The CDP’s E-board is this weekend just outside of San Francisco, in Burlingame. I’ll (Brian) be tweeting about my experience, here’s my twitter feed. If you are at the event, be sure to say hi!

Links:

• There was a little dustup with Meg Whitman, Prop 8, and her religion. Apparently, Leah Garchik said that eMeg blamed her support of inequality on her Catholicism  but then Tucker Bounds, her spokesperson, and McCain’s designated punching bag, said that she is, in fact, a Presbyterian. In the meantime, Carla Marinucci wrote a blog post about it, and then pulled it down.  On the other hand, Beth Spotswood’s hilarious post on the subject is still up.  Completely factually accurate it may not be, but it is loaded with truthiness.

• Today’s news from the Labor Department of another 66,500 jobs lost in June brings us to a situation where we have lost the entire amount of jobs in the 2003-2007 economic expansion in just the two years since.

• Teabaggers continue to pester Mary Bono Mack over her vote for the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill.  Between that and Steve Pougnet’s strong Democratic challenge, she’s being squeezed from both sides.

• Speaking of teabaggers racists, this city councilman from Atwater has been sending out inflammatory emails defaming President Obama and the First Lady in racially offensive language for months.  And when questioned about it, he failed to express regret or even really account for it.

• The other major BART union rejected the contract offer, so it looks like they’re going back to the bargaining table. For now, no strike is planned, and the unions say they would provide plenty of notice before any action.

• It’s the home buying season. Prices and sales are up slightly in the Bay Area, but down in Sacramento.

• Is the prison guard union considering a strike vote?

• UCSD got hacked, causing quite the worry among possible victims. I’ve (Brian) been a victim of this type of incident at Berkeley, and highly recommend all potential victims make use of their rights to place a fraud watch on their credit report.

John Myers tweets that budget talks are cancelled because the Governor doesn’t want to put in writing what he has stated publicly, that he wants to pay back money owed to education under Prop. 98.

I love this state!

Links:

• We’ll see how this electronic trading market in IOUs gets off the ground.  The yield is so pitiful, lower than a short-term CD, that I can’t see a lot of investors wanting them.  It is safe money, however, so maybe people can get cash for them.

• Rumors that offshore drilling has made its way back into the budget.  As is typical for this process, what gets revealed days after a deal is struck is often intolerable, but by then it’s too late, of course.

• Quick, name the Republican Senator from Diamond Bar. Well, if you said Bob Huff, congratulations. You win a cookie.  He got a promotion to second in command of the 15-member Senate Republican caucus.

• This was a weird moment in a hearing with Sen. Boxer, where the CEO of the Black Chamber of Commerce accused her of racism for listing a couple endorsements of cap and trade from other black leaders.  This guy had a whole stack of race cards just ready for playing.

• Sorry, Loretta Sanchez: the FEC says that you cannot use campaign money on clothing.

• Harold Meyerson writes about the warehouse worker’s campaign against Wal-Mart and other big retailers in the Inland Empire.  Good for them for using whatever means necessary to protect their employee rights.

Links from around the state:

• Asm. Tom Ammiano cites a Board of Equalization study that shows regulating and taxing marijuana could bring in additional $1.3 Billion annually.

• How to create your own facts. Arnold’s people and his conservative allies have been going after in-home support services for its supposed 25% fraud rate.  Except that the figure is almost certainly false.  Where it comes from is a trail of circles with no real answers.

• A proposed design for the 49ers stadium in Santa Clara.

• It looks to me like California will have the same amount of Congressional seats after the 2010 Census, but the possibility exists for us to lose one seat as well.  That would be the first lack of increase in seats since the 1920s.

• Yet another national article about states seeking to reduce the cost of maintaining their prisons through alternative sentencing and streamlined parole.  Why this is not a part of the conversation in California is absolutely stunning.

• The CDP brought a complaint to the FPPC about “Governor Schwarzenegger’s Dream Team.” Interestingly, the former Chair of the FPPC has done a substantial amount of work for that committee.

• Peter Schrag takes on the flat taxers on the march, and wins.  He rightly calls the Parsky Commission “a Trojan horse aimed at California’s progressive income tax policies.”

• CSU Chancellor Charles Reed is a bit upset with the curriculum in California’s K-12 education.  He went after the graduation requirements as far too lax and the curriculum being short of what is required by universities. Over half of CSU’s students require remedial math or English courses.

• One more from Brian: A verry talented attorney is suing CitiApartments, one of the biggest landlords in San Francisco for refusing to return security deposits. It is a terrible practice, especially in this economy for people that really need that money back. NBC Bay area had a story about the CitiApartments Lawsuit yesterday.

John Myers lets us know that the Big 5 had some meetings today. There’s other news around the state, so let’s get to it

• 2 of the 3 largest BART unions will vote on the contract offer today, while the third plans on waiting for some additional information.

• At CalBuzz, a termed out Republican Legislator points out that there are negatives of term limits, even from a conservative standpoint. Well, I can’t imagine the flames he would get with that at the right-wing blogs.

• After a report by ProPublica and the LA Times showed drastic failures in the investigations by the CA Nursing Board, Arnold cleaned house and the Chair resigned.

• Meg Whitman just handed her campaign a $15 million dollar present in the form of a personal check.  She has obviously corraled the crucial “Meg Whitman” vote.  As for the rest of the state’s 23 million voters, we’ll see.

• Some British finance guy hasn’t bothered to look at the California constitution to see that bonds have a very high priority, so he rates them as a high risk of default. Never mind the fact that there is virtually no way that we could skip out on bond payments or that the federal government would let us default.  That’s no reason to avoid gouging the state.

• The Cal State system will not take new students in the spring, to save money, part of what amounts to a lowering of enrollment by 40,000.  This is an education nightmare for the state of California.

• The City of Santa Clara apparently got a pretty sweet deal on the NFL’s SF 49ers stadium package.  Nevertheless, Mayor Newsom and DiFi seem very interested in keeping the Niners in SF. Keep an eye out on this.

Links:

• An interesting story out of the race to replace Ted Lieu (AD-53). Apparently two of the candidates were in a relationship years ago.

• One of the less discussed renewable energy sources is geothermal. However, some Californians worry that it will create seismic activity. At this point, it is clear that such projects do cause small earthquakes, but the company testing the idea claims they can limit them to 2.3 quakes.

• For the last few years, toxics in children’s products and some furniture has been a big topic of debate. Those bills have continued to flow, especially from Sen. Mark Leno. It turns out it takes a few years to undo damage that we legislated into existence a generation ago.

• More immigrant bashing. This time it’s from people who have made well, an obsession, of it.  The nativists plan on putting an initiative to end all services for undocumented immigrants AND their US Citizen children. They claim birth isn’t really a reason to become a citizen. Wonder what the Native Americans have to say about all this…

Links:

• After forcing pay cuts on State workers, now we’re trying to force 15-20% cuts on to state contractors.

• Here we go again with the old blame the brown people response from the xenophobic right in response to an economic downturn and budget issues.  If Republicans want to dishonestly start another fight that could lead to them backing a Prop. 187-style solution, go ahead.  It cost them dearly in this state the last time.  The article at least provides the arguments that immigrants are, in fact, a net positive on the economy.

• Carly Fiorina is having a few record-keeping issues. Apparently, she’s failed to register either her non-profit or her “small business.” Wow, somebody who engages in espionage, can’t keep her records straight, and was fired for incompetence. Where do I sign up?

• Good for Loretta Sanchez from breaking with her Blue Dog counterparts and supporting a robust public plan because it can lower costs.  Her colleagues in the Blue Dog Coalition have incoherently argued that they want to lower overall health care costs but not support the kind of public insurance option that could actually do it.  This has been an emerging pattern of independence from the conservative wing of the Party for Sanchez.

• Sen. Yee’s bill for more legislative control over the UC system has been shelved, and is likely dead. It was, shall we say, very controversial in the UC community.

• Assemblyman Anthony Adams is still facing a recall for voting for the February compromise. The organizers say they’ll only turn in signatures when they have all of them, rather than turning them in as they go. However, they claim to be having no problem getting signatures. Should the recall move forward, the election could be quite interesting.  It would draw some sort of line between the kinda crazies and the real crazies in the GOP.

• BART avoided a strike while unions consider whether to accept a contract proposal from BART management. The old agreement expired yesterday at midnight, but the union says they’ll hold off for a few more days on striking.

• As part of the continuing game of musical chairs resulting from the recent Los Angeles municipal elections, City Council District 2 is currently vacant owing to former Councilmember Wendy Greuel’s successful campaign for City Controller.  Assemblymember Paul Krekorian (AD-43) announced his candidacy today for the open seat, which will be filled in a special election on September 22.  Tomorrow is the last day to file a declaration of intention for candidacy, so we’ll know next week who Krekorian’s competition is, though current LAUSD Boardmember Tamar Galatzan and Chris Essel, a Senior Vice President at Paramount, are currently rumored to be the other main competitors for the seat.  Should a runoff occur, it will be held on December 8.

No movement on the budget today, just dueling press conference.  Also…

• Andrew Pugno, the repugnant man who was the go-to guy for Proposition 8’s every legal and other need, is running for Assembly to replace the termed out Roger Niello.  His “fame” from his quest to take away the rights of LGBT Californians has netted him some early cash. Incidentally, no other Republican has signed up for the race. However, the stats for a possible pickup in this seat are solid. Registration is only at a 1% Republican advantage, and Obama won by over 4 points.

• A new poll shows over 70% support for a tobacco tax of $1.50 per pack. The Republicans will fight it, but it looks like another good shot on a ballot fight.

• The Marijuana Policy Project has launched a new TV ad asking for the legalization and taxation of marijuana, something about 54% of Californians support.  It’s time for more than discussion of the regulation of marijuana and time to start moving forward.

• A great cartoon from Rex Babin at the Bee.

• Tom Campbell got a few minutes to bloviate on Dylan Ratigan’s new MSNBC show, and the network never saw fit to mention that he was a Republican.  So on the “liberal” MSNBC, the range of debate on the California budget moved from Tom Campbell… to Tom McClintock.

• If you want to know the boilerplate conservative solution for California’s problems, this Wall Street Journal editorial from Hoover Institution senior fellow Henry Rowen is a good place to start.  He basically wants to execute an IMF-style “reform” of California, and thinks the 2/3 requirement is a “crucial defense against uncontrolled spending.”  Do Californians get a say?

• Robert explained how the Legislature is screwing up high speed rail yesterday, but it should be noted that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expanded the California HSR corridor yesterday by including a route to Las Vegas.

• I’m amazed that this relates to politics, but Victoria Jackson is nuts.

• Hey, please check out Firedoglake’s citizen whip count, trying to get House Democrats on the record that they will not accept a health care bill without a public insurance option.  Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters are on board, but there ought to be far more California Dems on that side of the ledger.  Health Care for America now has a whip tool as well.  Keep the calls coming.

World Wide Web Hyperlinks about California political topics:

• This is a couple of days old, but it’s definitely worth noting. In Walnut Creek signature gatherers are being paid $4 per signature for a measure having to do with some malls there.  For some signatures, they’re getting $10. This is outrageous; it’s not the way representative democracy was supposed to work.

• George Will loves loves loves him some Meg Whitman.  Maybe someday she’ll speak to a reporter within 2,500 miles of California.  One of her reform items I never knew: reduce the number of members in the Assembly, down from 80.  If there’s ever anything we need, it’s less accountable government, right?

• Joe Matthews thinks we’re heading for a federal receivership. He says that we are just doing it slow-motion style, pointing to the threatened takeover of some of teh state parks by the National Park Service and the prison system.

• Just to reiterate, we are just a few days from banks refusing California IOUs.  That’s when this crisis gets kicked up a notch.  In slightly better news, the Franchise Tax Board will take the IOUs for payment of income and corporate taxes.

• Pfizer is pulling out of UCSF’s Mission Bay campus. The move is a big blow to what was shaping up to be a great place for biotech business. It’s not clear to what extent this will harm the campus, as there other companies there, but that’s 100,000 square feet of space not being used by a high-profile company.

• Teenagers are being hit hard by the recession. In markets like Sacramento, where labor is everywhere, employers are turning away from seasonal labor.

Links!

• Vanity Fair has a long piece about the Bohemian Grove. It’s a super-secret club for titans of industry, but only men, up in the Russian River area. Apparently, the group has been harvesting old-growth redwoods in a rather sketchy manner.

• Well, at least one sector is having success in this economy: reposession.  This stands to reason, as budget cuts and state employee wage cuts have nearly destroyed the Sacramento-area economy.

• The State Senate will resume policy committee meetings, after temporarily suspending them in light of the Governor’s ridiculous smear job attempting to criticize the Senate for doing their job.  They should have never stopped the policy committees to begin with, but good for them for restarting them.

• There are additional threats from the National Park Service that they would elect to take control of six parks if the Governor and the Legislature seek to close them.  These include Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, Point Sur State Historic Park in Big Sur and Point Mugu State Park near Malibu.

• Steve Benen has a very good rundown of the alleged murder of August Provost, a gay Navy Seaman found dead at Camp Pendleton last week.  The case raises all kinds of issues, not the least of which is the vulnerable position LGBT members of the military have been put in thanks to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  Rep. Bob Filner (CA-51) has called for a full investigation.

• A battle is brewing in the solar energy world   over subsidies for solar power.

• Das Williams announced his candidacy for AD-35. He’s been endorsed by former Assembly member Hannah-Beth Jackson, and he’ll face Susan Jordan, an environmentalist and the wife of the current Assembly member Pedro Nava.

• By Brian: I occasionally do a bit of non-political writing, so I’ve started a new site, leubitz.net. Here’s the first post about a trip exploring the wonderful Bay Area for a weekend.