(And if you’re in Southern California, YOU can also meet Ron Shepston at EITHER ORANGE COUNTY DRINKING LIBERALLY TONIGHT! Come to Rancho Santa Margarita at 7:00 PM and/or Santa Ana at 9:00 PM tonight, and meet the candidate! : ) – promoted by Andrew Davey (atdleft))

Yesterday, if you made your way to DailyKos, The Liberal OC, or right here to Calitics, you probably got the word that the blogosphere’s own Ron Shepston is running for Congress in California’s 42nd district against Dirty Gary Miller.  His campaign is being managed by DailyKos and Calitics poster Greg Diamond (aka Major Danby), and as you can see from his rollout yesterday Shepston’s starting out on the right foot.  He’s already hit on many of what I consider to be the most important elements of a campaign that’s insurgent and forward-thinking without abandoning everything good about traditional values and expectations.  So, for these and the other reasons I’ll dig into on flip, and in keeping with the newly established procedure for gaining Calitics endorsement, I nominate Ron Shepston to join Charlie Brown, Jerry McNerney and Mark Leno as an official Calitics Endorsed Candidate for 2008.

The Calitics endorsement process going forward will work like this (I’m sure with slight tweaks as necessary):

– A candidate can be nominated via diary by anyone, preferably with a bit of background on the candidate and why they would be deserving of consideration.  This diary will also be used as an opportunity for the Calitics community to pose questions for the candidate which would be relevant to determining if an endorsement is deserved.

– After questions have been suggested, an interview will be arranged with a member of the Calitics team in which the candidate will have the chance to respond to your questions and expand on what you may already know about them and their candidacy.

– The interview will be posted on Calitics for review by the general community who can then vote up or down on an official endorsement.  The community’s vote will count for 50% of the total and the Calitics Editorial Board will make up the remaining 50%.  A nominated candidate will need 60% of the overall vote to receive an endorsement and a spot on the Calitics ActBlue Page.

Confusing enough for you? Great. Now back to Ron.  Here at Calitics, we’ve been fortunate to have Ron as a diarist and commenter for quite some time, and the discourse has been better for it.  His stated goals are generally the sort that, just a few years ago, might have seemed rather humble, but now are desperately important.  “Defend the Constitution and the rule of law – while we can” he said yesterday.  Fighting for Democratic principles.  And no, it doesn’t hurt that he’s drawn on a number of impressive bloggers (thereisnospoon, Hekebolos, occams hatchet, clammyc, OrangeClouds115, atdnext, Shockwave, dday, vernonlee, theKK) to get the campaign rolling.

So this is our chance to get him talking about the issues.  I’ll be in Orange County tonight on a social call, and again over the weekend at which time, if we’ve gotten questions, I can hopefully sit Ron down and ask him your questions.  So how about it Calitics? The floor is open to you, ask whatever you need to ask in order to feel comfortable giving your endorsement.

Copley News Service has gotten hold of Duke Cunningham’s (R-Tucson Federal Correctional Institution) jailhouse FBI interview (pdf) and let’s just say that Brent Wilkes is gonna have a rough go of things as a result of this:

“Cunningham said that there was never a sale,” said the FBI report. “Cunningham stated that he and Wilkes created the cover story of a boat sale to explain, if anyone ever found out and asked, his receipt of $100,000 from Wilkes.” Cunningham told investigators that Wilkes fully understood that there would be “no actual change in ownership” of the yacht. The two men agreed to divide the $100,000 into two checks because both “felt that the smaller checks might be less noticeable.”

The documents show that Cunningham had first asked Wilkes for $550,000.

“Wilkes said no to the $550,000 but then countered with an offer of $100,000 if Cunningham would ensure that the support and earmarks would continue to happen. Cunningham promised Wilkes that he would ‘fight like hell’ for Wilkes/ADCS.”

But it doesn’t end there.  The 11-page report details how Duke Cunningham put himself up for sale and loved the swanky lifestyle it afforded him.  His interview sheds more light on the illicit affairs of several of Duke’s other partners in crime, including Mitchell Wade of MZM (guilty plea, awaiting sentence) and launderer Thomas Kontogiannis (guilty plea recently released), neither of whom was gonna get off, but both of which will probably find the water a bit warmer as a result of Duke’s interview.  It’s almost enough to make you wish that San Diego had a tenacious US Attorney commited to rooting out corruption in government huh?  Small solace that it may be, it looks like the rocks tipped over by Carol Lam are still rolling downhill.

Copley’s done a great job of culling through the FBI report and the related Hattier affadavit (big pdf) to pull out the high points in a list at the end of this article, and I recommend you go through the whole list.  But I couldn’t resist pulling out a few of my favorites (all quoted):

– The Rolls Royce that drew so much attention early in the investigation was not the only car that Cunningham made the contractors buy for him. In only two days in early 2002, the congressman bought a $43,000 Thunderbird and a $41,000 BMW from Bob Baker Ford in San Diego with $63,000 of his payment coming from bribes. That was three months before Wade gave him $10,000 toward the used Rolls Royce.

– In mid-2004 when Cunningham needed to make repairs to his boat, he called Wade and demanded $6,500 cash. Wade took the money out of his petty cash, stuffed the cash into a bulging envelope and rushed it over to a Cunningham fundraiser at a Washington restaurant, giving it to a Cunningham staffer.

– Made Wilkes buy Cunningham’s daughter a computer when she went to college and then pay for its later repair.

– Made either Wilkes or Wade pay his way to the 2003 Super Bowl, Jimmy Buffet concerts in Chula Vista, and several Washington Wizards and Redskins games.

And in case anyone’s curious, FCI Tucson is hiring.

After consistently voting to ban supercenters in San Diego, Councilwoman Donna Frye yesterday switched her vote in a surprise move, killing any opportunity to override the Mayor’s veto.  After years of opposition, Frye said:

I heard from many, many people that want to have that choice, and I think there’s a way to give people that choice, to hopefully put something in place that also protects small businesses by doing an economic impact report and allowing the communities to have a greater oversight of that process

Essentially, she’s decided that the effect of Supercenters can be mitigated by nibbling around the edges, turning her back on the UFCW, the Neighborhood Market Association, and any supporter of responsible growth or sound economic policy in San Diego

The word is that Frye received enough of a reaction from her district in support of Wal-Mart that she was compelled to change her vote, which is a hell of a mixed blessing.  Responsiveness is fantastic, but not at the expense of leadership.  This is a case in which it’s the responsibility of elected officials to actually know better than their constituents, and in that regard, Donna Frye has failed.  The negative impacts of Supercenters on environment, traffic, community development, small businesses and the general economic conditions are well documented.  Indeed, Donna Frye has made the anti-Supercenter case very well herself many times, so she knows what she’s dealing with.

Yet here we find ourselves.  A city with major environmental concerns and traffic congestion problems adding a big, fat, polluting roadblock.  Cheap liquor and guns coming to a community near you. And of course, the replacement of high-paying jobs with low-paying jobs.  Because in all of my experience, cities with more poor people tend to be desirable.  People have clamored for the option of buying cheaper groceries (not that they’re actually cheaper, but whatever), and apparently this swayed Donna Frye.  I wonder though whether people would be as enthusiastic about having no option BUT to buy the cheapest possible products.  Because that’s what happens.

The City government’s job is to manage the growth and development of the city in a wise way.  That’s why, for example, there’s zoning.  Or height restrictions for buildings near airports. Donna Frye has abandoned what’s best for San Diego in favor of what’s popular in San Diego.  That’s not her job, she knows better, and I’m exceptionally disappointed.

The article mentions the suspicion that this might have been a political maneuver to protect the Democratic Party next November.  With this issue gone, Wal-Mart won’t be sponsoring a ballot measure and skewing the Mayor, City Attorney, and four City Council elections with money, advertising and GOTV.  If that’s the case, it’s a pretty tricky bit of maneuvering that she’s playing with.

What I’d like to think (really really like to think), is that this is the first step towards placing so many restrictions on the location of Supercenters that there wouldn’t be any suitable locations in San Diego.  This would be exceptionally difficult and while the folks at Wal-Mart are many unflattering things, stupid isn’t one of them.  They also aren’t going to be shamed out of building a location because of an environmental impact study or public scrutiny.  As long as there’s a lack of political will to stand up to corporations which exist only insofar as they can keep people poor and desperate, Wal-Mart won’t police itself.  One more time, Democrats have rolled over rather than taking on a necessary fight.  I hope there’s another legitimate step coming, but I’m not holding my breath.

As juls noted in a quick hit, Mayor Villaraigosa’s girlfriend Mirthala Salinas has been put on temporary leave by Telemundo, calling her job into question.  Elsewhere though, the LA Times is all over this latest scandal.  There are 133 pages and counting of users comments in response to the situation and Steve Lopez is wondering “Who needs telenovelas when you have Los Angeles City Hall?”  Lopez brings up several legitimate questions, like whether taxpayers have paid for any part of the relationship and what effect the relationship may have had on the Telemundo newsroom.  But as compelling as all of that is, the real fallout may not be felt until next fall.  In light of scandals for Antonio Villaraigosa and Rocky Delgadillo, the Times is also exploring the extent to which the Latino community may be disillusioned by their political superstars.

The last several years have shown the Latino population gradually moving away from the Republican Party, and in 2006, Latino’s in the West went 72% for Democratic candidates.  This has been coupled in Los Angeles with a city government that increasingly matches its Latino population:

Over the last decade, the city’s government has finally started to reflect its demographics. Los Angeles, with a Latino population of nearly 50%, has a city attorney named Rocky Delgadillo and a City Council on which five of 15 members are of Mexican descent.

As noted in the article, it’s far too early to know whether either Villaraigosa or Delgadillo will personally face political ramifications for their respective scandals.  The potential problem that the Times suggests may be simmering though is that, at a time of major political gains for Latinos, future Latino candidates or future Democrats will have one more hill to climb on the way to election.

Please do read through the article for the full gamut of reactions from both insiders and people-on-the-street.  What’s particularly striking though is that the progression of Latinos into mainstream politics brings along a complex identity crisis.  Indeed, much of the concern reflected in the Times article touches in one way or another on concern that race would be caught up in analysis of the scandal:

“I don’t think it speaks to a problem of leadership in the Latino community,” [Former City Councilman Richard] Alatorre said. “We all make mistakes…. It just so happens that it happened all in one week.”

Will this demoralize the building political engagement and activism in the Latino community?  Will race be unfairly conflated with scandal within the broader population?  Or is Antonio Gonzalez (Southwest Voter Registration Education Project) right in seeing this as growing pains for the still young but increasingly influential Latino voting bloc?  Too early to tell, but the role of race will be something to follow as these stories evolve in the media and the public consciousness.

San Diego’s Carver Elementary School finds itself in the middle of 21st Century America this week.  It has been thrust to the forefront of an evolving debate over how to assimilate Islam into American society, in this case by taking on prayer in schools.

Carver Elementary recently took on about 100 Muslim students when a nearby charter school closed, adding Arabic to the curriculum and sparking debate over allowances for Muslim prayer in schools after a substitute teacher spoke out publicly in opposition to the policy.  According to the Union Tribune, “[a]fter subbing at Carver, the teacher claimed that religious indoctrination was taking place and said that a school aide had led Muslim students in prayer.”

The UT lays out the two sides:

Some say the arrangement at Carver constitutes special treatment for a specific religion that is not extended to other faiths. Others believe it crosses the line into endorsement of religion.

Supporters of Carver say such an accommodation is legal, if not mandatory, under the law. They note the district and others have been sued for not accommodating religious needs on the same level as non-religious needs, such as a medical appointment.

There are a number of flashpoints here and nearly all of them have been lighting up the phonelines of conservative talk radio lately.  On one hand you have the fear and distrust of all things Muslim.  The ridiculous belief that all Muslims are spending their waking hours sowing murderous anti-American sentiment and desperately trying to undermine freedom and democracy the world over.  On another hand you have all the angry Christians who believe that the U.S. government has been persecuting them for decades by not allowing the Christian faith to govern every aspect of the country.  And on yet another hand you have plenty of well-meaning defenders of the Constitution who throw around all sorts of definitions of “Freedom of Religion” but who seemingly haven’t actually read much of the Constitution itself.  Reading the comments that UT readers have left on this story, you get heaping portions of all three.

But it seems to me that all of the above groups are simply seizing upon this as an excuse to push their agendas without actually addressing the issue at hand.  If a teacher’s aide was leading prayer, that’s really got to be revisited as acceptable policy.  But what seems to be absent in all the religious hysteria is that these Muslim students are required by law to be at school when their religion requires them to practice.  As the article notes, Jewish students can take Yom Kippur and other religious holidays off, and Christians can take Good Friday off.  Or, more to the point, if the school schedule interferes with the reasonable practice of a student’s faith, accomodations are made.

This is a great opportunity for all sorts of people to peddle fear and hate, and they’re off and running out of the gate already.  But let’s not forget that along with this country being about freedom, it’s about not just allowing, but celebrating, differences.  This particular policy may be flawed (if allegations are true), but it has nothing to do with the religions involved.

Last week I ran down the unused money from last year’s unopposed and underopposed California members of Congress.  It was a long list. 22 districts held by Democrats fielded no Republican challenger who met a very low bar of fundraising legitimacy.  Really not impressive, but really not surprising either.  So what about the flipside?  How did Democrats do in going after Republicans?

Democrats left only one California seat unopposed, and failed to raise money in one other.  Of the 21 Republican-held seats, only 4 qualified as as unopposed or underopposed (challenger raising less than $25,000).  It suggests two things to me.  One, Democrats are already doing a pretty good job of funding candidates in red districts (although there’s still room to improve of course), and two, that strong funding only goes so far given the way these districts are drawn.  So as I would be cautioning anyways, fundraising is only one piece of the puzzle.  It still takes the right candidate in the right context.

Warning: I get long-winded on the flip

Republicans held 21 districts going into the 2006 elections, and faced the following challenges by the dollars:

CA-02 Sekhon $193,582
CA-03 Durston $308,664
CA-04 Brown $1,711,967
CA-11 McNerney $2,461,329 (pickup)
CA-19 Cox $688,175
CA-21 Haze $152,530
CA-22 Beery $27,206
CA-24 Martinez $134,371
CA-25 Rodriguez $207,844
CA-26 Matthews $54,484
CA-40 Hoffman $143,706
CA-41 Contreras $0
CA-42 Unopposed
CA-43 Folkens $17,104
CA-44 Vandeberg $8,668
CA-45 Roth $725,020
CA-46 Brandt $77,764
CA-48 Young $435,083
CA-49 Criscenzo $90,050
CA-50 Busby $3,634,467
CA-52 Rinaldi $80,480

The infrastructure clearly exists to support a full slate of well-funded Democrats in California.  Indeed, on top of the above numbers was the more than $6 million that un- and under- challenged CA Dems had left over after last year.  That’s a lot of Democratic money just at the congressional level ready to roll.  I bring this up primarily in the context of discussions that have taken place here at Calitics as well as in other corners of the Internet regarding the distribution of funds and the virtues of various plans to standardize said funds.

So at the risk of starting an actual conversation here, I’d like to throw open the floor to suggestions as to how best to harness this monetary strength.  I think it’s great that there’s so much money out there and that it’s already being used to mount legitimate campaigns in tough Republican districts.  The capacity and the willingness to fight it out against long odds is already in place and that’s encouraging.  So what’s the next step?  How do we work to fill every district with a strong candidate who will use that money effectively?

Despite my track record of hearing crickets when I ask for feedback and suggestions, I think this is an open question that deserves a discussion (perhaps one that lasts all…weekend…).  California is a huge state and the manpower to investigate every race doesn’t exist here.  Even if it did, the subjectivity would turn some people off.  So I think that instead it may be that, as a community (not just a community of Front Pagers), we should be identifying and seeking out relationships with pre-existing grassroots organizations in these districts where we, quite frankly, don’t know much.

As has been discussed in several different forums, blogs serve several purposes.  Not least among these purposes is being a megaphone for the issues of existing grassroots organizations.  I know that members of Calitics have made and continue to make strides in reaching out to communities that may otherwise not be heard from online, and I’m encouraged by some of the progress that’s been made in this regard.  My question to the readers in general though is how best to bring the insights of these groups into the collective wisdom of the site.

Put shortly for anyone who skimmed to the bottom: What candidates do we want, how do we find them, and how do we get the right money to them once it happens?  This isn’t a new discussion, but it isn’t one that’s over either.

Gov. Schwarzenegger suggests that immigrants avoid Spanish language media if they want to learn English and, presumably, assimilate into U.S. society.  Didn’t stop him from running tons of ads on Spanish television during last year’s reelection campaign of course.  edit: Apologies to Roger Salazar, who beat me to this point, and in much better form.

A new emergency room opened today inside San Quentin prison, a result of a federal receiver controlling medical services inside California prisons.

As California fights to keep its tough gas emissions standards safe from federal meddling, state air regulators voted today to request an 11-year extension to bring San Joaquin’s air up to federal standards.  California is a rich tapestry of contradictions.

The Beastie Boys have an instrumental album hitting stores later this month.  The last time they had an album with lyrics, they weren’t much for George Bush: Beastie Boys – Right Right Now Now

“I’m getting kind of tired of the situation
The US attacking other nations
And narration, on every station
False election’s got me losing my patience”

Good day on Calitics all around.  Well done Calitics.  Not too much to add really, but I’ll do it anyways because that’s just what I do.

Nationally, the Pentagon is is reporting that violence is increasing in Iraq.  In other news, surge suppressors are on sale now.

At the state level, Republican infighting.  John Benoit (R-Riverside) introduced a bill to prevent candidates from simultaneously running for and raising money for both state and local office.  The culprit? Russ Bogh (R-Beaumont) who’s running for state Senate and Riverside County Board of Supervisors.  Tricky tricky…

And locally here in Sunny San Diego, Mayor Sanders has announced that he will sign the city’s $2.88 billion budget.  But oh by the way, he’s nixing funding for homeless shelters that has been at the center of budget back-and-forth all year.  The funding will be taken up again in September, and Democratic council president Scott Peters and my own councilwoman Toni Atkins are optimistic.  I’m not.  So city council, you get what you want, if by “you” one means “Mayor Sanders.”

Tonight I’m going to The Casbah to see Deep Rooted, Strange Fruit Project, and Lifesavas.  Unfortunately, you probably can’t come with me.  To ease your pain, delight: Strange Fruit Project – Pinball

“Sometimes we win big, sometimes we win small”

UPDATE by Brian: I wanted to toss a few things in this open thread: