Blackmail Acknowledged

As Brian Leubitz covers (see, they don't need me!), Arnold Schwarzenegger has threatened to veto every bill in the last legislative session if he doesn't get what he wants on water. The leadership is working toward a solution, but still remain far apart. They haven't figured this out for 30 years, but Arnold needs a solution in 30 hours or an entire year's worth of work gets vetoed for no reason.

I just want to add to the chorus of how appalling this is. We're talking about legislative blackmail.

And incredibly, Arnold has an ally in palace courtier George Skelton:

It's ugly. But it's an available political tool that the governor would be derelict not to use when an issue as critical as water is at stake.

This isn't about some narrow scheme important only to a narrow interest. Nor is it merely about a governor's pet project -- other than his legacy-building, which should be encouraged as long as it helps the state. It's about finally resolving an acute, decades-old problem that is worsening and affects practically all Californians.

Here's another old white man with health insurance who could give a crap if women get maternity care in their health insurance plans, to just pick one bill at random. Or who could care less if people who have insurance get dropped from it when they want to use it, to pick another. George Skelton would actively make the lives of Californians worse because he thinks it's sporting to see the Governor "use his power." That the power is illegal is of no consequence.

Then there's this whopper:

These and other arguments -- such as details of a new governing system for the delta -- have raged for years. Schwarzenegger apparently doesn't much care what the Legislature decides. He just wants it to compromise and send him a bill.

Yeah, he doesn't care at all. He actually invented the Latino Water Coalition, the fake-grassroots group pushing all the Republican solutions in water negotiations, but he's really just an innocent bystander. An innocent bystander who would destroy women's health and allow insurance companies to kill people for profit and a host of other things, all with an asshole like George Skelton cheering him on.

Culture Of Blackmail

One reason why I didn't particularly care for the Guardian's Failifornia article was that it was really a human interest piece masquerading as a serious argument. It's not because its data was flawed or its tone insincere - though there's some of that; the long section on Mendota neglects to mention that the city hinges entirely on agriculture and features 30% unemployment or more ANYTIME there's a drought, unconnected to the larger structural problems in the state - but because it didn't even try to assess the root causes of the crisis or the steps for resolution.

For example, it would be beneficial to take a look at the culture of blackmail we have here in state government (as an aside, did the writer even visit Sacramento?). Politicians have learned over 30-plus years of dealing with onerous budget requirements that threatening blackmail is really the best way to get anything done. Witness Arnold Schwarzenegger, threatening to veto nearly 700 bills that have passed both houses of the Legislature unless he gets his way on a water bill.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, apparently standing by a threat to veto hundreds of bills on his desk unless a deal can be reached on the state's water problems, has suggested to Senate leader Darrell Steinberg that all legislation before the governor should be withdrawn to avoid a veto. About 700 bills are awaiting action.

Schwarzenegger did not formally request that the bills be yanked, but that was the implicit suggestion in his proposal, Capitol sources said.

The communications between Steinberg and the governor were referenced in an e-mail sent from Steinberg to Senate Democrats this week. In the internal e-mail, which was reviewed by Capitol Weekly, Steinberg said Schwarzenegger "even mentioned coming back this week to withdraw bills from his desk and hold them until after water is done."

Arnold is absolutely ballsy enough to do this. He has only signed 3 bills in the past four weeks since the Legislature adjourned September 11, and with six days to go and the Legislature not scheduled to return until after the deadline on October 11, I'm convinced of his sincerity to basically flush the entire legislative session down the toilet.

You just don't see headlines like this in other states. And that's because the process here rewards blackmail. Arnold knows that there are no repercussions for vetoing 700 bills. There's no media willing to call him out, there's no possibility of a veto override because of some unwritten rule whereby that function doesn't exist anymore, and there's a high possibility of legislative Democrats simply capitulating to whatever shrieking Republican demands in order to appear "reasonable" or just move along the machinery of government. Arnold's just using good tactical sense because the system is set up to reward the most outlandish actions. So he'll probably get what amounts to a bailout of wealthy agribusiness interests at the expense of the environment and the working class.

This is truly the portrait of failure in California. Right-wing interests have learned how to hijack so well you'd think they attended one of those Al Qaeda training camps where they practice on the monkey bars. And the entire political class walks around as if this is perfectly normal. It's actually appalling.

If you want to drill down to why California is in crisis, it's because we routinely see political leaders walk into the capital strapped with dynamite across their chests, only to be given the key to the city and a milkshake as a reward for such behavior.

Scaled-Back Prison Bill Done, Water Bill Not

Notes from yet another long session in the Legislature:

The Senate could wait no longer for the Assembly to get their act together, so they passed a reduced prison package along the Assembly's lines, one that falls $200 million short of projections and does not have a sentencing commission. The Governor has announced he'll sign the bill. It's marginally worthwhile for the parole reforms, but really nowhere near what's needed. And so the federal judges will in all likelihood order a mass release, and because little is being done to address root causes, the cost of prisons and the population as a whole are both still likely to increase. The cowards in the Assembly who think they have designs on higher office after this travesty should know that this vote will have importance, but not in the way they think.

The bill to waive CEQA requirements (California Environmental Quality Act) to put a football stadium in Southern California - without an NFL team, mind you - did not get by Darrell Steinberg, despite lots of energy and effort from special interests. He's giving the various parties more time to negotiate a settlement. Sports stadiums are among the biggest corporate welfare projects we have in America.

The much-ballyhooed water deal has been scuttled, as Karen Bass announced she did not have the votes to move it. The Speaker may ask for a special session on water, and the Governor would probably move that as well. The middle-of-the-night rush obviously didn't work, so some transparency would be preferable.

Still waiting on the renewable energy standard bill, which would put California in the vanguard of the nation in terms of its portfolio (33% by 2020).

More End-Of-Session Notes

A few end-of-the-session tidbits for you:

• CapAlert reports that Karen Bass will try again to get some of the more spineless members of her caucus to support a prison reform bill better than the scaled-back effort it already passed. Bass talked about adding the "alternative custody" provisions into the bill, which would get it to the proper level of cuts, but not the sentencing commission, which still looks dead, sadly.

• One bill we know to be dead is SB88, which would have forced localities to get permission from the state before going into bankruptcy. This was a union-backed bill to protect their local contracts, but city governments balked. Sen. Mark DeSaulnier says he'll try to broker a compromise for next year. Those bankruptcies are probably right down the pike, so he'd better hurry.

• The bill that the Governor arrogantly vetoed earlier in the week, in a hissy fit because he wasn't getting his way on water or prisons, was a bill to initiate a Vietnam Veteran's memorial day. It was authored by Republican Assemblyman Paul Cook, and he's whipping support to undergo the first legislative veto override in Sacramento in about 30 years, which is truly a sad legacy. Only in California could securing an override on an uncontroversial bill be something that could end a political career, as Cook acknowledged today. An override would be at least a sign of life in the Legislature.

• A lot of rumbling about the water bill, which is being written completely in secrecy, and without the input of politicians who represent the Sacramento Delta. Bass hinted at a bond issue to finance whatever comes out of conference, which would cost $600 million $800 million in debt service annually without any consequent gains in revenue to pay for it.

Could be another long night...

Legislature Home Stretch Update

There's lots of significant news in the Legislature's last week regarding various bills, and it's extremely difficult to keep up with it all, probably by design. I should point out that, while the legislative calendar has an end date, there's no actual reason for some of the forced bottlenecks that result in hundreds of bills being passed at the last minute. It creates a shroud of secrecy in which special interests rule, and saps the public trust. A Democratic leadership actually interested in positioning government as somewhat decent would remove these forced bottlenecks from the internal legislative rules and allow bills to be approved on a rolling basis. That said, this is the system we have now, and here's a bunch of news about various bills:

• A new bill would exempt non-General Fund workers from furloughs. This would reverse one of the dumbest provisions in the budget bill, the practice of forcing furloughs on workers not paid by state government, saving almost no money and depriving people of needed services. Of course, the Governor will probably veto this one, because he hates admitting how wrong he is.

• Democrats on that vaunted water committee have decided against floating a bond to pay for any restoration or overhaul of the Delta. This means Republicans won't vote for it, and very little will come of this very important committee thrown together at the last minute. Some conference committee reports are here, but a deal looks remote, as it would need votes from some of the empty chairs in the Yacht Party.

• One bill that has cleared both chambers would set up "Education Finance Districts", "in which three or more contiguous school districts can band together to try to increase local taxes." This is a small step to make it easier for districts to pass parcel taxes to fund schools, but at this point every little bit helps. The 2/3 rule for approving such taxes would remain.

• With all the talk of health care reform, it's notable that an anti-rescission bill has once again passed the legislature. The bill would also simplify insurance forms. Last session, Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it. There's something you don't hear much about from the Democratic leadership - Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have banned insurance companies from dropping patients after they get sick. He sided with the forces of insurer-assisted suicide. This is your modern Yacht Party on this issue:

"Any of those who have read the various exposés in the Los Angeles Times and others . . . is aware that health insurers have admitted and acknowledged they engaged in a form of post-claims underwriting," said Sen. Mark Wyland (R-Escondido). "It is unethical and, considering what some of these people have endured, it really borders on the immoral."

However, Wyland said he would not vote for the bill because the Department of Insurance has proposed new rules to solve the problem, and he wants to see how they work.

Hey, give 'em a chance to see if the immorality stops! If not, we can think it over.

• The Legislature may extend a homebuyer's tax credit passed in a previous budget agreement that was nothing but a bailout for developers. It only credited new construction, and was structured only to benefit high-income households who could afford new construction. By the way, sales of new units have fell since this was enacted, so it's not even meeting its intended purpose. But it's a giveaway to a special interest, so off the money may go, even though we cannot afford it at this time.

• A bill to ban bisphenol A (BPA) from children's products was delayed after the Assembly couldn't muster 41 votes. The debate in the Assembly last night was pretty fierce.

• Cities and counties reacted angrily to a proposed bill to slow local government bankruptcies until vetted by the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission. On the merits this looks to be a bill that would install more control on locals from Sacramento, although there are arguments on both sides. But mainly it's about the fate of union contracts in local bankruptcies, I don't think either side would deny that.

• A roundup of other bills passed yesterday can be found here.

Governor Hoover's Plan To Weed Out The Sick

I just appeared on KPFA with Eric Klein to talk about the Governor's proposed budget cuts, along with several experts and stakeholders, including friend of Calitics Anthony Wright of Health Access California. I agree with him that it's almost hard to fathom the amount and severity of the cuts proposed for health care, especially at a time with the federal government is moving forward with a "do or die" plan to reform the health care market, increase access and lower costs. The proposed Governor Hoover cuts would have the exact opposite effect, and the people gravely impacted by this will not have the luxury of waiting around for the Feds to catch up and fill in the gaps.

Two recent CBP fact sheets help break down the Governor’s proposed cuts to Medi-Cal and Healthy Families, in numbers that are easier to grasp. These fact sheets show:

More than 940,000 California children would lose health coverage if the Healthy Families Program is eliminated as the Governor proposes. More than 240,000 children in Los Angeles county alone would be affected. Want to know how many children would be impacted in your county? Check out the fact sheet to see.

In total, more than 1.9 million Californians could lose access to health coverage within three years through proposed reductions to the Medi-Cal Program and elimination of Healthy Families.

As the Governor said himself today, “behind every one of those dollars that we cut there are real faces.”

Kudos to the LA Times, by the way, for allowing the great unmentionable to get printed on their pages - the decisions made in Sacramento will truly be the difference between life and death for many Californians.

Schwarzenegger argues that the state's declining economy and plummeting tax revenues have boxed California into a corner, forcing deep and historic cuts in the health and welfare programs that form the state's social safety net. Without those tough measures, he says, California will cartwheel toward insolvency.

But a 10-person legislative budget panel, which is reviewing the governor's proposals, listened during a long day in a crowded hearing room to scores of people who said their survival depends on programs set to be hit by the budget ax.

They heard from mothers of children with autism, representatives of people on dialysis, poor parents whose children see dentists on the government's dime, former drug abusers set straight by a state rehab program.

And they heard from a woman named Lynnea Garbutt who has lived with AIDS all of her 24 years.

She has survived with the help of a state program that provides the expensive antiviral drugs she takes. Now, with that program facing elimination, she pleaded with lawmakers to save it -- and her life.

"If these cuts take place, you're not just cutting money from the program -- you're cutting my life," she told the panel, her voice shaking and tears falling. "I choose to live. Please don't make me die. My choice is life."

This is how Yacht Partier Chuck DeVore responded - move out of the state. Love it or leave it!

The cuts made to programs like Healthy Families (California's SCHIP) would eliminate federal matching funds and double or triple the scope of the cuts. And it would be one thing, by the way, if the Yacht Party simply held the line and said "we can't afford it." But no, they want to spend billions of dollars, only on their own projects instead of saving human lives.

In this article in the San Diego Union Tribune, the same Republicans (and Republican governor) who would eliminate children's health care and basic services for the neediest Californians, actually want the state to pony up the money for a water bond.

Schwarzenegger, says the article, is still fixated on a whopping $10 billion bond. And Senate Republicans are right there with him:

"Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto, the lead Republican on water issues, agreed. “It's obviously a tough time to bring it forward, but we can't wait,” the article notes.

We can't wait? According to my calculator, If the entire $10 billion was sold together, the interest payment could be in the neighborhood of $660 million annually. That's $660 million more that would have to come out of schools, health care, and other items on the chopping block.

Similarly, the Yacht Party cried poor about programs that help people, but made room in the February budget for a huge corporate tax cut.

Everyone who has spent 10 seconds on this recognizes that there's no good way to use current revenues to provide the basic level of services Californians deserve. To the extent that I have hope that we will overcome the selfishness of the cruel and the impossibility of navigating a broken system, it comes from people, who are fed up and starving for leadership and change from a government that no longer serves their interests. To turn the figurative starvation literal, Los Angeles teachers are going on a hunger strike to protest budget cuts. We're all hungry, and we'll be a lot hungrier if Governor Hoover has his way.

Welcome To Mendota

This isn't an article from 1933, it's from 2009:

The customer seemed interested in a black blouse offered for $1 at the thrift store. But instead of buying it, she set it on the front counter.

Maybe tomorrow, she told the cashier, she would have the money. Or the next day. But not now.

"That is the way people are now," said the cashier, Alicia Reyes, as she watched the middle-aged woman walk out of the store. "They just come in here and look. They just come in here to kill the time. And then they take off."

Welcome to life in Mendota — the unemployment capital of California. With a 41 percent jobless rate, the town's social fabric is tearing at the seams. Alcoholism and crime are on the rise. To save money, some mothers wash and re-use disposable diapers. Unemployed men with nothing to do wander the streets and sit on benches.

The irony is obvious: In a large swath of the nation's most productive farming region, many struggle to fill their own cupboards.

There are many factors here - the economic meltdown and struggling economy, of course. But the third year of drought conditions have devastated harvests, leading to less workers needed to pick crops. This is the sad future of a dry California. With housing cratered throughout the state, the fallback option of construction is closed off as well. And as seasonal workers stay home, the businesses that support the economy have less consumers and suffer as well.

This is a disaster area, and the signs are it will only get worse. The state jobless rate is projected to grow as high as 15% before subsiding, and will remain in double digits until the beginning of 2012. The FDIC has issued warnings to at least six state banks, telling them to increase capital levels. "Two-thirds of the state's banks will be operating under cease-and-desist orders" by the end of 2009, according to one analyst. And housing prices continue to fall off the cliff.

The Central Valley is in a Depression. The rest of the state may not be as far behind as you think.

Listening To The Generals

If you haven't been following it, Christopher Hill, a career diplomat who negotiated some of the better deals with North Korea under the Bush Administration, has been nominated for the post of US Ambassador to Iraq, and conservatives are flipping out because, well, that's what they do. Despite his credentials and history in the foreign service, they claim he has no experience in the region; really they are displeased with his actual negotiation with North Korea, which circumvented Dick Cheney and the neocons. Now the top US commanders in Iraq are voicing their displeasure with the GOP holdup of Hill's nomination:

There's one as yet unremarked constituency increasingly disturbed by some Republican senators' efforts to block the confirmation of former North Korea envoy Christopher Hill to be the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq: the U.S. military.

Sources tell The Cable that Centcom commander Gen. David Petraeus, top Iraq commander Gen. Raymond Odierno, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are frustrated by the delay in getting a U.S. ambassador confirmed and into place in Iraq, and support Hill's confirmation proceeding swiftly [...]

"I would not at all be surprised if military commanders in Iraq are frustrated that they don't have a new ambassador in position," added Gen. William Nash (ret.), the former top U.S. commander in Bosnia, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "The issues are far more political and economic than they are military and U.S. efforts need to move forward on those fronts. That's particularly critical in the execution of the withdrawal plan."

Asked if Republican objections to Hill that he is not a Middle East expert are legitimate, Nash said the opposition is "being difficult to be difficult. I have known Chris Hill for 14 years. He is a wonderful diplomat and exactly the kind of guy we need in Iraq."

Today is the sixth, that's right the sixth anniversary of our misadventure in Iraq, and the fiends who got us in this mess in the first place refuse to cease making life harder on this country. They cannot conceive of a world where economic development and diplomacy supersede the task of the military, so they want a subservient ambassador. Of course, the fact that the generals prefer Hill shows the hypocrisy of the neocons on this. They only listen to the advice of the commanders on the ground when it agrees with their aims. And they never take into account the hopes and desires of the people in the countries over which they mean to project power. The neglect of reconstruction and economic development in the war effort leads to outcomes like the water being undrinkable in Baghdad six years after the beginning of the war.

These are contemptible people.

People vs. The Powerful: Is It Enough?

From a messaging standpoint, since I've been talking a lot about field, I think Barack Obama's going to come through the Democratic convention as a full-throated populist, much like Al Gore did in 2000. That was when Gore's numbers shot up, and Obama's advisors clearly see that as the antidote to their recent difficulties. They're already doing it:

Democrat Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to create millions of union jobs in alternative energy and to end tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas, using tough new populist language to persuade voters that he, not rival John McCain, is best positioned to lift the limping U.S. economy [...]

With Mark Warner, the former Virginia governor now running for Senate, at his side, Obama said it was wrong that the Iraqi government has been sitting on billions of dollars in oil revenue while the U.S. spends billions to rebuild the war-torn country.

"We should be using some of that money to rebuild Virginia, laying roads, building broadband lines and putting people back to work," Obama said.

As for tax breaks to companies taking jobs overseas, Obama said: "We sure as heck don't have to give them incentives to move. ... We should give companies tax breaks that are right here."

Obama made an appeal for votes that sounded much like the closing pitch Clinton would offer in similar settings.

"If you give me that opportunity, if you give me that chance, I will fight for you every single day," he pledged. "I'll wake up every day in that White House thinking about those people in Martinsville."

Let the Hillary for VP speculation begin...

This is a very obvious bet, which may work as well as it did for Gore in 2000. Obama is already doing this off the radar with ads about the economy in battleground states that show McCain as out of touch.

In Philadelphia; East Lansing, Mich.; Green Bay, Wis.; and at least five other major cities, Mr. Obama is heavily showing an advertisement contrasting a statement by Mr. McCain that “we have had a pretty good, prosperous time with low unemployment,” with appearances by people making statements like, “The prices of gas are up; the prices of milk are up.”

Mr. McCain’s statement was from a debate in January, before the economy took several turns for the worse, and did not include the senator’s acknowledgment of “a rough patch.” Mr. McCain has since run an advertisement going so far as to say, “We’re worse off than we were four years ago.”

In Des Moines; Tampa, Fla.; Paducah, Ky., and at least 10 other cities, Mr. Obama is running a spot for a mock book, “Economics” by John McCain: “Support George Bush 95 percent of the time; keep spending $10 billion a month for the war in Iraq.”

On Sunday alone, Mr. Obama’s campaign spent nearly $400,000 to run those two spots more than 600 times, accounting for roughly two thirds of the commercials he ran that day, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group.

I'm sure we'll see a local ad in Colorado, too, about McCain's historic mistake over calling for a renegotiation of the Colorado River water compact, which to Coloradans means "we're coming to steal your water."

It's proven to work, and it's a Democratic year, and nobody really likes the direction of the country, either. However, McCain has crawled back into this race in two ways - he benefited from the Georgia crisis by acting all Presidential-like when Obama was on vacation, and he made a searing set of character attacks that he has largely been allowed to get away with. Obama has for the most part used "shame on you" tactics to criticize these attacks, always backed up with how he "honors McCain's service but not his policies or his politics," as he said today.

Well, Sen. Obama, McCain doesn't honor anything about you. He hates you and he wants his supporters to hate you, too. He can't win on ideas so he'll win on spite, scorn, the anger the Orthogonians feel that the snooty liberal elites are always looking down on them. It's astonishing that this is working after eight years of George Bush, but let's face facts.

Why do they work? Because we don't fight back. The appropriate response to someone questioning your patriotism isn't to say "you're wrong" or "I object!" The appropriate response is to punch the guy in the face, rhetorically or otherwise. Wesley Clark didn't even question John McCain's patriotism - he simply questioned McCain's qualifications for the presidency. McCain responded by punching Wesley Clark in the face, then dragged him around tied to the back of a truck for a week for good measure (and no one in the party came to Clark's defense, big surprise there). McCain didn't just say "stop it," McCain made sure that neither Clark nor anyone else would dare question his commander in chief credentials ever again.

What has our side done to bloody McCain for questioning our patriotism? What have we ever done to fight back when the Republicans question our patriotism, be it in the Congress or at the ballot box? How many times do we have to write about this Achilles Heel before Dems realize it ain't going away? We deal with this issue every election, and on every issue, because Democrats either don't have the balls to fight back, or they don't have the brains. Either way, it's pathetic, and make us looks weak (and unpatriotic). And it's happening again. And again. And again.

Meanwhile, the media covers for McCain by saying he never really wanted to run a divisive, cynical, spite-filled campaign, but he was forced into it. They're not going to help Obama out of this mess, and in fact they'll actively work against him. A lot of this "Obama doesn't fight back" stuff is built into standard media narrative. He actually is, in some ways, but the attacks from the Republican side are amplified.

Still, Obama isn't coming close to doing this (yes, I'm citing Cato), and he has defunded the outside groups who might do it:

At the “Civil Forum” at Saddleback Church in Orange County, California this weekend, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) repeated a favorite line of his about Osama bin Laden:

If I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. . . . No one should be allowed to take thousands of American, innocent American lives. Of course evil must be defeated . . . we are facing the transcendent challenge of the 21st century–radical Islamic extremists.

What a gift to the recruiting efforts of Al Qaeda! - to have an American presidential candidate declare himself a follower of Osama bin Laden. According to McCain, Bin Laden is so powerful that he poses a “transcendent” challenge to John McCain’s United States.

In his cogent, well-supported, and readable article, “What Terrorists Really Want,” Max Abrahms at UCLA argues that terrorists “are rational people who use terrorism primarily to develop strong affective ties with fellow terrorists.” Think of Al Qaeda as a gang that disaffected youth might join - something powerful to belong to that gives their lives meaning.

McCain’s “gates of hell” talk is leadership malpractice, and he should stop using it immediately. Calling the threat of terrorism “transcendent” is equal parts incoherent and false. Terrorism stands no chance of defeating the United States or the West unless we ourselves collapse the society. Speaking this way about terrorism thrills our terrorist enemies and draws recruits and support to them. Silence would be much better, presidential campaign or no.

Obviously the economy is a top issue, so going full-bore on that makes some sense. And I still believe in the power of the ground game, and I think that after the conventions this whole thing might recalibrate. But I think Steve Schmidt is getting the better of this Socratic dialogue, from where I'm standing. Obama is light-years ahead on organization and technology, but on message he's still pulling off the shelf the old Democratic tropes of years past. The Gore one was successful - but you have to also fight back on the character nonsense.

Nicole Parra, The Door; The Door, Nicole Parra

Yesterday, when the Assembly mustered a simple majority but not a 2/3 vote for the Democratic budget plan, Yacht Dog Democrat Nicole Parra did not cast a vote. She has said that she would not vote for a budget unless it included a water bond for the November ballot.

Actions have consequences.

In the latest episode of Capitol punishment, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass tossed Assemblywoman Nicole Parra from her office on Monday morning after the Central Valley Democrat failed to vote for the budget on Sunday.

In a twist, Parra hasn't been reassigned to more cramped quarters in the Capitol itself - but booted straight across the street to the Legislative Office Building. She will be the only member of the Legislature whose office is not housed in the Capitol.

"I knew going in Sunday that if I didn't support the budget, something was going to happen," Parra, D-Hanford, said in an interview shortly after receiving the news. The budget, now 49 days late, failed 45-30, with 54 votes needed for passage.

The state Assembly's chief administrative officer informed Parra of the change shortly before noon and gave her staff until late afternoon to clear out of the office, she said.

"Boxes have been delivered," said Parra, who added that she was unhappy she would be unable to pack her "personal stuff" because the Assembly was in session and she was on the floor.

Move her into Storage B for all I care. Parra, who has all but endorsed a Republican to succeed her in the 30th Assembly district when her term ends in November, is putting her own interests above the needs of the state. Water is obviously a crucial issue to the Central Valley but there are a variety of opinions on how to best deal with it. There are no other Democrats in the Central Valley intending to hijack the state budget. Parra, in short, is a selfish Yacht Dog who is comfortable with drawing attention to herself and being a media darling and uncomfortable with moving the state forward.

The quotes in the piece of Todd Spitzer coming to Parra's defense are fairly nauseating, too. Parra is done as a viable electoral prospect in the Democratic Party. And when Fran Florez wins in November, we'll at least have some leadership in the 30th Assembly district. In my mind, that'll be a pickup.

...by the way, SEIU is running ads inside the district of Republicans who may be vulnerable to flipping on the budget in a targeted campaign. I hope they're up in AD-30, too.

Feinstein's Epic FAIL

As bad a week as it's been for John McCain, it's been a TERRIBLE week for Dianne Feinstein. She watched in the Senate Judiciary Committee as Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who she voted to confirm, put on as bad a performance as Alberto Gonzales ever did, covering for the Administration's criminal actions, from torture to politicization of the Justice Department. Then, of course, there was the FISA vote, where she bowed to President Bush and voted to participate in a coverup. Despite this public statement just two weeks before the vote:

I believe the court should not grant immunity without looking into the legality of the companies' actions. So if there is an amendment that does support this, I would intend to vote for it.

When it came down to voting on precisely that amendment, she weaseled her way out of it.

Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 5059 to H.R. 6304 (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978)

Statement of Purpose: To limit retroactive immunity for providing assistance to the United States to instances in which a Federal court determines the assistance was provided in connection with an intelligence activity that was constitutional.

Feinstein (D-CA), Nay

And of course, she voted against stripping immunity, for cloture, and for the final bill.

Then there's this water bond which is more of a true compromise for DiFi, but still includes funds for building dams, and ignores unspent water funds from a 2006 bond issue. So the idea is to borrow on top of the borrowing.

Courage Campaign is considering whether or not to push censure, but CREDO Action isn't waiting to voice their displeasure. From an email:

On July 9th, sixty-nine senators voted to gut the Bill of Rights. They voted to hand President Bush the power to spy on Americans without warrants, and to grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms who allegedly helped him break the law in the past.

No wonder the Associated Press headline following the bill's passage read, "Senate bows to Bush."

So why does a president with the lowest approval ratings since the advent of polling have the power to eviscerate the Constitution?

Because Sen. Feinstein gave it to him.

We can't undo what our senators have done. But we can tell them that we can't believe they'd rather protect President Bush and his law-breaking cronies than the civil liberties of all Americans.

Click here to tell Sen. Feinstein that you are watching, that you are disappointed, and that you won't sit idly by while our Congress destroys our Constitution.

After you sign the petition, please be sure to tell a few friends.

It's really the establishment mindset, afraid of being labeled weak and then bowing to the opposition party's demands, and not recognizing the irony, that must be stopped. And there's no greater symbol of that mindset than DiFi

The Sickening Of America

The number of stories I'm seeing about the obstacles you have to traverse in your daily life just to remain relatively healthy are going up and up. Certainly there are occupations that are increasingly dangerous, as multiple tours of duty are making our soldiers go deaf, and our good friends at Halliburton are paying no attention to contaminated drinking water. But you don't have to be serving in Iraq to have your drinking water filled with all kinds of contaminants.

A vast array of pharmaceuticals -- including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones -- have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs -- and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen -- in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

This is actually a function of the society just being completely overmedicated. The drugs get into the bloodstream and eventually into the sewer system and the reservoirs, and not all of them are cleansed. Forget a lot of drugs in the water, there are a lot of drugs in people, to a level that we really don't know the residual effects.

The sickening of America comes in all forms and fashions. Whether it's coming from treatment at clinics that aren't sufficiently sanitary or well-managed, or tainted drugs that we allow into the country, we don't have a handle on what we ingest. Basic health care costs so much money, $225,000 for every retiring couple, money that is so scarce that we're rationing health insurance like it's a lottery, and offering health care like it's charity. This is like a feedback loop. We're more sickened, we're more medicated to cover the sickness, that makes us more sick, it costs more money to medicate, and the system breaks down.

It's easy to get caught up in this primary fight and lose sight of why we need more effective leadership to repair all these systems that are so terribly broken. We need more than a health care system that doesn't rely on charity or the lottery, we need a medical system that doesn't use drugs like a band-aid and doesn't have a Food and Drug Administration that is practically nonexistent. The last thing that anyone wants is a collapsed system; even the health insurers understand that. But a system of care that is so hurried and sloppy and unconcerned with individual treatment that it becomes nothing more than "take two of these and call me in the morning" doesn't work either. A world-class health care system is focused on prevention and promoting proper diet and exercise, not supplements and substitutes and work-arounds. Otherwise, we're all bound to get sickened, and we'll all be paying for it.

Happy New Year, But Take a Long Look And Savor Your Soon-To-Be-Altered Landscape

Not to be completely depressing on New Year's Eve, but this article about the impact of climate change on the California landscape is a must-read.

Where celebrities, surfers and wannabes mingle on Malibu's world-famous beaches, there may be only sea walls defending fading mansions from the encroaching Pacific. In Northern California, tourists could have to drive farther north or to the cool edge of the Pacific to find what is left of the region's signature wine country.

Abandoned ski lifts might dangle above snowless trails more suitable for mountain biking even during much of the winter. In the deserts, Joshua trees that once extended their tangled, shaggy arms into the sky by the thousands may have all but disappeared.

"We need to be attentive to the fact that changes are going to occur, whether it's sea level rising or increased temperatures, droughts and potentially increased fires," said Lisa Sloan, a scientist who directs the Climate Change and Impacts Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "These things are going to be happening."

We could be talking about the end of ski season as we know it (at least with real snow), less rainfall in the south and the attendant issues with water supplies and wildfires, the potential for 10-year drought cycles, a wiping out of the Joshua trees that line the high desert, the death of both giant sequoias and untold amounts of marine life, and resource skirmishes, particularly between farmers in the Central Valley and the more populous cities.

Oh yeah, and rising sea levels of up to 20 feet.

Will the rising sea swamp the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the nation's busiest harbor complex, turning them into a series of saltwater lakes? Will funky Ocean Beach, an island of liberalism in conservative San Diego County, become, literally, its own island [...]

The changing sea will present trouble for much of the state's land-dwelling population, too. A sea level rise of 3 to 6 feet would inundate the airports in San Francisco and Oakland. Many of the state's beaches would shrink.

"If you raise sea level by a foot, you push a cliff back 100 feet," said Jeff Severinghaus, professor of geosciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. "There will be a lot of houses that will fall into the ocean."

We can pass laws and write regulations and pat ourselves on the back, and we can encourage new technologies that may reduce carbon output, but we'd better also prepare for the inevitability of the changes the world's population has already put into motion. They're particularly acute in this state.

Now that you're completely depressed, happy new year!

Schadenfruede

The Senate joins the House in overriding a Presidential veto and passing the Water Resources Act. The President learns he isn't a king and things that he has nothing to do with can become law.

The words "lame" and "duck" come to mind.

UPDATE: The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, providing protections for LBG individuals, passed the House, too. There was a lot of controversy over this bill because of the eventual dropping of protections for the transgendered. This remains, however, the first major piece of civil rights legislation since the Americans With Disabilities Act.

It won't matter much until they do something on Iraq, but the Democratic Congress is moving the ball forward in other areas.

UPDATE II: Of course, not all is right with the world:

The House on Thursday approved a free trade agreement with Peru, the first under a Democratic majority in Congress that has declared that labor rights and the environment must be central parts of all such pacts.

The vote was 285-132, a comfortable margin of victory in the House. Trade deals have always been a hard sell among House members, mainly Democrats who have equated them with job losses and soaring trade deficits [...]

Still, many Democrats, including some freshmen with ties to organized labor or from districts that have seen jobs disappear overseas, remained skeptical.

Democratic freshman Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire talked of plant closures in her state. "Why can't we have a moratorium? Why rush? Why take a chance?"

The good news is that Democrats, led by the freshman, voted against the bill by a 116-109 count.

Peru is not a good place to be a worker: they just declared a mining strike illegal despite the fact that 2 million children work in their mines and the average wage is $3.60 a day. The labor and environmental protections in the bill are largely advisory. The fact that the freshman Dems voted largely against it, however, bodes well for the future.

Worst. Special Session. Ever.

George Skelton has the gory details of the legislative special session on health care and water. A lot of legislative games, two-thirds barriers, and obstrictionism. Welcome to ungovernable California. The back end is the key set of paragraphs.

Schwarzenegger is pushing for a compromise on the February ballot, but Republican lawmakers are ambivalent at best. "Too many legislators think they're getting jammed," Senate GOP leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine told me. "When we try to rush things, the legislation isn't well thought out. We've got plenty of time next year to make the November ballot."

But the governor believes a November ballot is risky because of a worsening budget deficit that might sour voters on more borrowing.

And Democrats are anxious to produce something -- anything -- that will impress the electorate before a February vote on making term limits more flexible.

None of this is about governance. Just power.

You Guys Have Fun, I'm On Vacation!!!

Government by magazine cover continues this week, as Arnie calls a special session and then doesn't show up for it himself:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger jetted to China on Monday to help promote an event dear to his wife's family, taking a four-day break from the special legislative session that he called to address California's healthcare and water problems and leaving more than 600 bills awaiting action on his desk.

The governor, who is scheduled to return Thursday night, has two weeks to sign or veto the measures and is prohibited by the state Constitution from acting on them while he is out of the state.

Schwarzenegger announced his trip a day before flying to Shanghai for the summer games of the Special Olympics, a nonprofit that benefits the disabled.

Why should the Governor have to play by the same rules as the Legislature? After all, he only CALLED for the special session, that doesn't mean he has to show up for it! Even if he's the only one holding up the healthcare bill, and arguably the water bill as well.

The sick part of this is that Arnold had cancelled trips to Britain and India because he was so concerned with engaging in a special session. Now, trip to China comes up, he's out. I don't even think he's the Governor anymore. He's like some figurehead king like Olaf of Sweden who exists strictly in ceremonial terms. I also believe that Arnold can only spend about 6 months or so in Sacramento before having to get out and go on a press junket.

And he lied about it, too:

On Sunday, he told the (British) Conservatives: "I'm very sorry that I could not join you in person, but as you probably know by now, I'm in the middle of a special session of the Legislature that I called. . . . Because of that, I had to cancel all travel, except a long-term promise to attend the Special Olympics World Summer Games in China, which is this coming week. Now this is an organization that my mother-in-law started."

But in fact, Schwarzenegger traveled to New York last week to speak at the United Nations about global warming, then went to Sonora, Mexico, on Thursday and Friday for a conference of the Border Governors Assn., a group he will lead as chairman for the next year. He flew to his Los Angeles home Thursday night to celebrate his son's 10th birthday.

Also, it wasn't a "long-time commitment," he didn't decide to go to China until the weekend.

The Special Olympics is a perfectly noble enterprise, but governing comes with a little thing called responsibility. 600-some bills are collecting dust on the Governor's desk while he tries dim sum.

If the guy doesn't want to run the state, other options can be put in motion. From what I remember, that's how he got the gig.

"This Melt Is Unprecedented"

The war for the Arctic can now begin.

A warm summer has produced a record melt of the polar ice cap, leaving the Northwest Passage clear enough for a sailboat to pass and prompting nations of the far north to assert claims over the Arctic Ocean seabed.

"The entire length of the Northwest Passage is navigable," said Trudy Wohlleben, senior ice forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service, a government agency.

Ice usually blocks at least some parts of the passage, she said. "This melt is unprecedented, and it"s speeding up."

The development threatens to accelerate long-frozen conflicts over security, sovereignty, environmental and economic conflicts among four powers with claims over the Arctic: the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Russia.

Russia said yesterday that 12 of its strategic bomber planes had begun a two-day exercise over the north of the country that was to include the firing of cruise missiles, the air force said.

All four Arctic powers have publicized their presence in the region this summer, the most dramatic being the planting of the Russian flag under the North Pole by a miniature submarine.

The resources in that region are so rich that we could easily see a shooting war. And yet drilling in the polar region would be a continuation of the very same policies that caused the cap to melt in the first place. And while the cap melt will cause sea levels to rise uncomfortably, inland the water and snowpacks are melting away, which will lead to more resource wars (the nature of man is at least in part a conflict for resources, going back some million years. Just look at Darfur, where the Arabs are now turning on each other because resources are scarce).

We need major policy change that goes beyond encouraging fluorescent light bulbs or making sure the Capitol fleet is green (although that's not a bad start).

Army Green

Saturday was a national day of climate action, and while I was working for a good bit of it, I did my part by purchasing a bunch of compact fluourescent bulbs and finally installing them throughout the apartment. It's small, but multiplied by 300 million it would have an effect. And apparently, a very big interest group is coming aboard the climate change train - the military:

Former US military leaders have called on the Bush administration to make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

In a report, they say global warming poses a serious threat to national security, as the US could be drawn into wars over water and other conflicts.

They appear to criticise President George W Bush's refusal to join an international treaty to cut emissions.

Among the 11 authors are ex-Army chief of staff Gordon Sullivan and Mr Bush's ex-Mid-East peace envoy Anthony Zinni.

The report says the US "must become a more constructive partner" with other nations to fight global warming and deal with its consequences.

Of course, these are retired generals and not the active military. If it was, they'd have to answer for the fact that the biggest user of greenhouse gases by far is the US military, and each war of choice that they undertake corrodes the atmosphere that much more. Eventually, the military would be responsible for the humanitarian and disaster relief that would come about with worldwide chaos associated with climate change. So they have an interest in pushing all leaders to curtail it. But they also ought to have a responsibility in doing their own part. The military expends a tremendous amount of oil - they need to address that with new technologies. Our military is well-known for looking deep into the future and planning scenarios. They need to war-game the scenario of how they have a finite amount of carbon-based fuel to use in the same dangerous world twenty years from now. Otherwise they escape personal responsibility and are talking as if they're on the outside looking in.

UPDATE: Anthony Zinni said on NPR today that the liquid of potential conflict in the future is water, not oil. I do agree that there will be water wars in the future if we keep going down this path.