California politics keeps digging itself deeper and deeper into a hole.  Two Representatives, Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson, are under full-scale investigation by the House Ethics Committee, and Jerry Brown's office may have engaged in illegal tape recordings of conversations with news reporters.

In 2009, the Obama administration and Congress predicted the nearly $800 billion stimulus bill would cap national unemployment at 8.1% and create/save 3.5 million jobs over a two-year period.  More specifically, the White House predicted that the stimulus bill would add 396,000 new jobs to California through December 2010.  Thus far, none of these predictions appear to be panning out.

Over at Free & Equal, ballot access expert, Richard Winger, delivered a point-by-point rebuttal of Jonathan Alter's advocacy of a top-two, open primary system in Newsweek.  Here is the full text of Winger's press release:

Over at Townhall.com, columnist Paul Jacob excorciates California's 2010 "Top-Two" open primary initiative on the 2010 ballot.*  Pointing to Washington state as the most recent example, Jacob posits that an open primary will further entrench incumbents and restrict authentic voter choice.

In late August, Voter/Consumer Research conducted a comprehensive public opinion survey detailing voter attributes, stances on key legislators, views on the state's most pressing matters, and preferences regarding the 2010 nonpartisan open primary initiative.  Legislators, candidates, consulting firms, and news outlets will want to take a close look as the California primary process could face major restructuring when voters head to the polls in June 2010.   Please refer to the attached file for an in depth statistical analysis.

As the President addressed in his speech last Wednesday, some scary terms have been thrown around lately. One of which is “death camps.” Rarely have such topics from Phantom Planet managed to make their way into a presidential address. The term has come as a result of the fear and panic being created regarding the H1N1 strain of influenza. While many are nervously searching the web for surgical masks by the bulk, others are just as nervous that perhaps this is exactly the response the government is trying to produce.

According to a recent Pew Research Poll, more and more Americans are skeptical of media accuracy.  The poll, which sampled about 1,500 adults on land lines and cell phones, revealed that 29% of Americans believe the news media provides accurate reports, while 63% believe news stories are often inaccurate.  Even more revealing, only 26% of those polled believed that news organizations were careful to remove political bias from their reporting, while 60% said that news organizations are politically biased.  

As reported by Matt Williams on www.govtech.com, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger authorized the creation of a new website that reaches out to Californians for their ideas and suggestions. The site is MyIdea4CA.com.

The Public Policy Institute of California released an exhaustive poll revealing citizens' preferences on a slew of issues. Overall, at the state level, Californians greatly distrust their leadership, possess a strong desire for change, and are cautious concerning the type of reform they're willing to endorse.  At the federal level, Californians are much more positive in their outlook.  Here's a statistical breakdown of the various categories: