All posts by Lucas O'Connor

San Diego

Thoughts on the San Diego Beach Booze Ban

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As mentioned in a quick hit already, the San Diego City Council Monday approved a one-year trial ban of alcohol at beaches and parks by a 5-2 vote.  This is an issue that has been simmering for years in San Diego and boiled over when, on Labor Day, police in riot gear went up against drunken partiers in Pacific Beach.  It was captured on video and received national attention, much to the chagrin of San Diego and its tourist industry.  And so on Monday, the City Council considered several options.  Mayor Jerry Sanders supported a ban only for major summer holidays- Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day.  A full permanent ban could not reach the five votes necessary for passage.  But with Councilman Ben Hueso willing to support the one year ban, that’s what we’ve got.

This is a complex issue with compelling and passionate voices on both sides.  And of all the ink I’ve seen spilled so far on this, San Diego CityBeat’s editorial comes closest to nailing it:

With most matters of controversy, we have a relatively easy time choosing a side. Not this time. This is one thorny issue. We go back and forth. The fact of the matter is that no one is wrong. Folks on all sides have legitimate arguments.

Somewhat tongue in cheek, they arrive at the real issue that nobody wants to really talk about or address:

The problem is, there’s been a long, slow degradation of personal responsibility in this country. More and more, people just don’t know how to behave themselves in a respectful, courteous manner-particularly when alcohol is added. We say bad parenting is to blame.

In a roundabout way they’re right. But it’s bad civic parenting that’s at the heart of this.

With apologies, my rundown of the sides will be similar to CityBeat because they got it right.  This is a classic example of punishing everyone for the crimes of a few.  Everyone who enjoyed a glass of wine or a few beers at the beach in a perfectly calm and law abiding way suffers because some people got out of hand.  But the fact remains that people have been getting out of hand more and more often and something needs to happen.  The problem faced by the City Council is that addressing the issue in a meaningful way doesn’t seem to be possible.  The police force in San Diego is undermanned and stretched to the breaking point by the sheer size of the job of maintaining order in San Diego.  The police union negotiated a 9% raise with the city in April, largely with recruitment in mind, but the effects have yet to kick in.  As such, Councilman Madaffer’s assertion that these problems could be addressed by better enforcement of existing laws such as public urination and drunk in public is probably right but currently unrealistic.  Thing is, the flaws here extend to the new ban as well.  If police couldn’t enforce drunkenness before, how are they going to enforce the booze ban now?

Cause let’s be realistic.  We were all under 21 at some point and generally found ways to drink.  From water bottles full of alcohol to simply drinking and then walking/biking/driving to the beach, if your goal is to combine drunken jackass behavior with the beach, you’re going to do it regardless.  It’s the folks who just want to responsibly have a drink while they enjoy the gorgeous San Diego outdoors who lose out here.  To some people, that sounds a lot like the “criminals will find a way to get a gun even if they’re banned” argument.  But there are beachfront bars, liquor stores and rental properties all too happy to keep serving as a base of operations for would be boozers.  And how much is accomplished if this ban just means more drunk people walking around beach neighborhoods between bars and the beach?

But what then is the answer? Something obviously has to happen because there’s a very real and pervasive fear throughout the community about the basic safety of beaches.  I don’t pretend to have it figured out.  The natural inclination is to simply target better pay and recruitment for the police force and enforce current rules.  But the city isn’t exactly on the best of fiscal footing over the past few years and there are a lot of empty bowls in line ahead of another police raise, at least in terms of political viability.  Maybe this is actually the only way to make the current resources stretch. Like Mayor Sanders, CityBeat and a number of others, I would have preferred to start with just the holiday ban and see where that led.  And regardless of what choice one prefers, I’m pretty steamed over the dishonesty of Councilman Faulconer who rode an anti-prohibition platform to electoral victory in beach communities only to promptly become a vocal champion of the ban. I just don’t see a blanket ban, without the resources to enforce it, as anything except a desperate attempt to look busy about a problem.

I would like to think that this issue would prompt some civic soul-searching and inspire some debate about what sort of community is produced by unbridled consumerism and a profit-at-all-costs city management strategy.  A local boom-and-bust economy built around a temporary real estate bubble and artificial tourism instead of legitimate local character and fostering stability and community has led to a young and transient population with money in their pockets and no investment in the city or its long- or medium- term viability.  By no means am I suggesting that this is a fresh or sudden issue.  But certainly city planning in recent years has exacerbated the problem.

I’m 26 years old and I’ve been in San Diego for about three years now.  At the time, I absolutely came here for a life vacation.  And many of the people I encounter around town- especially in beach communities- are at similar places in their lives.  And quite frankly, the city has too often mortgaged its soul and sense of community to cater to the boom in interest.  So here we are, forced into a draconian and desperate behavior restriction because there’s no long term community core and no stable tax base.  I’d love to hear other thoughts on the alcohol ban, but at this point I’m more interested in the four Wizard of Oz issues: Obtaining for San Diego a heart, a brain, courage, and a legitimate home.

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Tom Lantos: Your Indignation Is Disqualified

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The conservative blogosphere has been abuzz for a few days now over comments made by our own Tom Lantos to Dutch lawmakers over Guantanamo.  A delegation of Dutch legislators toured the prison facility and later met with Lantos in DC.  Delegation members debated the withdrawal of Dutch troops from Afghanistan and Dutch Green Party member Mariko Peters commented that “We have to close Guantanamo because it symbolizes for me everything that is wrong with this war on terror.”  Well, Rep. Lantos didn’t take too kindly to the sentiment, and angrily called out the group for being, well, soft on the Holocaust:

Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.

But nope, he wasn’t done.  World War Two, it seems, preempts any criticism from Europeans towards the United States, possibly forever.  Lantos went on to declare “You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany.”  No mention as to whether French aid during the Revolutionary War disqualifies American criticism of the French, but presumably that would create some sort of physically unstable vortex of disallowed indignation.  I can’t speak to the ages of the delegation members, but I would imagine that many were but a gleam in their father’s eye during the Holocaust.  Certainly I’m two generations removed.  I wonder whether I, having failed to react strongly to Auschwitz, am also disqualified from moral judgment.  It wouldn’t seem as though these comments leave any allowance for, or even aspiration for, an improving world.

So seriously…what the hell?

First of all, As a Holocaust survivor, Lantos clearly has a ton of emotion wrapped up in statements like these.  But I’m really not sure what he is trying to accomplish by comparing the United States to Nazi Germany.  It doesn’t seem like it’s an argument that is likely to get people to calm down.  But even beyond the rather grim and counter-productive premise, what exactly is the point he’s trying to make?  Surely he’s aware of the long list of horrific human rights abuses that the United States has overlooked or even supported over the years; does that preempt the right of the United States to object to future injustices?  I’m sure the country would be interested to know if that’s the case.  Or is this simply a “do as I say, not as I do” situation?  That’s a condescending claim to the unilateral right to behave and dictate behavior on a whim, which again isn’t likely to be particularly productive.  The idea that the United States is and has for decades been saving the rest of the world from itself is exactly the brand of arrogance that breeds such animosity all over the globe.

Lantos has not yet commented on the flap, but he may want to.  He’s a powerful voice on foreign policy in this government and comments like this matter in a big way.  There are a number of ways that the language can be parsed and a number of ways that intent could be guessed at, but without clarification, this plays as a serious smackdown to the international community and Europe in particular.  The air of unfounded righteous indignation is not productive, and particularly puzzling from a tactical perspective given his comments over the past several weeks regarding Armenian genocide.  Just three weeks ago, he spoke out on the moral and strategic issues involved, saying,

One of the problems we have diplomatically globally is that we have lost our moral authority which we used to have in great abundance…People around the globe who are familiar with these events will appreciate the fact that the United States is speaking out against a historic injustice. This would be like sweeping slavery under the rug and saying slavery never occurred.

I’m not interested in hyperbole comparing Guantanamo to slavery, Armenian genocide, the Holocaust or anything else.  But moral authority doesn’t come from condemning the historic injustices.  It comes from behaving morally.  I hope Mr. Lantos will take a step back, sort through all of this, and better organize these thoughts.

I think it’s also interesting to note, while we’re on the subject, that the right-wing blogosphere has been so excited to trumpet a member of the United States government comparing Guantanamo to a concentration camp.  They seem to have been blinded by the tough tone and “we’ll do whatever we want” attitude of the comments and didn’t bother (shockingly) to consider what was actually said.  So the one silver lining, perhaps, to be drawn from this is that the premise has shifted.

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Darrell Issa and the Dirty Tricks Big Tent Revival

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As reported and later expounded on by the Calitics web of newshounds, Dirty Tricks is back.  Unfortunately it’s not a Halloween gimmick, and thanks to Courage Campaign, you can now see this new video from Bradley Whitford on the shady power grab and help financially support the incredible work that the Courage folks are doing.  But as the Dirty Tricks continues its haphazard course between various life-support systems, it’s found a big money home in the wallet of recall-champion Darrell Issa.

Issa, who represents the 49th Congressional District, is one of the richest people in Congress, making a fortune off the Viper car alarm (step back, you are too close to the vehicle).  Issa is a veteran of throwing gobs of personal money into campaigns.  He dropped $12 million of his own money to lose the Republican Senate primary in 1998.  He was a bit more successful in 2003 when he dug into his wallet for $1.6 million in personal cash to fund the signature gathering for the Gray Davis recall which, when asked if it was worth it earlier this month, he said “Yes, of course.”  Well, Rep. Issa is ponying up the big bucks again, lining up behind Dirty Tricks in its hour of need.  If new polling from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner is any indication though, he may have picked himself a loser this time.  The poll finds just 22% in favor and 53% opposed (25% undecided) to the measure throughout the state with uniform opposition throughout every region of the state.  So the question is…why?

Cross posted at San Diego Politico

Issa has been around this game long enough to know that any initiative starting that low is an exceptional longshot, and even said of initiatives last month “We barely mention them until they qualify…Usually they’re just talked about to get us to spend money.”  Well, it sure looks like it worked, as Issa has described his financial commitment to the initiative as “fluid.”  This money obviously is a drop in the bucket to Issa, whose net worth is estimated by OpenSecrets as $135,862,098 to $677,230,000.  So why even bother with a stinker like this?  The Union-Tribune editorialized a theory on Saturday suggesting that it’s all just a “slick” and “ingenius” plan by an otherwise bankrupt and backsliding CA-GOP to drain the coffers of Democrats throughout the state.

Obviously it discounts the notion that unifying, organizing, and energizing Democrats throughout the state might actually be problematic for Republicans.  While the initiative would likely appear on an otherwise overlooked ballot, that sort of organizing is pretty easy to roll over into, say, competitive assembly, state senate and congressional elections several months afterwards.  Given the complimentary fundraising debacles being turned in by the NRCC and California GOP, how wise is it to get Democrats revved up in every corner of the state?

Rep. Issa is taking on a curious cause here.  It’s chump change for him, but as he explained when discussing the recall, “Would I have liked to have spent less? Absolutely. I’m a fiscal conservative.”  He’s also been fretting of late over the prospect of too many children receiving health insurance.  Yet he’s more than happy to toss some coin around to make Republicans look bad and help galvanize Democrats.  I haven’t seen Republicans around the state coming up with any other ideas to improve their electoral chances next year, so maybe this is just the desperation starting to set in.  Time will tell, but in the meantime it’s time to gear up again.

Bay Area, San Diego

ICE Out of Emeryville! Rally Opposing Woodfin and Bilbray’s Dirty Tactics

From noon to 1pm tomorrow, immigrant rights activists will be rallying in Oakland (1500 Broadway) in protest of ICE performing employee harassment and intimidation on behalf of a well-connected hotel CEO who doesn’t feel like adhering to a living wage law.  If you’re in the area, go out and tell ICE to stop attacking workers rights.  And if you can’t be there in person, you can call Special Agent Charles DeMore at (510) 267-3800 and tell him that ICE shouldn’t be involving itself in the enforcement (or lack thereof) of local labor laws.

A month ago, Brian wrote on Calitics about Rep. Brian Bilbray’s meddling in Bay Area living wage issues.  He chronicled how workers at the Woodfin hotels in Emeryville were fighting to receive the living wage assured them by Measure C, a local living wage law.  The city is insisting that Woodfin pay the living wage, but unfortunately for the workers, the CEO of Woodfin hotels lives in Brian Bilbray’s district and has contributed enough money to get his phone calls answered.

Some more background on the flip

Cross posted at San Diego Politico

So back in February he had Bilbray call Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in to investigate his own staff.  ICE seized employee files from two local hotels (Woodfin and Hilton Garden Inn), and last month it returned to the Hilton to arrest a dishwasher who had worked there 18 years and with a list of 12 employees that must be fired immediately.  ICE agents have also reportedly visited the home of a Woodfin employee leader explicitly because she’d spoken publicly about the issue.  So not only did Woodfin CEO Sam Hardage call down ICE on his own staff rather than pay them decently and legally, and not only does he have federal immigration officers doing his employee intimidation for him, he also managed to call the feds on his local competition and only get members of their staff fired.  Paying to be connected sure pays off.

If Brian Bilbray were really concerned about any sort of immigration enforcement, he’d be holding employers accountable instead of calling in favors for campaign contributors.  He wouldn’t be wasting the ICE’s time meddling in local labor issues or muddying the waters between immigration law and fair wage practices.  If he had any respect for the rule of law or the rights of localities to legislate local issues, he wouldn’t be using federal agents to intimidate workers who only want the law to be enforced and he wouldn’t be helping a campaign contributor refuse to acknowledge the law in the first place.  But as usual, it’s politics of the expedient power grab, with Bilbray rewarding the big bucks and betraying any semblance of principle.  It’s about creating victims and criminals but never calling into question the campaign contributors that criminalize and victimize so many people.  It’s about ignoring the law if your monetary backers tell you to.

California, Orange County, San Diego

More FEMA Shanigans: No Promotion After Staged News Conference

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I was going to make this a quick hit but it’s a little too ridiculous to not allow for comments.

File under “heckuva job from the gang that can’t shoot straight” in your FEMA folder.  It was announced earlier today that FEMA’s external affairs director Pat Philbin would not be promoted to head of public relations for the director of national intelligence.  The decision comes after Philbin set up a fake briefing in which actual reporters called in but could not ask questions while Deputy Director Harvey Johnson took questions from FEMA employees.

FEMA Director David Paulison said disciplinary measures are being taken against several employees over the staged California Wildfire briefing, which Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff ripped as “one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I’ve ever seen since I’ve been in government.”  Dana Petrino, in her infinite brilliance, noted that “It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House.”

FEMA, interestingly, is one of the few organizations to have not come under particular criticism for its response to the wildfires and its performance has been well received for the most part.  But I guess even (apparently) doing things right doesn’t preempt obfuscation and coverup these days.

California, San Diego

As the Smoke Clears: Republicans Complain About Imagined Complainers

As the smoke begins to clear in San Diego, the stories and reactions to the fire will start competing with the recovery effort atop the fold.  First on the minds of many in government seems, not surprisingly, to be response time and firefighting capacity.  Unforunately, Republicans are again demonstrating that they make up in bluster what they lack in remote semblance of coherence.  Southern California Republican Congressmen such as Duncan Hunter, Brian Bilbray, Darrell Issa, Jerry Lewis, Elton Gallegly and Dana Rohrabacher have been lining up for every available reporter to knock Governor Schwarzenegger and the state’s CalFire bureaucracy for supposedly impeding firefighting efforts throughout the region last week.  They’ve flown so dramatically off the handle in fact that even Chris Reed has it right on their craziness- or at least part of it:

The congressmen who are doing such a good job exposing the state’s bureaucratic tomfoolery in its wildfire response have some explaining to do themselves. Couldn’t they have spared an earmark to cover the cost of outfitting the California Air National Guard’s C-130 with a fire-retardant tank, something that was promised to happen after the 2003 wildfires but never did?

Instead, Duncan Hunter funneled $63 million into the DP-2 Vectored Thrust Aircraft boondoggle. And Dana Rohrabacher worried more about buying expensive planes the military didn’t want than about helping California’s wildfire-fighting capacity. This is from a May story in the Washington Post:

… Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) has made one of the biggest earmark requests in the new Congress, seeking $2.4 billion to build 10 more C-17 planes — which the Pentagon has said it does not need.

These gentlemen have ended up discussing almost every issue in the country, all in the context of the fire.  And they’ve managed to be completely wrong every time.  So without further ado, an “oh the humanity” sampling from the past week.

Certainly the loudest complaints have come over the 36 hours that passed before military aircraft could be cleared to fight fires.  This delay was apparently to do with dangerous winds and CalFire’s insistence, later dropped, that all aircraft must fly with a CalFire spotter. Without a doubt, there’s a discussion to be had about this process and almsot certainly it will be coming soon.  Indeed, Rep. Rohrabacher wailed that “The weight of bureaucracy kept these planes from flying, not the heavy winds…When you look at what’s happened, it’s disgusting, inexcusable foot-dragging that’s put tens of thousands of people in danger.”

On Thursday morning, the U-T fireblog reported 40-45% containment of the Horno/Pendleton fire, 20% containment for the Witch Creek and Rice Canyon fires, 10% containment of the Poomacha fire and no containment estimate of the Harris fire.  These fires were, clearly, still mostly out of control.  Yet neither Rep. Rohrabacher nor his Republican colleagues from throughout the region objected to President Bush’s Thursday visit to the area that grounded all firefighting aircraft for several crucial hours.  Rep. Brian Bilbray, who represents areas that were still burning at the time, even joined the President.  For a group so concerned about rapid air response, the silence here is deafening.

San Diego’s GOP Congressional delegation (Bilbray, Hunter, Issa) blasted specifically the policy of, well, requiring a trained crew and compatable equipment.  They specifically targeted the CalFire policy of requiring a ‘military helicopter monitor’ as responsible for keeping eight marine helicopters on the ground during the early stages fo the fire.  But if you listen to CalFire’s chief of aviation, you get a slightly different story.  Michael Padilla, who actually does this for a living, said that laying blame entirely on bureaucracy would be “‘absolutely wrong. Those aircraft could have been used had they had properly trained crews’ and proper equipment, including radio systems compatible with ones used by California fire agencies. ‘They represented a hazard to themselves and to the rest of the people.'”  Presumably the sort of necessary training and equipment could have been provided in the four years since the 2003 Cedar Fire.  Certainly Congress promised to outfit military C-130s with necessary firefighting tanks after the Cedar Fire and never delivered, a failure which Rep. Elton Gallegly terms “an absolute tragedy, an unacceptable tragedy.”  Left out of lamentation over that tragedy is any note of the fact that Republicans controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress during and after the Cedar fire and that all of these Republican Congressmen save Bilbray were part of that majority.  But they never actually delivered the goods.

The SoCal GOPers are infuriated that the country’s business would carry on without them as well.  Despite everyone knowing full well that none of them would vote for it and the outcome was never in question, Jerry Lewis was one of many who was indignant over the most recent SCHIP vote on Thursday.  He asserted that at least Republicans were not elected to help children, blasting Democrats for “showing a blatant disregard for the people we are elected to represent and are trying to help.”  At least he was good enough to say it outright instead of forcing us to infer based on his voting record from the past 27 years.

But perhaps nothing has whipped local Republicans into a frenzy more than the implication that there might have been ways different than Republican second-guessing which might have been helpful.  Senator Barbara Boxer for example noted:

Right now we are down 50% in terms of our National Guard equipment because they’re all in Iraq, the equipment, half of the equipment. So we really will need help. I think all of our states are down in terms of equipment.

You might that Republicans who had been champing at the bit to get the military more involved faster would also lament this lack of response capacity.  Yet Rep. Brian Bilbray instead “said the global warming and Iraq war concerns are coming from ‘the `blame America first’ crowd in Washington.'”  This being the same Rep. Brian Bilbray who blamed CalFire for keeping potentially hazardous helicopters out of the air.  I guess blame is alright as long as it’s directed at someone else.  Bilbray also went on to explain that, essentially, everything being said about preventing or better reacting to such a fire said by a Democrat is wrong because these sorts of things “are caused by winds that have been around for thousands of years.”  Somehow I’m not comforted to know that Bilbray’s plan is to just accept the inevitability of it all.  Especially when he’s complaining about the response.

But it all comes down to feigned outrage over “politicizing” disaster.  I’m less interested here in casting blame than I am for demanding accountability, both for words and actions.  For comparison’s sake, Rep. Susan Davis, San Diego Democrat, visited today with Navy families who had been evacuated to the local Naval Amphibious Base and praised the military’s “amazing response to the fires here in San Diego,” expressing her appreciation for the military’s help to the entire community. This juxtaposed with Rep. Lewis railing last week that “The Democratic leadership is once again showing that they only care about scoring political points.”  SoCal Republicans are up in arms accusing Democrats of playing politics, but it certainly seems as though the GOPers have found plenty of politics for themselves.  While it’s important to learn lessons from each experience, pointing fingers isn’t productive.  Michael Padilla perhaps explained it best:  “We want to get it (the response) better, too,” Padilla said, but “we would like to wait until after the crisis is over.”

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Dan Lungren: Champion of Oppressed White People in Jena

With liberty and justice for all presumably echoing somewhere in the background yesterday, Rep. Dan Lungren yesterday cut to the real concern in the Jena 6 case:

“Whether or not attempted murder is appropriate under that jurisdiction, I don’t know. I’ve never prosecuted under that jurisdiction,” says Dan Lungren (R-Calif.). “We need to talk about justice being done [to] all of the victims.”

Now, I would quibble a bit with Politico adding the “to” because that changes quite a bit the inflection of the statement.  Justice to and justice for would carry pretty different connotations.  Given that “justice” has only been applied to some of the people involved, Lungren’s attempt to paint over the racial issues involved in prosecution is an insulting and willful ignorance of the forces at play outside of the direct incidents involved.  In fact, it seems that Rep. Lungren would rather try focusing on broken families and delinquency than actually acknowledging racism.  Over we go.

During yesterday’s hearing, Lungren tried to get around to race without actually bringing it up, using tried and true proxy insults.  Anderson@Large covers his thoughts:

Rep. Dan Lungren asserted a relationship between “family structure” and juvenile delinquency. Lungren used “single parent family” as a proxy for race.

Prof. Ogletree flatly rejected Lungren’s claim:

It’s not the structure of the family. It’s the structure of the criminal justice system. It’s too easy to say “family structure” is the cause and consequence of the problem. It’s bigger than that. You must also look at disparities in punishment and charges.

Exactly.  Professor Ogletree by the way is Charles J. Ogletree Jr., the executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School.  So he didn’t exactly fall off a turnip truck and into this hearing.  He doesn’t spit it right into Lungren’s face like he could have, but he still hits the real issue here.  Trying to find a backdoor into justifying the over-prosecution of African Americans by claiming that their family structure is inherently more likely to turn them into criminals is really a pathetic way to couch latent racist tendencies.

Professor Ogletree, also via the post at Anderson@Large, clarified later in the day on NPR:

A noose is a hate crime. The government chose not to prosecute them…That’s what makes people so upset. Why is it that one set of conduct which violates the law was prosecuted. And another set was handled within the school system. It’s a disparity. It’s based on race and it’s hard to justify under these circumstances.

Lungren’s comments are directly aimed at suggesting that race isn’t the issue here.  It’s misdirection and non sequiturs and the enabling of perpetuated racial violence.  It’s his nothion that nobody involved is getting the justice they deserve regardless of race.  It’s his notion that the children being charged with attempted murder over a swollen eye and a concussion were just raised to be problematic.  And it sets the table for removing the notion of hate crimes from this and especially future prosecutions.

Thank goodness the committee and its witnesses aren’t sitting around and taking this from him.  But clearly Rep. Lungren wants to avoid and deny any role of race in this issue if possible.  Time to start asking why.

Bill Durston is running against Dan Lungren for Congress.

RaceTracker: CA-03

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Pelosi Prefers Congress the Way It Is

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(To be fair, I think we should point out that we still need those 15 Rep. votes, even if we get the 8 Dem votes. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

About an hour ago, my inbox was graced by an email from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, subject line “Heartless.” Inside, she took President Bush to task over SCHIP and his abandonment of the “compassionate” part of conservatism.  It used dramatic language like “forbid” and “cruel veto pen” while suggesting:

This was perhaps George Bush’s most heartless act ever — knowing that he could help deliver health care to millions of American children — then, wiping out that hope with a stroke of his veto pen.

We may not be able to change the President’s mind. But, if we work together — make it our mission between now and October 18th — we can find the 15 Republican votes we need to make the President’s cold-hearted veto pen powerless.

That’s right.  With my help and yours, maybe Congress can find its way out from under President Bush’s thumb.  All we need to do is convince Republicans.  And yet, there are eight Democrats who voted against SCHIP.  Should we not also be trying to convince them?  Change their minds?  The Speaker doesn’t seem to think so.(flip)

On the front page of DailyKos right now is a bit about Nancy Pelosi’s plans to fundraise and campaign for Al Wynn in his primary against Donna Edwards.  It juxtaposes this with her comments from yesterday saying that wanting to end the war immediately is irresponsible and that it is “‘a waste of time’ for them to target Democrats.”

But the two together and you get a rather strange assessment of Congress.  She doesn’t think that constituents should make their views known on major issues facing the country.  She also doesn’t think, apparently, that voters in MD-04 should replace Al Wynn, regardless of whether he actually represents their interests well.  It’s a depressing and hollow attempt to deny the responsibility of Democrats in failing to make any demonstrable progress towards ending the Iraq catastrophe.  On the one hand, she has to cover herself because any failures of the Democratic caucus ultimately will come back to her.

But she’s said that members of Congress will not listen to the voters. Period. It’s a waste of time. And trying to replace members of Congress who haven’t performed as well as their constituents demand, then constituents should lower their expectations.  And that’s what it all comes around to- a sentiment we’re all familiar with here.  Apparently it isn’t that Democrats aren’t accomplishing enough, it’s that we aren’t selling them short enough.  If people would just stop expecting anything from their government, everyone would be much happier.

Well I say nuts to that.  She declared Democrats in Congress to be leaders…except nobody’s going anywhere.  She declared that the “common folk” are irresponsible and shouldn’t be listened to.  She’s signed onto the inviolable sanctity of incumbency, but also declared that the best representation ignores the will and desires of the people.  And most of all, she’s declared that her caucus is exactly how she wants it.  Given what she’s done with it thusfar, I wonder whether it much matters how she wants it.  It’s time to start getting over the notion that “not worse” isn’t the same as “better.”

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Banned in DC Weekend Open Thread

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Late tonight I jet east to our lovely nation’s capital which had the decency to raise me from birth to 20-something and must really miss me.  I’ll be stirring up progressive-style trouble through Tuesday, including checking out the Facebook Political Summit.  Use this thread to ruminate on the many pleasures of the DC metro area, discuss weekend revolutions, or whatever else may have slipped through the cracks this weekend.

And for your musical pleasure, one of the bands responsible for the crazy man I am today: Bad Brains – Banned in DC

San Diego

Susan Davis Condemns MoveOn, Protest, Free Speech

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(worth being frontpaged. Also, Jerry McNerney, Jane Harman, Adam Schiff, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Jim Costa, Laura Richardson, Joe Baca, Loretta Sanchez, Mike Thompson, Tom Lantos, Dennis Cardoza, Anna Eshoo, Sam Farr, Ellen Tauscher, and Grace Napolitano voted to tell the progressive movement to STFU. So replace Davis’ name with any of them. – promoted by David Dayen)

In a direct slap in the face to anyone who’s ever felt that free speech or the right to protest the government are, you know, Constitutional imperatives, Susan Davis voted today to condemn the Petraeus/Betray us MoveOn ad.  That’s what your congress is doing.  Not ending a war.  Not passing a law that will make people healthier, wealthier, wiser, or safer.  Spitting on free speech.  Thank you to Bob Filner and the 79 Democrats who stood with him for getting this vote right, and no thanks to the 195 Republicans and the 145 other Democrats in the House who joined Susan Davis in telling the nation to sit down, shut up, and leave governance to the grownups without passionate public input.  If you think MoveOn was disrespectful to the troops by running an ad in the New York Times Ms. Davis, where exactly does paying for the troops to get shot at rank?

It’s time to get angry. Congress is telling people what they’re supposed to say and not say.  I don’t remember learning about that congressional duty in government class.

Cross posted from San Diego Politico