This from Dave Rand at the Majority Report:  It appears that rank-and-file Obama supporters have quashed the attempt of their unions leaders to endorse Hillary Clinton ahead of California’s Presidential Primary.

Very interesting–and it’s also a little bit of a microcosm of who supports which candidate.  The entrenched leadership is very supportive of Senator Clinton, but the same can’t be universally said of the rank and file of the organizations that leadership represents.

But the money quote is this:

The Hillary repudiation at CTA is more than just inside baseball. This could portend an erosion of support among powerful constituencies that are supposed to be the bedrock of Clinton’s California operation. Add this development with Obama’s superior California ground game, and a big bounce coming out of South Carolina, and he may have enough steam to pull off a victory in the Golden state.

In the interests of full disclosure, I’m part of that “superior ground game”: Obama’s campaign has over 5,000 precinct captains at this point who are responsible for turning out voters within their own precinct (of which I am one), each of whom have full access to the voter file within their own precinct.  It’s the most decentralized field campaign I’ve ever been a part of.

kos (DailyKos founder) has a thread up asking you to convince him to vote yes on any of the ballot measures.  His default is to vote no on everything because he hates the ballot initiative process (as do I), but maybe you can earn a vote for your favorite initiative by chiming in.

Personally, I asked for him to vote yes on prop 92.

Full disclosure: I was on an official contract with the WGA, and continue to work unofficially with the crew at United Hollywood.

So, the AMPTP walked out of negotiations in what seems overwhelmingly like a pre-prepared cynical ploy, given the fact that the corporations had a press release ready for submission no more than 20 minutes after they walked out of the talks.

Well, in response to the AMPTP breaking off talks, the WGA is filing a complaint with the NLRB asserting unfair labor practices by the AMPTP–namely, refusal to negotiate in good faith.

And the AMPTP has responded with the following little snippet, under the direction of their Union Buster-in-chief, Chris Lehane:

The WGA’s filing of a complaint with the NLRB reminds us of the old lawyers’ adage: When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the law is on your side, argue the law. And when you don’t have either the law or the facts on your side, you pound the table. The WGA has now been reduced to pounding the table, and this baseless, desperate NLRB complaint is just the latest indication that the WGA’s negotiating strategy has achieved nothing for working writers.

Well, let’s talk about the facts and the law.  The facts are as stated: the AMPTP broke off talks unilaterally while the WGA has remained at the table.  And the law says that both management and labor have a duty to negotiate in good faith.

So, given the fact that both the law and the facts are on the side of the WGA, the people that are resorting to pounding the table are the execs at the AMPTP, with the pounding carefully orchestrated by formerly Democratic hack Chris Lehane.

You’ve read before about how Blackwater paratroopers parachuted onto the field at halftime of the SDSU “Fleet Week” game draped in a massive American flag (go check out the video in the link if you think I’m not being perfectly serious).  Well, now we find out that Blackwater is intending on corrupting the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl (college football game) to be played between Cal Berkeley and the Air Force Academy in Fort Worth, TX on New Year’s Eve.

Now, I want to make something perfectly clear.  I have nothing against the Armed Forces Bowl in either product or principle.  What I definitely have a problem with is the fact that a lawless, murderous mercenary organization like Blackwater is being allowed to share the same field as the United States military, one of the proudest, most ethical, most professional, and certainly the most effective fighting forces the world has ever seen.

I don’t want Blackwater associating themselves with the good name of our military any more, whether it’s at Fleet Week or at the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl.

If you don’t like it either, pass this around and raise some hell.  Ask anyone you know at Berkeley if they’re happy that their university will be participating in a promotional event for a lawless mercenary organization.

edit at 11:53PM by hekebolos:

Here’s the video of the previous Blackwater halftime appearance, just so you don’t have to click through to watch the video.  Be watching at the 2:45 mark.

(from my DailyKos diary this morning–it’s important for me to try to bring CA issues to the national spotlight.)

And by that, I refer to the California Democratic Party.

As you may know by now, the resolution authored by progressive activists to censure Senator Dianne Feinstein was not heard by the CDP Resolutions Committee.  If you read my previous diary on the subject, you’ll realize just how contentious this issue was, and that the end result was exactly as expected.

There will be a lot of complaints about the result, and understandably so.  Nevertheless, an official censure is a huge step, and the end result is no surprise, given the momentous nature of the struggle in question.

But I’d like to share another story with you that might even better exemplify just how much change and reform we still need in the California Democratic Party, as well as give you some insight into how the party machinery works.

It all starts with a news item you may or may not be familiar with: the Speaker of the California State Assembly, Democrat Fabian Nunez, came under fire last month for reports of using campaign funds to pay for lavish expenses at luxurious destinations in Europe and California:

The spending, listed in mandatory filings with the state, includes $47,412 on United, Lufthansa and Air France airlines this year; $8,745 at the exclusive Hotel Arts in Barcelona, Spain; $5,149 for a “meeting” at Cave L’Avant Garde, a wine seller in the Bordeaux region of France; a total of $2,562 for two “office expenses” at Vuitton, two years apart; and $1,795 for a “meeting” at Le Grand Colbert, a venerable Parisian restaurant.

You know, the type of thing that it’s really, really hard to justify using a campaign account, even if you’re Steve Maviglio from Speaker Nunez’ office (whose previous foibles I have mentioned before).

I, and many other activists, were disturbed at these reports–though admittedly, even more disturbed by Speaker Nunez’ claims to be “middle-class”:

There’s not too big a difference,” he said, “between how I live and how most middle-class people live.”

Because I can tell you, I’m racking up those $10,000 hotel bills at luxury resorts in Europe all the time!  It’s just part of the middle-class lifestyle.

Regardless, I decided submit a resolution concerning transparency for travel expenses to the Resolutions Committee for consideration at the Executive Board meeting in Anaheim this weekend.  Now, originally, I wrote my resolution specifically calling for Speaker Nunez to fully account for the legislative or fact-finding purpose behind his travel expenses.  I was assured, however, that such a targeted resolution would have no chance of passing the Resolutions Committee, so I rewrote it to be more general, especially since there have been many, many Republicans who have been guilty of the same type of thing on perhaps a much worse scale in recent years (paging Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff, anyone?), and resolutions are supposed to be statements of “philosophical intent” regardless.  So here’s the text of my resolution:

RESOLUTION CALLING FOR GREATER TRANSPARENCY FOR CAMPAIGN-RELATED TRAVEL EXPENSES

WHEREAS, in recent years, officeholders of both major political parties at both the federal and state levels have been accused of using campaign-paid travel expenses to enrich their personal lifestyles;

And WHEREAS, travel expenses to more exclusive locales paid for by lobbyists or other special interests create the appearance of and possibility for conflicts of interest in the legislative process, especially for officeholders with higher stature in legislative bodies;

And WHEREAS, California law requires that travel expenses for members of the State legislature have a legislative purpose;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party, in the interests of accountability, transparency and good governance, calls upon all federal and state legislators to fully disclose the legislative or fact-finding purpose behind all travel and accommodations expenses paid with campaign funds;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Party encourages all federal and state legislators to use campaign funds to pay only for travel and accommodations expenses regarding a transparent, easily understandable legislative or fact-finding purpose, and supports investigations into use of campaign funds that do not meet this criterion.

Now, to my mind, that’s just about as harmless as you can get for a resolution on this issue.  It’s bipartisan, mentions no names, and calls for the easily shared values of transparency, accountability, and good governance.

Apparently, however, the values of transparency, accountability and good governance aren’t shared by certain members of the Resolutions Committee.  Either that, or this resolution was still so dicey for the people at the highest echelons that they couldn’t even take this amount of heat.

Now, I originally got a call on Saturday from my friend Brian Leubitz, founded Calitics and who sits on the Resolutions Committee, that they wanted to insert language into the resolution concerning accountability for the fact that some of Schwarzenegger’s travel expenses were picked up by a nonprofit group.  I told Brian to assure the rest of the Resolutions Committee that I had no objection to inserting “accountability for Arnold” language into the resolution if the main thrust of my language remained unchanged.  But then later that afternoon, this was the text I got back from the Committee:

Whereas, in recent years candidates at the federal and state levels
have been accused of not fully disclosing how they raise and spend
funds and of misusing campaign funds; and

Whereas, in recent years some officeholders have paid for expenses
through the use of non-profit organizations, eliminating virtually all
disclosure of which individuals and interest groups are actually
paying for the expenses of the officeholders; and

Whereas, California and federal finance rules require that expenses
paid with campaign funds have a campaign, governmental, or political
purpose;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party, in the
interests of accountability, transparency, and good governance,
supports modifications in state and federal law that would require
non-profit organizations who pay for officeholder expenses to fully
disclose the sources and amount of funds the organization has obtained
and the purpose behind all activity paid for by the organizations in a
manner similar to that required for campaign committees; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party supports
state and federal legislative and regulatory changes to facilitate and
require that candidates and officeholders fully disclose in a
transparent manner the campaign, governmental or political purpose
behind all activity.

Notice a problem here?  Well, I certainly do: All references to travel expenses were excised from the resolution.  I called Brian to tell him that the Resolutions Committee had voided the entire point of my resolution and that I wanted to see the phrase “travel expenses” actually appear in my resolution about travel expenses.

But alas, it was not to be.  The Resolutions Committee took their new anti-Arnold resolution and moved it to the consent calendar.  Now, I wasn’t at the general session of the meeting on Sunday because of work obligations, but I could have still called one of the e-board members I know to have them pull it from the consent calendar for the purposes of amending it according to my specifications, but I decided not to bother, especially since everyone was so preoccupied with Feinstein and the amendments would have likely failed on a floor vote regardless.

The only thing it proves, though, is that when all is said and done, it’s the elected officials that control what the party does, rather than the party trying to keep the elected officials in line with party values.

And this doesn’t just manifest itself in a reticence to acquiesce to large-scale significant actions like censuring Dianne Feinstein.  The craven desire to kowtow to elected officials and not dare to acknowledge their wrongdoing is so pervasive that a resolution whose language focused primarily on a Republican can’t even be passed if it dares to mention an issue on which a prominent Democratic elected official has been lacking.

And that, my friends, is a sad situation that calls for action and reform.  Am I antagonized? Certainly.  But am I forlorn?  Not at all.  (Do I sound like Donald Rumsfeld when I ask rhetorical questions and provide the answers? Yes.  Is it fun? absolutely.)

You see, the worst possible thing we would do is give up and operate on the assumption that the system is impermeable–because it isn’t, and we’ve already made significant strides in California.  But there’s more work to be done.

And let me ask you something: do you know how your state party would act in a similar situation?  If you don’t, why not find out?

And most of all–keep fighting for good governance that’s accountable to the people.

( – promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))

First and foremost, I appreciate Mr. Mulholland’s words of regret for his dismissive characterizations of bloggers and activists.  And secondly, I appreciate his and his family’s service to this country, as well as his sincere commitment to ending the occupation of Iraq.

I agree sincerely with Bob’s desire to end the war in Iraq–it is a goal that we all share as Democrats and progressive activists.

Where we disagree is on princples of scope and methodology.

More below.

To begin with, I must take issue with the fact that Bob Mulholland’s seemingly sole focus for both the Congressional election and the Presidency is the occupation of Iraq.  At the California Young Democrats retreat in South Lake Tahoe, Bob Mulholland expressed the opinion that no other issue mattered to voters besides Iraq; that the economy did not matter, that global warming and environmental concerns did not matter, that the energy crisis did not matter.

I disagree with this in the strongest possible terms.  Iraq–as well as Aghanistan and a potential impending strike against Iran–are obviously enormous issues, and voters are judging our Congress by its effectiveness in reining in the Bush Administration on issues of military foreign policy.  But I think it goes without saying that we ignore all the other areas of failed Republican domestic and foreign policy at our own peril.

But even when it comes to the objective of ending the occupation of Iraq, I completely disagree with the idea that standing up for Democratic values and encouraging our politicians to support the values the Democratic Party stands for–such as obeying the Constitution, for instance–hinders our ability to win back the White House in 2008.  This could have been a legitimate argument back in 2002 and 2003 when the traditional media was comfortable with calling Democrats who had concerns about the policies of the Bush Administration traitors or other such inflammatory terms, but I strongly believe that standing up for our values can only help our chances of winning back the Presidency in 2008 now that the public trusts the Democrats on just about every single issue around, including national security and taxes.

Even if it were true, however, that standing up for our values could potentially harm our chances in 2008, the things at issue are far bigger than just the Iraq occupation.  The fight we’re waging here–and the reason that we as grassroots and netroots activists put so much effort into the resolution to censure Senator Feinstein–is a fight for the future of our democracy, and what the values of the country will be.  Try to picture, if you will, an Attorney General being confirmed by the U.S. Senate who publicly professed that torture was legal and that the President is above the law before 9/11.  What we’re fighting for is to restore our country’s respect for the constitution, for equal rights, and for equal representation before the law.  We’re fighting to make sure that the the co-equal branches of government are actually co-equal, which will go a long way to making sure not only that we can end this occupation, but also that no president will have the executive poewr to singlehandedly start such a war ever again.

And when America sees a Democrat being a prime enabler of torture and of executive power, it has the effect of normalizing these concepts in the minds of the American public, and blurring the distinction between Democrats and Republicans that will be essential to the chances of Democratic victory in 2008.

And that is precisely why it is so important for us, as the Democratic base, to oppose those who, like Senator Feinstein, grant an air of acceptability to these notions put forth by the Republicans that are, in fact, in complete opposition to traditional American values.  It’s nothing personal, really.  But if our Democratic politicians will not draw a contrast with Republicans, then we as Democrats must draw a contrast with them.

mcjoan has a post up on DailyKos about the DNC granting 56 media credentials for the DNC convention to state and local bloggers.

I think Calitics deserves to be represented.  The applications will open on December 10th.