Every year for what seems like forever, when the Legislature tackles the budget our legislators wake up and say, "How did I get into this hole and what is my favorite shovel doing here?"

Well, your shovel is there Mr. and Ms. Legislator because you are the ones who dug the hole. So as a first step, how about stop digging.

California's decaying and crumbling state parks and the circumstances that have brought them to this point offer a textbook example of why California chronically finds itself in this self-created budget hole year in and year out.

Originally appeared on Politico.com

President Obama is neither "pro-business" nor "anti-business". He is "pro-Obama" and he will do anything to sell and protect his brand.

In a nation of narcissists he is unchallenged for the number one spot even if the brand is losing some of its luster.

Obama's problem is that he has absolutely no knowledge of how business works particularly small business, which is the backbone of the economy.

"Our 11^th Commandment is perhaps more profound than we realize.  "Thou shall not speak ill of any Republican."  To do so means we are inhibited in the support we can give that Republican if he should become the nominee of our party.  Certainly our task is harder if we must challenge and refute charges made by our opponents if those charges were first uttered by us...."

"Fight as hard in the coming primary as you can for your candidate, but be against only those we must defeat in November of 1968.  Let no opposition candidate quote your words in the general election to advance statism or the philosophy of those who have lost confidence in man's capacity for self-rule."

Ronald Reagan in a Speech to the California Republican Assembly, April 1967

For those of us who live in California or as we like to call it "Athens-on-the-Pacific", things have never looked bleaker.

Last week, Governor Schwarzenegger released what will be his last budget to the Legislature and the people. It projects a deficit of $19.1 billion and will make drastic cuts in social spending.

Right on cue the Democrats who have had a death grip on the Legislature for decades began their whining and caterwauling about the destruction of the safety net and that the "rich" weren't paying enough and business needs to pay more.

Every summer a new crop of America’s finest young men and women arrive at a place high above the Hudson River in upstate New York. That place is the United States Military Academy at West Point. It is here that they will take their first steps in becoming our nation’s military leaders of tomorrow. Over the course of the next four years they will learn many things.

But on that first day they will learn 12 very important words. "A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do."

This is the Cadet Honor Code. It is simple, straightforward and “lie, cheat, or steal” at West Point has a broad definition to cover any unethical or immoral behavior.

Recently here in California, we had a video surface that showed two Republican legislators waiting for a formal hearing to begin engaged in a conversation about the sexual exploits of one with a married female lobbyist who has two children. Assemblyman Mike Duvall, the person who made the disgusting comments, is also married with two children. It has been replayed too many times to count and I will not dignify what was said by repeating it here.

You’ve got to love the cable TV pundits, has-been political hacks and bloviators who were “analyzing” Sarah Palin’s decision to resign as Governor of Alaska.

They never saw it coming, but somehow they now know her motives. In fact, they have never bothered to get to know her or try to understand where she was coming from. They are content to talk behind her back and gossip like a bunch of Old World WASPs at a restricted country club, making fun of her because she is not one of “them” all the while vowing to do whatever it takes to keep her and her working class family out of their exclusive club.

I am sure that in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard over the 4th of July weekend our “betters” in the Establishment are all having a good laugh about the rube from Alaska and how they drove her out of politics. And that includes the establishment people in both parties, better known as the ruling class. Republican or Democrat, there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece titled “A Real Lawman” about the potential candidacy of Tom O’Brien for Attorney General. As you might recall Tom is the extremely effective U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. He has an impeccable record in fighting crime from human trafficking to cybercrimes to white collar fraud. He has also tackled street gangs in Los Angeles.

I have just learned that Tom has decided against a run for Attorney General at this time. That’s too bad. Not just because I think he would have been a formidable Republican candidate, but because all Californians will not have the opportunity to have someone of his caliber and character as their chief law enforcement official.

The California Republican Party is at its lowest point in decades. If ever there was a time for new faces and new solutions to old problems that time is now. Tom would have brought new energy and vitality to a party that desperately needs it.

While almost every politician in America was stumbling all over themselves to be photographed with a shovel or some other tool of manual labor on Earth Day, a California company announced that after 65 years it was closing its doors effective immediately.

Gregg Industries is a foundry in El Monte and it has been in operation since 1944 when California was a critical player in FDR’s “arsenal of democracy”. They didn’t make planes or tanks. But they made some of the critical engine pieces that drove tanks in war and the bulldozers and heavy equipment that built postwar California.

They were due to close on April 30, but decided to close today, a week early.

Why? What was the rush?

Enter the Environmental Storm Troopers of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD).

Elections are like trains or buses. There is always another one coming. And it looks like the 2010 election cycle is already heating up. The election on May 19th should give us a good indication of what we might expect next year. Looking at the voter’s mood as of today the letter next to a candidate’s name that will be the scarlet letter is not “D” or “R”, but “I” for incumbent.

But most of the 2010 talk has been about who will be the candidates for governor. However, with apologies to Lt. Governor Garamendi, the second most important constitutional office is that of Attorney General. Other than the occasional news story saying that San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris and maybe LA City Attorney Ricky Delgadillo, both Democrats are looking at the race, we haven’t heard much about what Republicans are up to.

It has come to my attention that a number of prominent law enforcement officials from across the state have been encouraging former naval aviator and current U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Tom O’Brien to run for Attorney General.

During the Cold War when the Soviet Union and the United States each had formidable nuclear missile arsenals aimed at each other’s cities and military installations, there was a doctrine of military strategy called M.A.D. or mutually assured destruction.

According to Wikipedia, “The doctrine assumes that each side has enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the other side and that either side, if attacked for any reason by the other, would retaliate with equal or greater force. The expected result is an immediate escalation resulting in both combatants' total and assured destruction”.

I was reminded of this doctrine as I read the threats from the dedicated partisans on both sides of the aisle who were apoplectic about the California state budget that is pending in the Legislature. The unions are threatening their patrons, the Democratic members, with retribution at the ballot box if they vote for this budget and some Republicans are threatening their members with excommunication from the party if they vote for it.