In recent weeks, I have been writing about the need to primary out Dianne Feinstein when she comes up for reelection and the need to lay down the groundwork now so that we will have a credible candidate in place. In recent days, we have been writing about the need for our Democratic legislators to not make any more deals with the President, given that he has proven that he is dishonest and cannot be trusted to keep his word.
The fact of the matter is that this is the exact reason why we need to primary her out by uniting behind a candidate to replace her -- she has shown a proven propensity for cutting deals with the Bush administration even though they have a proven record of dishonesty.
What specifically triggered this series of diaries was her selling out the Constitution by voting for the FISA bill. The resignation of Gonzales does not change the fact that her vote was a sellout. It does not matter who is in charge of the Attorney General's office; it is unAmerican and totally contrary to the values that we were founded with to sell out the Constitutional protections against illegal searches and seizures.
What DiFi and the rest of the minority of Democratic enablers do not understand is that these issues should not even be a matter for debate. The Constitution is not only a set of laws, they contain the values that should govern our public policy at all times. The same is the case with torture, renditions, and all of the other violations of the Constitution that have taken place with her consent.
And there is another thing that has to be kept in mind -- where is DiFi on Iran? Will she join Joe Lieberman and call for war on Iran and the extension of perpetual warfare in the Middle East?
August 21st edition
August 14th edition
August 7th edition
The case against Dianne Feinstien
The Senators who caved in on FISA
Eliminated
John Chiang
Bill Lockyer
Diane Watson (Eliminated last week)
Diary Rescue:
This diary shows how out of touch Dianne Feinstein is with the people of her state. When this diarist wrote to DiFi asking why she cast the 60th vote for FISA, she sent the wrong form letter in return -- she sent a form letter on impeachment.
And not only that, her form letter shows how full of shit she is on these issues -- she is of the opinion that there are certain things she dare not do, or it will risk "dividing the country." No, Senator, that is full of shit and is no different from the crap that we heard from Joe Lieberman. The last time I checked, enforcing the laws of the land brings the country together; it does not divide the country at all. And her logic is plain -- we can't enforce the Constitution, or it will "divide the country."
So, what is she even a Democrat for? Last time I checked, FDR did not worry about dividing the country when he realized that we needed drastic change if we were to ever recover from the Great Depression. If she had been president in 1933, she would have been almost as bad as Hoover, as she would have refused to take any meaningful steps out of fear of "dividing the country." If she had been president instead of JFK, she would not have chosen to go to the moon; that would have "divided the country."
KingOneEye writes about how Ted Nugent calls for the violent shooting of Hillary and Obama. Sadly, he is not the only one; for instance, Michael Reagan called for the arrest, trial, and execution of Howard Dean. What our Senators like DiFi have got to understand is that these people are within the mainstream of Republican thought. This is not some fringe nut; this person is one of the many faces of the Republican Party. The same is true with Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and people of that nature. People like that reflect the true attitudes of any given Republican legislator towards any progressive values and towards them personally. Therefore, they cannot be reasoned with.
In the news
Dianne Feinstein enables Bush on potential Maliki ouster
True to form, DiFi is continuing to cut deals with the President on Iraq, blind to the fact that the Republican Party and the Bush administration is now a fringe administration that is totally out of touch with the American Public.
This is a case in point -- recently, I called for the Democratic Leadership to set a date certain beyond which our forces would not be in Iraq. It would be a date that would be non-negotiable. But the problem is that DiFi, with remarks of that nature, is undermining this effort. She is undermining that effort because if Maliki were to "resign," then Bush could turn around and say with some legitimacy in peoples' eyes that we needed more time for the occupation to work. Then, Bush would find some other excuse for why we needed to continue this occupation. Thus, he would be able to continue his policy of perpetual warfare.
There should be no negotiations whatsoever about any aspect of Iraq whatsoever -- our Democratic leadership should set a date certain beyond which our troops would no longer be in Iraq. The problem with talking about Anbar or Maliki or whatever is that it allows Bush to justify continuing the current occupation of Iraq. It doesn't matter how they try to do it -- even if it fails, the Republicans will be on record as supporting perpetual warfare.
New Nominee
Steve Westly
He has not dropped out of politics despite his California primary defeat. He has formed the California Leadership Committee, an organization which will recruit and train Democrats for office in California. What Democracy for American has done at the national level, Westly plans to do at the local level.
There is another thing that has to be addressed -- the primary between him and Phil Angiledes was highly acrimonious and led to record low turnouts in that state, and helped Schwartznegger to win reelection. A similar such primary nearly cost us our chances to take out George Allen before his Macaca Moment gave us new life in Virginia. We must get behind someone and push for that candidate once a winner is selected. Otherwise, we will not be able to take out DiFi when 2012 rolls around.
Other candidates
Debra Bowen
Bowen talks about the efforts that she has made to ensure free and fair elections; she has already decertified many voting machines that were not safe in California. She noted that only 44% of voters have a high degree of confidence that their votes are being accurately counted. Most importantly of all, she sees her job as proactive, not waiting until major problems like Florida 2000 or Ohio 2004 happen:
Secretary Bowen’s decisions on voting system certifications follow her thorough review of detailed academic findings by teams of nationally respected computer experts, as well as extensive input from voters, voting system vendors, and national, state and local elections experts. The most serious vulnerabilities – never before discovered by federal or state testers – were security holes in the Diebold and Sequoia DRE systems that made viral propagation and multi-election exploits possible with no knowledge of the computer source code or access to the central parts of the voting system.
These are things that people here and elsewhere have been saying for a long time -- these machines are simply not reliable and are too vulnerable to exploitation.
Jerry Brown
Jerry Brown came one step closer towards securing $1.3 billion worth of money for California customers who were gouged during the energy crisis of 2001.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today issued a key decision that requires the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reconsider its refusal to grant energy crisis refunds—which could potentially return $1.3 billion to California ratepayers. The Attorney General had asked the court to reverse FERC’s refusal to grant refunds after ratepayers suffered massive price-gouging on short-term energy purchased in the Pacific Northwest during the energy crisis of 2001.
In arguments before the 9th Circuit, the Attorney General argued that FERC abused its discretion when it excluded the state’s purchases from refund eligibility. The Court agreed with California’s position and remanded the case back to FERC for reconsideration in light of the Court’s decision.
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom is fighting for a law passed by the city that will allow firms owned by women and minorities to win contracts with the city. One construction company is fighting that law in court and got it struck down, a higher court is considering the case on appeal. Here is Newsom's statement:
MAYOR NEWSOM’S STATEMENT REGARDING THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT’S REVIEW OF CORAL CONSTRUCTION v. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO
San Francisco enacted a sensible law that levels the playing field to give minorities and women an equal opportunity to win city contracts. In 2004, our anti-discrimination law suffered a setback when a judge struck it down.
Today the California Supreme Court accepted review of the case. We are confident that the law is constitutional, and we believe the Court will agree.
The significance of this case goes well beyond one city's public contracting program. It goes to the heart of how we as a society can combat discrimination in education, public contracting, and employment. Once again, San Francisco is leading the way.
I continue to pledge my full support to the City Attorney, the Board of Supervisors, and the Human Rights Commission as together we fight to defend our sensible law.
John Garamendi
An article about the fallout from Proposition 13, 30 years later talks about how Garamendi benefitted from what was a model education system at the time and how he is fighting higher tuition fees at California's colleges.
When Garamendi attended Cal, he kept busy playing varsity football to some success and working various jobs; he remembers cleaning the stadium on Sundays.
Big changes were sweeping across campus—the 1964 Free Speech Movement is considered a bellwether for the decade of campus protests that followed.
"Everybody in Berkeley was involved in politics during those days," recalls Garamendi.
Garamendi opposes any more hikes, saying that even with grants and financial aid, many lower-income families can't contemplate the idea of incurring $40,000 in debt.
Rob Reiner
This film critic argues that Reiner has lost his mojo in recent years:
Reiner was known primarily as Meathead on "All in the Family" when he directed the quintessential mockumentary "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984). Next came "The Sure Thing" (1985), "Stand By Me" (1986), "The Princess Bride" (1987), "When Harry Met Sally..." (1989), "Misery" (1990) and "A Few Good Men" (1992).
Even if he’d shown himself to be more of a craftsman than an artist, that’s an awfully solid seven-film start to a directing career.
Then he made "North" (1994), a whimsical tale of an 11-year-old boy (Elijah Wood) in search of new parents. It inspired Roger Ebert’s famous review: "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it."
Reiner rebounded to direct the well-liked "The American President" the following year, but since then he’s made nothing but duds: "Ghosts of Mississippi" (1996), "The Story of Us" (1999), "Alex and Emma" (2003) and "Rumor Has It..." (2005).
Antonio Villaraigosa
The LA mayor hired Dan Gruenfeld, a long-time advocate for homeless and low-income people, to be on his task force. Gruenfeld heads up a law firm that provides millions of dollars worth of free legal representation to homeless, low-income people, and immigrants.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced today he had hired as his No. 2 policy advisor one of the city's top public interest lawyers -- an attorney who spent nearly a decade advocating on behalf of immigrants, low-income neighborhoods and homeless residents in need of legal representation.
Villaraigosa's deputy chief of staff will be Dan Grunfeld, president and chief executive of Public Counsel, the largest organization in the United States that provides legal aid to the poor and disenfranchised.
Grunfeld, who will coordinate Villaraigosa's policy agenda, has never worked for a government agency. Still, the Beverlywood resident said he had a background in policy, having teamed up with Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley to fight elder abuse and having sued Kaiser Permanente over the alleged dumping of homeless patients on skid row.
Ron Dellums
SF Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson wrestles with the first several months of the Dellums administration and points out that his style is very much different from Brown's style of leadership; where Brown was highly outspoken, Dellums is slow and deliberate, listening to all sides of the issues. Ultimately, he comes away impressed and with a healthy respect.
If you hadn't noticed, it's not the mayor's style to jump feet-first into any of the issues brought to - or, in the case of the garbage lockout, left at - residents' doorsteps. Dellums is a deliberate man who views things from all angles and follows a process to its logical end. With him, it really is a social science.
It took him a while to get up and running on the garbage lockout, but when he did assert himself - and his authority as mayor - the negotiations quickly moved forward.
When it comes to Dellums' long-term plans for the construction of new homes and redevelopment projects, it appears he will approach the subject in much the same way.
Lynn Woolsey
The Congresswoman highlights the top 10 accomplishments of the new Democratic Congress; this is an important read. We have to remember that for all their failures (FISA, the Iraq supplemental), there are plenty of accomplishments as well:
Minimum wage increase. This spring, we were able to pass an increase to the minimum wage for the first time in over ten years, the longest stretch without an increase in history. Maybe it's a coincidence that Republicans couldn't find time to raise the minimum wage over the last decade while Democrats made it a priority as soon as they took control, but I haven't seen much evidence that Republicans want government to help people.
Ethics and lobbying reform. Working with both parties, we were able to pass ethics and lobbying reform for members of Congress that addresses some of the loopholes lobbyists exploited in the last Congress by ending some of the secrecy around lobbyist money. Hopefully President Bush will sign this legislation soon. Take that, culture of corruption!
9/11 Commission recommendations. This bill should have been passed years ago, but the Democratic Congress was able to get it done earlier this year with support from both parties. It will improve security at airports and seaports, as well as allocate more money to California.
No Child Left Behind. As a member of the House Education and Labor Committee, we are working hard to change some of the most egregious parts of this law. Every kid knows it's impossible to force the square peg into the round hole, and it's every bit as impossible to fit every kid's progress into a single standardized test. There are some common sense improvements we can make to this system that won't force us to give up on physical education, the arts, civics, and other important topics in favor of single-minded devotion to reading and math.-
Student financial aid. Student loan rates have been kept artificially high by preserving unnecessary subsidies to private lenders, so, as part of the largest expansion in college aid since the GI Bill, Democrats voted to cut back the subsidies and reduce rates for students and their families. The bill would also increase financial aid. Overall, 900,000 students in California would benefit from this legislation.
Children's Health Insurance Program. I'm especially proud of the way Republicans and Democrats in Congress came together to continue this valuable program. Ten years ago, President Clinton and Republicans in Congress put aside their differences for the sake of improving children's health by enacting this legislation, and Congress renewed it this summer. Unfortunately, it says a lot about President Bush's supposed compassionate conservatism that he plans to veto the bill, putting his dogmatic anti-government views ahead of the health of our children.
Stem cell research. This was another excellent bill that President Bush couldn't accept. Stem cell research could alleviate so much suffering. The President's position is principled, but I strongly disagree with it.
Renewable energy and efficiency. Right before the recess, we passed an energy bill that stipulates that utilities get a minimum amount of their electricity from wind and solar sources. It also stipulates new efficiency standards for lightbulbs, buildings, and appliances. These are great steps to be taking, and they will help us create stable high tech jobs while increasing our energy security. However, I would have liked to see the bill include fuel economy standards for automobiles and more funding for alternative energy sources. Hopefully those will come soon.
The Balancing Act. This is the name I've given to my comprehensive legislation to help families balance their home and work lives more easily. The whole Congress has yet to take it up, but I'd like it to soon. The bill would fund universal (but voluntary) preschool, get rid of the junk food in school cafeterias while increasing access to school nutrition programs, improve the quality and availability of after school programs, and help employers establish family-friendly workplaces.
Iraq. This is the big one. I've opposed the occupation of Iraq since way back in 2003. Our troops have no business being in the middle of someone else's civil war. Besides, al Qaeda is operating out of Pakistan, not Iraq. Our presence there only serves as a recruiting poster for the next generation of terrorists. The President is almost inexplicably committed to staying in Iraq, which is why it is up to Congress to end our involvement.
Barbara Lee
The Congresswoman, commenting on a new US Census report on poverty in this country showing levels unchanged, discusses the need to eradicate poverty in this country; she is one of the co-founders of Congress' Out of Poverty Project:
"It is completely unacceptable that, in the richest nation in the world, there are almost 37 million people living in poverty, and it is extremely troubling that the President and Congress have not made addressing this issue is not a national priority," said Lee. "This report underscores the degree to which the Bush administration’s economic policies have favored the wealthy to the detriment of poor and middle income Americans."
In addition to co-founding the Out-of-Poverty Caucus, Lee has introduced a number of measures related to poverty, including most recently a resolution designed to set a national goal of cutting poverty in the U.S. in half over the next ten years.
"Eradicating poverty needs to be a national priority, and the best way to do that is to set some measurable goals. If we are serious about this, we need to commit to cutting the number of people living in poverty in this country in half over the next ten years."
Maxine Waters
The Heritage Foundation, commenting on her call for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics, says that it does not go far enough and that it is merely symbolic because Congress will simply forget it and then go on to something else:
Earlier this month, eight prominent Republicans in Congress introduced House Resolution 610, calling for a boycott of the games. They elicited a great deal of sympathy from those in the policy community who are concerned about China's dismal record on human rights. Representative Maxine Waters (D–CA) introduced her own resolution that expressed similar concerns from the Democratic side of the aisle, specifically delineating China's economic and military support for Sudan's genocidal regime.
The boycott resolutions make an important statement, but they do not address the real problem. Members of Congress might simply vote for one version or the other, dust off their hands, and move on to the next order of business. Not only are House resolutions non-binding, but also they are generally seen on Capitol Hill as adequate substitutions for action that require no follow-up.
Parallels With 1936
The tragedy of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin was not that the free world participated but that nobody used the limelight of the Games to make an issue of Germany's deepening persecutions of Jews, its remilitarization, its occupation of the Rhineland, or its threats against Austria as it resisted being labeled "part of the German nation."
Jerry McNerney
Lane Hudson at the Huffington Post argues that his remarks calling for working with the generals on a timetable for withdrawal and starting from scratch shows inexperience on his part and compares it with Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, who went on the same trip:
In this comparison, it seems to me that McNerney is the victim of inexperience. It's almost as if he's a young, impressionable teenager. I'm sure it's quite convincing to sit across the table from General Petreus and listen to him assure you that progress has been made. Couple that personal meeting with all of the nuances of being a part of a congressional trip to Iraq and you can feel pretty darn self-important. No wonder he's strayed from his original position. He was under the influence of the ultimate propaganda: a congressional junket.
McNerney would do well to go back home and listen to his constituents on the subject of the war in Iraq. That was the top reason he was elected.
He would also do well to consult with more senior members of his party. Maybe it is a little unreasonable to suggest this, but I think he needs a "congressional mentor." Normally, a seasoned chief of staff would fill this role until a member became accustomed to the demands of office. However, McNerney has his own impressionable newbie chief of staff.
Perhaps Jan Schakowsky will take McNerney under her wing and show him the way. Otherwise McNerney could end up on the wrong side of the biggest and most important issue of our time.
Loretta Sanchez
Loretta Sanchez made a huge splash in her initial debut in the polls, winning last week's polls. However, she is also a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, which is the group most likely to cave into the Bush administration. Obviously, not all of the Blue Dogs are the same on this, and each Congressman must be judged individually. But will it do us any good to primary out DiFi, only to replace her with someone who could turn out to be just as far to the right on the issues as she is? People who are attracted to her candidacy need to decide if her membership in that coalition would affect their support for her in thes polls. And there is a danger that people might not get behind a Draft Sanchez to beat DiFi movement if they think they are both one and the same on the issues. If we are to pick her, everybody has to be OK with it or feel that her positives are enough to outweigh this fact. We need to vet these things now so that they won't become a headache later.
Henry Waxman
Waxman has introduced a bill that would reduce the use of no-bid contracts; he has now released a database of 189 government contracts that he says were marred by waste, fraud, and abuse.
The leading proponent for change has been Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., who has held hearings examining abuse in Homeland Security procurements, sponsored a bill to reduce the use of sole-source contracts and released a database of 189 contracts linked to waste, fraud or mismanagement. "A major problem is that while contract spending has soared, oversight has been discouraged and account-ability undermined," Waxman said in May at a contracting forum hosted by the Center for American Progress. "The result is mistakes have been made in virtually every step of the contracting process, from pre-contract planning through contract award and oversight to recovery of contract overcharges."
In April, for example, the Education Department inspector general found the agency's management of a key information technology services contract was inadequate. The same month, the National Toxicology Program terminated a contract with a consulting firm it had hired to assess how dozens of potentially toxic chemicals affect women's reproductive health, after reports surfaced that the company had ties to the chemical industry.
Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in particular has focused on the rise of no-bid contracts. The committee released a report in late June concluding that half the $412 billion in federal procurements in fiscal 2006 were awarded with less than full and open competition. A Waxman bill that has passed the House would require agencies to reduce the use of sole-source contracts.