"Californians might be asking: Could it get any worse? Oh, yes, it could get worse."
"Just imagine: What if, in addition to all this shrill propaganda
devoted to filling positions in the executive and legislative
branches,
we were bombarded with the same to influence our decisions
about the
judicial branch? It can happen. It is happening all
across America, but it is a trend that thus far has
been blocked at the Sierra."
Speaking of campaigning, one little-known group has funneled millions of dollars to back
Democratic candidates up and down
the ticket. Capitol Weekly's John Howard has the story.
"The Internet-based operation has shifted more than $5.5 million in donations to an array of Democratic contenders,
including Senate, Assembly and statewide candidates,
plus assorted political committees and action groups.
The contributions are culled from donors who use Act
Blue California as a sort of clearinghouse for their
cash, and Act Blue “earmarks” their donations to the candidates of their choice.
The group does not take a cut."
"Even in a state accustomed to high-dollar donations and massive fund raising, Act Blue
California’s performance is significant and casts a wide net,
in part because of the relative ease of contributing
funds over the Internet. The result is that individual donations are often smaller
than one sees in conventional fund raising, but there
are more of them."
The LAT's Rich Connell finds problems at the High Speed
Rail project which, it turns out, has difficulty keeping track of its money.
"The admission followed an investigative report by
The Times
about failures to document the sources and cost of trips
in accordance
with state ethics regulations. The foreign travel,
in some cases worth
thousands of dollars, was provided by government agencies
in Spain,
Germany and France that are trying to help their homeland
firms win
California contracts."
"Also Tuesday, the agency posted on its website details
of an Asia
tour executives took last month. CEO Roelof van Ark
and Deputy Executive
Director Jeffrey Barker joined Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
on the trip,
partly intended to encourage high-speed rail companies to bid on the
$43-billion bullet train linking San Francisco to the Los
Angeles area"
Those forced furloughs are still bedeviling state employees,
and Attorney General Jerry Brown still hasn't said whether
he will comply with the order.
From the Bee's Jon Ortiz: "With a new order extending furloughs for tens of
thousands of state workers, Attorney General Jerry Brown
has yet to say whether he will tell the roughly 1,800 employees working
for him to start taking unpaid days off beginning
next week."
"Brown,
the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, and other
statewide-elected
officials are still mulling over a week-old memo from the Schwarzenegger
administration that mandates furloughs for members
of their staff who
are in unions that have not negotiated a new labor
contract."
Finally, we open our
"Fail Safe" file to find the story of the disappearing nuclear
weapons -- about a ninth of the U.S.' nuclear arsenal. Say it
ain't so.
"President Barack Obama has been informed that the
US AIr Force lost
complete command and control of one-ninth of their ICBM arsenal last
Saturday. Administration officials stressed that the
problem was only
temporary, but that doesn't mean it wasn't big."
"In fact, according to The Atlantic, a military officer
briefed on the
matter said that they have never experienced something
so big: "[w]e
can deal with maybe 5, 6, or 7 at a time, but we've never lost complete
command and control and functionality of 50 ICBMs."
"The US Air Force has declared that there was no danger
to the
population, while administration officials said that
"at no time did the
President's ability [to use the nuclear weapons] decrease." Taking
one-ninth of the ICBM arsenal off line certainly decreases
the
President's ability to fully control the US nuclear
arsenal."
Somebody call in Slim Pickens...