Legislators ask Salazar and Laird to rescind Bay Delta Plan agreement
by Dan Bacher
On November 22, Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis) and 16 other Northern California state legislators asked the Department of the Interior and California Resources Agency to rescind the approval of the widely-criticized Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with a select group of water exporters.
The Obama and Brown administrations are continuing to fast-track the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build a peripheral canal or tunnel to export more water to corporate agribusiness and southern California, in spite of tremendous risk to Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations and Delta communities.
Their letter to Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar and California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird was preceded by a letter sent to Salazar and Laird on November 16 by an unprecedented 242 environmental organizations, environmental justice groups, Native American Tribes, recreational angling organizations, commercial fishing groups and outdoor businesses urging them to rescind the MOA. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/11/18/bay-delta-plan-agreement-opposed-by-242-groups)
"As representatives of the people of California, we have serious concerns with the current direction of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP)," the California legislators wrote. "The most critical among those include a failure of transparency in the process; the limited set of alternatives being considered; scientific inadequacy, including a lack of flow criteria for the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary (Bay Delta); the absence of cost/benefit analyses; and, the undue influence granted to State and Federal export water agencies to the exclusion of a meaningful role for other public interests."
The letter criticized the agreement for offering the signatories, including water agencies from southern California, the San Joaquin Valley and Santa Clara Valley, "extraordinary opportunities to influence the process, to the disadvantage of Delta communities, environmental organizations, fishing groups and the public at large."
"The MOA binds the parties to a rushed timeline for completing the plan, making adequate scientific analysis and consensus-building impossible. It establishes that long-term guarantees of 'certainty' to Central Valley Project export water contractors will be a first priority for state and federal decision makers. And, it memorializes the 'pay to play' nature of the BDCP, as many of our Washington legislators have phrased it, by giving the export water agencies an unprecedented level of control over what should be an open, public process," the letter continued.
The legislators cited the recent letter by Representatives George Miller, Doris Matsui, Jerry McNerney, Mike Thompson and John Garamendi to U.S. Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar that urged him to retract Interior's approval of the MOA and allow a public comment period of 45 days on the agreement prior to final approval.
"We urge the same, and for the State, in parallel, to retract the Department of Water Resources' approval of the MOA immediately," Wolk and the other legislators wrote.
Signees to the letter include California Senators Mark Desaulnier, Loni Hancock and Jared Huffman and Assembly Members Michael Allen, Bill Berryhill, Susan Bonilla, Joan Buchanan, Wesley Chesbro, Paul Fong, Alyson Huber, William Monning, Dr. Richard Pan, Nancy Skinner, Mariko Yamada, Jerry Hill and Roger Dickinson.
The letter asked for a reply in writing by December 16, 2011.
The opposition to the BDCP MOA, a plan to export more water disguised as a habitat conservation plan, is mushrooming. Members of Congress and California legislators are opposed to it. A massive coalition of 242 environmental groups, Indian Tribes, fishing organizations, environmental justice groups and consumer advocacy organizations is opposed to it.
Yet the Obama and Brown administrations appear committed to a peripheral canal plan that is likely to result in the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and Sacramento splittail.
These are the same administrations that have eclipsed even the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations in slaughtering Delta fish and Central Valley salmon in the state and federal water project facilities in the South Delta. The Obama and Brown administrations killed record numbers of Sacramento splittail and other fish in the pumps while exporting record amounts of water out of the Delta this year.
Over 11 million fish, including 9 million Sacramento splittail, have been "salvaged" at the Delta pumps near Tracy in 2011. The previous record salvage number for the splittail, a native minnow found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system, was 5.5 million in 2006.
The other 2 million fish "salvaged" at the pumps include striped bass, largemouth bass, Sacramento River spring chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead and other species. Yet the numbers salvaged are just a fraction of the actual loss of fish in the pumps; scientific studies point to the real loss being 5 to 10 times the "salvage" numbers. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/09/09/over-11-million-fish-salvaged-in-delta-death-pumps-since-january-1).
The state and federal water projects pumped a record 6.5 million acre-feet of water from the Delta in 2011, according to government data compiled by Spreck Rosecrans at Environmental Defense. The previous record was 6.3 million acre-feet in 2005.
If Ken Salazar and John Laird have no problem killing record numbers of fish and exporting record amounts of water, is it any surprise that they are fast-tracking the plan to destroy the Delta by building the peripheral canal?
There has been a plethora of right wing talk show host coverage of Obama's so-called "ban on fishing" this week. I find it ironic when folks like Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin, who have wholeheartedly supported administrations that have crushed our fishing rights and instituted massive fishing closures, are now speaking up for the "poor fishermen." What hypocrites they are!
Even more ironic, Sean Hannity and other talk show hosts have collaborated with corporate agribusiness and astroturf groups such as the Latino Water Coalition to promote a propaganda war against salmon and salmon fishermen in a cynical campaing to export more water from the California Delta. These right wingers are the enemies of everybody who fishes and wants to see restored fish populations.
Below is my November 2008 article on the unprecedented anti-fishing, anti-fish policies of the Bush and Schwarzenenegger administrations. Everybody should read this to put this so-called "ban on fishing" into perspective. Unfortunately, Obama's environmental policies towards fish restoration appear to be picking up where Bush left off, particularly in his convening of the National Academy of Sciences panel to review the salmon and Delta smelt biological opinions under pressure from Senator Dianne Feinstein and corporate agribusiness.
Bush, Schwarzenegger and the Wise Use Movement: The Crushing of Public Trust Fishing Rights
November 03, 2008
by Dan Bacher.
The ripping away of public trust access to our waterways and ocean waters by extreme property rights folks and the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations is something that many sportsmen don't seem to understand. I get sick and tired of some ill-informed sportsmen who point to "animal rights groups," "environmentalists," and "liberals" as the reason why we are seeing more and more areas closed to fishing, when it is the two state and federal administrations that are in power at this time, along with their buddies in the "wise use" property rights movement, that are actually responsible.
Unfortunately, some of the larger, corporate funded environmental groups have served as collaborators with the Bush and Schwarzenegger regimes in instituting no fishing zones along the coast in an egregious example of federal-state-environmental green washing. However, if you actually review the history of fishing closures in California history, the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations have consistently been the biggest proponents of closures and no fishing zones off the California coast.
The Marine Life Protection Act was passed by a Democratic-dominated legislature, but it is Schwarzenegger, a Republican, that has fast-tracked this process. Most sportsmen aren't opposed to Marine Protected Areas (MPAs); they are opposed to the inequitable and hasty manner in which they have been imposed. MPAs under the Schwarzenegger only "protect" areas of ocean from recreational and commercial fishermen, a largely redundant and punitive effort since salmon fishing is completely closed this season and rockfishing is severely restricted to certain depth areas and seasons by the Pacific Fishery Management Council. At the same time, these MPAs do nothing to cause the declines of fish caused by pollution or help stop future oil and chemical spills from taking place!
Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger has consistently vetoed fishery restoration passed by the Legislature and pushed for the destruction of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations by building a peripheral canal and more dams to bail out subsidized corporate water contractors.
Although certain environmental groups support "no fishing" zones in the state's ocean waters, I would argue that the greatest threat to public fishing access is the anti-fishing rights policies of the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations, as well as the ascendency of the lunatic fringe of the "wise use" property rights movement.
Just look at this year's unprecedented salmon closures in California and Oregon ocean waters and Central Valley rivers. Politically manipulated Bush administration biological opinions, coinciding with Department of Water Resources failures to observe the provisions of the Endangered Species and Clean Water Acts, resulted in massive increases of export pumping and the loss of thousands of thousands of salmon smolts. The DFG's failure to put the salmon in acclimation pens, combined with bad "ocean conditions," produced the "perfect storm" leading to the salmon collapse.
In 2006, the Bush administration, not "liberals" or "environmentalists," tried to close down all recreational and commercial salmon fishing on the ocean off California and southern Oregon, due to the alarmingly low numbers of Klamath River fall-run chinooks. To add insult to injury, these closures were the direct result of the Karl Rove-instigated fish kills of 2002. Fortunately, massive outcry by West Coast Democratic Congressmen and sportfishing and commercial fishing groups allowed anglers to have a season that year, although commercial fishermen were severely limited.
At the same time, right wing property rights fanatics, through compliant Sheriffs Departments and District Attorneys and the anti-fishing zealots in the federal and state governments, have closed off vast areas of public trust access on levees to bank fishermen on the Delta and Sacramento River - in direct violation of the California Constitution.
According to the California Constitution, Article 1, Declaration of Rights, Section 25, "The people shall have the right to fish upon and from the public lands of the State and in the waters thereof, excepting upon lands set aside for fish hatcheries, and no land owned by the State shall ever be sold or transferred without reserving in the people the absolute right to fish thereupon; and no law shall ever be passed making it a crime for the people to enter upon the public lands within this State for the purpose of fishing in any wate containing fish that have been planted therein by the State; provided, that the legislature may by statute, provide for the season when and the conditions under which the different species of fish may be taken."
This right is also guaranteed in Article 10, water, Section 4, "No individual, partnership, or corporation, claiming or possessing the frontage or tidal lands of a harbor, bay, inlet, estuary, or other navigable water in this State, shall be permitted to exclude the right of way to such water whenever it is required for any public purpose, nor to destroy or obstruct the free navigation of such water; and the Legislature shall enact such laws as will give the most liberal construction to this provision, so that access to the navigable waters of this State shall be always attainable for the people thereof."
Since 2001, the Bush administration on the federal level and Governor Gray Davis, succeeded by the even more anti-fishing Schwarzenenegger administration in 2003, have closed more fishing areas and destroyed more fisheries than all of the previous administrations, Democratic and Republican, combined.
Fishing closures that have taken place under the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations include the following:
• The complete closure of the continental shelf in federal waters to rockfishing, due to federal and state mismangement of the groundfish fishery for nearly a decade by the PFMC.
• The adoption of severely restricted fishing seasons for rockfish, lingcod and greenling in recent years, along with early closures this year and last based on the rebuilding paradox: canary and yelloweye rockfish are rebounding, so anglers have more contact with them!
• The fast tracking of the MLPA process by Schwarzenegger, resulting in massive no fishing zones off the Central Coast, and looming closures on the North Central and South Coasts.
• Increasing closures of bank fishing access on roads, maintained with public funds, on levees along the Sacramento River and throughout the Delta. This started with the closure of the Sacramento River below Freeport and the closures have expanded to include vast areas of public trust access to navigable rivers in Solano, Yolo, Contra Costa and San Joaquin counties. Local reclamation districts, in collaboration with state and federal governments, have fenced off vast tracts of land on the Delta. The Prospect Island fish kill of November 2007, when tens of thousands of striped bass, Sacramento blackfish, Sacramento splittail and other species perished after a levee repair by the Bureau of Reclamation, occurred on federal land that was closed to public access and would probably not have been exposed unless two duck hunters had trespassed on the land.
• Illegal denial of public fishing access by "wise use" property rights advocates on the Cosumnes, Mokelumne, Calaveras, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Merced and San Joaquin rivers - and numerous other streams throughout the state. The massive evisceration of public trust fishing rights, a gross violation of the California Constitution, has been engineered by local and regional water districts and agencies in collaboration with the state and federal governments.
When all is said and done, these closures have much less to with "preservation" or "conservation" than they do with corporate and agribusiness greed and the desire of corrupt politicans to get the stewards and watch dogs of the environment, anglers like you and me, off the water! Where is the outrage when our fishing rights are being trampled upon everywhere we look?
From Media Matters:
Right-wing media eagerly spread absurd claim that Obama plans to "ban sport fishing"
Following the lead of an ESPNOutdoors.com opinion writer, who provided no evidence for his claim that a federal strategy "could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing," right-wing blogs have advanced the outlandish charge that Obama "wants to ban sport fishing." These media outlets cited the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force's interim report on coastal and marine planning, but the task force has proposed nothing of the sort.
California has always represented a better future, and we seem more impatient to get there than anyone else. The examples are endless: the settlers risking everything to reinvent themselves on California's fertile soil, the surfers who decided they'd rather surf the streets on skateboards than wait for waves, to the dotcom boom that created the internet age. When California is ready to lead, it's best if you get out of the way. Because when California leads, it often benefits the entire country -- and sometimes the world.
And California is ready to do it again, with a plan to guide America to a greener, cleaner, more sustainable future, and pull the nation out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. That plan is AB 32 (aka the Global Warming Solutions Act), California's nation-leading initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) to 1990 levels through a mix of energy efficiency, clean/sustainable energy investment and regulations to force California's polluters to clean up their own messes. In addition to improving the environment and the health of Californians, study after study show that AB 32 will be a major job creator with little or no impact on small businesses. That's why over 2,400 large and small businesses, many in California, have joined American Businesses for Clean Energy, a diverse coalition calling on Congress to pass clean energy and climate legislation. And with the green/clean economy creating job growth and venture capital investment at a faster rate than the rest of the economy, California could position itself to lead the nation and the world in exportable green technology and solutions, just as it has with computers, software and the internet.
But this is not the first time California has attempted to lead the nation with a pioneering piece of legislation to reduce GHGE. In 1990, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed the Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate. It stated that any large automaker selling cars in California would have to derive at least 10% of its overall sales from cars that produce practically zero emissions -- with 2% of the cars producing no emissions at all -- by 2003. That meant that unless an automaker wanted to lose the huge California car market, they would have to begin making all-electric vehicles.
Here's the latest on the Jane Harman/AIPAC story that I haven't previously discussed here. We know that she discussed the case against two AIPAC lobbyists with a suspected Israeli double agent, possibly Haim Saban, and made at least an implicit arrangement to push for the dropping of the case against the lobbyists in exchange for help getting appointed the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. It is unclear whether this actually represents a violation of the federal bribery statute (doing a favor in exchange for something of value), but according to the story by Jeff Stein at CQ Politics, the Justice Department felt they had Harman in a "completed crime." Nancy Pelosi was briefed that Harman had been picked up on a federal wiretap but was barred from disclosing it to her House colleague, and this could explain why Harman was not appointed to that Committee Chair. The reason that the DoJ failed to charge Harman was because Alberto Gonzales intervened on her behalf, because, among other things, he knew she would be helpful in the forthcoming battle over, amazingly enough, the Administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
A person who is familiar with Mr. Gonzales's account of the events said that the former attorney general had acknowledged having raised with Mr. Goss the idea that Ms. Harman was playing a helpful role in dealing with The Times.
But Mr. Gonzales's principal motive in delaying a briefing for Congressional leaders, the person said, was to keep Ms. Harman from learning of the investigation before she could be interviewed by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A spokesman for Ms. Harman said the congresswoman had never been interviewed by the bureau.
There's also the charge that then-NSA Director Michael Hayden provided talking points for a Harman discussion with NY Times Washington editor Philip Taubman BEFORE THE 2004 election, to get the paper to squash the warrantless wiretapping story. And today, Stein advances the story by noting that a whistleblower informed then-Speaker Dennis Hastert about the Bush Administration suppression of the wiretapped Harman call (it's a violation of standard procedure to withhold information involving national security and a member of Congress from either Democratic and Republican leaders in the House).
Needless to say, this is a tangled web of intrigue, and with more disclosures it's likely to get worse. This has led to speculation that Harman would either not run for another term, or face a primary challenge. I can confirm that Marcy Winograd is likely to run if Harman does seek re-election. Winograd, who took 38% of the vote in 2006, was not planning a run until the AIPAC/wiretap revelations. But she is uncomfortable with Harman not being held to account, and saw no other option on the horizon. She has a federal account and will take the pulse of the district before a formal announcement.
"I think she's clearly in trouble and I think she knows it and is doing whatever she can to turn the tables on the situation," Winograd said. "And now she is the spokesperson for the ACLU or the Bill of Rights Foundation. It would be comical, if the stakes weren't so high." [...]
One of Winograd's first steps is going to be "taking the pulse" of the district on issues like military spending and single-payer health care, among other issues. It's entirely possible that Harman might bow out and try to annoint a successor. Or that another establishment Dem might try to take advantage of her weakened position. Which is why I wanted to get the word out as quickly as possible that there's a really credible progressive alternative. Winograd has already run a primary once in the district. Activists there know who she is, and a lot of them have already worked for her in 2006. This would not be a net-based candidacy, but it will certainly help to have it be net-supported.
In addition, the name of blogger John Amato has surfaced as a possible challenger.
(Howie) Klein said a group of bloggers met earlier this year to discuss challenging Harman in a primary, weeks before the recent revelations. He said many in the blogging community would like a fellow blogger, John Amato, to challenge Harman and that Amato is considering it.
Winograd said that she would step aside for the right candidate, and that she's taking up the mantle at least for now.
"I don't know who else will answer the call, if not me," she said. "People with great name recognition and track records in public office are not going to take her on."
I think Marcy feels the duty to run. At the same time, she agreed that there needs to be one progressive alternative to Harman. But my sense from people in the district is that Harman is unlikely to try another re-election campaign. Even the above-mentioned NYT article refers to this.
While the two women do not display overt hostility, Ms. Harman seems to have never quite gotten over the slight. Colleagues say that since Ms. Pelosi, 69, thwarted her ambitions for a more prominent role on security issues, Ms. Harman, 63, has grown weary of Congress and has been eyeing a post in the Obama administration, perhaps as an ambassador.
This tracks with everything I've heard from locals. She wanted the Intelligence Committee chair, and failing that she wanted an Administration job, and failing that she wants out.
There would be a whole host of elected officials who would jump in if Harman retired. Ted Lieu, the Assemblyman in this district, could be enticed away from his Attorney General campaign. City Councilwoman Janice Hahn would take a look. And there would be others. But if Harman stays in, none of these electeds would run, avoiding what would be an expensive primary. Harman is the richest member of Congress and has no problem spending her own money to keep her seat.
Either way, there will be a contested race in CA-36 in June 2010. And I do believe that a primary would feature only one major challenger. The question is, who would that be?
This Jane Harman/AIPAC scandal continues to grow. It jumped from the inside the Beltway rag CQ Politics to The New York Times.
One of the leading House Democrats on intelligence matters was overheard on telephone calls intercepted by the National Security Agency agreeing to seek lenient treatment from the Bush administration for two pro-Israel lobbyists who were under investigation for espionage, current and former government officials say.
The lawmaker, Representative Jane Harman of California, became the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee after the 2002 election and had ambitions to be its chairwoman when the party gained control of the House in 2006. One official who has seen transcripts of several wiretapped calls said she appeared to agree to intercede in exchange for help in persuading party leaders to give her the powerful post.
But that's not what advances the story today. Harman has denied contacting DoJ abut the AIPAC case, though she left out contacting the White House, and she did not deny that the phone call existed. Remember that a key part of the story concerned the idea that Harman was saved from prosecution on this by Alberto Gonzales, who "needed Jane" to help front for the Administration's warrantless wiretapping program. In today's article, the Times drops this bombshell:
Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement Monday that Ms. Harman called Philip Taubman, then the Washington bureau chief of The Times, in October or November of 2004. Mr. Keller said she spoke to Mr. Taubman - apparently at the request of Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then the N.S.A. director - and urged that The Times not publish the article.
"She did not speak to me," Mr. Keller said, "and I don't remember her being a significant factor in my decision."
Shortly before the article was published more than a year later, in December 2005, Mr. Taubman met with a group of Congressional leaders familiar with the eavesdropping program, including Ms. Harman. They all argued that The Times should not publish.
Ultimately, it's on Bill Keller whether or not to publish, so I don't want to give Harman too much credit here. But as Greg Sargent notes, this is a startling turn of events. A Democratic Congresswoman acted on behalf of a Republican President's NSA director to spike a story about illegal activity in the executive branch before a close Presidential election. The ramifications are enormous.
This discussion between Harman and Taubman apparently happened before the wiretapped phone call between Harman and the Israeli agent, according to the TPM Muckraker timeline. So Gonzales knew that Harman could be counted on to support the warrantless wiretapping program, because she had years of experience doing so at that point.
This gets uglier and uglier. Small wonder that Harman was passed over for a position in the Obama Administration.
UPDATE: It is entirely possible that the CIA and Bush-era officials directed this set of leaks in a show of force. That of course has nothing to do with Harman's conversation with Taubman to try and get the NYT to spike the wiretapping story, which was confirmed by Bill Keller on the record.
UPDATE II: ...Harman has released a letter calling on the Attorney General to release all transcripts and investigative material related to her collected by the Justice Department in 2005 and 2006. This is a bit of misdirection, since by all accounts these were legal wiretaps of foreign agents. But given the revelations about continued illegal wiretapping at the NSA, I understand Harman's strategy.
So many times when we get together you have to put up with me complaining about something...and there are lots of other times when it's me warning about events that are looming in our future.
Even though they're conversations we need to have, they're often not very emotionally satisfying.
Today we depart from that pattern, in a very good way.
It's "follow-up day"; and the conversation takes us to three "happy places": two "problem" stories that have recent positive progress to report-and, just because I care about you, Gentle Reader, an exclusive preview of the George W. Bush autobiography, obtained with considerable effort from an unnamed and particularly well-placed source.
There's a lot to cover, so let's jump right in and tell you what you need to know.
It's expected for a lawmaker in the beginning of a new election cycle to get a little more active, with high-profile articulations of positions on key issues. So it is for Sen. Barbara Boxer. In the past week, she has released a report on the statewide recession, featuring interviews with local officials from all 58 counties; demanding that Attorney General Mukasey intervene to reverse a "blatantly illegal" memo by EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson claiming that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant (the Supreme Court has already ruled that it is); and most interesting to me, wrote a letter to incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair John Kerry calling for hearings on the Bush Administration's use of torture, as well as an outside commission to investigate it:
I write today to raise an issue of the utmost significance -- the Administration's use of torture against detainees held in U.S. custody. Despite widespread condemnation from Members of Congress, policy experts, and human rights advocates, Vice President Richard Cheney stated in a recent interview with ABC News that the torture policies used against detainees were appropriate and admitted that he played a role in their authorization. In fact, when asked if any of the tactics -- including waterboarding -- went too far, he responded with a curt "I don't."
I find Vice President Cheney's response deplorable, particularly in light of a recent report released by the Senate Armed Services Committee following an eighteen-month investigation. In sum, the bipartisan report found that "senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees." The report, led by Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, concluded that "those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority." I fully support Chairman Levin's proposal for an outside Commission with subpoena power to investigate this matter further.
The whole letter is here. This is one step away from the needed call for an independent prosecutor to investigate Bush's war crimes, but it's as close as any Senator has been willing to go. This suggests that Boxer considers an investigation of this nature to not only be the right thing to do in a democracy, but not electorally damaging whatsoever. She should be supported in this belief and encouraged to go even further. I know that Senator Boxer has begun asking for contributions to her re-election campaign. Maybe a series of contributions of $9.12, signaling support for a "9/12" torture commission and an independent prosecutor, along with emails and letters explaining this, would relay the message?
Today is the birthday of Social Security, and Democrats around the country will be celebrating the program that has provided stability and dignity to seniors for the last 73 years. During the last few years, George W. Bush, John McCain and the Republicans in Congress have done their best to try to dismantle the protections that Social Security has built over the years.
"The American people said 'no' to George W. Bush and John McCain when they tried to privatize Social Security, and they'll say the same loud and clear to John McCain this November for promising more of the same," said DNC Chairman Howard Dean. "The same people who brought you Enron can't be trusted to gamble away the Social Security trust fund on the ups and downs of the stock market. John McCain is wrong on the privatization of Social Security, and he's the wrong choice for America's future."
Throughout the US, Democrats will be visiting Republican legislators and taking them copies of this birthday card. Here in California we have several special events taking place.
Up in CA-02, Democratic Candidate Jeff Morris, who is challenging the do-nothing Republican incumbent, Wally Herger, will be holding his Campaign Kick-Off at the Social Security Office in Redding. If you're in the area, stop by and meet him and his wife, Judy, and their many dedicated supporters.
Where: Social Security Office, 2195 Larkspur Office, Redding, CA 96002
When: Thursday August 14th at 9:45 am
Down in CA-45, Julie Bornstein, the Democratic candidate who is challenging Republican Mary Bono Mack, will be celebrating both the Social Security Birthday and the opening of her campaign office in Palm Springs. There's a rumor that cake may be involved...
Where: 1027 South Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs, CA
When: Thursday August 14th from 4:30 to 6:30 pm
John McCain came to California on Monday for a fundraising swing that took him to Bakersfield and San Francisco.
Candi Easter, Chair of the Kern County Democratic Party, organized a Democratic reception for John McCain in Bakersfield and was elated when 75 people showed up for the noontime rally. Here's Candi's report of Monday's events:
Thanks to every one that participated in the rally this afternoon! We had a wonderful turnout with a very diverse group of folks. We had people from The Kern River Valley Democratic Club and the Tehachapi Mountain Democratic Club -- a 100-mile round trip for them!!!!
The Obama Campaign came out and brought the next president (Barack Obama -- he was a little stiff, though) with them. We also had Elsa Florez and some of the Florez staff come on their lunch hour. I cannot forget Democratic Women of Kern! Thank you all for coming out and changing the news cycle today.
(Good to see the CDP stepping up. McCain should be radioactive in SF. - promoted by David Dayen)
The California Democratic Party will be welcoming John McCain to San Francisco on Monday evening, along with activists from the SF MoveOn Council and Democracy Action. McCain will be attending a $1000/plate fundraiser at the Fairmont Hotel. But before McCain supporters enter the hotel, Democratic activists will be inviting them to take the Bush/McCain Challenge.
Here's how the challenge works. Supporters and passersby are given five quotes and then asked "Who said what - Bush, McCain or Both - Can You Tell the Difference?" And anybody who can answer three out of five correctly will win the grand prize of - a tootsie-pop!
You can see how it works from a previous session in Berkeley. Check it on the flip...
I guess this was in the Huffington Post a couple months ago, but I had missed it. Today the New York Times brings the news about a group of satirists in San Francisco with an inspired idea and a dream:
From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.
The plan, naturally hatched in a bar, would place a vote on the November ballot to provide "an appropriate honor for a truly unique president."
Supporters say that they have plenty of signatures to qualify the initiative and that the renaming would fit in a long and proud American tradition of poking political figures in the eye.
There's really no more fitting honor for America's worst President. I would fund this initiative.
Just to update on the EPA's denial of a waiver to California to regulate its own greenhouse gas emissions - the White House is now refusing thousands of documents on the matter to Henry Waxman's Oversight and Government Reform Committee, citing executive privilege.
"I don't think we've had a situation like this since Richard Nixon was president," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is conducting the investigation.
An EPA official, Jason Burnett, has told committee investigators that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson had favored granting the waiver but denied it after meeting with White House officials. In testimony last month, Johnson refused to say whether he'd discussed the waiver request with Bush.
The White House waited until the very day that the Oversight Committee was going to rule on contempt citations for failing to respond on this issue. And the OMB and the EPA basically answered by saying "we've given you enough documents, no more documents for you."
It's clear that the EPA and the Bush Administration will stonewall until the day they leave office on this front, and so it's up to the next President to make a determination on the waiver. And all you need to know about California's chances of being able to regulate emissions is that Obama supports the waiver, and McCain has been vague and evasive about it (not to mention he's taken more money from oil companies than any other Presidential candidate).
Meanwhile, California is offering another regulatory solution: they're adding a Global Warming score to the sticker of every car for sale in the state.
The California Air Resources Board said Thursday the window sticker will give consumers the information they need to choose a cleaner-burning car or light truck.
"This label will arm consumers with the information they need to choose a vehicle that saves gas, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps fight smog all at once," board chairman Mary Nichols said in a statement. "Consumer choice is an especially powerful tool in our fight against climate change. We look forward to seeing these stickers on 2009 model cars as they start hitting the showrooms in the coming months."
We'll see if this affects consumer choice in the coming months, although the fuel economy portion of the sticker is already driving demand. To say nothing of those 5 hydrogen fuel cell cars turning up on Southern California roads.
When I first heard the reports of John McCain's flip-flop on offshore oil exploration and consequent back-up from the President, I knew there was one person to call for comment: Debbie Cook. In addition to being the Mayor of Huntington Beach, Cook sits on the board of directors of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) and is an expert on energy issues. She just sent me this statement (on the flip):
• According to Dan Walters, all his serious economist friends are telling him there's no recession yet, theoreticaly speaking. He might want to read his own paper, about how the Employment Development Department can't keep up with the demand for unemployment benefits and everyone calling in is getting a busy signal. Tip to those who apparently aren't feeling a recession: use the EDD website.
• In a reversal to the Bush Administration, a judge has ruled that George Bush cannot exempt the Navy from environmental laws regarding the use of sonar within 12 miles of the California coast. Not that Bush followed the ruling of the judiciary the first time, but...
• There are still high hopes for an end to the WGA strike, and meetings in Los Angeles and New York have been scheduled for the weekend (ostensibly to present the contract), but caution lies ahead, as more foreign imports and reality television are likely to wind up on schedules, and less pilots are likely to be shot. Of course, this was my point all along, and why I underscored the need to grow the union for the benefit of everyone involved and give everything on television the opportunity to unionize. But jurisdiction for reality and animation was dropped in the most recent round of talks, and there will be consequences to that.
• Our friends at the SEIU are going to start a $75 million dollar, year-long, national campaign in support of universal health care. I have to think that this is a positive by-product of the coalition built in California around the ultimately unsuccessful effort on health care reform. If so, then there was nothing unsuccessful about it. It's very exciting to see a full media and ground effort to draw the policy distinctions on health care between the parties, and to advocate for a system that makes sense for working families.
Use this as a repository for everything but the election.
(Let's welcome the first of what I hope will be many reports from the CDP's new online organizers! - promoted by David Dayen)
Tonight approximately 75 Stockton area Democrats joined together to watch George W. Bush's last State of the Union Speech... ever. Sponsored by the Stockton branch of Drinking Liberally, our group met at the local Valley Brew, where we had a banquet room all to ourselves. We booed; we hissed; we snickered; we rolled our eyes; occasionally, one or two of us even yelled back at the big screen TV. And we played Bush Bingo. Sadly, we have all become so inured to Bush's clichéd approach to governance that almost everyone was a winner -- and usually in three, four or five different rows.
The board of directors of the ACLU of Southern California has passed a resolution calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for their abuses of basic civil liberties.
(Regarding the summoning of the devil below, I'll get there at some point. But I'd prefer to talk about something important over an obscure argument about which Americans deserve to decide things over which other Americans.)
The battle between environmental groups and the US Navy over the use of sonar off the California coast appeared to come to an end last week, when a federal judge forbade sonar use within 12 miles of the shoreline. But for this ruling to hold, you would have to have a President who believes in an independent judiciary and the rule of law. Alas, we have a king.
The Navy announced today that two important steps have been taken under existing law and regulations to allow it to conduct effective, integrated training with sonar off the coast of southern California after a federal court earlier this month imposed untenable restrictions on such training.
In accordance with the provisions of the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), and at the recommendation of the Secretary of Commerce, the President concluded that continuing these vital exercises without the restrictions imposed by the district court is in the paramount interests of the United States. He signed an exemption from the requirements of the CZMA for the Navy's continued use of mid-frequency active (MFA) sonar in a series of exercises scheduled to take place off the coast of California through January 2009. The Navy already applies twenty-nine mitigation measures approved by federal environmental regulators when using active sonar, and these will remain in place.
In other words, the President thinks killing whales is a small price to pay for not having to tell the Navy move their boats a bit. Anyway, if the whales aren't willing to die for the cause of liberty, then they simply want the terrorists to win.
The Navy takes steps to limit damage to whales, granted. But that is pretty much besides the point. Between denying the waiver for California to regulate its own tailpipe emissions and this latest action, it's clear that this Administration doesn't find the normal structures of the law to apply to them. This next election is in large part about bringing this back into balance, about finding an executive who doesn't treat the Constitution like something on which you wipe your shoes.
So one refrain I've seen bandied about in the last couple months has been that Edwards is a weak candidate because he couldn't even win his home state of North Carolina in 2004. Now, the primary rebuttal is that it was John Kerry's campaign, not Edwards'. But in looking at the numbers, I discovered something quite interesting.
Did you know that Bush got a higher percentage of the vote in 2004, when compared to 2000, in EVERY southern state... EXCEPT for North Carolina? In fact, Bush improved his percentage of the vote in 47 of our 50 states, and even in D.C. Yes, even in states that Bush lost by wide margins, he improved on his vote percentage in those states. He barely got 35% of the vote in New York in 2000, but got over 40% of the vote there in 2004. Think about that. Hell, Bush even improved in Massachusetts, John Kerry's home state. Think about that.
Throughout the US, Democrats will be visiting Republican legislators and taking them copies of this birthday card. Here in California we have several special events taking place.
