In 2004, well below most people’s radar, the FDA approved the implantation of VeriChip and other forms of RFID chip in human beings. While “chipping” is a lifesaver for pets, there is a certain “squicky” factor about implanting chips in human beings.

It was very stupid of the Dems to not hang the FDA decision around George W. Bush’s neck. After all, “chipping” was the method used to enable the Mark of the Beast in the “Left Behind” series of bestselling books. Bush has been wrapping himself in the Bible now for his entire presidency. Why we didn’t put leaflets about “Bush Administration approves Mark of the Beast” under windshield wipers of cars at Evangelical megachurches is beyond me.

We missed that opportunity. Here’s another we cannot miss in 2008. I’ll explain after the flip.

State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) got SB 362 passed on Thursday. The bill bans the involuntary implantation of RFID chips by employers. This is not Sci-fi the bill is talking about, or even “Left Behind.” There is an Ohio firm that mandated that certain key employees be “chipped” as a condition of employment. Yes, that happened in red-state Ohio.

The people who voted AGAINST SB 362 in the California State Senate were, to a man, all members of the California State Senate Republican caucus. Here are the names:
Ackerman
Cogdill
Cox
Dutton
Harman
Margett
McClintock(!)
Runner
Wyland

Here’s the list of members of the California State Senate Republican caucus: (Nays on SB 362 bolded)
Aanestad, Sam (4)
Ackerman, Dick (33)
Ashburn, Roy (18)
Battin, Jim (37)
Cogdill, Dave (14)
Cox, Dave (1)
Denham, Jeff (12)
Dutton, Bob (31)
Harman, Tom (35)
Hollingsworth, Dennis (36)
Maldonado, Abel (15)
Margett, Bob (29)
McClintock, Tom (19)
Runner, George (17)
Wyland, Mark (38)

I’m willing to bet that the people who voted Nay on this bill in the Assembly were also all Rethugs.

Now then…how many of these guys are up for reelection in 2008?

One of the things that should be front and center on our “to-do” list, along with putting a Democratic President in the White House and turning Congress bluer, is to turn the State Legislature 75% blue. Give the State Legislature the sledgehammer it needs to keep Schwarzenegger pinned down and needing to make big compromises with the legislature to make the government work.

This is one thing we can do, if we cannot make Religious Right-wing voters in this state vote Democratic, to at least make them stay home in disgust or vote for a third party candidate (American Independent, maybe?) who will split the GOP vote in California.

We need to make the Evangelical Protestant Christian voter aware that THEIR local State Senator (and/or Assemblyperson as the case may be) had an opportunity to BAN THE MARK OF THE BEAST FROM CALIFORNIA COMMERCE. He (all the State Senators who voted thusly are men) had an opportunity to make it difficult for the prophecies in Revelation Chapter 13 to come true in the Golden State. And your state legislator VOTED IT DOWN. A vote against SB 362 was A VOTE FOR THE MARK OF THE BEAST.

It doesn’t matter if you believe it. I, for one, am not a believer. However, I think we can all agree that allowing an employer to “chip” their employees, no matter if they are “key people” or not, doesn’t pass the sniff test. Actually I’d rather have seen an outright ban on all implantation of RFID, except by prescription by a qualified doctor with a specialty in neurology and/or gerontology. The only legitimate reason for “chipping” a human being would be if they are an Alzheimers’ patient with a propensity to wander. And even in those cases an ankle or wrist bracelet with the chip embedded in the bracelet would be a better way to go.

This is a way we can perhaps sway a demographic of voters who would be otherwise unpersuadable. And maybe this might go a ways towards a veto-proof majority in the California Legislature.

And no, this is not snark. I’m serious.

Courage Campaign has been working hard to beat back the dirty trick initiative.  We have been collecting thousands of pledges to defeat it and sent 2,148 copies of the initiative directly to Arnold’s office.  We have a ton of other great ideas up our sleeves, but we need your support to put it into action.

Below is the email we just sent out to Courage Campaign members, including a video ask from Rick Jacobs.

[UPDATE] by Julia If folks are interested in being on our blogger listserv, so we can keep you updated on what we are up to and share things like blog badges please shoot me an email with your username and blog if you have one.

Dear juls,

A few weeks ago, a scathing New York Times editorial told you about how Republicans were springing another “elaborate dirty trick” on us – an unbelievable California ballot initiative to steal 20 electoral college votes for the Republican presidential nominee, thus hijacking the White House for four more disastrous years.

You’re outraged. And so are we. That’s why the Courage Campaign has decided enough is enough. No more dirty tricks. Not in California. Not in America.

Over 7,000 of you signed a pledge to fight this dirty trick. When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger played dumb, saying he hadn’t read the ballot initiative, you sent over 2,000 copies of the initiative to him to read over the Labor Day weekend.

Now, you have a chance to send Arnold and the entire California Republican Party a loud and clear message before their convention starts this Friday: No more excuses. No more dirty tricks. No more partisan power-grabs.

To build our people-powered campaign to kill this dirty trick dead, we need you to support our 20/20 vision by this Friday’s convention: Can you contribute $20 to Courage to save 20 California electoral votes right now?

http://www.courageca…

What will twenty dollars – the price of a movie, popcorn and a soda – get you? A campaign of, by and for the netroots and grassroots.

At the YearlyKos blogger convention last month, I talked with an amazing group of online leaders – including several folks from the Calitics blogging community – about how we could defeat this dirty trick together. I left Chicago inspired and days later, we formed a “No Dirty Tricks” netroots advisory team driven by California online organizers and bloggers like Eden James, Miles Kurland, Julia Rosen, Bob Brigham, Julie Bergman Sender and Todd Beeton. Endorsements came pouring in as well from national leaders like Arianna Huffington, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, Sherry Lansing, Jane Hamsher, Eleanor Smeal and Bradley Whitford (click here to see the powerful lineup of bloggers and leaders endorsing our “No Dirty Tricks” campaign).

Courage Campaign is uniting netroots and grassroots progressives to build a people-powered online infrastructure in California that will defeat this initiative in June even as we build a winning progressive agenda. One way we’re building online infrastructure is by using and supporting ActBlue, an exciting web community tool that empowers anyone – individuals, local groups, and national organizations – to raise funds online for their favorite candidate or cause. ActBlue is campaign finance reform because it empowers each of us to democratize politics from the bottom up.

By helping the Courage Campaign defeat this dirty trick, you can also help ActBlue empower us to change the role of money in American politics. After you contribute $20 to Courage to save 20 California electoral votes, you’ll be given an option to add a small “tip” for ActBlue. A few dollars can make a big difference:

http://www.courageca…

On Wednesday, we’ll tell you much more about our plans to use ActBlue to help us build a transformative team that can turn online activism into offline action, kill this dirty trick dead, and take back the White House in 2008.

If you care deeply about building a people-powered movement to end politics as usual, we need your support right now. By contributing “20 for 20” through ActBlue, you can help us build a progressive netroots-driven organization in California that is a a model for the nation.

This is your moment.  This is your movement.  Please join with us by acting now to support  Courage Campaign before Friday’s California Republican Party convention.

Rick Jacobs
Courage Campaign

P.S. P.S. Yes, our team is working on Labor Day. I’m sure you noticed that President Bush is as well, this time in Iraq. That’s why we won’t rest until we put an end to the dirty tricks. With that in mind, I recorded this one-minute YouTube video over the weekend to talk with you about how the “Sons of Nixon” dirty tricksters are trying to steal the presidency. I hope you enjoy it.

It’s all Gray Davis’ fault!

About 3,500 customers in scattered parts of Los Angeles still had no electricity early Monday, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokeswoman MaryAnne Piersen said.

“Probably more than 90 percent of them are due to stress on the system due to the heat,” she said. “Different pieces of equipment get fatigued and blow out, so they have to be replaced.”

Reports on Southern California television suggest that a stage 3 alert could be called, which would trigger rolling blackouts.  A lightning strike last night added to the worries and is affecting productivity.  Yet the Independent System Operator is not showing such alerts – yet.

Let us know what’s happening in your part of the world.

(UPDATE: David promised more on how you can help, here it is! – promoted by Bob Brigham)

There is no reason for a well-informed Californian not to know about the Dirty Tricks initiative to steal the 2008 election by changing the way the state apportions its electoral votes.  By now practically every newspaper in the state has written an editorial against it.  And now one of the deans of Sacramento, George Skelton, bluntly criticizes the maneuver.

The chutzpah award for this summer has a runaway winner. It’s the small team of Republican operatives trying to rig the 2008 presidential race.

“Rig” means tilting the playing field to assure continued Republican occupancy of the White House — perhaps for a very long time.

over…

Skelton intimates that this could backfire on the Republican operatives by creating a rallying point for progressives and Democrats:

Whatever this is, it’s brazen — a strategy based on the assumption of a low voter turnout that leans Republican while the electoral college measure slips under the Democratic radar.

But I can envision just the opposite. I can see this initiative drawing a lot of media attention that awakens Democratic voters.

“It’s a ‘wacky California’ story,” (Peter) Ragone says. “Like in, ‘Here they go again!’ “

Skelton offers the obvious alternative to this power grab in clear and concise language.

What would make sense is to completely shutter the archaic electoral college and elect the president by national popular vote. The argument that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it was discredited in 2000 when the system did break. For the fourth time in history, the candidate who got the most citizen votes lost out in the electoral college. No need to recite the national consequences of that glitch.

But before we can tear down the electoral college, Americans must get over the notion that states — not citizens — should elect the president. Whomever most people want to be president should be. That’s how every other officeholder is elected in this land.

Exactly, though placing it on the ballot as an alternative would probably needlessly confuse the issue.  Especially if you see it as a rallying point.  I don’t think the 30,000-feet strategy of Ragone and Chris Lehane is to energize Democrats, necessarily.  They want to spend a lot of money and “confuse to kill” if they have to.  But the progressive movement smells an opportunity here, a chance to use this campaign as a springboard, to activate progressives all over the state to fight this dirty trick.

Like I said, well-informed people have no excuse not to know about this.  But those one notch below may not be at all aware.  That’s why we need to make sure we have the resources we need to run a positive campaign bent on capitalizing on this dirty trick to change the political map in the state.  Republicans will rue the day they even tried this.  More on how you can help later.