( – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

If anyone from the San Diego region is interested or if you know someone who might be, there’s a petition now being circulated asking the CA Secretary of State to investigate a complaint about the election process in San Diego County.

EDITED: for space by Brian.The petition is over the flip:

Petition to the CA Secretary of State
We, the undersigned, believe that citizens of a democracy are self-governing. Because citizens are the source of all government power, we demand that our government be responsive to our concerns and answer our questions.
We are concerned about the conduct of our elections in San Diego County as reported in the Complaint to California Secretary of State And Petition from San Diego County Citizens to Investigate Compliance with Election Laws filed regarding the November 7, 2006, election.
We hereby petition the California Secretary of State to exercise the authority given to her by the citizens of this state to investigate and report on the issues raised in the complaint.

Petition to the CA SOS

The full complaint is here.

To sum it up, it’s mostly regarding problems associated with the use of electronic voting machines and the lack of security. The SD registrar of voters pretty much thumbed his nose at the required chain of custody, and when questioned about it he claimed he doesn’t have to respond to accusations. Hello? Last I heard the people are in charge of elections. Elections are what the people use to transfer rights to the government…not a gift from the government to us. We do get to ask questions and demand the law is followed. I’ve been working with a local election reform group, and this is one of the avenues we’ve taken now that there is a SoS in Sacramento that cares about the problem.

Thus ends my (very small) political rant for the day.

On Monday, McClatchy’s Marisa Taylor reported that San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam had been removed by the Bush Justice Department despite a positive job performance review:

Lam, another U.S. attorney who was told to resign, was described in her 2005 evaluation as “well respected” by law enforcement officials, judges and her staff. Overall, the review was positive, according to another Justice Department official who has seen the evaluation.

“We’re not aware of any significant issues, ” said the official, who also asked not to be identified. Lam is leaving office Feb 15.

Now, House Democrats are demanding Lam preside over the California Republican corruption case as outside counsel. In the Senate, Chuck Schumer has vowed to get to the bottom of the purge (video here).

In short, it appears that the non-political players in the Justice Department thought Lam was doing a good job. But the accused declared:

There’s no need to remind the San Diego community that these are the same prosecutors routinely accused of prosecutorial misconduct. The office has been led by a dismissed U.S. Attorney who has shown bad judgment, has previously pursued vendettas, and has set the tone at the top of an organization accused of witness tampering and manufacturing evidence. It is no accident, nor is it a surprise, that the indictments were rushed to the press 48 hours before her forced departure.

It appears that there are pursued vendettas, but unlike as Wilkes says, the target was those who had the gall to investigate corrupt Republicans and the vendettas were pursued by those at the top of the Bush Administration.

This has cover-up written all over it. Of course, one can easily see why the Bush Administration would want to cover-up a bribery, corruption, and war profiteering scandal that involved hookers, yachts, and multiple California Republicans.

Brent Wilkes loves the smell of rolling tanks in the morning… smells like cash:

When Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes heard that the United States was going to go to war with Iraq, he was ecstatic, say several former colleagues.

“He and some of his top executives were really gung-ho about the war,” said a former employee of his now-defunct firm ADCS Inc. “Brent said this would create new opportunities for the company. He was really excited about doing business in the Middle East.”

He was especially excited about the prospect of damaged tanks and aircraft and a shortage of ordnance and dead soldiers and Iraqis… ’cause you, that’d all have to be REPLACED!

Allow me to advocate for something that will never happen.  All defense work should be nationalized, budgeted modestly and scrutinized year over year, and irrelevant or obselete programs should simply be dismantled.  The inevitable outcome of a private defense industry is that war is advocated as a means to prop up the economy.  And private contractors will use all illegal means at their disposal to get a jump on the competition.  We now have war cheerleaders in the private sector, bribing public officials (as they have for decades) and ensuring that the stance of the country is belligerence.  I think George W. Bush said it best yesterday is a little-remarked-upon but brutally honest portion of his press conference.

“Money trumps peace.”

When the Iraq war began in 2003, Wilkes redoubled his efforts to woo politicians and officials in the Pentagon and CIA.

“He was trying to build a business in the Middle East and needed support from some politicians,” said a former employee, who asked not to be named for fear of being drawn into the court case. “It was one of the things (the top executives of ADCS) were really excited about.”

Wilkes’ plan to deliver water to Iraq began in the summer of 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion. At the time, CIA operatives in Iraq were relying on contractors in Kuwait and other friendly countries to supply them with bottled water, first-aid kits and other provisions.

Wilkes had little obvious experience ferrying goods overseas, especially to a war zone. But he wanted the CIA supply business to go to his holding company, Group W. He was aided by Foggo, who was then a logistics officer in Frankfurt, Germany, overseeing CIA purchases throughout Europe and the Middle East, including Iraq.

It doesn’t matter if it’s water or the B-2 Bomber.  The point is that an economy predicated on the war machine (and take a look at some manufacturing sector numbers to see the proof of that) must have war to feed itself.

“Money trumps peace.”

Incidentally, some House Democrats are working to keep Carol Lam, the prosecutor who brought about the Wilkes-Foggo indictments, and who is being forced out of her job as US Attorney by the Justice Department, on the case as an outside counsel.  They sent a letter to Attorney General Gonzales today.

Carol Lam’s indictments of Foggo and Wilkes underscore the importance of last week’s request and the need for an explanation of why these diligent public servants were dismissed. It is vital that U.S. Attorneys be able to prosecute wrongdoing free from political pressure. We are pleased that the Department of Justice has also agreed to brief members of the House Judiciary Committee on the dismissals of Carol Lam and other U.S. Attorneys. We look forward to further details regarding the date for that briefing and your response regarding the request to appoint Carol Lam as an outside counsel to finish the Cunningham and related investigations.

This won’t happen for a simple reason.

“Money trumps peace.”

UPDATE: So do hookers.

On or about August 15, 2003, at approximately 6:30 p.m., [Wilkes] provided [Cunningham] and assorted other guests with a dinner served on a private lawn outside the Hapuna Suite [approximately $6,600 per night at the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel on the Island of Hawaii]; which consisted of Seafood Gyozas of Kona Lobster, shrimp, scallops, seared hawaiian snapper, “Manoa” lettuce leaves, and an open bar featuring fine wines;

On or about August 15, 2003, at approximately 11 p.m., Prostitutes “A” and “B” and their “driver” arrived at the Hapuna Suite. Persuant to [Wilkes’] instructions, an ADCS [Wilkes’ company] employee escorted the prostitutes into the Suite and paid the driver $600 in cash;

On or about August 15, 2003, after approximately 15 minutes in the suite, [Wilkes] and [Cunningham] escorted Prostitutes “A” and “B” upstairs to separate rooms. At approximately midnight, Wilkes tipped Prostitute “A” $500 for the services;

Answering charges of conspiracy, money laundering, defrauding the public of the honest services of a public official, and in Wilkes’ case, bribing a public official, both Brent Wilkes and Kyle “Dusty” Foggo entered pleas of not guilty today.

Both men were free on bond ($2 million for Wilkes, $200,000 for Foggo), and Wilkes’ attorney said

that after 18 months of an “unrelenting campaign of leaks,” that he and his client were looking forward to answering formal charges.

“We do welcome the opportunity now to be in the courtroom,” he said.

Wilkes is up against gifts to Duke Cunningham as well as Foggo and, one would assume, more folks as time goes on.  “The gifts included cash, vacations, computers, meals, tickets to a Super Bowl game and prostitutes” to Cunningham and “gifts, expensive dinners and trips” and the promise of a job to Foggo.

Both men face up to 20 years in prison.  The government is looking for more than $12 million in restitution.

With US Attorney Carol Lam leaving her post tomorrow, still more great news from an unfortunately short term rooting out white collar crime and political corruption.  Here’s hoping her legacy at the US Attorney’s office will carry on after her departure.

Update: Or at least more information.  From a complimentary article today:

Cunningham admitted accepting more than $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors Brent Wilkes, the Poway businessman indicted yesterday, and Mitchell Wade.

When he pleaded guilty Nov. 28, 2005, Cunningham pledged to work with investigators looking into other aspects of the case, an investigation that led to this week’s court action.

The Save Our Heritage Organization on Friday filed suit in U.S. District Court “challenging the constitutionality of a federal waiver that cleared the way to build a controversial 3.5-mile border fence between San Diego and Tijuana.”  While the fence has been challenged on environmental grounds in the past, now it’s being challenged to protect the “natural, cultural, and historic resources” of the area.

As one of the plaintiffs explains, “We’re no longer challenging the environmental impact statement, because there isn’t one,” Briggs said. “Now we’re just saying you need to follow the law.”

The Department of Homeland Security has exercised waivers to avoid federally mandated environmental reports and other impact assessments in building border fences and other security measures.  In this case, what’s being challenged is the last link in the 14-mile fence between San Diego and Tijuana that’s been gradually coming online since 1994.  While arrests of illegal immigrants have dropped by more than 75% in the decade since the project began, experts and border patrol say that the immigrants have simply moved to Arizona.  Arizona, of course, is not California’s problem.

I’m pretty middle of the road when it comes to immigration policy, but one issue that I brought up with people last summer on this subject is that we never seem to have the real discussion.  This isn’t really about just enforcing laws.  This isn’t really about protecting American jobs.  This is about the depressingly pervasive idea that other cultures lack inherent value.

This can be seen all over the place if you look for it.  For example, some people want English as the official language.  Partly out of some misplaced patriotism, but also because they don’t want to deal with people speaking other languages.  It upsets the comfort zone.  People want their comfortable little bubble where things don’t get upset and everything is controllable.  And to some degree that’s perfectly reasonable.  But that’s no way to really live life.  Back in August, I wrote

I want a country that’s curious and excited about the myriad ways that people encounter life.  I don’t want a country that’s so arrogant about its culture that it gets complacent and watches its place in history end.  I want people to look forward to Spanish classes because it opens doors rather than fear complications to an overly-simplified world.

This border fence is an immigration issue, a security issue, an economic issue, a foreign policy issue.  But it’s also about how this country relates to the world.  We need open doors because without them, we lose touch with how the world works.  We become George Bush obliviously and/or stubbornly sitting in the White House waiting for his plan to work after the whole world knows it’s failed.  It’s not a road I want to go down, and hopefully this lawsuit can help slow things down for at least a couple months.

This morning, Janet Nguyen’s lawyers may go to court to stop certification of Tuesday’s supervisorial election. They intend to question the accuracy of the electronic voting machines here and the Registrar of Voter’s determination on some of the provisional ballots cast. Though it’s far from certain that as many as seven votes can be switched, Team Janet remains confident: (From OC Register)

“We have an excellent chance of getting seven votes switched,” said Dave Gilliard, Janet Nguyen’s campaign consultant. “At seven votes, I think the race is still very much up in the air.”

OK, so Gilliard may be your typical GOP consultant. And Janet might not be the most sympathetic of candidates. But still, follow me after the flip and I’ll show you how this race is still “very much in the air”. That air, after all, may be quite stinky…

Already, it looks like Janet has hired noted election lawyer Fred Woocher to present her case in court. If Woocher’s name sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because you still remember Donna Frye’s first run for San Diego Mayor in 2004. Though Frye had actually won a plurality of votes that November, she was denied her victory because some 5,551 of those Frye voters had forgotten to fill the oval after writing in her name. Though similar undervotes were allowed to be counted for incumbent Mayor Dick Murphy, the same courtesy was not given to undervotes for Donna Frye. In turn, this threw out enough votes to give Murphy another term…
Until he had to resign.

But I digress. This time around, Woocher be worrying about more than just unfilled ovals. This time, it will be also be about the voter fraud.

While taking out my garbage about a week and a half ago, I was approached by three Vietnamese men who spoke to me in Vietnamese. In their hands were absentee ballots, not requests, but ballots. They tried to hand one off to me and asked me to fill in the bubble for Trung Nguyen sign the envelope and they would take care of the rest. I told them no I am not supporting Trung, and added that what they were doing was wrong and illegal. They insisted they were doing nothing wrong and were trying to help the Vietnamese community and that Trung Nguyen was the only one who cared about the Vietnamese community. I told them again I am not supporting Trung Nguyen and what they were doing was illegal. They moved on to the next home. I noticed they were at my mobile home park everyday, same three men with stacks of absentee ballots.

I informed Vietnamese radio about what was going on. They did a report on it. It was also reported to the DA’s office. I believe the District Attorney is investigating. I do hope they find wrongdoing.

However, Trung Nguyen and his Van Tran cronies “allies” are quite quick to denounce all of this as just Janet being a “sore loser“. They would rather just see Janet “concede gracefully”, even though there are still all these questions about this election that have yet to be answered. Oh yes, and apparently Janet Nguyen is the “New Al Gore”. (From OC Register)

Trung Nguyen, meanwhile, spent Thursday making plans for serving as supervisor. He toured what he believes will be his new office on the fifth floor of the Orange County Hall of Administration and his campaign warned Janet Nguyen that she may look like former Vice President Al Gore when he desperately tried to reverse the 2000 presidential election.

Michael Schroeder, Trung Nguyen’s lawyer, said he believes Janet Nguyen will fail to stop the election certification because she didn’t meet a Thursday deadline to get a court hearing.

“She has the prospect of becoming the next Al Gore, being seen as a sore loser,” said Trung Nguyen’s lawyer, Michael Schroeder.

Oh, really! So if someone wants to ensure that the entire election process was valid, then that person is a “sore loser”? Would Trung Nguyen and his sugar daddy “lawyer” Mike Schroeder be saying the same if Trung were the one only seven votes behind? Would these folks be saying the same if Trung were possibly the victim of a massive fraud operation to get his GOP machine-backed opponent elected AT ANY COST?

And oh yes, does Mike Schroeder really want to bring back all the memories of the 2000 Presidential Election? Does he think that we forgot about what REALLY happened in Florida? Oh, but I guess the GOP machine never learns. They’ll do ANYTHING to win, even against a fellow Republican…
Oops, but I forgot that Janet Nguyen is just a “sore loser”.

On Monday, the San Diego City Council voted 5-3 to require the mayor (at the moment, the increasingly autocratic Jerry Sanders) to get City Council approval before making cuts to the budget which would affect the level of service provided to residents.

Councilwoman (and two-time almost mayor) Donna Frye laid into Mayor Sanders, reminding people “‘It wasn’t because there was too much public process’ that the city got into its current financial problems, … ‘It was because there was too little public input.'”

Jerry Sanders, for his part, is a bit nonplussed about the whole sharing of power thing, and demonstrated that he isn’t above claiming to be the only useful elected official or throwing around allegations of impropriety as long as it never turns out that the recipient is rubber and he is, in fact, glue:

I will ask voters a relatively straightforward question: Which do you prefer, a mayor intent on implementing reforms and maximizing tax dollars, or a city government that fights reforms and is controlled by special interests?

For a bit of context, San Diego has Proposition F on the books, also known as the “strong mayor” prop.  This was passed in 2004 in response to the pension funding crisis, and mostly because Jerry Sanders came in promising to fix everyone’s problems if everyone would just stay out of his way.  With ethics scandals, the pension crisis, and the resignation of Mayor Dick Murphy, people were happy to give up 70 years of the mayor as more of a manager.  So Jerry Sanders got his way, and is, as a result, pretty used to getting his way since.

But now, even those who voted against this measure aren’t too pleased with how things are working out.  Two of the ‘no’ votes came from Council President Scott Peters and Councilman Kevin Faulconer, who like the idea but not the specific measure.  “‘One of the things Prop. F did create was a strong-mayor form of government, not an ‘only-mayor’ form of government,’ Peters said.”

Now, this is going to likely end up being a protracted and ugly fight.  Sanders won’t sign this legislation, and the 5-3 vote isn’t enough to override him.  If the City Council were to override, the mayor has already started talking about putting it on the ballot if he doesn’t get his way.  On the other hand, if Peters and Faulconer get language that they like, there would be seven votes in favor of dialing back mayoral power.

Sanders, for his part, is rolling out all sorts of straight-from-the-home-office scare tactics, admonishing those who would deign to have an actual public process that the fire department wouldn’t be able to respond to big fires without council approval, because service would be impacted too greatly.  Quite frankly, if that’s the best he’s got, I look forward to him talking about more.  Lots more.  In the meantime, at least the city council is starting to stand up for functional, participatory government.

Update: I almost forgot, hat tip to the Center on Policy Initiatives for reminding me in their email that I wanted to write about this.

The California Blog Roundup is back, baybee. Teasers: Presidential primaries, Nancy Pelosi and the First 100 Hours, Merced, Los Angeles, Ojai, San Diego (Carol Lam), Davis, Mark Leno, Carole Migden, Iraq, John Doolittle, CA-11, Gary Miller, CA-42, Ken Calvert, CA-44, Global Warming, Health Care.

The Silly Season is upon us

• At The California Progress Report, Kenneth Burt of the CTO opines that the 2008 Presidential Race will be focused on the West, and that’s a good thing.
• I don’t always agree with Joe Scott, but I almost always enjoy reading him. Here he’s discussing the possible move of the CA Presidential Primary all the way up to February as (my paraphrase) another Schwarzenegger power grab.
• D-Day says moving up the primary will increase the importance of the money race above all else. Isn’t that just what we need, though?

Boy, Nancy

• Mark Kleiman (two K’s) responds to the First 100 Hours. He’s pretty happy with Pelosi’s performance.
• Marc Cooper (two C’s) is not as happy — he wants more.

Local Politics

• I don’t know as much of the backstory here as I should, but BadLands Journal has an interesting piece up about the failure to plan in Merced, revolving around UC Merced and House Member Dennis Cardoza.
• Fascinating. Jaime de la Vega, Transportation Deputy for LA Mayor and presumed gubernatorial candiate Antonio Villaraigosa, apparently drives a frickin’ Hummer. Look, nobody, and I mean nobody, who lives full time in LA needs an SUV. And a Hummer just basically shouts “I’m a tool!” at the top of its lungs.
• The Voice of San Diego has some thoughts on Fmr. United States Attorney Carol Lam, apparently pushed out by the Bush Administration mid-term.
• The Ojai Post opposing additional gravel truck traffic on the local artery. Local politics is all about this sort of thing: it ain’t sexy, but it’s important.
• Eric Kirk’s SoHum Parlance discusses the Eureka Reporter’s submission to the hecklers’ veto of a Muslim voice. The comments are, ah, instructive.
• The Davis Vanguard has a local politics roundup.
• Hooooh, boy, SF politics are going to be interesting over the next couple years.

Republican Paragons

• 15% Doolittle: “I am not a crook!. Bob Ney, now he’s a crook!”
• Howie Klein on CA-42 and CA-44 as wastelands, scoured clean of morality.
• SteveAudio on why we could call the homeless “St. Ronnie’s Army“.

Iraq is Here

• Crosses in Lafayette, sorrow across the country.
• Does anyone else remember the late-season M*A*S*H when Hawkeye had a nightmare about floating, armless, in a lake filled with amputated limbs? Maybe we should all try to think about that a bit more.

The Rest

• Donald Lathbury on the Berkeley Governor’s race recap that took place at Cal this weekend.
• Frank Russo’s initial impressions of the same event. He promises more soon.
• One of our friends, Wu Ming of Surf Putah, goes into a bit more detail on global warming and California.
• The Brad Blog watches Jeff Stone, Riverside County Supervisor, back away from a bet on the security of the paperless, untrackable, unverifiable Sequoia election machines Riverside County currently uses. I’m hoping Sec. Bowen makes this a moot point soon.
• Oh, yeah, we’re all meta ‘n’ stuff now. Frank Russo on Bob Brigham on Lisa Vorderbrueggen on bloggers on Ellen Tauscher.
• paradox at The Left Coaster is pessimistic about any real progress on universal coverage with Schwarzenegger at the helm.

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Here’s great news from the Assembly District 75, which covers part of Duke Cunningham’s CD.

http://www.dailykos….

(Carl’s one of the best liberals I know in San Diego. Glad to see him stirring things up. – promoted by Lucas O’Connor)

I’ve put my name on the ballot to be a delegate to the CDP from the 75th district.  Whether you’re in my district or not, if you were a registered Democrat for the November elections, I hope you’ll find the time and location for your caucus meeting this weekend:(here). More information on the Progressive Slate here and more info on AD 75 over the flip.

Here are details on the 75th District meeting:

Sunday, January 14th, 2:00pm
Mesa Verde Middle School, Multi Purpose Room
8375 Entreken Wy., San Diego

Convenor: David Little
858.486.5359 / [email protected]

And here are the progressive slate candidates for the 75th:
Farouk Al-Nasser
Dorothy Gesick* (Current E-Board Rep) 
Gary Johnson
Harold Johnston
Judy Ki* 
Joan Little* (Last Ad Comm. Chair) 
Leigh Mahon 
Carl Manaster
Barbara Parcells 
Don Parcher
Jack Robertson*
Martha Sullivan* 

* Incumbents

This is my first foray into this kind of thing, although I was a full-time volunteer for four months in Canton, Ohio (so my vote would count) in 2004, first for Jeff Seemann and then for John Kerry, and I was fairly active in ’06 as well, between MoveOn, the Daily Donation ActBlue page, and door-knocking in my precinct as GO team leader for the SDCDP. 

I hope you’ll support me and the entire Progressive Slate; we are in it to move CA and national politics significantly to the left.

Impeachment is on my plate.  Thanks for your attention.