Deregulator: Alive since '85!

Busted! Dan Weintraub also links to this affidavit from the California Teachers Association, which is trying to get a $40 million line of credit to pay for its politicking. The union has not only exhausted the increase in dues it imposed on union members in June to fight Schwarzenegger's ballot drives, but also pre-spent (if you will) all the extra dues it expects to collect through 2008. Foes of the dues hike are trying to get a judge to block the line of credit. Weintraub also notes that the governor's folks believe the unions have raised and spent $100 million in the anti-Arnold campaign. If you don't live in California, you haven't been bombarded by the ads featuring those public-spirited teachers and firefighters Arnold has picked on with his mean-spirited campaign. Lucky you. But now that the gov has come back with his own ads that cast the battle as one of "government unions in Sacramento" vs. "the people of California," the initiatives' ...

How a strip-club scandal helps Arnold The ever-insightful Dan Weintraub handicaps the race for mayor of San Diego. (Free reg'n may be required.) He also blogs about why voter intensity in California's second-largest city could give Schwarzenegger's reform agenda a boost. When the Democratic candidate, maverick surfer Donna Frye, is threatening to force the government into bankruptcy unless public employees take benefit cuts, you know this gorgeous city's administration has jumped the tracks. But wait. There's more. The San Diego debacles go beyond creative public financing and overly generous employee benefits. Interest in Frye's earlier write-in candidacy got traction from a scandal involving two council members and the Galardi brothers, who owned strip clubs there and in Vegas. And the Galardis' dirty money -- they bribed public officials in both cities in the hopes of getting laws governing their strip clubs relaxed -- ended a handful of political car...