The one, and perhaps only, hard piece of accountability that has come out of the widening US Attorney scandal is that the Congress passed legislation striking out the provision in the PATRIOT Act that allowed the Justice Department to appoint replacement federal prosecutors without seeking Senate confirmation.  The new law passed in both Houses with expansive, veto-proof majorities (94-2 in the Senate, 306-114 in the House). Any veto would be overridden, so the President has no choice but to sign the bill.

Except he hasn’t yet, and the hip-pocket veto has enabled Abu G to strike again – right in our own backyard of Los Angeles.

In a Senate Judiciary Committee business meeting Thursday morning, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) revealed that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales once again used an interim appointment authority at the heart of the US Attorneys controversy that Congress banned in a bill sent to the President for signature on June 4 […]

Tracy Schmaler, a spokeswoman for Senator Leahy, clarified the situation in an e-mail to RAW STORY.

“It just so happens the committee got notice yesterday, that on June 16, George Cardona’s 210 days as Acting U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California will have run out and the Attorney General will appoint him as an interim U.S. Attorney at that time. (i.e. still using the end-run authority because Bush has slow-walked signing the bill),” she wrote.

The Cardona appointment is interesting, to say the least.  It was reported in the LA Times just two weeks ago that a new hire for Cardona’s position was imminent.  The Los Angeles DA Steve Cooley called the pick, Thomas O’Brien, “the most apolitical person selected to that job in quite some time.”  Remember that the vacancy here was made by Debra Wong Yang’s departure to Republican law firm Gibson Dunn, the same firm whose client was Rep. Jerry Lewis, who Yang was investigating at the time.

So Lewis’ team had already bought out Yang (allegedly!), and now they were faced with the prospect of a hard-charging independent former DA in the role.  That must not have sat well with him.  So did Lewis tell the Justice Department to keep their handpicked loyalist in place until he made his way out of Congress (he’s rumored to be retiring)?

Marcy Wheeler also sees another angle here.

Finally, the move is especially curious because Gerry Parsky, a bigwig Republican who heads a Commission that picks judicial appointees in CA, has been particularly cranky about being left out of the process of naming USAs. And DOJ already went around him on this position specifically.

Once Yang resigned in November to pursue private law practice, it was up to the commission to make recommendations to the White House and the Justice Department. But Sampson and Goodling tried to generate candidates of their own. Interviews were scheduled with half a dozen people, many of whom had held political appointments in the department.

Parsky did not respond to e-mailed questions about his role in the process.

After word of the interview schedule leaked, Parsky called the White House and the Justice Department to complain, according to a person familiar with the process who requested anonymity because it involves a personnel matter. Goodling was allowed to proceed with the interviews, but was told she had to tell the candidates that they would have to reapply through the commission.

Ultimately, the commission is believed to have recommended two candidates; the only one interviewed by the Justice officials in Washington was a career prosecutor who has headed the criminal division of the Los Angeles office. The White House has not said whom it will nominate for the post.

Some people close to the selection process suspect Goodling and Sampson were attempting an end-run around the commission to install a politically connected Washington insider, possibly by using a law that permitted the attorney general to appoint interim U.S. attorneys without Senate oversight.

Indeed, Parsky was on board with the Thomas O’Brien appointment, according to the recent LA Times article.  Until it all fell through.

What the hell’s going on here?  Why is it so important to keep George Cardona in the Los Angeles USA seat, in defiance of a law passed by over 85% of Congress?  Does this have to do with investigations of members of Congress like Lewis (and, potentially, Ken Calvert)?  Will there be an effort to suppress the vote in the extremely ethnically diverse region, and must Cardona be the point person for that?  It’s very, very curious.

(Been hearing about this for a while, now here is the official launch. – promoted by juls)

[Cross-posted from Vote Hope]

For too many years, those of us who live outside of small states like Iowa and New Hampshire have not had much of a say in the important process of determining the Democratic Party nominee for president.

But that’s all going to change in 2008. See the flip for why.

With California’s primary now  set for Feb. 5, the Golden State will actually be among the first to  cast votes – in vote-by-mail ballots that will hit mailboxes as soon as the first  week in January.

A new independent grass-roots effort supporting Barack Obama, called Vote Hope, will be capitalizing on that fact  by running a field campaign to bank 500,000 early votes for Obama in  California. This represents more Democrats than voted total in the  Iowa and New Hampshire primaries in 2004.

Vote Hope, which officially launches today, is led by a network of  activists for social justice in California who want to ensure that the  voices of diverse Californians are heard during this critical part of  the democratic process.

We are inspired by Barack Obama’s life experience, his vision for the  country, and his calls for people to self-organize in a new wave of  political participation. We are heeding that call and building something  ourselves that will be value-added in California — starting now.

Our strategy: Bank it for Barack

Vote Hope will work over the next seven months to identify 500,000  Barack Obama supporters – online and in communities, through traditional  organizing and non-traditional cultural events – who will vote early for  Obama, either by mail or at the county registrar’s office. Early voting  in California will begin Jan. 7, and we will be running a sophisticated,  voter-file-driven program to turn out our early votes before the Iowa  caucuses even begin.

We know that Barack Obama has deep support in California, much of it  from ordinary people in constituencies that have been all but ignored by  every major campaign in recent memory, particularly young people and in  communities of color. There are millions of people in California who are  registered but don’t vote regularly, and millions more who are eligible  to be registered. We’re going to engage them, empower them with tools  and data, and we’re going to win California for Barack Obama.

And our work won’t end at 8 p.m. on February 5, 2008, when the polls  close and the early vote by mail results show a beaming Barack Obama  sweeping California. We’re building for the long term from the ground  up, and we want you to get involved.

Why Obama?

Why Obama? In a word: experience. Obama’s life and political experience – as a  Black man in an America still struggling with racism, as a community  organizer on the South Side of Chicago who then became a Senator –  represents an economic, social and cultural experience unlike any of the  other presidential contenders, and unlike anyone who has ever lived in  the White House.

Many people may not know what it means to be a community organizer. This  kind of work requires self-sacrifice, perseverance, and equal amounts of  unwavering idealism and a willingness to confront the cold hard facts of  any given situation. It requires coming down from your own perspective,  analysis and ideas, and getting very close to the core of what motivates  people – and what doesn’t. Making these judgments is at the heart of  effective politics. It’s the kind of experience that reflects the  priorities we want to see tackled in this country – the priorities of  those people struggling at the margins and outside of the current power  structure.

That, combined with his eight years in the Illinois State Senate and  four years in the U.S. Senate, has given Obama a very clear  understanding of how government really works, inside and out.

We’ve become accustomed to politicians who use differences of faith,  gender, and class to separate the American people. We stand behind Obama  because he has established a career and a campaign that leverages the  power of our diversity to bring us closer together — that critical  first step in moving us forward as a nation. The next several years of  cleaning up the messes that the Bush Administration and Republican  Congress have made are going to be incredibly difficult. The work we  have to do is going to be impossible without a united country behind the  leadership.

We believe Barack Obama’s experience also makes him the best candidate  to restore and repair the image of the U.S. in the world. New York Times  columnist Thomas Friedman agreed, in a recent piece titled “Help Wanted”:

I think Mr. Obama has the potential to force a new discussion. For now at least, he has a certain moral authority because of his life story, which makes him harder to dismiss. And while he is a good talker, he strikes me as an even better listener. It’s amazing what people will let you say to them, if you just listen to them first.

We are standing on the edge of an incredible opportunity in America. Vote Hope is here to ensure that Californians can be actively involved in seizing it.

Obama gives us hope. It’s our job to deliver the vote. Are you in?

(And if you’re interested in getting rid of Creepy Ken Calvert, check out Bill Hedrick’s DFA page. He’s the first Democrat who’s announced in the 44th, and he seems to be a good progressive. I guess we’ll see if we have a challenger to take on this OFFENDER of wildlife in SoCal. : ) – promoted by atdleft)

You all might remember how Richard Pombo’s exit from the House was given a boost by a coalition of environmentalists calling themselves the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.  They created ads and mailers bashing Pombo’s shoddy record of protecting our natural resources and were quite successful.

They’ve now turned their attentions north to CA-04 and John Doolittle.  In fact, they’re releasing a radio ad attacking Doolittle for his repeated denials of the existence of global warming.  The ads, located at Headinthesand.org, have also been customized for other Western state global warming deniers like CA-44’s Ken Calvert, Arizona’s Rick Renzi, New Mexico’s Steve Pearce, and Nevada’s Dean Heller.

Here’s Doolittle:

Calvert:
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The mini-sites on Doolittle and Calvert have a lot of information like their enviromental legislative scorecards, news updates, and total campaign contributions from industries like oil, automotive, and electric utilities.  You can also take action by sending a constituent letter.

I love when opponents are defined early.  Clearly global warming will continue to be a major issue in 2008, and the Defenders of Wildlife are placing corrupt and vulnerable members like Calvert and Doolittle squarely in the denial camp.  The fact that they are jumping aboard suggests that they see real potential in both of these races.

(P.S. As the end of Q2 nears, you’re going to hear us asking you to donate to Charlie Brown’s campaign a lot, so why don’t you just go to the ActBlue page right now and get it off your to-do list?)

I am not joking, this is above the fold on today’s San Francisco Chronicle. You would think a bill could only be a “stealth” bill if the local paper was too busy laying people off to report on the legislature. But as always, the butt of the joke didn’t seem to get why the smart people who saw today’s front page were laughing.

Of course, they didn’t call it a stealth bill because of their lousy coverage, they called it that because there wasn’t much debate as everything was moving last week. Probably, for a reason (if you bothered to read through to the 10th paragraph):

Southern California Assemblyman Michael DuVall — the lone Republican to voice his opposition on the Assembly floor last week — said that, given many of his GOP colleagues’ vocal opposition last year to Prop. 87, he thinks many didn’t see a need to voice that opinion again.

I like Phil Bronstein going to SFist, it is a smart move. But when Matthew Yi manufactures a B.S. story reprinted from the fringe on the right who are out of line with reality, most Californians, and almost everyone in SF — and it is put above the fold, is it any surprise why people won’t subscribe?