Memorial Day Tidbits
Some light bites for your holiday...
Let’s begin with a quote:
"We owe this freedom of choice and action to those men and women in uniform who have served this nation and its interests in time of need. In particular, we are forever indebted to those who have given their lives that we might be free."Let’s start with this short, moving video released yesterday by The White House. - President Ronald Reagan, Memorial Day, 1983
And now a video. This was released yesterday by The White House, commemorating this day when we honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
Now for a few political tidbits…
From Sacramento - Have Patterson and Zavala finally shamed legislators from signing NDAs?
It is a fairly comment thing, in private business, to have people sign an NDA — which stands for non-disclosure-agreement. This happens when people are collaborating but with information that should not be made public. The emphasis in the previous sentence should be the word private. Relatively recently it’s come out that in the crafting of legislation, some Democratic members of the California Legislature have been signing NDA’s as they work with outside interest groups. Note that the business of the legislature is public, and the public has a right to what is going on. Enter Republican Assemblyman Joe Patterson (R-Rocklin). After a lot of effort on his part, and some embarrassing news stories, looks like a law to ban this sort of thing is (quietly?) moving forward…
Ashley Zavala, the ace political reporter for KCRA tv in Sacramento (one of the few true watchdog journalists covering the State Capitol) has been on this story a lot. He reports about it here. If you’re on X, I recommend you follow Zavala and Patterson.
California GOP’s General Counsel Heads To DC…
In late April, Ashee Titus, a partner in the firm Bell, McAndrews and Hiltachk - and General Counsel for the California Republican Party, flew out to Washington, D.C., and was a panelist in an informational hearing held by the Congressional Committee on House Administration. The hearing was titled, “Why The Wait, Unpacking California’s Untimely Election Process.”
Ashlee did a great job giving a five minute opening presentation to the committee in which she summarized all of that factors causing election results in our state taking almost a month after Election Day to be certified. I recommend watching the entire hearing, but at a minimum you should scroll to the 13 minute mark of the video, and watch Ashlee’s testimony. She does a great job. I’m not just saying that because she and her husband Dave (behind her left shoulder) are longtime personal friends. She really knows her stuff. You can watch the hearing on YouTube right here.
More from the State Capitol…
Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) is one of our aggressive and articulate conservatives in Sacramento. And he’s been doing a great job on going on the offensive against the Democrats, who have no shame. Here DeMaio gives a speech against AB 930 that he, “exposes how this bill allows illegal immigrants to serve on recount boards AND allow ballots to arrive 7 days after election day!” You can’t make this up. Follow DeMaio on X here.
Kermit THE Frog!
If you have made it all of the way to the bottom of this e-mail, we’ll end on a lighter note. This week the one and only Kermit the Frog gave the commencement address at the University of Maryland. If you watch it through, you can see him end it singing a rendition of the Rainbow Connection! LOL.
That’s a wrap!