Daily Archives: September 25, 2006

Central Valley

CA-11: Richard Pombo’s attempts to gut food safety rules

Campaign Money Watch has released a report that points out Paid-for Pombo’s campaign fundraising from agro-business while all the while trying to gut food safety regulations:

Today the national watchdog group Campaign Money Watch released a report demonstrating how Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), who has collected $1.4 million in campaign contributions from agribusiness for his races for Congress, wants to gut California’s strong food safety rules at the same time the public is reeling from an e. coli crisis that has sickened more than 100 people nationwide.

Rep. Pombo is the cosponsor of legislation, H.R. 4167, which passed the House earlier this year without a hearing, which would preempt the right of states to enact stronger food safety regulations than those that are required by the federal government. An industry-led coalition called the National Uniformity for Food Coalition, whose members include top Pombo donors, is pushing for the bill. Among the California laws that would be affected are Proposition 65, which requires the state to annually publish a list of chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects, as well as recent legislation that sets limits on lead in candy.

How many of these things do we have to hear about from Pombo?  Is there any limit at all to his corruption?  I personally doubt that there is.  By the way, the full report has a lot more details about Pombo’s recent swarminess.

Jerry Brown

CA-AG: Pooch’s charge: “Jerry Brown is a flaky liberal.”

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Apparently Chuck Poochigian missed the notice on this one: calling someone a liberal in this state willl not hurrt their election chances.  It just won’t.  It will get the politically active conservatives, the ones who were already going to vote, to vote for you.  But, that will not be enough to even make a serious run at Jerry Brown.  But, Pooch still thinks he’s running in Fresno:

Democrat Jerry Brown is portraying his rival, state Sen. Chuck Poochigian, as a right-wing “extremist” linked to President Bush, while the Fresno Republican has hit back calling the Oakland mayor a “flaky liberal,”…

“The ads are an effort to remind voters who recall Jerry Brown’s disastrous record as governor and mayor of Oakland and of just how out of touch he is with the majority of Californians, Spillane said.(SF Chron 9/25/06)

Oh, you must mean back in the early 80s when California still had one of the best educational systems in the world.  Now, we’re 43rd.  And why is that? Oh yeah, Prop 13 took away revenues from the state and locals and left us with a budget mess.  The good people of the Golden State will see through Poochigian’s pandering to the right.

Uncategorized

Help me help Debra Bowen

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( – promoted by SFBrianCL)

OllieB just encouraged me to cross-post my DailyKos diary here on Calitics.  I am making a daily contribution every day until the election, and today’s contribution is to Debra Bowen.  If 10 people match my $100 contribution today on my ActBlue page, I’ll triple my contribution and send her $200 tomorrow.  So please help me out.  Thanks!

Here’s Debra’s website.

Here’s my ActBlue page.

More below the fold.

I saw Debra Bowen speak at the DemocracyFest here in San Diego a couple of weeks ago.  She’s a public servant with a good grasp of technology and a dedication to fair, accountable elections.  Brad, who was also at DemFest, supports her; he’s the go-to guy for electronic voting issues. 

I haven’t looked very closely into the topic myself; I just know that the way things are right now is very wrong.  I spent four months in ’04 in Canton, Ohio, home of Diebold.  I currently live a hop, skip and a jump away from the “sleepover” district, CA-50, where the Bilbray/Busby results have been called into question – also the city where our mayoral race was something of a farce (not specifically related to electronic voting, but not all voting concerns concern electronic voting machines).  Hell, my parents grew up in “vote early and often” Chicago.  Voting matters, and even if there has been no chicanery in our elections, the fact that we remain in doubt about it is problem enough by itself.  Voting matters.

Debra Bowen understands this; much of her attention as state senator has been dedicated to oversight of voting issues, and she’s done a lot to move our state to more accountability.  She’s seen what a poor job the incumbent has done, and she will do better.  Not a lot of attention is given to the race for Secretary of State – and not a lot of money.  What that means to us is: we can make a big difference.  This is a race where my hundred bucks – and yours – can really matter.  So pry open that wallet and give.  Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day Candidate Amount Matching funds from other Kossacks
E-56 Jack Carter $100 $100
E-55 Susan Davis $20  
E-54 Francine Busby $50  
E-53 John Rinaldi $20 $20
E-52 Ron Klein $25  
E-51 Sherrod Brown $25 x 2 $30
E-50 Ned Lamont $20 x 2 $65
E-49 Phil Angelides $20 x 2 $20
E-48 Charlie Brown $20 x 2 $20
E-47 Victoria Wulsin $25 x 2 $105
E-46 Jim Webb $20 x 2 $50
E-45 Gabrielle Giffords $20 x 2 $20
E-44 Debra Bowen $100  
TOTAL   $615 $430
Arnold Schwarzenegger

CA-Gov: Angelides Making The Race About Iraq

Cross-posted from The California Courage Campaign

The next phase of Phil Angelides’s bid to unseat Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to focus on the war in Iraq. Phil has anti-war rallies in Burbank and San Francisco on Tuesday and in Sacramento on Thursday.

In advance of these appearances and in time for Sunday papers and talk shows, Angelides talked tough on Saturday about what he would try to do as Governor about California’s overextended National Guard in Iraq.

"On day one, I will put in a formal request to President Bush to return our Guard units to California," Angelides said in an interview with The Bee. "I will go to work to mobilize other governors so that the National Guard can be used once again for its intended purposes, not to prop up the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld failed war policy."

The treasurer said he "will walk the halls of Congress to mobilize support to return our troops home and I will take any action, including going to court, to return our guardsmen and women to California."

More over the flip.

Many say this wouldn’t even be possible, that once a president federalizes the National Guard, a governor can not recall them. But the feasibility of his proposal is really beside the point for Angelides. It’s about motivating his as yet uninspired base, and drawing a clear distinction between himself and the governor, a distinction that also ties Schwarzenegger to the remarkably unpopular Bush.

As The Sacramento Bee says:

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has supported President Bush's policies in Iraq and has not questioned the deployment of the California National Guard in the war.

And it’s also about getting some much needed attention. It’s unsurprising of course that The LA Times and The Sacramento Bee are covering the story, nor is it shocking to find Bill Bradley referring to Angelides’s statements as a “hail Mary pass” on his New West Notes. But Angelides got some national network airtime this morning on This Week with George Stephanopolous, on which even conservative George Will conceded:

I think it might resonate. He’s way behind in the polls, there must be 80% opposition to the war in Iraq in his party in California and this is a shrewd political move.

In addition, Angelides's comments inspired a {gong} "Fox News Alert" this afternoon:

Angelides: I'll Bring National Guard Troops Home

Could this be the start of a momentum shift? This issue catching on for Angelides could be Arnold's worst nightmare.