Links:

• CalPERS is spinning today. Not only did their investments sour, but there is an investigation into some very serious charges of a former board member getting $50 million in kickbacks from an investment that CalPERS made a few years back.  Oh, and as a kicker, they lost $500 million on a New York real estate deal and they now have to quit helping out local pension funds. There’s a bit of schadenfreude on Wall Street, as they’re laughing about corporate governance now.

• The latest in water bond news: $9.4 billion of general fund bonds that kick in at two different points in construction. Treasurer Lockyer has been very skeptical of adding more general fund bond indebtedness, because as you may have noticed, this debt don’t come cheap.

• Many furloughs cost more than they saved. Why didn’t we look at furloughing state employees based on their roles instead of blanket furloughs? Arnold?

• Are you a PG&E Customer? Expect a refund, as the California PUC just agreed to a rebate  to all users for lower than expected energy costs.

• You know how ACORN got busted through the hidden cameras? Yeah, in California secretly taping people is illegal.

Links:

• Well, well, this is interesting to see some whispers making into the press: Carla Marinucci asks Rep. Jane Harman about whether she’s looking at the governor’s race. She gets a non-denial denial.  Something to keep an eye on.

• First Lady Maria Shriver apologized for once again violating the cell phone law.  Apology, schmapology, we need the $100 worth of fines!

• Tom Campbell is usually pretty wonky, and usually gets the facts straight, even if he comes to different conclusions than most progressives.  However, today, he just stank it up.  He not only gets the name of the state’s domestic partnership program wrong (calling it civil union), but also misunderstanding that out of state marriages are essentially domestic partnerships under SB 54.

• CalPERS had a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year. It lost 23.4%. Ouch!

• John Garamendi attacked the wrong David Harmer in a mailer.  He attributed a quote to Harmer that was in fact a different David Harmer. I don’t really understand the whole going negative thing, but sheesh, at least get it right.  

To the links:

• The people behind the recall of Anthony Adams have turned in the last of their signatures. If all the facts they’ve given are accurate, it seems likely there will be a recall election in his future.  They need about 60% of their signatures to be valid, a rate which most campaigns reach.

• A great story by Cliff Barney on CalBuzz about how the SF Media Workers Guild, the local journalists’ union helped form Warren Hellman’s Bay Area News Project.

• Say adios to negative amortization loans. Arnold signed AB 260 by Assemblyman Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) that bans the practice as well as other shady mortgage schemes.

• Orange County’s own Orly Taitz got fined by a federal judge for her outlandish birther lawsuits.

Links!

• The San Francisco Young Democrats are holding a panel on the constitutional convention featuring none other than our own Robert Cruickshank. He’ll be joined my moderate Asm. Fiona Ma and representatives from the Bay Area Council, the New America Foundation, and California Backward Forward.

• George Skelton asks an interesting question: What if Tom Campbell had money?  It’s a really intersting question, but he would be a pretty dangerous candidate. His policies might be slightly to the left of Schwarzenegger, and trading the showmanship for some wonkiness.  However, unless he does get some money, he’s going to find it tough to win the primary.  If he gets through the primary, I (Brian) think he’s the strongest GOP candidate.

• Jeff Sheehy officially launched his bid for the seat of termed out Roger Niello. The seat (AD-5) went for Obama by 5 points in the 2008 presidential election.

• CalBuzz calls President Clinton’s endorsement of Gavin Newsom a “wussy endorsement.” Comparing the Newsom endorsement to some others he has made recently, including that of  John Garamendi for Congress, and you see a somewhat tepid tone from the Big Dog.

• UC is looking at charging more for some undergraduate majors than others, based upon expected earnings and costs of faculty.

• The California Faculty Association is conducting “teach-ins” across the CSU campuses to  advocate for the oil extraction for higher education bill as well as point out how the budget cuts have hurt the state.  

Links:

• The Arnold-Ammiano dustup got some coverage on the websites of the LA Times and the SF Chronicle.

• Joel Anderson, a Republican Assemblyman from the Eastern San Diego ‘burbs, is being investigated for political money laungering. Apparently his MO is to donate large sums of money to Northern California County Central Committees, and get a slightly smaller sum of money in return a few weeks later in a more useful account. Pretty sweet how that works.

• A couple days ago, the LA Times reported about how California has paid $8 million dollars in penalties and late fees to vendors, money that didn’t need to be spent.  There’s always going to be a certain leakage in any bureaucracy, and this is pennies in the overall scheme of things, but there are steps the government could take to prevent this – mainly to pass a budget on time, which is responsible for the bulk of these payments.  I would add that the Legislature and the Governor routinely gives away hundreds of times this amount in corporate welfare every year, yet that story doesn’t make the papers.

• Joe Garofoli has a story in the SF Chronicle about Maine’s Question 1 in the context of Prop 8 here in California.  There are many “coincidences” between the two campaigns. Hopefully we will see different results with a more assertive No campaign.

• Here’s an interesting story about confusing signals on welfare.  In the name of saving money, the state suspended many of the employment assistance programs that encouraged moving people into work, and in the name of “reforming” welfare moved it basically back to where it was a decade ago.

• Who would want to be in the Legislature? Not too many local officials it turns out.  With the mess in Sacramento, it isn’t that hard to understand why local officials would avoid legislative races.

First, before we get to the links from around California, I want to point to a diary here.  Right-wing anti-marriage equality activists are trying to take away domestic partnership rights in Washington state.  Please consider contributing to the campaign. You can do so at their website or on the Calitics ActBlue page. Now, to the Links:

• The CoCo Times has a report on Bill Clinton campaigning for John Garamendi. Not that Garamendi will need much help here, he’s a huge favorite. Perhaps that is why the event wasn’t particularly close to the district. David Harmer, the Republican “candidate”, lobbed bombs about the location and that Clinton’s appearance indicated weakness. I (Brian) don’t buy it, the event can only be considered a positive for Garamendi as he does his victory lap towards Congress.

• Chris at LiberalOC is pretty upset about the Jerry Brown/Mike Ramos thing.

• The tourism industry has been hit very hard by the economic crisis. Hotel defaults are rising rapidly, and more foreclosures look likely.

• Get ready to be scared! Boogah-Boogah. Scientists from Rice University published a paper arguing that the Pacific Earthquake in Sumatra might have weakened the San Andreas fault. The article was published in Nature. Nonetheless, the authors aren’t sure if the weakness will make itself known in any of our lifetimes, so don’t head for the bunkers yet.

• Timm Herdt looks at an interesting measure that could end up on the ballot in 2010: a measure to legalize and tax the sale of marijuana.

Links from here, there, and everywhere (in California):

• The consensus on President Clinton’s stumping for Newsom: a kind of low-energy, shot in the arm, but, more is needed for a “lusterless” campaign. Newsweek’s blog doesn’t put it so delicately: The Impending Implosion of CA Gov Hopeful Gavin Newsom.

• Yikes! Sales tax receipts are down, hurting local governments, as well as the state general fund. In Bakersfield, they took a look at what caused the drop, and much of it seems to be new car sales.

• Another day, another company quits the US Chamber of Commerce over their paleolithic views on climate change. This time it’s Apple. Not only does the chamber not “believe” in it, they want to do some sort of Scopes monkey trial thing.   Last week, PG&E wrote a letter (PDF) opposing the Chamber’s climate position and announcing they will not be renewing.

• Hollywood is seeing some big financial problems. DVD sales are down, as people transition to digital and rentals. The question is what will the new business model be when this one ceases to work for the film industry.

Links:

• The media is always verrry interested in the consultants on campaigns.  Not surprising really considering that these are the people they talk to most often.  It’s like high school gossip published daily rather than in the yearbook. It’s no different with CA-Gov, as Carla Marinucci takes a look at the consultants on each of the campaigns.

• The Supreme Court asked the Obama administration for their opinion on whether Healthy San Francisco is a violation of ERISA, a benefits law.  Obama has praised the program, but the Bush administration opposed it.  It would be very surprising to see Obama’s crew side with the Golden Gate Rest. Assoc. on this one.

• Michael Hiltzik calls the Tax Commission a waste of time, a sentiment widely shared around these parts. Instead of actually producing necessary changes, they shifted taxes from the rich to the poor, he writes.  In contrast, Dan Walters tries to blame the inevitable failure of the commission recommendations on a dysfunctional political system, as if any bill no matter the implications must be passed to prove the Legislature’s worth in Walters’ eyes.  And Reagan/Bush 41 official Bruce Bartlett just loves it.

• CalBuzz notes that for somebody claiming ideological purity, Poizner has a lot of past squishiness on his record.

• Orange County’s wastewater recycling (“toilet to tap”) is now pretty much at full capacity.  The system is actually one of the leaders in water recycling, and has gotten some good national press.  So far, the water quality has been better than the previous water that just came through the pumps.

• I (Brian) will admit to driving in San Francisco, and occasionally using the meters. However, I am happy to pay for them. The City was studying the idea of adding metered parking as well as adding hours on the meters. (The new meters were also supposed to be the fancy credit-card accepting kind.) Anyway, Mayor Newsom backed down from this idea, and as of yet, has no real plan on how to pay for MUNI going forward.  We need that revenue for public transportation, and the meters were a responsible plan to get it. It is disappointing to see the idea scuttled now when we need it more than ever.

• Matt Yglesias has been hammering the idea that gerrymandering is to blame for the nation’s woes.  We discuss this a lot at Calitics, so it seemed worth noting.

• Meg Whitman was scheduled to do a fundraiser for Bob McDonnell for VA Governor. Yup, the same guy who wrote that working women were “detrimental” to the family. Good to see that Whitman, a, um, working mother, had her priorities in line.  But the moment the media got wind of this, Whitman abruptly canceled, citing a “scheduling conflict”.  

It’s the weekend, so go enjoy the state parks. They’re going to stay open. But before you do, links!

• Good News/Bad News for former Assembly Member Mike Duvall. The Assembly dropped its investigation. The bad news, it was because they don’t have jurisdiction and the FBI is looking into the matter.

• The LA Times will no longer share a joint news service with the Washington Post, ending a long partnership.  Now Sam Zell might actually have to hire a reporter to write stories.

• Former LA Times scribe Jordan Rau penned an article for Kaiser Health News about the similarities between the national health care reform debate and California’s failed effort in 2007.  I’m not seeing the similarities, actually.  What killed that bill was that it didn’t offer affordable coverage. Period. Schwarzenegger offered such meager subsidies that Senate Democrats wouldn’t go along with it. There was no element of Republican fearmongering or middle-of-the-road centrist Dems succumbing to protecting the insurance companies, as has characterized the national debate. What’s more, even if it passed the Legislature none of the funding could have, because of the little minority rule setup we have here. So that would have gone to the ballot. It’s a completely different dynamic and I don’t think many lessons can or should be learned from it.

• eMeg Whitman strenuously endorsed Sen. Boxer back in 2003 for her 2004 election. I’m sure the wingers will love that!

• We mentioned yesterday that John Boehner slandered the glory that is the garlic milkshake, drawing a harsh response from the Gilroy Garlic Festival.  Now, the representative of Gilroy in Congress, public option supporter Mike Honda, delivered a basket of garlic to Boehner’s office and recited a limerick for the Republican Minority Leader:

Two things make for a strong healthy heart.

Gilroy garlic, for one, a good start.

Public option? Also high,

In the American eye,

65 percent n’er want it to part.

Ahh, parochial pride.