Should be a great weekend in Fresno for Meet in the Middle for Equality. Bring a hat and sunscreen, Fresno will be around 90 degrees.  Anyway, to the links:

• John McCain: “Meg Whitman is the future of the GOP.” Wow, I can’t wait for the GOP ads featuring slave labor, theft, maquiladoras and inequality. They will be fantastic!

• Anthony Portantino’s AB 53, which Brian has written about, was shelved by the Appropriations Cmte in the Senate.  Manuel Perez’s AB 1501, a bill to restructure payment for boards and commissions, went down as well in similar fashion.

• As for the rest, most bills which involved any amount of spending were not moved, as we face the budget crisis.  That includes SB 810, by the way, the single-payer bill, estimated at $210 billion annually (which seems very exorbitant, who scored that?).

• John Wildermuth lays out his take on the closing of the courts for one day each month. Basically, he doesn’t buy the arguments about delaying justice, seeing it instead as a money thing. Well…he’s kind of right, everything is about money these days. However, he is a bit too quick to cast aside the argument about speedy justice…it is in the Constitution and all. While his argument is a bit shaky, it is good to see that John will continue to monitor state politics. Hey, John, if you ever want to write something for Calitics, let us know!

• Jeff Denham has the same “close San Quentin” op-ed every week these days.  None of them bother to mention that cash collected by the sale of surplus property cannot be used to balance the budget.

• Bonnie Lowenthal’s AB 1340 passed out of the Assembly. The bill would make it easier for troops deployed overseas to vote by extending some deadlines.

• Oooh, video of Arnold making fun of Limbaugh, which was in yesterday’s open thread. “Some people say that Rush Limbaugh is the 800 pound gorilla in the Republican party. But I think that’s mean-spirited to say that, because I think he’s down to 650 pounds.” Aww, snap!