A few links this Sunday morning:

• This SacBee article has much to be interested in. First, you have Bill Lockyer’s spokesman blatantly siding with the Governor over Sen. Steinberg on the issue of the budget reserve. Steinberg wants to spend it, Arnold wants to keep $4.5 billion in there. Annoyingly enough, Lockyer seems to be sticking with they guy he voted for back in 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Beyond that, you have the unnecessarily hostile framing from the Bee. The headline is about how the Legislature always fails to pass a budget by the constitutional deadline of June 15.  You have to read down to the third ‘graf to see that the Legislature has already passed a budget.

Finally, you have the specter of IOUs once again being issued. Those were super popular a few months ago, so I’m sure everyone is excited to see that news. Or something. Speaking of the Budget, the Merc has a decent Budget 101 report.

• The LA Times reminds us that we aren’t trying to emerge from just one bubble.  We’ve never really come out of the bust cycle in manufacturing.

• eMeg vs. Crazy Steve. CalBuzz has the latest on the bizarre contest that is the GOP primary for Guv.

• Sure, only part of the Cal-Neva resort is in California, but this story on its financial situation was very intriguing. My husband actually used to work at the Cal-Neva, and we’ve been there a couple of times. It really is a historic place set on the shores of Lake Tahoe. But it didn’t receive a single bid in auction, and its future is up in the air.

Links for your weekend:

• CA-10 Candidate Anthony Woods appeared on CNN to discuss Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (right). Incidentally, if you are in SF and would like to meet both Tony and Lt. Dan Choi, why not come to this fundraiser on June 29. You can find the ActBlue page here. Both will also be at the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club Annual Pride Fundraising Breakfast. Methinks everybody will be interested in coming to both events!

• Asm. Paul Fong (D-Mountain View} is working to get an apology from the state to the Chinese population it treated terribly in the early part of the 20th Century.

• The always exciting CalBuzz Friday Fishwrap has got news on the budget, and ahem…other matters.

• A sign of the times: the Sierra Pacific sawmill is shutting down. That being said, the mill is not without its share of controversy.

• PPIC says enterprise zones haven’t been all that effective.

• Want to buy a department store? THere are still plenty of Gottschalk’s stores available.

Links!

• Cruz Bustamante’s campaign manager, Lynn Montgomery, was appointed to the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) by AG Jerry Brown.  Wow, well at least she has some experience in the field.

• Curren Price opted to stay in the Assembly a few extra days. It might have made a big difference on a few bills in the Senate if he were there.

• The OC Registers looks at Steve Poizner’s handling of some insurance executives. A bit of coddling perhaps?

• A rumored Guv candidate, Sunne Wright McPeak, says she doesn’t plan on running. It’s too bad, because if you wanted California Backward in the Horseshoe, she was your candidate.

• Sen. Carole Migden got a big infusion of cash in her legal defense fund. The $100,000 donation came from a committee controlled by former Migden aide, and ClearChannel big shot, Michael Colbruno.

• Next10 has released their updated budget challenge. Good luck with that.

It’s been a busy day around the state. Here are a few links:

• Arnold Schwarzenegger thought better of eliminating survivors’ benefits for police and firefighters who died in the line of duty, calling it a “terrible screw-up.” You know, one thing you can’t pin on Arnold, he doesn’t really mind admitting that he was wrong.  Trouble is that he’s wrong a lot more than he’s right.

• Rep. Pete Stark (D-Fremont) thinks President Obama’s faith based initiatives might be unconstitutional. There certainly is a strong argument that the state shouldn’t be dealing so closely with religious institutions.(h/t Carla Marinucci) Incidentally, what is up with Politico and their crazy Obama headlines?

• Because Curren Price is moving to the Senate, here are the changing Assembly Committee rosters.

• A terrific column on the misry created by the budget and economic crisis, from Peter Shrag.

• Arnold wants you to tell him where the government waste is. Terrific, isn’t this what that whole California Performance Review was for?

News from around the state:

• Ellen Tauscher’s confirmation hearing was today. No real surprises here. The Right has been making news about her lack of experience in the field of nuclear disarmament, but it appears there won’t be more than a handful of random votes against her.

• Noted San Francisco politico Clint Reilly’s take on why the mighty are falling.

• The LA County Probation Department has been exceeding its overtime budget big-time over the last few years.  One of the problems in laying off so many state workers is that we’ll end up with more overtime to ensure the work that must get done actually gets done.

• Sen Leland Yee has been shaking some trees over the management of the state university systems for a while now.  CalBuzz takes a look at the issue and Yee’s suggested cure, more legislative oversight.

• In San Francisco, pressuring parents on truancy has paid off with substantially lower truancy rates for elementary school students.

Hey, a caller on Talk of the Nation mentioned Calitics in a story about the budget crisis and state budget problems across the nation. Story and Audio here, our mention comes at about 15 minutes in. (h/t to Wes)  We always love good press.

• Euna Lee and Laura Ling, the CurrentTV journalists,  were convicted by the North Korean Central Court. Lisa Ling, a host on The View, spoke at the commencement of National University. After the commencement she spoke to reporters about her sister, Laura.  Meanwhile, Secretary Clinton is pressuring the North Koreans to pardon and deport the journalists.

• George Skelton gets at the Nightmare scenario that the proposed budget cuts will bring, and closes with a totally dishonest statement, that those who accused Arnold and the legislature of “scare tactics” with respect to the May 19 election are getting their comeuppance.  He knows damn well that the special election would have only dealt with just a fraction of the near-term budget gap, including through making cuts in other programs (mental health and First Five), and that saying the world will end if we don’t fill less than 25% of a huge budget gap with wrongheaded solutions having the effect, through a spending cap that would have filled 0.0% of that gap, of keeping those SSI cuts you mention permanent, is a scare tactic.  Thanks for enabling it through losing the context, George.

• Calbuzz has a new URL.  Set your bookmarks.  And then tell them to offer full-post RSS feeds, because to do otherwise is absurd, and certain Calitics editors won’t bother to click through and pad your stats.

• A well-written story about a California Budget Project Report concerning the billion corporate tax cut that the February budget created.

• Wow, talk about bad timing, CalSTRS is coming, hat in hand, to the legislature. Due to the downturn in the markets, they need additional contributions to close the future gap.

• After the LA Times finally brought notice to the fact that there were enough medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles to make pot practically legal, the City Council has finally decided to engage in a crackdown, thus going after one of the only growth small business sectors of the local economy.

• Apple held a big hullabaloo in San Francisco this morning. Silicon Valley’s big man on campus revealed a new iPhone. Perhaps with all that money banging around Cupertino, you think they could hook a state government up?

• Arnold’s solution for community colleges? Why, that would be replacing full-time instructors with part-timers. Part-time instructors are cheaper, yes. But quality variations are enormous, as well as the question of accessibility. This is not a simple swap that he is trying to suggest will be a boon to the districts.

• Newt Gingrich thinks because voters rejected Prop 1A with a No Vote of 64% that all of these people will vote for Republicans.  Um, think again.

• Condolences to CA-48 candidate Beth Krom and her family on the tragic passing of her son.

• And if you want to be truly embarrassed for your state, watch LA and Orlando politicos Maxine Waters and Corrine Brown talking, um, “smack,” about the NBA Finals.

It’s always good to re-emphasize this: please let us know if we can help with anything. As we’re frequently accused of being too “inside baseball”, please tell us if we get a little too deep in the weeds. To the links!

• It looks like we’ll have a couple of electric cars to choose from next year. In addition to the Chevy Volt, CODA says they will be selling their electric sedan in California next year for a bit over $30,000 after government incentives.

• A group of grassroots activists have formed a new group: Fix the CA budget Now. They’ve got a Facebook group and are working on setting up a website.  There certainly is a lot of work to be done on fixing that budget.

• Indian gambling revenue in the Sacramento region is slipping. There’s no data in that article about the rest of the state, but it’s down by almost 5% nationally.

• Is “funemployment” (the condition of enjoying being unemployed) really newsworthy?

• CDP Chair John Burton came out swinging against Arnold’s May revise.

• Republicans got Capitol Weekly to write up their press release about a poll showing support for right-wing budget “reform” ideas, but Noreen Evans put them in context.  “If voters were really with Republicans on the issues, how could their numbers be shrinking so rapidly?” Evans said. “We know that voters want better schools, health care reform, and better transportation systems. Achieving these goals costs money. Polling abstract budget concepts which undercut these goals is not useful unless the questions are linked with the consequences of the concepts.”

• Pedro Nava officially announced his run for AG. Here’s the Pedro Nava for AG website.  I can’t wait to see a debate for that gig. We’ll have to rent out an auditorium just for the people running.

And on to the links:

• Jerry Brown will have to explain the fact that he took a bunch of money from people now embroiled in the growing pension scandal. His office is now investigating the scandal. Personally, I’m really not all that worried that Brown will do anything but the right thing, but appearances matter in politics.

• Well, I still don’t think this is going to happen, but Santa Clara ok’d a plan to build a stadium for the San Francisco 49ers. The stadium will cost a total of $973 million, with about $79 million of that coming from public money in infrastructure funds. Another $35 million from a hotel tax, and the rest coming from private sources.

• Neil Sinhababu brings up an often-neglected part of our budget problems – the fact that California gets back only 78 cents in services for every dollar it pays in taxes.  California’s size has always made it underrepresented in the Senate in particular, and it will be difficult to ever close this gap, though the stimulus has improved the numbers somewhat.

• Even the folks at the U-T don’t think closing the parks is a good idea. Our parks are tourist attractions, so cutting them will hurt sales tax revenues, hotel tax revenues, etc. It’s just another poorly planned idea coming out of the WORST GOVERNOR EVER.

• The explosion in medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles has always been a puzzle to me, so this LA Times story helps me out.  Apparently, it’s a function of a phlegmatic city government – a moratorium on new dispensaries allowed for a hardship exemption, and 500 dispensaries have applied for it, and NOT ONE application has been acted upon by the relevant authority.  In the meantime, the pot stores keep opening.  The City Council is trying to close the loophole, but one might ask why?  Isn’t violent crime down in Los Angeles?  Has the proliferation of these dispensaries adversely affected the city in any way?  In a year, exactly two HUNDRED complaints have been filed across the city.  I think potholes get more complaints than pot.

• AD-15: Republican Abram Wilson will run again for state Assembly against Joan Buchanan, and obviously he hopes that he gets to run sooner rather than later, should Buchanan win Ellen Tauscher’s seat in Congress.  That makes Buchanan’s campaign dangerous, because of the threat to her Assembly seat.

• CalBuzz looks at the “lessons” learned from May 19. Or lack thereof.

• Sen. Pavley’s bill banning BPA moved out of the Senate. BPA has been linked to developmental problems in children and adolescents.

• Darrell Issa’s argument against paid family leave is that North Korea and Iran have it.  Really, that’s his argument.  Apparently he thinks that our laws should be MORE cruel than those countries.

• This is a fascinating case in Silicon Valley. The Justice Department is looking into anti-trust violations between tech companies on agreements not to poach each other’s employees.  It is a tool to artificially keep wages low.  Not cool techsters.

• Yay, the new Reagan statue is up in Statuary Hall (each state gets two in the Capitol), so now all Republicans can genuflect without having to go to church.

A bit more news from around the state:

• More news from eMeg: She wants to axe the initiative system.  But Poizner disagrees, because, you know, “The people in California make better decisions than the Legislature.” Right, because Athenian direct democracy has been a real boon here.

• An accounting error may allow Arnold to cut even more from education without threatening stimulus funds.  Yay!

• Whoops, you win some, you lose some. Next time, perhaps CalPERS will think twice before investing with Lennar.

• What’s LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s deal with local news personalities? He’s now dating KTLA’s Lu Parker, after his marriage broke up with the news of his affair with a Telemundo anchor.

• Arnold will bring his stellar governing skills to help US Soccer get the World Cup in 2018 or 2022.  You can probably forget it for the rest of the century, given that.

• All that Twitter usage from Mayor Newsom has manifested itself into a citywide 311 system on CoTweet.  Sounds like a great idea, actually.

• Speaking of gubernatorial hopefuls, San Diego unions sure are pissed at Jerry Brown for speaking at a fundraising lunch for the far-right Lincoln Club.  Jeez…

• Vallejo’s bankruptcy is becoming a bigger mess than previously expected. Apparently, the fight has now become a question of the limits of bankruptcy law, specifically with the question of whether labor agreements can be broken.

• The California Supreme Court, moving away from social issues and on to corporate ass-covering, overturned a billion-dollar class-action lawsuit against Bank of America, now allowing banks to use Social Security and government assistance checks to claw back overdraft fees from the indigent.  I won’t speak to the legal issues, but how about a lawsuit against the usurious bank fees in general?  Exactly how are these poor customers racking up these fees?  There are a lot of issues that the Supremes preferred to ignore.

Well, we turned the page to another month.  Not a really productive month on the California front. We spent a bunch of money to approve a worthless proposition (1F) and decided that separate but equal was cool for some. But on we go, so here are the links:

• Arnold will be presenting his budget to the Legislature tomorrow in what his people say will be a short speech.

• Governor Dean will be in SF on Thursday for a low-dollar fundraiser for DFA. Deets here.

• Sen. Obama officially honored LGBT Pride month. Sometimes the small, symbolic gestures are meaningful.  And this is one of those times, however it would be nice if Pres. Obama went ahead and followed up on his commitments to the LGBT community on policy goals. Oh, and Cheney supports marriage equality. Great, there’s an ally everybody loves.

• AD-10: Jack Sieglock will seek a rematch against Alyson Huber, who won by a scant 400 or so votes in 2008.  Huber’s district has actually grown slightly more blue since the election, Randy Bayne claims she’s winning the respect of her constituents, and she’ll have the incumbency advantage.  But more and more I’m thinking 2010 will be a crapshoot, so this race should be competitive.

• CA-10: In other news of 10th Districts, Ellen Tauscher will have her confirmation hearing for a State Department position next Tuesday.  They won’t set a date for the special election until she is confirmed, but the district will get the jump on that – the first candidate forum has already been scheduled.

• The Senate rejected SB 250, the pet sterilization bill. Sen. Florez had taken over the bill from Asm. Levine after he was termed out.

• Last I remember about Tucker Bounds, he was being slapped around by every anchor on cable news when he ran communications for the McCain campaign.  Now he’s going to fill the same role for Meg Whitman’s campaign.  Great hire!

• From Cal Budget Bites‘s reporting of testimony in the Joint Budget committee: Elimination of CalWORKS would lead to the “complete destitution” of 1 million California children.

• The California Progress Report has a post from Nevada City USD board member Paula Campbell calling the education cuts a “massacre.”

• SF DA Kamala Harris posted about Judge Sotomayor over on the Big Orange.