Dirty Tricks Initiative – Giuliani Campaign In Trouble?

A top official of the effort to steal up to 20 electoral votes in California sent out an email to supporters of the Rudy Giuliani campaign asking them to sign petitions to get the measure on the ballot.  This could be a violation of federal election law, which prohibits coordination between Presidential campaigns and separate ballot issues.  Top of the Ticket has the latest.

The missive, obtained by The Times’ Dan Morain, is addressed, “Hello Fellow Rudy Supporter!” Its author, Tony Andrade, is a Republican activist who helped draft the electoral college initiative. Previously, he was among those who helped place the ultimately successful recall of Gov. Gray Davis on the ballot in 2003 […]

Chris Lehane, a Democratic activist who is organizing the campaign to block the measure, said of the Andrade e-mail: “It sounds like something that the Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice will be very interested in seeing.”

Maria Comella, spokeswoman for Giuliani’s White House bid, previously has stressed that neither he nor his campaign has had anything to do with pushing the ballot initiative.

It’s unclear how Andrade would have gotten a list of Giuliani supporters in California without some form of coordination.  The initiative’s new backers, most of them connected to Giuliani in one way or another, are running from this as fast as possible.

Veteran GOP strategist Ed Rollins, who is overseeing the attempt to put the initiative before voters, distanced himself from Andrade’s note.

“None of us has anything to do with any [presidential] campaign; we understand the law very, very well,” Rollins said. Pledging to try to “make sure that [the e-mail] gets stomped,” Rollins added, “We need to be very sensitive to the fact that people have speculated that this is part of the Giuliani campaign.”

The email included a link to the petition and asks signers to get 10 other people to sign it as well.  A campaign confident in their ability to get the necessary signatures wouldn’t rely on an email ask, and they certainly wouldn’t come this close to violating election law.

This is not the first time that a link has been uncovered between the Giuliani campaign and the dirty tricks initiative.  In fact, almost every connection we’ve seen has gone in this fashion.  You’ll remember that the first incarnation of the measure was derailed when a murky donation from a shell group in Missouri was eventually traced to Paul Singer, Giuliani’s northeast finance director.

These are serious charges, and the Federal Election Commission needs to address them immediately.  Steve Benen has more.

Looming Recession Update: Home Edition

Statewide foreclosures in California hit the 24,000 mark in the third quarter of 2007 for the first time ever.  In fact, it beat the previous record by 39%.  Nationally, there are almost 18 million vacant homes, and the homeownership rate, often touted by the Bush Administration as proof of economic success, fell for the fourth straight quarter.  What’s really concerning are the foreclosures in upper-income areas:

In four Newport Beach-area ZIP Codes, for example, there were 11 foreclosures in the third quarter, up from just three in the same period last year. There were seven foreclosures in Bel-Air, and none a year ago.

“It’s definitely increasing,” said Joyce Essex, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent based in Beverly Hills who specializes in selling foreclosed homes.

Essex said most of her properties were in the San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles, but about 10% of her listings are now in a more affluent part of town.

“It’s working its way to the Westside. The Westside is always last to get hit,” Essex said of the foreclosure wave, based on her experience in the 1990s downturn.

The mortgage crisis is finally catching up to those who live hand-to-mouth on a higher level.  The millions who used home equity loans to finance their lifestyle, pulling money out of their properties over and over again, now have no ability to continue the scheme.  And this is just the beginning.  Millions of variable-rate mortgages will reset to a higher rate, in some cases doubling the payment, in the next 2 years.  That will mean more foreclosures, a sapping of housing wealth, and a real impact on state finances:

More than $23.6 billion in California housing wealth will evaporate if real estate prices continue to decline and foreclosures on subprime home loans soar, according to a new congressional report that indicates the fallout from the national mortgage crisis is worsening.

In addition, over the next two years, the state will lose nearly $111 million in tax revenue from the forecast repossession of 191,000 homes and the spillover effect on neighboring property values, said the study, released Thursday by the Senate Joint Economic Committee.

“State by state, the economic costs from the subprime debacle are shockingly high,” committee Chairman Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement. “From New York to California, we are headed for billions in lost wealth, property values and tax revenues.”

And that’s actually a very optimistic scenario, plus it focuses only on tax revenues and not residual effects.  In a country where two-thirds of all economic activity is consumer spending, housing jitters will redound through the entire economy, with families cutting spending because they can no longer rely on their houses for retirement security.  And this isn’t temporary.

“It took Southern California 10 years to recover (from the last housing downturn), and it took the Bay Area six or seven years,” said Cynthia Kroll, senior regional economist at the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at UC Berkeley. “That’s a very realistic expectation.”

This was all very predictable.  Everyone knew that subprime mortgages were a risky asset on which to rest the entire economy.  But it was easy money, particularly for those financial institutions making cash in mortgage-backed securities, so they allowed it.

There is pending legislation in the House Financial Services Committee that would help protect consumers against predatory lending, and other bills would allow Fannie Mae to buy a bunch of mortgages and give homeowners a chance to stay in their homes.  Hopefully, the market has gotten so bad that legislation like this will have a chance to pass.  Otherwise, California and the nation will have a very tough road ahead, impacting the ability to improve people’s lives in education, health care, and practically everything government does.

Saturday Fire Thread

While many of the fires are starting to be contained, or at least are blazing away from population centers, the real issue is the Santiago Fire, which is approaching the Silverado Canyon residential areas, forcing some to evacuate for the second time in a week.

Even as thousands of residents joyously returned to neighborhoods throughout the region, 100-foot-tall flames from the Santiago fire burned into the eastern end of Silverado Canyon […]

“It’s an extremely active fire in Silverado Canyon right now,” Rich Phelps, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman, said of the community, which was spared in several previous fires. “Things are pretty rough.”

Exhausted and on edge, some of the evacuees who gathered in a nearby strip mall wept when authorities couldn’t reassure them about whether they could stop the latest threat.

“It’s sickening. We thought yesterday we had dodged the bullet. We heard the fire was 50% contained and away from Silverado Canyon,” said Ray Verdugo, 55. “Now we’re hearing that within the hour it could rip through here and take our homes.”

Nine fires continued to burn Friday night, at the end of a weeklong siege that has included nearly three dozen separate blazes. The total acreage burned topped 500,000, only 12,000 acres more than had been reported a day earlier but more than double the size of all of New York City’s five boroughs. The number of homes reported destroyed increased from 1,775 to 1,889. The death toll remained at seven.

This is the area we’re going to have to watch today.  And it’s also the hometown of our friend and Congressional candidate Ron Shepston, who at last count was volunteering with firefighting efforts, in a amazing expression of leadership, battling to save the homes there.  Best of luck to him, and let’s hope he stays safe.  Check in with us if you can.

Meanwhile, in Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino Counties, the problem is air quality.  You might want to stay indoors today.

The Los Angeles County Public Health office has updated their 211 page to reflect resources to assist Southland Fires 2007. Here's the page from San Diego County San Diego County Fire information. Speaker Fabian Nunez and the Assembly Dem Caucus have a new Emergency Services Website.  Here's one Google Map with Fire information, and another, KPBS Google Map of San Diego fires. And don't forget the U-T's fireblog. Over the flip you'll find a lot more information phone numbers.

Also over the flip you'll find a list of impromptu blood drives by the San Diego Blood Bank. Check out the Red Cross schedule if you wish to donate blood elsewhere. 

If you would like to donate money, our recommendation is the San Diego Foundation's After the Fire Fund. You can donate online here. I should also note this great diary with a list of resources and ways to volunteer and help out.

As the smoke clears from this week's wildfires, the San Diego Blood Bank has reopened its two North County donor centers, but has had to continue to redirect bloodmobiles tomorrow to the following locations. (Click here to make an appointment at any of these drives.)

 

  • 91X Radio, 9660 Granite Ridge Dr., (92123)—6:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
  • Starbucks at Genesee Plaza, 4227 Genesee Avenue, (92117)—8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Valley Center High School, 31322 Cole Grade Rd., Valley Center,–10 a.m.–3 p.m.
  • City of Coronado Police Department, 700 Orange Ave., (92118)—10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Souplantation, 8105 Mira Mesa Blvd., (92126)—10 a.m. to 4p.m.
  • WalMart, 1200 Highland Ave., National City, (91950)—11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

 

These impromptu blood drives are helping to replace more than 30 bloodmobile operations that had to be cancelled this week, and make-up for the closure of the San Diego Blood Bank's two North County Donor Centers for two days due to poor air quality.

Animal Evacuations: 818-991-0071
Arrowhead Schools 909-499-9900
Buckweed, Canyon Fire: 323-881-2411
Coronado Hills Fire: 619-590-3160
Grass Valley Fire: 909-383-5688
Harris, Rice, McCoy Fire: 619-590-3160
Irvine: 714-628-7085
Lake Forest 714-628-7085
Malibu: 310-456-2489
Orange County 800-540-8282
Ranch Fire: 626-574-5208
Riverside: 909.988.3650
Roca Fire: 951-940-6985
Santa Clarita Evacuations: 661-295-6366
Santiago Fire: 714-573-6200
Sedgewick Fire: 805-681-5546
Slide and Witch: Fire 619-590-3160
US Forest Line: 626-574-5208

Aftermath of Southern California Wild Fires: False Promises and Lies?

This morning, I once again awoke indoors in Beaumont, CA with a scratchy throat and stuffy nose.  We are miles away from any fire devastation yet are feeling the consequences.  ‘Snow’ floats down onto housing tracts and farms from Los Angeles to Phoenix.  An orange sky stretches seemingly forever north, south, east and west of Beaumont and the Inland Empire.  At first it reminded me of the Southern California fire storm that hit a few years ago after my partner and I moved to CA.

Then, I remembered that those fires reminded me of the environmental consequences of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  You have the odors that are unexpected and ill-defined.  You have the constant particulate matter in the air.  And you have difficulty breathing and shortly will have Bush, the Bush Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, a Republican Governor, and Republican local officials lying to the affected citizenry.

More below the flip…

During the days, weeks, months, and even years following the terrorist attacks, Bush and his cronies lied constantly to the people of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.  Christine Todd Whitman, former Governor of New Jersey, and EPA Director under Bush, came repeatedly to New York to assure that there was no deleterious effects from the fallout.  Gov. George Pataki, R-NY and Mayor Rudy Guiliani, R-NY chimed in similarly.  As the New York-area firefighters and other workers at Ground Zero now know, these people were Liars, Liars, and Liars.

The Federal Government has the responsibilty through Executive Order and Congressional mandate that U.S. citizens and residents be protected during a National Disaster.

In 1970, a U.S. Senate report on Section 303 of the Clean Air Act stated:

“The levels of concentration of air pollution agents or combination of agents which substantially endanger health are levels which should never be reached in any community. When the prediction can reasonably be made that such elevated levels could be reached even for a short period of time-that is that they are imminent-an emergency action plan should be implemented.”

In 1972, the Clean Water Act extended the scope of the National Contingency Plan:

“With the passage of the Clean Water Act of 1972, the scope of the National Contingency Plan (NCP) is extended to cover hazardous substance releases in addition to oil spills.”

In February 1988, the Emergeny Planning and Community-Right-To-Know Act (EPCRA) stated:

“A final rule is issued on the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).  The rule states a “community right-to-know” public notification must be issued whenever there is a spill of any carcinogen in concentrations over 0.1 percent.”

In 1992, The Federal Response Plan (FRP) is finalized and becomes Public Law 93-288.  The FRP provides”

“a process and structure for the systematic, coordinated, and effective delivery of Federal assistance to address the consequences of any major disaster or emergency declared under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act.”

The FRP can be enacted by the President in times of emergency.  Once invoked, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) coordinates the efforts of any Emergency Support Functions (ESF) involved.  In the event of a hazardous materials release, the EPA is charged with overseeing the federal government’s response.  The Federal Response Team (FRT) and Regional Response Teams (RRTs) are charged with

“carry[ing] out their duties and responsibilities as put forth in the NCP [National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan] (see 1972) and agency implementing procedures.”

Given the loss of 1,700 or more homes, businesses, and other structures, the destruction of countless vehicles and storage containers, and the burning of about 500,000 acres of Southern California, I wonder how much hazardous material has been released into the air over Southern California, Arizona, and Nevada?  During the Santa Anas of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, October 21 – 24, 2007, the prevailing winds pushed a significant amount of the pollutants several hundred miles out over the Pacific Ocean.  Since the Santa Anas ceased, the prevailing wind currents have pushed the pollutants back ashore, across the San Diego and Los Angeles basins through Orange, Ventura, Imperial, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties and into Arizona and Nevada.  Apparently, the pollutants have even extended as far north as Silicon Valley.  Residents of Southern California are cautioned to stay indoors, to avoid exercise outdoors, and to wear masks outdoors.

Given the evisceration of the Environmental Protection Agency under Bush and his business cronies, I wonder to what extent, the EPA will be in the forefront to protect the health and lives of millions of people.  Given the history of lies from the Bush Administration and their incompetent and avaricious minions, I doubt that we can trust them at all in this arena.

Bill Richardson: Vote “No” on Torture and Mukasey

Water-boarding is term that describes strapping an individual to a board, with a towel pulled tightly across his face, and pouring water on him or her to cut off air and simulate drowning. 

When asked directly last week whether he thought waterboarding is constitutional, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey was evasive.  As noted by NPR, Mukasey “danced around the issue of whether waterboarding actually is torture and stopped short of saying that it is.” “If it amounts to torture,” Mukasey said carefully, “then it is not constitutional.”

As stated by Bill Richardson,

Waterboarding is torture, and anyone who is unwilling to identify it as such is not qualified to be the chief legal officer of the United States of America. If I were in the U.S. Senate, I would vote against Mukasey unless he denounces such specific forms of torture.

What about the Democrats in the U.S. Senate and other Democratic Presidential candidates?  Will they oppose Mukasey unless he denounces the use of torture by our government?

John Hutson, former judge advocate general of the Navy said last week after Judge Mukasey’s confirmation hearing , “Waterboarding was devised in the Spanish Inquisition. Next to the rack and thumbscrews, it’s the most iconic example of torture.”

The Bush Administration seems to believe that when anyone else does it, it’s torture, but when the U.S. does it, waterboarding  is acceptable.  Rudy Giuliani holds the same view

During his confirmation hearings, when asked about waterboarding, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote:

Michael Mukasey suddenly seemed to morph into his predecessor, Alberto R. Gonzales — beginning with a series of openly evasive answers that ultimately led to what appeared to be a lie. At first, he repeatedly stated that he does not support torture, which violates the U.S. Constitution. This is precisely the answer given so often by President Bush like a mantra. The problem is that Bush defines torture to exclude things like water-boarding. It is like saying you do not rob banks, but then defining bank robbery in such a way that it does not include walking in with a gun and demanding money from the cashier.

The senators pushed Mukasey to go beyond the Bush administration mantra. He refused and then said something that made many of us who were listening gasp: “I don’t know what is involved in the technique,” he said.

In an editorial published this week, the Los Angeles Times states:

Michael B. Mukasey, who once seemed headed to confirmation as attorney general by acclamation, may now be facing a narrower and more contentious vote. That’s the price the retired federal judge from New York will have to pay unless he reconsiders some evasive testimony about torture.

. . .As the 10 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee noted in a letter to the nominee, water-boarding “has been the subject of much public discussion.” What isn’t clear is whether the CIA reserves the right to resort to that appalling practice to elicit information, reliable or otherwise, from suspected terrorists.

. . .Mukasey owes the Senate, and the country, an unambiguous commitment to upholding the Geneva Convention’s ban on “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” The question to him is whether Americans — in any service, for any reason — should be allowed to engage in water-boarding. The only acceptable answer is no.

As noted by Professor Turley, there are only two explanations for Mukasey’s evasion:  either Mukasey is the most ill-informed nominee in the history of this republic or, the more likely explanation: Mukasey is lying.

Where do our Senate Democrats and Presidential candidates stand on torture?  That is what the vote on Mukasey has become.

The candidate I’m supporting for President, Bill Richardson, stated on October 19th:

“Waterboarding is torture, and anyone who is unwilling to identify it as such is not qualified to be the chief legal officer of the United States of America. If I were in the U.S. Senate, I would vote against Mukasey unless he denounces such specific forms of torture.

“Torture does not work. Mistreatment backfires and destroys our international leadership, as we saw with Abu Ghraib. Torture also endangers our own troops. The standards we adopt may well be what our own troops are subjected to.

“Anytime one makes a person think he or she is being executed, the very nature of waterboarding, it obviously is a violation of the U.S. Constitution, international law, and basic human decency.

“ABC News has described waterboarding as follows: ‘The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face, and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in, and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.’

“If another nation engaged in waterboarding against American citizens, we would denounce that country and call the practice barbaric, and rightly so.

“We must stand against torture without equivocation, without compromise, and without exception. Torture is a violation of everything we stand for as Americans and as human beings.”

Supporters of Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd, Biden and other the candidates – where does your candidate stand on the confirmation of Mukasey?

Let’s rally together and call on all Democrats in the Senate to vote “no” on torture and Mukasey.