(So very very much Schwarzenegger backpedaling as the election nears. – promoted by jsw)

I’m about as white as they come, being of Scandinavian descent, but I do read a little Spanish. So when I browsed to La Opinion this morning this was the headline:

“Admite erró con la 187” with a giant picture of Ahhnold underneath.  Now, I don’t read every paper in the state every day, but I do read “Rough & Tumble” and none of its headlines covered this.  I will update if I missed it.

Goofily translated by Google for Gringos here.
More below.

I wonder if Arnold would have bothered with this now that the polls show him with an 8 point lead? Anyway, I think it’s interesting that this is in the Spanish media, not the English, and I wonder what the Wingers would think if it were.

Proposition 187 is sort of a reprise of 1950’s race based New Deal exclusionism. The wingers hate social services in general, and, well, they’ll be damned if they’re going to let dirty illegals have them, right? And they can appeal to poor whites by making them feel less privileged than the new comers to get enough votes to put it over the top.

So, anyway, I’m just wondering how much play this gets in the English media and how effectively this can be used to erode Arnold’s Republican support.

UPDATE: Capital Notes has this story now.  Beat you by an hour, Myers. (=

UPDATE II: Someone puh-leeze tell me there will be a “Arnold: I was for Prop 187 before I was against it” commercial.

We’re all doing our part to take back California and America in different ways.  Sometimes I do it by telling jokes.

Make no mistake, there is a specific value in using humor to talk about the progressive movement contra the Republicans.  It’s a way to get information out in an entertaining way rather than a pedantic one.  It provides good frames to share with your independent or on-the-fence friends.  It’s a way to take back ordinary political language from the right who’ve perverted it for 50 years.

And it’s a hoot.  Details on the flip:

We’ve been doing a show called “Cut and Run Comedy” in Sherman Oaks every Wednesday for a little over a month.  We’re putting on some great shows, with some of the best political comics in the LA area.  The venue is a small cyber-cafe, and the format is loose, so it ends up becoming like an evening at the bar (sans alcohol) with your funny friends, who riff on each other’s jokes and add to them, rather than a traditional comedy show.

The information is here, via our super-cool flyer:

We’re doing one hell of a show every week.  It’s like watching Jay Leno only you might actually laugh.  Please come down and support us if you’re in the area.

P.S. we are also available for any progressive organization or campaign events.  Our site right now is a MySpace page, but you can contact us there.

(Not strictly California politics, but Lynn Woolsey’s definitely a Progressive Californian. Plus, she’s got a good point. – promoted by SFBrianCL)

It’s time to repeal the President’s Iraq War Powers

On October 11, 2002, the Congress, over the objections of many Members of the House and Senate, passed legislation giving the President the authority to use force in Iraq.  At the time I was a vocal critic of the war, but unfortunately my voice, as well as thousands of others, was drowned out by misinformation from the administration. 

In making its case, the administration threatened us that if we didn’t act fast, the proof of Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction would “come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”  We were also told that the case against the war, and the evidence of a weapons’ program was, “a slam dunk.”  Now, three and a half years later, the American public knows what many of us believed all along, that this administration, and our president, misled us about the case to go to war.
 

Six months after we invaded Iraq, President Bush stood aboard an aircraft carrier before a banner that read “Mission Accomplished,” declaring that “major combat operations in Iraq are over.”  From that moment on, we were no longer fighting a war, but rather participating in an occupation.

An occupation cannot be won.  The President has put our troops in a position they should not have gotten into in the first place.

Our troops were not prepared to occupy Iraq.  They weren’t given the proper equipment, nor were they properly trained.  And most importantly, the US Congress never authorized this President to undertake an occupation.

This occupation of Iraq must end, now, and President Bush must bring our troops home.

That is why I am introducing the Iraq War Powers Repeal Act of 2006.  It is past time for Congress to demand that the Bush Administration come clean on Iraq, and put the safety of our troops, and the security of our nation first.

By repealing the Iraq War Powers, Congress would resume its Constitutional role overseeing the use of military force, and would reassert its authority by bringing our troops home.

Of course, the passage of this bill will be an up-hill struggle, but it is a fight that we can no longer avoid.  Rescinding the President’s war powers in Iraq is the least that we can do for our troops, and for their families who anxiously await their return.  With over 2,550 brave men and women having given their lives, and thousands seriously wounded, how many more must die before we put an end to this madness?

This is one more step in putting and end to occupation.  It is time to pass the “Iraq War Powers Repeal Act of 2006.”

-Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma)