Well, how in the heck are we supposed to get a budget
passed now? Patrick McGreevy reports on Abel Maldonado's confirmation as lieutenant governor.
"Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appointed Maldonado to the No. 2
job, now
must call a special election to fill Maldonado’s 15th District seat. The
governor has the option of consolidating the special
run-off with the
state’s general election scheduled for Nov. 2, which Democrats say would
save more than $2.5 million in election costs.
"Democrats believe a consolidated election would produce
a larger turnout
that would give them an advantage in their effort
to take a senate
district where they enjoy a slight edge in voter registration.The
district’s voters are 46.7% Democrat, 34.5% Republican and 19.6% decline
to state."
Maldonado will be sworn in this afternoon.
From our Battle of the Nerds files, Shane Goldmacher
looks at Ira Glass's takedown of Steve Poizner. "If Steve Poizner didn't
like public radio before, this weekend's thorough take-down of his
book "Mount
Pleasant" probably didn't convert him into a fan.
"Ira Glass,
the host of "This American Life," devoted much of his
program to an
in-depth analysis of Poizner's tales about his semester
at the East San
Jose high school where he volunteered to teach a class.
Glass had
Poizner read whole passages from the book for the radio
show, detailing
worries about the safety of his Lexus and the "rotten-like trash" smells
in the rough-and-tumble neighborhood surrounding the campus.
"Until
Glass interjects: "And the only problem with this is, a lot of it might
not be true."
"Glass refutes Poizner's description of the
neighborhood, the school, the drop-out rate and even Poizner's “rookie
teacher of the year” award, which, apparently, "the principal quickly
wrote up…on his computer for a staff party."
Remember a couple of months ago when state revenues were a couple of billion above projections? Remember that? Well, forget it.
Capitol Alert reports, "The state took in about $574.5 million in personal
income tax receipts Friday, boosting the month's running
total to $5.2
billion.
"That means the state has a ways to go to meet Gov.
Arnold
Schwarzenegger's projection that California
would bank $10.2 billion in income tax revenues this
month. Income tax revenues accounted for 51 percent of state General
Fund revenues in 2008-09.
"California had collected $2.7 billion more in total
revenues than projected through March, so the state
entered the month
with a bit of a cushion. But that may be evaporating.
From our Full Circle Files, "When Meg Whitman was named in a congressional probe
into executives
who profited from stock offerings from investment banks,
the San Jose
Mercury News dedicated 806 words to the story. Ten weeks later, when
Whitman stepped down from the board of the Goldman
Sachs Group, the same
reporter, Mary Anne Ostrom, wrote a short, 468-word story on her
resignation.
"Now, Ostrom finds herself on the other side, serving
as the director of media affairs for Whitman's gubernatorial
campaign.
Eight years ago, Ostrom was writing about Whitman's
role in the
stock-swap practice known as spinning. Now, Ostrom is dedicated
to
spinning of a different sort, helping to craft the
campaign's media
message.
"Whitman refused to comment for both stories, but Ostrom
did note that Whitman's resignation from the Goldman
board was
"announced on the same day Wall Street's largest banks
agreed to pay a
record $1.44 billion in fines to settle several conflict of interest
allegations."
Maybe now, Ostrom can have a little more luck
getting comment from Whitman.
The state's largest labor organization launched its anti-Whitman campaign Monday. "This year, spooked by the possibility of
running against a
multimillionaire or billionaire Republican in the governor's
race,
Democrat-friendly unions have started communicating their message
earlier than ever. Already, 150,000 fliers have been distributed at
union job sites accusing former EBay chief Meg Whitman
of being bad for
California workers.
"One such flier promoted a new labor-funded website, "Wall Street Whitman." The
flier, and the website accuses Whitman of plotting
"a hostile takeover
attempt of California," part of the unions' efforts
to paint Whitman as a
Wall Street bogeyman."
In the wake of a new statewide imigration policy, San Francisco officials now want to boycott Arizona.
"San Francisco's supervisors are calling for a sweeping
boycott of
Arizona in the wake of that state's harsh new rules
aimed at illegal
immigrants. A resolution that will go before the board
Tuesday will call for San
Francisco to end any and all contracts with Arizona-based companies and
to stop doing business with the state."
Does this mean the Diamondbacks will be banned from
AT&T Park?
"Homosexuality is no longer a sexual deviation on par with child
molestation that needs to be cured -- at least in the eyes of the
California Assembly," reports the Chron's Marisa Lagos.
"The lower house adopted a measure Monday to strike
a 20-year-old line
of state code that directed the Department of Mental
Health to
conduct research into "the causes and cures of sexual
deviation"
including "the causes and cures of homosexuality."
And finally, irst there was Ms. O'Leary's cow, and
now this. AP reports, "Firefighters in the Chicago
suburb of Naperville are still
talking about one of their strangest rescue missions.
It involved a
small dog who became wedged in its owner's mechanized
recliner
chair.
"Firefighter and paramedic Scott Bolda said that when
firefighters arrived, a nurse's aide was hanging onto
the chair to
relieve pressure on the dog and allow it to breathe.
Bolda said the chair's electrical controls stopped
working when
the dog became wedged inside, so the only option was
to saw the
chair apart.
"It took about five minutes to get him free," Bolda
said. "We've
never had to rescue a dog like that before."
