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An Orange County attorney filed a lawsuit Monday accusing a Kern County farmer of hiring illegal immigrants to undercut his client's contract to provide blueberry pickers during harvest. The suit on behalf of farm-labor contractor AgriLabor is the first in a series of suits that attorney David Klehm of Anaheim says he has undertaken since quitting his stable job as a medical-malpractice lawyer two months ago to take on California companies that he says skirt immigration law. Klehm, 42, said his goal isn't to go after undocumented immigrants but rather the employers that make it tough for businesses to compete...

Thank you for your invitation today and thank you for your support of the California Public Policy Foundation.  And special thanks for John Kurzweil – the William F. Buckley of California politics – and for everything he has done to build and maintain and expand this vital conservative forum for California Public Policy. When the history of this era is written, I think that John’s contribution to California’s conservative renaissance will be just as conspicuous as was the National Review’s impact on the national public policy discussion in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  And that in turn, will have been made...

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced he intends to appoint James Rogan to a judgeship in the Orange County Superior Court on October 1, 2006. Rogan, 48, of Yorba Linda, is of counsel with the law firm Preston Gates Ellis. Previously, he served as a partner in the Venable law firm from 2004-2005. He has also served as undersecretary in the Department of Commerce and director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from 2001 to 2004, member of the U.S. Congress, serving on the House Judiciary Committee and Commerce Committee from 1997 to 2001, member of the California State Assembly...

NEW YORK, June 19 (Reuters) - Late payments and new foreclosures on U.S. homes declined in the first quarter of 2006 compared with the last quarter of 2006, reflecting an improving economy and job creation, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Monday. The mortgage delinquency rate fell to 4.41 percent in the first quarter from 4.70 percent the prior quarter. New foreclosures on homes declined to 0.41 percent from 0.42 percent in that period, the MBA said in its quarterly National Delinquency Survey. These figures are seasonally adjusted. Delinquency rates would have been even lower without the effects of Hurricane...

Student protest is against U.S. immigration policy. Students demonstrating against an immigration bill reportedly threw bottles and rocks at police in Santa Ana, prompting a call for more officers. Elsewhere, marches were peaceful. Student protests grew tense in Santa Ana today when isolated reports of protesters throwing bottles and rocks at police drew a call by officers on the scene for help, police said. Santa Ana police were reinforced by investigators and officers from other cities and some wore helmets but they were not attired in riot gear, said Santa Ana police Commander Alan Caddell. At Anaheim City Hall, about...

Tribute to Dutch. Your screen will get blurry too. Make sure your sound is on.

I have been trying to come up with a way to discuss the ONE who survived the SR near Asadabad, Afghanistan while 11 of his Teammates did not. Well, it seems that a Navy Chaplain who spent some time with him and his platoon has quite a story to tell. Hat tip to BLACKFIVE I spoke to several of this man’s Teammates in Hawaii, and it is interesting that he is a twin and his brother is a Frogman as well. Actually, each of the brothers has half of a Trident tattooed on their backs so that when they stand...

LEBANON, Ohio -- Michelle Wie played through a persistent drizzle Thursday to easily advance in her second match at the men's Amateur Public Links. The 15-year-old high school junior-to-be, the first female to qualify for a men's U.S. Golf Association championship, rolled to a 6-and-5 victory over C.D. Hockersmith of Richmond, Ind. Wie advances to play Jim Renner of Plainville, Mass., in her afternoon match Thursday. Renner defeated Arizona sophomore Tyler Neal, 3 and 2. Every year since 1989, the winner of the APL has gotten an invitation to the Masters. Wie went through APL qualifying in hopes of earning...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The NHL and the players' association reached an agreement in principle Wednesday on a new labor deal, ending a lockout that wiped out last season. The sides met for 24 hours starting Tuesday afternoon to hammer out the collective bargaining agreement that will return the NHL to the ice. In February, commissioner Gary Bettman canceled the season, making the NHL the first North American sports league to lose a year because of a labor dispute. Both sides still need to ratify the deal, which is expected to contain a salary cap. That process is expected to...

Almost lost in the welter of initiatives from well-heeled interests and the epic tussle between the governor and the Legislature is a grassroots initiative that could make some modest and obvious reforms that could improve the integrity of the voting process. It deserves attention. Laguna Niguel attorney Robert Ming wrote the Voter ID Act after a worker at a polling place last year told him, “We can’t look at that,” when he pulled out his driver’s license to identify himself. He thought that was a bit goofy and discovered that several bills to require identification at polling places had died...

Authorities serve warrants at dozens of O.C. homes today as part of a two-year drug investigation. Local police departments and federal agents raided dozens of Orange County homes this morning, rounding up alleged Santa Ana street-gang members suspected of participating in an ongoing drug-trafficking operation. The coordinated raids began at 6 a.m. when agents armed with federal arrest warrants swarmed several homes. One suspected gang member was arrested at a home in the 500 block of South Daisy Avenue by a Santa Ana police SWAT team. Another was arrested a few blocks away in the 500 block of South Hesperian...

The state Senate GOP leader's withdrawal makes Irvine's Campbell the front-runner for Cox's congressional seat when he takes over the SEC. State Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman announced today that he is dropping out of the race to replace Rep. Christopher Cox, who is expected to resign his seat to become head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ackerman, an Irvine resident, became the early front-runner when Cox's nomination to the SEC top post was announced by President George W. Bush on June 2. But that began to change Friday, when state Sen. John Campbell entered the race and immediately...

Northwood High and Serrano Intermediate have moved ceremonies from Saddleback Church after students and parents complain to Anti-Defamation League. Two Orange County schools have moved graduation ceremonies from Saddleback Church to nonreligious sites after the Anti-Defamation League raised concerns about mixing school and God. "Our understanding is, because courts consider graduation ceremonies to be a compulsory activity, that having them in a sectarian venue is a violation ... of the First Amendment," said Kevin O'Grady associate director of the Anti-Defamation League in Orange County and Long Beach.

Bolton fails to get the 60 votes to invoke cloture. Dem filbuster is on.

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- In what organizers called an unprecedented event, dissidents from groups opposed to Fidel Castro's communist regime gathered publicly Friday and chanted "Down with Fidel." "Freedom! Freedom!" the group of more than 100 delegates cheered in the yard of Felix Bonne, a veteran dissident, in a working-class section of Havana. Castro's regime would not allow the use of a theater or hotel for the assembly. Participants included members of dissident groups that are sometimes at odds but share the goal of driving Castro from power. "We think this is the first democratic assembly that has ever been...

A published report says the shift will come in 2006. Disney owns ESPN and current network ABC. ABC's "Monday Night Football," an iconic television tradition for 35 years, will move to cable's ESPN in 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported today on its Web site. The Journal, citing people familiar with the deal, said the change could be announced as soon as today, along with a another agreement to shift the National Football League's Sunday night television games from ESPN to NBC. Walt Disney Co. owns both networks. Shares of Disney declined 43 cents today to close at $26.94, a...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush reported adjusted gross income of $784,219 for last year, on which he paid $207,307 in federal taxes - about $20,000 less than the previous year, according to the president's return released Friday by the White House. In 2003 the president and first lady Laura Bush reported $822,126 in adjusted gross income and paid $227,490 in federal income taxes. On their 2004 return the Bushes listed as income his presidential salary - about $400,000 - and investment income from trusts that hold their assets. The couple contributed $77,785 - about 10 percent of their adjusted gross...

The Tipping (Away) Point I gave a speech in San Diego last night on the rise of the new media.  Questions followed, and as with the phone calls to the radio program and the e-mails of the past few days, there is rising anger among Republican activists and donors with the perceived dithering on judges in the Senate.  It has been five months since the sweeping wins of November and three months since the Senate convened.  But only one of the filibustered appeals court nominees has even cleared committee --a second might do so today-- and despite Majority Leader Frist's repeated...

Haidl convicted on six of nine charges; Spann on 5, Nachreiner on 4. None is convicted of rape, oral copulation or aggravated assault. Three young men, including the son of a former top Orange County sheriff’s official, were convicted today of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl during a night of partying. Gregory Haidl, 19, and Keith Spann and Kyle Nachreiner, both 20, were each convicted on multiple counts of sexual penetration by intoxication for the July 6, 2002, episode that Haidl videotaped at the Corona del Mar home of his father, former Assistant Orange County Sheriff Don Haidl, a millionaire...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Constitution forbids the execution of killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes, ending a practice used in 19 states. The 5-4 decision throws out the death sentences of about 70 juvenile murderers and bars states from seeking to execute minors for future crimes. The executions, the court said, were unconstitutionally cruel. It was the second major defeat at the high court in three years for supporters of the death penalty. Justices in 2002 banned the execution of the mentally retarded, also citing the Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on...