[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

The Los Angeles Times brings us the heartwrenching story
of two California parents whose son became the 500th Californian to die in Iraq. Our state's losses make up almost 1/8th of the national total, not counting tens of thousands of casualties.

Meanwhile Barack Obama is widening his national lead over John McCain to double digits, according to two new polls released yesterday.

Obama (in LA on June 24th) has called for a phased withdrawl from Iraq while McCain predicts perhaps a decades long occupation is needed.

Calitics is telling it's readers why inter-city rail matters. State Senator Denise Ducheny hopes to amend SB 53 to create a new state department to oversee Amtrak and high-speed rail.

Steve Wiegand's column takes us back to Sacramento circa 1983.
Calfornians got tired of the A-team and shoulder pads went out of fashion, but water controversies and redistrcitng fights will never die.

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

by Lucas O'Connor [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign

Cross posted at the Courage Campaign blog

Assemblymember Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo) is one of the co-stars of our Yacht Ad, and apparently he isn't particularly excited about it.  Steve Wiegand notes a "bemused" Blakeslee claiming that the current $8 billion deficit is somehow related to him first voting for, then voting against, closing the sloophole.

Well unfortuantely for Asm. Blakeslee, when you vote for it before you voted against it, Rick Jacobs is right-"There's a little John Kerry in there."  It isn't up to him to decide when votes are symbolic or substantive, and switching sides on the issue "in a sign of solidarity" with fellow GOPers doesn't really signal a commitment to moving beyond partisanism for the good of the state.  In fact, it's the "party solidarity" that's been the problem all along.

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Well, the meat of the Fabian Nunez expense story having been already milled down to a fine pulp, it's the columnists turn to take a whack at the Assembly Speaker. And whack away they do. In the Sacramento Bee, Steve Wiegand provides 4 "defenses" of the Speaker. By defense, he actually means snarky little comments "It's not like he's taking the money from special interests that stand to benefit from his support on legislation they are pushing. Oh, wait."

It's almost like Wiegand wishes he was a blogger. Oh, wait.

In the LA Times, Steve Lopez comes up with such one-liners as "This guy needs his own American Express commercial." Oh, snap, no you didn't! But what could be far more hurtful for the Speaker doesn't come from the mind of either columnist, but rather from UNITE-HERE's political director, Jack Gibbons:

I thought he was someone who carried the fundamental principles of rights for workers in his heart and soul, and clearly the guy's been completely enamored with this jet-set lifestyle that he's picked up in his years in the Legislature."

And from a union bus driver, Miriam Collingwood:

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Working Californians blogs]

It is now officially a meme. Check out this lede from the LAT this weekend.

SACRAMENTO — For all of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's cheery talk of newfound "post-partisan" collaboration among Californian lawmakers, this month's impasse over state spending shows that fractious political jockeying, personal distrust among leaders and individual electoral ambitions still can derail business at the Capitol.

Senate GOP leader Dick Ackerman's reluctance to sign off on a state budget, now 28 days overdue, has been hardened by his need to appease disgruntled conservatives in his 15-member caucus.

That group's resolve has also stiffened compared with previous years as some of its members seek better jobs that rely on the party base's support.

Or this paragraph from Steve Wiegand's acerbic column in the SacBee. The "him" in this case is Arnold.

But somewhere between Tuesday and Thursday, it apparently dawned on him that a hands-off strategy was not going to persuade at least two of the 15 Republican state senators to cast the 26th and 27th votes needed to get the $103 billion general fund spending plan to his desk.

And here is the Merc today:

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank D. Russo

This is not a rhetorical question, and it is an important one for an informed voting population and civic engagement in our state.

Sacramento Bee columnist Steve Wiegand, expressed his astonishment of the lack of Californian's knowledge of state issues, the budget and finances in particular in a column, "C'mon, We Can Be All That Dumb."

The layoffs and consolidations at most of California's major newspapers and a trend started in motion even before the advent of the internet is having its toll and may only worsen as we learn daily of the disappearance of veteran journalists. Today I learned from A.G. Block that not only has the Capitol Bureau Chief of the San Francisco Chronicle leaving the paper, but that Mark Sandalow, their Washington, D.C. bureau chief is leaving. Block was the editor of the California Journal, a monthly publication with a treasure trove of information and insight into state issues that stopped publishing in 2005.