Month: April 2010

How to Fix California

Victor Davis Hanson has written a terrific essay on preserving what was once good in California. As always, Victor Davis Hanson is a wonderful read, and I highly recommend you read the entire short article.

In the article, he comes up with a solution as to how to save California in a single paragraph – not 2,000 pages. Hopefully without discouraging you from reading the entire essay, here is his very clear, excellent solution:

All of which raises the question: how would we return to sanity in California, a state as naturally beautiful and endowed and developed by our ancestors as it has been sucked dry by our parasitic generation? The medicine would be harder than the malady, and I just cannot see it happening, as much as I love the state, admire many of its citizens, and see glimmers of hope in the most unlikely places every day.

After all, in no particular order, we would have to close the borders; adopt English immersion in our schools; give up on the salad bowl and return to the melting pot; assimilate, intermarry, and integrate legal immigrants; curb entitlements and use the money to fix infrastructure like roads, bridges, airports, trains, etc.; build 4-5 new dams to store water in wet years; update the canal system; return to old policies barring public employee unions; redo pension contracts; cut about 50,000 from the public employee roles; lower income taxes from 10% to 5% to attract businesses back; cut sales taxes to 7%; curb regulations to allow firms to stay; override court orders now curbing cost-saving options in our prisons by systematic legislation; start creating material wealth from our forests; tap more oil, timber, natural gas, and minerals that we have in abundance; deliver water to the farmland we have; build 3-4 nuclear power plants on the coast; adopt a traditional curriculum in our schools; insist on merit pay for teachers; abolish tenure; encourage not oppose more charter schools, vouchers, and home schooling; give tax breaks to private trade and business schools; reinstitute admission requirements and selectivity at the state university system; take unregistered cars off the road; make UC professors teach a class or two more each year; abolish all racial quotas and preferences in reality rather than in name; build a new all weather east-west state freeway over the Sierra; and on and on.

While he admits that implementing the solution will not be easy, let us see if we can elect some state legislators and governors who would have the foresight and courage to undertake to restore California using VDH’s remedy. If we want to preserve this once golden state, it is what we must do.

How Public-Sector Unions Broke California

How Public-Sector Unions Broke California

There is a very good article on how the public-sector unions in California have raped the state by Steven Malanga on City Journal.  It explains how the unions, using their ability to elect politicians who will support their requests have negotiated contracts that have resulted in unreasonable and unsustainable retirement benefits for their members.

The ability of public-sector unions to control the legislature have caused much of the fiscal problems in California.  The unions’ political triumphs have molded a California in which government workers thrive at the expense of a struggling private sector. The state’s public school teachers are the highest-paid in the nation. Its prison guards can easily earn six-figure salaries. State workers routinely retire at 55 with pensions higher than their base pay for most of their working life. Meanwhile, what was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation’s and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations. This toxic combination—high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes—has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state.

This is an important factor in the problems of California.

How public employees became members of the elite class in a declining California offers a cautionary tale to the rest of the country, where the same process is happening in slower motion. The story starts half a century ago, when California public workers won bargaining rights and quickly learned how to elect their own bosses—that is, sympathetic politicians who would grant them outsize pay and benefits in exchange for their support. Over time, the unions have turned the state’s politics completely in their favor. The result: unaffordable benefits for civil servants; fiscal chaos in Sacramento and in cities and towns across the state; and angry taxpayers finally confronting the unionized masters of California’s unsustainable government.

The CTA is one of the unions that has acquired enormous power and uses it for their benefit, and to the detriment of the citizens of California.

Consider the California Teachers Association. Much of the CTA’s clout derives from the fact that, like all government unions, it can help elect the very politicians who negotiate and approve its members’ salaries and benefits. Soon after Proposition 13 became law, the union launched a coordinated statewide effort to support friendly candidates in school-board races, in which turnout is frequently low and special interests can have a disproportionate influence. In often bitter campaigns, union-backed candidates began sweeping out independent board members. By 1987, even conservative-leaning Orange County saw 83 percent of board seats up for grabs going to union-backed candidates. The resulting change in school-board composition made the boards close allies of the CTA.

The SEIU is another.

The SEIU’s rise in California illustrates again how modern labor’s biggest victories take place in back rooms, not on picket lines. In the late 1980s, the SEIU began eyeing a big jackpot: tens of thousands of home health-care workers being paid by California’s county-run Medicaid programs. The SEIU initiated a long legal effort to have those workers, who were independent contractors, declared government employees. When the courts finally agreed, the union went about organizing them—an easy task because governments rarely contest organizing campaigns, not wanting to seem anti-worker. The SEIU’s biggest victory was winning representation for 74,000 home health-care workers in Los Angeles County, the largest single organizing drive since the United Auto Workers unionized General Motors in 1937. Taxpayers paid a steep price: home health-care costs became the fastest-growing part of the Los Angeles County budget after the SEIU bargained for higher wages and benefits for these new recruits. The SEIU also organized home health-care workers in several other counties, reaching a whopping statewide total of 130,000 new members.

The SEIU’s California numbers have given it extraordinary resources to pour into political campaigns. The union’s major locals contributed a hefty $20 million in 2005 to defeat a series of initiatives to cap government growth and rein in union power. The SEIU has also spent millions over the years on initiatives to increase taxes, sometimes failing but on other occasions succeeding, as with a 2004 measure to impose a millionaires’ tax to finance more mental-health spending. With an overflowing war chest and hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers, the SEIU has been instrumental in getting local governments to pass living-wage laws in several California cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. And the union has also used its muscle in campaigns largely out of the public eye, as in 2003, when it pressured the board of CalPERS, the giant California public-employee pension fund, to stop investing in companies that outsourced government jobs to private contractors.

The writer concludes:

It will take an enormous effort to roll back decades of political and economic gains by government unions. But the status quo is unsustainable. And at long last, Californians are beginning to understand the connection between that status quo and the corruption at the heart of their politics.

This is important information. Please read the whole article.

United States – 1934

United States – 1934

Those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it. – George Santayana

Cartoon from the Chicago Tribune in 1934:

 

(Click on image to enlarge it)

It didn’t work so well then, what makes anyone think it will work now?

We Will Not Be Saying "Thank You", Mr. President

We Will Not Be Saying "Thank You", Mr. President

President Obama (February 4, 2009):

“I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

In the fifteen months of his presidency, President Obama has enacted into law, 25 tax increases totaling more than $670 billion, at least 14 of the taxes were violations of the Obama’s pledge not to raise any kind of taxes on Americans earning less than $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples.

The President’s list of violations include:

* Tobacco tax increase and expanded enforcement authority*

* New tax on individuals who do not purchase government‐approved health insurance

* A 40% excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans

* A new “medicine cabinet tax” on over-the-counter purchases from HSAs, FSAs, and HRAs increasing the non-medical early withdrawal HSA penalty from 10 to 20 percent

* A “special-needs kids” tax (capping FSA contributions at $2500)

* An increase in the top Medicare payroll tax rate from 2.9 to 3.8 percent (in so doing raising the top marginal tax rate on labor from 37.9 to 43.4 percent)

* A hike in the capital gains rate from 15 to 23.8 percent

* A hike in the dividends tax rate from 15 to 43.4 percent

* A hike in the “other” investment tax rate from 35 to 43.4 percent

* An increase in the “reduction of the deduction” for medical expenses from 7.5 to 10 percent of AGI

* New annual taxes on health insurance companies, innovator drug companies, and medical device manufacturers

* A 10% excise tax for tanning salon sessions eliminating the deduction for employer-provided retiree Rx coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D

* Creating the “economic substance doctrine,” which allows the IRS to disallow perfectly-legal tax deductions it deems are only being used to reduce tax liabilities

* Requiring 1099-MISC information reporting for small business payments to corporations, increasing compliance burdens for small employers

Yesterday the President showed his typical arrogance and disregard for the public as he “amused” himself at the expense of the tax party protesters:

“In all, we passed 25 different tax cuts last year. And one thing we haven’t done is raise income taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year — another promise that we kept,” he told supporters at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. “So I’ve been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies about taxes. You would think they would be saying thank you.”

Sorry, Mr. Obama, we will not thank you for raising our taxes and breaking your pledge not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000. We will not thank you for further deepening the financial crisis by raising taxes in the midst of a severe recession. We will not thank you for creating the largest debt obligations ever in the history of the United States. We will not thank you for shoving a multi-trillion dollar healthcare insurance bill burden on American taxpayers when clearly a super-majority of Americans did not want it.

No thanks coming from here, Mr. Obama. You will have to look elsewhere for thanks.

h/t Yid with Lid

Assemblyman Mike Feuer Blocks Resolution To Honor Boy Scouts

Assemblyman Mike Feuer Blocks Resolution To Honor Boy Scouts

“On my honor I will do my best
to do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
to help other people at all times;
to keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.”

I really have difficulty understanding Democrats, especially Democrats like Mike Feuer, member of the California State Assembly from the 42nd Assembly District (West Hollywood, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, West LA, Studio City).

Everyone understands the good that the Boy Scouts do, and have been doing for 100 years.  I was a boy scout.  It was a valuable experience for me in my formative years.  It taught me many things. One thing I learned was how to be responsible for myself.  Another was that you had to be honorable as well as moral.  Effectively, how to be an adult.  It was a healthy and positive experience for me, as it was for tens of thousands of boys who went through the scouting movement for the past 100 years.

A resolution was presented in the California Assembly Judiciary Committee this week to honor the Boy Scouts of America for their nearly 100 years of service to the country.  Committee Chairman Mike Feuer said that he opposed the resolution because “gays are not allowed to serve as troop leaders.”

Does Mike Feuer not understand that one of the elements of scouting is that young boys go on overnight camping trips with their troop leaders and scoutmasters.  Some parents of young boys would be reluctant to send their son on an overnight camping trip if they knew the troop leader or scoutmaster was gay.  Yes, I know that few gay men are pedophiles, but some are.  Yes, I know that some heterosexual males are also pedophiles.  However, it is a matter of perception.  Parents will feel concerned that their child might be a victim of sexual abuse.

So, Michael Feuer got the other Democrats on the committee to kill the resolution honoring this fine service organization.  The resolution lost on straight party line vote.  All Democrats voted to kill the resolution.  All Republicans supported it.

The Democrats on the committee who voted against the resolution are Mike Feuer, Julia Brownley, Noreen Evans, Dave Jones,Ted Lieu, William Monning and Pedro Nava.  Republicans on the committee supporting the resolution were Van Tran, Curt Hagman and Steve Knight.

Objectives of the Boy Scouts (from their web site):
 
The Boy Scouts of America is one of the nation’s largest and most prominent values-based youth development organizations. The BSA provides a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and develops personal fitness.
For nearly a century, the BSA has helped build the future leaders of this country by combining educational activities and lifelong values with fun. The Boy Scouts of America believes — and, through nearly a century of experience, knows — that helping youth is a key to building a more conscientious, responsible, and productive society.

Happy Anniversary To Us

Well, loyal readers, it was exactly five years ago that I wrote the first post at Bear to the Right. I actually wrote three posts on that first day.

I am reposting them again:
__________________________________

Welcome to “Bear to the Right”

This is a new blog where I, and occasional guests, will expound on the meaning of life. Comments will not appear on a regular basis as I have a life to attend to outside of blogging. Check back for further updates.

Since when do you telegraph your next move?

Can someone explain to me why Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made the comment that Iran has nothing to fear from Israel since Israel does not intend to attack Iran’s nuclear capability?

Wouldn’t the world be a lot safer if Iran was wondering what move Israel was going to make, and when?

Just a thought.

Boxer’s “rare” opposition

Barbara Boxer, liberal Democratic Senator from California, claims her opposition to John Bolton, President Bush’s nominee for the post of Ambassador to the United Nations, is rare.

Let’s see, in addition to opposing the Bolton appointment to the UN, she has opposed the appointment of Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State, John Bolton as Under-Secretary of State, John Ashcroft for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez for Attorney General, Theodore Olson for Solicitor General, Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior and Michael Leavitt for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Were there any of President Bush’s significant appointments that she supported?

Rare, indeed.
__________________________________

So, as you can see, here we are five years later, and we are still writing about the same topics. 

Happy Anniversary to us.

Obama To Take Hardline On US Climate Strategy

Obama To Take Hardline On US Climate Strategy

The Guardian reports that a document was inadvertently left on a hotel computer in Europe which spells out the Obama Administration policy with regard to climate controls.
Continue reading “Obama To Take Hardline On US Climate Strategy” →

Obama Eradicates Islamic Terrorism – From NSA Documents Only

From the Middle East Forum:The Obama administration has just announced its intent to ban all words that allude to Islam from important national security documents. Put differently, the Obama administration has just announced its intent to ban all knowledge and context necessary to confront and defeat radical Islam (news much welcomed by Islamist organizations like CAIR). While this move may reflect a naively therapeutic administration — an Obama advisor once suggested that Winnie the Pooh should inform U.S foreign policy — that Obama, the one U.S. president who best knows that politically correct niceties will have no effect on the Muslim world is enforcing this ban, is further troubling.

An Associated Press report has the disturbing details:

President Barack Obama’s advisers plan to remove terms such as “Islamic radicalism” from a document outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism, counterterrorism officials say.

First off, how, exactly, does the use of terms such as “Islamic radicalism” indicate that the U.S. views “Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism”? It is the height of oversensitivity to think that the so-called “Muslim street” can be antagonized by accurate words in technical U.S. documents — documents they don’t know or care about — especially since the Arabic media itself often employs such terms. Surely we can use “Islamic radicalism” to define, well, Islamic radicals, without simultaneously viewing all Muslims “through the lens of terrorism”? Just as surely as we can use words like “Nazism” to define white supremacists, without viewing all white nations through the lens of racism?

The AP report continues:

Obama’s speechwriters have taken inspiration from an unlikely source: former President Ronald Reagan. Visiting communist China in 1984, Reagan spoke at Fudan University in Shanghai about education, space exploration and scientific research. He discussed freedom and liberty. He never mentioned communism or democracy.

The analogy is flawed. For starters, in Reagan’s era, the Soviet Union, not China, was America’s prime antagonist — just as today, Islamic radicals, not Muslims, are America’s prime enemy. Moreover, unlike Obama, who would have the U.S. bend over backwards to appease Muslim nations— or, in his case, just bend over — Reagan regularly lambasted the Soviet Union, dubbing it the “evil empire.” Finally, the Chinese never attacked America, unlike Islamic radicals, who not only have attacked it, but daily promise it death and destruction — all in the name of Islam.

The ultimate problem in the White House’s new “words-policy,” however, is reflected in this excerpt from the report:

The change [i.e., linguistic obfuscation] would be a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. It currently states, “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.”

Read the whole article.

Israel Support Stronger By Republicans Than Democrats

Jeff Jacoby, in an article in the Boston Globe, analyzes the result of a Gallop poll:

But look at the disparity that emerges when those results are sorted by party affiliation. While support for Israel vs. the Palestinians has climbed to a stratospheric 85 percent among Republicans, the comparable figure for Democrats is an anemic 48 percent. (It was 60 percent for independents.) And behind Israel’s “Top 5” favorability rating lies a gaping partisan rift: 80 percent of Republicans — but just 53 percent Democrats — have positive feelings about the world’s only Jewish country.

Similarly, it is true that 333 US House members, a hefty bipartisan majority, endorsed the robustly pro-Israel Hoyer-Cantor letter to Hillary Clinton. But there were only seven Republicans who declined to sign the letter, compared with 91 Democrats — more than a third of the entire Democratic caucus. (Six Massachusetts Democrats were among the non-signers: John Olver, Richard Neal, John Tierney, Ed Markey, Michael Capuano, and Bill Delahunt.)

From Zogby International comes still more proof of the widening gulf between the major parties on the subject of Israel. In a poll commissioned by the Arab American Institute last month, respondents were asked whether Obama should “steer a middle course” in the Middle East — code for not clearly supporting Israel. “There is a strong divide on this question,” Zogby reported, “with 73% of Democrats agreeing that the President should steer a middle course while only 24% of Republicans hold the same opinion.”

Taken as a whole, America’s identification with Israel is as stout as ever — the “special relationship” between the two nations still runs deep. But the old political consensus that brought Republicans and Democrats together in support of the Middle East’s only flourishing democracy is breaking down. Republican friendship for Israel has never been more rock-solid. Democratic friendship — especially now, in the age of Obama — is growing steadily less so.

I am not sure why Republicans are more supportive of Israel than Democrats, but the results of the surveys are interesting. Perhaps someone will come up with an explanation.

Read the whole article.

THE FACTS ABOUT THE “FREEDOM SLATE” FOR THE 42ND ASSEMBLY DISTRICT

Most of you are unaware of the inner workings of the politics of The Republican Party of Los Angeles County (RPLAC). Some of you have signed up to show your support for the so-called “Freedom Slate” of the 42nd Assembly District on Facebook or on their website, I thought you should be informed as to who they really are and what their real expressed intent is.

Leading the “Freedom Slate” is Rick Williams. Rick Williams is the attorney representing Robert Vaughn. Robert Vaughn is the person erroneously holding himself out as the “Chairman” of RPLAC, and is currently running a shadow group calling itself RPLAC. Robert Vaughn is also the person suing RPLAC and its Executive Board members personally through Rick Williams. The lawsuit seeks a gag order against the elected RPLAC board and also seeks to prohibit them from calling meetings of Republicans in Los Angeles.

That lawsuit is costing the LA County Republican Party tens of thousands of dollars, just to oppose the lawsuit by filing a motion to strike it as a “SLAPP” – strategic lawsuit against public participation. We understand they are now about to file a motion to enjoin the elected RPLAC Board from calling itself RPLAC, and possibly taking other action on behalf of the party. How many more tens of thousands of dollars of county party money will that cost?

That is money that should be going to support our Republican candidates to get elected in Los Angeles County, and instead is being used to pay lawyers to defend us in a frivolous lawsuit handled by Rick Williams. We haven’t even gotten to court yet, so the total cost will be much higher. How critical would those funds be today if we could spend them on candidate support, purchasing slate cards, helping with lawn signs and other candidate support, instead of spending those funds on defending lawsuits or getting frivolous suits thrown out?

You might be wondering how Robert Vaughn and Rick Williams got to know each other. Robert Vaughn was the Los Angeles Chairman of the Ron Paul for President campaign in 2008. Rick Williams also worked on the Ron Paul campaign.  Rick Williams’ law partner is the former State Chairman of the California Democratic Party.

Many of you joined the Freedom Slate Facebook group or website because it is being promoted by David Hernandez. I like David, as I am sure you do. However, in this instance I believe David is seriously misguided, and has been unfortunately convinced to take up a cause which is not worthy of his long and commendable service to conservative causes in Los Angeles County.

It is my belief, along with many others, that the Freedom Slate is an attempt to gain control of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County through the back door. If they can get enough of the Robert Vaughn group on the 42nd AD central committee, it will give them a foothold to take over the Party. This is not just conjecture. It is a stated objective on their web site.

Further, the so-called Freedom Slate is coming from a place of intolerance. Rick Williams has been heard to comment at RWF meetings he has spoken at, that it is time to remove the gays from the 42nd AD central committee. Rick may be unaware that West Hollywood – home to many gays, Republican and Democrat – makes up a substantial part of the 42nd Assembly District. Is he saying that West Hollywood should not have representation on the Central Committee? The following is a comment from an article Rick Williams wrote which appears on their website:

“Four of the incumbent candidates are special interest advocates– interested in only the single issue of advancing the cause of gay marriage. Well . . . with all due respect to our four incumbent friends, the issue of gay marriage ranks pretty close to the bottom of the political priority list in a time where the state of California and the city of Los Angeles are bankrupt, and good hearted people are losing their jobs and their homes in an avalanche of economic collapse.”

 This type of rhetoric is an attempt to disguise an intolerance for gay Republicans. I sit on the 42nd AD central committee and work with its members. While there are a handful of gay members on the current central committee, I can tell you that the furthest thing from their mind is gay marriage. They are not single interest advocates. I have not heard the words gay marriage once during any central committee meeting in the past year and one half that this central committee has been active. These men are more interested in loss of liberty, economic concerns, employment concerns, getting Republicans elected, and preventing the enormous expansion of government.   Hurtful rhetoric from “freedom slate” candidates reveals their true agenda.

Another misstatement from the “Freedom” slate concerns the motivations of other candidates:

“The other candidates running against the Freedomslate seem primarily interested in . . . running against the Freedomslate. These other candidates are the “status quo” offering favored by the existing old guard Party leadership. The old guard message goes something like this: Heaven forbid that the Freedomslate people might actually change something!”

Well, I am one of the other candidates running for the 42nd Assembly District Central Committee on the “Take Back Los Angeles County” slate. I am not running against the Freedom Slate, nor are any of my fellow slate candidates. We are running for the office.

Now, do any of you who know me honestly believe that I am primarily interested in “…running against the Freedomslate?” Do any of you who support the Freedom Slate believe that I am not contributing an extraordinary part of my daily life to supporting conservative causes in Los Angeles County, or that I am not doing everything I can to get new young conservative candidates elected to office in Los Angeles County? So are many of the people running with me for the 42nd AD central committee on the Take Back Los Angeles County slate.

 Do any of you who know me believe that I am not interested in bringing in new leadership? I have been working my butt off (a political technical term) to bring in new leadership in the county party. I am supporting all kinds of new fresh faces who are running for office, or are running for central committee. I, along with the other candidates running on the Take Back Los Angeles County slate, support new leadership. What we don’t support is deception and strategy designed to do a back-door takeover.

 You might be wondering who is on the Take Back Los Angeles County slate for the 42nd Assembly District? Here they are:

 GARY A. AMINOFF
Commercial Real Estate Broker
Current Positions:
First Vice Chairman, The Republican Party of Los Angeles County
President, San Fernando Valley Republican Club
Member, Executive Committee, California Republican Party
Member, 42nd Assembly District Republican Central Committee
President, Chatsworth-Northridge Republican Assembly
Board of Directors, California Republican Assembly
Author/blogger at Bear to the Right
Prior Positions:
Co-Organizer of the February 27, 2009 and the April 15, 2009 Tea Party Rallys
West Los Angeles/San Fernando Valley Chair – McCain for President 2007-2008
Los Angeles County Chair – Rudy Guiliani for President – 2007
Los Angeles County Co-Chair, Schwarzenegger for Governor – 2006
Former Treasurer of the Republican Party of LA County 2006-2009
San Fernando Valley Chair, Bush-Cheney campaign 2004
San Fernando Valley Co-Chair, Grey Davis Recall – 2003
San Fernando Valley Co-Chair, Schwarzenegger for Governor 2003
 (I won’t bother to list the rest)

BRAD TORGAN
Attorney and Small Business Owner
Member, California Republican Party Central Committee
Appointed Member, 42nd Assembly District Central Committee
Vice President – Log Cabin Republicans, Los Angeles
Member, West Hollywood Historic Preservation Commission
Member, Congregation Kol Ami
Former General Counsel, California Department of Parks and Recreation

PAUL MORGAN FREDRIX
Attorney/Actor
Chairman, 42nd AD Central Committee – 2005 to present
West Los Angeles/San Fernando Valley Precinct Chair – McCain Campaign 2008
Member, Precinct Committee, Republican Party of Los Angeles County
Paul has worked on every political campaign in Los Angeles County, and prior to that in Ohio.
He was the Registration Chair for the 12 Northeastern Counties of Ohio for the Republican Party prior to moving to California

NATE G. KRAUT
Attorney
Nate G. Kraut has been an elected member of the County Central Committee for the 42nd Assembly District since January 2007, serving as its Treasurer since January 2009.
Vice Chair of Los Angeles Lawyers for McCain – 2008.
Long standing member of the San Fernando Valley chapter of the California Republican League, serving on its Board of Directors since 1994.

Nate has been an attorney since 1983.  Nate served as a Senior Judicial Attorney for the California Court of Appeal from 1983 through 1995, after which he opened his own law office, practicing exclusively in the area of civil appeals and writs.  He is certified as an Appellate Specialist by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization.

From 2004 through 2009, Nate served as a member of the Alumni Board of Governors for the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law.  In addition to his private practice, Nate has donated his time serving as a Settlement Conference Officer for the California Court of Appeal and a Judge Pro Tem for the Los Angeles Superior Court.  Through the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Appellate Courts Committee (of which Nate has been a member since 1988), he is part of a group of attorneys who handle appeals for free for indigent individuals.

MAGGIE SOLEIMANI
(New to County political activity)
Attorney
Candidate for Mayor of Beverly Hills

SCOTT SNAPP
Entertainer
Secretary, 42nd Assembly District Central Committee
Member, Executive Committee, Republican Party of Los Angeles County

ASHLEY NICOLE INGRAM
Political Consultant
Current Positions:
Outreach Coordinator – Steve Cooley for Attorney General 2010 Campaign
28th Congressional District Ex-Officio Member of the Executive Committee

Of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County and the California Republican Party.

Executive Director – Young Republican Federation of California
Youth Committee Chair – Republican Party of Los Angeles County
Youth Committee Chair – San Fernando Valley Republican Club
V.P. Precinct/Campaign Operations – Encino Oaks Republican Women Federated
Prior Positions:
Field Representative – Rudy Giuliani Campaign – 2007-2008
Deputy Campaign Manager – Tony Strickland for CA Senate 2008 campaign.
Executive Director – Republican Party of Los Angeles County – 2009

These are the people who Rick Williams calls the “old guard” who are responsible for what is wrong with the Republican Party of Los Angeles County. The Take Back Los Angeles County slate has the goal of defeating Democrats and taking back Los Angeles County for the Republican Party.

 People don’t have resumes like that by sitting on their hands. Everyone on this slate has paid his dues through hard work in the Republican Party.

 I, for one, am very proud to be associated with these fine conservatives who are, every day, devoting their time to support the Republican Party and its message of freedom. Why don’t you ask the members of the “Freedom Slate” what their contribution has been to the Republican Party over the past five years?

 I am not interested in giving Robert Vaughn and his cohorts (including his attorney) another way to attempt to get control of the county party since they can’t get it by legitimate election. Robert Vaughn and his group are not recognized by the California Republican Party as having any legitimacy.

 Do you really want to work to support people who are costing the Republican Party of Los Angeles County tens of thousands of dollars that should properly be going to support Republican candidates in this critical year? Do you really want to support a “Ron Paul-libertarian” takeover of the county party? Do you really want to support homophobic, intolerant candidates? Do you really want to support a slate of people who have had no political experience, with the exception of Hernandez? Do you really want to support people who are just interested in gaining power, and not in working for Republican causes? Do you really want to contribute money that may well be used against the Republican Party of Los Angeles County?

 I urge you to reconsider your support of the so-called “Freedom Slate.” I hope you will support the “Take Back Los Angeles County” Slate, consisting of dedicated Republicans who have devoted themselves to the task of taking back Los Angeles County from Democrats.