Daily Archives: October 20, 2007

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, Environment, Health Care, San Diego, San Francisco

October 20, 2007 Blog Roundup

Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. Let me know what I missed.

To subscribe by email, click
here and do what comes naturally.

Dianne Feinstein: Simply
Spineless, or Actively Anti-Fourth-Amendment?

Other Commentary on our
Federal Representation

Health Care

Randy Goes to Campaign
Class

Local News

All the Rest

California, Economy

Looming Recession Update

1 Comment

Continuing my “sky is falling” rhetoric when it comes to the California economy, we now have over a million unemployed citizens, and even the positive job news is fleeting.

Despite a boost from the Hollywood job machine, the state unemployment rate ticked up in September, when more than 1 million Californians were looking for work, the first time that benchmark had been breached in nearly three years.

Jobs were added to the economy during the month but nearly half were in Los Angeles in the entertainment sector, according to figures released by the government Friday. Producers have been racing to get movies and television shows in the can in anticipation of a writers strike.

And Hollywood probably won’t deliver a happy ending. Strike or no, when the shows and movies are finished, many of those jobs will evaporate.

And it looks more like strike than no, as the WGA overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike, by a 90%-10% margin.  That could happen as soon as Halloween.  Most studios aren’t signing writers to any future deals right now, in anticipation of a strike.  And the contracts of the Screen Actors Guild and the Director’s Guild are up next summer.

Besides meaning a lot of crappy reality shows coming to a TV screen near you, this means a great deal of production personnel out of work.  And that just adds to the strain on the economy right now.

Esmael Adibi, an economist at Chapman University, said it was important to note that payroll job growth had slowed to 1.1% in September from 1.6% in January and that beyond construction and financial services, the professional business services sector jettisoned jobs in September.

“Every indication is the weakness is becoming more broad-based,” he said. “Retailers are getting nervous about consumer spending, and clearly they are not adding to the employment base. The job machine is getting tired.”

Coachella Valley

Palm Springs Village Fest – Thursday – October 18, 2007

October 18, 2007 – Palm Springs Village Fest Voter Registration and Candidate Information Tabling at Palm Canyon & Arenas, Palm Springs, CA, Thursday nights from 6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. (Adult beverages enjoyed thereafter at the local pubs).

Cool desert nights and progressive Democrats.  What more could a boy (or for that matter, a girl) want as a prelude to a fifteenth anniversary weekend in Pasadena for Heritage Weekend (actually, a non-anniversary weekend as, thanks to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, we cannot have a legal anniversary.)?  Large crowds of locals and visitors and voters surrounded the tables.  One highlight was the posse of Marines from 29 Palms who came by, especially the one who wanted one of my John Edwards’ bumper stickers that read “Support the Troops/End the War.”  (Is it wrong to flirt with War Heroes?  Isn’t that part of supporting the troops?).

The Democratic clubs were well represented as usual with Desert Stonewall Democrats staffing one table thanks to George Z, President, Randy, Jim R, and Jim’s partner.  The Democrats of the Desert and the Palm Springs Democrats staffed another table as well.

Steve Pougnet, Candidate for Mayor of Palm Springs, spent two fun hours at the Democratic Club tables in order to raise awareness about his plans regarding revitalization of the Palm Springs Downtown corridor, crime and safety, energy conservation, and community involvement.  His visit came close on the heels of the vote by Palm Springs City Council to endorse the Wessman development projects (Pougnet and Ginny Foat were in the minority in opposing this Chino Cone/hillside development).  Pougnet has been endorsed for Mayor of Palm Springs by both the Desert Stonewall Democratic Club and the Palm Springs Demoratic Club, the only local Democratic Clubs to make an endorsement for mayor, as well as The Desert Sun.  Pougnet has been active as City Councilman since 2003 and currently serves as Mayor Pro-Tem.  He is also serves on numerous boads and committees, including President of the Mizell Senior Center, chairman of the Coachella Valley Association of Government’s Energy Conservation subcommittee, board member of the Valley Action Group, and a member of the Palm Springs Unified School District Advisory Committee.  He was also co-chair of the Citizens Task Force for Mountain and Foothill Preservation and Planning.

Hopefully, we will see more visits from Pougnet, Greg Pettis, Candidate for CA 80th Assembly District, John Williams, Candidate for City Council of Palm Springs, Rick Hutcheson, Candidate for City Council of Palm Springs, and Bob Mahlowitz, Candidate for City Council of Palm Springs.

More exciting details below the flip…

We had representation at the tables from the Sen. John Edwards campaign, i.e., yours truly, captain of the Palm Springs for Edwards One Corps Chapter and Tiffany from the Coachella Valley John Edwards for President One Corps Chapter.  Tiffani and I distributed position papers from the John Edwards for President campaign, provided campaign buttons and bumper stickers, and solicited voters to register to vote.  In just the past week alone, John Edwards received endorsements from dozens of local, state, and federal elected officials in Oklahoma, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Maine.  Senator Edwards has also recently been endorsed by more than 3 million union members from all across the country including more than 1 million SEIU members from the following 11 SEIU State Councils: Iowa, California, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio, Oregon, and Massachusetts. 

John Edwards also earned the endorsement last month of the Transport Workers Union of America (200,000 active and retired members), the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (520,000 active members), the United Steelworkers (1.2 million active members and retirees), and the United Mine Workers of America (105,000 active members and retirees).  The Iowa Postal Workers Union also endorsed Senator Edwards this past week as well.

John Edwards’ pollster, Harrison Hickman, has prepared a new polling memo which proves, once again, that John Edwards is the strongest and most electable candidate. You can view this memo by clicking here: http://johnedwards.c….

Back to Village Fest.  Wayne and the boys from the fab Sen. Hillary Clinton campaign had twinking lights and gave away free Hillary balloons to the young and to the young at heart.

Ed spearheaded the Sen. Barack Obama table with Richard and Kurt’s assistance.  The Obama people were active in collecting information from potential volunteers.  Bob M. of the Draft Al Gore campaign circulated petitions to get Nobel Prize Winner Gore on the 2008 California Democratic Primary ballot.

We also registered 16 voters last night, including two at the Unofficial Drinking Liberally (UODL) after-party at Bongo Johnny’s!  Keep turning the Coachella Valley blue!

I had the opportunity to begin the UODL a tad early as I had to leave Village Fest to begin my un-anniversary celebration (remember, Gov. Schwarzenegger will not allow Marriage Equality in CA or as a result, anniversaries either).  Anyway, I hopped over to Hunter’s Video Bar, and who did I see?  None other than Udo Kier, former Andy Warhol star and actor in such movies as ‘Blade,’ ‘Halloween,’ and Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Grindhouse.’  Yes, after an internal debate and a call to my un-husband, I decided to be the typical stareffer and bought Udo a bottle of water and schmoozed.

You never know what will happen when you are active in your community and working to Take Back California and America.  See you next Thursday night?!?!?!

Uncategorized

Weekend Events

Real quick, if you are reading this in San Francisco, you can head to the Tenderloin to do a little work with Democrats Work. It begins at 10AM. More details here.

If you’re in the Bay Area, and are into the 2008 Race, well, have I got an event for you!  The San Mateo County Democratic Party is hosting a straw poll this Sunday at the San Mateo County Event Center. Dennis Kucinich will be there, as well as fmr. Sen. Jackie Speier for Hillary, Steve Westly for Barack Obama, and Sen. Leland Yee for John Edwards. More information here.

At exactly the same time, Take Bake Red California is hosting their “Taste of the Red Counties” event in San Rafael. More information here. Calitics Event listing here. Flyer over the flip

Uncategorized

The Wilkes Trial: Just A Preview For The Lewis Indictment?

1 Comment

Josh Marshall is puzzled by the defense strategy employed by celebrilawyer Mark Geragos for corrupt defense contractor Brent Wilkes.  So far he’s called to the stand exactly one witness, who pretty much just called Wilkes a nice guy.  That hardly refutes the voluminous amounts of evidence showing Wilkes’ multiple bribery schemes.

So what’s the strategy?  Perhaps Geragos is hanging Wilkes out as a possible flipper for a bigger fish:

The only logic I can see to this is based on something a lawyer friend told me. If Wilkes tries to push an ‘everybody does it’ too hard at trial then he’s locked himself to a set of facts that will make it a lot harder for him to turn around and cut a deal in exchange for serving up Bill Lowery and Rep. Lewis (R-CA).

That makes sense, I guess. Though I think I need to guard against a professional investment in having it having it be true since Wilkes serving up these two jokers would be a veritable festival of muck, something akin to taking a pin to a muck balloon. But in that case, why’d he go to trial in the first place? Something about the whole thing just doesn’t fit to me.

Me neither.  But we do know that Lewis is getting nervous about further investigation, because his staffer just told the Justice Department to go eat a fig.

According to RollCall, a former staffer for the House Appropriations Committee that worked for then Chairman Jerry Lewis said he intends to defy a federal subpoena he was served today from the US District Court for the Central District in California…

The staffer, Greg Lasker, is trying to hide behind the “speech and debate” clause of the Constitution and claim that the subpoena is not consistent with the “rights and privileges of the House.”  I guess it’s a lead-by-example thing, the President and his staff doesn’t see any need to comply with subpoenas, so why should Lasker?

After months of dormancy, the new US Attorney in Los Angeles, Thomas O’Brien, appears to have ramped up the Lewis investigation.  Stay tuned…

(in other news, Duke Cunningham is a complete idiot)

Uncategorized

Friday Open Thread

2 Comments

We have not had an open thread in a little while here, so here ya go.  I dunno about you, but I have had a crazy busy week and am looking forward to the weekend. 

If you have not already pushed DiFi to oppose immunity for the telecom companies in the FISA bill take action now.  Courage Campaign sent out an email to the list today, partnered with Working Assets, so join in the fun (full disclosure: I’m working for Courage).  Given the uproar over Dodd’s hold and Reid’s response, it is crucial we put pressure on her to do the right thing.

Oh and I have gotten my personal blog Ruck Pad up and running again, so feel free to link up and grab the RSS feed.  All sorts of random posts from me there, mostly stuff not California politics.  Still need too learn how to tweak the CSS though.

Bonus video below the fold.

This is José González – Down The Line.  I totally scored the other week when my bro left a  mix cd in my car.  This was on it.  I wanted to put up Loretta Lee Jones by Langhorne Slim, but no YouTube.  This is more chill, fitting for a Friday afternoon.

Health Care

Nat’l Update: Labor, Lakoff, Gore Fighting for Single-Payer

Great news for the single-payer movement: a majority of state federations of labor have now endorsed guaranteed, single-payer healthcare!  (Well, ok, 25 out of 50, but one of them is MD-DC.)  This follows on the heels of the recent announcement by the national AFL-CIO that they are pushing Medicare for All.  Do not discount how important this is…guaranteed, single-payer healthcare now becomes the only proposal with an organized, powerful constituency pushing for it. 

More labor endorsements are coming every day…Here’s what Oregon has to say:

The resolution continues, “. . . (T)he fundamental principal of the labor movement — that fragmentation leads to weakness while solidarity leads to strength — is a powerful tool that can be applied to create a consolidated, single payer American healthcare system.”

The Rockridge Institute and George Lakoff are also advocating for single-payer healthcare.  They’ve written a very interesting study on the “neo-liberal” biases inherent in how we talk about the debate.  Long story short: the conservatives don’t want you to think of a sick child, they want you to think about the problems with regulating industries like insurance.  Check out their new video…

Don’t forget, Al Gore’s also fighting for single-payer healthcare, and the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association are thanking him for it.

Elsewhere, it seems the public is quite ready to pay for SCHIP.

In case you missed it…HMOs in California?  Not doing such a great job.  But nurses could have told you that.

Finally, when conservatives attack single-payer healthcare, here’s the best they can come up with:

A shift to a single-payer system for all Americans would yield net savings in reported administrative costs of about $100 billion annually, or $2,100 in additional health care benefits for each of the 47 million individuals estimated as uninsured.

Everything else in the article is a bunch of lies written by corporate PR people, so be warned.

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.