Links:

• Rancho Santa Margarita is a lovely suburban town with a wingnutty City Council as you’ll ever find. Check out this little faux pas. The RSM City Council sent the President a letter calling on him to cut it out with the “Socialized Medicine.” I guess what’s good for the goose isn’t so good for the gander, as they are digging on their government provided health care plan that costs the City $83K over the fiscal year.

• It looks like San Diego may well lose another superintendent, this to Houston. “America’s Finest City” has had something of party up top, with nobody sticking around too long.

• Anthony Wright discusses some key health care bills going through the legislature in the next few weeks, including some pretty good insurance market reforms.

• Asm. Hector de la Torre asked for an audit of the Regional Center system. It is a quasi-governmental body that assists developmentally disabled Californians purchase services. However, the agency is not subject to state whistleblower laws, and there have been some speculation about retaliation against workers who call out waste in the system.

• Anthony Woods snagged the endorsement from the Bay Area Reporter in the CA-10 primary September 1, and given the BAR’s slant to the LGBT community, this isn’t much of a surprise.

• The area around Sebastopol produces some really good Gravenstein appples. Yummy! Unfortunately, the numbers of the trees are dwindling, causing some folks to worry that they might disappear forever. So, a group of food preservationists and slow food folks have been marketing the apple to the greater Sonoma area.  Next time you are in the area, you should definitely grab a few pounds of the Gravensteins and taste what people are so worried about disappearing.

• You want to see what a health care crisis really looks like? Well, after a slew of community health care clinics close down, it won’t be so tough to visualize.  3 of the clinics have closed down over the past month, and a large group are in desperate conditions.  These clinics serve rural and other underserved communities, regardless of their ability to pay. The bulk loss of these facilities will be tragic for the state.

• Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter) wants to extend the non-tribal card playing monopoly for the current card rooms for another five years. I guess it’s not really that shocking considering Florez has received over $150K from card room interests.  Ah, monied politics, you really have to um, hate it.  That is not to say that adding new card rooms or other gambling facilities is a good idea, just that money is too big of a player in our system.

Links:

• The Sac Bee has a good video and story about the fight for clean water, especially in the Central Valley.  Runoff from farms and other agricultural uses puts pesticides and other contaminants into the water, and nobody has yet been able to tackle the issue. We keep hearing that there will be movement on the water issues, but we’ve been kicking this one down the can for decades. At this point, it is difficult to see what will be different this year.  Especially if the Governor demands a multi-billion dollar bond for dams as part of any bill.

• Teach to the test! What we’ve learned in the years since No Child Left Behind is that the test scores are a fairly obtuse method of testing student achievement, and a relatively inefficient means of spending our money. But test away, the government loves them some data.  Even the fact that California improved test scores over the past couple years doesn’t do anything to bridge the achievement gap, nor does is bring back the billions in per-pupil spending that will probably serve to erode these improvements over the next few years.

• Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, the results of test scores represent something of a failure for Antonio Villaraigosa to live up to his rhetoric about “saving the schools.”  Also, the Locke charter school in South Los Angeles showed the same inconsistent results as the rest of the city – charter schools are not a magic bullet.

• John Garamendi’s Clean Seas Coalition released a radio ad as well as a YouTube spot (to the right) focusing on an oil severance tax as an alternative to offshore drilling.

• State politicians are pressuring UC-Berkeley to return bones of Japanese war dead from the battle of Saipan. The remains have been stored in the anthropology museum for over sixty years.

• I’m going to love having TBogg comment on the Carly Fiorina candidacy for the next year: “Hi. I’m Carly Fiorina. I laid off 15,000 people at Hewlett-Packard and walked away with a 21 million dollar check and on the day that I was fired HP’s stock jumped 6.9%. So….um…well…. Jesus, 9/11, freedom, success! Also. Wolverines!”

• Lesson learned: don’t put your 30,000 marijuana plants next to a raging wildfire, where they may get noticed by authorities.  It appears the fire in the Los Padres National Forest may have been caused by a campfire put together by pot growers.

• The LA County Board of Supes unanimously voted to reopen King hospital, provided that the UC partner with the county.  The ball’s in the regent’s court now.

• A non-native Asian clam has invaded Lake Tahoe. They are principally around Zephyr Cove and South Lake Tahoe, but have been gradually gaining territory. They encourage the growth of algae and could threaten native species.

Links!

• Over at HuffPo, a good opinion piece about the dearth of leadership in the LGBT community. I (Brian) would disagree slightly, however. Not because there isn’t a lack of leadership, but more because he kind of brushes aside much of the grassroots leaders now emerging. Look, if you look at the HRC, and here in CA, EQCA, you see a couple of organizations struggling for meaning. Much of that has to do with their own leadership as well as a growing mistrust. Grassroots activists can find smaller, more nimble organizations that are doing some great work in the field. The money people are getting frustrated with the return on investment in these groups.  With luck, we’ll see some solid ROI in the Maine Equality campaign.

• The DSCC makes a funny about Carly Fiorina’s entry into the US Senate race:

“This is a person who was fired from Hewlett Packard for running the company into the ground, fired from the McCain Presidential Campaign for incompetence, and now thinks the people of California are going to hire her. Carly Fiorina was named one of the twenty worst CEOs in the country yet still escaped with a 21 million dollar golden parachute.”

• CalBuzz has a good story on some of the abortion questions from Jerry Browns’s past. Let’s be clear, Governor MoonBeam is gone. Jerry Brown today is very different from Jerry Brown in 1972.

• Candice Reed is dumping California.  Can’t say I blame her.

• Tesla, the electric car manufacturer, is building a new facility in Palo Alto. It’s not likely to replace NUMMI in terms of scale of jobs, but it’s good to see some growth in manufacturing in the Bay Area.

• Litigation on the Cal State University fee increases continues. Yesterday, the court allowed the fee hikes to move forward, and scheduled a hearing in two weeks.

• John Yoo has returned from the friendlier confines of Orange County to teach again at Boalt Hall in Berkeley, leading to more protests and arrests.  Surely Cal-Berkeley is thrilled to have its law school reputation thrown into the toilet with each passing day.  What I want to know is, what self-respecting law student still takes one of Yoo’s classes?  Perhaps they’re compulsory.

• A citrus tree disease spread by a non-native fly is heading for Southern California, threatening much of the important citrus crop there.

• Home sales in Southern California again increased, at the fastest rate in almost three years.  And this time, the percentage of those sales that are foreclosed homes are less than at any time in a year.  Cautiously good signs.

• Another box that Arnold was really meaning to blow up, nursing certification, is still rather odious and rotten smelling. After a story a couple of months ago, about some failings in the system, the head of the commission resigned and Arnold planned to fix it ASAP. Needless to say, we are still waiting for any meaningful reform.

Sorry for the lack of open threads last week during Netroots Nation. But now we’re back on the open thread saddle. Here we go:

• SF City Attorney Dennis Herrera has confirmed that Supervisor Chris Daly actually lives in his district. There was a big brouhaha in SF about this because Daly bought two houses out in Fairfield in Solano County, and his wife and children moved out there to be close to family. Everybody had a position on this, and there is a lot of spilled pixels. But, for the time being, it’s just more grist for the Daly mill.

• Our own David Dayen was the winner of the CREDO Mobile Netroots award for best state blogger.  Thanks to everybody who tolerated my (Brian) annoying posts, tweets and other reminders to vote for him.

• The LA Times weighs in on the push to repeal Prop 8.  Back in 2008, they opposed Prop 8, and they’d like to see it repealed.  However, like EQCA, they’re a cautious bunch, and argue that the campaign wait for 2012.

• Lt. Gov John Garamendi on the who and what of replacing him if he’s elected in the CA-10.

• The Bad News section. Sorry to do this, but let’s just muddle through it quickly.  First, there’s the bad economic forecasts for the SoCal Ports. Then you have the fact that the last car plant in California, NUMMI, is very likely looking at closure soon. ANd then if you want to retrain, look for longer lines and fewer classes at community colleges across the state.

• Grassroots activists in Southern California are working to fund a poll to test messages on 2/3rds repeal designed by George Lakoff.  Interested in funding that effort?  $35,000 is needed.  Help out here.  To check out what this group is about (I, Dante, started the Facebook page), show that you know the net better than John McCain by clicking here.

Most of the Calitics Crew will be in Pittsburgh for Netroots Nation. If you are going to be there as well, come to some of the California themed sessions on the agenda. And don’t forget to vote for David Dayen for state blogger award. Text “state David Dayen” to 27336. Now, some links.

• Kaiser is laying off 1,200 workers, just another sign of the economic times. Kaiser’s member rolls are actually a pretty good sign of the economy, as people lose their insurance when they are laid off. So, fewer people now have insurance, so there is less need for technicians and the like.  Interestingly, in the national debate, the number of these sorts of workers is a key to ensure access for all Americans.

• Another story about the 2010/2012 debate for repealing Prop 8, this time from Dan Walters. It is clearly an outsider’s viewpoint, as Walters doesn’t have the same experience in the issues as say…me.

• BART and their unions came to an agreement last week, but one of the two largest unions rejected it. The BART Board has said they could impose terms, but their is no deadline as of now.

• The LA Firefighters Union is getting very visible about the cuts to their stations.

Links:

• Something we missed from last week: Lisa Vorderbrueggen takes a look at the CA-10 Congressional candidates and how they are using their state accounts.

• Carla Marinucci consolidates all the gushing conservative praise of the California GOP from around the nation. If Fred Barnes loves it, then the state certainly will, right? Right?

• David Boies and Ted Olson have said no to intervention from old-line gay rights groups and cities that fought the state battle to overturn Prop 22.

• Gavin Newsom was at the Young Democrats of America convention over the weekend. Speaking of YDA, California’s own Crystal Strait was elected President of YDA. More on that soon…

• Don’t forget to vote for David Dayen for the state blogger award at Netroots Nation. Just text “state David Dayen” to 27336.

• If there are tough times in porn, you know the economy is ailing. It seems the Internet really is for porn, and it is undercutting other content providers, many of which are in the San Fernando Valley.

Some links for your weekend:

• CalBuzz has some complaints about why NPR chose to focus a 9 minute story about the California governor’s race on Gavin Newsom.  They have an excellent point, where were the interviews of the other candidates?, And why did Garry South (seemingly) write the piece?

• Nothing like building up expectations. A group of about 600, the Pasadena Patriots, claims they are going to flood Rep. Adam Schiff’s town hall panel next week to complain about the “socialized medicine.”  In other news, don’t let the Government take over my Medicare!

• The national unemployment rate went down.   California’s is still hovering around 11.5%.

• Brian Dennert has an interview with AD-35 candidate Das Williams via blog comment at his site. It’s an interesting read, and a cool use of the format.

• A good summary of the package being offered NUMMI to keep their plant open in Fremont.

Links:

• Asm. Van Tran (R-OC) arrived on the scene of Westminster Councilman’s Andy Quach’s DUI arrest, and was so disruptive that he too almost got arrested.

• The Governor signed 128 bills and vetoed 9. You can find the full list here: Part 1, and Part 2. Is your favorite bill there? Tell us about it.

• Josh Richman sits down for a chat with the always exciting Garry South

• The Franchise Tax Board is going to audit 160K head of household taxpayers to see that they properly claimed the status.

Links!

• Field came out with the 2nd half of their poll about demographics. This one was essentially a summary showing that DTS and Dems have gotten substantially more socially progressive, but haven’t changed a lick on Prop 13. John Myers has more.

• LAPD Chief Bratton has announced he is resigning to return to New York to head a private security firm.  Bratton has earned high marks for transforming the public image and output of the LAPD.  He didn’t fix everything, but he took the department a pretty long way from the low point of Rodney King.  It’s definitely a loss for the city.

• Pro-health care reform Blue Dog Mike Thompson (CA-01) got an earful from the teabaggers in his district at a town hall meeting, with the loobyist-activated participants shouting him down to such a degree that the Napa Valley Register blasted the disruptive protesters in an op-ed.  Meanwhile, the D-Trip is targeting several California Republicans for their donations from the health care industry and their role in blocking reform.

• Carly Fiorina is making lots of noise in a bid to run for Senate. NRSC Chair John Cornyn was talking her up.

• Arnold Schwarzenegger granted an interview with the New York Times that won’t earn him any friends in the Walt Disney Company, whose parks are populated with morbidly obese people, according to his account.  Once again, the Governor goes above the heads of local media and to the national media who pay little attention to the reality of California.  Maybe because all the local media has him completely skunked out.

• CA-10: John Garamendi, profiled here today at Calitics, surveyed his district, but the poll questions got into the wrong hands.  That’s because one of the survey subjects was Mark DeSaulnier campaign manager Katie Merrill.  Since the poll was not for publication, some pretty revealing questions in there.

• Steve Lopez doesn’t like the idea, but he’ll accept if he has to. So, he says, go ahead and sell naming rights to the state parks. Man, this state is seriously messed up.