On a cultural note, that was one hell of a Tony Awards show last night in Hollywood. What? That wasn't the Tonys? Then what were all the dance numbers, bad staging and endless references to West Side Story all about? Anyway, here are the links...
• Wanda Sykes has a nice message as part of Equality California's new "I Do" campaign. It's nice to see her stepping out in front of the battle for marriage equality. The proceeds of merchandise sales support continuing education efforts from Let California Ring. And while I'm at it, Dustin Lance Black's Oscar acceptance speech for his "Milk" original screenplay was very powerful as well. (So was Sean Penn's, punctuated by the opening line "You commie homo-loving sons of guns.")
• There is a hiring boom in one state government sector - at the Department of Personnel Administration, to help with all the layoffs. It's a growth industry!
• Joe Mathews had a good short piece in The New Republic about the decline of his former employer, the LA Times, and the loss of local coverage in newspapers more generally. This is a major problem for accountability and an informed citizenry in California and across the nation.
• California's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors was ruled unconstitutional by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals late last week.
• I strongly support Russ Feingold's proposed Constitutional amendment to mandate special elections for all Senate vacancies, but I see his Chicago Tribune op-ed on the subject had an unlikely co-author - California's David Dreier. Color me surprised, and I assume this is part of Dreier's faux-moderate pose, but if he wants to jump aboard a Democratic reform I'm not kicking him off the hay wagon.
• Rep. George Miller gives an on-site report from the "fiscal responsibility summit" today in Washington. Miller actually invented PAYGO in the mid-1980s and knows it can be used to force conservatives out of hiding by no longer allowing them the comfort of the "two Santa Clauses" theory, where they can advocate for endless tax cuts and endless spending at the same time. There is a progressive answer to fiscal responsibility, and it has three words: universal health care. Miller's comments on that front were encouraging.
