Links:

• Oooh, a crowning achievement for Sam Aanestad’s Lt. Guv campaign: a piece of the Dennis Hollingworth endorsement. I don’t know why this is really that coveted, but the Senate Majority leader has split his endorsement between Aanestad and Sen. Denham.

• Not all the news for medical marijuana growers was good today. A man who was guarding a medical marijuana crop was shot four times by thieves.

• Gotta love the murky law on ballot label designations. In this story, a candidate for Pomona USD Board tries to be listed as a teacher because he “teaches continuing legal education to other attorneys in his law firm.” what a joke.

• Dan Walters takes a look at the latest batch of census data. And guess what, the 58 counties are very different, from ethnic makeup to birth rates. But anybody who has driven much in the state would have been able to tell you how different Tulare County is from San Francisco, but the data is pretty fun. The data is available here.

• The California Redevelopment Association has sued the state for $2 billion for money taken during the budget “fix”. As a response to the state’s raid on local dollars, a coalition has decided to attempt to get something on the ballot restricting such raids. You can see their website here.

• Some other Republican has jumped in to the CA-11 race against Jerry McNerney.

I was going to try to write something today, but I think I’ll just do an open thread style post with the tabs I had open trying to come up with something to write.  So, check it out:

• Jerry McNerney raised about $250K in the third quarter  to lead all CA-11 candidates. Brad Goehring has about the same in Cash, as he loaned his campaign $650K.

• Willie Brown’s weekly column. Always funny, always about Willie. In this week’s edition: Willie gets forced to take a photo with President Obama.

• El Monte’s City Manager resigned after getting caught in a prostitution sting.

Enjoy your weekend. Links:

• Carla Marinucci knows the gossip. She’s got your flim-flam of what’s going on with all the “almost news” items. Obama did a shout-out to Garamendi, but didn’t pass out freebies to the event.

• Turns out that Arnold’s workers comp scheme found a wrench in its wheel. A decision by the Workers comp fund appeal board has the result of providing better benefits to the injured workers. Gasp!

• Mike Berryhill loaned his campaign $100 K to oust Blue Dog Dennis Cardoza from the Central Valley’s CA-18. That’s still an uphill race for Berryhill, but you never know.

• Conservative Joel Fox is happy with the status quo in Sacramento. Yup, you heard that right. Just let it sink in. The right wing is happy with the status quo.

• Longtime legislator Bob Beverly died. Beverly was something you don’t see much of today, a moderate Republican. He served the Long Beach area in the legislature for about thirty years.

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.