Need to get away? Amid the endless sky-is-falling media situationers on the budget mess published elsewhere, sometime Calbuzzer Greg Lucas looks closely at Arnold’s new alternatives and concludes that Demos will find about $15 billion worth of politically palatable moves there – enough to get them 70 percent of the way to the gov’s worst-case $21B scenario…
As one door closes: One of the all-time top 10 clichés in the Political Writer’s Handbook is that every crisis represents both risks and opportunities. Over at Flashreport, our friend Jon Fleischman manages to be positively Reganesque about the big chance for change presented by the budget mess, in a nice piece that combines the usual bromides about markets with compassionate concern for the folks who will be hurt. Meanwhile The Economist brings big picture perspective to Tuesday’s election, concluding that only a constitutional convention aimed at rebuilding state government from scratch can save “ungovernable” California.
Michelle Speaks: Calbuzzer Jessica Trounstine stirred up a lively debate here about UC Merced a couple days, using Michelle Obama’s commencement address as a point of departure. For those who missed the First Lady’s actual speech Huffpost has complete text and video here.
Conspiracy Theorist Alert: Not sure what it means but Barron’s reports that liberal uber money man George Soros recently took a stake in Houston-based PXP, the oil company that would benefit from the gov’s bid to approve a new offshore drilling lease in Santa Barbara.
Calbuzz gets results: The NYT discovers the California governor’s race in a dozy rehash that’s mostly notable for the fact that it’s the first major MSM piece on the campaign that doesn’t even mention the possibility that Difi will run. Calbuzz gets results!
Forest and the trees: Big Bad Dan Walters has a good one that argues persuasively that California is largely responsible for triggering the global banking crisis and puts in appropriate context the pathetic “fantasyland” effort by GOP legislators to solve the state’s economy woes with a couple cheesy bills about business regulations.
