Daily Archives: June 29, 2006

Los Angeles Area

CA-41: Jerry Lewis inches towards prison

The Jerry Lewis scandal looks like it could be worse than the Duke-Stir Affair.  Sure, Duke was taking bribes. Lewis, however, is actively running a corruption organization.  He seeks to spread bribes around the SoCal GOP Congressional Delegation, past and present.  And he’ll take a taste every now and again.

Redlands-based ESRI has received a federal subpoena as part of an ongoing investigation into Inland Rep. Jerry Lewis and his ties to a Washington lobbying firm, a company official said Wednesday night.  The company, which specializes in mapping and geographic information system technology, is one of more than 28 Inland companies, local governments and institutions that are clients of Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez, Denton & White. (Riverside Press 6/29/06)

More on the flip…

ESRI has received millions of dollars of non-competitive contracts from the House Appropriations Committee, which, oh by the way, Lewis is chairman of.  The Appropriations Committee under Lewis has become corruption central, with earmarks flying fast and furious with little regard to the cost of anything or the capabilities of the companies.  These no-bid contracts end up getting subcontracted out repeatedly so that the government barely knows, if it does know at all, who it’s working with.  The failure of Katrina bussing is a direct result of such a subcontracting.  The original contractor subcontracted out, who in turn subcontracted out again.  When crunch time came, the busses were nowhere to be found and FEMA could do little but look on as people were left in squalor at the Superdome.  But don’t worry, Jerry Lewis gets plenty of money for the Inland Empire!

Lewis has helped secure more than $1 billion to the Inland area in recent years, including more than $90 million to ESRI for projects that include work on reconstruction plans in Iraq.
***
But ESRI has received earmarks — the special projects inserted by lawmakers into federal legislation and often without public debate.  In a letter to employees in May after media accounts about a possible investigation into Lewis, ESRI president and co-founder Jack Dangermond said the non-competitive awards the company has received support the government in times of emergency.
***
Copeland Lowery clients have received millions of dollars in congressional earmarks, a practice under increased scrutiny by federal authorities. Firm partner Bill Lowery is a former congressman and a close friend of Lewis, R-Redlands. The firm has also employed former Lewis staff members. … [N]o charges have been filed against Lewis or Copeland Lowery.

Yet.

Uncategorized

Bad news on the congressional candidate filing front.

2 Comments

Well almost 3 weeks since the last Benawu congressional diary and the news is almost all bad.

We still have candidates in only 426 districts but it is about to become 425!

Check out the 50 State Page and give some lovin’ to Barry Welsh whilst you are there.

Below the fold for details……………

We are now up to 6 uncontested Republican districts with VA 4 and VA 6 coming up short. I still don’t understand why the Virginia Democratic Party and the Virginia Blogosphere focused so much on the Webb V Miller Senate Primary and left TWO congressional districts unopposed, the only state to do so.

In worse news Mark Hull-Richter will almost certainly fall short in his write in campaign in CA 42. Have a look at these returns from Orange County. Across the district Hull-Richter needed 2461 write in votes to get on the ballot in November. In Orange County he only got 263! (see the bottom of page 5 of the linked returns). Given that almost two thirds of the votes cast in CA 42 in 2004 came from Orange County I would say Hull-Richter is well sunk. **sigh**

So with that in mind the state of play is as follows:

425 Races with a Democratic candidate including 1 unconfirmed:
– LA 4 – Rev Artis Cash. When he files or sets up a website he becomes confirmed.
(Since my last diary unconfirmed candidates have become confirmed in AZ-06 and NY-03.)

10 Races where the Republican incumbent is unopposed:
7!!! Races where there won’t be a Democrat on the ballot in November.

AL 6 – Congressional District Map

CA 42 – Congressional District Map

FL 12 – Congressional District Map

MS 3 – Congressional District Map

TX 11 – Congressional District Map

VA 4 – Congressional District Map

VA 6 – Congressional District Map


3 Races where we don’t have a candidate YET.

LA 5 – Congressional District Map. There is currently no rumored candidate.

LA 6 – Congressional District Map. There is currently no rumored candidate.

LA 7 – Congressional District Map. Hunter Lundy is not running so there is currently no rumored candidate.

Whilst the last few weeks have been disappointing there is an upside. 425-428 districts filled is an amazing affirmation of Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy as in 2004 we contested only 396 districts. We will have a full Congressional house slate in 43 or 44 states and with filing closing today in Rhode Island we now have 40 Unopposed Democratic candidates in districts where filing has closed! This of course compares to just 7 Unopposed Republicans.

Great job team.

Uncategorized

Arnold adds 2 ultra-conservatives to Education Coalition

(More information about Schwarzenegger’s “Education” Coalition – promoted by jsw)

The guvenator makes a hard right turn in appointing two far right conservatives to his education coalition. One of these appointments apparently has ties to the scandal tagged Grover Norquist and the Americans for Tax Reform (ATR).

Schwarzenegger named both Jim Kelly and Ron Nehring of the Grossmont Union High School District (GUHSD) board in San Diego. Rawstory has the scoop on the teachers reaction to Mr. Nehrings appointment.

The move has sparked an angry response from teacher’s union representative Bruce Seaman, president of the Grossmont Education Association.

“He’s certainly putting together a coalition of enemies of public education,” Seaman told RAW STORY. “Ron Nehring is working for Grover Norquist’s organization, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR).” Noting that Norquist has stated he wants to reduce the size of government in order to “drown it in a bathtub,” Seaman added, “His second agenda is to eliminate public education and go to vouchers. Certainly Nehring can in no way be looked at as a friend of public education.”

Here a little background workup on Mr. Nehring courtesy of the Center on Policy Initiatives (PDF).

Nehring and Hardage teamed up with the Pacific Research Institute to work
on policy issues, Wirthlin Worldwide to provide advanced training in message development and
delivery, and Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute to do grassroots training.

.
A little more:

Nehring regularly contributes issue-length pieces to Labor Watch, the anti-union quarterly of the
Capital Research Center, a Scaife and Bradley funded opposition research think tank in
Washington, DC.

Lastly Mr. Nehring was at NCPRR while a guy named Jack Abramhoff served on the board.

Nehring once served as director of development and public affairs for Ridenour’s Scaife and Bradley funded NCPPR, and worked for its Project 21, an initiative to find right-wing African American voices to criticize the leadership of civil rights organizations.

Bloggers were asking the right questions back in Jan 2006, Words Have Power pondered:

Nehring consistently attempts to steer reporters to historical ethical abuses by Democrats. It is interesting that not a single local reporter is questioning Nehring’s connections with Norquist, ATR and, ultimately, Jack Abramoff. Maybe it is time to connect one more dot in the mess that is the Republican congress of corruption.

My questions (doing my best Columbo eyebrow) are how does this guy go from being a think tank stormtrooper and member of a troubled school board to key appointments (State Board of Forestry and Education Coalition) in the Schwarzenegger administration in less than a year?

snark/ It’s nice to see Arnold is such a big tent, moderate Republican by these types of appointments.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, Budget, Environment

California Blog Roundup, 6/28/06

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Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, budget, CA-04, CA-11, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, corruption, clean money, energy, environment.

Read This One

    Julia Rosen explains the core problem of bad Republican governance isn’t incompetence — it’s Republicans.

Governor’s Race

Budget

Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

15% Doolittle / CA-04

Other Republican Paragons

Environment

Reform

Miscellany

Uncategorized

Mexican Elections on 7/2: Why it’s important to us

The Mexican general election will be held this Sunday, July 2.  It will have an enormous impact on America and more specifically California.  The two candidates who are believed to have a chance are Felipe Calderón(Spanish) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Spanish).  By the way, those are some spiffy websites.  Calderon has a cool soccer game on the top of his.  The campaign practically came to a halt for the Mexican soccer matches, but the attention of the Mexican media is squarely on this election after the Mexican squad fell in a thrilling battle with the powerhouse that is the Argentian national squad.

Calderon is the heir apparent to Mexican president Vicente Fox.  His PAN Party has steered a moderate course, but has failed to accomplish any significant goals since Fox became president.  Lopez Obrador, or AMLO (his initials) as he is commonly known, is the populist/leftist candidate.  And Calderon has been trying to tie AMLO to Hugo Chavez, attempting to play the extremist issue.  Right now, the polls are neck and neck.  Wikipedia has a great English run-down of tons of polls. 

Strangely enough, Ruben Navarrette in SacBee says that an AMLO victory could be a pleasant surprise for America.  You see, the Mexican government has been going through, since the early 20th century, essentially a 90 year Bush Administration.  No government has tackled poverty issues in any meaningful way.  And the growing economic disparity between the rich and the poor continues to cause millions of Mexicans to seek jobs in the U.S.  Really, isn’t this what the Republicans are doing to our nation?  They pillage the government to hand it all of to corporations and the rich.  Large tax cuts for the rich, while social services are stagnant.  Isn’t this what the Bush Administration wants too?  Drowning the government in a bathtub and all?

And that’s what the PRI gave the Mexican people for 71 years.  Then along came Vicente Fox, the first president from a party other than the PRI.  Expectations were high.  The IMF and Bush Administration pulled Fox along the traditional IMF line.  And the rich got richer…and the poor got poorer. No Mexican leader has truly challenged the root causes of poverty.  The corruption has gotten in the way of any meaningful reform.

AMLO has a unique opportunity, though.  He has the initiative to challenge the elites, and hopefully to end the stagnancy in the Mexican economy.  Mexican job growth is the real key to any immigration improvement in the U.S.  And thus, this populist just might be the best thing for the conservatives in America:

Here’s the irony: While many of the Americans in this camp probably consider themselves conservative, the candidate who is most likely to deliver what they want is a left-leaning populist. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the ex-mayor of Mexico City and candidate representing the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), may just win a contest that is still considered too close to call.

At first glance, you would think that conservatives would cringe at the prospect of a populist on the southern border. But in this case, they’d be wise to take a closer look at Lopez Obrador and his appeal to Mexican voters.

The candidate…doesn’t waste time blaming the United States for Mexico’s woes. AMLO cuts to the chase and blames Mexico, specifically the rich elites who prey upon the poor and then react with indifference when those without options leave home to search for opportunities in the United States. He promises to pump government money into the economy to jump-start it.(SacBee 6/28/06)

The Mexican elections bears watching.  An AMLO victory could cause a bit of a worry for the Bush administration, as they’ve never been too friendly with populists.  But, in the end, AMLO could provide the valve that cuts the spigot of undocument immigrants to California: a good economy.