On today's letter to the editor from Greg Beale, the first comment out of the chute harkens back to some former representatives in a strangely telling way: We do remember Clair Engle and Biz Johnson, our Democratic congressmen of olde....

Pinpointing the prime cause of California's slow recovery from recession is easy: Too little has been done about the crisis in housing construction, values and foreclosures.

Pinpointing the prime cause of California's slow recovery from recession is easy: Too little has been done about the crisis in housing construction, values and foreclosures.

Controller John Chiang got a nice little present from Democratic legislators last week when Assembly Speaker John Perez and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg decided to sue him.

The Republican Party, with the disastrous George W. Bush presidency still fresh in public memory, has decided not to compensate for its past mistakes by moving toward the center. Seeing no real opposition from the Democrats, it has moved further to the right.

Reactions to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address were mixed in Shasta County, as Democrats approved of Obama's delivery while others acknowledged the speech's strengths but remained skeptical of the speaker.

In his column Friday lamenting how Mitt Romney's rivals are helping the Democrats make their case against the GOP when they criticize him for his cannibal capitalism at Bain, Krauthammer offers us an admirably objective analysis of the suicidal frenzy among the GOP candidates.

A recent survey found Americans overwhelmingly support home ownership and oppose government changing laws regarding the mortgage interest deduction or making home loans more difficult to obtain. Here are some of the findings in the poll conducted earlier this month by Public Opinion Strategies and Lake Research Partners:

In a story last week, Democrat Jim Reed expressed confidence that he could raise some money to give a serious challenge to Sen. Doug LaMalfa in the race to replace Rep. Wally Herger -- even as outside consultants from both...

A pair of strategists on opposite sides of the political spectrum said Thursday it's unlikely statewide Democratic interests would choose to fund the campaign of Fall River Mills attorney Jim Reed, even though he's facing a new candidate this year in Doug LaMalfa, the presumed front-runner among a trio of local Repu

California's community colleges are a monument to the democratic spirit. They take all comers, straight-A student or dropout seeking a second chance, and they give them all a nearly free opportunity to pursue a trade or an academic degree.

There is this game that is played every time control of the White House shifts from one party to the other. It probably happens in all federal agencies, but I have followed it most closely at the Department of the Interior. When a Democratic administration is in power, it issues regulations to save more land from developmen

Talking this afternoon with Rep. Wally Herger about some of the highs and lows of his 25 years in Congress, I asked him how thing had changed from 1980s --- when it was possible for a Democratic Congress and Republican...

All politicians just know that sacrosanct Social Security is the third rail of American politics. Isn't this what the Democrat establishment has been telling us?

No one seems to be really happy with this year's field of Republican candidates for that party's presidential nomination — except perhaps the Democrats.

No one seems to be really happy with this year's field of Republican candidates for that party's presidential nomination — except perhaps the Democrats.

It comes from political columnist George Skelton of the Los Angeles Times, in a New Year's grab bag of resolutions: Don't let Democratic liberals get away with relabeling themselves "progressives." They're still liberals. Switching labels doesn't change the product. Apparently...

As a political ploy, Senate Democrats extend the Social Security withholding reduction for an illogical two months.

President Obama has clearly decided to run his 2012 campaign not on his record, but against the Republicans in Congress. Considering all factors, it is probably a good strategy. But the media's role in supporting him is both reprehensible and shameless.

That's political consultant Scott Lay's take on the allegations that Democrats somehow unfairly manipulated the Citizens' Redistricting Commission. This is the most well-crystallized view of pros' political cynicism I've seen in a while: Whether it's city council meetings, legislative hearings...

I'm too busy to read the whole thing myself this afternoon, but ProPublica's expose on how Democrats worked the refs on the new redistricting panel seems like it's worth the time. The gist: In the weeks that followed, party leaders...

"Bigfoot dressed as a circus clown would have a better chance of beating President Obama than Newt Gingrich, a similarly farcical character." So a "Republican insider" tells the National Journal, which surveyed the Washington crowd and found that Democrats and...

It looks like the supercommittee failed to reach an agreement. Our 401(k)s will take a hit and the economy will slow a bit next year, but what could be done? The irreconcilable difference was that the Republicans thought all of the sacrifices should be made by the poor and middle class. The Democrats thought almost all of t

Democrats are unanimous in charging that the debt-reduction supercommittee collapsed because Republicans refused to raise taxes. Apparently, Republicans are in the thrall of one Grover Norquist, the anti-tax campaigner, whom Sen. John Kerry called "the 13th member of this committee without being there." Senate Major

A former client of Democrat Congressional candidate Jim Reed has sued the Fall River Mills attorney and his law firm alleging Reed was professionally negligent because he failed to file a timely police-brutality claim on his client's behalf, even though Reed represented him in a criminal case that led to his acquittal.

If you look at California's demographic trends and voting patterns, the one big thing that stands out is that the fastest-growing group -- Hispanics -- votes heavily for the Democrats. And that alone keeps Democrats in charge. So what are...

But the expectation that she's Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle also allows Warren to wield a shiv. That'd be Elizabeth Warren, the law professor turned Democratic candidate for Senate, according to a long NY Times profile. I suppose that, in politics, knowing how...

The state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, newly stacked with appointees of Gov. Jerry Brown, stuck to the Democratic line last week and imposed a new fire "fee" on rural homeowners of as much as $150 a year — in theory collecting upward of $100 million to offset recent Cal Fire budget cuts.

Democrat lawmakers from Southern Oregon and Northern California are asking Congress for approval to spend nearly $800 million to restore salmon runs and sustain irrigation for farmers in the Klamath Basin, where some of the bitterest battles in the nation have been fought over sharing water between fish and farms.

A state board restocked with Gov. Jerry Brown appointees approved a $150 fire fee Wednesday on rural homeowners this fiscal year, continuing a drive by the Democratic governor to raise $50 million from those residents.

Darrell Steinberg, the Democratic president pro tem of the state Senate, has always seemed like a brainy guy -- all politics aside. What then to make of this quote, from a Fresno Bee editorial? "I believe in defined benefits," Senate...

Announcing his candidacy for state Senate, Shasta County Supervisor Les Baugh struck a pose of telling an unpopular truth when he said, "How about we stop fighting as Republicans and Democrats and just vote as Americans who just want to clean up this mess?"

In launching his second campaign against Republican incumbent Rep. Wally Herger, Democrat Jim Reed has embraced the cause of raising Shasta Dam by 18.5 feet --- an idea that the Bureau of Reclamation has been studying for years through an...

Some 150 people spent part of Wednesday night enjoying food, drinks, music and politics at "An Evening with Democrats" inside the Atrium at the Market Street Promenade in downtown Redding.

Democrats routinely blame Republican legislators for declining to raise taxes, but I'm not sure it helps their cause if the same Democrats turn around and renege on past deals made to win budget votes. From the Bee's report on Gov....

If there was ever any doubt that the Democrats take the black vote for granted, that doubt should have been put to rest when Barack Obama told the Congressional Black Caucus, "Stop whining!"

Last Monday's column by Bob Williams works way too hard trying to come up with examples of meanness in our society.

Everyone knows that we are in a mess. If you are a Democrat, it's Bush's fault. If you are a Republican, it's the president's and the Democratic Congress' fault. And if you are an independent, it's everyone else's fault.

So, a trio of deep-pocketed financial types -- one Democrat (who worked for Gov. Schwarzenegger), one Republican, one independent -- form a PAC to influence the coming year's California legislative races. Are they just big-spending special interests? Or are they...

In an effort to appease those who want to see the federal government attempt to produce a balanced budget, our leaders have come up with a so-called "Council of Twelve." The legislators composing this budget-cutting committee are evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. This is a strategic ploy on their par

A luncheon invitation is extended to all Shasta County Democratic women who are interested in forming a Democratic Women's Club. Lunch will be ordered at 11:30 a.m. A business meeting will follow the Luncheon. Ordering from the menu and a special combination plate is available for $8.95. Please R.S.V.P. by Sept. 15, 2011, t

My vote in the 2012 presidential election is pretty locked in. I will continue only to vote for true conservatives, i.e., Ronald Reagan. I didn't vote for John McCain, and I won't vote for Mitt Romney. Fortunately, Gov. Rick Perry has thrown his hat in the ring. To try to evaluate the contenders in this upcoming bou

It's hard to imagine many small-government conservatives cast votes for Gov. Jerry Brown last November, and a handful of obscure decisions won't — and shouldn't — bring them over to the Democrat's political camp.

If your e-mail account is hacked, this could happen to you and those you know. A word to the wise, from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Definitely worth reading....

That's the Chico Enterprise-Record's bottom line in an editorial about the Democrat's announcement that he'll seek a rematch against Wally Herger, though the paper suggests he clean up his act and not spend his campaign repeating the suggestion that the...

The Republicans are well aware of how our government works, how members of Congress or a legislature are wasting their time if they craft a bill they know the president or governor won't sign. Over the last 31 years, we have had a Democratic governor in California only 7 years.

"I don't like the term 'cut.' I like the term 'preserve.'" So Rep. Wally Herger told the AP in a story that focuses on his Democratic colleague Rep. Xavier Becerra and his role on the "Gang of 12" deficit panel....

Whose against the new state funding source for Cal Fire? Not just the homeowners who'd pay it, but also some local fire chiefs. From an Op-Ed in the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, by two district chiefs: This fee is a threat...

Jim Reed, a Democrat lawyer from Fall River Mills, hopes a newly drawn district and a fresh campaign season will help him unseat U.S. Rep. Wally Herger, the entrenched Republican who bested him in the last election.

Jim Reed, Democrat from Shasta County, announces his candidacy for New Congressional District 1, which comprises: Butte, Shasta, Nevada, Siskiyou, Tehama, Lassen, Plumas, Modoc, Sierra, and parts of Placer & Glenn counties. Reed's campaign shares this message: Jim Reed understands the issues important to the average wor