Dr. Lisagor represents Camarillo, Somis, Santa Paula, Fillmore and the Ojai Valley.

A press release from Dr. Mark Lisagor:

Public education is critically underfunded and there is a real possibility that draconian cuts are likely in the near future.

In this environment, every dollar counts more than ever. The board must be a
careful guardian of taxpayers' dollars and hard choices must be made to ensure
that we get the very most for our students from these limited but precious
resources.

Unwarranted spending by the current board on dubious lobbyists to the tune of $396,000 with little or no accountability must stop. As a Trustee, Mark Lisagor will
be an effective advocate for public education in Sacramento and our nation's capitol.

He will use his years of experience as an advocate for children's health issues
in Washington, D.C. and his relationships with our Congressional representatives to promote our schools and students. In Sacramento, Lisagor will work
with legislators in both parties to fight for our share of California education budget.

The respected community leader is running for this office because we need a representative who is experienced and capable of making wise financial decisions. His experience as a successful businessman and managing partner of a large group dental practice for 31 years is the type of experience we need on this board.

A press release from 37th Assembly District candidate Ferial Masry:

Running for All the Right Reasons - A Saudi-born Woman's Pursuit of Democracy

By Ferial Masry & Susan Chenard

On the publication of her book, Ferial Masry stated: "I have found a home with California  Democrats because they share my passion for preserving democracy, learning from history, embracing change and diversity to assure government works for all citizens. I am proud and humbled to be involved during this time of fundamental change where we as Americans will welcome a new President and inspiring leader like Barack Obama to the national stage."

On the very eve of the most important election of the early 21^st century a woman of character, an immigrant who loves democracy has a uniquely American story to tell us all.  Ferial Masry's story has just been published by the prestigious Syracuse University Press.

Ferial Masry is a passionate, intelligent and brave woman who brings a strong sense of fairness and decency to all she does.  Hers is a journey which parallels that of another American candidate, that of Barack Obama for the Presidency.  Ferial and her husband moved to the United States over twenty five years go and become citizens. After attending graduate school, Ferial became a public school teacher and teaches American history and government to high school students. Ferial is an optimist and a fighter who understands that she is a symbol of the need for understanding between the beliefs and aspirations of all people.  She is a Saudi born Muslim woman who received her education in Egypt and England. 

Ferial's decision to enter into the arena of California politics came from a strong need to explain how she as an immigrant and American patriot could express her support for American troops while opposing Bush's  war in Iraq. Ferial's entry in California politics is an astonishing story of her initial victory in a grassroots write-in campaign to gain a place on the Democratic ballot in 2004.  This primary victory exemplifies the Jeffersonian ideal, that of the most fundamental of American rights, that of patriotic decent in a free society.  As the book describes, Ferial's son was called to serve his country Iraq in 2003 where his language skills and understand of the country was very useful to the troops during the first days of the invasion.

During this time Ferial joined a local Democratic Party Club in the solidly Republican area of Conejo Valley just north of Los Angeles in Ventura County.  She spoke about her personal and professional experiences impressing the local democrats. In 2004 she committed to run for the California State Assembly seat held by a well known very right-wing Republican family. That year the Assemblyman's term was up and his wife was running to extend his tenure and fill his seat. The registration was heavily Republican at that time and that first race saw the Republican win.  Then the second race in 2006 against the same Republican opponent seasoned Ferial.  This year she is poised to win in a district with a new political reality that has seen a surge in Democratic registrations.  After five years of war and eight years of the Bush administration's horrific international blunders from in Iraq and Afghanistan abroad to the financial meltdown of laissez-faire market capitalism, to stalled reforms in health care and education the voters are ready for change.  Additionally, Ferial's district has a large proportion of Decline to State voters and they are evaluating the performance the current Republican candidates from President of the United States to the California State Senate and Assembly representatives.  They want to know if these Republicans share their values and what they have done to protect children from tobacco and pesticides, fashion realistic environmental safeguards, monitor bank lending institutions and support middle class citizens and small business owners. 

The publication of Running for All the Right Reasons - A Saudi-born Woman's Pursuit of Democracy will inspire you and introduce you to a woman who is a true and inspirational patriot.

The Sacramento Bee just released its wrap-up on legislative accomplishments in the last session and guess who failed to pass a single bill last year? Our own 37th District Assembly member Audra Strickland, R-Moorpark.

What exactly is Ms. Strickland doing to earn her state paycheck? Well, we know she was one of the obstructionist Republicans who held up the state's budget this year and forced us into more borrowing.

We know she spent part of the summer dealing with her rogue chief of staff, Joel Angeles, who had a physical altercation with anti-tobacco protesters outside the Westlake Hyatt in June. Angeles' case is now with the state Attorney General's office. Sheriff's detectives typically do not send files on unless they believe charges should be filed, Ventura County Chief Assistant District Attorney Jim Ellison told the Star.

Angeles was put on a short leave by Ms. Strickland and during that time he was spotted out waving signs on street corners for Tony Strickland's State Senate campaign.

Of late she has been doing some election-time grandstanding over the proposed federal prison hospital and broke off from the bipartisan citizens' group to form her own group of Republicans, much to the annoyance of the first group.

Since Ms. Strickland did not pass any legislation on behalf of her constituents, it is not surprising that they aren't donating to her campaign. As of the last filing, just a handful of  donors have come from inside the district.

But, like her husband, she is well funded by insurance, oil, tobacco, gambling and alcohol interests.

It would seem mostly out-of-area corporations are interested in keeping Audra Strickland in office.

Why would the Ventura County Star splash incorrect information across their web page?  Why does a right-wing rant get first billing?

We ask that the Editoral Board of the Star answer this question for us, please. Why is someone like extreme Republican blogger Steve Frank given this credibility on the home page of the Star when your reporters easily uncover the false facts in his reporting the very next day? Mr. Frank reported incorrectly that a Democratic voter effort was being run illegally. Today, the facts come out in both reporter Timm Herdt's blog and another story.

Maybe you consider this news, but it eschews editorial staff statements that the Star weigh each political point of view to present balance and that they are committed to accuracy in reporting. 

My father always told me to watch what people do and not what they say to get to the truth.

The laissez-faire Bush era of hands-off has produced disastrous results, as we are seeing in the current financial markets.

"This is bigger than the private sector can fix by itself," Reagan's former Secretary of the Treasury James Baker said on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" Sunday. "Now we have to figure out a way to regulate out of it."

Too little, too late, some may say.

Last December, Martin Eakes, CEO of The Center for Responsible Lending, told the New York Times, "If the Fed had done its job, we would not have had the abusive lending and we would not have a foreclosure crisis in virtually every community across America."

Who is to blame for this nightmare? Free-market ideologues like former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan helped perpetuate this nonsense that business does not need regulation.

This approach allowed the bottom feeders of the mortgage industry, like Countrywide Financial in our own backyard, to grow and thrive and feed on the naiveté of families sucked into sub prime loans they could not afford. The bigger and riskier the mortgage, the higher the fees these mortgage brokers and lenders raked in.

These loans were in turn sold to investment banks and other investors. And suddenly the bottom fell out. Meanwhile CEOs have taken home millions of speculative dollars.

The banking industry has too much influence in politics. In 1987, the Keating Five scandal ensnared John McCain, who along with other senators, was accused of trying to improperly intervene in a federal investigation of Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. McCain accepted $112,000 from Keating and was flown to the Bahamas.

Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed in 1989, at a cost of over $3 billion to the federal government.

Back in 2001, California had a chance to crack down on predatory lenders with AB489. Tony Strickland, now a candidate for State Senate, served in the Assembly Banking and Finance Committee where he was supposed to be looking out for consumers and protecting them from unfair banking practices.

Instead, Strickland took $47,575 in contributions from the banking and finance industry and helped them water down AB489, so it protected almost nobody.

It is time to end this disastrous influence corporations have on the decisions which affect our future.

I was sent this press release by the Hannah-Beth Jackson campaign and have decided to run it in its entirety:

In his continual effort to re-invent himself, Tony Strickland is desperately back-pedaling on a number of positions he has taken throughout his career.
 
One of Strickland's biggest flip-flops is global warming. 
 
In December 2003, he joined with big oil companies in attempting to prevent the California Attorney General from implementing the state's global warming legislation. Strickland wrote a petulant letter to Attorney General Lockyer demanding he immediately stop trying to enforce California's law. 
 
That astonishing letter can be found here:
Strickland_Letter_to_AG_Re_Global_Warming.pdf 

Now, Strickland is trying to change his tune.
 
Here's what he told the Ventura County Star on September 21, 2008:
 
To the assertion that he is a "global warming denier," Strickland said his views on the issue have evolved since the 2003 incidents cited to document his belief at the time that there was no scientific evidence to support the notion of man-made climate change. "I do believe in climate change," he said. "Obviously, things have changed dramatically."
 
Still, he says he would vote again in opposition to the state law mandating a reduction in global-warming gases emitted from cars and trucks. "I think California cannot go it alone," he said. "It's a global economy."
 
But the question is not climate change per se, that the earth is warming is incontrovertible.  The real questions are:  Is the warming caused by human activities, and should we be doing anything to reverse it?
 
Strickland is clear. He voted against California's landmark global warming law (AB1493) - and says he would do it again! 
 
In his letter, Strickland rudely suggests that the AG's lawsuit was nothing but a publicity stunt. He also opined that there was no chance that California would succeed in the case.
 
California, and Lockyer, won their suit before the United States Supreme Court.
 
Professor Paul Craig, a leading expert on global warming issues, reviewed Strickland's letter to the AG and made the following comments:
 
Assemblyman Tony Strickland's December 8, 2003 Letter to the California Attorney General makes grossly incorrect statements that human-caused global warming is not occurring.
 
Scientists and scientific organizations throughout the world have stated clearly and repeatedly that human-caused global warming is real and is getting worse.
 
Among these groups are the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which was awarded the Nobel Prize for its work; the United States National Academy of Sciences; the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society and the scientific honorary society, Sigma Xi.
 
If action is not taken we can expect to see more and stronger hurricanes and ever hotter summers.  The Southwestern US will see greatly increased drought. The Sigma Xi report concluded: "The challenge now is to keep climate change from becoming a catastrophe".
 
In my judgment, Assemblyman Strickland's letter is not only wrong, but his call for inaction is dangerous.  We need to act now to simultaneously decrease the impact on California of global warming and to strengthen our economy.
 
Fortunately California is ignoring Tony Strickland's bad advice and is implementing the Climate Change Action Plan which is moving us down the right path.
 
Paul Craig, Prof Emeritus of Engineering, UC Davis
PhD in Physics, California Institute of Technology
 
Former Staff Member, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Former Member of President's Science Advisor's Energy Staff
Presidential Appointment Nuclear Waste Technical Review board

Strickland is also flat out wrong in claiming that it is useless for California to "go it alone" in fighting global warming.  California's landmark global warming law (the one Tony voted against) has been adopted by 17 other states and jurisdictions around the world - and helped spearhead the international response to the global warming crisis.
 
Furthermore, California has a special status on air pollution issues.  Because of California's unique air quality challenges, the U.S. EPA gives California the right to adopt tougher regulations than federal standards, if the EPA grants a waiver.  The EPA had granted 40 waivers, and denied none, until the Bush Administration attempted to block AD1493.
 
Other states can "opt-in" to the tougher California standards if the waiver is granted. That's why this litigation was so vital.  The Bush Administration joined with the oil industry in an effort to strangle the global warming movement at birth - with Tony Strickland's active assistance.
 
Finally, Strickland made the assertion that "17,000 atmospheric scientists" had concluded that there is no proof of a human cause of global warming. 
 
Strickland refers to a petition circulated by mass mail by Frederick Seitz, a solid state physicist and former Chair of the National Academy of Sciences.  Seitz, who died this year at age 96, had been thoroughly discredited because of his long history of work for the tobacco industry and his controversial views as a prominent global warming denier. 
 
An article in Vanity Fair discussed Seitz and the uncanny similarities between how the tobacco industry tried to undermine the science about the health effects of smoking and how the oil companies are striving to deny the scientific consensus on global climate change.
 
Seitz' petition has been thoroughly debunked. Here's what the Union of Concerned Scientists said about the petition:
 
The petition's organizers publicly claimed that the effort had attracted the signatures of some 17,000 scientists. But it was soon discovered that the list contained few credentialed climate scientists. For example, the list was riddled with the names of numerous fictional characters. Likewise, after investigating a random sample of the small number of signers who claimed to have a Ph.D. in a climate-related field, Scientific American estimated that approximately one percent of the petition signatories might actually have a Ph.D.  in a field related to climate science.
 
In a highly unusual response, NAS issued a statement disavowing Seitz's petition and disassociating the academy from the PNAS-formatted paper.
 
None of these facts, however, have stopped organizations, including those funded by ExxonMobil, from touting the petition as evidence of wide-spread disagreement over the issue of global warming.
 
Union of Concerned Scientists
Smoke, Mirrors, and Hot Air. January 2007
 
Tony Strickland may now claim that he "believes in climate change."  But since he does not believe that his policy agenda should change as a result, the question has got to be: "So what?"