ELECTION REFLECTION -- Nov. 11th

Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Reception at 5:00 p.m.
Program at 6:00 p.m.
Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP
655 West Broadway, Suite 1900
San Diego, CA 92101

Cost: FREE
Parking in the building is available for $5
Street parking and other downtown parking is also available

RSVP: progress@progressivesd.org

Refreshments will be provided

Join us as we discuss the rule of law in San Diego post election. Topics will include the structure and composition of the City Council, the City Attorney election, the state propositions, and the effects of the presidential election.

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The PSD Foundation is a non-profit grassroots organization that works to empower all San Diego residents and communities to work together to create an equitable and sustainable society.
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The ACS for Law and Policy is one of the nation's leading progressive legal organizations. Founded in 2001, ACS is a rapidly growing network of lawyers, law students, scholars, judges, policymakers and other concerned individuals.

Sometime it is hard to tell the two apart

Oh, McCain

Darrell Issa has a Better Idea

Hammering on this a lot, but it just keeps getting more ridiculous

So Darrell Issa finds it inappropriate for the federal government to be funding medical care for sick 9/11 rescue workers. Says Rep. Issa, "I have to ask ... why the firefighters who went there and everybody in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus this being primarily a state consideration."

So as to prove that he's not just running off incoherently about hating rescue workers, Issa wants you to know he's proud of his alternative plans for spending federal funds. To that end, he's triumphantly sent around a press release listing all of his new earmarks (word doc, h/t Chris Reed). So what, you're probably wondering, has Representative Issa chosen to crow about that exemplifies the "local money for local issues, federal money for screw you" spending mantra? Here's the quick list:

San Diego Regional Interoperable Computer Aided Dispatch Project -$6 million
San Diego Regional Communications System (RCS) Upgrade -$3.5 million
Gang Prevention Program (City of Oceanside) -$500K
Lake Elsinore Emergency Operations Center -$250K
Murrieta Creek Flood Control Project -$13 million
San Luis Rey Flood Control Project -$7.2 million
Perris II Desalter (Perris, CA) -$2 million
Non-Potable Distribution Facilities and Demineralization/Desalination Recycled Water Treatment and Reclamation Facility Project (Riverside County) -$2 million
Santa Margarita Conjunctive Use Project (Camp Pendleton) -$1 million
San Jacinto & Upper Santa Margarita Watersheds Project -$355K
San Diego County Fire Safety and Fuels Reduction Program -$45 million
Corpsmen/Medics Civilian Nursing Training Program (Oceanside) -$1.6 million
Vista Community Clinic -$1 million
North County Health Project Oceanside Clinic Expansion (Oceanside) -$1 million
Railroad Canyon I-15 interchange project -$8 million
State Route 76 (widen and realign) -$5 million
San Luis Rey Transit Center (Oceanside) -$3.1 million
West Vista Way (City of Vista, widen) -$2 million
French Valley Airport (Temecula) -$1 million
Renovation and expansion of Fallbrook Boys and Girls Club -$500K

Some pretty nice projects in there. But it begs the question: Ahem, why do all these people need "to come to the federal government for the dollars versus this being primarily a state [or local] consideration?" Rep. Issa? Bueller? Bueller?

Lemme just venture one guess. Rescue workers in New York don't vote in Temecula or Oceanside do they? Oh yeah. So only when Issa is trying to hook it up for his own self should federal money be spent on state and local projects. Not only cruel and hateful, but selfish and duplicitous too. He's building himself quite a nice collection of adjectives. Full of crap isn't technically an adjective, but it also applies.


Robert Hamilton is challenging Darrell Issa this year.

Cross posted at Calitics

Darrell Issa Keeps Digging, Still Hates 9/11 Rescue Workers

Yesterday I noted with considerable disdain that Darrell Issa doesn't give a crap about 9/11 victims and is, not surprisingly, an ass. Turns out that Issa's heartless BS isn't finding much of an audience elsewhere either, as people from coast to coast line up to tear him a new one:

"That is a pretty distorted view of things," said Frank Fraone, a Menlo Park, Calif., fire chief who led a 67-man crew at Ground Zero. "Whether they're a couple of planes or a couple of missiles, they still did the same damage."

"New York was attacked by Al Qaeda. It doesn't have to be attacked by Congress," added Long Island Rep. Pete King, a Republican.

"I'm really surprised by Darrell Issa," King added. "It showed such a cavalier dismissal of what happened to New York. It's wrong and inexcusable."

Lorie Van Aucken, who lost her husband, Kenneth, in the attacks, slammed Issa's "cruel and heartless" comments.

"It's really discouraging. People stepped up and did the right thing. They sacrificed themselves and now a lot of people are getting really horrible illnesses," she added.

New York Democratic Reps. Jerry Nadler and Anthony Weiner and GOP Rep. Vito Fossella also added some heated criticisms of Issa. Issa, however, remains mostly unrepentant:

"I continue to support federal assistance for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks," he said.

But he didn't retract his wacked-out rhetoric claiming the feds "just threw" buckets of cash at New York for an attack "that had no dirty bomb in it, it had no chemical munitions in it."

He went on: "I have to ask ... why the firefighters who went there and everybody in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus this being primarily a state consideration."

In his statement yesterday, Issa insisted he only "asked tough questions about the expenditures" during a hearing Tuesday on an aid bill for sick New Yorkers.

And if that wasn't enough, contrast this with another recent dumbass maneuver by Issa in which he DID scurry to apologize for his missteps. Back in February during hearings into a million missing White House emails, Darrell Issa enthusiastically did his water carrying for the Bush administration, declaring it entirely reasonable that converting from Lotus Notes to Outlook would cause such a loss of information. He went so far as to compare Lotus Notes to wooden wagon wheels and Betamax. But once big business got agitated about it, Issa fell all over himself and even officially correcting the Congressional record. But 9/11 rescue workers? Apparently not on the same level as keeping Lotus happy. I mean after all, according to Issa, 9/11 "simply was an aircraft" hitting the World Trade Center and causing "a fire."

I don't know what world Darrell Issa is living in, but he certainly doesn't have much company.

Robert Hamilton is challenging Darrell Issa this year.

Cross posted at Calitics

Bilbray Prefers Fence over Environment, District, Effective Reform

Does anybody remember when Brian Bilbray sold himself as a moderate? I know it seems like a lifetime ago (or maybe some sort of absurd dream), but it was just 1995 that he first went to Congress. And I've heard the stories from reasonable people with clear eyes about how once he was (relatively) a champion of the environment, particularly clean beaches and water. He was (and perhaps still is) a surfer and lifeguard after all. And yet, it's not at all surprising that he was doing rhetorical backflips in celebration yesterday when Homeland Security decided to waive 30 federal and state environmental laws in order to more quickly build 670 miles of border fence:

"It's great. This is the priority area where most of the illegal activity is going on and where most of the deaths are occurring," said Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-Solana Beach), chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus. "The quicker we can get the physical fence up, the sooner we'll avoid situations like the deaths of agents. And it's still a national security issue. You just have to stop this kind of open traffic along the border."

DHS head Michael Chertoff opted to blatantly lie about the situation, claiming:

DHS is neither compromising its commitment to responsible environmental stewardship nor its commitment to solicit and respond to the needs of state, local and tribal governments

Right. Because not adhering to existing environmental law is the same as being commited to it. Much closer to the truth is:

Critics, however, said the waivers were intended to sidestep growing and unexpectedly fierce opposition -- especially in Arizona and in Texas, where concerns have been raised about endangered species and fragile ecosystems along the Rio Grande.

While the section of this project in East San Diego County hasn't met with much opposition (yet?), Brian Bilbray should know- if he's been paying any attention at all- that local opposition to the destruction of communities and habitats can be a real pain in the ass for right-wing ideologues. And as proponents of comprehensive (read: effective) immigration reform note, just building a fence really is a simple-minded approach to securing the border. Nevermind that impeding the cross-border flow hurts the local economy and the people that Bilbray purports to represent. This "wall or bust" outlook from Bilbray fits nicely with his America should create more uneducated poor people economic plan and his Protect the employer (as long as they contribute to the campaign) enforcement policy.

Yesterday the Defenders of Wildlife sent around an email asking people to call their representatives in Congress. If you're in the 50th, where Brian Bilbray thinks it's politically astute in 2008 to run to the right of President Bush, you may want to just skip straight to your Senators.

Cheryl Ede and Nick Leibham are Democrats running against Brian Bilbray this year.

Cross posted at Calitics

Darrell Issa: 9/11 Fallout is New York's Problem

I'm not sure if he's just a soulless ass or if he's also actively trying to undermine the entire foundation of post-9/11 conservativism, but Darrell Issa is doing his level best to spit on the rescue workers who got sick at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the twin towers attacks. He's flatly refused to vote for federal funding that would provide medical care to these victims of the attack because, in Issa's mind, it apparently was just a local thing, and not a major one at all:

"It simply was an aircraft, residue of two aircraft, and residue from the materials used to build this building," Issa said during a hearing into whether a new 9/11 victims' compensation fund should be launched.

Which is odd since, as Rep. Anthony Weiner notes, "The gentleman voted for [original 9/11 funding] because we had the national sense that this was not an attack on New York City, this was an attack on our country."

But hey, keep up the dispicably cruel hypocrisy Rep. Issa. Feel free to even bring some friends along. Because all it proves is that 9/11 to you is nothing more than a tool to intimidate people into sacrificing Constitutional rights and attempt to justify the $3 trillion Iraq boondoggle. That's when it's a national issue. That's when America is at stake. Only when it serves the political interests of Darrell Issa.

But when the heroes who sacrificed at Ground Zero need help? For Darrell Issa, that's not America's problem and it apparently sure isn't his problem. It's...well...somebody else's problem.

Robert Hamilton is challenging Darrell Issa this year.

Cross posted at Calitics

"It's a paradigm shifting election." An interview with Nick Leibham

I shared breakfast with Nick Leibham last week and discussed where he stands on a number of issues. I mostly just lobbed topics and let him talk; this is the relevant transcript edited to be a remotely reasonable length and minus fun stuff like us chatting with the waitress and our occasional divergence into non-relevant shop talk. Some parts I liked, some parts less so. But here it is. Note this is a contested primary.

Iraq

Each and every day we remain in Iraq we're compromising our national security further. It's a blood feud that goes back 1400 years between the Sunnis and Shiites. American military forces are not going to be able to sort this out for them and at the end of the day they've got to want peace; they've got to want their own stable form of government; they've got to want democracy more than the American Marine Corps wants it for them

The longer that we're there, the more strain it puts on our own men and women in uniform. They're going out on third, fourth, fifth tours of duty, and you read about it all the time of course because we're just miles away from Camp Pendleton

We need to come out and we need to set a date certain for when we are going to redeploy out of Iraq.

Military and Security

There’s one...threshold question that needs to be answered whenever even the thought of American military use is involved, and that is 'Is it in the interests of the United States of America; Is it in the national security interest?' Obviously the United States military has a role to play in ferreting out al Qaeda, in ferreting out terrorist organizations, in...making sure that our own interests abroad are taken care of.

But the United States military has no business in trying to create whole cloth [or] molding different societies. It's kind of antithetical- democracy can't be imposed at gunpoint.

They’ve got to figure it out for themselves. It can't be the United States government doing it for them.

Immigration

The most fundamental job of a nation is to protect its sovereignty, and when you can't secure your borders and ports you can't protect your sovereignty...As a nation we need to recognize that we are going to have to put a significant amount of money, time and effort into suring up our southern border.

As a former prosecutor...if you really want to dry up illegal immigration, you hold employers accountable, and I’ll be the only one up on stage that has ever prosecuted an employer for hiring illegal immigrants. After that's done, you get to other questions.

Health Care and SCHIP

We should be providing health care to kids and Brian Bilbray has staked out a position of essentially rabid ideology at the expense of some 10 million American kids...I think that it's a disgrace that he decided to stand on ideology and stand with the President as opposed to providing these kids with proper medical care. I think it's just very mean-spirited and worse, it's bad public policy.

My endpoint [on health care] is that every family should be able to see a family doctor of their choosing. The way in which we get there I think is going to be a battle royale come January 2009. And what is being pitched today out on the campaign trail- there isn't going to be even a shade of resemblance once this thing actually gets done.

There is a little bit of overlap between Democrats and Republicans on a few issues. One, I think all parties agree that you're going to have to see rapid and massive adoption of information technology and digital patient files. That will cut down on everything from medical errors to back office expense. And the estimates on what that would shave off- I've seen 10-12% of the total healthcare dollars. Secondly, another overlapping area is preventative care. There are certain areas of medicine where this makes a lot of sense. This makes a lot of sense in the area of inoculations...it makes a lot of sense as it concerns preventative screening for certain diseases. From a cost benefit analysis and a quality of years lived analysis.

You've got to have a very serious debate on how else you get there. we're the only westernized country in the world that tells the pres drug companies that they can charge anything they want and it doesn't matter...I think that's something that needs to be addressed.

What that final product is going to look like, I’m not exactly sure. But I know that...we need to look at that end goal...and say let's try to get there.

FISA

we spoke briefly about the general nature of modern privacy before FISA

What's much MUCH more disconcerting to me is the entire FISA bill...As somebody who has been a prosecutor and dealt with the 4th Amendment, I can tell you that this happened to have been the one amendment in the Bill of Rights that all the Founding Fathers could agree upon; that in order for the government intrusion there had to be probable cause signed off on by an independent magistrate that says you may have committed a crime. I find the entire FISA process to be constitutionally dubious. That doesn't mean that it couldn't be made constitutionally valid but I think that anytime you have wiretaps involved...that deals with an American citizen, you've gotta have a court sign off on it. The only question in my mind is whether or not that has to be done prior to there warrant being executed or whether or not there is some grace period. There is no doubt in my mind that the executive branch itself cannot act as both overseer and executioner (of warrants or wiretaps). That, I think, is constitutionally impermissible; I think it's a violation of the judiciary's proper role of interpreting laws.

As a former prosecutor [and] law clerk in the US Attorney's office in the Major Frauds and Economic Crimes section...I've never heard of anybody being given immunity when you don't know what they've done. It's not how the immunity process works. You don't say to somebody 'Whatever you've done, don't worry about it.'...It's unthinkable to me as a lawyer and as somebody who will have...sworn to uphold the Constitution that I could ever support that.

California Emissions and the Environment

I’m not a scientist, but from what I have read...the EPA seems to have made their decision to deny California its waiver based on faith based science. That’s not good enough. If it's warranted by the facts and the evidence, it should be granted. During the next administration, if it's a Democrat, I think we'll get a fair hearing. And if we don't, that's ripe for congressional action to clarify the rule. Because it's the congress that makes the laws, the executive branch simply carries out those laws.

The debate on the science (of global warming) is over. There is no doubt in any serious scientist's mind that global warming is happening. There is virtually no doubt that mankind is directly causing global warming. The only question at this point is 'What is the causal relationship and what are the consequences going forward?'

The role of government as it concerns energy and the environment I think is going to be crucial in the next 5, 10, 20 years. One of the things I very much hope to work on as a member of Congress...is pursuing and advocating for alternative energy in the areas of wind, solar, some biomass, hydrogen. And the role of the government here is to set high standards, it's to help foster innovation- especially in the very early stages of research and development- and then I think it's to turn it over to the market who does a great job of packaging this up...and if people can make a...fortune doing it, great. It makes good public policy, it's good politics, I think it's a good way to return some manufacturing to...the Americas.

It's also an issue of national security. We send hundreds of billions of dollars each year to...Middle Eastern regimes many of them hostile to our interests. We know...that some of that money ends up with Hezbollah; that it ends up with Hamas; some of it filters down and ends up with al Qaeda. We're funding both sides of the war in this particular time.

Then there is the great moral calling of our time which is addressing the global warming problem itself...There is no doubt that our kids will bear the full brunt of this, and we need to figure out now a way to mitigate it because to do anything other than that is nothing short of...long-term child abuse.

Economy

Two prime reasons (for the current economic situation). One, it has been fiscal insanity on the part of the Bush administration...We see that in everything from the weakness of the dollar which hits you...at the pump and in the grocery aisle, to being able to sure up many of those social programs which we know have a pending disaster: Medicare, Social Security, our infrastructure, etc. Secondly, the war. You cannot talk about anything else in this campaign until you address the war.

We are spending- the estimates are- $10-12 billion a month. We have direct outlays to Iraq...upwards and including $500 billion. For one single solitary day of war making in Iraq, we could have sent 160,000 low-income students to college for a year. For 3 1/2 months of war in Iraq we could have provided healthcare coverage to those 10 million...American kids for 5 years under SCHIP. Until we end that, again, we are committing long term fiscal child abuse. Because we're not paying for it...we're borrowing money from...foreign creditors to finance this thing. It's completely and totally irresponsible and it must end.

There’s some middle class tax cuts that...we should retain. We should retain the 15% capital gains rate as opposed to seeing it revert back to 20%. More than 50 million Americans at this point have 401Ks; hat benefits them greatly. We need to once and for all end the AMT. These last couple years it has snagged a whole cross section of our population that it was never meant to hit, and the doubling of the child tax credit is a positive thing. It's a positive thing for San Diego families and San Diego parents. Of course, the recklessness as it concerns the Bush giveaways in terms of the top 1%- no. That's fiscal insanity and I will be a voice to end it.

Most interesting for me was an interlude about halfway through the interview where we lapsed into discussing this year's election in an historical context:

We win this fight because their platform is old and it's worn out...The Reagan Revolution...which started really in 1964 with Goldwater's defeat...it culminated in 1980 and 1994 and the end of the Bush years are a bookend. It's tired, it's played out, and it no longer offers up a positive agenda for America. This isn't just a change election in the sense of Democrats or Republicans. This is a paradigm shifting election and Democrats can capture that...they've got a lot of work to do but we can capture it and I think the pendulum is swinging our way.

Cross posted from Calitics

Nick Leibham and Wrong Way Bilbray

Photos by Chris Rothwell - SEOwell.com



So last night I made my way up to Encinitas in the heart of CA-50 for the official launch of Nick Leibham's congressional campaign. The event managed to fill the Bullpen Bar and Grill, and my best guess after huddling with several guests was that the number was at least 300. One way or another, the group was bumping up against max capacity. Among the assembled throng was CA-52 candidate Mike Lumpkin, San Diego City Council candidate Stephen Whitburn, San Diego Drinking Liberally chief Jesse Rubin, and Calitics' CarlsbadDem. And of course, Francine Busby to introduce Nick Leibham.

Against the backdrop of New Hampshire primary results running across screens throughout the bar, Leibham talked about the failures both big and small of Brian Bilbray's political career. He pledged to actually live in the district, not in Imperial Beach, or in Virginia, or with his mother. More seriously and most importantly though, he pledged to really represent the district. Something that, as far as I and everyone else in the building are concerned, has been sorely lacking for a number of years.



He whipped up the crowd, hitting on many of the core issues that Democrats will rally around this year: He blasted Bilbray for supporting Bush's plan in Iraq, for supporting Bush's destruction of the Constitution, for refusing to fund children's health care through SCHIP. He talked about the fundamental failure of the Republican party and the myriad ways in which Brian Bilbray has been complicit in that failure. Most of all, he helped explain how those Republican failures hurt the 50th district. And he led the crowd in chants of "Wrong Way Bilbray!" as he listed off just some of the seemingly countless ways Rep. Bilbray has failed to serve this district.

For me, the most exciting part of the evening was the size, diversity, and depth of the crowd. I spoke with activists from all over the district and throughout San Diego. We talked about Blackwater's invasion of Potrero and other San Diego issues, but most of all, we talked about how desperate people are to get a government that better reflects their values. And for so many of them, it starts in the 50th. After watching the record Democratic turnout in Iowa and New Hampshire, the energy to seize on this election seems to be everywhere.



It is, of course, a tough district. Francine Busby ran a spirited campaign last year with support from the DCCC and still ultimately came up short. But as the Republican party has continued to fight against good policy at every turn and Brian Bilbray has revealed himself to be an extremist even within his own party, dynamics change. These crowds and this energy really paints an encouraging picture as one more front is opened in the battle to reclaim this country. Nick Leibham is the rallying point in the 50th, and it sure looks like he's positioned to be the beneficiary of an incredible amount of support. We're in for a real race.

Crossposted from Calitics