An interesting irony:

Three weeks after Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to three federal felonies, Rep. John Doolittle hired an attorney for legal advice concerning his own association with the disgraced lobbyist.

According to a report filed by Doolittle’s re-election campaign with the Federal Election Commission over the weekend, the campaign on Jan. 27 retained for $10,000 the services of the Virginia law firm of Williams Mullen.

Doolittle’s chief of staff, Richard Robinson, said the attorney handling Doolittle’s inquiry is David G. Barger. Barger is the former president of the Virginia Bar Association’s criminal law section and a former assistant U.S. attorney who later was an associate of special prosecutor Kenneth Starr in the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton administration.(SacBee 4/18/06)

Doolittle is going down.  Pure and simple.  He is #1 on Coburn’s list.

A bill which would bar doctors from participating in executions cleared the Assembly Business and Professions Committee yesterday.

The powerful doctors’ lobby, the California Medical Association, has sponsored legislation, AB 1954 by Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, that would prohibit the state from using licensed physicians in an execution.

The bill cleared the Assembly Business and Professions Committee with a bare majority, but only after an initial critic reluctantly voted for the measure just before the panel adjourned.

The measure still must pass the Appropriations Committee to reach the Assembly floor. The bill has not yet been heard in the state Senate. (San Diego U-T 4/18/06)

Is this really what we need the legislature to be doing?  Seriously, isn’t there something better.  Listen, I am personally against the death penalty.  I would hope that we as a society have evolved past that.  But, even if we haven’t, does the Legislature really need to start telling doctors what to do.  I’ll let Joe Canciamilla make the case:

But Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla, D-Pittsburg, pointedly asked Hertzka why it was necessary to enact a state law to protect doctors from something they cannot be forced to do anyhow.

“You are asking the state Legislature to tell doctors that they are now prohibited as a matter of state law, from participating in a particular activity,” Canciamilla said.

“Once you open that door . . . where do you individually draw the line because I can see a lot of other people marching in here suggesting that (other) activities be prohibited.”

Canciamilla offered abortion as an example. Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, warned that a simmering debate over the legalization of assisted suicide also could become entangled in the precedent that would be set.

And the best the Doctors’ Association can come up with is that it’s not medical?

But, he argued, “once you think about it, there is nothing medical about an execution.”

The Morales case has “thrust physicians in the middle of this, and we’re proactively saying we don’t want to be a part of it,” Hertzka explained.

Yes, it’s not medical.  But, there are already ways to avoid having to do this.  The state should not be telling doctors how to practice.  The precedent this sets is terrible.  Do we really want to start regulating this?  How do we argue against abortion regulation?  It just is not a place to put any “political capital” as a progressive. 

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: The Governor’s Race, Taxes, 15% Doolittle lawyers up, CA-50 and Republican Extremism, McNerney Endorsements, Pombo’s owners, Field Poll Methodology, Campaign Finance Reform, Fake News.

Governor’s Race

• Bill Bradley puts up his take on the current state of the Democratic gubernatorial primary.
• ABC has the lowdown on the “New Majority”, a Republican big-business front group that has been in the news and the Republican blogs a lot lately. Looks like they may have been coordinating advertising, at least tacitly, with the Schwarzenegger campaign. This is a big no-no in election law, and is entirely unsurprising. See also Frank Russo.
• And in the “useless gestures” department, Governor Schwarzenegger comes out on tax day to encourage California’s working poor to take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit. (Fun fact: people who try to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit are audited at a higher rate than pretty much any other taxpayers.) Oh, and see also Frank Russo on the CBP’s awesome new report on who actually pays the taxes in California.
• Left-Over asks: “Will the real Arnold please stand up?“

15% Doolittle / CA-11

• To parrot a traditional Republican talking point: If 15% Doolittle doesn’t have anything to hide, why did he lawyer up?
• Nite Swimming thinks we should ask folks like UPS why they were so interested in contributing to 15% Doolittle, a congressman from a safe seat in a relatively rural district. Could it be that they thought he could “help them out” from his position on the Appropriations Committee?

CA-50

• Our own Words Have Power takes the North County Times to task for an attack on Francine Busby from a fake nonpartisan. Here’s a hint for all those reporters out there: “nonpartisan” means only “doesn’t publicly back specific candidates”. It doesn’t mean “doesn’t have an opinion”. That’s particularly true on the Republican side, as we find more and more Republican punditry and think-tankery depends on having their own facts.
• It looks like the RNC is backing Bilbray in both the special election runoff and the primary. Now that’s sticking a finger in the eye of the California Republicans. You know that our Republicans are extremists when they are at odds with the RNC.

Paid-Off Pombo / CA-04

• Progressive 11th reports that the SEIU, East Bay Young Dems, and DFA Tracy have all endorsed Jerry McNerny in the Democratic primary. One really does wonder if the Democratic leadership talked to anyone in the district before they started helping Filson out.
• Say No To Pombo reprints a McCloskey press release pointing out something I think most of us already know: Richard Pombo has been bought outright by special interests. (Or, for the property rights fundamentalists: “deeded in fee simple”.)
• Again from SNTP, a pretty good piece of political theater by Pombo in Their Pocket.

Everyfink Else

• Speak Out California has a great post up on the evidence showing the extremist takeover of the California Republican Party. A lot of talking heads (Cough! Dan Walters! Cough!) like to pretend that the Republicans and Democrats are both hostages of their extremists, but that’s pretty much hooey, and really requires that you throw away the last 30 years of actual history.
• Bill Bradley debates Mark DiCamillo on the Field Poll’s methodology. Before I decide who’s right, I want to know if DiCamillo is a MENSA member as well — I think that may be the determining factor.
• Fake News: it’s not just for Comedy Central.
• The Rest of Us are on the California Progress Report talking about campaign finance reform.
• Bradley on energy.