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April 21 Open Thread

Links from around the state:

• This Miss California situation is interesting.  She answered a question about gay marriage in a nonsensical way (“Everyone can choose,” she said, which is only true if you are cool with moving all around the country), stated her belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, and now is whining that her answer cost her the crown.  Maybe it did, because the answer made no sense at all.  By the way, a note to the right – Miss California wasn’t “persecuted for her views” by finishing second in a beauty contest.  Also, we have an economic crisis, so stop talking about who finished second in a beauty contest.

• AG Jerry Brown is sponsoring a “vexatious requestors” bill in the Assembly. Apparently there are a few people who request lots and lots of documents from an agency, to an extant that really can only be classified as harassment.  The downside here is that this does chill the efforts of legitimate journalists who are looking for something real. While it is easy to understand the frustration with this use of resources, we need to be sure we don’t go too far down the road of limiting the sunshine in government.

• SEIU 1000 reached a labor contract with the state, and now the Yacht Party is threatening to hold it up.  For some reason the contract needs a two-thirds vote.  Another hijacking.

• The Governor didn’t answer any of Dave’s questions in his online town hall meeting.  Sob.  Somehow moderator Bill Bradley must have been behind this… Amazingly, Schwarzenegger thinks “the question is not the 2/3 vote” but how hard it is to get things done because of redistricting and closed primaries.  What a fresh, Twitter-ready perspective!

• Jim Beall has a bill, AB 1019 for an alcohol tax. It is structured as a fee, rather than a tax, so it only needs a majority. It would raise about a billion and a half, which would be ticketed for drug and alcohol programs.

• More cuts in the Capitol Media. Today, NBC’s Mike Luery was the latest victim of the downsizing of coverage.

• The San Diego USD is selling bonds that offer no interest, but do offer a tax credit.

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Monday Open Thread, April 20, 2009

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D-Day here.  It happens to be my blogiversary today, and I’m running a little fundraiser this week.  So come by and drop a few coins in the bucket if you can.  OK, on to the links…

• UPDATE by Brian: I’m going to be appearing on the Your Call Radio Show Tomorrow at 11 AM on KALW 91.7 in SF to talk about the special election and the budget.  You can listen online here or download it later here.

• I don’t think I can do better than this headline: “Georges Marciano is rich, so of course he wants to be Governor.”  It gets better from there, actually; he hasn’t voted in a decade, has no position on the special election, and thinks “A political independent untethered to the usual party schisms is, he argued, the solution to the state’s perennial financial mess,” which is what we’re told we have now.  I think Alan Keyes could beat this guy.

• One bright spot in our fiscal disaster is that economic stimulus funds continue to roll into the state.  The latest consists of $3.1 billion in school funding, which State Superintendent Jack O’Connell says will go to save teachers from layoffs but also toward “education reform.”  I’d certainly like to see that defined more, but clearly the Obama Administration falls on the reform end of the schism inside the party.  From this article I’d say that O’Connell is trying to straddle the divide.

• The Fresno Bee thinks Obama is being stingy when it comes to water funding for the Central Valley.  They make a compelling argument.

• Following in the footsteps of fellow losing candidate John McCain, Chuck DeVore has been sued by a musician for using his songs without authorization.  Personally I come down more on the side of openness in this debate, as long as the artists are rewarded materially.  But picking an irrelevant fight with Don Henley isn’t a road to victory, either.

• More fallout from the teabagging hate rallies – a San Mateo group used a Star of David with the caption, “Uncle Sam Reminds You: KEEP PAYING TAXES. The ongoing extermination of Palestinian Children Can’t be Done Without Your Help.”  It’s a class message.

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Friday Open Thread

Have a nice weekend!  Next week Calitics will be coming to you from the California Democratic Party convention, so we’ll have a full slate for you.

• Calitician Dave Dayen will speak about the special election at a meeting put on by the West LA Democratic Club and Southern California Americans for Democratic Action.  

Sunday, April 19, 2009, 2 PM

3916 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City

details

• More terrible job news, as the unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 11.2%, with a loss of 62,000 jobs in March.  I don’t see a way back for quite a while.

• Interior Secretary Ken Salazar got an earful from Californians in a public comment session in San Francisco about offshore drilling.  Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and Sen. Barbara Boxer in particular offered heated comments in opposition.  Hopefully the Interior Secretary will listen.

• Just a reminder, when you hear all this talk about “greedy public employees,” that California has the second-lowest ratio of state workers per capita in the entire nation.  And with a state spending cap, we’d have even less.  

• Santa Monica City Councilman Bobby Shriver will not run for Attorney General in 2010.

• A pretty remarkable story out in the Inland Empire, where warehouse workers at a temp agency decided to sit-in to protest their treatment.  Video here.  Tom Woodruff has a great piece about the Depression in the IE and the implications.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

April 16, 2009 Open Thread

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Straight to it:

• John Chiang has a cool new feature on his website that lets everybody see how much cash is coming into the state day by day.

• Does Arnold Schwarzenegger seriously have nothing better to do than bring back gigantic bear sculptures to put in front of the horseshoe? I mean, I can’t think of anything that would occupy his time. But, the Bee’s caption contest makes it kinda ok.

• A slap fight on the right, as Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman fight over which one is a more disastrous manager.  I say split the difference, chaps – you’re BOTH awful!

• This is a truly horrible story about Avenues Pregnancy Clinic in Glendale, where the fundie directors browbeat women into believing they risk eternal damnation for “living in sin.”  And they get state licensing and accrediting for that!  Awesome.

• The business interests who want to shut down LA’s Clean Trucks program have failed again, as a US District Court judge rejected the motion to halt the program.  There’s a lot of money and effort being spent fighting the law when they could just comply with it – and in the process stop thousands of kids from coughing and choking every five seconds from the smoke and soot.

• The CBP had this the other day about the legislature risking turning down federal stimulus money for low-income families.  The Legislature needs to get to work on this.

• CalChamber’s job creator list is here!!!  I can’t wait to live in a state where such job creator bills like eliminating meal breaks are law!  There actually are a couple bills in there, like flexible work schedules and the research and development credit, which aren’t too bad.

• One of the most misleading statistics you will see today: there have been gains in the number of houses sold in Sacramento for 12 straight months. Yay, right? Well, it’s good that more houses are being sold, but they are being sold at fire-sale prices after foreclosure. On the other hand, median price of those homes sold has fallen for almost the entire period, with this month being the sole exception.  The median now stands at $165,000, up $5,000 from last month, but down over $200,000 from the peak in 2005.

• Speaking of real estate, General Growth, one of the nation’s largest owners of malls and commercial property has filed for bankruptcy. It is the largest real estate bankruptcy in the history of the universe. Or well, at least the largest in US history. They run a whole slew of malls in California, from Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco to the Glendale Galleria. They are expected to remain open during the bankruptcy.

• Did you just have a busy hour? Well, the state’s fundraisers have. Since 2000, there has been an average of over $14,000 every hour raised for political campaigns.

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Tax Day Open Thread

Calitcs has a new Twitter account! You can catch updates from Calitics right here. Here we go with the links:

  •  Arnold is going to campaign for the May 19 Special election initiatives. Really, Mr. 30-something percent approval promises to be all over the state. But all you skeptics and data-people, you need to look at his info. Because apparently everybody is coming up to him in the streets and telling him they are voting yes. It's a very scientific study.
  • The House leadership is requiring all members to post a list of projects they want funded in the budget on their website. Not exactly Web2.0 or anything here. It's typically buried somewhere on a very web1.0 site, you get to do the clicking around to find it. On the other side, Rep. Jackie Speier had Stanford law professor Larry Lessig review projects to submit to appropriations.
  • Sacramento has slowly begun to clean out their Bushville.  Prediction: We'll be dealing with some other tent city in or near Sacramento in three months.
  • Hey, did you know budget cuts hit the most vulnerable in California? Well, the Bakersfield Californian did. It's a good thing senior citizens are wise, becaused they'll need every bit of that wisdom to choose between eating and taking their meds.  All kidding aside, the dramatic effects of these cuts are just beginning to take hold. This type of story is important for the people of California to see.
  • The San Francisco school board voted 6-1 to oppose Fiona Ma's AB 223 that would require SF, and only SF, to offer JROTC in high schools. Even members of the board who supported JROTC are opposing this measure due to the precedent setting effect of having the state government regulate a single school district like this.
  • Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is touring the Delta, reviewing flood control projects and the water concerns for the Central Valley. Salazar has announced $260 million in stimulus spending on California water projects, which is sorely needed.
  • Asm. Bill Monning has begun a video mailbox feature. He'll be answering questions weekly.
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April 14, 2009 Open Thread

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Did you finish your taxes? Better get them in, the state needs your money. Maybe toss in a tip for your favorite state employee.  Here we go with the links

  •  Yahoo is laying off more workers. But the say the best comopanies of the next tech wave emerge from the recessions, so maybe we're about to see the next big thing from Silicon Valley.
  • Our Congress critters aren't the best at getting federal dollars. Well, we probably knew that already, as we are a big net donor state, but now we know how bad. 49th to be exact.
  • Film production in Los Angeles has run away and hid, down 56% in the first quarter. TV production is way up, but that's a misleading statistic, because it's compared with the first quarter of last year, during the writer's strike. Really bad news for industry workers.
  • The California Budget Project takes ann in-depth look at Prop. 1D. Alternatively, you can look at the Calitics endorsements!
  • The investigation into the murder of former Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey is under some scrutiny, with allegations of insubordination and misconduct being bandied about. A former handyman for the Your Black Muslim bakery has been charged in the murder, but there is a lot of speculation about some leaders of that group being involved in the murder.
  • Carla Marinucci is quite skeptical that Nevada can be a model for California's state government despite California Republican suggestions otherwise. She points out that Nevad's state government spends the lowest per capita on its citizens, rates terribly on quality of life issues, and Las Vegas is now the biggest US city without an art museum. Yeah, let's get moving on becoming that.
  • Steve Poizner engages in some serious concern trolling with Jerry Brown and Antonio Villaraigosa, though I confess that I would love to see the Democratic front-runners debate someone serious about Prop. 1A, not a See-and-Say with only one working phrase (“No new taxes! No new taxes!”)
  • Once and future(?) AD-15 candidate (and Walnut Creek San Ramon mayor) Abram Wilson is scheduled to speak at the Pleasanton tea-bagging event.  Nothing shows that you care about the district and about state government than throwing food products on the ground with some right wingers.  I don't know if Mayor Wilson noticed, but the district now has a 4.6% Democratic registration advantage.  Perhaps cowtowing to the right isn't the best way to get elected in such a district.
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April 13, 2009 Open Thread

Some links in random order:  

  • The state is having a tough time regulating payday loan outfits that are operating under the banner of Indian sovereign immunity. They regularly violate the state's regulations for such loans, but due to the immunity laws, state laws don't easily reach them when the loan is made over the internet.  The laws limit the loans to $300 and to a maximum interest rate of 459% for a 31 day period. (Yes, you read that right.)
  • An example of the penny wise, pound foolish madness of budget cuts: Across the state, fraud investigation departments for in-home support services are being slashed, so the fraud rate has increased. IHSS is a vital program to allow care for California's most vulnerable, but it does carry a risk that people will lie about services they provide.  The hypocrisy is really pretty funny, if it weren't so sad.  The Republicans scream about waste, fraud, and abuse, yet cut the people who try to fight it.  Classic. Of course, the Times has to toss some union-bashing into the mix. Because, that's balanced, you know?
  • In 1998, Congress started a program to sell homes to local governments for $1, which they could then fix up and sell as affordable housing for new families.  Eleven years later, the Times checks in to see how that went, and, um, it didn’t work.  The homes increased significantly in value and benefited nobody beyond contractors and investors.
  • The state has returned a series of paintings stolen from Jewish art dealers in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, but copies will remain on display at Hearst Castle.
  • An aviation blogger raised the ire of politicos in Long Beach for daring to report on comments from Jet Blue’s CEO that the Long Beach Airport stinks and the airline may stop flying there.  One would think that the Long Beach City Council should spend a bit more time on fixing their crappy airport and a bit less on denigrating reporters who dare to mention it.
  • San Jose State is trying to make more students graduate within four years to decrease costs and allow for more incoming students.
  • Santa Monica is connecting homeowners with backyards with people who want to garden.
  • The Latino Water Coalition is organizing a march from Mendota to Los Banos to call for more water for the Central Valley and its farms. The water cuts to the Valley have hit Latinos who rely on temporary farmworking jobs.
  • Wow, get out the wahhmbulance for Jack Kavanaugh, who is deeply hurt by Chris Cillizza leaving him off the list of the top political sites in California.  Uh, Jack, um, aren’t you just a link aggregator?  Couldn’t a BOT do what you do?
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Better Finish Your Taxes Weekend Open Thread

I can drop links like a whole pack of shrink-a-dinks.  So, let’s do it:

• The OC Transportation Authority is getting some OC Register scrutiny because of a doubling of their travel budget, from just under $25K to just under $50K. I must admit that I’m not the most informed on the budget issues of OCTA, but the spending they cite hardly seems profligate. That being said, if traveling these days on the government dime, I would try to stay at Motel 6 or something.

• In Garden Grove, a woman lost her COBRA coverage because the bank cashed the check with the wrong amount.  Apparently her 56 cents looked like 50 cents.  The insurance company, CERIDIAN, said that’s it out you go for your 6 cent underpayment. She eventually got the insurance back when they discovered that she in fact wrote the right amount.  It’s all rather disgusting.  But, look at the Register fighting for the common man.

• The co-founder of Guess Jeans will run for Governor as an independent.  I can’t think of what this state needs more than a political neophyte with lots of money and a pretend sense of post-partisanship despite a quite conservative message.

• Turning to news of the rich know-nothing Governors we have, ugh.  I think this bear sculpture is to Schwarzenegger what that stupid rug was to Bush.

• Burt Reynolds owes the state $250,000 for back taxes. Pay up, Bandit! Dionne Warwick is on the list, I guess the Dial-a-pyschic business doesn’t pay what it used to.

• This is some bad data. Of the state’s 480,595 seventh graders in 2001-2002, over a quarter of them dropped out before graduation in 2007.  You can find dropout rates across the state here.

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Thursday 4/09 Open Thread

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To the links:

• More reports from the CBC’s personal time with Fidel Castro. Rep. Barbara Lee found that the US could do some business with the Cubans on supplying medical technology. Rep. Laura Richardson talked about the ports in her district and Fidel responded with a comment on the threat of climate change to those ports. Oh, that Fidel!

• Richardson is also teaming up with Dana Rohrabacher (R-Crazytown) to block the loss of 5,000 jobs in the Long Beach area from the proposed phase-out of the F-22 fighter plan.  The fact that the F-22 has suppliers in 44 states shows you the near-impossible task of breaking through the military-industrial complex.

• My morning LA Times featured a not-so-cleverly disguised ad for “Southland” on the front page.  I think Sam Zell’s big idea is to eventually get the news out of the newspaper and fill it entirely with advertorials.

• Sen. Boxer has hired long-term Chronicle reporter Zachary Coile to be her new press secretary.   Meg Whitman has also hired a former scribe, Mary Anne Ostrom of the San Jose Mercury News, as a policy and online outreach advisor.  See above.

• CalBuzz thinks Jack O’Connell, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, might be heading back into the Governor’s race.  He’s actually exploring a run, seeing if he could get the money to compete with Jerry Brown and the gang. Interestingly, Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix and a longtime O’Connell supporter, has dumped almost a million dollars into an IE for his candidacy.  That makes things a lot more interesting, especially if there’s more where that came from. Reed Hastings is very wealthy, and unlike most others, his fortune is still growing in the downturn.

• OC Progressive points out that state Controller John Chiang has endorsed incumbent Eric Bradley for the controller spot at the CDP.

• This isn’t a sports blog, but some stories transcend sports and just remind us of the human condition and just how frail we all really are.  The death of Nick Adenhart, a 22 year old starting pitcher for the Angels, is really just a tragedy.  After pitching Wednesday, he was killed by a hit and run driver in Fullerton.  Our best wishes to his friends and family.

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Wednesday 4/8/09 Open Thread

A stroll through California politics today…

• We had a post on the first radio commercials yesterday, but Arnold’s Budget Reform Now ad didn’t make the cut.  It talks about stabilization over a background newsy tone about cuts for senior citizen health care.  Enjoy.

• It does appear the Governor will use stimulus funds for education for their intended purpose, to fund education, instead of filling the budget gap.  That’s the right move.

• Hmm, what’s this? A catfight between Jerry Brown and Anna Nicole Smith’s Rasputin character, Howard K. Stern. Brown is involved in the prosecution of Stern, so I guess it’s not so surprising.

• Some hard medicine from CalBuzz to John Garamendi and his governor’s campaign. They go through the possibilities of where his votes go if he leaves the race for the CA-10 race, and end up with “it doesn’t matter.” Ouch.

• The LA City Council was poised to approve higher water rates for those who don’t conserve at least 15% in the midst of the drought today, but at the last minute the measure was temporarily scuttled until the Council has time to study it.  I hope this will be combined with an intense education campaign, since those who don’t know a thing about the conservation initiative are highly unlikely to conserve.  At that point you’re just raising water rates.

• Laura Richardson, Barbara Lee, and Fidel Castro.  Is there a group picture?  Hopefully this greases the wheels for continued engagement with Cuba and an end to the failed isolation policy.

• Another hurdle in bringing an NFL team back to LA has been cleared. Diamond Bar has settled its lawsuit over a proposed stadium in City of Industry.