Other Races On The Radar Tonight

Besides that little matter of the Democratic nominee clinching victory tonight, there are primaries all over the the country outside of California, some of them worth noting.

TPM Election Central mentions two Senate races, in New Mexico and New Jersey. The entire Congressional delegation in New Mexico is running for the seat vacated by Pete Domenici, and on the Republican side, wingnutty Steve Pearce is facing wingnut in moderate clothing Heather Wilson. Weirdly, Domenici waited until the weekend before the primary to endorse Wilson, so there was probably no impact of that. Pearce is favored in this primary, but the winner will be stomped by progressive Tom Udall in the general election, IMO.

In New Jersey, Frank Lautenberg was challenged from inside the party by Rob Andrews, a moderate (at best) Congressman. I think he's just trying to raise his statewide name ID for when Lautenberg (who's 84) eventually steps down, because he's getting smoked by all accounts. Andrews is having his wife run for his own Congressional seat and will probably try to get it back by having her step down if he loses. I hope he gets crushed today.

And in IA-03, Ed Fallon is challenging Bush Dog Leonard Boswell for a seat in Congress. Stoller calls this race an experiment in grassroots campaigning but I don't think that's true. Maybe it's because I'm in California, but in most parts of this state you can't put an ad on the air unless you're running statewide or get a king's ransom from an independent expenditure campaign. So I see this "experiment" every cycle. And it usually doesn't win, unfortunately. And most observers don't expect Fallon to win, either. But if he can make Boswell sweat, maybe he can alter his behavior.

Sometimes I Don't Get These People

Harry Reid just sent out an email to his list calling out Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) for supporting the nuclear depository at Yucca Mountain. It's a fundraising email for Frank Lautenberg, the New Jersey Senator who is being challenged in a primary by Andrews (and hardly; Lautenberg is whipping him handily so far).

It's the type of news you need to spit out fast, so I won't sugarcoat it - United States Representative Robert Andrews has knowingly voted to store the most toxic substance known to man - nuclear waste - near American citizens, while at the same time vying to represent those citizens in our government.

How? By running for Senate and trying to oust my friend, esteemed colleague, and champion of progressive values, Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey [...]

It's hard to believe that a representative of the American people, Rep. Andrews, actually voted to store nuclear waste in a highly earthquake-prone area above a large source of water, only 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But don't take my word for it, take his:

"I joined with my colleagues in the House of Representatives to approve President Bush's decision to store the country's nuclear waste beneath Yucca Mountain ... 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas."

And to top off his record of shame, Rep. Andrews was also one of the earliest and staunchest supporters of President Bush's plan to go to war in Iraq.

All of this is true. Lautenberg is indeed a very good Senator, and Andrews is a snake. But you know, considering this challenge is a fringe possibility at best, I can't get enthused that Harry Reid is wasting his time on it, when John McCain was an even earlier and stauncher supporter of the war in Iraq, and just today he signaled his support for Yucca Mountain.

RENO, Nev. – Calling it “a little straight talk,” Sen. John McCain told Nevada backers at a town hall meeting Wednesday he still supports the construction of a nuclear waste repository north of Las Vegas as long as it meets all the regulatory requirements.

But the Republican presidential hopeful from Arizona also said he wants to address nuclear waste by reprocessing spent fuel and trying to find a place for an international repository, which he said the day before may make it unnecessary to build the Yucca Mountain facility.

“I support Yucca Mountain once it goes through all the processes it needs to go through,” McCain said Wednesday. “But I also support reprocessing. A little straight talk, we have to do both." [...]

McCain, a longtime backer of the waste dump most Nevadans oppose, responded to a question at the town hall meeting about Yucca Mountain by saying he's not the kind of politician who tells voters only what they want to hear. He said he earlier told the people of Iowa he doesn't support ethanol subsidies and he still doesn't.

“I go to places and tell people what they don't want to hear,” he said.

Like "I don't care if you die from nuclear radioactivity."

I'm not convinced Yucca Mountain is all that big an issue in Nevada. McCain's going to play an identity-based game rather than an issue-based one, anyway, and if you see Mitt Romney on the ticket it's to win this state. But it's certainly a bigger issue in Nevada than in New Jersey, and it's certainly more newsworthy to Harry Reid's email list that McCain supports Yucca Mountain than some Democratic primary opponent who's not going to win.

Is he interested in winning the Presidency or helping out his buddies?

Rob Andrews Ate His Wheaties

I'm following the Petraeus/Crocker hearings, and some of the liveblogging at Democracy Arsenal and The Washington Independent. So far, it's basically a rerun of yesterday. But Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) took a very strong line of questioning on the issue of political reconciliation that I thought was noteworthy. He was the first member of Congress that I've seen specifically state that the de-Baathification law as implemented bars top Baath Party members from key posts like the Defense and Interior Ministries, and doesn't do much de-Baathifying at all. Ryan Crocker tried to wiggle out of it by saying these were only top-level members being barred, but Andrews countered that those are precisely the kind of people, with actual expertise and knowledge, that you need back in the government. Crocker meekly said that the law "was done in the spirit of reconciliation," but the implementation shows that to be completely false. Andrews added that there had been no movement on an oil law, and that provincial elections haven't actually been fully passed as well. In fact the political progress is meager, and some of the laws which are being pointed to as "progress" actually harm reconciliation. In a particularly strong moment, Andrews said "The world didn't begin in September... as far as the American people are concerned this has been going on since April 2003," and it's not acceptable to have such little progress over those five years.

It should be noted that Andrews, who hasn't been entirely progressive on the war, is challenging Frank Lautenberg for the US Senate in New Jersey, and surely is trying to present his progressive bona fides by giving these tough questions on the war. But the points need to be made, that the "political reconciliation" being floated by the Administration and their spinners is the result of a bait-and-switch, where the initial progress on lawmaking is foregrounded and the eventual breakdown or negative consequences is backgrounded.

UPDATE: I should also mention Ellen Tauscher's question to Gen. Petraeus, asking him what he would do if his new commander-in-chief advocated for withdrawal, and he couldn't bring himself to say he would comply with those orders! He does "believe in civilian control of the military," in teh abstract however, so at least that's SOMETHING.

Lieberman-Warner: A Bad Deal

Today the Senate Environment Committee began the process of creating groundbreaking global warming legislation that would result in a cap-and-trade system for polluters in the United States. It passed the first markup stage on a series of 4-3 votes. However, I'm sad to report that this is not a positive development. In fact this bill would be a massive giveaway to corporate polluters, allowing them to receive emissions credits instead of buying them at auction. And that's only the beginning of the bill known as, and this should be a tip-off, Lieberman-Warner:

"The Lieberman-Warner bill will reward corporate polluters by handing them pollution permits worth almost half a trillion dollars," said Friends of the Earth's Erich Pica, one of the authors of the analysis. "And that's just one part of this bill. The bill also includes hundreds of billions of dollars of other mind-boggling giveaways. The levels of pollution-rewarding giveaways in this bill are truly obscene."

In particular, Friends of the Earth's analysis found that the bill:

* Provides the coal industry and other fossil fuel industries pollution permits worth $436 billion over the life of the legislation; 58 percent of this amount goes to coal
* Returns revenue raised through auctions directly to polluters -- for example, an additional $324 billion would subsidize the coal industry's efforts to develop carbon capture and storage mechanisms
* Directs another $522 billion of auction revenue to low or zero-emissions technologies, which could result in handouts to the nuclear power, big hydro and coal industries, which are not clean (these funds could also be directed toward important clean technologies, such as wind and solar -- the legislation is not specific)

Lieberman knows what he's doing in dealmaking in the Senate, however, and he locked up enough support to get the bill through today's markup, going toe-to-toe with America's most unsung Senator, the great Bernie Sanders, who explains his opposition in this blog post:

On most issues, Congress goes through the time-honored tradition of working out compromises which both sides can end up accepting. I want to see all the kids in America have health care. Other members think the Children’s Health Insurance Program should not be expanded. We compromise on 4 million more children in the program. I think a program should be expanded by $100 million. You think it should be expanded by $50 million. We compromise at $75 million. That’s the way business is done here and in other democratic societies and there is nothing wrong with that. We live in a country where people have different political views and in almost every instance members of the Senate compromise to reach an agreement.

Today, however, we have a qualitatively different situation. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. The issue is not what I want versus what Senator Lieberman or Senator Warner or Senator Inhofe may want – and the need to work out an agreement that we can all accept. That’s not the dynamic we face today. The issue today is one of physics and chemistry and what the best scientists in the world believe is happening to our planet because of greenhouse gas emissions. The issue is what we can do, as a nation, along with the international community, to reverse global warming and to save this planet from a catastrophic and irreversible damage which could impact billions of people.

In other words, we are not in a debate now between Bernie Sanders and anyone else. It’s not a debate between what I want or what you want. We are in a debate between science and public policy. And the views that I am bringing forth, to the best of my ability, are the views of the most knowledgeable scientists in America and the world: the people who, among other achievements, have just received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Half-measures aren't going to work, especially when they are also giving away for free what could bring in massive revenue to create that Apollo program for energy that we so desperately need. John Edwards has come out against the bill because it's not commensurate to what is needed. Here's what Brian Beutler thinks is happening next:

Now that it's made it through the subcommittee, though, the Lieberman-Warner bill will face the tougher challenge of passing through the full committee.

With the exception of maybe Lamar Alexander of Tennessee -- and that's an extremely large maybe -- it's likely that John Warner will remain the only Republican "aye" when America's Climate Security Act comes to a committee vote in weeks ahead.

So where does that leave things?

Well, Lieberman may have decided not to allow Bernie Sanders to play a constructive role in this process. But what he did do is bring Frank Lautenberg in on a big amendment package -- announced at the beginning of the hearing as a "substitute amendment" -- the details of which remain largely unknown. What is known is that Lautenberg voted to move America's Climate Security Act forward today.

The question, then, is whether or not Lautenberg will make a bid for for more -- whether his support is permanent or temporary. If he's thrown his lot in with Lieberman and Warner, then the bill has a decent shot of making it to the full floor of the Senate.

Sounds like Lautenberg needs to be pressured - and he's up for re-election next year. If he can turn, then Sanders can have a major place at the table in changing this bill's intent. And frankly, the chairwoman, Senator Boxer, needs to step up on this as well. I don't want to hear about "a good first step" when it comes to saving the planet.

Some Things Are More Important Than Terrorists Getting Uzis, K?

This was actually a brilliant bit of politics, and just because something is designed for political means doesn't mean it isn't revealing. Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey created legislation called the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act and somehow got the Justice Department to support it, daring gun groups to oppose it. They obliged.

The National Rifle Association is urging the Bush administration to withdraw its support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying firearms. Backed by the Justice Department, the measure would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales, licenses or permits to terror suspects.

In a letter this week to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, NRA executive director Chris Cox said the bill, offered last week by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., "would allow arbitrary denial of Second Amendment rights based on mere 'suspicions' of a terrorist threat."

I guess the idea is to use the terrorist watch list in background check screening, and if that's the same watch list that is used for airline passengers I'm against it too, considering how awful that list is (Ted Kennedy's on it). But Sen. Lautenberg has cited a GAO study showing that "35 of 44 firearm purchase attempts over a five-month period made by known or suspected terrorists were approved by the federal law enforcement officials." And there are apparently various protections and challenge options in the bill. I'm wary of denying constitutionally protected liberties based on suspicion, so hopefully if it is enacted there are safeguards. Of course, there are already background checks for purchasing firearms, so if this adds something to else, well, maybe.

I'm ambivalent on the bill. But regardless of that, the NRA is now on the record for allowing terrorists to buy guns. This is, as thereisnospoon said, a brilliant wedge between the authoritarian "stop the terrists" crowd and the pro-Second Amendment crowd. They literally don't know what to do on this one.

I would imagine you could create 20 bills like this, that get in the cracks of 21st-century conservative ideology, and just drive the wingnuts crazy.