The Courage Campaign (where I am employed) launched a video tonight that is getting covered by a number of political bloggers. It's a cheeky piece that aims to get Kim Kardashian to support the Millionaires Tax of 2012, a ballot initiative recently unveiled by the Restoring California Coalition, which includes Courage, the California Federation of Teachers, and California Calls.

We thought the public would find it curious that millionaires like Kim — who made more than $12 million in 2010 — only paid 1% more in income taxes than a middle class Californian. So, we made this video to explain the situation. It's just the sort of fun video that can educate people who aren't politically engaged how much is at stake next November. In our focus groups, independent voters tended to think of celebrities (rather than CEOs, bankers, or Silicon Valley execs) when asked who should pay more in taxes. By the way, our initiative actually polls at 67%, the highest support our pollster has ever seen or a tax measure. More on that here.

We're going to start a campaign to get Kim to endorse the Millionaires Tax of 2012. If she gets on board, we'll reach people who never would have learned about the ballot measure otherwise. But most importantly, we have to show people why it's time for people like Kim to pay their fair share. See the full video by clicking below:

I was going through some old posts on CALITICS this morning, after reading up on the latest on the push by McClintock and Dan Logue to repeal AB32, and came across this gem from former Calitics contributor/writer David Dayen.

CA-04: Grand Dragons For McClintock

by: David Dayen

Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 13:00:00 PM PDT

Perennial candidate Tom McClintock is a beloved figure on the far right.  We just didn’t know how far.

It turns out that in 2003, when McClintock was running for his eleventy-teenth political office in the California governor recall election, he was endorsed by none other than the KKK.

Dateline: September 27, 2003

Ku Klux Klan Announces support for Tom McClintock

The Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKA) have announced their full support for Tom

McClintock’s bid for the governorship of California. Their support is announced in what they term “the

lesser of all evil candidates.”

When interviewed, Mr. Chris Johnson (Grand Dragon or State Director of the IKA’s California chapter) had this to say regarding the announcement, “While Mr. McClintock is not the perfect candidate for California Governor, we have more in common with his ideology than any of the other candidates. We are in congruence with his stand on illegal aliens infecting our land and his courage in standing up to the invasion.” Mr. Johnson went on to say that, “Mr. McClintock echoes our anti-abortion stand, and our opposition to oppressive taxation.”

I guess the McClintock campaign can spin this by saying that at least the KKK called him evil, even if he was the lesser of all the rest?

Here’s the thing: organizations can choose to endorse anybody they want, and the candidates have no control over that.  But McClintock never said a peep five years ago when he got this endorsement.  And there’s a Chris Johnson on McClintock’s donor list from that 2003 gubernatorial race.  Chris Johnson is obviously a common name, and the donation is $100, so take it with a grain of salt.  But certainly, McClintock needs to answer the question of why he never rejected the endorsement and why they never sought out and returned money that would even have the appearance of coming from the Klan.

More to the point, McClintock is just the kind of guy to demonize an opponent’s associations.  In fact, when running for governor in 2003, McClintock compared then-Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante’s association with the Hispanic student group MEChA to, you guessed it, the KKK.

State Sen. Tom McClintock, a conservative Republican rival, recently likened the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, also known as MEChA, to the Ku Klux Klan.

“It’s like saying, ‘Oh, I was a moderate member of the Klan,'” McClintock said last month on the San Diego radio station KOGO. “It’s incumbent on Cruz Bustamante to clearly and completely renounce …

The idea that the KKK finds ideological kinship with McClintock is pretty much a no-brainer.  His demonization of illegal immigrants as the cause of so much of the nation’s economic woes plays to the baser instincts of the racist right.  He’s running a campaign against Charlie Brown that has recently seized on Brown’s appearance at an anti-war rally before the invasion of Iraq as somehow un-American.  It’s really not too much of a logical leap here.

The Post Ended With–Stay tuned for more on this…

Stuff to ponder, especially if you are a voter in CA-04 or CA Assembly District… 03

The following was originally written and published for Nevada County residents but applies, in large part, to every county Logue and McClintock represent. Republished with the approval of the author.

Why are our elected representatives attacking our health in Nevada County? This is probably the first question you have to ask yourself to understand why our Assemblyman, Dan Logue, and our Congressman, Tom McClintock, are behind the fight against California’s Assembly Bill 32 (passed in 2006).  Assembly Bill 32, signed by Governor Schwarzenegger, is a major initiative by the Air Resources Board for reducing California’s greenhouse gasses by 30% to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below that by 2050.  Make no mistake about it; AB 32 is landmark clean air legislation that will soon make a big difference in the air we breathe in Nevada County.

To fight this good legislation, Logue and McClintock tried to launch an initiative against it by calling it a “jobs” bill but were stopped from this title by Attorney General Jerry Brown, who made it very clear that it was a “pollution bill.”  (Although there is no real proof that jobs will be lost under AB32, it is clearly understood that jobs will be created in the new “green” industries that will be generated by the new law.)  Unfortunately, the initiative process supported by Logue and McClintock to kill or stymie the 2006 clean energy and air pollution law is continuing.  Dan Logue claimed no knowledge of funding for the initiative but it is now known that the Valero Energy Corporation and the Tesoro Energy Corporation, both headquartered in Texas, are behind Logue and McClintock’s attempt.  Valero and Tesoro are the major contributors to the initiative and have donated large sums of money to their efforts.  And, supposedly by trying to keep the donations secret, they may have violated state campaign laws.  

 

Nevada County’s air is directly affected by the pollution from the refineries and automobiles in the bay area.  (Valero owns refineries in Benicia, while Tesoro runs plants in Martinez.  Valero and Tesoro represent some of the heaviest carbon emissions operators in the state.)  Once the pollution is transported from the bay area by wind to our foothills where it gets “stuck” against the tall mountains, it gets transformed into ground-level ozone by UV radiation (the sun).  

The American Lung Association in its’ 2007 State of the Air Report concluded that Western Nevada County is the 13th most ozone polluted county and the 1st most ozone polluted rural county in the United States.

Ozone pollution in Nevada County is significantly worse than in areas commonly associated with air pollution, including New York City; Chicago, Illinois; Washington, DC; Las Vegas, Nevada; and many other US cities.

Ozone is completely invisible and undetectable without monitoring equipment. Nevada County’s rates of childhood asthma are higher than the overall state average.  Besides ozone being the cause of difficulty in breathing, wheezing, and exhaustion for adults, long term exposure can have permanent health effects including accelerated aging of the lungs, loss of lung capacity, decreased lung function, development of respiratory diseases and premature mortality.  According to the New England Journal of Medicine, it only takes a 10 parts per billion increase in ozone to increase the rate of death by 2.9% to 4%.

It is now quite obvious that our representatives for Nevada County do not represent our best interest.  Instead, they have attacked the very air we breathe and our very health to support big oil.

Assemblyman Logue and Congressman McClintock’s apparent need to support and protect these corporate polluters is sacrificing the very health of their own constituents in Nevada County.

We must replace Logue and McClintock!  We must fight this initiative.

Kent W. Clark has lived in Nevada County since 1999 and is the Representative for District 2 on the Nevada County Democratic Central Committee.

Dems dont understand unwritten scripts

Every Dem in the Legislature should be given a book on tape of the Political Mind by George Lakoff, and a copy of his commentary yesterday at Kos.

the electorate was NOT saying cut cut cut, we were saying majority rule is the way to go.

I voted all NO, and I have voted for a gooper only once in my lifetime, and he was a personal friend.

link here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…



The Democratic leadership should listen to its grassroots.

All budgetary and revenue issues shall be decided by a majority vote in both houses of the legislature.

(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign and this post is part of a live series from the No on 8 SF offices)

This morning Speaker Nancy Pelosi came by the San Francisco No on Prop 8 offices to surprise several hundred volunteers who were for training.  She stopped at the office after church and her good friend Phyllis Lyon was with her.  The two (and Del) go way back to the days when Pelosi was a young up and coming San Francisco politician and are close to this day.  I am still trying to track down a great picture someone showed me of Pelosi giving Phyllis a big kiss on the cheek.

Pelosi recalled the time she called Del Martin and it took a few minutes for Del to figure out who was calling.  She repeated that it was Nancy a few times, but Del said “I’m sorry, I don’t know who this is.”  Pelosi finally said “Del, it’s the speaker.”, which prompted a big “Oooh, hi Nancy.”

Unfortunately, it was hard to hear the rest of the Speaker’s remarks.  She didn’t have a mic and I was towards the back.  Heather Cronk from NOI is out here volunteering and captured it all on her flip camera.  It is hard to hear and a bit shaky.  Flip it for the video and more pictures.

Volunteers are here for the final training of the evening.  They are signing up for shifts on election day at voting locations all over the Bay Area.  Thousands have come through this office over the weekend.  The same scene is repeating at offices across the state.

Staffers are busy allocating literature for election day, having to re-calibrate their estimates given the flood of volunteers coming into the offices.  The staff is a mix of Californians and out of state veterans of the MA marriage fight and other GLTB battles.  They have been sleeping (a little) on futons and couches and everyone is a little in awe of the scale of this campaign.  For some of the staff this is officially “vacation” time as they have taken a leave from their day jobs to join the campaign trail.

Speaking of staff, the Oakland team organizing the African-American literature drop returned recently, exhausted but with smiles on their faces.  They had a great turnout and covered a ton of turf.

On the more good news front, the campus program continues to expand.  There are GOTV activities on 167 campuses across the state, from small rural community colleges to the big UCs.  That is a lot logistics to sort out to get literature to all of those locations, but that is a great problem to have.

Only 48 hours until the polls close.

Phyllis and Pelosi sitting in the crowd.

Office packed listening to Pelosi

Speaker Pelosi

More photos up on my No on 8 flickr photoset.

(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign and this post is part of a series live from the No on 8 SF offices)

Yesterday, the No on Prop 8 campaign had Interfaith Call to Action Services all over the state.  Over 2,000 attended one of three masses in LA, San Diego, or San Francisco. Mayor Newsom attended the SF event at Glide Memorial Church. Many parishioners wept as Reverend Dorsey Blake spoke about our country’s painful history of discrimination and connected it to the discrimination on the ballot on Tuesday.

The No on 8 campaign is fighting back today against our opponent’s targeting of African American voters with misinformation about Barack Obama’s position on Prop 8.  Volunteers are passing out a new flyer in heavily African-American precincts and churches.  Flier is below the fold along with more pictures.

LA City Council President Eric Garcetti and actor Martin Sheen were on-hand in LA,and SD Mayor Sanders led a candlelight vigil in the hours after the service in San Diego.

Today, same-sex couples, many of them accompanied by straight friends, neighbors and co-workers will go “Door-to-Door Against Discrimination” in over 20 cities to urge fellow voters to defeat the unfair initiative on Tuesday.

This happening right now in Chula Vista, Fresno, La Verne, Livermore, Marin, Palm Springs, Pasadena, Sacramento, San Bruno, the San Fernando Valley, San Francisco, San Jose, and Tracy.

One couple went door-to-door today and left copies of a personal letter at over 200 homes in their neighborhood. Here’s part of their report: “Actually we got around twenty calls to our home ranging from “Thanks for doing this,” “You really didn’t think we would vote yes, did you?” to “You shouldn’t have used your phone number or address. It was brave of  you.”

Front of flier:

Back of flier:

Pastor at Glide Church:

Inside Glide Church:

Student rally:

Yes, he went there at an official Sacramento Yes on 8 rally yesterday.  This is Brad Dacus, an official Prop 8 spokesperson speaking.  He is the President of the Pacific Justice Institute, a religious-right lawyers 501c3 organization.

Here is the transcript:

“There was another time in history when people, when the bell tolled. And the question was whether or not they were going to hear it. The time was during Nazi Germany with Adolf Hitler. You see he brought crowds of clergy together to assure them that he was going to look after the church.

And one of the members, bold and courageous, Reverend Niemand (sp?) made his way to the front and (inaudible) said “Hitler, we are not concerned about the church. Jesus Christ will take care of the church.

We are concerned about the soul of Germany.” Embarrassed and chagrined, his peers quickly shuffled him to the back.

And as they did Adolf Hitler said, “The soul of Germany, you can leave that to me.” And they did, and because they did bombs did not only fall upon the nation of Germany, but also upon the church and their testimony to this very day.

Let us not make that mistake folks. Let us hear the bell! Vote on Proposition 8!”

Dacus is the guy who was the chief architect of the movement to get an opt-out law for parents to take their child out of any school activity that violates their religious or moral beliefs.  Like say if a charter school asks the parents if they want to take their kids on a field trip to celebrate their teacher getting married.  You know, the one they are conveniently forgetting about and then lying in their ads about education and teh children.

The best way you can answer back to Dacus is to get out this weekend and election day and volunteer for the No on 8 campaign.  There is a special netroots volunteer sign-up form.  Fill it out and tell them you came from Calitics.

Heck you can even find instructions on how to get an opt-out form on his organization’s website.  This is the guy who is comparing me to Hitler in an attempt to take away my rights.

Oh and there is another outrageous clip on the flip, where another spokesman from the Prop 8 campaign says the gays are trying to recruit children.