When things were rough, people depended on their families and local community to help them through.  When things are not going your way, who will you call? Family? Friends? Church? Local Non-Profit? State or Federal Government?



The reality is that the people closest to us are more likely to assist us in our time of need. We may need money, food, clothes or just good counsel. Parents that love us, brothers we wrestled with, or sisters we protected - Our Family.  For better or worse, they are our first line of defense against a sometimes cruel and unfair world.

What’s your favorite state in the nation? The answer is California! That is the message Governor Schwarzenegger has been trying to send out to potential business owners and investors this month. In the last week alone, Schwarzenegger has spoken to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and has co-hosted a press conference with Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania… among other ambitious endeavors.

For all the rancor in Washington over health insurance reform, our elected officials are still not taking the necessary steps to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance coverage so they receive the care they need to live healthy and productive lives.  On one side, the solutions being offered are a continuation of the status quo, where for-profit health insurance companies determine what kind of care a person receives and has the ability to drop coverage when a person gets sick.  On the other side, while there are sincere efforts to control costs and cover m

Comprehensive immigration reform is the right thing to do economically, politically, and morally, said Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) and Sonia Manzano (of Sesame Street fame). Honda and Manzano put forth their message in a Feb. 5, 2010 op-ed for Roll Call, a premier publication on Capitol Hill. "The tide seems to be turning," said the op-ed, "despite populist trends that might suggest otherwise."

Long before the Tea Party movement sprang up in the early days of President Obama, the liberty movement was catching fire.  Dedicated to a pro-constitution, fiscally conservative, and anti-war GOP presidential candidate, the liberty movement barnstormed the nation with an explosion of grassroots enthusiasm.  When Texas Congressman, Dr.

This Sunday, the Los Angeles Times released an article confirming precisely what election and budget analysts have known for ages – that most voters know very little about the budget, and that this fact has absolutely no bearing on their confidence that they could do a better job managing it than the politicians in Sacramento. Given the current state of the state’s capitol, this latter fact may be understandable, but even so, the confirmation that California’s electorate is dismally uninformed should provoke serious thought about why the state is similarly dismally underfunded.

Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pick to fill the vacant lieutenant governor’s job was unanimously approved on a bipartisan vote by the Senate Rules Committee on February 3.  Sen. Abel Maldonado, a Santa Maria Republican, was approved on a 4 to 0 vote. Sen. Sam Aanestad, a Grass Valley Republican, didn’t vote because he is a candidate for lieutenant governor.