With his State of the Union address, President Obama delivered an important message that Congress and the American people need to hear: our nation's leaders must pass legislation that creates American jobs now.
America, our shining city on a hill, has been blessed with great fortune in our proud past, but as the President noted, every generation faces new challenges and new opportunities. We must be bold and forward looking, never forgetting that America's prosperity has always relied on hard work, solid education, and well-maintained infrastructure. We're a nation that has always thrived when we've built things - the light bulb, the automobile, the Internet, and the GPS. We need to build things again. We need to Make It In America
The following is an action alert and news release from Maggie Coulter, president of Sacramento Area Peace Action. A number of people from the Bay Area and California were on the Free Gaza Flotilla attacked by the Israeli military. The death toll continues to rise. There will be a demonstration today at noon in San Francisco and many demonstrations elsewhere throughout the state, country and globe today and tomorrow.
Dan
FreeGaza, one of the organizers of the humanitarian aid flotilla, reports that as many as 10 have been killed: http://twitter.com/freegazaorg...
Please send President Obama a message and ask him to condemn Israel's attacks on the unarmed human rights activists bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza, details below.
Emergency Protest at 12noon. Israeli Consulate and march to Union Square, Memorial Day. Please be there! Bring your own sign!
Israeli Consulate
456 Montgomery St.
San Francisco, CA 94104
Six ships with the Free Gaza Freedom Flotilla en route to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid was attacked by IDF commandos, killing at least 10 people and injuring 50. The Flotilla carried 700 passengers from 50 different countries along with reconstruction, medical and school supplies. Protests are planned in Istanbul, New York, Cairo, Toronto, Belfast, Houston, Chicago and Dublin.
Israelis Kill 3, Injure Dozens in Assault on Gaza Ship Convoy Carrying Humanitarian Aid
Israeli commandos surround convoy, fire live ammunition upon Mavi Marmara, with hundreds of aid workers and activists aboard, including Bay Area activists: KATHY SHEETZ, PAUL LARUDEE, JANET KOBREN & GENE ST.ONGE
Media contacts:
Kevin Clark, Free Gaza Movement/Midwest: FGMinchicago @aol.com, cell 312-259-4380
Fatima Mohammadi, Chicagoan on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla: Satellite phone: +8821636619168; email: fatmoh [at] gmail.com
Huwaida Arraf on board the Challenger: 0088 216 5207 2093
Ewa Jasciewica on board the Challenger: 0088 163 184 7926
Bianca Shana'a, Free Gaza Movement, Paris: 00336 63 59 20 28
Greta Berlin, Free Gaza Movement: 00 357 99 18 72 75
Mary Hughes: 00 357 96 38 38 09
10 PM CST, May 30, 2010: Solidarity activists aboard one of six relief vessels traveling to Gaza with humanitarian report that they have been attacked by Israeli forces, with three of their human rights volunteers killed and roughly 30 injured. The assault comes in the wake of the flotilla being surrounded earlier today by three Israeli warships in international waters, roughly 70 miles away from the Israeli coast. The Flotilla moved further west, deeper into international waters to avoid any conflict with Israeli navy vessels, but had been concerned all night that Israeli forces would send small inflatable military boats towards the flotilla and attempt to attack and board the humanitarian vessels.
Those fears have apparently been realized, with people aboard the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship with hundreds of aid workers and activists aboard, reporting that they have been attacked. At least three passengers have been killed and dozens more wounded. Israeli commandos apparently repelled onto the Mavi Marmara, whose passengers range in age from 88 to a year old and include Christians, Muslims and Jews seeking to end the blockade. Midwest U.S. activists have been unable to reach Chicagoan Fatima Mohammadi, traveling aboard the Mavi Marmara.
Live video from the flotilla shows Israeli naval commando vessels pulling alongside the aid ships, and what sounds like gunfire can be heard in the background. No-one on the aid ships is carrying any kinds of weapons, including for defense against a feared Israeli attack in international waters.
Hundreds of elected officials, former diplomats, aid workers and activists -- including a Nobel laureate and many European legislators -- are with the flotilla, traveling by sea to Gaza to break Israel's blockade of the tiny strip of land. Foreign news correspondents and independent journalists are traveling aboard the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship with hundreds of aid workers and activists aboard which is also running its own press operation reachable at the satellite number +8821636619168. A total of six ships, including two cargo ships and other passenger vehicles, are carrying thousands of tons of humanitarian aid to the beseiged region, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2006.
Israel has marshalled its most lethal military vessels to try to stop the humanitarian marine convoy, and at around 2:20 pm Central Standard Time (US) the first reports of unmanned drone planes buzzing the vessels was received from convoy passengers.
Two boats in the aid flotilla, one currently traveling with the convoy to Gaza and another in port in Cyprus for repairs, are flagged and registered in the United States. The ships are U.S. territory under maritime law, and the U.S. government is required to intervene if this "U.S. property" is attacked or illegally confiscated by Israeli authorities -- a tactic Israel has threatened and deployed in the past. Israel has a long history of attacking ships whose missions are deemed undesirable. In December 2008, it rammed the Dignity, carrying medical and humanitarian aid, doctors, human rights workers and a former U.S. congresswoman, without warning in international waters.
Israel intensified its 2006 blockade after attacking the area in a weeks-long assault that ended in January 2009, killing more than 1,400 and leaving thousands more homeless and reducing huge swaths of housing to rubble. The blockade has created mass unemployment and extreme poverty, leaving four out of five Gazans -- half of whom are children -- dependent on humanitarian aid.
The Freedom Flotilla carries more than 10,000 tons of relief and developmental aid to Gaza, along with roughly 700 participants from more than 30 countries, among them volunteers from South Africa, Algeria, Turkey, Macedonia, Pakistan, Yemin, Kosovo, the UK and US and Kuwait - and an exiled former Archbishop of Jerusalem who currently lives in the Vatican.
The cargo includes prefabricated homes and playgrounds, cement and other home-building supplies, medical devices and medications, textiles and food, in defiance of Israel's siege on Gaza, which restricts the entry of all materials, including food and medicine. The flotilla's supplies were gathered by a coalition of international civil society and human rights organizations to be sent directly to the people of Gaza by sea, using only international waters and the coastal waters immediately off of Gaza for passage. The flotilla is expected to arrive in Gaza as early as today.
Participants on board speak languages that include English, Turkish, Kurdish, over ten dialects of Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, Portugeuse, French, Malaysian, Indonesian, Norweigen, Swedish, Urdu, Punjabi, Farsi, Hindi, German, Flemish, Greek, Catalon, Russian, Bosnian, Chechen, Macedonian and Albanian. Reporters on board hail from locations that include the United Kingdom, Spain, Malaysia, Indonesia, Venezuela, Kuwait, South Africa, Pakistan, Jordan, the Persian Gulf and across the Arab world.
LIVE video feed: http://www.livestream.com/ insaniyardim
http://www.WitnessGaza.com http://www.freegaza.org gazafreedommarch.org
http://fpmdigitalship. blogspot.com/
http://www.ihh.org.tr savegaza.eu/eng
http://www.perdana4peace.org/D... aspx
http://www.shiptogaza.gr shiptogaza.se
http://www.commondreams.org
Recent news reports on the aid flotilla:
Gaza aid flotilla anticipates high-seas standoff with Israel - LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/ news/nationworld/world/ middleeast/la-fg-gaza- flotilla-20100531,0,7691835. story
Gaza Aid Convoy Showdown Poses Challenge for Israel - Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/ time/world/article/0,8599, 1992205,00.html
Pro-Palestinian aid flotilla sets sail for Gaza - Associated Press: http://www.google.com/ hostednews/ap/article/ ALeqM5ioi_ 0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD9G172 NG0
Gaza Freedom Flotilla Shows Power of Nonviolent Resistance - Huffington Post: http://www. huffingtonpost.com/robert- naiman/gaza-freedom-flotilla- sho_b_594407.html
Rel ief convoy sails from Cyprus for Gaza- Reuters: http://www.iol.co.za/ index.php?set_id=1&click_id= 123&art_id= nw20100530102034310C692180
Convoy of ships resumes journey toward Gaza - CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2010/ WORLD/meast/05/30/gaza. protest/?hpt=T2
Aid ships set out to bust Gaza blockade - AFP: http://www.google.com/ hostednews/afp/article/ ALeqM5gx- Zcxvyt5gEOZXW1NrQEoxEB_pw
Cyprus stops MPs from joining Gaza flotilla - Cyprus Mail: http://www.cyprus-mail. com/cyprus/cyprus-stops-mps- joining-gaza-flotilla/20100529
Gaza-bound aid ships leave Cyprus - Aljazeera.net: http://english.aljazeera.net/ news/middleeast/2010/05/ 201053062124985747.html
Report: Israeli navy prepares to stop Freedom Fleet - Maan News Agency (Palestine): http://www. maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails. aspx?ID=288217
Gaza-bound aid ships leave Cyprus - Aljazeera.net: http://english. aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/ 2010/05/201053062124985 747.html
If you look at any of the 24X7 news shows or even the Today Show, you will see everyone proclaiming that there is an anti-incumbent mood spreading across America. There is good reason to say that as evidenced by the size of Tea Party rallies and even a few of the races last Tuesday. But, my personal opinion is that this is less about an anti-incumbent mood and more about a "pro-change" disposition. Voters are angry about the current state of blame and stall politics. They expect elected officials to keep their promises - and that extends to clean energy and climate legislation.
Even though clean energy and climate issues are rarely at the heart of the anti-incumbency rhetoric, the frustration with all things Beltway could block comprehensive energy legislation this year.
President Obama's leadership is the only force that can change that.
You see, when the electorate turns anti-Washington, Congressmen freeze up. They get scared of taking bold steps and they start saying "no" to everything.
Even on a good day, the odds of passing any bill in Congress--no matter the issue--starts at about 5 percent. Smart gamblers always bet the no vote in Congress.
But being a naysayer becomes even more attractive to politicians when they think their job is at risk. Voting "no" on a big, transformative bill allows them to give the illusion that they are "playing it safe" and to keep the bull's-eye off their back for potential mid-term popularity contests.
"No" may be an easy decision for politicians, but it is the wrong choice for the American people.
We need to say yes to a clean energy and climate bill that will generate nearly 2 million jobs, put our nation at the forefront of one of the biggest markets of the 21st century, end our reliance on oil, and reduce dangerous pollution. Yet so many lawmakers are in a panic over elections that they can't see these benefits.
They need to snap out of it. In a movie, this is the moment when someone would come along and slap the panicking person in the face. In politics, that slap is leadership.
President Obama must take charge of clean energy and climate legislation. The only major bills that pass through Congress are the ones with White House support. We are fortunate that President Obama backs climate action, but given this anti-incumbent mood, we need him not just to support it; we need him to lead it.
What would that look like? We saw it in the heath care debate. President Obama went into campaign mode and stumped on that bill every single day. He called in political chits. He got people in the same room to negotiate. He dragged it over the finish line because he went farther than asking for change. He demanded it.
That is what we need him to do for a clean energy and climate bill. Because let's be frank: either we see some leadership or we call it a day.
If we don't pass the bill this year, we won't get another chance for years. Dave Robert's painted the grim prospects for national climate action given the likely outcomes of future election cycles in his Grist blog this week. It doesn't look good for another eight years - at least.
We need to get America moving right now toward a clean energy future, and we need President Obama to lead the way.
This week, Robert Redford appeared in a television ad for the NRDC that has already been written about in the Washington Post and New York Times. Interestingly, he didn't call on Congress to take clean energy and climate action. He called on President Obama.
The president is the one with the bully pulpit. Tell him to use it on behalf of clean energy and climate solutions. Securing our future depends on it.
One of my first real memories of tragedy was when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. My entire school was cheering on teacher Christa McAuliffe, and when the shuttle blew up in midair, I remember standing with my sobbing classmates, trying to make sense of what we had witnessed.
As an adult, I felt a similar connection the day after September 11. In the midst of a national crisis, Congressmen from both parties and both chambers stood on the Capitol stairs and sang "God Bless America." I will never forget that moment and the sense of common cause it inspired in all who heard it.
This country and the planet cannot afford to delay climate and clean energy legislation. It is that simple. Every day Washington politics puts our clean energy future on hold our economy gets weaker, our enemies get stronger, and the planet gets more polluted. It has been almost a year since the House approved comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation to create jobs, cut our oil imports in half and reduce the carbon pollution that threatens us all, and we are still waiting for the Senate to act. The time is now for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation that jump-starts our economy, strengthens national security, and leads to a healthier planet.
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.
Driving to work (school) the other day, I listed on NPR as they talked about the need to curb spending, and AGAIN, the targets were the very DOMESTIC programs that the people value the most -- Medicare, Social Security, etc. NOT ONE WORD about the incredibly bloated defense budget or the Homeland Security Agency that's allowing more and more of our tax dollars to be privatized into black holes of campaign contributors. If we want to get a handle on the deficits (and I'm not sure any of our electeds are serious about that), then the MILITARY budget and their constant "supplementals" has to be put on the TOP of the stack for cutting.
Here's another of the great releases being done by CD36 candidate Marcy Winograd. A few days old, but still quite relevant:
Marina del Rey, CA, January 20, 2010 -- President Obama's soon-to-be announced three-year spending freeze will have a chilling effect on our schools, says Congressional Candidate Marcy Winograd (CA-36/Harman), a veteran public school teacher, who points out that K-12 schools, already choking from lay-offs and overcrowded classes, face the danger of book shortages and additional program cuts.
Programs Most Affected
Though the majority of school funding comes from the states, the Obama proposal could freeze spending on items funded with federal dollars: supplementary books, reading programs, English as a Second Language classes, and modifications for students with disabilities.
Here's the short version: I called her office in San Francisco today, and wouldn't you know it, no change. No word. No statement. No dice. No leadership. No pass go, no get your $200.
2) Prohibiting the denial of insurance because of pre-existing conditions
3) Moving toward either a non-profit model of medical insurance or to one where premium costs can be controlled, either through competition in a public or cooperative model or through a regulated authority.
4) Assuring the financial survival of Medicare, because it is slated to run out of money in 2017.
5) Preventing the transfer of Medicaid costs to states, which could result in billions of dollars of additional loss to the State of California.
6) Establishing means testing for programs like Medicare Part D, which pays for prescription drugs
Clearly, the individual mandate - and how it is funded - is the critical, and as yet unanswered, question.
Huh? Let's look at this more closely over the flip.
(DiFi is screwing us on health care. Please get involved. - promoted by David Dayen)
In the last few days, there has been a significant shift in the political winds in Washington towards real health care reform, with a robust public health insurance option at its heart. The last thing we need is someone nay-saying that reform won't pass.
Why, then, is Senator Diane Feinstein doing just that, saying she's not sure reform is going to pass? She should help us make history, not stand in the way!
It's cold comfort to many that history is moving in the right direction, with five states already on their way to marriage equality. But it's our job to make sure history moves faster towards equality here in California.
We must redouble our efforts in California to finally win this fight for equal rights. Please, take a moment today and lend your voice to this just cause.
Let's be respectful. But let's be clear. We must start changing minds today. I know many of my fellow Californians may initially agree with this ruling, but I ask them to reserve final judgment until they have discussed this decision with someone who will be affected by it.
Please talk to a lesbian or gay family member, neighbor or co-worker and ask them why equality in the eyes of the law is important to every Californian. Please talk to local business leaders who know that this will cost jobs and make California less competitive. Please remember we all know someone who is hurt by this decision today. Please reach out to these friends, family members, co-workers and neighbors and discuss why this decision is wrong for California.
California, at its best, is a beacon of equal rights and equal opportunities. If we want to prosper together, we must respect one another.
That's why we must resolve to restore marriage equality to all Californians. Let this work start today. Sign our petition and join the efforts of the Courage Campaign and Equality California.
Truly, one of the strongest aspects of Healthy San Francisco (HSF) is its simplicity. The program allows participants to select their primary care provider from among dozens of local hospitals and clinics, both public and private. Our local system does not require lengthy HMO paperwork and there is no denial of treatment based on pre-existing medical conditions.
A recent study showed that Healthy San Francisco is dramatically less expensive than traditional insurance. And our experience in San Francisco is proving what most American's already know - it is much less expensive to keep people well than it is to treat their sickness, particularly when so much treatment for uninsured Americans is provided in costly emergency rooms.
There are currently more than 40,000 participants in HSF. We are enrolling approximately 600 new participants every week. We have already enrolled more than half of the previously uninsured San Franciscans and the vast majority will have access to health care by the end of next year.
I believe that administration and congressional leaders understand that we cannot wait for health care reform. Our health care crisis affects every aspect of our society - from making sure every child receives the health care they need to succeed in school, to decreasing the financial burden on business, both large and small, so our economy can get back on track.
I know there is pressure in Washington to wait until the economy improves before we act on health care reform. I faced many of the same pressures when I was working with allies in San Francisco to forge our universal health care delivery system.
But "waiting" in politics usually means never - and we simply cannot afford to wait any longer. The lessons we are learning in San Francisco shows that investing in health and wellness is its own kind of economic stimulus.
The time is now to tackle this problem and I applaud President Obama for promising to sign a national health care reform bill by October. We cannot wait for change - the President needs your help. Sign the petition to support President Obama's call for health care reform.
For my part, I was recently made Chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Task Force on Health Care Reform. Cities often have the most pressing health care needs and have had to adapt and innovate in lieu of national health care reform. I am looking forward to working with my fellow Mayor's to hear what they have learned in their cities and share what we've learned in my hometown through Healthy San Francisco.
In the end, the task force will identify urban health care priorities and advise the work of Congress and the Administration to help solve this crucial challenge we all share. As always, please feel free to give me your input and feedback in the comments section below.
(A post from Mayor Newsom. As a reminder, elected officials are encouraged to post on Calitics; we'll do our best to promote them to the front page promptly. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Every day more San Francisco residents and businesses are signing up for two San Francisco programs that will cut monthly utility bills and help the City meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. One is SF Energy Watch, which provides technical assistance and financial incentives that pays over half the cost of energy efficiency upgrades to commercial and multifamily properties. The other is GoSolarSF, which, when combined with federal tax credits and state incentives, can reduce the cost of installing a residential solar power system by more than 50 percent.
Edited by Brian for space. See the flip for the rest of the post.
For the past few months I have been holding town hall forums across California and no matter where I go, the issue of health care is front and center. These concerns are getting more pronounced and more passionate as the weeks wear on and unemployment continues to rise. People are losing their employer-based health care and COBRA is a temporary and expensive stopgap measure that is stressing already maxed-out family budgets.
The need for bold programs addressing the health care crisis was brought into focus by a new UC Berkeley report showing that more than 500,000 Californians have lost their health care since the start of the recession.
In the past five years, we have worked hard to provide universal health care in San Francisco through our Healthy San Francisco program. We have now enrolled over 38,000 of our city's estimated 60,000 uninsured. It's a great start but there is still much work to do here in San Francisco and across California as the new UC Berkeley report clearly lays out.
On my Green 960 radio show this week I talked with Lloyd Dean, the head of Catholic Healthcare West, Mitch Katz, Director of San Francisco Department of Public Health and Tangerine Brigham, Director of Healthy San Francisco about how to bring the "Healthy SF" model to other cities and towns throughout California.
As we discuss on the show, a critical next step for any city or town looking to replicate Healthy SF is to start organizing their community health clinics. Community clinics have historically provided services to uninsured and underserved populations. It's important for any health care effort at the local, state or federal level to include these crucial providers.
I hope you will listen to the show and let us know your thoughts and suggestions in the comment section as we work to create better health care service here and universal health care across California. As the President and Congress move to reform the health care system in Washington - the time is now to let your voice be heard.
We waited, many waited a lot longer than I did and I was lucky to be there in line, waiting and waiting. It gave us a lot of time to talk, I'm sure the overnighter on Monday was difficult and still enjoyable, except for those who didn't get tickets.
As I sat and President Obama came in and people chanted, "Obama, Obama, Obama" we knew it, we knew that Orange County was hungry, not for just change but for Democrats to be heard and seen in our County and for our values to be taken seriously by the media. That 500,000 plus Democrats in "The OC" are not an anomaly but a force to be reckoned with. And that we had found a voice for those values, a voice that was clear and proud of those values. Orange County had arrived and was not longer just "red" anymore.
After eight dismal years of healthcare policy from an administration more interested in engorging the nation's insurance and pharmaceutical industries, how refreshing to hear a State of the Union speech that calls for comprehensive reform and recognizes the real pain and suffering of American families priced out of access to care.
So President Obama deserves plaudits for his emphasis on healthcare reform, and pledge to getting it done this year amidst the deepening economic gloom.
But it won't do our nation -- or the President and Congress -- any good to expend the political capital necessary to pass legislation unless we actually fix the problem.
Last week, President Obama laid out his administration's Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan to deal with the foreclosure crisis. I wanted to weigh in on it since, as President of the Los Angeles City Council, it's been an issue my office has been working extremely hard on for months at the local level.
Obama's plan would devote $75 billion from the TARP funds as well as $200 billion in additional funding commitments to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to help between 7-9 million families avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes. This is particularly important here in California where, according to RealtyTrac, in 2008 alone California saw more than 520,000 of its homes receive foreclosure filings, a jump of 110% over 2007.
I was heartened by this plan because, while it's not perfect, it does several things that I think are very important. 1. It provides incentives to servicers who lower interest rates and to borrowers for keeping current on their loans; 2. It helps restructure loans and reduce monthly payments for responsible homeowners who wish to stay in their homes; the plan does not reward speculators, house flippers or dishonest lenders; and 3. The plan reflects the reality that I've been dealing with on the ground here in Los Angeles for months now: that solving this crisis is not just about saving homeowners' homes, this is about saving entire communities.
The deep contraction in the economy and in the housing market has created devastating consequences for homeowners and communities throughout the country. [...]
The plan will help up to 7 to 9 million families restructure or refinance their mortgages to avoid foreclosure. In doing so, the plan not only helps responsible homeowners on the verge of defaulting, but prevents neighborhoods and communities from being pulled over the edge too, as defaults and foreclosures contribute to falling home values, failing local businesses, and lost jobs.
It goes on:
Protecting Neighborhoods: This plan will also help to stabilize home prices for all homeowners in a neighborhood. When a home goes into foreclosure, the entire neighborhood is hurt. The average homeowner could see his or her home value stabilized against declines in price by as much as $6,000 relative to what it would otherwise be absent the Homeowner Stability Initiative.
The impact of a foreclosed home on its neighborhood can be devastating. Not only does each foreclosed home reduce nearby property values by as much as 9 percent, but a boarded up house invites crime and leads to blight, a particular concern in the Los Angeles area.
On Wednesday I wrote a piece on Huffington Post and another at Open Left talking about the centrality of fixing the foreclosure crisis to any recovery from the economic meltdown. Since the toxic assets at the center of the meltdown are based on mortgages that are entering foreclosure at a rate of one every 13 seconds, we have to address foreclosure as a part of getting America back on its feet.
The Homeowner Affordability and Stabilization Plan (HASP), announced in Phoenix on Wednesday by President Obama, which will help up to an estimated 9 million families, is a good first step - and the first serious effort by the Federal government to confront the challenge. But just because there was an announcement does not lessen the urgency of the problem. We are still in a situation where four families every minute enter the foreclosure process. We believe there must be a moratorium on foreclosures until HASP is fully implemented.
So yesterday we at ACORN launched the Home Defenders campaign in seven cities - a campaign to force the question of moratoriums and to press the urgency of this crisis into the consciousness of elected officials on the state and national levels. This is a campaign of refusal and resistance, refusal by distressed homeowners to cooperate with the foreclosure process and resistance to attempts to evict them from their homes. And in some cases it is a campaign of getting people back into their homes.
I wanted to give everyone a report-back from our activities yesterday, which is in the extended text.
(Welcome L.A. City Council President Eric Garcetti to Calitics. Full disclosure: I'm doing blog outreach for his re-election campaign. - promoted by Todd Beeton)
As I write this, the House and Senate negotiators are preparing to meet with the White House to hammer out a stimulus deal that can be delivered to the President's desk by the end of the week. Unfortunately, by all accounts, the deal they've reached is an even smaller stimulus package than either the Senate or the House version, coming in at under $790 billion.
Watching the negotiations over the past week, I have to say I've been disturbed not only at the fact that at every turn more has been cut from an already inadequate stimulus package but also at where the cuts have been targeted. As the President of the Los Angeles City Council, I've been most concerned about the cuts -- or should I say "adjustments downward?" -- from aid to states and cities, namely the $40 billion that the Senate version cut from the state fiscal stabilization funds. This represented almost a 50% decrease in some of the most stimulative spending in the entire package including $25 billion in state block grants and $15 billion in education funding at the state level.
I was heartened to hear President Obama state during his press conference Monday night that he'd like to see some of the funding for states returned to the bill in conference. Unfortunately, as David writes below, it looks as though only $5 billion of the $40 billion will survive. This is disappointing, to say the least.
To me, these are not just numbers, they are very real. These spending cuts represent very real jobs lost, very real infrastructure projects left undone and very real people unable to stay in their homes. I was glad to hear the President strike the same note on the road in Virginia today:
"What's at stake here is not abstract numbers... We're talking about real families," Obama said. "We're at the doorstep of getting this plan through Congress, but the work is not over."
Precisely, Mr. President, which is why it is my hope that this much needed funding to our cities and states will find its way to us through other means if it does not survive the stimulus compromise today.
There is clearly much more to be said on the subject -- especially as this story is constantly evolving -- and I look forward to engaging with this community over the next month leading up to the Los Angeles municipal elections on March 3 and beyond. To stay in touch with me, please join my campaign and visit my new blog. I look forward to the ongoing conversation about this and other issues in the months and years ahead.
ACORN members know what that does to a family and to a community. So today, 300 ACORN members took over the Mitchell Courthouse in Baltimore, Maryland singing and chanting as they overwhelmed the 20 or so sheriff's deputies assigned to "protect" auctioneers from selling off foreclosed properties.
