Do we really think that the most important issue to Hispanics is providing a get out of jail free card to anyone who’s in the country illegally?
Talk about a bad case of overgeneralization.
Republicans will win national elections again once they begin to care about individuals. It’s worked in Iowa during the last two presidential caucus cycles. Both Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum offered a very populist message to voters. They didn’t care if you were black, brown, white, rich, poor, male or female.
Huckabee and Santorum both talked about upward mobility. To some, that might have meant getting a job, to others it meant advancing in their current job. Maybe someone listened to that message and started their own business. To the current business owners it meant growing their existing business. It is in the best interest of Americans and Republicans for people to succeed, yet far too few candidates really care about opportunity and growth.
Republicans will not fix their electoral problems as long as they think there is a piece of legislation out there that solves their problems. Ronald Reagan once said, that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Yet, with Republicans still licking their wounds from the last election, they are stuck looking to the government for a solution. No wonder the Republican Party is such a mess.
The 2012 election is behind us. It was bad. It’s time to move on, but in doing so, we need to return the ideals of Ronald Reagan, not big government, and we cannot win by stealing a page from the Democrats’ playbook.
