It’s big, it’s belated, it’s bloggy. Today’s California blog roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Republican corruption, Angelides, Westly, Schwarzenegger, 15% Doolittle, Paid-For Pombo (and CA-11 generally), CA-50, immigration, net neutrality, voting machines, auto insurance.
Republican Corruption
- Now-classic Republican corruption from Jerry Lewis (CA-41). Bottom line: if you elect people who say they don’t believe in government, you shouldn’t be surprised when they steal from the taxpayers.
- Down With Tyranny has more … lots more … on Jerry Lewis’s corruption.
- Even more interesting: Schwarzenegger has taken over $87K from Brent Wilkes and associates. Seriously, pretty much every dollar Wilkes gives is tainted. It’s all gotten through bribery of politicians, and generally intended to be bribery OF the recipient politician.
- Pombo corrupt? CREW (and pretty much every vertebrate on the planet) believes that to be the case. Now if only a congresscritter would file CREW’s ethics complaint…
- Let’s see… 15% Doolittle took $82,000 in “campaign contributions” from Brent Wilkes (favorite bribery partner of many Republicans) which nets out to… $12,300 for Doolittle personally. I’m told that every man has his price, but it’s interesting that Doolittle’s is so very low.
- Wow, just wow. The House Republicans actually demanded that Nancy Pelosi remove Mollohan from the Appropriations Committee. I think that may be the paradigmatic example of gall.
Governor’s Race + A Little About Bonds
- Schwarzenegger continues to run away from his party in the hopes that everyone will forget his 2005 power grab. Today’s issue: offshore drilling. I wonder how he feels about the intentional throttling of refinery capacity to increase oil company profits?
- Run away, Arnold, run away. Maybe we’ll forget.
- This is interesting. Schwarzenegger ensures light regulation of levees to ease the way for developers to make money building behind them. No concern for the people who buy the houses, though. The developers will have already made their cash.
- Julia Rosen on the air war in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.
- Randy Bayne on the bonds in the race for governor. Frank Russo on the same topic.
- Frank Russo on the divisions on the Republican side over the bonds. Also, Frank thinks that the bonds were the right thing to do for the state, regardless of the fallout. Me too.
- The Mad Professah is happy that both Westly and Angelides are supportive of equal rights for GLBT Californians. He promises an endorsement next week.
- California Observer has a rundown of the consultant situation for the three major candidates for governor. In exponentially increasing order of consultant-richness: Angelides, Westly, Schwarzenegger.
Paid-For Pombo / CA-11
- Richard Pombo’s hometown newspaper comes out for McCloskey in the Republican primary in CA-11. So does the Sacramento Bee (and they endorse Filson in the Democratic primary). The Merc endorsed McCloskey and McNerney.
- The League of Conservation Voters has endorsed Pete McCloskey, as has the California Teachers’ Association.
- The Progressive 11th has a summary of McNerney & Pombo news.
- Down With Tyranny endorses McNerney… again. No, seriously, it’s worth a read.
CA-50
- SD Politics has Busby tied with Bilbray on June 6 in a SurveyUSA poll. Could be an outlier, though. SD Politics also asks a good question: if Bilbray can’t get his party to line up behind him, can he get voters to do so?
- Speaking of that, apparently another extremist Republican is considering running against Bilbray.
15% Doolittle / CA-04
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Dump Doolittle has one of the best letters to the editor that I think I’ve seen. Also, they’ve got the SacBee’s endorsement of Mike Holmes in the CA-04 Republican primary.
Immigration
- Ms. Geek walks through some of the issues that should be considered in thinking about immigration policy.
- So does janinsanfran.
- It’s not from California, but let’s be clear: Nativism has a long history in the US and it almost always sounds exactly the same.
Net Neutrality
- Nancy Pelosi comes out for net neutrality. We are pleased.
- Greg Dewar has a long piece on why net neutrality is important, given that individuals have very little choice about their internet provider. Actually, it’s an extended rant on how his ISP has failed him, but it amounts to the same thing.
Other
- Someone explain to me again exactly why electronic voting machines are a good idea. I’m just not seeing it.
- I’m stoked. Dave Johnson at Seeing The Forest has a rare post on California politics, and it’s even on auto insurance. Specifically, it’s on the auto insurance companies’ anti-Garamendi IE campaign.
- The Educational Justice Blog posts on Governor Schwarzenegger finally starting to keep his word on repaying the money borrowed from school funding. (A word to the wise: Just because you can do all kinds of fun things with font size and color, doesn’t mean you should.)
- John Drzal rips into Wally Herger for the classic bait-and-switch Republican tax tactic.