Today marks the launch of Health Care For America Now, a national coalition which plans to organize millions of Americans at the grassroots level to advocate for quality, affordable health care for everyone.
We're bringing together community organizers, nurses, doctors, small business owners, faith-based groups, organizations of people of color, and seniors who believe it's time we had an American solution that provides quality, affordable health care for everyone.
We're offering a bold new solution that gives you real choice and a guarantee of quality coverage you can afford: keep your current private insurance plan, pick a new private insurance plan, or join a public health insurance plan.
We're also calling for regulation on health insurance companies. We need to set and enforce rules that quash health insurance companies' greed once and for all.There is a huge divide between our plan and the insurance companies' plan for healthcare reform. We want to make sure you have the quality coverage you need at the price you can afford. They want to leave you alone to fend for yourself in the unregulated, bureaucratic health insurance market.
Our plan is affordable for people and business. Their plan is profitable for them. With no regulation, health insurance companies can and will charge whatever they want, set high deductibles, and continue to drop coverage when you get sick. Now is the time to pick a side. Which side are you on?
Elizabeth Edwards is one of the high-profile faces of this coalition, but it's fairly broad, including AFSCME, Americans United for Change, Campaign for America's Future, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Center for Community Change, MoveOn.org, the NEA, National Women's Law Center, Planned Parenthood, the SEIU, the UFCW, and USAction. Today they are running live launch events all over the country, including two in California. One is happening at this hour in Los Angeles, featuring Lt. Governor John Garamendi. There's another event in San Francisco on the steps of City Hall at 11:30 featuring Mayor Gavin Newsom. The names shouldn't surprise you - they're both two of the most high-profile advocates for universal health care in the state, and they'll both use the issue as a springboard for their 2010 gubernatorial campaigns.
What I'm more interested in is HCAN's strategy to work inside Bush Dog districts to hold them accountable should they prostrate themselves for the insurance industry.
The work of Health Care For America Now was first made public late last week. But the group, with Elizabeth Edwards as a figurehead, offered expanded insight into the details of its campaign during a meeting on Monday. In addition to spending $40 million -- $1.5 million of which will be put behind an initial ad buy (national TV, print, and online) -- the group will be sending organizers to 52 cities, blasting out emails to 5 million households, airing spots on MSNBC and CNN and submitting op-eds to major papers (officials hinted at the New York Times piece to come).
In addition, the campaign is going to take advantage of Moveon.org's massive data files to reach out to like-minded supporters and officials promised to work in Democratic and Republican districts alike.
"We'll have an organizer in the district of every Blue Dog Democrat," said HCAN campaign manager Richard Kirsch of the conservative Democrats.
"The focus of the campaign," he added, "is on national legislation. "This year, however, it is also a referendum: do you support quality, affordable, health care for all, or an alliance with the private insurance industry?"
Right on. These Bush Dogs need constant pressure and the threat of job loss in order to do right by their constituents. I don't know how successful HCAN will be, but they certainly have the right strategy.
I happened to catch Which Way L.A., one of the few public affairs programs in California, and after about 20 minutes of listening I considered the unique method we have of running a 38 million-person nation-state with almost a total media blackout on government's inner workings to be maybe a good thing. Because this was the most fantastical 20 minutes of drivel you could possibly conjure, and I'm pained by the thought that anyone was exposed to it.
Warren Olney had his usual insider flaks on, with pollster Mark Baldassare, Fred Silva from California Backward Forward and Neal Johnson, Director of the "public performance" project at the Pew Center on the States. You can listen to it here, but please, please don't. Let me summarize. Basically the problem with state government is that nobody gets along. If we'd only all pitch in as a team and work together to move things forward, everything would be dandy. Also reviewing the performance of every single public program would eliminate the budget deficit, or something.
I don't remember the words "two-thirds requirement" in the 20 minutes I heard, or "tax pledge," or the sundry other characteristics that make California completely ungovernable. The idea that you're going to get people with the ability to hijack the budget with a tiny minority to willingly give up their power in the spirit of "working together," when they've organized themselves around precisely the opposite circumstance, is so ridiculous and unserious that I'm surprised anyone can make the argument when they're not teething.
Here's the extremely simple point. California isn't allowed to govern itself, by its own rules. If you want any possible solution without the same kind of gridlock and delays, CHANGE THE RULES and allow elected lawmakers to do their own jobs. It's not about being friendly or reforming on meaningless margins or "restoring voter's trust" (whatever the hell that means). It's about allowing government to govern. Talking about anything else is just verbal masturbation.
I mean, if Dan Walters can see the frickin' light on this, it's not locked away in some formula.
It is what those in the Capitol call - and what California Forward identifies as - a "structural deficit." This is, in brief, a unique situation and what any governor did in the past means absolutely nothing today. Until and unless California resolves its underlying crisis of governance, the budget crisis, along with the crises of water, education, transportation, housing and everything else, will continue to bedevil us.
That's the message that California Forward should be driving home.
UPDATE by Dave: Today is NOT the big day. Jesse Helms, in his most positive act as a Senator, died over the weekend, and his funeral will delay the FISA vote until Wednesday. There will be debate in the Senate today, with votes likely tomorrow. You have additional time to call your Senators.
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The United States Senate will soon vote on whether to provide retroactive immunity to the big telecom companies who broke the law with George Bush and violated the constitution with warrantless wiretaps (beginning before 9/11). From her absurd perch on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein has been leading the push to protect Bush by protecting the telecoms and preventing discovery in the case so the American people never get their day in court and our country may not be able to find out the true extent of shredding of the Constitution that DiFi enabled. Senator Feinstein put our presidential nominee in an awful position with her representation of the administration and made a joke of Art Torres.
Today is the big day and if Senator Feinstein violates her oath of office and does not defend the Constitution, she is likely to face censure again. And while DiFi never responded to the outcry by over 40 wonderful organizations leading the push to censure her, we do know where she stands on censure. You see, Feinstein once pushed her own censure resolution and tell me if the language she used doesn't sound like she thinks she should be censured.
OK, this is hilarious. With wrong-track numbers at over 80% and the current President near historic low approval ratings, you'd think this would be a time of soul-searching in the GOP. Not so. In fact, the Lincoln Club of Orange County, which is about as close as you can get to the eliminate-the-income-tax, stop-the-fluoridation-of-water far-right nutters in this entire country, is stamping its little feet over the fact that nobody likes their failed policies anymore. They are calling for more completely unpopular ideas or they'll withhold all their money.
(keep in mind when reading that this is Novakula, and as a GOP propagandist his view is skewed, but he has good sources inside the party.)
The Lincoln Club of Orange County is telling the GOP leaders of both the House and Senate that it is too late to repent. They must go -- or else lose big money.
The message: "Come Nov. 5, should the current GOP leadership in either house survive to lead in a new Congress, the Lincoln Club of Orange County will review the financial backing of all congressional Republicans, and we urge others to do likewise. A GOP caucus that would re-elect such leaders is not one we would likely continue to support. Because, simply put, we refuse to support a permanent minority."
The Lincoln Club estimates that its nearly 300 members will together contribute $1.5 million to federal causes and candidates in the 2008 election cycle. The club is spreading its message to angry Republicans throughout California and around the nation. The ultimatum finds responsive members of the House (if not the Senate), who even now are preparing a housecleaning after the additional loss of seats in this year's election [...]
That's the view expressed in the Lincoln Club paper signed by Rich Wagner, the group's president, and Chip Hanlon, a board member. It deplores the refusal by party leaders to support a one-year moratorium on earmarks, whose 285 percent growth when Congress was under Republican control is "the perfect symbol of the GOP-led profligacy that drives us crazy still." Earmarks "epitomize the fiscal recklessness that led to Republicans becoming a minority in 2006. . . . It's no wonder the Republican leadership continued to fail on . . . entitlement reform and a reduction in federal spending."
They really do think, even at this late date, that their minority status is entirely attributable to federal earmarks which have almost no impact on the overall budget (try reducing military spending if you want to make a difference) and failing to eliminate Social Security or Medicare. Nothing to do with a failed war in Iraq, skyrocketing costs for food, energy and health care, the crisis of climate change, our hated position in the world, growing inequality and the great risk shift onto the middle class, etc., etc., etc.
Here on Planet Earth, it's amusing to see this crack-up between separate factions of the Birch Society crowd. Some of the GOP establishment know that their policies are unpopular, and they hope to put some lipstick on them in presenting them to the public. The rest, including the Lincoln Club, want their version of Gilded Age conservatism, disaster capitalism, denial of science and xenophobia to take center stage.
Conservative activists are preparing to do battle with allies of Sen. John McCain in advance of September's Republican National Convention, hoping to prevent his views on global warming, immigration, stem cell research and campaign finance from becoming enshrined in the party's official declaration of principles.
McCain has not yet signaled the changes he plans to make in the GOP platform, but many conservatives say they fear wholesale revisions could emerge as candidate McCain seeks to put his stamp on a document that currently reflects the policies and principles of President Bush.
In fact, Bush's name is on 91 out of the 100 pages of the platform, which means the rewrite will be a knock-down drag-out fight between the really conservative and the really really conservative, with all the attendant ugliness on full display.
As my recent diaries have shown there is a shortage of firefighters to meet the unprecedented amount of fires burning across our state. As I began digging into this yesterday I came across the same report highlighted in today's Monterey Herald - that US Forest Service firefighting efforts have been cut to the bone and left the nation vulnerable to massive fires. Deliberate staffing shortages have left the USFS unable to do vital off-season brush clearance, and left them without the staffing to get a quick jump on fires in their crucial initial stages.
The federal firefighting system is "imploding" in California, due to poor spending decisions and high job vacancy rates, as the region struggles to keep pace with what looks to be a historic fire season, a firefighters' advocacy group charges.
As a result, the firefighters say, small fires have exploded into extended, multimillion-dollar conflagrations because the U.S. Forest Service has been unable to contain them during the early "initial attack" stage...
As the "sheer number" of California wildfires pushed the nation to its worst measurable level of wildland-fire preparedness last week - Level 5 - a national multiagency coordinating group announced in a memo Monday that firefighter staffing levels in Northern California "cannot be maintained."
The report, by the FWFSA, has been around for a few months now. Wildland firefighters have been screaming about the issue to anyone who would listen, including Dianne Feinstein:
After facing pressure from California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other lawmakers last spring, the Forest Service promised it would immediately fill its vacancies and launched a "Fire Hire" campaign to attract firefighters in Sacramento that concluded two weeks ago.
"I believe the agency should have been able to muster a stronger force," Feinstein said. "All signs indicate that things will only get worse."
Feinstein said that despite promises of full staffing from [USFS Administrator Mark] Rey, only 186 of the agency's 276 engines were manned at the start of the 2008 fire season.
Ron Thatcher, president of the union that represents 20,000 Forest Service employees, has estimated that attrition has left the service at 70 percent to 80 percent of its authorized staffing levels, and that up to 39 percent of fire crew leader positions were vacant as the 2008 fire season kicked off.
Rey, Bush's USFS administrator, has a long background in the timber industry. He blames environmentalists for the problems, but firefighters and those who know the issue are having none of it.
An outdated tax code, voter-approved initiatives that lock in billions of dollars for programs, inadequate oversight of spending and the lack of a substantial rainy-day fund all add to California's financial ills. Other states have addressed such issues with impressive results. But attempts at similar changes here routinely fall flat.
These are all important issues, but if you look down the page, then you get to the real issues. One could quibble with putting a possible rainy-day fund above the 2/3 requirement and Prop 13. It's burying the lede a smidge, but Halper spends some real time pixels/ink discussing the third rail of California politics, Prop 13.
But all the while, Villines insists that the solution is to build a rainy day fund while in the midst of a deluge:
"She [Michele Bachelet, Chile's President] is a former communist, and she was talking about how you have to have a rainy-day fund to balance ups and downs," Villines said. "If it is good enough for Chile and a former communist, it should be good enough for California."
I'm just guessing that Bachelet's advice didn't begin and end with the rainy-day fund. As a Socialist and a believer in social programs, Bachelet understands the concept of a diversified tax base. It's a pity that Villines dwells on the small things, while continuing to hijack the process using undemocratic means.
Comparing California to Virginia, the key difference is that Virginia, under Mark Warner's leadership and without a 2/3 rule, had the flexibility to revise their tax code. Villines and his crew refuse to allow the same.
From California you'll need more than a half pack of cigarettes, but hit it:
DEMOCRATS THROW OPEN DOORS OF CONVENTION,
OBAMA TO ACCEPT PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION ON
CLOSING NIGHT OF 2008 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION
IN FRONT OF A CROWD OF MORE THAN 75,000 Final Day of Convention Program to Move to Denver's INVESCO Field at Mile High
DENVER - Breaking the mold of traditional political Conventions, the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) today announced that Senator Barack Obama will accept the Democratic nomination for President of the United States at Denver's INVESCO Field at Mile High. INVESCO Field can accommodate more than 75,000 people and will be the site of the 2008 Democratic Convention's final day of programming on Thursday, August 28, 2008.
"The Democratic Party is nominating a true change candidate this August, and it is only fitting that we make some big changes in how we put on the Convention," said Governor Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). "Senator Obama's candidacy has generated an enormous amount of excitement and interest, not only in the Democratic Party but also in the 2008 Convention. By bringing the last night of the Convention out to the people, we will be able to showcase Barack Obama's positive, people-centered vision for our country in a big way."
Nice move! Good to see Democrats on offense and thinking huge.
Center-right urban theorist Joel Kotkin has an op-ed in today's LA Timesarguing that "Suburbia's not dead yet." Of course it's not, and nobody has said it is. But suburbia as we know it - characterized by car-dependent urban sprawl - surely is vanishing. Kotkin argues that our future isn't going to involve everyone living in high-rise condos and though I would agree there, his notion that SoCal suburbia as it currently exists is not going to undergo significant change is a deep misreading of reality. Suburbs will continue to exist, but the line between urb and suburb, between dense city and low-density periphery, will be obliterated.
Kotkin's article starts off trying to claim that the suburban status quo is just fine:
Yes, high gas prices and rising sub-prime mortgage defaults are hurting some suburban communities, particularly newly built ones on the periphery. But the suburbs remain home to a majority of Americans and a larger proportion of U.S. families -- and people aren't leaving those communities in droves to live in cities. Even with economic growth slowing, many suburbs, exurbs and smaller towns, especially those whose economies are tied to energy, are continuing to do better than most cities in terms of job creation and population growth.
Of course, with politicians like Zev Yaroslavsky blocking urban density in LA it's not exactly easy to find affordable places to live in the city centers. Most Southern Californians still live in suburbs because they can't afford anything else. Kotkin takes a market failure, a class stratification, and reads it as some kind of free choice.
And the notion that the suburbs are doing better than the cities is simply wrong. Last month the New York Times demonstrated that home values are falling faster in the suburbs than in the city centers. Office parks are experiencing high vacancy rates, especially in '00s suburbs like Elk Grove.
But being wrong doesn't stop Kotkin. More below...
As David Dayen notes in the story just below this one, fires continue to burn across California, with the massive blazes in Goleta and Big Sur getting the focus of the state's attention. And as he and other outlets have mentioned, California's firefighting capacities have been strained beyond their limits.
More and more residents, especially in Big Sur, have noticed just how many fewer firefighters there seem to be for this blaze, as compared to previous fires in the area. As conservative demands for low taxes and budget cuts have helped slash available fire protection, residents in Big Sur increasingly feel they are on their own, though they appreciate the fire protection they have received. The legacy of Hurricane Katrina - when nobody came to help New Orleans - has led some residents to refuse to evacuate out of a belief that if they don't protect their homes, nobody will.
It's a frustrating and sometimes chaotic situation that is the direct product of conservative attacks on basic government services - they want people to fend for themselves, and often that is extremely difficult to do.
One of the most high profile Big Sur residents who has stayed behind to protect his property is Kirk Gafill, whose family opened the famous Nepenthe restaurant in 1949. As he and his employees stayed behind to put out burning embers themselves, he explained to a reporter why he stayed:
"We know fire officials don't have the manpower to secure our properties," Gafill said. "There are a lot of people in this community not following evacuation orders. Based on what we saw during Katrina and other disasters, we know we can only rely on ourselves and our neighbors."
Such do-it-yourself firefighting led one Big Sur resident to be arrested for setting his own backfires. Another resident defended that person's actions on the Ventana Wilderness Society's forums, one of the main sources of community information on the fire:
We have been working on defending Apple Pie from this fire day and night since it started. We watched it grow over the coast ridge, down to the Big Sur River and up over Post Summit. The gov was not going to help defend the ranch even when our homes were about to burn. We didn't think they would either. But they didn't have any problem sending someone to arrest us. Our comminity just can't accept actions like this. If we didn't do what we did the ranch would be nothing but ashes. I say thank you to everyone who helped us and a thank you for all the firefighters, and pilots who TRIED to stop it from crossing the firebreaks to our homes.
Setting one's own backfires is a desperate and even reckless act - but those who do not believe their government will or wants to help them are likely to resort to desperate measures.
Meanwhile California does not have enough money saved for firefighting efforts. Almost every year for the last ten years California has had to dip into reserves to pay for firefighting, but this year the SF Chronicle reports the gap is much wider:
But in the just-completed fiscal year, there was a big gap between the actual cost of firefighting and the budgeted amount. The state had set aside just $82 million for such emergencies, forcing it to spend more than $310 million from the state's general fund cash reserves of $858 million.
California will have to continue dipping into its reserves until the Legislature and the governor approve a new budget for the fiscal year that began Tuesday...
But Assembly Republican Rick Keene from Chico said he opposes the fee proposal, arguing that fire protection is a basic service that the state should cover in its current budget.
"It's something that our government system is already supposed to be paying for and we're asking taxpayers to pay for it?" he said. "We're hoping that our Democratic friends would just stop ringing the bell of raising taxes, raising taxes and raising taxes."
And so California comes full circle. Hurricane Katrina became such a human catastrophe because conservative budget and spending cuts left New Orleans residents without adequate protection and aid. Californians in places like Big Sur, mindful of that experience and aware that firefighting is currently understaffed, are making increasingly risky efforts to try and protect themselves. Efforts to provide funding for adequate fire protection are opposed by conservatives who prioritize tax cuts over fire protection and who think schools and hospitals should be closed instead to pay for it.
California firefighting has already been badly neglected by decades of conservatism. It's time we rebuilt our public services so that individuals do not feel the need to risk their lives to defend their property - at least not in these numbers.
The latest on the California wildfires is that Goleta has been saved for the moment. Firefighters are diverting their resources to protecting the much larger city of Santa Barbara.
Fire crews, backed by 10 airtankers, will now concentrate on rugged terrain near Goleta to block a potential advance toward Santa Barbara, said Rolf Larsen, another spokesman for the multi-agency effort.
"The priority is to put a lot of resources in and order where there are homes and specifically to the east ... where it could move toward Santa Barbara," Larsen said.
The area's steep slopes and canyons are filled with dry brush that in some spots has not burned for a half a century.
Weather is aiding the effort to protect Big Sur as moist air has rolled in for a day, but already 20 homes have been lost.
The real problem is that we have so many fires and scant resources to deal with them. We need money, not just for more firefighters and planes, but to deal with the public health threat that arises from weeks' worth of smoke Over time we're going to need to find a way, with the increasing year-round fire season, to provide more equipment and staff to attack what will probably grow as a problem. It's yet another constraint on the budget that conservatives in the Yacht Party will dismiss as unimportant.
OPEN LETTER CONCERNING OUR CALIFORNIA CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES:
Joe Baca (CD-43), Brian Bilbray (CD-50), Jane Harman (CD-36), Devin Nunes (CD-21), Dana Rohrabacher (CD-46), Loretta Sanchez (CD-47), Henry Waxman (CD-30), John Campbell (CD-48), Jim Costa (CD-20), David Dreier (CD-26), Darrell Issa (CD-49), Gary Miller (CD-42), George Radanovich (CD-19), Edward Royce (CA-40), Adam Schiff (CD-29), Brad Sherman (CD-27), Mike Thompson (CD-1)
It was with great disappointment that we learned that these California Congressional Representatives have chosen to co-sponsor the bill that could take our country into yet another war-- H.Con. Res. 362 increasing sanctions against Iran (complete text below).
The 4th of July weekend is usually a bustle of activity for political campaigns. But as you know, Charlie Brown is not your usual candidate and this is not your usual campaign. This weekend, Charlie has barnstormed the 4th District, attending events in Lake Tahoe, Lincoln, Roseville, Grass Valley, Auburn and today Alturas. And everywhere the 4th CD's lone local candidate has gone, he has received an overwhelmingly positive response.
Here are some photos of Charlie making the rounds.
...than gobs and gobs of dollars to fuel political campaigns.
Russ Warner's campaign in CA-26 is reporting over $100,000 raised, with around $150,000 COH.
Unfortunately, that's all I can find for California Q2 right now. Maybe I should leave this to the professionals like Dave Dayen. Post reports in the comments, and I'll keep updating.
Our friends at Blue America note Senator Dianne Feinstein is hiding under the covers at an undisclosed location:
Christy has put in tons and I mean tons of hard work finding out where our elected officials are going to appear over the fourth of July holiday. It seems some of them (*cough Diane Feinstein cough*) are using the "terrorist threat" to refuse to let their constituents know where they will be.
National security is a convenient excuse for so very many things.
So you'll probably have a tough time seeing DiFi this Independence Day to ask her to honor her oath of office to defend the Constitution and filibuster retroactive immunity. But Blue America has a nifty tool for you to whip votes.
There is a great deal of disgust with Barack Obama's massive flip-flop on retroactive immunity, but let's remember that from day one it was Dianne Feinstein trying to undermine him and the Constitution. I feel sorry for Obama, Senators like DiFi put him in a lose/lose situation. And if you've seen much news today, you won't be surprised that after flip-flopping on defending the Constitution he's getting beat up all over by people concluding he'll also flip-flop on Iraq. So give DiFi a call and give her a piece of your mind. Celebrate Independence Day and then go have BBQ or such to enjoy the 4th of July.
UPDATE: Senator Feinstein turned off the answering machine in her DC office and suggests calling a California field office. Numbers after the jump.
UPDATE II: Both her DC and LA offices automatically hung up after the message and the mailboxes are full at all of her other field offices. The online form is the only way to contact DiFi this Independence Day to ask her to support the Constitution. Turning off answering machines and hiding from the public? I think she belies her realization that constituents are pissed.
