Independent journalist David Gurney reports some very good news - the Noyo News (http://www.noyonews.net) is back after a malware hack attack!
The Noyo News Is Back!
by Dan Bacher
The Noyo News, published by independent journalist David Gurney, is again publishing news and commentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger's corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, ocean industrialization and other environmental issues.
"We are happy to report that after some effort by web hosters, Google, and yours truly, the malware hack attack on Noyo News is now cleaned up and gone," said Gurney. "You may now once again visit the site with no worries."
"The incident is being reported to proper authorities, who may be able to track the perpetrators by their inevitable electronic trail," emphasized Gurney.
The MLPA "Initiative" creates a "network" of suspect "marine protected areas" that fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, water pollution, military testing, wave and wind energy projects, corporate aquaculture and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering. A big oil lobbyist, agribusiness hack, marina developer, real estate executive and other corporate operatives with numerous conflicts of interest oversaw the creation of these so-called "marine protected areas."
"Meanwhile, please contribute to Noyo News legal fund, in their fight to hold the MLPA 'Initiative' and their billionaire corporate backers accountable for all actions committed on the North Coast during their deceptive and illegal 'public' process," urged Gurney.
In April 2010, Gurney, at the request of MLPA "Initiative" executive director Ken Wiseman, was illegally arrested while covering a "working session" of the North Coast Study Region of the MLPA Initiative. His arrest prompted widespread support by First Amendment and civil liberties advocates, including the Newspaper Publishers Association of California and the First Amendment Foundation.
I am very glad that Noyo News is back - and I hope that the perpetuators of the malware hack attack are found and prosecuted.
A PayPal button appears at the site to facilitate donations.
For more information, contact David Gurney at:http://www.noyonews.net.
MLPA Initiative Background:
The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is a law, signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, designed to create a network of marine protected areas off the California Coast. However, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004 created the privately-funded MLPA "Initiative" to "implement" the law, effectively eviscerating the MLPA.
The "marine protected areas" created under the MLPA Initiative fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, water pollution, military testing, wave and wind energy projects, corporate aquaculture and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversaw the implementation of "marine protected areas" included a big oil lobbyist, marina developer, real estate executive and other individuals with numerous conflicts of interest. Catherine Reheis Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association who is pushing for new oil drilling off the California coast, served as the chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast.
The MLPA Initiative operated through a controversial private/public "partnership funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. The Schwarzenegger administration, under intense criticism by grassroots environmentalists, fishermen and Tribal members, authorized the implementation of marine protected areas under the initiative through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the foundation and the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG).
Tribal members, fishermen, grassroots environmentalists, human rights advocates and civil liberties activists have slammed the MLPA Initiative for the violation of numerous state, federal and international laws. Critics charge that the initiative, privatized by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004, has violated the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, Brown Act, California Administrative Procedures Act, American Indian Religious Freedom Act and UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The "science" backing the MLPA Initiative is extremely suspect, since MLPA officials refused to incorporate scientific studies from California Indian Tribes and other scientists who disagreed with the Initiative's pre-ordained conclusions. MLPA and state officials refused to appoint any tribal scientists to the MLPA Science Advisory Team (SAT), in spite of the fact that the Yurok Tribe alone has a Fisheries Department with over 70 staff members during the peak fishing season, including many scientists. The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force also didn't include any tribal representatives until 2010 when one was finally appointed to the panel.
Darrell Issa is back in hot water for using his powerful Congressional perch to help his personal investments. A new report out today from Think Progress finds that Issa was busy last year buying up Goldman Sachs High Yield Bonds worth up to $50,000 a pop while pressing strongly to thwart an SEC investigation into potential wrongdoing at Goldman Sachs:
Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) raised hell last year to stop the federal government from investigating Goldman Sachs regarding allegations that the company defrauded investors. In April 2010, shortly after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a civil suit against Goldman Sachs, Issa sent a letter to SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro demanding to know if there was "any sort of prearrangement, coordination, direction from, or advance notice" between the SEC and the Obama administration or congressional Democrats over the timing of the lawsuit.
Issa's investigation of the SEC's investigation into Goldman Sachs stoletheheadlines and reinforced Goldman Sachs' claim that they had done nothing wrong. Explaining his defense of Goldman Sachs, Issa said he was representing the views of ordinary Americans who are worried about the "growth of government and the growth of government wanting to become more complex, with more agencies and more control over our lives."
This sheds additional light on Iss's engagement in financial issues since taking over the Oversight Committee earlier this year, specifically reinforcing his strong resistance to any investigation or hearing that might reflect poorly on private financial institutions.
Issa has continued to bring heat on the SEC since taking over the Oversight Committee, targeting the Commission with one of the first subpoenas issued. The focus of his concern? Potential conflict of interest at the SEC arising from personal investments related to ongoing investigations. Of course.
As the richest person in the House of Representatives, Darrell Issa has a vast personal empire that includes a wide range of real estate holdings. His dealings around those real estate investments have raised legal and ethical questions in the past, and more recently Roll Call has questioned the line that divides his personal and political interests. This morning, ThinkProgress reports on a far more troubling conflict:
ThinkProgress has discovered more troubling evidence that Issa may have blended his work as a lawmaker with his own business empire. After founding a successful car alarm company, Issa invested his fortune in a sprawling network of real estate companies with holdings throughout his district. One of Issa's most valuable properties, a medical office building at 2067 West Vista Way in Vista, California, is called the Vista Medical Center, and was purchased in 2008 for $16.6 million. Described as "a long-term investment," the property was bought by a company called Viper LLC, a business entity operated by Issa's family that Issa has up to a $25 million dollar stake in.
Around the same time, Issa made the Vista Medical Center purchase, the congressman began requesting millions of dollars worth of earmarks to widen and improve the highway adjacent to the building. In 2008, he requested $2 million to expand West Vista Way, the road in front of his “long-term investment,” but only received $245,000 from the government. The next year, Issa made another earmark request for improving the West Vista Way highway next to his building. He earmarked another $570,000, bringing his total to $815,000, to add parking lots, widen the road, add bus stops, improve the sewer system, and other utility work.
Issa has said that an "earmark is tantamount to a bribe." While Issa has handed out earmarks to his campaign donors in the past, in this case, he appears to be helping himself.
Issa has spent months indignantly insisting that he needn't answer for any of his own transparency or ethical shortcomings, even after more than 18,000 signatures were delivered to his office demanding that he disclose his meetings with lobbyists. We made that demand so the public would know who Darrell Issa is really working for in Congress. Today we have at least part of the answer -- himself.
(I proudly manage the IssaWatch project for the Courage Campaign, where this is cross-posted. It's also on Twitter and Facebook)
Got a simple little story for you today of a multinational corporation that wants to build a great big cement plant in North Carolina really, really, bad, and the local opposition to what appears to be a corrupt and distorted decision process.
Two local activists in particular have drawn the ire of Titan Cement, the Grecian corporation who seeks to build the plant-and because the Company doesn't like what the activists have been saying about what the impact of that plant will likely be or how the deal's going down...they're suing Kayne Darrell and Dr. David Hill, residents of North Carolina's New Hanover County, and the two folks who are doing the complaining the Company dislike the most.
The Company further claims that they were slandered and defamed by the damaging statements that were uttered by the two at a county commissioners' meeting and that they have lost goodwill and the chance to do business with certain parties as a result of these statements.
But what if everything the Defendants said was not only true...but provably so-and the Company was, maybe...just looking to shut people up by sending teams of lawyers after them?
As I said, it's a simple story today-but it's a good one.
Oh, the old phrase IOKIYAR. So useful, especially back in the old Jack Abramoff days. In case you are just joining the show already in progress, it stands for It's OK if you're a Republican. Get it? Good.
In 2003, District Attorney Steve Cooley had a billionaire in his sights. Alan Casden was a real estate developer with a history of generosity toward political campaigns, especially those of local Democrats.
After a grand jury investigation, Cooley brought felony charges against a Casden executive, John Archibald, and 13 other defendants for reimbursing friends and associates for donations to city politicians, thereby violating contribution limits. ...
At the time of the investigation, however, Cooley was accepting the same kinds of contributions for his own campaign. While he pursued Casden and others who engaged in similar finance schemes, he did not go after his own contributor, Gladwin Gill. (LA Weekly, emphasis added)
To be clear what was going on here, Gill was giving money to other people to contribute to Republican candidates. He plead guilty to these charges on contributing money for George W. Bush through this scheme. But, importantly, the same people that he used for the Bush scheme? Yeah, they show up on Cooley's donor lists.
Gill was prosecuted by the federal prosecutors for his federal crimes. Archibald and Casden were thoroughly investigated by Cooley's office. Pierce O'Donnell, another Democratic contributor was dealt with by Cooley's office. As for Gill's local involvement, well, there has been no word from Cooley's office on that. IOKIYAR, I guess.
Note: As you may know, I do some work for Cooley's Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.
UPDATE: Cooley's campaign consultant, Kevin Spillane, has responded by noting that the statute of limitations has expired, and that the money has been spent anyway. Now folks, that's how you play IOKIYAR.
(A wrap-up of news in the campaign finance/open government realm. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
California voters will consider a measure next June to create a system of public financing for Secretary of State races. There seems to be no shortage of reasons why voters would be concerned about the role of large private contributions in our elections system. Tidbits include a sitting Assemblymember and former candidate laundering campaign funds, lobbyists working to block reforms while facing further restrictions on wining, dining, and sleeping with legislators, and a U.S. Supreme Court hell bent on making things worse.
So we are now finding out the answers to some of our questions about which members of Congress actually represent We, the People...and which ones represent, Them, the Corporate Masters.
We have seen a Democratic Senator propose a policy that would put people in jail for not buying health insurance and a Democratic President who has taken numerous public beatings from those on the left side of the fence for his inability to ram something through a group of people...and yes, folks, the entendre was intentional.
But most of all, we've been asking ourselves: "why would Democratic Members of Congress who will eventually want us to vote for them vote against something that nearly all voting Democrats are inclined to vote for?"
Today's conversation attempts to answer that question by looking at exactly how money and influence flow through a key politician, Montana's Senator Max Baucus-and in doing so, we examine some ugly political realities that have to be resolved before we can hope to convince certain Members of Congress to vote for what their constituents actually want when it really counts.
Don Perata has been cleared of wrongdoing in an ongoing corruption probe that lasted throughout the Bush Administration and was seen by many as politically motivated.
We have had many problems with Perata, mostly that his terrible leadership contributed to scaring Democrats out of challenging Abel Maldonado and botching the Jeff Denham recall. If we had a real leader who actually sought to win elections instead of making friends or idle threats, and who was successful on both of those fronts, we would have a 2/3 majority in the State Senate today. I'm very glad to have him out of the state legislature. But by and large, corruption issues never made their way into our critique of Perata, and I for one am pleased he has been cleared. You can read the extremely brief letter from the Acting US Attorney here and Perata's statement here.
What we did have a problem with was Perata transferring $1.5 million dollars from a campaign account intended to help elect Democrats and push party issues to his own legal defense fund, one day after the election. The move was not illegal but certainly unethical - if he needed legal defense money he could have raised it for that purpose, and instead he raised money for one ostensible purpose and then used it for himself. (NOTE: Perata also took $450,000 from the California Democratic Party for his legal defense fund as well.) I was quoted at the time:
David Dayen, an elected Democratic State Central Committee member from Santa Monica, blogged angrily this summer about his party's contribution to Perata's legal defense fund, contending the money would've been better spent on legislative races. The same goes for Leadership California's money, he said Wednesday; despite a Democratic presidential candidate carrying California by the largest margin since 1936, Democrats netted only three more Assembly seats and none in the state Senate.
"Every time I asked the California Democratic Party about getting more active and involved in local elections, they said the state Senate and the Assembly control those races ... and we don't have a lot of flexibility. So Perata, at that time, and Nunez or Bass had the authority to run those elections," Dayen said. "Now we see what happens when you vest power in these closed loops - suddenly self-interest becomes more important than the good of the party."
He believes this is why Perata didn't step aside as Pro Tem earlier, as Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez relinquished his post to Karen Bass in May: "Darrell Steinberg was sitting there ready to go ... and we were all like, 'What the hell is going on?'
"We speculated it had to be that he still needed the leverage to make the calls to raise money for himself."
So, now that this legal case has wrapped up, let me pose the question - Will Don Perata return the money left in his legal defense fund to accounts intended to elect Democrats? Both the membership of the California Democratic Party and scores of anonymous donors to Leadership California unwittingly seeded his legal campaign. If Perata used all $1.5 million between November and today, I'd like to see the receipts; no court case was ever filed, no depositions taken in the intervening 7 months, no movement whatsoever. Either some lawyers got rich on having donuts or there's a lot of money left over. What's more likely, of course is that Perata will now siphon that money from the legal defense fund into his campaign account for his run to be Oakland's next mayor. In the end, it's all about Don Perata.
That would be a betrayal, and a disservice to those who donated, expecting to help Hannah-Beth Jackson win in SD-19, or to help defeat Proposition 11, the redistricting measure. There's not much of a way to contact Don Perata anymore, though I'm assuming his Oakland Mayor campaign will ramp up soon. He needs to be asked about this pot of money, and why it cannot now be used toward its intended purpose.
I can't believe he blew through all that money. Look out, City of Oakland Treasury! Clearly he was paying off years' worth of debts with that fund. Wow.
Last week, Julio Ramirez, an investment banker and former politico in the LA area (he managed Richard Riordan's successful LA Mayor campaign), turned himself in to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo as part of a widening state pension scandal that has engulfed virtually every public pension fund in America. The short version of this is that a network of state officials, investment bankers and various go-betweens concocted a scheme where the officials would place their pension funds in the hands of particular firms in exchange for campaign or just personal cash, and the firms who got the contracts would skim a few dollars off the top to give to the "placement agency" who got them the work. Ramirez worked for Wetherly Capital Group, one of the placement agents, who secured what looks to be billions of dollars in pension fund money for its clients, and received millions back in finder's fees. One of them was CalPERS, to which Wetherly delivered about $300 million to its money managers.
It's a complicated story, but it comes at a time when CalPERS and other public pensions are struggling with all their stock market losses and increasing burdens as more employees hit retirement. The sale of access to the pension funds raises all kinds of ethical questions, and has clearly made the middlemen and the controllers of the purse strings for the investments ridiculously rich at state employee expense. The Carlyle Group, a major investment partner in CalPERS, just settled out of court for $20 million dollars to avoid charges in the probe.
This fits in with the general crisis in confidence that California citizens are having with their government. Keep an eye on this, because it will continue to reverberate over the next several months.
I wrote last week about the growing scandal among Schwarzenegger cabinet officials, who were living very well on the public dole while the rest of the state sunk into a deep recession and double-digit unemployment. Well, after additional disclosures, the scandal has claimed its first victim.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointee Rosario Marin resigned Thursday from her post as secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency after accepting tens of thousands of dollars in speaking fees in defiance of administration policy and possibly state law.
Marin faces an investigation by the Fair Political Practices Commission after declaring the speaking fees on income statements she must file as a public official.
The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that Pfizer paid $15,000 in 2007 for Marin to speak, while Bristol-Myers Squibb paid $13,500 in 2008 for another speech. Both companies indicated on state forms that they had business before departments under Marin's authority.
It's amusing that taking speaking fees from pharmaceuticals was enough to force a resignation - and I agree that it's unseemly and possibly illegal - but there's no mention of the same cabinet official and practically all the others stealing, essentially, from the state treasury to finance their lifestyles. That's because in the culture of Arnold, such largesse is completely acceptable.
This is one reason why the Governor has worn out his welcome with the people of California and can't poll above 31% in a Republican primary anymore. He has lost the trust of the electorate. He also happens to be a piss-poor lawmaker who has pushed the state to the brink of collapse. But you know that.
Today is Election Day in LA City, and given the turnouts we've seen in other off-year elections, as well as the fact that the mayoral race, the biggest ticket on the ballot, is basically a coronation, turnout is likely to be very small, save for the wide-open 5th District City Council race, which is really anybody's to win (very unusual in LA politics). The expectation is about 15%. Despite the fact that Los Angeles actually has a fairly rich culture of political activism, from the Latino student sit-ins to recent Prop. 8 actions and hundreds more, the recent history is that city elections do not draw much of a crowd. That's a shame in a city that's larger than the total populations of many states, and it reduces accountability on the elected officials.
I don't live in Los Angeles, but I work here, and I have a conflicted view about the way the city runs. I think if every resident were forced to watch The Garden, the Oscar-nominated documentary about South Los Angeles residents being forcibly evicted from a community garden, nobody would vote for anyone currently on the City Council, least of all Mayor Villaraigosa. The film, almost a real-life version of The Wire, revealed a city government of backroom deals and power-brokers able to make their voices heard well beyond the needs of the community. You can add to that the rare bit of journalism from the LA Weekly about the City Council, and you could be convinced that the lack of accountability from the electoral process has bred a toxic atmosphere at City Hall. The likely consolidation of power that would result from Villaraigosa allies in the city attorney and city controller offices would lead you even closer to that conclusion.
Yet among the morass, there are some very earnest public servants trying to manage a very unwieldy city, with a host of unique problems and challenges that would vex any lawmaking body on Earth. Set aside this year's $1 billion dollar budget; the problems of immigration, gang violence, income inequality, traffic, health care, air pollution, education, and much, much more all converge in this city. From 10,000 feet these problems look intractable, and yet there are gradual, slow steps toward mitigation, and even areas where Los Angeles is a national model. The sales tax receipts from Measure R may finally bring sustainable transit infrastructure to fruition for more than a handful of the city's residents. The Green Trucks Program is an innovative, first-in-the-nation effort to bring labor and environmental groups together to reduce pollution, create living wage jobs and help save the planet. And the city's Green Jobs Training program is seen as so potentially game-changing that it was used as a model in a White House staff report from their Middle Class Task Force:
The City of Los Angeles has undertaken or is in the midst of undertaking several initiatives that, together, begin to constitute a model for how cities can maximize the benefits of "going green" for working families. As is often the case, necessity was the mother of policy innovation. A few years ago, the city faced a number of stark challenges including: a state renewable energy mandate (a statewide "portfolio standard" requiring 20% renewable energy by 2017) and a state cap on greenhouse gas emissions; an impending shortage of skilled construction workers; entrenched poverty and joblessness in many low-income neighborhoods; and toxic levels of diesel pollution that were imposing huge health costs and blocking the growth of the nation's largest port complex.
In the past year, Los Angeles has adopted a comprehensive approach to redevelopment which will ensure that city-subsidized development projects are built green and serve as vehicles for moving low-income residents into middle-class construction careers. The Port of Los Angeles has also begun to implement a comprehensive solution to freight-related air pollution that will increase efficiency, enhance security, and improve work conditions and living standards for port truck drivers. Most important is the fact that these initiatives are being undertaken on a large scale: the city's construction policy is expected to impact 15,000 jobs over five years while the Clean Trucks Program (discussed below) could affect as many as 16,000 port truck drivers.
In 2008, the City of Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) adopted a landmark policy designed to protect the environment, safeguard the interests of taxpayers, and ensure that city-supported projects create good construction jobs and career pathways for city residents. The Construction Careers and Project Stabilization Policy establishes minimum labor standards and a process for avoiding labor disruptions by means of a master agreement between the CRA and local building trades unions. The policy requires participating contractors and unions to make construction job opportunities available to local residents, including individuals who face barriers to employment such as a criminal record or a limited education.
The policy is being implemented alongside a requirement that large subsidized projects meet the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. In this way, city leaders have begun to lay the foundations for building a green-collar construction workforce in Los Angeles. The UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education projects that the policy will make at least 5,000 apprentice-level construction jobs available to residents of neighborhoods with high levels of unemployment over the next five years. At least 1,500 jobs are expected to go to individuals who might otherwise remain homeless, unemployed, dependent on welfare programs, or caught up in the criminal justice system. But the most important result of the Construction Careers policy will be to leverage public investments in economic development to turn short-term jobs into long-term careers in the construction industry.
I wish there was more structural accountability in Los Angeles, from the Mayor on down. I wish the city wasn't so dominated by big-city machine politics and red-letter projects that often fail to follow through on their promise. And where criticism is warranted, I'm sure to be first in line. But Los Angeles is a very complex and hard-to-pigeonhole place, and that is true of its politics as well.
This was the frequent mantra of Arnold Schwarzenegger during the budget crisis, as he set out to fill the shortfall with a combination of taxes and cuts so that everyone has to sacrifice. We've already seen how the tax increases were tilted toward the poor and the middle class, with more of the burden falling on them. Now Michael Rothfield at the LA Times has discovered that the sacrifice has not extended to Arnold's cabinet officials:
John Cruz, the appointments secretary for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, lives hundreds of miles from the state Capitol, where his staff scrutinizes candidates for California's many boards and commissions.
When Cruz works there, he goes by plane. He has charged taxpayers for his flights and for hotel bills of up to $382 a night on regular trips between his Orange County home and Sacramento, records show.
Carrie Lopez, director of the Department of Consumer Affairs, charged taxpayers to fly from Sacramento, where she works, to Los Angeles, where she lives, to attend a Justin Timberlake concert with her daughter. She listed the trip on her expense report as a meeting with the energy company that paid for the concert tickets. Lopez also billed the state for meals on days she received those meals for free from corporations, according to state records.
Rosario Marin, head of the State and Consumer Services Agency, blamed a miscommunication for her failure to repay $582 the state spent to fly her to Washington in July to speak at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, an appearance for which she received $1,000. She reimbursed the state for the airfare after The Times inquired about the trip last month.
Over the last two years, as California has slashed services and scrambled to pay bills, top administration officials have made free use of government expense accounts with little oversight and, in some cases, no documentation, The Times has found.
Together, they have spent tens of thousands of dollars on state-funded trips between Sacramento and the areas where they live, justifying the travel as necessary for state business. Some built weekend trips around one short meeting, and some charged the state to attend events with no apparent connection to their jobs.
This is the kind of expense-report diving that local news outlets often use as a stand-in for real accountability while right-wing frames on substantive issues are preserved. However, it remains laughable for the Governor to try and act as an independent voice railing against corruption in Sacramento when his staff is so enmeshed in it. In one example in the article, Carrie Lopez, who mind you is the director of the department of Consumer Affairs, listed a $51 lunch from Bank of America as a gift on the same day she collected a per diem for lunch.
The double dipping and runaway expense accounts point to a lack of oversight more than anything, and on this point I'd say the fish rots from the head down. Anyone who has lived in Brentwood or anywhere on the Westside knows that Arnold Schwarzenegger has a sense of entitlement to the point that he expects free services as a result of his exalted status. Ask any merchant who has interacted with him. And yet this is the guy who thinks he can have an ounce of credibility criticizing the salary or benefits of any legislator in Sacramento, or any state employee for that matter. How much of this money could have gone into avoiding furloughs?
It's a scandal, but not a surprising one. Arnold and his staff feel they deserve the best. They must feel that the people of California deserve something less.
Grace Napolitano is a fairly unassuming back-bencher Congresswoman from the Los Angeles area, who generally votes well on most issues. Being in a heavily Democratic district, she hasn't faced much competition from Republicans in election cycles during her decade in Congress, so she's had to find somewhere for campaign contributions to go. Like her pocket:
During a decade in Congress, California Representative Grace Napolitano has pocketed more than $200,000 of political contributions by charging as much as 18 percent interest on money she loaned to her own campaign.
The suburban Los Angeles Democrat made the $150,000 loan in 1998, when she was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Through Dec. 31, her campaign committee has used donations to pay Napolitano $221,780 of interest while reducing the principal by just $64,727, a review of her Federal Election Commission filings shows.
As recently as June 2008, Napolitano held a fundraiser asking supporters and political action committees for money to pay down the 1998 debt. Napolitano, her spokesman and her campaign's lawyers didn't respond to requests for comment [...]
For Napolitano, a 72-year-old grandmother of 14, the campaign IOU has been a profitable asset, far outperforming stocks since the loan started accruing interest in May 1998. Over the same period, an investment in the Standard & Poor's 500 stocks, with reinvested dividends, would have lost more than 7 percent, according to Bloomberg data.
A case could be made that if you're silly enough to contribute to Grace Napolitano in a D+20 district, you deserve to be fleeced. But of course, the great majority of her contributors are corporate clients that are funneling personal contributions to her through interest payments on her initial loan. It's really shocking, particularly considering that she represents a district with a 16% poverty rate.
Napolitano is a solid vote but we can expect much better than this from our public officials. Politics should never be an avenue for self-aggrandizement.
It's been distressing to see the race for CDP chair turn from an election into a coronation, with John Burton lining up institutional support, muscling out the grassroots and forcing his competition to the sidelines. Coming off an historic Presidential election, with the demographics squarely on the side of Democrats and a new generation of activists who have boundless ideas to bring a different organizing philosophy to California, the right chairman of the Party could really leverage the energy and activity into something special, to lay the groundwork for a re-imagining of the political structure. Sadly, the best can be said of Burton is that he's an old workhorse, but there are troubling signs that he is unaware of the changes in modern campaiging, unconcerned with reforming the broken institutions both inside and outside the party, and unable to use the new energy and excitement to any decent ends. It appears that the frenetic organizing outside the party structure may be the only hope for progressives in the near term.
But it could be even worse than that. The new site Burton Watch offers a substantive critique of the former State Senator, with information that every delegate and voting member of the Party ought to know before turning over the reins to this guy. The initial post surveys how Democrats could lose California under this version of leadership:
Because the public instinctively knows that when power and money compete with the public interest, we all suffer. If you've ever registered voters or walked precincts for a candidate, you've undoubtedly been greeted with this response: "I'm not going to vote because it doesn't matter. All politicians are the same." And as the cynicism grows, voter turnout declines and the Decline To State registration escalates -- now approximately 20% of all Californians are registered DTS. So how do we combat the innate distrust that drives a large segment of our population to disengage from political parties and even voting? Well, Obama showed us a part of the solution [...]
When previously disenfranchised voters, minorities, and the young are all flocking to the Democratic Party because we represent a new way, a vision of hope and change, why on earth would we want to take a giant step backwards to the bad old days? And yet that's exactly what Democrats in California are poised to do this April. The California Democratic Party, instead of rising to meet the challenges of a new millennium with openness and inclusion, is set to reach back to one of the oldest and most entrenched political machines in California history for its leadership.
Enter John Burton, California's much older version of Rod Blagojevich. There are so many reasons why John Burton is unfit for the role of Party Chair in California, that I'll be doing a series of posts, each one dedicated to a disqualifying aspect of his background. All of the material I'll be using has been obtained through basic use of the google, and the state's Republicans could easily find and use it against California Democrats. And trust me, they will.
At the end of this series, I think you'll agree that John Burton is the wrong person to lead the California Democratic Party in 2009.
The next installment recounts perhaps the most infamous episode in Burton's past - the very public sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a former staffer, with excerpts from the complaint filed by Kathleen Driscoll in San Francisco Superior Court:
During DRISCOLL'S employment, BURTON engaged in hostile, demeaning and sexually abusive conduct such that DRISCOLL'S working conditions were significantly altered. His conduct over the past year easily rises to the level of severe or pervasive conduct for a hostile work environment sexual harassment claim both in California and under federal law. The harassing acts started in approximately September 2006. They consisted of numerous events, which took place throughout DRISCOLL'S employment, including but not limited to:
Asking DRISCOLL over the phone, "What are you wearing?" on approximately 10 occasions;
On one occasion, DRISCOLL sent a temporary employee to deliver paperwork to BURTON. BURTON ordered DRISCOLL to never send someone on her behalf again by berating her, "When you drop stuff off, stop in will ya? I mean I'm not getting laid under the fuckin' table."
Singling DRISCOLL out for exorbitant demands and attention, included but not limited to excessive demands for immediate and frequent meetings to go over routine matters, including on weekends after the work week was over in contrast to her co-workers;
There's more at the link, and it's pretty graphic. It goes without saying that women make up an extremely large bloc of the Democratic base.
I don't know what more Burton Watch will trot out, but here are some facts: Californians have little connection to their state government other than knowing that they don't like it. They hear things like how politicians are living high off campaign donations and it's both alienating and corrosive. The rules are already rigged in favor of a conservative wipeout of government and the last thing Democrats need as they seek to make structural changes is the spectre of an old-school pol with a lot of skeletons hanging over their collective heads. John Burton has the potential to take the state backwards and it's a chance that delegates should think long and hard about.
Two months ago I wrote about how Mike Villines' threats on the budget were illegal under Section 86 of the California Penal Code:
86. Every Member of either house of the Legislature, or any member of the legislative body of a city, county, city and county, school district, or other special district, who asks, receives, or agrees to receive, any bribe, upon any understanding that his or her official vote, opinion, judgment, or action shall be influenced thereby, or shall give, in any particular manner, or upon any particular side of any question or matter upon which he or she may be required to act in his or her official capacity, or gives, or offers or promises to give, any official vote in consideration that another Member of the Legislature, or another member of the legislative body of a city, county, city and county, school district, or other special district shall give this vote either upon the same or another question, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years and, in cases in which no bribe has been actually received, by a restitution fine of not less than two thousand dollars ($2,000) or not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or, in cases in which a bribe was actually received, by a restitution fine of at least the actual amount of the bribe received or two thousand dollars ($2,000), whichever is greater, or any larger amount of not more than double the amount of any bribe received or ten thousand dollars ($10,000), whichever is greater.
It appears that the California Labor Federation includes some readers. Yesterday, they sent a letter to the Attorney General calling for an investigation into illegal vote-trading.
The charge by leaders of the California Labor Federation, State Building and Construction Trades Council, Sierra Club California and the Planning and Conservation League stems from reports that Republican legislative leadership are withholding their votes on a state budget as they attempt to extract votes on policy matters unrelated to the budget.
"Republicans are holding the state budget hostage in a shameful attempt to gut vital workplace and environmental standards that have absolutely nothing to do with the budget," said California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski. "These actions aren't just unconscionable, they may be criminal."
According to a release from the California Labor Federation and the Sierra club there are several examples of actions that may be in violation of California Penal Code.
"Specifically, (Republican leaders) have demanded that legislators vote for proposals to weaken labor and environmental standards as a condition for any 'aye' vote from Republican caucus members on the overall budget," the letter states.
According to the release, "This conduct appears to violate Penal Code Section 86, which prohibits any legislator from offering to give his or her vote in exchange for another legislator's vote on the same or a different matter."
Some would call this the criminalization of politics, but in this state, politics is too often a criminal enterprise, and it's high time somebody was taught a lesson. Like the Yacht Party.
AG Brown should do this. There's already a Facebook group set up; I urge you to join it. End the Blagojevich-ization of the California legislature.
We know that Arnold holds a grudge against unions, which he believes caused him that stinging defeat in 2005, and much of his goals on the budget lately have taken their aim at those unions. In particular, Arnold is seeking to privatize major infrastructure projects, ostensibly for the sake of "efficiency" but as a practical matter to get the jobs out of union hands. I thought that much of this was just a sop to Arnold's friends on the Chamber of Commerce and just more of the conservative mantras of animosity toward unions and privatization equaling a universal good. But there's also a quid pro quo angle involved here in the form of David Crane, a top economic advisor to the Governor, who would stand to benefit financially from any public-private projects put forward by his current boss.
As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger demands that lawmakers allow private interests into California's huge market for public works projects, a company with close personal and financial ties to the governor's economic advisor is positioned to benefit.
The advisor, David Crane, has spent years promoting private-sector involvement in public construction projects -- one of a few issues holding up a deal between Schwarzenegger and legislative Democrats to ease the state's worsening fiscal crisis.
Babcock & Brown, the financial services firm where Crane worked for a quarter of a century, hired a Sacramento lobbyist last year to influence the governor's office on so-called public-private partnerships, records show. Since joining the governor's team in 2004, Crane has received hundreds of thousands of dollars of income from deals he made while at Babcock, a firm founded in San Francisco and based in Australia, according to financial disclosure reports.
Those deals included projects in areas such as telecommunications, in which he served as a financial advisor; personal investments in real estate from Babcock's public-private partnership projects in England; and partnerships he formed with other Babcock executives to invest in oil wells and an Italian restaurant chain.
Crane is claiming that he cannot possibly benefit financially from any future deals, but one wonders whether, even if Crane is telling the truth, it really matters. The network of friends and former business associates to which Crane's advice could directly or indirectly steer business is vast. This is how government-by-profit-taking typically works, rewarding friends and punishing enemies. Whether or not Crane gets his profit now, as an economic adviser, or later, when he returns to Babcock & Brown or some other destination, is in many ways besides the point, just a clever way to avoid violating the letter of the law.
Jessica Levinson, the director of political reform at the nonprofit Center for Governmental Reform in Los Angeles, said Crane appears to be operating within the letter, though perhaps not the spirit, of the law.
"It starts to have the appearance of doing political favors for old friends, and that is not something that I think is illegal, but it still may not be fully ethical," Levinson said. "I think it all comes down to, is he making this decision for public good or is he making it to help his old business friends?"
By the way, Crane is a Democrat, or at least that's what it says on his voter registration card. The issues are the same. He's a free market fundamentalist who probably thinks he's advocating on behalf of a good solution for California. After a while, the theft becomes so commonplace that the thieves don't even see it as stealing anymore.
When Josh Richman, the fine reporter for the Oakland Tribune, called me for comment yesterday on the breaking news that Don Perata transferred $1.5 million dollars the day after the election from an IE account intended to elect Democrats to the State Senate and wage initiative campaigns into his personal legal defense fund, my initial reaction was "I'm not surprised." My slightly longer reaction is captured in the article:
David Dayen, an elected Democratic State Central Committee member from Santa Monica, blogged angrily this summer about his party's contribution to Perata's legal defense fund, contending the money would've been better spent on legislative races. The same goes for Leadership California's money, he said Wednesday; despite a Democratic presidential candidate carrying California by the largest margin since 1936, Democrats netted only three more Assembly seats and none in the state Senate.
"Every time I asked the California Democratic Party about getting more active and involved in local elections, they said the state Senate and the Assembly control those races "... and we don't have a lot of flexibility. So Perata, at that time, and Nunez or Bass had the authority to run those elections," Dayen said. "Now we see what happens when you vest power in these closed loops - suddenly self-interest becomes more important than the good of the party."
He believes this is why Perata didn't step aside as Pro Tem earlier, as Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez relinquished his post to Karen Bass in May: "Darrell Steinberg was sitting there ready to go "... and we were all like, 'What the hell is going on?'
"We speculated it had to be that he still needed the leverage to make the calls to raise money for himself."
I want to expand on that. The behavior of Don Perata can be directly tied to the continuance of a status quo that has failed and is failing California families. At no time is the way elections are run - without transparency, without accountability, without meaningful checks on the potential for corruption - questioned by the powers that be. It is enabled through a shrug of the shoulders and the words "that's the way things are." What Perata did was perfectly legal, although that is subject to change, as the state Fair Political Practices Commission votes today on making such transfers illegal. But as Michael Kinsley famously said, "The scandal isn't what's illegal; it's what's legal." The bigger scandal is that there's no desire or even interest at the top to see that change. And why not - it suits them just fine.
California has 63% majorities in both chambers of the legislature, has just seen a 61% share of the vote for a Democratic Presidential candidate - and yet this state is completely, inescapably and hopelessly beholden to right-wing interests, as a function of a backwards set of governing rules that have climbed the budget hole over $40 billion dollars, without any reasonable hope of getting out of it. It's been beyond clear for several years now that the ultimate solution will come at the ballot box, and yet the state party has entrusted the most crucial elections, the ones that could net a working 2/3 majority in the Senate, to someone more concerned with saving his political hide. And so Hannah-Beth Jackson, who came within 1,200 votes of flipping a Republican seat, reads a story like this in shock and anger. And the citizens in SD-12, promised a recall of Jeff Denham; and those in SD-15, expecting a candidate in their majority-Democratic district to take on Abel Maldonado; they are similarly angry. Money they had every right to expect would go to help them now goes to help one man.
(By the way, the alibi from the defenders of Perata on this doesn't scan at all. First of all, nobody begrudges him from raising money in his own defense - the problem lies in taking that money from an account intended for campaign work. And second, if this is a "political witch hunt," as they say, why would he need this lump sum of money 75 days from the time when a Democratic Administration with no inclination to prosecute Democrats on allegedly bogus charges is about to be installed? It's either a witch hunt about to end or a going concern. The alibi is pathetic.)
But the larger point is that the status quo, the closed systems at the top of the Democratic leadership, the lack of transparency and accountability, create the crises we see in our state, or at least disable anyone from reacting to them. And this is not likely to change. John Burton is going to be the next state CDP Chair. He's been in politics for 205 years, and he's basically muscled out the competition for the job. Does anyone think that a lifelong pol, with a long history of backroom deals, the guy who was Arnold Schwarzenegger's cigar-smoking buddy (that seems like a good profile for the opposition party chair), gives a damn about urgently needed reform? He's making sweet little noises about turning red areas blue, but there's absolutely no hope that he will provide any change from the insular, chummy, mutual backscratching society that exists in Sacramento. Grassroots activists should be furious that, in the wake of seeing countless opportunities wasted and crises lengthened, we're boldly taking off into the future with a Party Chair who was first elected in 1965.
The future of California is a mystery right now, because there is a crisis of leadership and an unwillingness to reform. At the very least, activists should look to electing Hillary Crosby as State Party Controller so that someone in the room will have a reform message that can spark a modicum of change. But until the fundamentals are altered, we will lurch from one disaster to the next.
Yacht Party Assembly leader Mike Villines visited the Sacramento Bee editorial board yesterday, and like any good mob boss, he offered an ultimatum.
Solving the budget stalemate is simple enough, Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines said in a visit to The Bee's Capitol Bureau Tuesday. Democrats have to capitulate to GOP demands for the 8-hour work day, meal breaks, looser environmental regulations, permanent budget cuts and a stiff spending cap, among other things.
Then, and only then, will Republicans come to the table to discuss -- but not necessarily agree to -- new taxes.
"We think you have to do these reforms first, cuts first and make sure that you're doing an economic package that puts people back to work," Villines said. "Then you have a discussion about revenue - and only then."
Many of these things, you'll notice, have nothing to do with the budget. In fact, CapAlert published the ransom note that Villines brought with him, and while he puts his demands in somewhat vague terms (and the Bee should really spell it out if they want to inform the public), it's pretty clear what he and the GOP want. They want to eliminate overtime regulations and meal breaks for state employees. They want to re-legislate already-passed environmental regulations on retrofitting buildings, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and air quality standards. And they want a bushel of tax cuts for businesses. I'll put the ransom note on the flip.
Aside from being ridiculous, this is extremely close to being illegal. Yes, illegal. I know horse-trading is customary in politics, but it violates California law. This is Section 86 of the California Penal Code:
86. Every Member of either house of the Legislature, or any member of the legislative body of a city, county, city and county, school district, or other special district, who asks, receives, or agrees to receive, any bribe, upon any understanding that his or her official vote, opinion, judgment, or action shall be influenced thereby, or shall give, in any particular manner, or upon any particular side of any question or matter upon which he or she may be required to act in his or her official capacity, or gives, or offers or promises to give, any official vote in consideration that another Member of the Legislature, or another member of the legislative body of a city, county, city and county, school district, or other special district shall give this vote either upon the same or another question, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years and, in cases in which no bribe has been actually received, by a restitution fine of not less than two thousand dollars ($2,000) or not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or, in cases in which a bribe was actually received, by a restitution fine of at least the actual amount of the bribe received or two thousand dollars ($2,000), whichever is greater, or any larger amount of not more than double the amount of any bribe received or ten thousand dollars ($10,000), whichever is greater.
Put it this way, there's a Governor in Illinois who just got arrested for this activity.
But instead of indicting Mike Villines, he will be allowed to hold up the California Legislature, confident in the knowledge that Democrats, given little choice with the 2/3 requirement, will come around to his demands. In fact, Villines has already announced his intention to run for Senate in 2014, something that even cranky winger columnist Jim Boren scoffs at.
Villines helped lead the Legislature to an 85-day budget stalemate and then was a party to passing a phony budget that quickly fell apart. And so far, he's done nothing to solve the state budget crisis in the latest round of negotiations. And that's the record he'll run on for his next post?
Do our legislators live in a world where doing badly means you get to move up?
Yes, in a word.
And mind you, what Villines illegally lays out is just a precondition to TALK about revenue increases.
"This is very hard for Democrats to accept," Villines said of his list, which he said he had been distributed to the governor and other legislative leaders. "They'll say that look, 'This goes right to the heart of many things that we care terribly about and we just can't go there.' I understand that because we feel the same way about revenues."
Jim Evans, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, challenged the Republicans to "put a specific $17 billion, half cuts, half revenues, deficit-reduction plan on the table and then we can begin productive conversations."
Villines is holding out hope Democrats will cave. "I think that they'll ultimately come around to this," he said.
Why wouldn't he say that? A criminal who never gets caught usually keeps robbing banks. The learned behavior is that Democrats will give up at some point. And with General Fund revenue down another $1.3 billion in November, and the state due to run out of cash in February, who is going to disagree with him?
Or, the real question is, will anyone arrest Mike Villines for crimes against the state?
UPDATE by Brian: The diary that is referred to here was a troll diary at dKos, and thus I think this would best be considered a troll diary as well. The candidates released a joint statement about the issue a while back, which can be found here. Here's the statement:
Statement of Louis Vandenberg:
I reject any assertion or suggestion that Mr. Hedrick acted improperly with respect to the incident cited in a DailyKos diary posted on November 4, 2007. In my view, Mr. Hedrick behaved honorably and professionally in the execution of his duties as the leader of the Rialto Teacher's Union. It is the responsibility of a person in such a position to address personnel matters in a manner which is as fair and objective as possible to all parties. The accused teacher, regardless of the accusations, was not convicted in a court of law. To my understanding, no criminal or civil charges were ever brought in this matter. Therefore, it would have not been appropriate for Mr. Hedrick to have stated anything other than the facts of the case, which is what he did. This is standard practice. No responsible person would have done anything differently. Although I am a political opponent of Mr. Hedrick's in the 44th congressional race, such a smear deeply offends my sense of justice and fairness. I reject it, and I believe we all should. This campaign should be and must be about real issues that matter to real citizens in the real world. And this is not real.
Statement of Bill Hedrick:
Normally, this type of dirty trick does not merit a response. But when false allegations like these impugn the ethics and due diligence of an excellent school district and outstanding police force, this goes beyond personal slander of a political candidate.
As an educator, student safety is my highest priority. All employees of the Rialto Unified School District-whether the superintendent, the union president, or clerks, custodians, or teachers-are mandated reporters of any suspicion of child abuse.
Rialto Unified and the Rialto Police Department are diligent in investigating every allegation involving student safety. In the incident cited, both agencies vigorously and thoroughly performed their investigative duties with the full participation of the teachers' association.
As a teacher, my first professional, legal, and moral obligation is student safety. Also, I work to ensure due process and the rule of law-something all citizens deserve in our democratic and free society.
It is unfortunate that posting such baseless allegations damages the credibility of school districts, law enforcement agencies, and teacher associations, all of whom are committed to ensuring the safety of children.
Again, we together, as Democrats and as candidates, seek honesty in our political dialog at this important time. Therefore, we have taken this unique step--political rivals coming together to condemn and reject obvious smear and slander. We trust that you will too.
Sincerely,
Bill Hedrick
Candidate for United States Representative in Congress
California's 44th CD
www.hedrickforcongress.com
November 5, 2007
Corona, California
Louis Vandenberg
Candidate for United States Representative in Congress
California's 44th CD
www.vandenbergforcongress.com (site update coming soon)
November 5, 2007
Riverside, California
Now back to your regularly scheduled troll diary. /update
I'm a little pissed that Inland Empire Democrats have placed their hopes of defeating corrupt Rep. Ken Calvert (R) on Bill Hedrick. Can't we find someone better? Hedrick is gonna get ripped apart if he makes it to the general election in Nov. 2008. See below.
I found this on craigslist > california > inland empire > politics.
Maybe someone can email Bill Hedrick and get a response? Bill Hedrick needs to come clean about his statement that George Warren retired and that the "sexual harassment allegations had nothing to do" with Warren's decision to retire. How stupid does he think the Democratic voters of CA-44 are? I suspect some industrious muckraking reporters are on the case now...
Check out this story to get an overview of the sex predator problem in our nation's schools: http://www.editorand...
"Bill Hedrick is a Democratic candidate in the 2008 congressional elections for the 44th Congressional District of California, which includes Riverside. He is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.). The primary will take place on June 3, 2008.
Questions and serious concerns remain about controversial comments made by Bill Hedrick while president of the Rialto Teacher's Union. In 2005, a verbal argument erupted between a young middle school girl and her teacher, George Warren. Later, the girl accused George Warren of sexually harassing her. Soon, other female students came forward as well, corroborating a pattern of sexual harassment carried out by George Warren.
The school district conducted an investigation. At its conclusion, George Warren announced he would no longer serve as a middle school teacher.
Bill Hedrick, then and still president of the Rialto Teachers Union, made it clear that Warren had been cleared by the school board, had simply retired of his own choice and that the sexual harassment allegations had nothing to do with his decision.
Do you believe Bill? Did he protect a child sex predator?"
It really pisses me off that the Speaker has put himself and the Party in this position. $4 million dollars out of that "Friends of Fabian Nuñez" jet-setting travel fund came directly from the party. And now, the allegations in the LA Times have led to a formal complaint with the state's Fair Political Practices Comission for using campaign funds for personal expenses. I'm putting the complaint on the flip side.
This is playing out in the context of February's term limits initiative, and indeed the complaint was filed by the executive director of the "CA Term Limits Defense Fund." But again, that doesn't make it false. Nuñez' reticence to provide some more disclosure in this case is DIRECTLY hurting party-building efforts. This is the Democratic poster child, now? A party that consolidates political power to the degree that Democrats have in this state always runs the risk of dragging themselves into a morass of corruption. This is an outgrowth of insiderism and a centralized target for special interests. Maybe it's good that this is happening, as it gives Democrats a chance to demand accountability and new leadership. But for the moment, it sucks.
UPDATE: The LA Times nails it. This is a full-fledged scandal now.
Nuñez still has no legitimate reason to keep from Californians just why, and on whom, he spent all that money. The fact that his staggering travel bills weren't paid by taxpayers does not end the discussion. He was on public time, even if not the public dime, and is living a tycoon's lifestyle only because his position as speaker makes him valuable to contributors who want to sway him. It's troubling enough that special interests are paying his bills. It's worse when he wants the public to simply trust, without explanation, that his $3,199 stay at the Hotel Parco in Rome had some nexus to his official duties.
The speaker asserted that he wouldn't have to rely on his $5.3-million "Friends of Fabian Nuñez" campaign account if he were independently wealthy. That's a non sequitur. If his expenditures were in fact related to legislative purposes, he wouldn't pay them out of his own pocket anyway, so it would make no difference if he were as rich as, say, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger [...]
By providing details on his expenditures, the speaker can put an end to speculation that his actions were anything other than in the best interests of California. Failure to do that simply enhances the perception that the Legislature is working for shadowy special interests who can afford to gather in France around an expensive bottle of Bordeaux.
